SAN FRANCISCO – Dexcom Inc. is working hard to take its business to the next level. Wall Street has been rewarding it heavily, doubling its market cap to about $21 billion since the end of 2018. But investors pulled back a tad on the company’s presentation at the J.P. Morgan (JPM) Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, sending shares down about 4% despite beating analyst expectations.

Med-tech companies brought in more money than each of the last two years in every type of financing, aside from private placements, with about 11% of the funds flowing into digital health companies. In total, the industry raised $40.67 billion, an increase of 98% over 2018, which logged $20.6 billion and was more in line with the $19.4 billion raised in 2017.

Artificial intelligence (AI) health care startup Cardiologs Technologies SAS scooped up $15 million in a series A funding round led by Alven Capital Partners. The Paris-based company, which has an artificial intelligence-based platform to quickly diagnose cardiac arrhythmias, plans to use the money to grow its sales and marketing efforts across North America and Europe. The funds will also be used to advance the platform’s capabilities. Also participating in the financing were previous investors Bpifrance, Isai, Kurma Diagnostics, Idinvest Partners and Paris Saclay Seed Fund.

What does the landscape look like in terms of funding for digital health? Geoffrey Starr, a partner at Cooley LLP, dove into this question during the Digital Health Summit, part of CES 2020. He acknowledged that 2019 saw a slight dip in funding compared with the record-breaking previous year. With that said, it was the second largest year ever for digital health care financings, with more than one-third of all health care venture financings involving digital health technologies.

HONG KONG – South Korean-based med-tech Lunit Inc., of Seoul, has secured ₩30 billion (US$25.6 million) in series C funding. Founded in 2013, the Korean company has raised $50 million so far. Lunit’s corporate value was evaluated at as much as ₩200 billion as of the fundraising.

Researchers at the Riken Center for Advanced Intelligence Project in Japan developed artificial intelligence (AI) technology that found previously unknown features related to prostate cancer occurrence in unannotated pathology images.

LAS VEGAS – The U.S. FDA has said it is looking to help those interested in developing digital health tools, and that commitment took center stage this week during the Digital Health Summit, part of CES 2020. Amy Abernethy, principal deputy commissioner at the FDA, gave an overview of the agency’s thinking on the topic, providing the perspective of someone who came from outside the regulatory world.

LAS VEGAS – Over the past three years or so, voice technology has been on the rise, with hospitals looking to leverage it to help patients. Tech companies have taken notice; for example, Amazon assisted with technology to make voice skills HIPAA-compliant, with six skills unveiled as part of that effort.

Issy-les-Moulineaux, France-based Withings SA said it’s planning to launch its latest product in the U.S. and Europe during the second quarter, the Scanwatch. It is expected to be the first smartwatch to offer both atrial fibrillation (AF) and sleep apnea detection; a CE mark and FDA clearance are both pending. Cardiac arrhythmia and sleep apnea are associated with one another and can be precursors to more serious health problems such as heart attack or stroke.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is better than humans at pattern recognition within images and other densely complex datasets. That fact has long been expected to translate into meaningful change in the way we interpret health care data, but beyond a few early exceptions that is not yet the case. Now, the research is starting to amass that demonstrates the real potential for machine learning to significantly improve diagnostics and treatment.