BY KIM BELLARD It turns out that I’ve been writing about Generative AI without even realizing there was something called Generative AI, such as articles about the robot artist Ai-Da, the AI image creator DALL-E, or patent protection for AI inventors.  Generative AI refers to AI that strives not just to process and synthesize data but to actually be creative.  It’s starting to both become more widespread and to attract serious attention from investors.   James Currier of investment firm NFX sees “Generative Tech” as the next big thing: “If crypto hadn’t happened, we’d probably b ..read more

BY MICHELLE SNYDER Unless you have been off the grid for the past few months (which frankly sounds kind of nice right now), you know that the digital health market has changed dramatically.   While not surprising to those of us who have been through the boom-and-bust cycles of the past two decades, it nevertheless has been an awakening for many investors and entrepreneurs.   As an entrepreneur, there are some things you cannot control – the macro-economic climate, supply chain disruptions and narcissist led wars halfway around the world.  But what is entirely within your contro ..read more

BY KIM BELLARD If You’ve Seen One Robot – Wait, What? We think we know robots, from the old school Robbie the Robot to the beloved R2-D2/C-3PO to the acrobatic Boston Dynamics robots or the very human-like Westworld ones.   But you have to love those scientists: they keep coming up with new versions, ones that shatter our preconceptions.  Two, in particular, caught my attention, in part because both expect to have health care applications, and in part because of how they’re described. Hint: the marketing people are going to have some work to do on the names.  ———– Let’s start w ..read more

BY KIM BELLARD I’ve given DNA a lot of love over the years — DNA as a storage medium, as a computing platform, as the basis for robots, as the tool for synthetic biology/biohacking, even used for the DNA-of-Things (DoT).   DNA is the basis for all life as we know it, in every category of life we’ve found anywhere on earth. That we are now using it to achieve technological goals seems like one of humankind’s greatest accomplishments. But where’s the love for RNA, DNA’s putative ancestor and still-partner?  A few recent developments in RNA caught my eye that I wanted to give their due ..read more

By KIM BELLARD Not familiar with Schumpeter’s gale?  You may be more familiar with the term “creative destruction.”  Schumpeter’s “gale of creative destruction” is the inevitable “process of industrial mutation that continuously revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.”   We need a Schumpeter’s gale in healthcare. What made me think of this was the news that Tik Tok became the most popular internet site in the world, surpassing even Google.  It reminded me that things sometimes do change; perhaps ..read more

By KIM BELLARD I recently watched some of the recent Congressional hearings on cryptocurrency, and, boy, if there’s anything funnier than watching experts try to educate most members of Congress on anything crypto-related, it’s probably me trying to explain it.  I don’t own any digital assets, still don’t see the point of NFTs, and am not going to buy any real estate in the metaverse.   All that being said, there’s something about Web3 that fascinates me.  Knowledgeable people are talking about Web3 “reinventing the internet,” “democratizing” it, giving people more ownership of ..read more

Each week I’ve been adding a brief tidbits section to the THCB Reader, our weekly newsletter that summarizes the best of THCB that week (Sign up here!). Then I had the brainwave to add them to the blog. They’re short and usually not too sweet! –Matthew Holt For my health care tidbits this week, it’s time to delve into the private equity firms’ buying and selling of Athenahealth. That’s of course the practice management/EMR firm bought by private equity companies led by Elliot Capital Management–they of the Israeli spy agency dirty tricks division–for roughly $6.5bn in 2018. Many (including me ..read more

By KIM BELLARD General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently expressed grave concern about China’s reported test of a hypersonic missile: “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention.”  Maybe it should be, but General Milley may have missed the real 21st-century version of a Sputnik moment: China has claimed huge breakthroughs in quantum computing.   It’s inside baseball to those of us who are neither computer experts nor quantum physicists, but let’s put it this way: the countries/companies ..read more

By KIM BELLARD You know we’re living in the 21st century when people are 3D printing chicken and cooking it with lasers.  They had me at “3D printing chicken.”   An article in NPJ Science of Food explains how scientists combined additive manufacturing (a.k.a, 3D printing) of food with “precision laser cooking,” which achieves a “higher degree of spatial and temporal control for food processing than conventional cooking methods.”  And, oh, by the way, the color of the laser matters (e.g., red is best for browning).    Very nice, but wake me when they get to replicators ..read more

By MATTHEW HOLT & JESS DAMASSA Policies|Techies|VCs: What’s Next For Health Care? is the conference bringing together the CEOs of the next generation of virtual & real-life care delivery, and all the permutations thereof. Today we add to last week's fantastic list of speakers with another 14 great speakers, including one CEO of  a company that has just SPACed onto the public market (Sharecare), and another that is about to (Babylon Health)! You can register here or learn how to sponsor. This week's new additions are: Ali Parsa Babylon Health Julia Hu Lark N ..read more