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Welcome to the 7 new subscribers who have joined Future Human since our last edition! Join 360 other leaders learning about the future of human health by subscribing here:

Hi friend,

Welcome back to Future Human! Anthropic just announced a new suite of AI legal tools that are throwing the legal world for a loop and thrashing tech stocks everywhere as we grapple again with the question: what is safe from AI anymore? Pretty soon, the options won’t be “doctor or lawyer” for children globally stressed out by their own parents. Doctor will be all that’s left, and even then you’ll need some serious surgical chops to safeguard yourself.

Obviously, I am exaggerating. This AI development is very exciting, but as industries adapt to the times, it will be fascinating to see how new generations choose career paths differently than decades ago. AI companies are not slowing down. It is up to us to stay educated and prepared for the future coming our way. With that, let’s get into the future of healthcare.

To more lives saved,

Andrew, Isabelle, and Nicholas

Maybe I spoke too soon about surgery being safe. Oath Surgical, an AI‑first outpatient surgery startup, has struck a strategic partnership with Nvidia to build out its AI operating system, OathOS. Now this tech is not doing the surgery, so you surgeons are safe, but it can still make life a lot easier by tracking your work and cataloging your records. The collaboration will layer Nvidia’s infrastructure into Oath’s platform to analyze surgical video, audio, and workflow data in real time, turning the operating room into a more efficient environment.

Emerging from stealth in 2025 and based in Portland, Oath owns and operates several outpatient surgical centers while partnering with a broader network of facilities nationally. Its goal is to capture and unify data from every part of the surgical journey — from scheduling and referral to billing, procedural execution, and outcomes — and then use AI to automate administrative tasks and generate detailed, real‑time insights for surgeons. In practice, this could reduce the time clinicians spend on documentation and give them data‑backed views of care performance and quality. Think, an AI report card after reviewing all of your work. Honestly, that sounds worse when I write it out, but I can see the value add.

The Nvidia integration will help advance ambient intelligence that analyzes inputs alongside traditional data sources. By embedding AI into surgical operations rather than layering it afterwards, Oath aims to create a continuous, longitudinal record of surgical performance that supports better decision‑making and elevates patient outcomes. They have definitely found a powerful partner for the job. Good luck to them!

Medtronic just showered us with some serious updates in the world of diabetes medicine that could make a serious impact in how many patients can get the care they need and via what device/mechanism. First, Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans will now cover the MiniMed 780G system when paired with Abbott’s Instinct continuous glucose sensor, a smaller, longer-wear sensor designed to make daily management less intrusive. For those who are diabetic, know someone who is, or treat diabetic patients, you know that coverage has long been a gating factor for adoption of automated insulin delivery, especially among older adults and patients on fixed incomes. This incredible tech works and keeps patient levels more consistent for longer, but they are certainly not cheap. Broader federal reimbursement is turning this into something closer to standard care.

Second, the FDA also cleared the use of ultra rapid-acting insulins, including Fiasp and Lyumjev, with the 780G system. The insulin we currently use, although effective, takes time to move out of the subcutaneous region and have its systemic effects. In the hospital, we frequently provide insulin doses 15-30 minutes before meals so patients are dosed properly as their blood sugar begins to rise. Faster insulins more closely mirror the body’s natural response to meals, and when combined with the system’s automated dosing and meal detection features, they can reduce the constant mental math of timing insulin around food. In practical terms, this is about shrinking the gap between physiology and software.

Finally, Medtronic received clearance to expand use of the 780G system with the Instinct sensor to people with insulin-requiring type 2 diabetes. This tech has historically centered on type 1 patients. Of the 800+ million diabetes patients worldwide, however, 90% are type 2. We have for a long time been barred from treating the vast majority of patients. Now appear to be clearing the road. Onward.

Here in the US, for those following AI-enabled physical therapy, you’ll recognize names like Sword Health and Hinge Health, the two biggest teams in the space. Outside of the country, however, many more teams are working to provide PT care remotely to patients worldwide. Sword Health has been paying attention.

Sword Health has agreed to acquire Kaia Health, giving Sword a meaningful foothold in Germany’s reimbursed digital health system, one of the more mature pathways for software-based therapies in Europe. Kaia is best known for its digital therapeutics platform focused on MSK and pulmonary care, using machine-learning–driven programs to deliver guided exercises and pain management through smartphones. The company has distribution in the U.S. through employers and health plans, but the more interesting angle for Sword may be geographic. By bringing Kaia into the fold, Sword gains exposure to Germany. The country remains a rare example of large-scale, system-level adoption of prescription digital therapeutics. That market has historically been difficult for U.S. startups to crack without a local presence.

Under the acquisition, Sword will transition U.S. members onto its AI Care platform. The logic from there is straightforward: consolidate overlapping offerings, improve engagement and outcomes through a unified platform, and strengthen competitive positioning in an increasingly crowded digital MSK market. With Hinge Health IPO-ing last year, Sword is racing to keep up and expand. Seems they found one of their solutions in Kaia.

Pain control is getting a shakeup. The FDA has approved a first-in-class, non-opioid oral medication for the treatment of moderate to severe acute pain in adults, marking the first approval of its kind in more than two decades. The drug, suzetrigine, created by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, targets a specific sodium channel involved in transmitting pain signals in peripheral nerves. Instead of acting in the brain or on opioid receptors, it works upstream—blocking pain signals before they reach the central nervous system. That distinction matters, because it means the therapy does not carry the addiction risk profile that has defined opioids for decades.

Opioid addiction remains a massive public health challenge both in the United States and globally. In the U.S., more than 9 million people misused opioids in the past year and over 5 million live with opioid use disorder, while tens of thousands die annually from opioid-involved overdoses. Globally, opioid use disorder affected more than 16 million people with nearly 100,000 deaths recorded in 2021. It remains a growing burden that we are struggling to get a grip on.

Acute pain—from surgery, injury, or other short-term tissue damage—has long forced clinicians into a tradeoff between effectiveness and safety. Non-opioid options can fall short for severe pain, while opioids remain highly effective but come with well-known risks of dependence. Suzetrigine opens a third path: potent analgesia without engaging the pathways that drive addiction. In large randomized clinical trials, the drug significantly reduced pain compared with placebo in surgical pain models, with a safety profile regulators deemed acceptable. Reported side effects included itching, muscle spasms, rash, and elevated creatine phosphokinase levels, but overall tolerability was favorable for short-term use.

Pain management may finally be entering a post-opioid innovation era. If successful, this drug could absolutely catalyze further investment in non-opioid analgesics and reshape how clinicians think about treating pain.

Tim Cook may not sleep soundly tonight. Someone is coming for their medical lunch. Samsung is teasing a major leap in wearable health tech: non-invasive continuous glucose monitoring built into future Galaxy devices. Executives have publicly confirmed that Samsung is actively working on optical, sensor-based systems that could one day track blood sugar without finger pricks or implanted sensors. This has long been viewed as the “holy grail” of wearable health. This positions Samsung in direct competition with Apple racing toward the same breakthrough. It would seriously be a seismic shift in how people manage diabetes and metabolic health.

The technology Samsung is exploring, to my understanding, would rely on optical/spectroscopy techniques, measuring glucose levels through the skin using light and AI interpretation. There is no timeline yet, but they have tied glucose sensing efforts to broader ambitions for preventive, real-time health monitoring on devices like the Galaxy Watch and potentially a Galaxy Ring. No commercial announcements have come out so let’s hold our horses for now. We can still can get excited though. Competition certainly breeds better products and faster timelines.

Non-invasive glucose monitoring in a consumer wearable could expand access to metabolic data for millions living with diabetes, prediabetes, or anyone interested in metabolic health. For now, we remain still in development and likely years away from clearance, but the progress signals a shift in how wearable tech could become a tool for everyday medical insight. Let’s see how they compete.

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