The France Biotech business association released its latest annual survey covering the health-tech sector in France. According to the 2022 edition of the Panorama, 1,440 med-tech, 880 bio-tech and 4,000 health and artificial intelligence software companies have been surveyed, responsible between them for $1.4 billion in sales revenues and 14,000 direct jobs, not counting the 2,200 new jobs planned for 2023 mainly in R&D, production and support services.

The fundraising environment for startups in med tech is expected to continue to be challenging for at least another year as public markets remain closed and private investors favor companies that have already de-risked their products. One of the major issues in the U.K. and Europe is that the IPO markets are “pretty much shut” and “our public markets aren’t working”, therefore companies are having to rely on private funding, with venture capital being one of those sources, said Robert Tansley, partner, at venture capital fund Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC).

As companies increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) in medical devices and applications to help treat and diagnose patients, innovators must be careful of excluding large sections of the population in their algorithms and in their data gathering process, delegates heard at the Medtech Futures conference in Cambridge, U.K.

Europe has given device makers more time to meet requirements set out in the 2017 Medical Devices Regulation (MDR). The European Parliament approved in mid-February an extension of the transition periods for medical device and IVD manufacturers to comply with the new rules, which aim to enhance safety for patients and ensure the “smooth functioning of the internal market.”

Visionhealth GmbH will use the €3 million (US$3.2 million) it recently raised in a pre-series A financing to conduct a clinical trial on its digital health app designed to provide more accurate dosing of treatments for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.