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A startup building healthcare tools on WhatsApp raises $14M Read in browser
Endpoints News
Thursday, 18 December 2025
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The winners and losers of health tech in 2025
Tis the season — for Endpoints News’ annual list of winners and losers! 
It’s a time when we look back on the year and pinpoint who was up and who was down this year in biopharma and health tech. 
Who can forget the historic moment Walgreens went private? And we’ve certainly been chronicling the rise of consumer spending for GLP-1s, both branded and compounded — we’ve picked a winner there. 
We’re dropping the list later today, so stay tuned for a special Post-Hoc Live happening at 12 p.m. ET to find out what made the list. I’ll be bringing props and holiday cheer.
- Lydia
Here’s what’s new
Exclusive: Compounding giant Empower Pharmacy cut hundreds of staff, stopped New Jersey operations
Em­pow­er Phar­ma­cy, a large GLP-1 com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy that’s faced al­le­ga­tions of poor qual­i­ty drugs and a le­gal chal­lenge from Eli Lil­ly, has stopped op­er­a­tions at its New Jer­sey man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty and laid off hun­dreds of em­ploy­ees, End­points News has learned.
Coming today at noon: Our 2025 winners and losers list — on Post-Hoc Live
To tune into the show, you can join us on YouTube, or set a calendar reminder for when we go live.
Models are out, molecules are in as AI startups sprint to clinic
Chris Bahl saw the writ­ing on the wall for his new AI start­up in the fi­nal weeks of 2022: Mol­e­cules would mat­ter more than mod­els.

Today, much of the AI bio field has come around to Bahl’s position, turning its focus to the drug industry’s bread and butter of creating and developing new molecules. 
2025 in health tech
What was your big winner or loser of health tech this year?
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This week in health Тech
Leona Health, a startup building a healthcare operating system on WhatsApp, raised $14 million. Andreessen Horowitz led the seed round, which General Catalyst, Accel and others invested in as well. It’ll start building its tools in Latin America, with the intent of helping doctors communicate with patients over WhatsApp.
Valerie Health, a startup building an AI front office for providers, raised $30M. Redpoint Ventures led the Series A round. The startup uses AI agents to automate tasks like referrals, faxes and scheduling.

Virtual cardiology startup Auxira raised $7.8 million. Route 66 Ventures and Abundant Venture Partners co-led the seed round.
Imaging center company RadNet isn’t using as much AI as it claims to be, according to an investigation by Hunterbrook Media, an investigative news outlet that also has an affiliated investment fund. The company’s stock has jumped after it touted its use of AI in earnings calls.
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