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Hi friend,

Welcome back to Future Human! We hope you have all been enjoying the JPM Healthcare announcements streaming out of San Francisco. We too have been digesting it all, writing on LinkedIn, and selecting key headlines for the newsletter. Sorry this one was a bit delayed this week. Just had to get some interviews done for upcoming Workups so we pushed this letter back, but here it is. The top five healthtech headlines from the last week! A nice variety of JPM news and outside announcements.

To more lives saved,

Andrew, Nicholas, and Isabelle

OpenAI is taking a page out of big pharma’s play book. When you are getting too big to innovate fast enough, just buy the little guy who is. Sam Altman’s team is pushing ahead further into healthcare by scooping up Torch, a less than two year old startup working to bring together disparate medical information from various sources to serve as the memory for an AI engine. The small team first met at Forward Health, which if you remember was an AI-powered doctor’s office that did raise $400M but eventually shut down in 2024.

Founder Ilya Abyzov quickly pivoted to the data side of AI development, but remained in healthcare. The only four person engineering team moved fast over a little more than a year and quickly became an attractive acquisition for big names looking to move faster in medicine. The offer was reported to be ~$60M. With the recent launch of ChatGPT Health, a feature which allows users to link their medical records and get AI interpretation, the accumulation of more data is now critical. It may seem like of all teams, OpenAI would have access to easy data, but healthcare remains heavily siloed and guarded. Specialized work is required to unlock most of the layers leading to patient data, a task Torch has been exclusively working on. Data continues to reign supreme in the AI space. As OpenAI moves from fun chatbot to serious agent, healthcare stands as the ultimate frontier. It is uniquely suited for agents as there is significant cognitive load across patients and providers, massive inefficiency, significant economic value per decision, and ultimately regulatory moats that this sort of acquisition helps the team circumvent. Congratulations to the Torch team.

I frankly wasn’t sure if this was a worthwhile story out of JPM, as it is really just a big branding/narrative move, but I believe it is a sign of a broader market effort that should be explored. OpenEvidence’s attempt to label their new healthcare AI as “medical super-intelligence” does not reflect a technical leap, but in our opinion it reflects a wider sprint to escape the “ChatGPT for X” storyline. At JPM, OpenEvidence did not shy away from how clinicians prefer their product over others and how its peer reviewed training allows it to stand alone in a competitive market. It is not ChatGPT for medicine, but an artificial intelligence of a different caliber.

Clinicians are using their clinical evidence chatbot tens of millions of times, and queries exploded over the past year — from ~2.6M in 2024 to ~17.9M in Dec 2025 (and over 100M total). If you have been following them in the last few days, you know they also raised at double their last valuation, spiking to $12B on just $100M ARR. A x120 multiple? Sounds legit. Well they may eventually suffer from multiple contraction, but for the time being it supports the theory that they may just be the first medical AI product to be escaping the “ChatGPT for X” label, building an entirely new sector for themselves to dominate. Whatever happens next, OpenEvidence is uniquely capitalizing on the recent hype, branding accordingly, and raising insane amounts while they can. Good on them.

We recently read about a separate pharma acquisition where the author titled it a “bold-on” purchase and I loved it. Really summarizes what I have been trying to highlight on LinkedIn and here as big pharma sidesteps inhouse innovation in favor of buying nearly readymade products to bolster their pipeline. In this $2.2B deal, the centerpiece is RAPT’s lead experimental drug ozureprubart — a long-acting anti-IgE monoclonal antibody designed to prevent severe food allergy reactions. It’s currently in Phase 2b clinical development. Why is GSK so hungry for a novel immuno product?

GSK’s existing blockbuster HIV drug (dolutegravir) is approaching patent expiration. As of the fourth quarter of 2025, the drug was bringing in $7.5B, representing 74% of their HIV sales as a company. They are now chasing new assets to replace that soon to be revenue gap. In the anti-IgE space, the current leader is Xolair (Novartis/Roche). Oazureprubart aims to compete by offering less frequent dosing — roughly once every 12 weeks, compared with every 2–4 weeks for existing therapies.

So far, this “bolt-on” strategy has served pharma well. Buying assets with clinical data already in later stages (Phase 2/Phase 3) rather than very early research projects has provided them less risk and clearer valuation mechanics. With food allergies affecting 220 million people globally, it is clear why GSK aims to secure a bigger slice from the growing market.

The cardiovascular (CV) medical device market just keeps chugging away. I recently read J&J’s 2025 wrap-up where they highlighted that their CV arm grew 15.5% while orthopedics only expanded by 1.1%. It appears the hardware companies are seeing the same thing as Boston Scientific is buying Penumbra to dramatically expand its footprint in cardiovascular and neurovascular care. Penumbra offers mechanical thrombectomy and embolization devices — tools used to remove blood clots that cause strokes, pulmonary embolisms, and other life-threatening vascular problems.

Before this deal, Boston Scientific was strong in cardiovascular therapies broadly but lacked the same scale in thrombectomy and specialized neurovascular interventions that Penumbra has built. Adding Penumbra gives BSX not just incremental products, but a platform business in fast-growing procedural markets. Penumbra has shown ~20% revenue growth in most of its previous quarters and achieved $1.4 billion in 2025 revenue. The interventional/minimally invasive market continues to show itself as the future of medicine and big names have been noticing. If you are building a sector defining catheter-based device, expect a call soon from Big Device. Congratulations to Penumbra for advancing the vascular space and being recognized on the biggest stage.

If you are a fan of Whoop or OURA, you have perhaps heard about the recent FDA barriers (specifically for Whoop) with offering user vitals in a non-medical context. I have seen the Whoop CEO go to bat on LinkedIn weekly about how their blood pressure measurement is not diagnostic and therefore should be allowed to stay. It appears they have secured a major win.

The FDA’s updated guidance clarifies how the agency interprets its regulatory authority over products — especially software and wearables — that promote general health without diagnosing, treating, or preventing disease. Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the 21st Century Cures Act, software intended solely for maintaining or encouraging a healthy lifestyle are not considered medical devices as long as they avoid disease-specific claims and pose low risk. That means they typically won’t be subject to the usual premarket review and regulatory controls that apply to medical devices.

What I learned from the Whoop CEO’s posts is that what determines oversight isn’t just the tech itself, but how it’s marketed and intended to be used. This distinction gives developers clearer regulatory boundaries for consumer health tools while reinforcing that tools crossing into clinical diagnosis or treatment realms still fall under FDA device regulation. So your tech can do a lot, but how you advertise it will be scrutinized. If Whoop’s BP reading just tells you it is out of range or puts you at risk for general disease states, they should be safe. This guidance should help both industry and researchers understand when a health app or wearable can stay in the “wellness” lane and avoid the full weight of medical device regulation, which can reduce barriers to innovation.

We hope you enjoyed this edition of Vitals!

We always appreciate feedback, questions, and conversation, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or by replying to this email.

To more lives saved,,

Andrew, Nicholas, and Isabelle