Digital Health Coffee Time Briefing ☕

Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.

👇 News

📱 Cambridge-based precision immunology company OtoImmune has launched mOI Health, a platform that puts testing, health tracking, AI-powered insights, educational resources, and reports in one place. Members access the platform through a secure digital interface that integrates health data, test results, and lifestyle information.

🏆 Innovate UK has announced the winners of the Agentic AI Pioneers Prize at an industry award ceremony. Danu Insights, the overall prize winner, received £500,000 for its ‘Agentic Digital Twin Builder for the Life Sciences’ project, submitted for the Health & Life Science category.

🍭 U-Test Diagnostics, a UK-based health diagnostics company, has launched a saliva-based pregnancy test. The Lollipop is placed in the mouth and gives a result after a few minutes. It is approved by the MHRA and will be available in Morrisons stores across the UK from 27 April 2026.

💵 IW Capital has invested in Lucida Medical, a UK-based healthtech company using AI to help clinicians diagnose prostate cancer from MRI scans. The £8.7m funding round includes participation from existing investors, XTX Ventures, and Macmillan Cancer Support. Lucida Medical is developing patented AI software designed to support earlier and more consistent cancer detection.

💊 Nuumad, a pharmacy consultation platform, has announced the launch of independent prescribing modules. Developed in partnership with clinical reasoning platform DemDx, the modules are designed to help pharmacies expand private prescribing services safely and efficiently, combining structured clinical decision support with streamlined consultation and prescription workflows.

💬 Word360 has launched a healthcare-focused AI interpreter app developed to support communication between clinicians and patients who do not share a common language. Wondaa provides real-time, two-way voice translation in more than 100 languages, with audio and on-screen text to support clarity and accessibility.

❓ Did you know that?

The UK has a “surprisingly” small number of large, domestically headquartered medical equipment and devices businesses, according to an analysis from Heligan Group.

A report highlights a structural gap in one of the most critical segments of the healthcare ecosystem, with implications for investment, industrial strategy, and national resilience.

“The UK’s life sciences sector is heavily weighted towards drug discovery and biotech innovation,” said Ramesh Jassal, partner at Heligan Group. “But when you look at the companies that actually design, manufacture and distribute the equipment used across healthcare systems, the domestic base is surprisingly thin.

“The UK’s limited footprint in this sector is not due to a lack of scientific capability, but rather a combination of structural and commercial factors. These include historically lower levels of scale-up capital, fragmented procurement systems, and a tendency for promising businesses to be acquired by overseas buyers before reaching maturity.

“Many UK-founded device companies have successfully innovated, but too often they exit early. That means the long-term value creation, manufacturing capability and strategic control often shift outside the UK.”

📖 What we’re reading

A report by Durham University, the University of Swansea and UK Research and Innovation, analyses how AI chatbots are driving, enabling, simulating, and normalising violence against women and girls.

‘Invisible No More: How AI Chatbots are Reshaping Violence Against Women and Girls‘, published in March 2026, demonstrates how platforms are enabling and encouraging gender-based violence through deliberate design choices and failures in safety mechanisms.

It outlines how AI chatbots allow roleplays of incest, child sexual abuse, and rape, risking the normalisation and legitimisation of this abuse, and are intensifying abusive behaviours such as stalking with detailed and personalised guidance.

The authors make recommendations for reform of the Online Safety Act, criminal law, product safety legislation, as well as a new AI Act.

🚨 Upcoming events

• 28 April 2026, Online – Understanding the NHS Management and Leadership Framework in Practice