The HLTH 2024 conference kicked off Sunday, Oct. 20, in Las Vegas at the Venetian Expo Center, where all sorts of innovative companies from the healthcare industry will connect to share strategies, network and discuss their thoughts on the future. Speakers and presenters this year include leaders from Kaiser Permanente, Nvidia, Oracle, Walgreens and many more plus special appearances by Dr. Jill Biden, Halle Berry and Lenny Kravitz.
Follow here for updates throughout the day on the latest happenings from the conference.
Missed a day of the conference? Catch up here:
5:00 p.m. CT: Where health systems are heading with AI
Artificial intelligence continues to make headlines and dominates a lot of the discussions across the healthcare industry.
Vendors are certainly enthusiastic about the technology and its potential, which was apparent this week at the HLTH 2024 conference in Las Vegas.
But health system executives are more cautious about the hype of AI. They are trying to understand the risks, opportunities and processes needed to adopt the technology.
Read what executives at seven healthcare organizations said about where they stand with AI today.
4:25 p.m. CT: VCs share outlook for IPO, M&A markets
The largest contingent at HLTH after health tech vendors are finance professionals such as investors and bankers.
In particular, many venture capital investors attend the conference to converse with their portfolio companies, seek out new investments and make new deals. It’s been a whirlwind year for venture capital investors in digital health and many are waiting until after the 2024 elections to chart their next course.
Scott Barclay, managing partner at venture capital firm Insight Partners, is optimistic about the coming year. There will be more opportunities for companies to exit in 2025, he said, either through an initial public offering or an acquisition.
“We expect a political and an interest rate stabilization [and] we do think the IPO window reopens next year,” Barclay said. “You’ll see some of our companies go public.”
Despite his optimism, Barclay said the companies he’s most excited about in his firm’s portfolio don’t need to go public any time soon.
Andrew Adams, co-founder and managing partner of Oak HC/FT, said the IPO market is less relevant for his firm’s portfolio. But the company is active in the mergers and acquisition market, frequently helping its portfolio companies find buyers. In this regard, Adams is excited about the coming year as interest rates fall.
“We want acquirers to feel good about what they've acquired from us, and that pays itself forward,” Adams said. “Then people will know if they buy an Oak company, it’s going to work, scale and they’ll feel good about it.”
— Gabriel Perna
3:40 p.m. CT: HHS' Micky Tripathi lays out digital health strategy
The Department of Health and Human Services wants to make the best use of health data, Micky Tripathi, assistant secretary for technology policy and national coordinator for health information technology at HHS, said at HLTH’s Policy Summit on Wednesday.
He said HHS has four key priorities when it comes to technology: building a digital foundation, making interoperability easier, promoting information sharing and advancing responsible use.
In December, HHS rolled out enhanced data sets for the U.S. Core Data for Interoperability, a standardized set of data elements for sharing health information. The initiative, known as USCDI+, brought in new domains such as maternal health, behavioral health and cancer care.
Meanwhile, as of January 2025, electronic health records will be required to provide a “nutrition label” for more transparency on their AI-based technologies. HHS also plans to release a new AI strategy development plan in January.
“We’re doing a tremendous amount of work,” Tripathi said. “We are very bullish about the opportunities that AI is going to offer.”
— Caroline Hudson
2:00 p.m. CT: Telehealth companies defend compounded GLP-1s
Telehealth companies prescribing compounded versions of glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist drugs, or GLP-1s, didn’t back down at HLTH.
Shortages of branded GLP-1 medicines such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Ozempic have led to some telehealth companies such as Hims and Hers, Noom and Ro to offer compounded versions of these drugs. GLP-1s from compounding pharmacies use similar ingredients to some of the popular weight loss medications.
Some telehealth companies contend compounded GLP-s are questionable from a safety perspective and don’t prescribe them. At HLTH’s GLP-1 Summit, executives from both Hims and Noom defended their companies’ decision to go this route. In May, Hims and Hers started offering compounded GLP-1s for $199 per month, far less expensive than brand-name drugs.
“When we got into GLP-1s, we were very enthused about the ability to bring in compounded meds,” said Hims and Hers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Pat Carroll. “What we do is we actually personalize it. When something comes on our platform, we ask very specific questions. We [then] use machine learning and it suggests various pathways we use.”
The big pharmaceutical companies are pushing back on compounded GLP-1s. Novo Nordisk has asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban compounding pharmacies from making copies of their GLP-1s drugs. Eli Lilly has stated that compounded versions of their GLP-1 drugs have safety, sterility and efficacy problems.
Noom, which started offering brand-name GLP-1s in May 2023 and compounded GLP-1s in September for $149 per month, will continue to sell compounded drugs even in a post-shortage world, CEO Geoff Cook said at HLTH.
“There’s a desire to conflate compounded with fake,” Cook said. “There’s a disservice in painting compounding pharmacies as problematic. I think they’re uniquely suited to create personalized preventive care.”
— Gabriel Perna
12:25 p.m. CT: Biden administration announces funding for women's health
First Lady Jill Biden on Wednesday announced $110 million in awards from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health for 23 recipients to fund research in women’s health.
Recipients will study health conditions ranging from endometriosis to ovarian cancer.
“It seems like women’s bodies are considered miracles when we’re in our childbearing years and mysteries as we age,” Biden said in a keynote address at the HLTH conference. “I knew that this had to change.”
Among the funding recipients:
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which will receive $9.1 million to study brain disorders in women.
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, which will receive $3.3 million to develop at-home treatment for preterm labor.
- Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which will receive $3.3 million to help women achieve restorative sleep and reduce their risk of neurodegenerative disorders.
- Tufts University in Medford, Massachussets, which will receive $3 million to develop artificial intelligence tools to measure pain.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which will receive $3 million to develop personalized treatment for migraines in women.
The Biden administration launched the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research last November. Since then, the program has spurred nearly $1 billion in funding for women’s health studies, including recent announcements of $500 million from the Defense Department and $200 million from the National Institutes of Health.
A quarter of the recipients are pursuing projects that could be commercialized within two years.
“The potential in this space is too great to ignore,” Biden said.
— Caroline Hudson
11:00 a.m. CT: Epic to focus on growing AI capabilities in 2025
Electronic health record vendor Epic Systems will ramp up its artificial intelligence capabilities in 2025, one executive said at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas.
Mike Pontillo, implementation executive at Epic, said the company is looking at expanding AI use cases for its health system customers. It has developed AI for patient-clinician messaging but will expand into billing use cases such as automating claim denial appeals in the coming year, he said. Overall, the EHR vendor is focusing on how the technology can be applied to different areas of the healthcare system.
“It’s about trying to figure out what are the use cases that'll free people up to practice at the highest level either for their license or their role,” Pontillo said. “We don't necessarily need a nurse to call a patient and remind them about their colonoscopy. That’s something that could be automated.” Read more
— Gabriel Perna
10:00 a.m. CT: First Lady Jill Biden to kick off final day of festivities
The final day of HLTH will kick off with a bang as First Lady Jill Biden gives a keynote address on the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research. After Biden speaks, Carolyn Mazure, chair of the initiative, will speak about the project's goals with author Maria Shriver, Lucy Pérez of consulting firm McKinsey and Renee Wegrzyn of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. There will also be half-day summits on GLP-1s, aging, the future of health tech and tech policy. Micky Tripathi, assistant secretary for technology policy, will open the policy summit.
Day 3 recap
On Day 3 of HLTH, Amazon One Medical introduced a series of artificial intelligence tools to its clinicians aimed at reducing administrative burden. Former CMS administrators Seema Verma and Andy Slavitt spoke about the future of the Affordable Care Act, the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Chevron ruling on healthcare, and how Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump differ on Medicare. Leaders at health system investors TGH Ventures and UPMC Enterprises shared their outlook on what they’re looking for when investing in startups.