After reaching a peak in 2021 ($44.8 billion), funding in the health tech industry fell off dramatically in 2022 ($23.3 billion). But 2024 showed signs of recovery, according to an analysis by financial management platform Carta.
Looking forward to 2025, we asked health tech leaders to share their thoughts and predictions.
These answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Sofia Guerra, VP, Bessemer Venture Partners
There are tech-enabled clinical delivery businesses that have been around for a while and have real scale, and have used the last two to three years to really prove out their scalability and unit economics. And those businesses are raising very successful large rounds on the growth side.
I’m excited to see how more business-in-a-box type models can take off. We’ve seen it in the therapy side, but the new era of a tech-enabled independent practitioner in other categories, we are going to see a lot more in the coming year.
The FTC scrutiny that’s been going on for pharmacy benefit managers…that’s pushing for more transparency there, but there’s really no technology that helps you track this. Real-time adjudication systems that can help track this on the rebate [side] are a big area of opportunity.
I’m excited about how sensors and new hardware can acquire new types of data that enables you to have better predictions and nudges or behaviors. There are a bunch of companies going after this in the eldercare space.
Because of the Cures Act, you can get access to your full [electronic health record] EHR record. You also have consumers self-tracking chronic diseases and different biomarkers. There’s an opportunity for companies to analyze that and help get diagnoses a lot faster at point of care.
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Paul Testa, chief medical information officer, NYU Langone’s Health Tech Hub
We can offload the mundane activities of reviewing charts, extracting information, replying to insurance denials; we can automate so much of that, and let the docs and let the nurses take care of patients.
The word of 2025 is “agents.” Add robotic process automation and machine learning, you get agents that can transact with our clinicians and our patients to provide the highest-quality care.
There’s so much 20 years ago that would have been cared for inside of a hospital that can now be managed in the ambulatory setting in your doctor’s office. That same transition is at a tipping point for being managed at home, with the advent of hospital-at-home with remote patient monitoring, with a single app experience.
Matt Truppo, global head of research platforms and computational R&D, Sanofi
One of the trends that you’ve probably heard a lot about is real-world evidence. This is the treasure trove of information coming at us from wearable devices to the different tests that all of us undergo. How can we use all of this data to optimize how we take care of patients’ health overall? That’s going to be huge in the future. When you look at the types of data and the quantity of data we’re talking about, AI tools are uniquely suited to be able to sort through the signal from the noise and also stratify what’s important for different patient subgroups.