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AI and biotech continue to converge and companies cracking the new paradigm of AI-fueled discovery and development, like Peptilogics who just announced a $78M Series B+ raise, are surging ahead. On the data driven-healthcare side, AI software and agents continue to haul in big investments, but the winners are grounded in core system problems and deep healthcare expertise as we showed at HLTH 2025. These trends are adding wind to the sails of the surging Pittsburgh ecosystem.

Pittsburgh takes HLTH by Storm -

Elevating the Ecosystem

HLTH is one of the premier health innovation conferences in the world - drawing over 12,000 attendees representing more than 1,000 companies, investment firms, health systems, governments, and non-profits. Pittsburgh showed up in a big way to highlight how the convergence of world-class clinical expertise and emerging technology prowess are driving a fast-growing human health innovation ecosystem. 

PLSA and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance teamed up with UPMC Enterprises, Highmark Health, and Abridge to showcase how the unique blend of technology, talent, and healthcare expertise in the region helped fuel Abridge’s ascent as one of the fastest-growing AI in healthcare companies in the world. 

That innovation arc continues with Highmark and Abridge recently announcing a collaboration to take on prior-auth solutions and UPMC expanding use of Abridge, originally incubated at UPMC Enterprises, to 12,000 clinicians across the system. 

This collaboration is grabbing attention and driving inbound interest from companies and investors that want to engage more deeply with the ecosystem. 

Throughout the conference, Pittsburgh leaders and companies also showed up on the speaking stages and conference floor - extending the region’s brand and credibility as we collectively push for life changing innovation and growth. 

Dive into great Pittsburgh innovation content from HLTH:

• Seven Key Moments from UPMC Enterprises at HLTH
• Julia Chou, COO at Abridge’s biggest takeaways from HLTH
• Richard Clarke, Chief Data Analytics Officer at Highmark Health on advice to entrepreneurs looking to scale their business
• Austin Price, VP of External Affairs at PLSA, market insights from HLTH
• Thoroughcare and Parcel Health from the convention floor 

Pitt hosts global guests for Health

& AI conference

Pitt collaborated with the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils and the Council on Competitiveness to host innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders from around the world to explore how emerging technologies are reshaping healthcare and the innovation economy. 

The event included addresses from the Governor and both US Senators from Pennsylvania and used local examples of emerging technologies and public-private partnerships within and across industries to change the future of learning, medicine, and how economies across the world compete.

CMU Startup Week Brings the Heat

In a matter of 5 weeks, the Swartz Center team - with more than 35 organizing partners - pulled together the largest, most ambitious entrepreneurship event in Carnegie Mellon history. 

The program included 25 programs over 4 days for 1,900 unique registrants. From intimate investor roundtables for faculty founders, to closed door visa strategy sessions with immigration attorneys, to standing room only events in Carnegie Mellon’s biggest auditoriums. 

The Swartz team and its founder, alumni, investor, corporate, and university partners flooded the campus with entrepreneurial energy like never before and drove more than 400 meetings between founders and investors.

You can sort through their start-up directory to see the exciting life sciences and healthcare technology companies affiliated with CMU.

Spatial Intelligence Summit: Shaping the Future of Drug Discovery & Development

In early November, PLSA was a sponsor of a summit hosted by PredxBio that brought leaders across pharma, academia, health systems, and AI to Pittsburgh to share how spatial biology is transforming target selection, guiding trial strategy, and accelerating drug development. The Spatial Intelligence Summit 2025 showcased how this rapidly advancing field is reshaping the future of precision therapeutics.

Attendees heard high-impact talks from global experts pushing the boundaries of spatial biology, oncology, and AI-driven translational research. Leaders from UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, MD Anderson, and Providence Genomics highlighted translational breakthroughs in oncology enabled by spatial biology and experts from global giants like AstraZeneca, Kite/Gilead, Amgen, and Modella AI explored how spatial intelligence is shaping R&D pipelines and powering next-generation therapies. The movement toward smarter, spatial-driven drug development is accelerating—and Pittsburgh is at the center of it.

CPACE Symposium Champions AI Innovation in Health Care

Photography by Rayni Shiring, University of Pittsburgh 

The University of Pittsburgh’s Computational Pathology and AI Center of Excellence (CPACE) hosted leaders and innovators committed to transforming diagnostic medicine through computational innovation on Nov. 5, 2025, as part of the Pitt AI PathConnect: Bridging Innovation in Computational Pathology 2025 Symposium.  



The one-day event highlighted the University of Pittsburgh’s innovative offerings via the Digital Pathology Research Center and CPACE showcasing how the region continues to lead in applying emerging technologies to pathology and laboratory medicine.

Read more here.

Startup Spotlight

In the complex, high-stakes world of specialty drugs—where life-altering treatments for conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and rare diseases can cost up to $30,000 a month—Pittsburgh high-growth company Free Market Health is transforming how patients get the medications they need.

Founded in 2019, the healthcare technology company has gained market traction quickly, already facilitating over $5 billion in drug spending on its care-driven marketplace platform, and is on track to more than triple that number by the end of 2026. Their technology connects payers and healthcare providers to a growing network of over 400 accredited specialty pharmacies, optimizing a drug’s journey to the patient. 



“Most patients don’t know we exist,” says Joe Cardosi, Free Market Health’s founder and CEO. “But they should have a better experience because we do.”

While retail pharmacies provide medications for everyday medical needs, specialty pharmacies dispense complex drugs and offer personalized support such as medication counseling, side effect management, benefits coordination, and close collaboration with healthcare providers to ensure patient adherence and monitoring. 

Historically, payers contracted with a single specialty pharmacy to service their members’ specialty medications, resulting in a one-size-fits-all approach that limited patient access to specialty pharmacies offering clinical services better suited to their unique needs. Moreover, the process of getting a specialty prescription in the hands of a patient is filled with missteps, misdirected interactions, and misaligned incentives that delay medication access, increase costs, and ultimately fail patients.

Free Market Health’s technology platform steps in early—at the point of prescribing—and manages the entire flow of information between payers, providers, and pharmacies. It seamlessly and systematically identifies the specialty pharmacy best suited to meet a patient’s care needs at the best price, faster and with fewer headaches.

Read the full spotlight.

Check out open positions at Free Market Health here.

Earflo: Time Best Inventions of 2025

Time

Co-Founded by UPMC Division Chief of Otology & Neurotology Dr. Peter Santa Maria, and supported by the RK Mellon Foundation, Earflo has developed a device that gently puffs air into the nose to reduce the risk of childhood ear infections and avoid tube surgeries.

Kalivir Immunotherapeutics Announces Clinical Trial Collaboration and Supply Agreement with Roche to Evaluate VET30TGI in Combination with Atezlizumab (Tecentriq®) in Advanced Solid Tumors

BioSpace

The collaboration will support the expansion of KaliVir’s ongoing STEALTH-001 (NCT06444815) Phase 1a/1b clinical study evaluating VET3-TGI in patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors. Under the terms of the agreement, Roche will supply atezolizumab for use in combination with VET3-TGI across multiple dosing cohorts.

Pennsylvania budget erases $50M in proposed funding for life sciences industry 

Philadelphia Business Times

LSPA CEO Chris Molineux discusses how the state's newly signed budget disappoints the industry.

UPMC Goes All-In on Abridge

Business Wire

UPMC will expand use of Abridge enterprise-wide to 12,000 clinicians by 2026.

‘We are rebuilding everything from the ground up’: Pitt gets $41.5M to build a better wheelchair

Pittsburgh Post Gazette 

A team led by Pitt’s Human Engineering Research Laboratories won an ARPA-H award to develop a robotic assistance mobility and manipulation platform that will incorporate new capabilities and robotics to change what is possible for wheelchair users.

AI’s transformative impact is already here - and other takeaways from this week’s forging the future summit

PittWire

Pitt collaborated with the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils and the Council on Competitiveness to host innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders from around the world to explore how emerging technologies are reshaping healthcare and the innovation economy.

Richard King Mellon Foundation will award up to $1.5M to startups through social-impact pitch competition

Pittsburgh Business Times

The foundation is accepting applications from mission-oriented for-profit startups until Dec 19. Since launching the competition in 2021 the foundation has invested $23M in 67 different startups.

NIH grant cuts have disrupted hundreds of clinical trials, study finds

Fierce Biotech

A new analysis reveals that the termination of NIH grants has disrupted at least 383 clinical trials, which collectively include more than 74,000 patients.

Pittsburgh elected a new mayor. Here is an excerpt from what mayor elect Corey O’Connor said about the regional innovation economy during an interview in May.

Technical.ly

“The city should take a more active role in making Pittsburgh a vibrant hub of innovation. We should be meeting regularly with local companies to identify gaps in infrastructure, workforce, and services, then using that information to guide investment and outreach. …At the same time, I’ll focus on the basics: faster permitting, better infrastructure and smarter use of public space to support innovation corridors across Pittsburgh.” - Corey O’Connor, May 2025.

Save the Date - January 11, 2026 during JPM in San Francisco

Pittsburgh Life Sciences Alliance and the Carnegie Mellon University Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship are excited to co-host Bridging Discovery to Clinic: How AI and Digital Technologies Are Transforming Therapeutics, an afternoon panel discussion exploring how promising, high-impact companies are leveraging technology to reimagine the therapeutic lifecycle through AI, data, and digital integration.

Register today.

Life Sciences Future SW - Mark Your Calendars - April 9, 2026

Building on last year’s success, we have again teamed up with Life Sciences PA to host Life Sciences Future SW. You want to be in the room where it happens - you can network with hundreds of life sciences pros from across the region and beyond, hear directly from investors and strategics on their investment theses through reverse pitches, apply to participate in start-up pitches, and hear from seasoned leaders about the policies, trends, and discoveries shaping the sector. Register today

Company Presentation Applications Are Open - Apply to have your company featured on the LSFSW stage.

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We are always looking for your input! If you have suggestions for newsletter content or spotlights, please contact Austin Price at aprice@pittsburghlifesci.org.