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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">Health Tech | Fierce Healthcare</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/carrot-launches-proprietary-ai-platform-personalized-fertility-family-care" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Carrot launches AI platform for personalized care</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 16th 2026, 13:45</div>
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<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.026178010471204" morss_score="37.41187405133966">
<p>Global fertility and family care platform <a href="https://www.get-carrot.com/company">Carrot</a> has launched an artificial intelligence-powered platform to provide members with personalized, context-driven care decisions. </p>
<p>The tool, dubbed Carrot Intelligence, is built on the company’s dataset, which is the “largest proprietary clinical dataset in the category” and spans 195 countries, according to the announcement. The company has “meticulously and diligently” collected the vast amount of data since its launch nearly a decade ago, Carrot CEO and Founder Tammy Sun told Fierce Healthcare in an exclusive interview.</p>
<p>Work on the platform has been underway for several years, according to Sun, with the platform's focus on “to connect the dots” for clinical teams, members and customers alike. Carrot has <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/carrot-teams-blueberry-pediatrics-demand-telehealth-access">more than 1,200 customers</a>, ranging from small and midsized to Fortune 10 companies, as well as payers like <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/cignas-global-health-benefits-unit-taps-carrot-fertility-offering">Cigna</a> and <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/blue-cross-blue-shield-global-solutions-launches-fertility-benefit-carrot">Blue Cross Blue Shield Global Solutions</a>.</p>
<p>“The context of care really matters, because if you don't understand the context, you actually can't optimally help the person achieve the best outcome,” Sun said. “And so that's what Carrot Intelligence does.”</p>
<p>Carrot Intelligence aims to shape how guidance is delivered by the platform’s clinical care team, including through earlier in-vitro fertilization (IVF) interventions. The platform has powered several recent AI-powered initiatives from the company, including its metabolic health program, <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/carrot-presents-ai-powered-metabolic-fertility-research-at-national-conference-on-womens-health-hosted-by-the-us-department-of-health-and-human-services-302718003.html">Sprints</a> and <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/carrot-launches-ai-powered-global-price-monitoring-system-to-detect-fraud-in-fertility-care-worldwide-302723978.html?tc=eml_cleartime">Global Price Monitoring System</a>. </p>
<p>The platform, including its guidance framework and AI-surfaced insights, is defined by the company’s clinical team to “ensure the system gets smarter with every member served,” the announcement said. </p>
<p>Carrot plans to expand the platform’s capabilities to include treatment pathway optimization, care navigation, predictive analytics and more. </p>
<p>Sun said there has “largely been a one-cycle-fits-all” approach to fertility and family care over the last decade, which AI is changing by moving the industry into an era of “hyper-personalized healthcare.”</p>
<p>“[AI’s] opportunity is really making sure that every person gets the best care, specifically for them,” Sun said. “Not people like them, not people who live in the same zip code, or not people who are of generally the same age, but specifically for you.” </p>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/seqster-launches-new-clinical-site-data-tool-names-bioivt-deployment-partner" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Seqster launches end-to-end clinical site data tool</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 16th 2026, 13:45</div>
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<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.610921501706485" morss_score="60.46534010635765">
<p>Health technology company Seqster announced Thursday the launch of its new 1-Click Sites platform, tapping BioIVT as its first deployment partner.</p>
<p>The tool allows clinical sites to share patient-consented electronic health record (EHR) data with clinical trial sponsors. Each site or network using the platform receives its own FDA 21 CFR Part 11-compliant study portal, with Seqster managing data aggregation, automated eligibility screening and continuous monitoring. Organizations' sites can use the platform as full research locations or strategic referral centers, according to the announcement.</p>
<p>The launch “eliminates the barriers” for systems trying to get involved with clinical research, Ardy Arianpour, Seqster CEO and co-founder, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview.</p>
<p>“Clinical research really depends on understanding the whole patient journey,” Arianpour said. “The traditional sites enablement approach required months of IT setup, custom EHR integrations on the interoperability side, … contracts and significant capital investment. We have completely cut that with our platform.”</p>
<p>Arianpour said the company's better results are not just based on how fast it can bring longitudinal health data, but how quickly it can “launch an end-to-end solution” to turn clinical sites into “research-ready data collection points.”</p>
<p>The 1-Click Sites platform allows organizations to access data sharing “in a matter of days,” according to the announcement. </p>
<p>“We are connecting the dots of not just data, but we're connecting the dots of the patient, plus the recruitment and the site activation in a way that is seamless for both the researchers and for the patients,” Arianpour said. </p>
<p>Upon scaling the platform at BioIVT, Arianpour said one of the goals of the partnership is to utilize data for drug discovery and development. “We have a fuller picture on the patient when we have their bio specimen data,” Arianpour said.</p>
<p>BioIVT Vice President of Corporate Development Jake Maxwell said in the announcement that the technology allows better tracking of lab results and outcomes throughout the treatment spectrum to “deliver deeper insights into how therapies perform in the real world.”</p>
<p>"Together with SEQSTER, we look forward to empowering drug development with more complete, connected patient data that drives better, more informed decisions,” Maxwell said.</p>
<p>Launched in 2016, the <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/seqster-clinches-funding-from-takeda-23andme-s-anne-wojcicki-to-help-patients-collect-their">health tech startup</a> develops tools to access longitudinal and comprehensive healthcare data in real time, both at a patient level and at scale. This includes EHRs, pharmacy data, lab data, genomic data (DNA), fitness wearables data and social determinants of health (SDOH) information. </p>
<p>“The whole premise was putting the patient at the center of healthcare,” Arianpour said. </p>
<p>In March, Seqster also <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260305150322/en/SEQSTER-Launches-1-Click-DataLake-to-Accelerate-Clinical-Trial-Design-Recruitment-and-Evidence-Generation">launched</a> its 1-Click DataLake, a real-world data platform aimed at accelerating study design, recruitment and evidence generation. It includes data from more than 150 million de-identified patients and 200,000 clinicians across the U.S. </p>
<p>Arianpour said the launch of 1-Click Sites completes the company’s “<a href="https://seqster.com/platforms/#tab-4358ece4cf38406be9b">five core products</a>” for healthcare and life sciences. </p>
<p>“That's what's really exciting,” Arianpour said. “And [the products] all work off one another, because you have to be able to pull the data in order to deploy a platform for 1-Click Sites. And if we didn't build these specific tools to standardize and harmonize data on the back end, then there's no way that this would be possible with such a premier company in the space.” </p>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/dime-led-initiative-brings-together-pharma-virtual-providers-digital-pharmacies-develop" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">DiMe leads effort to create standards for cash-pay drug models</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 16th 2026, 13:45</div>
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<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.745251396648045" morss_score="124.15308710001545">
<p>More pharma companies are launching direct-to-consumer drug platforms and the rise of these self-pay services could improve access to medicines but also raise concerns about oversight and accountability.</p>
<p>The Digital Medicine Society is leading a cross-sector effort, in partnership with pharma companies, virtual-first providers and digital pharmacies, to establish a scalable blueprint for direct-to-patient pharma models as the market continues to evolve.</p>
<p>As Big Pharmas increasingly roll out platforms for direct-to-consumer drug sales, most offering steep discounts on popular medications, many patients are open to using the new services, Fierce Pharma Marketing <a href="https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/three-quarters-consumers-are-interested-dtc-drug-sales-even-more-still-have-concerns">reported.</a> Three-quarters of U.S. consumers are “somewhat” or “very” likely to use DTC drug sale services, a survey found.</p>
<p>Eli Lilly launched LillyDirect in January 2024 and in the past two years the number of drugmakers looking to sell their products directly to consumers continues to grow. TrumpRx, a drug discount platform, launched earlier this year while last month Johnson & Johnson launched a website to sell some of its drugs directly to U.S. patients. Women's health provider Maven Clinic and other virtual-first care providers have signaled direct-to-patient as a priority area for expansion, while digital pharmacies and integrated virtual prescribing models continue to scale.</p>
<p>Pharmaceutical companies are facing significant downward pricing pressure while, at the same time, consumerism is a growing trend in healthcare, which marks a timely opportunity to build trusted pathways to scale direct-to-patient models responsibly, according to Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of DiMe, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing digital health technologies.</p>
<p>“Direct-to-patient models are already reshaping how patients access care, particularly in therapeutic areas where demand has outpaced the capacity of traditional brick-and-mortar approaches,” Goldsack said. </p>
<p>The DiMe-led initiative, called Optimizing Direct-to-Patient (DTP) Strategies for Pharma, will focus on establishing an operational, regulatory and evidence-based foundation to ensure DTP models "operate safely, consistently and in a way that earns trust," Goldsack said.</p>
<p>"Pharma is going to have to figure out how they continue to get patients access to their drugs at prices that they can afford if they are going to continue capturing revenue to be able to reinvest in R&D, and we are very motivated to make sure we continue to develop new medicines. At DiMe, we are also very motivated to make sure that every patient who could benefit from access to a treatment that can improve their life is able to do that," Goldsack said in an exclusive interview with Fierce Healthcare about the new initiative.</p>
<p>The new initiative currently involves four leading pharma companies, with plans to add more. Founding partner companies involved in the initiative include Coalesce Health, DistributeRx, Fullspan Health, Health Advances, Phil, Inc., S3 Connected Health, Welldoc, Wheel and Ypsomed.</p>
<p>Cash-pay pathways for drugs have expanded rapidly in response to access constraints, pricing complexity and unmet demand particularly in high-demand areas like GLP-1 therapies.</p>
<p>"Patients themselves are increasingly turning towards virtual pathways in order to access the care they need," Goldsack said. "In an era of policy tailwinds, downward pricing pressure on drugs and in an era where patients are telling us that they enjoy accessing care in a timely fashion and being provided not just with a prescription, but with a complete solution with that prescription arriving on their doorstep and then ongoing support as they take that prescription, we believe that DTP pharma pathways are not just an opportunity for cash-pay for GLP-1s, but it is actually going to emerge as a true care pathway that is going to improve value to patients, improve access to patients and be able to sustain pharma to continue investing in R&D."</p>
<p>She added, "If we believe that that's the case, we need to make sure that the way this care pathway is established is trustworthy and accessible to everyone, delivers value to the entire market, with clear roles and responsibilities for the different stakeholders, all the way from expert clinical providers down to the provision of the medication at the best price for the patient."</p>
<p>Done well, direct-to-patient models have the potential to expand access to the treatments patients need at prices they can afford, while strengthening trust in how care is delivered, Goldsack said.</p>
<p>The DTP pharma initiative will map the market, regulatory and policy landscape and translate it into clear, actionable guidance to support teams operationalizing self-pay models. It will also define how to measure patient access and affordability, enabling more transparent and equitable approaches to care, according to Goldsack.</p>
<p>The coalition also will focus on a structured approach to assessing the appropriateness of direct-to-patient models, grounded in regulatory readiness, patient benefit and commercial viability. And the project will highlight examples of both successful and cautionary approaches to scaling DTP models, with a focus on what drives access, affordability and trust in practice.</p>
<p>These efforts will help to "de-risk" DTP pharma pathways as a new care model, Goldsack noted.</p>
<p>As direct-to-patient models grow, there is wide variability in clinical oversight and independence, marketing practices and patient transparency and alignment across prescribing, fulfillment and follow-up care, according to Goldsack. Cash-pay pathways are developing quickly without a clear, system-level framework to support it, she asserts.</p>
<p>Some fast-scaling DTP models are facing increased regulatory and legal scrutiny for their business practices. The Food and Drug Administration has sent warning letters to telehealth companies for making false or misleading claims regarding compounded GLP-1 products offered on their websites. In February, FDA issued a <a href="https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning-letters/medvi-llc-dba-medvi-721455-02202026#:~:text=MEDVi:%20This%20letter%20is%20to%20advise%20you,reviewed%20your%20website%20content%20at%20the%20internet">warning letter</a> to fast-growing telehealth company Medvi for alleging violating federal regulations regarding the marketing of compounded drug products. There's also a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/pageoneplus/editors-note-april-11-2026.html">pending class action lawsuit </a>accusing Medvi of violating California’s anti-spam law.</p>
<p>The DiMe-led initiative has concrete objectives to "tame the Wild West before it becomes the Wild West," noted Anand Iyer, chief AI officer at Welldoc, a digital cardiometabolic solution that is a founding partner of the initiative.</p>
<p>The initiative is designed to align stakeholders across clinical care, prescribing, fulfillment, patient services and patient engagement. Once the framework has been established, cross-sector partners then can begin to build on these efforts to advance the market, Iyer noted.</p>
<p>"You can start to build tools that could be used by the stakeholders who are participating, for example, building ROI tools or building readiness matrices," he said in an interview.</p>
<p>Welldoc, which has received 11 510(k) clearances from the FDA for its diabetes digital health solution, brings regulatory and clinical expertise to these cross-sector efforts, he said.</p>
<p>"Our total health approach, using AI to help manage these multiple chronic conditions, is built on the rigor and expertise that one would need to fuel this forward direction in DTP," he said.</p>
<p>Wheel, another founding partner, is a virtual care technology and services company that has helped to stand up telehealth platforms for nearly a decade, working with digital health companies, pharmacies, health plans and pharma companies.</p>
<p>"There's a lot of experimentation in direct-to-patient, but there hasn't really been a solid, clear path forward for this is what works across a wide range of therapies, so we're excited to help shape that future," Michelle Monaco, chief product officer at Wheel, said in an interview with Fierce Healthcare.</p>
<p>"There's a lack of cohesion, and for us to solve the gaps of care that exist, it really is going to require the whole ecosystem. The challenge isn't getting the patient to have a drug prescribed, it's actually making it work in their life. There are the education and the awareness programs that pharma is really good at that today and there are people working really hard on access and affordability. There are other players working on convenience, and this is bringing it all together and trying to do it in a way that is deeply compliant. It has to be safe. It has to be thinking about improving outcomes over time, not just how do we prescribe and then move on," Monaco noted.</p>
<p>Consumers expect faster, simpler ways to get treatment, and that shift isn’t slowing down, noted Michelle Davey, CEO of Wheel in a statement. "But building for access is different from building for the full patient journey. To do that well, you need clear standards, clinical independence, and accountability from the start. That’s what will define which models actually last, and this initiative is an important step in getting there," Davey said.</p>
<p>"A well-designed DTP program transforms the prescription access experience from a transaction into a relationship," Josh Zeidman, senior vice president of business development at PHIL Inc., said in a statement. "This requires building a frictionless experience that gives patients what they want: transparent, affordable pricing with coverage support, multiple access pathways, and a clear path forward to start and stay on therapy on their terms. Pharmaceutical manufacturers that do this well will see the impact where it matters most: patient starts, adherence, and long-term therapy outcomes." </p>
<p>The initiative launches as there is growing recognition of the limitation of current cash-pay models, including TrumpRx, for insured populations. At a STAT event in March, Chris Klomp, a top official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), acknowledged that TrumpRx was not intended for most Americans with insurance.</p>
<p>The goal was not actually some massive reach,” Klomp said, according to <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2026/03/19/chris-klomp-hhs-medicare-discusses-mfn-drug-pricing-trumprx/">STAT's reporting</a>. Klomp added that “170 million Americans are commercially insured, 68 million Americans are on Medicare, the balance are on Medicaid and CHIP largely. TrumpRx is not for most of them, it’s cash pay.” </p>
<p>To attract more patients to direct-to-consumer drug platforms, North Carolina Republican Greg Murphy, M.D., a prominent physician voice in the House of Representatives, recently <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/bill-seeks-force-payers-apply-dtc-drug-purchases-patient-deductibles">introduced a new bill </a>that would compel insurers to apply the cost for drugs purchased from cash-pay platforms to deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. The Every Dollar Counts Act aims to lower patients' out-of-pocket costs for pharmaceuticals. Murphy, a consistent critic of insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, notes in an announcement that consumers have increasingly embraced DTC offerings as costs rise.</p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
<p><strong>This information is taken from free public RSS feeds published by each organization for the purpose of public distribution. Readers are linked back to the article content on each organization's website. This email is an unaffiliated unofficial redistribution of this freely provided content from the publishers. </strong></p>
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