From TekinHealthHealthcare Tech Field Notes

Precision Neuroscience closed an oversubscribed $250 million Series D led by Pershing Square, the Ackman Oxman Institute and an undisclosed life-sciences investment fund, bringing its total raised since founding in 2021 to $430 million. Its Layer 7 Cortical Interface, a thin-film array of 1,024 electrodes that sits on the brain's surface without penetrating tissue, received FDA 510(k) clearance in 2025 for implantation up to 30 days. The company says it has completed more than 100 patient procedures across 18 medical institutions, including Mount Sinai, University of Chicago Medicine and Penn, and has a commercial partnership with Medtronic. Precision says the new funding will expand its clinical program and support further FDA review.

Why it's notable: It's one of the largest rounds yet for a brain-computer interface company, and one of the few with an FDA-cleared implant already in hospital use rather than confined to research settings, signaling BCI is moving from experimental to clinical faster than expected.

Colorado-based Enveda raised a $311 million Series E led by Catalio Capital Management, reportedly at a $2 billion valuation. That brings its total funding to more than $845 million. Enveda uses AI to identify and rank molecules from plants and microbes as drug candidates. It has three programs in human testing: ENV-294 for atopic dermatitis and asthma, now in Phase 2a; ENV-308 for obesity; and ENV-6949, which targets TL1A for inflammatory bowel disease.

Why it's notable: This is one of the largest private rounds this year for an AI drug-discovery company. It gives Enveda funding for several mid-stage trials, a real test of whether AI-found compounds hold up in patients.

The Department of Veterans Affairs selected Abridge under a five-year, multi-award enterprise contract with a ceiling of $775.72 million to provide ambient AI scribes. Knowtex also holds a seat on the contract. The VA began piloting ambient scribes from both vendors in October 2025. The tool is now available to primary care, behavioral health, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and medical and surgical specialty clinicians at more than 75 VA medical centers. Abridge says its scribe runs on both the VA's legacy VistA/CPRS system and the new Oracle Health federal EHR.

Why it's notable: This is one of the largest single ambient AI deployments in US healthcare, and it spans two different EHR platforms. How it goes at the VA will be a reference point for other large systems deciding whether to scale AI scribes.

Melbourne-based Heidi Health raised $340 million: a $100 million Series C led by Blackbird at a $900 million valuation, plus $240 million in growth investment from General Catalyst. The company says its tools support 2.8 million patient visits a week in 190 countries. Its customers include Beth Israel Lahey Health and NHS England Midlands, which Heidi calls the largest clinical AI procurement in NHS history. Heidi plans to move from documentation into supervised, agent-style tasks it calls an AI Care Partner.

Why it's notable: This is one of the largest rounds yet for an ambient-scribe company outside the US leaders. It shows scribe vendors racing to take on more clinical and administrative work, which clinics will see in upcoming product and pricing choices.

Sword Health, a virtual physical therapy company, plans to acquire Headspace's parent company OrangeDot for cash. The deal became public on August 25, 2026, through a filing with the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. The filing did not give a price. Axios reported the deal at up to about $300 million, far below the roughly $3 billion Headspace was valued at after its 2021 merger with Ginger. Headspace offers therapy, coaching and meditation content and says its app has reached more than 100 million people. Sword formally announced the deal on September 16 and said it expects it to close by early in the fourth quarter.

Why it's notable: A former digital mental health leader is being sold at a fraction of its peak value to an AI-driven virtual care company. The deal shows the category consolidating, and it brings mental health support into the same platform employers already buy for musculoskeletal care.

Candid Health raised a $120 million Series D led by Sixth Street Growth, with Oak HC/FT, 8VC and Y Combinator participating, announced July 21, 2026. The company sells software that automates billing, claims submission, denials and collections for provider groups. It says more than 200 healthcare organizations use it, annual recurring revenue grew 190% year over year, and total funding now exceeds $219 million.

Why it's notable: Investors are putting large sums into automating provider billing as payers use more automation of their own. For clinics, this means more vendors competing to take over claims work that staff do by hand today.

Tempus AI agreed on July 20, 2026 to acquire Personalis for $16.25 per share, valuing the deal at about $1.5 billion. The deal adds Personalis's NeXT Personal minimal residual disease (MRD) blood test, which Tempus has sold under a partnership since 2023, to its AI-driven precision oncology platform. The deal is mainly in stock, with Tempus able to pay up to half in cash. It needs Personalis shareholder and regulatory approval and is expected to close in late 2026 or early 2027.

Why it's notable: MRD testing, which tracks cancer recurrence from blood, is becoming part of routine oncology follow-up. The deal puts one of the more sensitive tests on the market under a large AI and genomic data company that oncologists already order from.

Chai Discovery, a San Francisco company founded in 2024, announced a $400 million Series C on July 14, 2026 at a $3.8 billion valuation. Index Ventures led the round alongside Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Dimension, with OpenAI and Thrive Capital among the returning investors. Chai builds AI models that predict and redesign interactions between molecules. Pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly, Novartis and Pfizer use them in preclinical drug design. The company has now raised more than $600 million, across three rounds in under a year.

Why it's notable: This is one of the largest venture rounds for an AI drug-design company, and big drugmakers already use Chai's models. Investors are betting that AI-designed molecules will shorten early drug discovery.

Assort Health raised a $120 million Series C led by Menlo Ventures at a $1.2 billion valuation, announced June 24, 2026, bringing its total funding to more than $222 million. Its voice and text agents answer patient calls and handle scheduling, triage, referrals, intake forms, refills, eligibility checks and payments, and they write encounter details back to the EHR. The company says revenue grew 20-fold over 15 months and that John Muir Health saw a 5% absolute increase in net appointment volume after deploying it.

Why it's notable: AI agents answering the front-desk phone are becoming one of the fastest-growing uses of AI in clinics and specialty practices, and they directly affect access, no-shows and staffing.

Cadence, which runs remote monitoring programs for hypertension, diabetes and heart failure with health systems, raised a $100 million Series C led by Spark Capital at a $1.23 billion valuation, announced June 23, 2026. The company says it works with more than 20 health systems and cares for over 100,000 active patients using home devices such as blood pressure cuffs and its own clinicians. Health systems including Corewell Health, Memorial Hermann and Duke Health invested in the round. CEO Chris Altchek told STAT the company plans to use AI agents to automate clinician work and is talking with the FDA about using agents in its hypertension program.

Why it's notable: It is one of the largest bets on outsourced remote monitoring for health systems. It comes as regulators and insurers such as UnitedHealthcare question whether monthly Medicare remote monitoring payments deliver real care.

At the BIO 2026 convention on June 22, 2026, Insilico Medicine and South Korea's SK Biopharmaceuticals announced a collaboration to find drug candidates for neuroinflammatory, neurodegenerative and rare neurological disorders using Insilico's Pharma.AI platform. Insilico gets up to $18 million in upfront and near-term payments. The total potential value tops $2.5 billion, almost all of it tied to future development, regulatory and sales milestones, plus single-digit royalties. SK Biopharmaceuticals, maker of the epilepsy drug Xcopri, will run late-stage development and commercialization.

Why it's notable: It adds to a run of large pharma deals for AI drug discovery, but the small upfront payment shows buyers are still paying mostly for results rather than promises.

Roche signed a definitive agreement on May 7, 2026 to acquire Boston-based PathAI for $750 million upfront plus up to $300 million in milestone payments. PathAI makes AI models that analyze patient tissue samples and software for running digital pathology labs; Labcorp had expanded its use of the platform across its anatomic pathology labs earlier in 2026. The two companies had worked together since 2021, including on AI-based companion diagnostics. Roche said PathAI would join its Diagnostics division, with closing expected in the second half of 2026 pending antitrust and regulatory approval.

Why it's notable: One of the largest diagnostics companies is buying an AI pathology platform outright rather than partnering, a sign that AI-assisted slide review is moving into the standard lab product line that hospitals and reference labs buy.

On April 23, 2026, IKS Health agreed to acquire TruBridge for $26.25 a share in cash, a deal Fierce Healthcare valued at $557M including debt. TruBridge sells EHR, revenue cycle and coding services to more than 1,500 mostly rural and community hospitals and clinics. The companies say the combined business will serve more than 2,000 healthcare organizations and 150,000 clinicians. The deal closed on July 9, 2026, and existing TruBridge products remain available on their own.

Why it's notable: Many small rural hospitals rely on TruBridge for both their EHR and their billing. Its new owner plans to layer AI-driven revenue cycle services on top.

Eli Lilly agreed on March 29, 2026 to take an exclusive worldwide license to preclinical oral drugs designed by Insilico Medicine using generative AI. The indications were not disclosed. Insilico gets $115 million upfront. It can earn up to $2.75 billion in total with development, regulatory and sales milestones, plus tiered royalties. This builds on a smaller research deal the two signed in November 2025, worth up to $100 million.

Why it's notable: It is one of the largest pharma licensing bets yet on drug candidates designed with generative AI. Still, only the $115 million upfront is guaranteed, and the licensed molecules are not yet in human trials.

Hospital operator Universal Health Services (UHS) agreed on March 9, 2026 to acquire virtual behavioral health company Talkspace for $5.25 a share, an enterprise value of about $835 million. Talkspace brings about 6,000 licensed clinicians. It says it reaches more than 200 million Americans through employer and health plan contracts. UHS says the deal gives it inpatient, outpatient and virtual mental health care in one company. It expects Talkspace to add about $280 million in revenue. The deal closed on August 18, 2026.

Why it's notable: One of the largest US behavioral hospital operators is buying a national telehealth therapy network. Virtual therapy becomes a referral path into and out of its facilities, as mental health staffing shortages limit in-person capacity.

Imaging center operator RadNet said on March 2, 2026 that it is acquiring Paris-based Gleamer for up to €230 million in cash: €215 million upfront plus €15 million in milestones. Gleamer will be folded into RadNet's DeepHealth AI unit. Gleamer has four FDA-cleared products, including BoneView for fracture detection on X-rays, CT lung nodule detection and MRI multiple sclerosis lesion detection. It is forecast to reach about $30 million in annual recurring revenue in 2026. RadNet says the deal makes DeepHealth the largest radiology clinical AI provider worldwide.

Why it's notable: Radiology AI is consolidating. Hospitals and imaging groups buying point tools for X-ray, CT and MRI may increasingly buy them from one platform owned by a large imaging provider.

On February 17, 2026, Danaher agreed to buy Masimo for $180 a share in cash, an enterprise value of about $9.9 billion. Masimo makes pulse oximetry and patient-monitoring equipment used mainly in hospitals. It will run as a standalone business in Danaher's diagnostics segment, next to Radiometer, Cepheid, Beckman Coulter and Leica Biosystems. Danaher says it expects more than $125 million a year in cost savings and more than $50 million a year in added sales from the combination by the fifth year. The deal closed on June 10, 2026.

Why it's notable: A monitoring brand found at most hospital bedsides now belongs to one of the largest diagnostics companies. This sets Danaher up to compete directly with Medtronic in pulse oximetry and may change how hospitals buy monitors and blood-gas equipment together.

On February 9, 2026, Takeda and San Diego biotech Iambic announced a multi-year deal to design small-molecule drugs with Iambic's AI models. The work starts in Takeda's oncology and gastrointestinal and inflammation programs. Iambic gets upfront, research and technology-access payments and could earn more than $1.7 billion in success-based payments plus royalties. Takeda gets access to NeuralPLexer, Iambic's model for predicting how drugs bind to proteins, along with its automated wet lab. Iambic says its lab can run a full design-make-test cycle every week.

Why it's notable: A top-20 drugmaker has placed AI-led design at the center of its small-molecule work in cancer and GI disease. It is one of several 2026 pharma deals that pay AI biotechs for platform access rather than for single drug candidates.

On January 15, 2026, Boston Scientific agreed to buy Penumbra for $374 a share in cash and stock, valuing the company at about $14.5 billion. About $11 billion of the price is cash, funded from cash on hand and new debt. Penumbra makes mechanical thrombectomy systems that remove clots in stroke, pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis, along with embolization devices. Boston Scientific says it will run Penumbra as a standalone business inside its cardiovascular group. The FTC issued a second request for more information in March 2026, Penumbra stockholders approved the deal in May, and as of July Boston Scientific still expected it to close in the second half of 2026.

Why it's notable: It is one of the largest medtech deals in years, and it puts a leading maker of stroke and clot-removal devices inside one of the biggest cardiovascular device companies, which could change how hospitals contract for these devices.

Insilico Medicine listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 30, 2025. It raised HK$2.28 billion (about US$293 million) at HK$24.05 a share, which the company says was Hong Kong's largest biotech IPO of the year. Cornerstone investors included Eli Lilly, Tencent, Temasek and Schroders, and the shares rose about 25% on the first day of trading. Insilico says it has more than 30 programs, 10 with IND clearance. Its lead drug, rentosertib for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, has completed a Phase IIa trial in China, with results published in Nature Medicine.

Why it's notable: Insilico is one of the first companies built around AI drug discovery to go public with drugs designed by its own models already in human trials. That puts the claim that AI speeds drug development in front of public-market investors.

On December 5, 2025, Freenome agreed to merge with Perceptive Capital Solutions Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The deal was expected to bring in about $330 million, including a $240 million private investment led by Perceptive Advisors and RA Capital. Freenome's SimpleScreen blood test for colorectal cancer was under FDA review, with a decision expected in mid-2026. Exact Sciences paid $75 million up front in August 2025 for US rights to the test, and Roche holds rights outside the US. The merger closed on July 20, 2026, with about $310 million in gross proceeds, and Freenome began trading on Nasdaq as FRNM.

Why it's notable: Blood-based colorectal cancer screening could reach patients who skip colonoscopy and stool tests. This deal funds one of the main contenders as it heads toward an FDA decision and a US launch through Exact Sciences.

Abbott agreed to acquire Exact Sciences for $105 a share in cash, an equity value of about $21 billion and roughly $23 billion including debt. Exact Sciences makes the Cologuard at-home colorectal cancer screening test, the Oncotype DX breast cancer test, and liquid biopsy tests for multi-cancer early detection and molecular residual disease. Abbott said Exact would bring in more than $3 billion in revenue in 2025 and raise Abbott's diagnostics sales above $12 billion a year. The deal closed on March 23, 2026.

Why it's notable: One of the largest diagnostics makers now owns the most widely used at-home colon cancer screening test and a set of newer blood-based cancer tests. That could affect how these tests are sold to clinics and paid for.

GE HealthCare agreed to acquire Intelerad, a Montreal-based maker of cloud PACS, image-sharing and imaging workflow software, for $2.3 billion in cash. Intelerad's business is concentrated in outpatient and ambulatory imaging. GE HealthCare expects about $270 million in Intelerad revenue in the first full year, roughly 90% of it recurring. GE HealthCare said the deal supports its goal of tripling its cloud-enabled products by 2028. The acquisition closed in March 2026.

Why it's notable: A major scanner maker is buying its way into cloud imaging software for outpatient imaging centers and specialty clinics. That will affect which PACS and imaging AI tools those sites get offered.

San Diego-based Iambic raised more than $100 million from investors including Sequoia, Regeneron Ventures, Illumina Ventures and Mubadala. Its lead drug, IAM1363, is a HER2 inhibitor designed with the company's AI platform. At ESMO in October 2025, Iambic reported early phase 1/1b activity in heavily pretreated patients with HER2 alterations. The money will fund IAM1363, a planned combination study with Jazz's zanidatamab in HER2-positive breast cancer, and two more cancer candidates headed for the clinic.

Why it's notable: It is one of the few AI drug discovery companies with human data behind its lead drug, so it is a real test of whether AI-designed molecules do better in patients.

Hippocratic AI raised a $126 million Series C led by Avenir Growth at a $3.5 billion valuation. CapitalG, General Catalyst, Universal Health Services, Cincinnati Children's and WellSpan Health also took part. The company builds AI agents that talk with patients about scheduling, intake, chronic disease check-ins and post-discharge follow-up, and it does not let them diagnose or prescribe. It says it works with more than 50 health systems, payers and pharma companies in six countries, including Cleveland Clinic, Northwestern Medicine and Moffitt Cancer Center, and plans to use the money partly for acquisitions.

Why it's notable: Health systems are putting AI agents to work on routine patient phone and message outreach that staff used to handle. Investors are betting that this non-diagnostic work will scale first.

Eli Lilly said it is building, with NVIDIA, what it calls the most powerful supercomputer owned and operated by a pharmaceutical company: the first NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD built on DGX B300 systems, with more than 1,000 Blackwell Ultra GPUs. Lilly said it will use the system to train models on millions of experiments for drug discovery, to shorten development timelines, and for medical imaging biomarkers and manufacturing. The company plans to offer some of its models to outside biotechs through its Lilly TuneLab platform. CNBC reported the system was expected to be operational in January 2026.

Why it's notable: A top drugmaker is investing in its own large-scale AI infrastructure rather than renting it, and is offering models to smaller biotechs, a sign that computation is becoming core to how new drugs reach clinical trials.

OpenEvidence, an AI medical reference tool for clinicians, raised $200 million at a $6 billion valuation in a round led by Google Ventures, with Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Blackstone, Thrive, Coatue, Bond and Craft participating. The round came three months after a $210 million raise at a $3.5 billion valuation. The company says monthly clinical consultations nearly doubled to about 15 million since July. The tool is free for verified clinicians and paid for by advertising, and it draws on journals including JAMA and NEJM.

Why it's notable: OpenEvidence has become one of the most widely used generative AI tools among U.S. clinicians, and its ad-supported free model sets it apart from AI products that health systems license.