Healthcare Brew covers pharmaceutical developments, health startups, the latest tech, and how it impacts hospitals and providers to keep administrators and providers informed.

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Biden administration bans asbestos as part of Cancer Moonshot initiative

Asbestos, a known carcinogen, is linked to more than 40,000 deaths a year. 

Maia Anderson

New bill aims to help providers identify patients at risk for suicide 

The legislation comes as suicide rates have increased dramatically.

Direct Care

illustrated headshot of caroline catherman, healthcare brew reporter

Caroline Catherman

 for healthcare mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Then 

Combine that with structurally higher interest rates and the usual fluctuations that come with a new presidential administration—plus the fact that the next moves from the Federal Trade Commission and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are a bit unpredictable right now. In fact, most of the year has been defined by 

As a result, there weren’t more deals in H1 2025 than H1 2024, according to a September 

: Total value reached $34.7 billion, up 56% from H2 

. This shows investors were “strategic,” KPMG wrote.

We talked with investors to find out how they’re allocating their dollars in a time when caution seems to be the name of the game.

Lily Lyman, a partner at Underscore VC, a Boston-based venture capital firm that backs 

 health software companies, said her firm is focused on investing in software that eases clinical and administrative workflows and supports data infrastructure and interoperability.

Many of these issues are being addressed by the biggest buzzword in any industry right now: AI. The global market for AI is expected to reach $407 billion by 2027, with healthcare leading the trend, per professional services firm EY.

Lyman also sees the potential for AI in the tech biospace to help 

 the process from a therapy’s inception to the time it reaches patients. The company co-led a $6 million seed funding round in June for Quilt Health, a digital health company that aims to do just that.

Going forward, she expects to see more of a focus on “compliance and auditability” around the tech, too.

One example: Underscore invested in an April seed round for Terra Security, the developer of an agentic AI platform that tests web applications for security 

“We’re going to need to see more around transparency, compliance, observability, and traceability as AI gets further and more deeply embedded in these different workflows,” Lyman said.

Lisa Piercey, founder and managing partner at Nashville-based lower-middle market acquisition fund Tristela Capital Partners, told us in the face of unpredictable policy, reimbursement, and regulatory changes, some things stay certain: 

Tristela Capital focuses on acquiring small- to medium-sized businesses that address evergreen problems relevant to care delivery. Though she would not publicly disclose which companies, she said her firm has acquired three within the specialty pharmacy, senior living, and worksite wellness spaces.

“We don’t know how [policy changes] are going to play out in the next 12 to 24 months, but what we can do is identify those sectors that we know have the biggest moat around them,” Piercey said.

In contrast with 2021 and 2022, when investors had a “growth at all cost, volume at all cost” mindset, she said she’s seeing others take a “more disciplined” approach, too.

Maia Anderson contributed reporting to this story.

Two hands shaking surrounded by investing visual elements

Where healthcare investors are putting their dollars 

Venture capital firms are focused on technology that enables home care and eases administrative burdens.

Cassie McGrath

Occasionally, we schedule our rounds with Healthcare Brew readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition?

Breast cancer screening has long been skewed toward older patients who are 

 to be diagnosed with the disease. But in recent years, rates have jumped among younger women.

 among women over 50 each year from 2012 to 2022, rates also rose 1.4% in women under 50, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. In fact, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among US women ages 20 to 49, the nonprofit also reported.

That’s why Bailey Renger created BeSound. The startup officially launched on Sept. 30 with $6.8 million in seed funding, co-led by Overwater Ventures, Kindred Ventures, and Muse Capital, according to a press release. BeSound aims to detect and prevent breast cancer in young women by providing imaging and results within 24–48 hours for an up-front cost of $350. The process can typically take a few days, the National Breast Cancer Foundation wrote on its site.

Renger, who has a background in physics, was previously a quantum computing research fellow at Harvard University and NASA researcher.

Renger created BeSound due to her own frustrations during a cancer scare. “I 

. I didn’t get an imaging order that I wanted and had to fight for it,” she said.

Once she got the scan, her medical team found a solid mass but couldn’t tell her if it was malignant.

“That’s at the center of BeSound: making imaging more accessible to women with better imaging technology,” she said.

Renger, a young woman herself at 26, spoke with Healthcare Brew about her plans for the company.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Women book ultrasound scans on our website and then find nearby partner locations. Initially, we’ll just have one [in Los Angeles, opening this fall] but as we scale, there’ll be multiple to choose from. A clinician will review eligibility for that scan. It’s a 20-minute scan. It’s radiation free, no pain.

The results are reviewed by a board-certified breast radiologist and displayed in the BeSound platform to women within 24–48 hours of the scan. If there is no finding, that’s the final step. If there is a finding, and if eligible, then there’s an order placed by the clinician for an ultrasound plus near-infrared light, a diagnostic imaging test, and helping to characterize what was found. Is it a cyst? Is it benign? Is it fibroadenoma? Or is it concerning? That second scan helps to reduce unnecessary biopsies and to really just give women peace of mind and empower them with data on what’s actually happening in their body.

What differentiates the company from other breast cancer care?

Today, it’s really difficult for women under 40 to get screening, yet we know they’re getting breast cancer. That’s for a few reasons. Mammography is not reimbursed and is also not recommended for women under 40, unless you’re very high risk. Younger women have more dense tissue, and that decreases the accuracy of mammograms.

We brought on the co-founder of Equinox [Lavinia Errico], and she’s helping with designing the experience, both in person and digitally. We think that’s going to be really important as well because a lot of women today, even if they qualify for a mammogram, they don’t get it because they’re scared or it’s painful or they don’t want exposure to radiation. We think offering a better experience is more conducive to women actually wanting to get screened.

The most expensive part of the scan is the radiologist and their interpretation. If we can help make their jobs easier and help them read more quickly, then we can help to drive down the cost of the scans. There’s really rigorous FDA review, requirements, and clearance that’s involved, so we are not using any AI yet, but that’s on the road map.

Where do you hope the company will be in the next five to 10 years?

I hope that breast cancer screening for younger women is more accessible and that we help to remove the stigma around both screening and just having dense breasts in general. Our larger vision is really to end late-stage breast cancer because that’s how we save women’s lives. I would love to have BeSound available to women across the country, and with the AI that we’re building, that’s actually how we hope to improve accessibility even more. [This includes] driving down the costs—our goal is eventually $150.

We [also] want to expand into ovarian cancer and pelvic ultrasound imaging, all women’s ultrasound-based imaging.

A portrait of founder and CEO of BeSound, Bailey Renger.

Startup BeSound seeks to reduce breast cancer in young women 

Meet Bailey Renger, the 26-year-old founder of BeSound. 

In June 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

 to remove the constitutional right to abortion, sending the power back to the states.

. Others, like Kentucky, had trigger bans that immediately restricted abortion access (Kentucky’s is a 

 for any stage of pregnancy, except in cases of medical emergencies).

The number of abortions overall has increased in the US, at 1.14 million in 2024 compared to 1.06 in 2023, 

, the Society of Family Planning’s national abortion data-tracking effort that started during the fall of 

 asked citizens to vote on whether they wanted abortion protected in local law. 

 and three did not. But experts told Healthcare Brew the fight for reproductive rights continues whatever the outcome. There are 

 to add federal restrictions to abortion, though those policy efforts have failed thus far.

The three states that didn’t pass abortion ballots were Florida, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

South Dakota declined a state constitutional right to abortion, with 58.6% of voters choosing “no.” Nebraska’s case was a little different, though, as the state rejected (in a difference of 49.01% to 50.99%) establishing the right to abortion until “fetal viability”—which is the point when a fetus can survive outside of the womb—but passed an amendment to protect abortion up to 12 weeks.

In Florida, 57.2% of voters said they wanted the state constitution to include measures to protect patients seeking an abortion.

The problem was the vote needed 60% to pass.

“It feels like the wind has been knocked out of you,” Michelle Grimsley Shindano, director of policy and government affairs at Planned Parenthood of Florida, told us. “You see people just pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into something and literally being 2.8% away from winning. It’s gut-wrenching.”

Florida originally instituted a 15-week ban in 2022, but it was replaced with a six-week ban in May 2024 (with some exceptions), which is now the law of the land in the Sunshine State.

Bans can lead to facility closures, Healthcare Brew previously 

 stopped providing abortion services according to data from reproductive health research organization the Guttmacher Institute.

In Florida, there were 54 abortion care clinics in March 2024, but as of August, there were 42 clinics in the state, according to I Need an A, a website dedicated to helping people find reproductive care.

“This has been extremely difficult for our patient population” and has presented “life-threatening risks,” Michelle Quesada, interim VP of public policy for Planned Parenthood of Florida, said.

Telehealth abortions are also on the rise in the US, as they accounted for about 5% of abortion care from April–June 2022 and a little over 25% by December 2024, #WeCount reported.

On Sept. 19, though, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the FDA is going to review the safety of 

, which is a drug used in medication abortions, 

 that access to abortion could be further limited.

Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York all passed ballot initiatives to protect abortion in their states. But that hasn’t meant abortion is solidly safe there.

States like California, Colorado, and New York have 

 to protect providers from out-of-state prosecution. The Guttmacher Institute 

 patients are traveling out of state at higher rates for abortions across the US: 155,000 people in 2024 and roughly 170,000 in 2023 compared to 81,000 in 2020.

Lawmakers in Missouri tried to ban abortion by 

overturning the abortion-rights amendment

 in July for abortion to be legal up to fetal viability.

Arizona passed adding “the fundamental right to abortion” into its state constitution 61.6% to 38.4% during the 2024 elections. After the fall of 

 in 2022, the state went back to a total abortion ban law from 1864 in April 2024, but the state legislature 

 a couple of weeks later to allow abortions up to 15 weeks.

In Nevada, ballot initiatives to change the state constitution must pass twice. The right to abortion has been protected in state law since 1990 for up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The 2024 ballot initiative added a protection for abortion up to fetal viability into the state constitution.

But voters have to show up again in 2026 to make sure last year’s ballot goes through.

That’s what Denise Lopez, director of Nevada campaigns for abortion-rights advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, is working on now. It’s a nonpresidential election year and she’s going up against a governor who has 

 a record number of bills, including those related to IVF and paid family leave, so Lopez has her work cut out for her.

“We’re going to have to educate people. We’re going to have to make sure that people turn out to vote for the ballot again,” she said.

Two protesters hold a Pride flag and a sign reading 'Abortion is a human right' during a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 25, 2022, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Abortion was on the ballot in 10 states last year. Here’s where some of them stand now

The fight for reproductive rights continues, even in states where abortion-related ballots passed. 

 by the Covid-19 pandemic, tech industry veteran Bismarck Lepe co-founded a startup tailored specifically to the community, called MiSalud Health. 

The company offers Spanish-speaking people living in the US telehealth visits with health coaches in Mexico who offer a range of primary care and behavioral health services.

MiSalud has raised nearly $19 million through venture capital funding from investors including Ulu Ventures, Pivotal Ventures, and Magnify Ventures, according to Lepe. It employs 50 clinicians in Mexico, 23 clinicians in the US, and operates across 16 states.

Healthcare Brew spoke to Lepe about MiSalud’s business model, how the company is incorporating technology into care, and his hopes for the startup’s future.

 from Covid, more likely to be hospitalized, and 

 to get it. We dug into that issue and we realized that it was an access issue. Many Hispanics live in 

. We thought, “Maybe we can tap into physicians in Mexico, and through technology, be able to give people in the US access to those physicians.”

We got the company started in 2021, and it’s scaled very nicely. We’re approaching 100,000 members on the platform. We primarily sell directly to employers who have a high concentration of Spanish speakers, but about 30% of our consults are done in English.

Our mission is to make healthcare more accessible and affordable for everybody. We are starting with the Hispanic population because they’re more receptive to speaking to a health coach that may be based in Mexico, and there’s an immediate need in terms of language gaps and cultural gaps. We think this near-shore model in healthcare can work for everybody.

How do patients get set up with MiSalud, and what services do you offer?

When we start with an employer, we’ll go [to their worksite] and do biometrics tests, blood draws, get people’s weight, get their BMI, and then put them in specific programs. If their goal is to lower their diabetes or if they have hypertension, they’re put into specific programs, then they meet with their health coach on a regular basis.

We have about 90% participation. If we go to a factory that has 1,000 employees, 900 will participate in the initial wellness fair. Of those, about 50% use the platform on a recurring basis.

MiSalud covers many different services, and in some cases it does step in as an alternative to a primary care provider (PCP). Sometimes we have to refer people out to go get labs done, to go get imaging, to potentially go see their PCP. We will also do some care navigation, especially if someone doesn’t understand what their insurance covers.

We’ve created our own healthcare copilots that sit alongside our health coaches and our physicians. They’re taking notes and summarizing what’s been said so it’s much faster to figure out what the person may need.

As the visits are happening, our copilots are making recommendations to the health coaches or the physicians, and when they disagree, they’ll very quickly say so, providing reinforcement learning to our AI. The goal is eventually to be able to release some of this functionality to our end users. One of the first versions of this that we’re going to be releasing is a nutrition app that’s been trained through the many thousands of nutrition consults and visits we’ve had across our platform, and that’s going to be released sometime in the near future.

What are your future goals for the company?

We want to continue to add more specialties. We’re adding women’s health and pediatrics. The key is going to be really personalizing the experience for everybody who logs in. If you have a universe of potential services that you can offer, you want to make sure that the services are being catered to the individual. We want to continue to invest in our AI agents so eventually we have a MiSalud agent that’s really monitoring and managing your health and brings in the specialist whenever they’re required.

Eventually we think there may be an opportunity for us to have clinical laboratories in places where we already have a high concentration of members, or maybe even start with our own hospitals and clinics on the other side of the border and start to build more of a holistic health system under the MiSalud brand.

A portrait of co-founder and CEO of MiSalud Health, Bismarck Lepe

How MiSalud Health tailors care to the Hispanic population 

The telehealth company offers a range of primary care and behavioral health services. 

Wondering who’s in and who’s out at major health companies, emerging startups, hospitals, and more? We’ve got you covered.

Have a job announcement to share? Drop Caroline an email at 

The CEO of Duke University Health System has stepped down and moved West to join Oakland, California-based Kaiser Permanente as president of integrated care and coverage, effective Sept. 29. Duke President Vincent Price announced earlier in the month a search has begun for his successor.

Period-tracking app Clue announced the ob-gyn and specialty-certified pediatric and adolescent gynecologist as its new chief medical officer on Sept. 24. In addition to her medical qualifications, she boasts 260,000+ followers on Instagram, where she’s known as “The Period Doctor.”

The former Harvard Medical School professor of medicine and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute medical oncologist is leading the National Cancer Institute, effective Sept. 29.

Alloy Health, a digital midlife women’s health care platform, announced Parker as chief technology officer in a Sept. 30 

 post. He comes to the position from digital health company Everlywell.

Nonprofit CareQuest Institute for Oral Health announced Rakes as its CEO Sept. 15. He previously served as chief growth officer for Centene and CEO of its Georgia-based subsidiary Peach State Health Plan. He will now help CareQuest in its mission to advocate for and advance dental care.

Remote cardiac monitoring platform company PaceMate announced Shoffstall as its inaugural head of AI, innovation, and data strategy on Sept. 16. He’s previously held executive positions at AI-focused companies Teradata and Beginly Health.

Amgen recruited the Genentech exec to become its VP of research and co-head of research biology, effective Sept. 29. She will oversee the biotech company’s therapeutic areas of oncology and immunology.

Pfizer’s former global president of oncology and rare diseases is now CEO of a new biotech, Intent Biologics, the company announced Sept. 9. The clinical-stage company focuses on developing exosome therapies for inflammation and immunology.

 CEO is leaving the role she’s held since 2017. Walmsley will step down from her position at GSK on Jan 1, and current chief commercial officer, Luke Miels, will replace her.

Healthcare Brew's August on Rotation editorial feature

On Rotation: September 2025

A nondefinitive list of moves from the nation’s healthcare leaders.

Nicole Ortiz

Dominique Wells, chief operating officer at Conduit Health Partners, a nurse-led organization that connects patients with health systems, began her career “with a mop and a bucket” as a hospital housekeeper, moved into various nursing roles, and eventually found herself in the C-suite.

Each of her roles, she told us, gave her “a deeper sense of empathy for the people who keep our system running.”

We spoke with Wells about her unique journey to the C-suite and the parts of her job that bring her the most joy.

How would you describe your specific job to someone who doesn’t work in healthcare?

I think a great analogy for my current position is that of mission control. While I may be powered differently than a spaceship, I have to speak the language of healthcare and navigate the evolving technology and regulatory landscape to make sure the mothership does not crash land. Central to all this activity is ensuring that our team of 200+ nurses who work remotely nationwide—along with sales, marketing, and administrative staff—is operating as a tight unit.

What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?

I have a deep passion for helping people. In my current role, I am able to combine my informatics background with my nursing experience to support nurses working at the top of their license.

Navigating healthcare today is challenging for everyone, and we’ve all experienced loved ones getting caught up in the complexities and, at times, falling through the cracks. I love that our nurses are there to fill in critical gaps and provide the comfort and reassurance that people desperately need when they are facing uncertainty. Nurses form the foundation of optimal care delivery, and I’m acutely focused on bringing nursing back to the center of the patient journey.

What healthcare trend are you most optimistic about?

, but for me, the concept of agentic nursing is particularly intriguing. I know a lot of people in nursing are worried about how AI is going to impact the profession, especially the human side of it. But I see agentic nursing as an opportunity to get nurses back to the bedside and in front of patients. If AI can address a lot of the administrative and documentation overload that nurses are currently burdened with, these professionals will be free to excel at what they were trained to do: care for patients.

What healthcare trend are you least optimistic about?

, healthcare has an incredible opportunity to continue building on the momentum we saw during the pandemic. That period sparked a surge of 

 and a strong commitment to improving care through innovation. Stakeholders showed a willingness to take risks, explore new ideas, and embrace change—all of which led to meaningful progress.

Tell us one new or old health tech product or platform that’s made your life easier.

This answer will probably get mixed reviews, but EHRs [

] have transformed the way healthcare is delivered. They have evolved over the years and seen their share of issues, but I remember the days of 

. Clinicians could spend half their day hunting down patient records—time that could have been spent more proactively getting ahead of patient care issues.

EHRs have provided the foundation for us to advance key industry initiatives in a way that would not have been possible before, ultimately impacting more lives for the better.

Cutout of a Conduit Health Partners's Dominique Wells placed inside an abstract shape.

How this COO is trying to take nursing ‘back to the center of the patient journey’

Conduit Health Partners’s Dominique Wells talks AI, EHRs, and more.

 The former US Surgeon General was appointed as a distinguished medical advisor at Eko Health, a San Francisco-based company specializing in AI-powered cardiac and pulmonary detection tech, the startup shared Aug. 19.

 Indiana health system Columbus Regional Health announced Aug. 21 its president and CEO was no longer with the company after less than five months in the role. The former president and CEO Jim Bickel returned from retirement to replace Baker on an interim basis.

Birmingham, Alabama-based urgent care franchise American Family Care announced Brister as its new chief marketing officer on Aug. 25. He’s previously worked in marketing positions with hair removal chain European Wax Center and medical spa Ideal Image, according to his LinkedIn.

Global mental health workplace platform Modern Health announced Cheng as its chief technology officer Aug. 12. Cheng was most recently SVP of engineering at Oscar Health, a health insurance company focused on 

Nucleus RadioPharma announced Hahn as its CEO on Aug. 20. The former FDA commissioner most recently worked as CEO-partner of venture capital (VC) firm Flagship Pioneering and CEO of Harbinger Health, a Flagship-backed biotechnology company focused on early cancer detection.

CMS’s former deputy chief medical officer (CMO) and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s former CMO is now chief outcomes officer at Paytient. The Missouri-headquartered healthcare payments company announced the appointment July 29.

 On Aug. 11, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Flagship Pioneering announced Singh as a new CEO-partner of Flagship and the new CEO of Harbinger Health. Singh is fresh off a nearly 15-year stint as managing director of VC firm Artiman Ventures, according to his LinkedIn. He replaces Harbinger’s previous CEO Stephen Hahn.

Blue Shield of California has made the interim CEO its permanent head, the company announced Aug. 26. Stuart had been in the position since March, replacing Lois Quam, who left after two months in the role earlier this year.

Trading his role as CEO of Texas’s Seton Medical Center Harker Heights Swindle is set to become CEO of Longview Regional Medical Center, another Texas hospital, effective Sept. 30, according to an Aug. 19 press release. He will be taking the position from interim CEO Brett Maxfield.

Headspace’s former chief clinical officer has taken the same role at personalized nutrition care provider Nourish, the company announced Aug. 9.