Holy Kleenex, Batman! It was right under our nose and we blew it. On this day in 1966, the live-action TV series Batman premiered on ABC and was a huge hit. I was thinking about Batman because he was known for super-cool gadgets and I just spent three days at CES (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas surrounded by super-cool gadgets. Plus, Batman was active at night, and so is everyone visiting Las Vegas. Of course, there was plenty of tech featured at the conference that help people get some sleep. I probably should have invested. Instead, I will share some takeaways from CES in the One Thoughtful Paragraph below.
The other news this week was from the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference:
- Nvidia hosted a popular session of the event, announcing that it is building a supercomputer for Amgen and expanding its partnership with Recursion Pharmaceuticals to help speed up drug development.
- The Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) announced a new non-profit organization that will create a network of labs, called AI Assurance Labs, that will certify and register AI models in healthcare.
- An astonishing number of medtech gadgets were announced, including those from Dexcom, Abbott, Butterfly Network, Medtronic, and Shockwave.
In season one of the old Batman television series, Batman is about to capture a magician after she stole some jewelry, but she escapes – leading Robin to say, “holy hole in a donut!” America’s love of donuts may be one reason why the Noom app and GLP-1 weight loss drugs are so popular. At CES, I moderated a discussion with Noom’s Chief of Medicine, Dr. Linda Anegawa, who announced a new Noom feature — the GLP-1 Companion — which will integrate with the PBM prior authorization process and offer fitness-focused lessons designed to prevent GLP-1-associated sarcopenia. The panel also featured Dr. Arthur Evans, the CEO of the American Psychological Association, which advises the FDA on how the government and industry can work together to allow tech to be part of the solution for mental health issues. Many other useful digital health discussions were featured at CES, including the keynote session with Gail Boudreaux, who told a jam-packed ballroom just how much Elevance Health is relying on data to serve its 117 million consumers. The CES Digital Health Summit was so impressive that we may start saying “Holy Las Vegas, Batman!” (Robin actually said that, see #35).
