What happens in Vegas…ends up here

In the city of bright lights and big bets, HLTH  2025 served up hot coffee and hard truths for healthcare innovation. On the bright side, discussions centered on this year's digital health exits offered hope: the public markets will bite if you’ve got strong growth, margins, and cash flow. On the other hand, investors declared a "come to Jesus moment” is upon the sector, as heightened funding and valuation scrutiny could force some digital health companies to merge or exit sooner than planned.

AI (unsurprisingly) took center stage. OpenEvidence stood out with the largest funding announcement of the week, pulling in $200M just three months after its prior round. Atropos Health launched Evidence Agent, a personalized real-world evidence generator that integrates directly into EHRs. And Optum unveiled “Optum Real”—an AI-powered claims platform that helps providers understand coverage in real-time while giving payers cleaner data. Also front and center were public sector priorities, from Cedar's launch of Cedar Cover to support Medicaid enrollment and prevent coverage lapses, to Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs partnership with TrumpRx to boost prescription access.

Big picture? This year’s conference delivered plenty of buzz, but it also surfaced more grounded conversations about what’s working and how to hold up under pressure. With HLTH wrapped, the focus returns to execution: proving outcomes, scaling sustainably, and delivering on impact.

Meanwhile, government officials who were slated to speak at HLTH had to cancel due to the federal government shutdown. Our friends at Maverick Health Policy broke down what the shutdown means for health care operations, funding, and innovation—check out their analysis for insight on the impact to your organization.

Headlines

 Epic To End Startup Codevelopment Program
Startups in Workshop program will transition to Epic's Toolbox, which offers EHR integration Becker's Hospital Review

Oura To Pursue FDA Clearance Of Blood Pressure Feature For Smart Ring
Fresh off its whopping $900M mega raise, Oura follows in Apple's footsteps Medtech Dive

Anthropic Debuts First AI Product For Life Sciences As It Builds Out Bio Team
In line with pharma's growing footprint in health tech, Anthropic makes moves Endpoints News

AMA Unveils Center For Digital Health And AI To Elevate Physician Voice In Tech
New center to collaborate with clinicians and policymakers on AI and tech adoption MedCityNews
 

Recent Funding

• OpenEvidence bags another $200M for its AI-powered medical information search tool
• Hyro adds $45M to use AI agents to automate patient communication and nonclinical workflows
• Honey Health tacks on $7.8M for back office agentic AI platform