Anthropic has pledged $200 million over four years to collaborate with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, marking the largest partnership between an AI firm and a global philanthropic organization. This funding, which includes grants, access to Claude AI credits, and technical expertise, aims to support initiatives in global health, life sciences, and education.
Ireland's medtech industry is reaching new heights with groundbreaking startups leading the way. Boosted by grants, successful funding rounds, and ambitious expansion strategies, these companies are setting a new benchmark for innovation and excellence in the sector.
HistoSonics has obtained approval from Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration for its Edison Histotripsy System, an advanced, non-invasive device designed to eliminate tumours using focused ultrasound waves. This groundbreaking technology destroys cancerous tissue without the need for surgery, radiation, or heat, minimizing patient risk. The TFDA's authorization, announced on 18 May, represents a pivotal milestone in HistoSonics' strategic expansion across Asian markets and marks Taiwan as a key region in its growth plan.
The New York City public healthcare system revealed that hackers accessed and stole personal, medical, and biometric data, including fingerprint scans, marking one of the largest data breaches recorded in 2026.
While companies like Chai Discovery and Isomorphic Labs focus on creating advanced drug discovery models, SandboxAQ believes the main challenge lies in accessibility. By integrating Claude, their models become easier to use, removing the need for specialized computing expertise.
At STAT's Breakthrough Summit West, Jorie Krause's parents shared their story of how artificial intelligence played a crucial role in diagnosing and treating their daughter's ultra-rare condition. They described the moment they saw the impact of AI as almost like flipping a light switch, bringing hope where there was little before.
Corti, a healthcare AI company based in Copenhagen, has introduced Symphony for Speech-to-Text, a clinical-grade speech recognition model designed specifically for real-time and batch medical transcription. The model achieves a notably low word error rate (WER) of just 1.4% on English medical terms, outperforming major competitors like OpenAI (17.7%), ElevenLabs, Whisper, and Parakeet. This specialization underscores the importance of tailored AI in healthcare, especially as AI agents increasingly rely on precise clinical data for decision-making. Symphony's accuracy extends to multilingual environments, excelling in languages like German and French, and surpasses legacy systems such as Dragon Medical One. Corti’s API enables developers to build custom clinical transcription tools that enhance real-time and ambient clinical workflows. This breakthrough reflects a growing trend where specialized vertical AI models significantly outperform generalized large language models in regulated industries with complex requirements.
The Supreme Court's refusal to review cases brought by pharmaceutical companies marks a pivotal moment, signaling strong judicial support for continued Medicare price negotiations. This decision effectively blocks the pharmaceutical industry's attempts to derail efforts aimed at lowering drug costs for Medicare recipients, underscoring a shift towards increased government influence in healthcare pricing.
Democratic lawmakers in Congress are renewing efforts to terminate the Medicare pilot program that employs artificial intelligence to approve or deny medical services.
The US Department of Health and Human Services is enhancing its approach to curbing fraud and waste by implementing real-time AI monitoring across Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and the Marketplace. This new strategy marks a shift from traditional 'pay and chase' methods to proactive detection, leveraging artificial intelligence to improve efficiency and oversight within federal health programs.
