Livongo’s DPP recogized by the CDC. Digital chronic care company Livongo Health’s Diabetes Prevention Program has received full recognition from the CDC, according to a release from the company. The designation implies that the digital offering meets the agency’s standards as a Type 2 diabetes prevention and lifestyle change intervention, and is listed within the CDC’s online referral tool.
“CDC recognition validates the effectiveness of Livongo’s Diabetes Prevention Program and complements our success in diabetes management,” Glen Tullman, CEO of Livongo, said in a statement. “Diabetes represents one of the fastest growing public health challenges facing our country today. Our goal is to partner with our members to prevent diabetes and where we can’t, provide world-class programs to make it easier for our members with diabetes to stay healthy until a cure is discovered.”
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eGYM raises $20M for high-tech fitness. Munich-based eGym has closed a $20 million Series D funding round led by NGP Capital, with participation from Highland Europe and HPE Growth Capital, to fuel its expansion in the US. Founded in 2010 by Philipp Roesch-Schlanderer and Florian Sauter, eGym provides digital training machines and software. Its open cloud platform, eGym One, connects devices and equipment from major manufacturers that allows users to access their training-related data by using its eGym fitness app.
The company’s products and services are aimed toward “making exercise more accessible and more personalized,” Walter Masalin, a partner at NGP Capital, said in a statement. “Preventative healthcare is the key to tackling rapidly increasing healthcare costs globally, and exercise plays a crucial role.”
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Siri, get help. To more easily reach out for assistance, FallCall Solutions’ FallCall Lite — a system for the Apple Watch that connects wearers to emergency call centers in case of a fall — now supports Siri Shortcuts. Users can set up the new feature by opening the settings menu within FallCall Lite and recording short phrases such as “assistance needed.”
“Time is of the essence when someone needs help,” Dr. Shea Gregg, president of FallCall Solutions, said in a statement. “Siri Shortcuts have simplified the ability to communicate and initiate commands on Apple devices. We have harnessed this revolutionary capability to contact family, friends and our 24-7 call center in an emergency. Additionally, FallCall will send location and heart rate information to aid in the response.”
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Sleep research nets students free smartwatches. A subset of incoming Duke University freshmen will be receiving free smartwatches for a three-year program run by the school’s researchers, according to the school’s student-run newspaper. The project, called WearDuke, looks to better understand the activity and sleep patterns of undergraduates to ultimately improve their wellness through personalized treatment recommendations. Fitbit, Garmin, Apple and Polar devices are all currently under consideration for the program.
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CloudMine goes under. CloudMine, a Philadelphia-based company offering a cloud-based healthcare platform for digital apps, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The seven-year-old company looked to help pharmas, payers and others build and manage their digital offerings, while keeping the data housed in HIPAA-compliant apps secure. According to Crunchbase, the company had raised $16.4 million in investment capital over the course of its lifetime.
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ClearDATA raises $26 million. Healthcare cloud security and compliance firm ClearDATA has raised $26 million in a round the company said will help expand its product innovation, customer support and growth. Humana and Health Care Service Corporation participated in the round, alongside prior investors Norwest Venture Partners, Merck GHIF, Excel Venture Management, Heritage Group, HLM Venture Partner and Flare Capital Partners.
“Maintaining our growth and thought leadership to serve more customers requires continuous investments in systems, tools, processes and talent to better support our next phase of growth, and ultimately help our customers innovate and evolve faster,” Darin Brannan, ClearDATA’s CEO, said in a statement. “Strategic investors have a vested interest in helping us maintain this thought leadership position, and we are incredibly grateful for their support.”
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NSF grant awarded for smartphone pregnancy monitoring research. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have been awarded a $1.2 million Smart and Connected Health grant from the National Science Foundation for a research project exploring smartphone monitoring during pregnancy. The researchers are looking to hammer out a means of building digital profiles for each pregnant woman, which would allow providers to better plan individualized care during a pregnancy.
“From their first appointment to six weeks post-partum, we will be able to analyze data to determine the impact of their everyday lives on their medical outcomes, and determine whether we see any digital markers of significant events such as labor,” Kelly Gaither, the grant’s principal investigator, told the University’s news publication. “We can examine the number of steps they take in a day, changes in speech patterns, unusual sleep patterns — even whether these women have an active social structure.”
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Rehab booking platform raises $2M. WeRecover, a online- and app-based booking platform for substance abuse rehab centers, has raised $2 million in a round led by Crosslink Capital, TechCrunch reports. The company saw around 4,000 users last month, offers information on centers in 29 states and has brought in $5.25 million in total backing since its 2016 launch.
Cofounder Stephen Estes told TechCrunch that the company is looking to continue adding to its database and staff with the new funding, and hopes to bring original content into the platform as well.
