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Most people think that the Covid-19 pandemic has a supercharging effect on digital health – while that’s certainly true of things like telehealth services, is it necessarily the case for the rest of the sector? Maybe not, according to today’s guest – but independent of Covid, digital health is a booming area.
Joining me today is Bill Taranto, President of MSD Global Health Innovation Fund – as it’s known outside North America – to talk about his outlook on the healthcare space – particularly in digital health – in the coming year and the shifts in the venture market.
We talk about the likely wave of M&A activity coming to the digital health space, as startups are set to be consolidated due to factors like cash-strapped companies looking to sell, and latent private equity money flooding the market after a relatively slow 2023. Consolidation will also be, according to Taranto, a way for digital health technologies to scale, something that they tend to have difficulty doing.
Above all, though, it’s set to be a year of shifting sands for digital health – with the weaker players being pushed out amid funding difficulties and new innovations disrupting the markets, not to mention the lasting impacts we are likely to see from the proliferation of artificial intelligence in areas like drug discovery.