The invasion of Ukraine has made the healthcare and medtech industry more susceptible to cyberattacks. Cyberattacks from Russian-sponsored hackers are looking to target (mainly) the US and NATO members’ critical infrastructure entities, including those in the public and private health sector. These include distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), website defacements and the use of ransomware or other destructive malware.
During the worldwide 2017 WannaCry outbreak, it successfully encrypted not only administrative computers but also medical devices. This was the first ransomware attack of medtech on radiology equipment in the US. Thousands of computers were compromised in at least 150 countries.
Mike Rushanan, director of medical security at Harbor Labs, a medical device security company, believes that the Russian state-sponsored actors are certainly capable of producing a similar type of attack, which hospitals could be negatively affected, potentially putting patients at risk.
🇺🇦 #TechForUkraine is an online initiative calling on paid volunteers to provide tech support to coordinate humanitarian aid to the country. This campaign aims to connect Ukrainian nonprofits with tech companies which can help them design digital solutions that will make a difference. Visit TechForUkraine.
😔 Before the Toils of War: Mental Health in Ukraine. The trauma, fear, and anguish Ukrainians are facing must place an enormous strain on the people’s mental health. But what was the country’s mental health like prior to current warfare?
📣 EIT Health programmes (Apply by 14 March)
Bridgehead: Bridgehead provides European start-ups and scale-ups with individualized support in growing their validated businesses beyond their home markets.
Catapult: Catapult boosts the development and publicity of high-potential European health start-ups, exposing Biotech, MedTech, and Digital Health start-ups to high-quality experts and health industry leaders.
Patient Innovation Bootcamp: Patient Innovation Bootcamp supports the development and launch of innovative solutions created by people directly affected by health conditions, such as patients and caregivers.
Reactor Bootcamp: In partnership with GE Healthcare, Reactor Bootcamp provides a customized path for start-ups so they can find their product-market fit, accelerate early adoption and get prepared for partnership building.
Start-ups Meet Pharma: A challenge-based acceleration programme connecting key pharma partners in Europe with startups at the forefront of technology innovation.
Start-ups Meet Healthcare Providers: This challenge-based programme brings together healthcare providers posing specific problems that hinder their effective and best possible provision of care and start-ups representing solutions for the selected challenges.
User Validation Labs: This programme was created to connect start-ups with user validation labs that can work with them to organize and execute a validation study of their innovation.
Women Entrepreneurship Bootcamp: The Women Entrepreneurship Bootcamp connects early-stage, women-led or co-led healthcare start-ups to an unparalleled network of mentors in order to nurture and support rapid growth.
Wild Card: Wild Card calls for all inventors, creators and self-starters to solve this year's two challenges: Advancing early diagnosis and screening of cancer and improving the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment to fight mental disorders.
Latest healthtech and biotech deals
The largest from last week:
🇺🇸 Somatus, a kidney care company, raised $325M in Series E. The company intends to use the funds to further the reach and impact of its value-based kidney care model.
🇺🇸 Omada Health, a digital chronic care management company, raised $192M in Series E at a $1B valuation.
🇦🇺 Spatial Genomics, platform shaping the future of highly multiplexed biomolecular imaging, discovery, and medicine, raised $56M in Series A.
Other notable deals from around the globe:
🇫🇷 Synapse Medicine, medication intelligence platform, raised $28M in Series B. Using a series of AI-powered algorithms, it helps doctors make better decisions on which medicines to prescribe to which patients.
🇮🇱 XRHealth, an Israeli company that operates therapeutic care Virtual Rooms, raised $10M to expand healthcare treatment in the Metaverse.
🇳🇱 MOOVD, developer of digital treatment for trauma, fears and phobias, raised €1M in Seed funding.
📖 We revamped the left-side bar in the dealroom.co web app. Now you can easily navigate across our key categories: Companies, Job Board, Stats & Insights, Investors, Transactions, People, and More organizations.
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