Spotlight Series: Health
Health systems globally are in different stages of broken. In the UK 7.2m people are currently waiting for non-urgent care. 400k of them have been waiting over a year. The average waiting time for an ambulance after a severe ‘category 2’ incident such as a stroke or chest pain has increased from 15 minutes in 2020 to 90 minutes in 2023. In the US almost 30m people are uninsured by either public or private programs. Even some of the systems typically viewed as leaders are struggling – in both Germany and Switzerland there are fewer free intensive care beds than at most points during the pandemic.
Undoubtedly the shadow of the pandemic where resources were diverted to fighting Covid is partly responsible for some of the challenges we observe in 2023, but systems were already creaking prior to the pandemic. One could write several PhDs on the travails of healthcare systems globally – but it is clear that changing age demographics is fundamentally changing demand dynamics in most if not all developed countries. Over the last 5 years or so the share of population of working age has fallen in every single OECD country. It goes without saying that this brings a double jeopardy – elderly populations need more healthcare, but have fewer people to pay for it either through their taxes or any other system. The Health Foundation found that in England now 1 in 6 people are living with a major illness (e.g. cancer, diabetes, kidney failure), and this is expected to rise to 1 in 5 by 2040
This is just one structural problem facing healthcare provision globally – there are no shortage of others. The Conduit Connect is not unique in its view that in order for healthcare systems to adapt and provide quality provision over the next 10-50 years there needs to be a fundamental shift in the thinking surrounding how healthcare systems interact with people surrounding their health. We can have arguments about how much money should be spent on health (and to be clear – this author certainly thinks the UK needs to spend more!) but we are not going to indefinitely spend our way out of a structural change.
That is not to say that we are not focussed on novel technologies moving treatment and diagnosis of conditions forward – of course we are – businesses with the potential to save and improve peoples lives will always be in scope. These are our priority areas as we think they are the places that we can fix a broken system.
Areas we will be focusing on in the next 12 months:
Technologies and businesses focusing on prevention instead of cure:
Encompassing businesses far removed from traditional healthtech, such as provision low cost nutritious food. Focusing on a long term shift towards populations with lower levels of obesity, smoking, alcohol and other drug use; and higher levels of exercise and healthy eating develop fewer chronic and severe illnesses, both in terms of physical and mental health. As this shift seems increasingly inevitable – the Conduit Connect believes businesses positioning themselves at the forefront of this shift stand to be able to scale rapidly and produce outsize returns for investors.
Technologies reducing the cost of care:
These could be virtual wards (allowing people to be treated at home), technologies to reduce reliance on healthcare workers for certain tasks, or simply businesses taking advantage of technological advancements to create existing technologies at significantly lower cost
Conduit Connect Portfolio Companies focusing on Health & Wellbeing
Béa fertility: Another demographic change in the developed countries is the desire to have children later. The average age of a mother when giving birth the their first child has increased from 25.5 in 1990 to 29.1 in 2020 – a huge shift in a generation, and part of a trend which started in the early 70s when the average age was under 24. Partly as a result of this change we have seen a huge increase in the use of fertility services across the developed world. In the UK IVF treatments increased by 10% just between 2019 and 2021. However - fertility services are expensive, often £5k for just one round.
Béa fertility is not an alternative to IVF – it is a business allowing women to do intracervical insemination ICI at home, in and affordable and safe manner. ICI is a success rate of nearly 50% after 6 cycleshugely impactful in a world in which 1 in 6 couples struggle with fertility issues.
Amlo: Conduit Connect company Amlo is able to test early stage melanoma patients to determine their risk or recurrence and progression – thereby directing scarce resources to patients at high risk of progression.
mom: mOm is a business the Conduit Connect has been working with for over 4 years. It fills us with almost indescribable joy and pride that this year not only has the company achieved full regulatory approval for its low cost and mobile incubator for pre-term babies, but it has also deployed across Ukraine, saving approximately 2,000 lives of vulnerable babies.
Each machine saves about 2 lives per week.
KHP Ventures: We are delighted to have partnered with KHP Ventures which is a collaboration between King’s College London, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. KHP is launching a fund backed by Wellcome to invest in mental health businesses in the UK.
Written by Alex Shapiro and Nina Thorn