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$50M for alternative mental health treatment clinics Read in browser
Endpoints News
Tuesday, 9 December 2025
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Navigate 2026 with confidence. Understand AI’s impact on health tech, the venture landscape, and beyond.
The enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence’s potential to transform economic and political landscapes has invigorated financial markets and venture ecosystems, pushing past traditional economic warnings. This momentum aligns with the new administration’s focus on economic growth, fostering a robust risk-taking environment aimed at AI innovations. Amid this backdrop, what's on the horizon for the healthcare sector and the venture landscape as a whole? Read the 2026 HSBC Innovation Horizons Report to find out.
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DC dispatch
I’ve been paying more attention to wearable devices lately. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants everyone to use one. I see more people wearing them. And wearables companies that started in wellness are targeting the much bigger medical sector. 
That’s why I went to Washington, DC, last week for a fellowship on reporting on the business of medical devices. I joined reporters covering everything from AI to the White House, and even a professor at New York University, in a series of workshops co-hosted by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing and the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.
Much of the focus was on how these devices are regulated. The approval process can take a long time, which while important for safety, is growing increasingly unsustainable given the pace AI is advancing. 
“Everybody in the FDA, if you were to ask, would say we want this fascinating technology. Though they are also beholden to the laws they’ve been handed by Congress to make sure they are safe and effective, and the laws were made many, many years ago,” former director of the FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence Bakul Patel told me. “They’re stuck in a really awkward place.”
As the FDA begins to figure out how to put rules around AI for devices, I’ll be looking at what kind of guidance they put out, in particular tracking what backbending startups may have to do to navigate them.
- Ngai
Here’s what’s new
Exclusive: Aradigm, which wants to make insurance for cell and gene therapies more sustainable, raises $20M
As cell and gene ther­a­pies with high price tags be­come more preva­lent, a new start­up is aim­ing to help em­ploy­ers and health plans nav­i­gate those costs in a more pre­dictable way.
Exclusive: General Catalyst-backed Radial raises $50M to treat mental health in non-traditional ways
Ra­di­al, a start­up pur­su­ing new­er ways to treat men­tal health us­ing brain stim­u­la­tion and fast-act­ing med­ica­tions, just raised $50 mil­lion in Se­ries A and seed fund­ing.
Integrating AI
An image shows AI use cases across health systems, ranging from 90% deployment for imaging and radiology, to 45% for medical coding.

A recent JP Morgan health tech report highlighted a 2024 survey of 43 non-profit health systems that laid out the most common use case of AI in health systems. Its use in imaging and radiology was the most prevalent.

This week in health Тech
OpenEvidence added a way for doctors to call patients in its app, moving beyond its original role as a physician search tool, and pitting it more squarely against Doximity, which long offered a dialer before more recently adding its own doctor search tool. Both companies earn revenue by selling ads to doctors who use their platform.
Cancer testing company Freenome is going public via SPAC. The move comes on the heels of test-maker BillionToOne going public in November.
Radical Health, a startup building an AI oncologist, raised $5 million. Khosla Ventures led the pre-seed round. 
Hims & Hers is now in Canada after completing its acquisition of digital health company Livewell.
Headspace added a voice feature to its AI companion Ebb. That means users can have verbal conversations with the companion in addition to text.
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