Health funding shatters records, medtech a bit of a laggard

Health funding

Telehealth companies raised a record $4.2 billion across 32 countries, the most ever recorded, according to health care dive website. “Deal count increased by 10 percent sequentially at 139 overall but didn’t surpass a record set in the third quarter last year. Healthcare artificial intelligence players also set a new record, raising about $2.5 billion, with back-office automation and pharmaceutical R&D applications attracting major funding.”

Data analytics and health services also remain key priorities, especially among incumbent payers and providers, a new report from CB Insights noted.

“Despite the pandemic’s deleterious public health and economic effects, COVID-19 has been a major catalyst for health funding,” the report added.

Nevertheless, global health funding investment hit a record high last year with $80.6 billion in equity funding across more than 5,500 deals, according to the research             .

Amid the decline in quarterly deal count and totals for medtech device makers, robotics did lure early stage funding. Hong Kong-based Cornerstone Robotics, which focuses on rehab and surgery, raised $17 million, while U.S.-based Harmonic Robotics, which focuses on upper extremities, raised $7.4 million, the report noted.

“Digital pathology company Paige raised $100 million while AI cancer diagnostics firm Ibex Medical took in $38 million,” it added.

SeaSpine Holdings’ snap-up of 7D Surgical, which sells an image surgical system for use in spine and cranial surgeries, for $110M was another notable deal.

“In 2019, total US and European medtech revenues grew 6.3 percent, slightly less than the 6.7 percent recorded in 2018,” according to an EY report.

“However, during the first half of 2020, revenues of US commercial leaders and conglomerates declined 5.0 percent, as many medtechs were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report noted.

Similarly, the fourth quarter was the second-biggest quarter for funding over the past three years, in the cybersecurity sector, while medical device startups raised almost $6 billion in the fourth quarter even as deals declined by 25 percent, the report stresses.