Building the Future of Aging Innovation Through Real-World Experience and Startup Investment By Amy LaGrant, Co-Founder of AgeInnovate

For more than 20 years, I have worked at the intersection of marketing and gerontology including roles at Marriott Senior Living, Age Wave, J. Walter Thompson's mature market group, and as chair of the Alzheimer's Association Tennessee Chapter.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-future-aging-innovation-through-real-world-startup-lagrant-ij8ic

How digital health companies are planning to conquer a brand new Medicare experiment

Shelby Livingston

endpoints.news/how-digital-health-companies-are-planning-to-conquer-cms-access/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Conquering%20Medicare%20Basic&utm_content=Conquering%20Medicare%20Basic+CID_542b6ae40d3081aff6a37f7c5f4c5e7d&utm_source=ENDPOINTS%20emails&utm_term=How%20digital%20health%20companies%20are%20planning%20to%20conquer%20a%20brand%20new%20Medicare%20experiment

1 gene, 2 diseases: Sanders-Brown study reveals opposing dementia and cancer risks

Researchers at the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging have uncovered evidence that a single genetic variant may influence the risk of two of the diseases people fear most — dementia and cancer — but in opposite ways. The findings, recently published in the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology, indicate that a particular variation in the GRN gene is associated with an increased risk of LATE, a common form of age-related dementia, while also being linked to a lower risk of cancer. 

UKNow

Specialty Pharmacy Gets Even Hotter After Cigna Investment And Peak Rock’s Asembia Buy

Cigna’s $100 million investment to support a new AI-powered pharmacy program and Peak Rock Capital's purchase of Asembia may spur even more specialty pharmacy deals.

Forbes • Bruce Japsen

Pharmacy: A 'Hidden' Niche in Louisville?

Health Enterprise Partners recently published 2024 Reflections & Predictions in partnership with L.E.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/pharmacy-louisville-niche-industry-liverpoollane-com-sgabe

DT-Transformer: A Foundation Model for Disease Trajectory Prediction on a Real-world Health System

Accurate disease trajectory prediction is critical for early intervention, resource allocation, and improving long-term outcomes. While electronic health records (EHRs) provide a rich longitudinal view of patient health in clinical environments, models trained on curated research cohorts may not reflect routine deployment settings, and those trained on single-hospital datasets capture only fragments of each patient's trajectory. This highlights the importance of leveraging large, multi-hospital health systems for training and validation to better reflect real-world clinical complexity. In this work, we develop DT-Transformer, a foundation model trained on 57.1M structured EHR entries over 1.7M patients from Mass General Brigham (MGB), spanning 11 hospitals and a broad network of outpatient clinics. DT-Transformer achieves strong discrimination in both held-out and prospective validation settings. Next-event prediction achieves a median age- and sex-stratified AUC of 0.871 across 896 disease categories, with all categories exceeding AUC 0.5. These results support health system-scale training as a path toward foundation models suited to real-world clinical forecasting.

arXiv.org

From Lifespan Extension to Hallmark-Informed Gerotherapeutic Prioritization: A Bibliometric-Guided, Strategy-Oriented Review of Anti-Aging Drug Research - PubMed

Anti-aging pharmacology has transitioned from early exploratory lifespan-extension studies to a hallmark-informed, multi-level framework that integrates mechanistic, preclinical, and translational evidence. Using a bibliometric-guided, strategy-oriented approach, this review maps the explicit anti-a …

PubMed

Drugs for seniors; aging an opportunity for Louisville

PhRMA has released its Medicines in Development for Older Americans 2014 report. From The Search for Antiaging Interventions: From Elixirs to Fasting Regimens; “The current US population repo…

louisvillelifescience

How AI is rebuilding America's primary care system

Nearly half of U.S. primary care physicians report burnout — one of the highest rates among high-income countries — and administrative burden is the top reason. Primary care physicians (PCPs) would need to work nearly 27 hours per day to complete all recommended care and administrative tasks, and it’s costing the system $260 million annually […]

Insight Partners • Aayush Setty, Maggie Morse, Jeff Horing, Rob Epstein, M.D.

9 healthcare investors who made the new VC power list

Two professors just published a data-driven alternative to the Midas List. Here's who made it from healthcare.

Halle Tecco

The Prescription Is the Relationship | Ballad Ventures

A generation ago, filling a prescription meant one thing: the pharmacy down the street. Today a patient can fill the same script a dozen different ways, and new technology is making the choice faster, cheaper, and more confusing all at once. We think the local health system pharmacy should win that choice. Not because we say so, but because of what it can do that none of the alternatives can. Here's the case, and an honest list of what we still have to fix.

balladventures.io/thoughts/the-prescription-is-the-relationship

Pharmacy: A 'Hidden' Niche in Louisville?

Health Enterprise Partners recently published 2024 Reflections & Predictions in partnership with L.E.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/pharmacy-louisville-niche-industry-liverpoollane-com-sgabe

Physician Entrepreneurship Is Rising. Medical School Still Isn't Teaching Business.

Physicians are founding unicorns and losing ownership to corporations. Explore the business education gap in medicine — and what the AMA is doing about it.

Healthcare Huddle • Jared Dashevsky, MD

The 2026 Strebulaev-Jackson Venture Ranking: Complete Top 100 VC Firms

Inaugural release of the Strebulaev-Jackson Venture Ranking

Ilya Strebulaev

AgeInnovate

Are you building technology that supports the aging ecosystem? Check these boxes and you're ready to apply.

ageinnovate.com/startup-submissions

HLTH USA 2026 Startup Pitch Competitions | Las Vegas

Pitch at HLTH USA 2026. 4 Categories. Women's Health, Health Equity, AgeTech, and the main HLTH USA Pitch Competition! Apply by June 26.

HLTH Events

NurseHack4Health

NurseHack4Health™ is a community of nurses, healthcare professionals, developers, engineers, IT experts and other innovators focused on ideating and collaborating to address today’s most pressing healthcare challenges. Through specialized programming, NurseHack4Health empowers participants with the

NurseHack4Health

Best & Worst State Economies in 2026

Best & Worst State Economies in 2026

WalletHub

CAQH Rebrands as DataSpring to Power the Next Era of Healthcare Data

DataSpring builds on over 25 years of industry trust and a data foundation spanning 4.8 million provider records and member eligibility data on 75% of US covered lives.

www.dataspring.com/blog/caqh-rebrands-as-dataspring-to-power-the-next-era-of-healthcare-data

CAQH Appoints Dr. Alex Ding as Chief Medical Officer

Appointment brings clinical leadership to CAQH’s work connecting accurate, trusted healthcare data across the industry.

www.dataspring.com/blog/caqh-appoints-dr-alex-ding-as-chief-medical-officer

RAAPID Featured In a KLAS Emerging Company Spotlight Report for Defensible Coding & Audit-Ready Retrospective Risk Adjustment

www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260610293135/en/RAAPID-Featured-In-a-KLAS-Emerging-Company-Spotlight-Report-for-Defensible-Coding-Audit-Ready-Retrospective-Risk-Adjustment

Humana To Divest End-Of-Life Care Business For $900 Million

Humana, one of the largest U.S. sellers of Medicare Advantage insurance for older adults, will divest its stake in a provider of end-of-life services for $900 million.

Forbes • Bruce Japsen

How Tampa General & Palantir Built a Sepsis Detection System That Saved 886 Lives

How a Solo, Bootstrapped, Vibe-Coding Entrepreneur Could Build the Same Thing Inside Any Hospital Without the Nine Figure Contract

Thoughts on Healthcare

Mount Sinai Health System Deploys Clarium Computer Vision to Modernize Surgical Supply Operations Across System

/PRNewswire/ -- Clarium, an AI-powered supply chain automation platform for health systems, today announced a strategic partnership with Mount Sinai Health...

Clarium

A generative AI framework unifies human multi-omics to model aging, metabolic health, and intervention response

Cell Metab. 2026 Jun 2;38(6):1229-1244.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2026.03.014. Epub 2026 Apr 21.

www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(26)00108-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1550413126001087%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Urgent Care Center and Retail Health Clinic Use: United States, 2024

Published: May 27, 2026

www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db562.htm

Mayo Clinic's secret AI weapon — its own nurses - Becker's Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis

In late 2025, Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic set out to aggressively scale up AI agents. Who better to design them than the nurses who’ll be using them? The academic health system recently challenged its nurses to devise largely autonomous AI solutions, with finalists working with Microsoft to build and refine them. Mayo received over 450 […]

Becker's Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis • Giles Bruce

Humana invests $83M in new Florida pharmacy distribution center

Humana's CenterWell Pharmacy has invested $83 million in its latest distribution center, opening in Florida. | The company announced Wednesday that the new facility will build out the company's prescription delivery infrastructure in the state, offering an easier and more coordinated experience for members and CenterWell patients.

Fierce Healthcare • Paige Minemyer

88 healthcare organizations land on Fortune 500

healthcare organizations land fortune — Eighty-eight healthcare organizations, including UnitedHealth and CVS Health, land Fortune 500 in 2026 based on U…

Becker's Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis • Kristin Kuchno

Ember LifeSciences announces new strategic investments boosting Series A to $27M

/PRNewswire/ -- Ember LifeSciences, Inc., ("Ember") a leading provider of revolutionary cold chain technology, today announced strategic investments from Amgen...

Ember LifeSciences

Predicting categorical and continuous Alzheimer’s disease outcomes from a single MRI scan - Nature Aging

The authors developed a multitask deep learning framework integrating domain knowledge with large pretrained models that effectively predicts Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, cognitive scores and future cognitive decline using only baseline MRI and demographics.

Nature

Strategic Innovation Demands an Investment Thesis

By Ranjan Dash, Strategic Advisor, Early Charm Ventures and Suresh Chandran, Clinical Professor, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University |  May 26, 2026

www.innovationleader.com/topics/articles-and-content-by-topic/strategy-and-governance/strategic-innovation-demands-an-investment-thesis

Reverse Boomerang Theory

Dwolla, Des Moines, and What Success Looks Like

Peter G Schmidt

Refinery Ventures to put $3M behind Cincinnati boomerangs

By Liz Engel – Digital editor/Cincy Inno editor, Cincinnati Business Courier

Oct 14, 2022

Nurse Practitioner Is Now the Hottest Job in Healthcare

Employers are clamoring for workers who can do doctor-like work but who are trained faster and can cost them less

www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/nurse-practitioner-is-now-the-hottest-job-in-healthcare-a98e0bc8

Nurse Practitioner Entrepreneurship Report 2024

An analysis of the kinds of businesses Nurse Practitioners are founding and where they are founding them.

www.singleaimhealth.com/news/nurse-practitioner-entrepreneurship-report-2024?utm_source=healthtechnerds.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=htn-weekly-health-tech-reads-3-17

Kentucky Becomes First “Food Is Medicine” State, Hospitals Expand Care Through Nutrition and Local Farms - KYHA

Kentucky hospitals are expanding a new model of patient care that treats food as a critical part of medicine, following passage of Senate Joint Resolution 23 earlier this month.

KYHA • Kentucky Hospital Association

Food-as-medicine gets a new test case in Newark

RWJBarnabas' $7 million facility is aimed at reducing chronic disease by helping people prepare and eat healthier food.

www.modernhealthcare.com/providers/mh-rwjbarnabas-health-food-is-medicine-newark/?utm_source=modern-healthcare-alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20260518

Using Nutritious Food MA Supplemental Benefits To Fight Chronic Disease

Alice Hm Chen,Michael A. Carson,Amanda P. Green,andHilary Seligman May 11, 2026

www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/enabling-efficient-medicare-advantage-spending-using-nutritious-food-supplemental

The long-lived immune system of centenarians - Nature Reviews Immunology

What is unique about the immune system of people who live to extreme old age? Here the authors describe that centenarians may achieve such longevity through several mechanisms, including limiting the pathological effects of inflammageing and immunosenescence, preservation of immune surveillance, sustained gut microbial diversity and maintenance of intestinal barrier integrity.

Nature

Where Funded Founders Went To School: 2026 Edition

The findings from our annual Crunchbase survey of where recently funded founders attended college or university found that alumni of the most selective U.S. schools secure a disproportionately high share of startup funding rounds.

Crunchbase News • Joanna Glasner

Alumni Networks in Venture Capital Financing | Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis | Cambridge Core

Alumni Networks in Venture Capital Financing

Cambridge Core

AI ate digital health (and what that means for fundraising)

24 healthcare founders reflect on their fundraising experience

Halle Tecco

Health Distilled Sponsorship Inquiry

Google Docs

20 Universities Punching Above Their Weight in Biomedical Innovation

Twenty universities ranked significantly higher in the Cure Innovation Index than their federal R&D spending would predict. Here's what they have in common.

wewillcure.com/insights/innovation-index/institutions-punching-above-their-weight

NIH Funded Independent Hospitals

I shared this graphic from the 2025 MassBio Industry Snapshot in the newsletter recently. MassBio Then I saw this from Boston Business Journal.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/nih-funded-independent-hospitals-liverpoollane-com-atkxe

Where the Operators Lead | Ballad Ventures

Most health system venture funds invest in what looks promising. We're taking a different approach: starting with the problems our health system leaders actually need to solve, and partnering with early-stage companies to address them together.

balladventures.io/thoughts/operators-lead

Clara launches with $12M pre-seed round, joins Y Combinator — Clara

Building AI primary care from the ground up

George Favvas

Swamp Night · Luma

Navigating the Louisville Ecosystem shouldn't feel like trekking through a swamp. Swamp Night is where we bring the ecosystem together and help founders…

luma.com/zbgiobw7?utm_campaign=the-distill-events-galore&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=kycombinator.beehiiv.com

Your City Doesn’t Have a Talent Problem. It Has an Optionality Problem.

Every struggling startup ecosystem eventually arrives a diagnosis that a problem is talent.

Paul O'Brien

Changes in Nonprofit Hospitals’ Finances, Operations, and Quality of Care After Using Management Consultants

JAMA Published Online: May 4, 2026 doi: 10.1001/jama.2026.5027

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2848641?guestAccessKey=39ff7dd6-bcf0-4a96-9042-52c3af10f485&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_jama&utm_term=20398285188&utm_campaign=article_alert&linkId=936744194&_bhlid=372a4821c2c12e657787af9be079eb1dec09774d#

Clover Health Announces Departure of Chief Financial Officer and Appointment of Interim Chief Financial Officer

investors.cloverhealth.com/news-releases/news-release-details/clover-health-announces-departure-chief-financial-officer-and

Ballad Ventures Thesis | Ballad Ventures

Ballad Ventures partners with entrepreneurs solving the hardest problems in rural healthcare. Here's how we work, what we look for, and why we believe innovation built for places with the fewest resources is the innovation that scales everywhere.

balladventures.io/thoughts/BV-thesis

GXL — Embedding Scientific Expertise into AI

GXL is an applied research lab for biomedical AI.

GXL

Louisville Health Innovation Meetup · Luma

This is where the people building the future of healthcare in Louisville connect. If you want a better understanding of what's happening in Louisville…

luma.com/r0mar82y

014 | Natalie Davis, MD | Running Towards Problems in Healthcare - PreventScripts Cofounder and CMO

Klorporate Espionage · Episode

Spotify

Harmony

The Harmony program offers evidence‑based strategies to improve quality of life for people with cognitive conditions that affect daily function.

UK HealthCare

How health plan executives actually want to be pitched by vendors

Are you a company that sells into health plans?

Second Opinion • Christina Farr

Truentity Health Oversubscribes $3.5M Series A to Scale Pharmacy-Led Clinical Care Network Nationwide

Funding accelerates expansion of a tech-enabled clinical care model delivering measurable outcomes through community pharmacies nationwide.

EIN Presswire

Advancing precision health discovery in a genetically diverse health system

Volume 189, Issue 9p2533-2555.e31April 30, 2026

www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00274-6

Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, Humana Partner To Take On Employer Drug Costs

Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company and Humana’s CenterWell Pharmacy confirmed they have formed a partnership “to develop new end-to-end employer prescription solutions.”

Forbes • Bruce Japsen

Louisville's Medical & Education District | LOUMED

LOUMED is a hub in the heart of Louisville, Kentucky for healthcare, research, & education.

www.louisvillemedicaleducationdistrict.com

Metabolomic signatures of extreme old age: findings from the New England Centenarian Study - GeroScience

The New England Centenarian Study (NECS) provides a unique resource for the study of extreme human longevity (EL). To gain insight into biological pathways related to EL, chronological age and survival, we used an untargeted serum metabolomic approach (> 1400 metabolites) in 213 NECS participants, followed by integration of our findings with metabolomic data from four additional studies. Compared to their offspring and matched controls, EL individuals exhibited a distinct metabolic profile characterized by higher levels of primary and secondary bile acids—most notably chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) and lithocholic acid (LCA)—lower levels of biliverdin and bilirubin, and stable levels of selected steroids. Notably, elevated levels of both bile acids and steroids were associated with lower mortality. Several metabolites associated with age and survival were inversely associated with metabolite ratios related to NAD+ production and/or levels (tryptophan/kynurenine, cortisone/cortisol), gut bacterial metabolism (ergothioneine/trimethylamine N-oxide, aspartate/quinolinate), and oxidative stress (methionine/methionine sulfoxide), implicating these pathways in aging and/or longevity. We further developed a metabolomic clock predictive of biological age, with age deviations significantly associated with mortality risk. Key metabolites predictive of biological aging, such as taurine and citrate, were not captured by traditional age analyses, pointing to their potential role as biomarkers for healthy aging. These results highlight metabolic pathways that may be targeted to promote metabolic resilience and healthy aging. Graphical abstract

SpringerLink

The Value of Innovation and Venture Exposure during Clinical Training

NEJM Catal Innov Care Deliv 2026;7(5)

catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.25.0280

Alumni Networks in Venture Capital Financing | Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis | Cambridge Core

Alumni Networks in Venture Capital Financing

Cambridge Core

Prior Authorization: I Killed It Once. They Brought It Back. Now the Data Shows Why.

A former health plan CMO followed the money — and the numbers are worse than the industry wants you to know.

Archelle Georgiou

Beyond March Madness: Athletics boost academic health system marketing

The two universities that met in the 2026 NCAA men’s basketball championship in early April both have health systems.

www.beckershospitalreview.com/digital-marketing/beyond-march-madness-athletics-boost-academic-health-system-marketing

Comparing fourteen consensus biomarkers of aging: epigenetic pace of aging as the strongest predictor of mortality in BASE-II - Biomarker Research

Background In many countries, lifespan has been increasing faster than healthspan, leading to more years spent with late-life disease and highlighting the need for reliable biomarkers to measure biological aging. Methods We used data from the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II, 60–80 years of age at baseline, average follow-up 7.4 ± 1.5 years, range 3.9–10.4, n = 1,083) to compare 14 biomarkers of aging recently consented by an expert panel for the use as outcome measures in intervention studies: physiological (insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), growth-differentiating factor-15 (DNA methylation derived, DNAmGDF15)), inflammatory (high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6)), functional (muscle mass, muscle strength, hand grip strength (HGS), Timed-Up-and-Go (TUG), gait speed, standing balance test, frailty phenotype (FP), cognitive health, blood pressure), and epigenetic (epigenetic clock, DunedinPACE). Cox proportional hazard regression analyses were performed to investigate their role in prediction of all-cause as well as cause-specific mortality. Results were adjusted for age, sex, lifestyle factors, and genetic ancestry. Results In adjusted models of all-cause mortality, HGS, IL-6, standing balance, cognitive health, and the epigenetic clock (DunedinPACE) statistically significantly predicted mortality, with the epigenetic clock (DunedinPACE) emerging as the strongest predictor. CRP, gait speed, IGF-1, blood pressure, muscle mass, DNAmGDF15, FP and TUG were not associated with mortality in this study. These results were corroborated in subgroup analyses stratified by cause of death. Feature selection identified a minimal biomarker set consisting of muscle mass, standing balance, and epigenetic clock (DunedinPACE) that predicted mortality with nearly the same discriminative accuracy (C-index = 0.63) as the full model including all biomarkers (C-index = 0.65). Conclusion Among the fourteen investigated biomarkers of aging, DunedinPACE emerged with the strongest and most consistent association with mortality.

SpringerLink

UK contributes to global study showing where people live may impact how the brain ages | UK Research

A recent study, including research from UK, shows that brain health is shaped not only by biology and individual choices, but also by the broader environments people live in

UK Research | University of Kentucky

Cities, communities and clinics can be testbeds for human exposome and aging research - Nature Medicine

Understanding the human exposome is now possible with clinics, communities and cities acting as real-world testbeds to understand what drives human healthspan, resilience and flourishing.

Nature

How to Measure and Reduce Your Exposure to Toxins

What the science says about testing for molds, heavy metals, PFAS, organic acids, and pesticides

Dr. Christin Glorioso, MD PhD

READI-Home Innovation Challenge

READI-Home Innovation Challenge aims to speed patient access to medical device technologies that can help reduce hospital readmissions.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

How AI will redefine care delivery: the rise of the generalist-specialist

Health Affairs Scholar, Volume 4, Issue 4, April 2026

academic.oup.com/healthaffairsscholar/article/4/4/qxag075/8541477?login=false

Why health insurers are shifting venture capital arm strategies

Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group hold dozens of active investments in startups and emerging companies.

www.modernhealthcare.com/insurance/mh-venture-capital-arm-cvs-optum-cigna/?utm_content=twt%3Aread&utm_medium=soc-own&utm_campaign=aware%3Aupr%3Apgv%3Aall%3Aalways&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1775653636-3

Three VC Stories Woven Together

First, this Modern Healthcare article; "Why health insurers are shifting venture capital arm strategies" by Noah Tong. Fairly active.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/weaving-three-threads-context-liverpoollane-com-x8ayc

Investor Influence on Media Coverage: Evidence from Venture Capital-Backed Startups

Harvard Business School Accounting & Management Unit Working Paper No. 24-073

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4914228

Heavy Is the Head That Wears the Crown

Exploring the "kingmaking" fallacy in venture capital; the notion that more capital can increase the odds of startup success.

Dan Gray

The exposome of brain aging across 34 countries - Nature Medicine

Exposome analyses across 34 countries showed that social exposures were associated with faster functional brain aging and physical exposures with faster structural brain aging.

Nature

The Alzheimer’s Pipeline Is Finally Catching Up to the Biology

Why we need to shift our horizon, the most promising clinical trials, and how to enroll in them

Dr. Christin Glorioso, MD PhD

UK study finds blood clues to serious side effects of new Alzheimer’s drug

A team of University of Kentucky researchers has uncovered a surprising clue in the battle against Alzheimer’s disease that could help doctors predict, and ultimately prevent, a common side effect of the newest generation of Alzheimer’s therapies. Their findings, recently published in Nature Communications, reveal a distinct immune “fingerprint” in the blood of patients who develop amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA) after treatment with lecanemab — the first FDA-approved drug shown to slow Alzheimer’s disease progression. The study was recognized as an Editors’ Highlight by Nature Communications, a designation the journal reserves for research its editors consider particularly noteworthy and impactful.

UKNow

Tech-Enabled Healthcare Services Will Be the Winners of the AI Era

Alyssa Jaffee is a Partner at 7wire Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on digital health companies that empower individuals to take an active role in managing their health.

Second Opinion • Alyssa Jaffee

Nursing Is the Surefire New Path to American Prosperity

Plentiful jobs and potential six-figure incomes draw young people as other industries falter; ‘modern middle-class jobs engine’

www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/nursing-jobs-pay-prosperity-b2769391?st=8oK3Xf

Atlantic Health Reduces Colonoscopy Screening Gaps Using Artera's AI Agents

/PRNewswire/ -- Colorectal cancer is expected to claim the lives of more than 55,000 Americans in 20262. Despite the fact that early-stage detection carries a...

Artera

Accelerating AI innovation in healthcare: real-world clinical research applications on the Mayo Clinic Platform - npj Health Systems

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds promise for healthcare, but real-world implementation remains difficult. The Mayo clinic platform (MCP) addresses this by providing scalable, multi-institutional, de-identified data and analytical tools. Through four research projects, we demonstrate MCP’s ability to support efficient cohort identification, AI model development, and real-world evidence generation. MCP enables broader accessibility and standardization compared to institutional EHRs, positioning it as a powerful platform for advancing translational research and precision medicine.

Nature

Louisville Health Innovation Meetup · Luma

We connect the people building the future of healthcare in Louisville. Interested in healthcare, healthtech, digital health, the life sciences and adjacent…

luma.com/odr4mlb6

Steven G. Avey Award | amcpfoundation.org

AMCP Foundation’s Steven G. Avey Award is the highest honor in managed care pharmacy, recognizing visionary leaders for distinguished service and lasting contributions to the field. Nominate a colleague, peer, or mentor.

amcpfoundation.org/steven-avey-award?utm_content=374194458&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-10101423

Remote digital intervention targeting heart failure medical therapy: a randomized controlled trial

Heart failure (HF) causes substantial morbidity and mortality, in part because evidence-based pharmacotherapies remain underused. Remote, asynchronous…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667193X26000876

Special Announcement: Prax Health announces nearly $10 million in financing to help NPs open up independent practices

NPs seems like our best chance at meeting the provider shortage challenges, and Prax Health is building out infrastructure to help them meet this demand.

www.healthtechnerds.com/p/special-announcement-prax-health-announces-nearly-10-million-in-financing-to-help-nps-open-up-indepe

Diet–microbiome associations in 10,068 individuals from the Human Phenotype Project to guide personalized nutrition - Nature Medicine

Analyses of more than 10,000 participants from the Human Phenotype Project revealed distinct, persistent food–microbiome associations that can be used to simulate personalized dietary interventions to improve cardiometabolic health.

www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04312-x

Nutrition and aging; a sub-niche for Louisville?

This tweet caught my attention in April 2014. Louisville is home to the largest concentration of nursing-home and extended-care companies in the nation. Aging Care Atria Senior Living, Inc., in par…

louisvillelifescience.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/nutrition-and-aging-a-sub-niche-for-louisville

RAAPID Secures Series-A Extension to Scale Neuro-Symbolic AI-Powered Medical Coding

UPMC Enterprises joins M12 (Microsoft's venture fund) in backing RAAPID's compliance-first Clinical AI Platform for Medicare Advantage risk adjustment and medical coding.

www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318977628/en/RAAPID-Secures-Series-A-Extension-to-Scale-Neuro-Symbolic-AI-Powered-Medical-Coding

Venture Capital Investments by Academic Medical Centers in Health Care Companies

This cross-sectional study investigates how US academic medical centers used their own venture capital funds to invest in early-stage health care companies from 2014 to 2024.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2840371

Venture Capital Investment in Neurology Companies

This cross-sectional study categorizes and quantifies temporal and thematic trends in investment in neurology from 2000 to 2023.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2831632

Where do angels come from?

Angel investing offers experienced entrepreneurs an opportunity to contribute to entrepreneurial ecosystems, with prior entrepreneurial experience bel…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119925000835

UK study: ‘Person-centered care’ improves lives of dementia residents, caregivers

A new University of Kentucky study shows that prioritizing joy and engagement through enrichment activities is vital for the health of both residents and the caregivers who support them. This research highlights how advancing Kentucky’s health care means looking beyond standard measures to support the holistic well-being of the aging population.

uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-study-person-centered-care-improves-lives-dementia-residents-caregivers

UK study finds blood clues to serious side effects of new Alzheimer’s drug

A team of University of Kentucky researchers has uncovered a surprising clue in the battle against Alzheimer’s disease that could help doctors predict, and ultimately prevent, a common side effect of the newest generation of Alzheimer’s therapies. Their findings, recently published in Nature Communications, reveal a distinct immune “fingerprint” in the blood of patients who develop amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA) after treatment with lecanemab — the first FDA-approved drug shown to slow Alzheimer’s disease progression. The study was recognized as an Editors’ Highlight by Nature Communications, a designation the journal reserves for research its editors consider particularly noteworthy and impactful.

uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-study-finds-blood-clues-serious-side-effects-new-alzheimer-s-drug

AI Won't Automatically Accelerate Clinical Trials

A critique of a snippet from Dario Amodei and Dwarkesh Patel’s recent interview.

press.asimov.com/articles/ai-clinical-trials?_bhlid=b2b66a55a6ded8ea4af395b6db3c43c57c361efd

Pear's Request for Startups - Pear VC

Here are some ideas and opportunities we’re most excited to see founders tackle next at Pear VC.

pear.vc/request-for-startups/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Preferences for Antihypertensive Prescribing in Older Adults: A Discrete Choice Experiment

www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2026.01.044

More than 80% of physicians use AI professionally: AMA survey

The top use is to summarize medical research and standards of care. Catch up with the latest trends on physicians’ use of health AI.

www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital-health/more-80-physicians-use-ai-professionally-ama-survey?utm_campaign=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8sstBBLw4O0HPWLxCFEu65CW4MKRMrKGg27Vw0aKNE77FQIqdiw8wTjgmygglnR34BNNm4ZrMw0w7dNpWrVtYJSTGCyQ&_hsmi=25213370&utm_content=25213370&utm_source=hs_email

Monteris Medical Secures $28 Million in Growth Equity to Accelerate Revenue and Innovation in Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery

Monteris Medical, a private company leading the field in minimally invasive neurosurgery with its NeuroBlate® System for magnetic resonance-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT), announced today that it has closed $28 million in Series E equity financing. The equity capital will support the company's technology innovation program and other growth initiatives. Monteris also announced that it has refinanced its current debt and established a new $35 million credit facility with Trinity

finance.yahoo.com/news/monteris-medical-secures-28-million-132500812.html

New Medicaid-focused doula provider Malama launches with $9.2M

Malama Health, a doula-led maternal care provider focused on Medicaid, has closed a $9.2 million seed round.  | Malama, which means “to nurture” in Hawaiian, was built to address inequities and high-risk pregnancies by shifting from episodic to continuous care.

www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/new-medicaid-focused-doula-provider-malama-launches-92m

Louisville Health Innovation Meetup · Luma

Interested in healthcare, healthtech, digital health, the life sciences and adjacent spaces? Real innovation happens when people show up to give, not just to…

luma.com/m7mgkqct

Sage Raises $65M to Expand AI Senior Care Platform - AgeTech

Sage secures $65M Series C led by Goldman Sachs to scale its AI-powered senior care platform, utilizing predictive analytics to prevent falls.

hitconsultant.net/2026/03/05/sage-ai-senior-care-platform-funding/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Aging Is Medicine’s Biggest Blind Spot

Age-related decline is not an unavoidable fate, but a problem that can be addressed with modern medicine, writes Andrew S. Brack.

time.com/7381303/aging-medicine-disease-arpa-h-longevity

Drugs for seniors; aging an opportunity for Louisville

PhRMA has released its Medicines in Development for Older Americans 2014 report. From The Search for Antiaging Interventions: From Elixirs to Fasting Regimens; “The current US population repo…

louisvillelifescience.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/drugs-for-seniors

UPMC backs AI startup in $13M investment

UPMC backs startup 13M — UPMC backs startup $13M funding round to expand BrainCheck's AI platform for cognitive condition screening and care across…

www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/ai/upmc-backs-ai-startup-in-13m-investment/?origin=DigitalE&utm_source=DigitalE&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=9128I7569089J3D

Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate welcomes new cohort of healthcare technology startups - Mayo Clinic News Network

Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate welcomes 18 healthcare startups to develop and validate AI-driven solutions advancing patient care and health innovation.

newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-platform_accelerate-welcomes-new-cohort-of-healthcare-technology-startups

Bluesight Partners with GraphiteRx and Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs to Expand Access to Cost-Saving Medication Sources

/PRNewswire/ -- Bluesight, the leader in hospital intelligence solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with GraphiteRx that brings marketplace data,...

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bluesight-partners-with-graphiterx-and-mark-cuban-cost-plus-drugs-to-expand-access-to-cost-saving-medication-sources-302701449.html?utm_campaign=prescription-transparency-is-getting-practical&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=bonnefire.beehiiv.com

UPS overtakes FedEx to become world’s largest express air cargo hub - Air Cargo News

UPS’s hub at Louisville Muhammed Ali International Airport (SDF) now has more daily flights and tonnage capacity than any other express air cargo hub in the world. In fact, UPS Worldport's hub at SDF has taken over the number one hub position from FedEx's Memphis International (MEM) hub, found the "Global Cargo Hub Review" report

www.aircargonews.net/cargo-airport/2026/02/ups-overtakes-fedex-to-become-worlds-largest-express-air-cargo-hub/?utm_source=louisvillespark.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=our-global-crown-more-national-shine-and-good-news-in-bourbon&_bhlid=5c3c90167447654aef718e088a50ff822d85a35e

The Peptide Paradox: Why Miracle Drugs Might Be Making Us Weaker

AI is overshadowing the rise, and risks, of healthcare's wonder drug

memphistomars.substack.com/p/healthcare-enters-the-trillion-dollar?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Unicorn DNA — Where today’s billion-dollar startup founders come from

A data-driven analysis of 2,000+ founders behind 800 U.S. unicorns reveals where billion-dollar founders come from, why experience beats hype, how AI is reshaping founder pipeline, and how top engineering schools are outpacing the Ivy League.

www.signalfire.com/blog/unicorn-founder-origins-data-report

Tampa General has 61 AI applications with little appetite for pilots

Tampa General has AI applications in production, scaling quickly with 61 tools deployed across clinical and administrative settings.

www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/ai/tampa-general-has-61-ai-applications-with-little-appetite-for-pilots/?origin=BHRE&utm_source=BHRE&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=9128I7569089J3D

Canary Speech and Intermountain Ventures Launch Groundbreaking Study to Identify Multiple Sclerosis Using Vocal Biomarkers

/PRNewswire/ -- Canary Speech, a leader in vocal biomarker technology, today announced a partnership with Intermountain Ventures, the venture capital and...

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/canary-speech-and-intermountain-ventures-launch-groundbreaking-study-to-identify-multiple-sclerosis-using-vocal-biomarkers-302684086.html?utm_source=Elion&utm_campaign=e77b69fcbe-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3c06e90c2e-571582163

Frist Cressey Ventures Announces Oversubscribed $425M Fund IV to Reshape Care Delivery

/PRNewswire/ -- Frist Cressey Ventures (FCV) announced today that it has closed an oversubscribed $425 million Fund IV, bringing total assets under management...

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/frist-cressey-ventures-announces-oversubscribed-425m-fund-iv-to-reshape-care-delivery-302691405.html?tc=eml_cleartime&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=innovationrx&cdlcid=66c73ba59e1a4fe59293cdb9§ion=

Study finds blood test can predict age of Alzheimer's onset

Newly FDA-cleared blood tests are now making it easier for doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. But could a single blood test also predict when patients' symptoms will appear? | Newly FDA-cleared blood tests are now making it easier for doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. But could a single blood test also predict when symptoms will appear?

www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/study-finds-blood-test-can-predict-age-alzheimers-onset

How Bon Secours Mercy Health became a leader in digital investing

Bon Secours Mercy Health leads in digital investing with targeted venture capital and strategic startup partnerships across six states.

www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/digital-health/how-bon-secours-mercy-health-became-a-leader-in-digital-investing/?origin=DigitalE&utm_source=DigitalE&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=9128I7569089J3D

Tampa General’s Innovation Week Returns with New Programming to Showcase Breakthroughs in Patient Care and Technology | Tampa General Hospital

https://www.tgh.org/news/tgh-press-releases/2026/february/tampa-general-innovation-week-returns-with-new-programming

The Coming Clinical Correction: Why Health Care Needs Its AI Bubble To Burst

Maxim Topaz Jing Dong Laura-Maria Peltonen Zhihong Zhang

www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/coming-clinical-correction-why-health-care-needs-its-ai-bubble-burst

Physician Careers and Start-Ups: How to Get Started - NEJM CareerCenter Resources

Physicians can engage with start-ups through advisory or full-time roles, leveraging clinical expertise while earning equity and experience.

resources.nejmcareercenter.org/article/physician-careers-and-start-ups-how-to-get-started