What it takes to keep up with the digital health boom

Hello,

Welcome to Insider Healthcare. I'm Lydia Ramsey Pflanzer, and this week in healthcare news:

• We covered how everyone from startups to lawyers to bankers are confronting the digital health boom;
• We took a closer look at the costs of inequity in healthcare;
• We rounded up the best-funded women's health startups in 2021.

If you're new to this newsletter, sign up here. Tips, comments? Email me at lramsey@insider.com or tweet @lydiaramsey125. Let's get to it...

We'll be off next Monday for the holiday! Hope you all have a great weekend, and we'll see you again on Tuesday.

Keeping up with the digital health boom

Dealmaking is heating up in healthcare.

Case in point: Ro on Wednesday made its third acquisition in the last year, buying at-home diagnostics startup Kit.

Megan Hernbroth spoke to some of the folks involved in inking digital health deals. They've been working overtime amid the boom - pulling all-nighters and working seven days a week.

The boom has led to a new crop of healthcare startups.

With the help of the VC team here at Insider, we pulled together a list of 23 of the most promising healthcare startups of 2021.

Read the full list here>>

Blake Dodge meanwhile has spent the past few weeks searching out the bankers that every digital health company should know.

They shared with her predictions for the future of the industry.

Meet digital health's go-to bankers>>

12 top bankers break down how tech is driving record deals and the next generation of giants

The cost of inequity

Over the last few months, the Insider newsroom has been busy reporting on a series that quantifies the cost of inequity in the US.

The healthcare team contributed some articles:

• Blake tallied up how the the cost of COVID-19 is worse for some families.
• Shelby and Andrew found that gender inequality at the biopharma CEO level is costing women more than $500 million in pay.
• Allison and Megan highlighted the barriers trans Americans face when seeking healthcare.
• ... and Kelly found that the US spends at least $225 billion on mental illness each year in a broken system with no clear-cut solutions.

Find the whole project here>>

How inequity persists in America

What's fueling women's-health startups

It's Patricia Kelly Yeo's last week with us here on Insider's healthcare team! In her final few weeks, she went deep on what's happening in women's health.

On the heels of Ro's announced deal to buy Modern Fertility, we started wondering what the future of women's health looks like: Is it possible to grow a startup focused on something like fertility, or contraception? Or is the fate ultimately to become an acquisition target?

Kelly spoke to experts in the field to understand how women's-health startups could benefit from all the dealmaking.

Meanwhile, Kindbody last Friday raised $62 million, valuing the fertility clinic startup at $612 million.

That puts Kindbody as one of the top-funded women's-health startups.

Get the full list here>>

From birth-control delivery to online pregnancy care, here are the 9 highest-funded women's-health startups

More stories we covered this week:

• Shelby dug into why companies are ditching massive drug-industry middlemen in favor of smaller upstarts.
• She also covered Aspire founder Brad Smith's latest venture: a startup focused on fixing rural healthcare.

- Lydia