Inside Eko's CORE 300: The Economics of AI-Enabled Physical Examination
Dr. Dereck Mush, MD, MBA
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POINT-OF-CARE HARDWARE &CLINICAL AI
1. Eko Health Launches CORE 300 AI Stethoscope Following FDA Clearance
Eko Health’s CORE 300 combines traditional and digital listening, with access to AI-assisted structural murmur detection through the Eko App. Credit: Eko Health.
Eko Health has received FDA 510(k) clearance (K261694) and officially launched the CORE 300, a hybrid digital-analog stethoscope that embeds structural murmur AI detection into routine physical examinations at pricing parity with premium traditional stethoscopes.
The details:
Delivers 35x analog/digital acoustic amplification with active noise cancellation and an integrated OLED display presenting real-time heart rates directly on the chestpiece.
Integrates seamlessly with the Eko App and Eko's FDA-cleared structural murmur detection algorithm (K251494) without requiring changes to standard bedside clinical workflows.
Over 750,000 clinicians globally have deployed Eko devices; the CORE 300 targets universal frontline primary care, emergency medicine, and rural clinical adoption by eliminating the hardware cost premium.
The Signal: Frontline clinical AI adoption has historically stalled on high hardware acquisition costs and auxiliary cart workflows. By packaging FDA-cleared structural murmur algorithms into a standard-form stethoscope at analog pricing, Eko converts every routine physical exam into an automated cardiac triage point, unlocking mass point-of-care screening without health system capital expenditure hurdles.
BIO-COMPUTE & CLINICAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE
2. BioStack Launches 100M+ Record Multimodal Network with $9.5M Seed
BioStack co-founders Sanat Mishra, CEO, left, and Parth Patwa, CTO. Credit: BioStack Platforms, Inc.
BioStack has launched a global de-identified multimodal clinical data network spanning over 100 million patient records across the U.S., India, Brazil, and Argentina, closing a $9.5M Seed round led by Peak XV, DCVC, and Y Combinator.
The details:
Unifies fragmented electronic medical records (EMRs), histopathology imaging, multi-omics assays, and longitudinal treatment outcomes across hospital systems in four major health economies.
Backed by $9.5M Seed co-led by Peak XV, Afore Capital, DCVC, Emerson Collective, SV Angel, Verdict Capital, Streamlined Ventures, and Y Combinator.
Provides foundational multi-country training infrastructure for biomedical foundation models, clinical trial simulation, and automated drug discovery engines.
The Signal: The bottleneck in clinical foundation models has shifted from algorithmic architecture to multi-country, multimodal data diversity. By aggregating 100M+ longitudinal records across diverse global healthcare systems with standardized phenotypic-to-genotypic pipelines, BioStack creates the essential training substrate required to eliminate geographic and demographic bias in biomedical AI.
RNA THERAPEUTICS & FRONTIER PHARMACOLOGY
3. FDA Approves GSK and Ionis's Hibsago as First Antisense Oligonucleotide for Chronic Hepatitis B
Scientists at GSK’s Upper Merion research site in the United States. Illustrative image accompanying the FDA approval of Hibsago for eligible adults with chronic hepatitis B.
Credit: © Olivier Hess / GSK.
The U.S. FDA has approved Hibsago (bepirovirsen; GSK / Ionis Pharmaceuticals), a first-in-class antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) for adult patients with non-cirrhotic chronic hepatitis B, establishing the first fixed-duration regimen capable of delivering functional cures.
The details:
Indicated for non-cirrhotic adults on stable nucleos(t)ide analogue (NrtI) therapy for ≥6 months with suppressed HBV DNA and baseline HBsAg ≤3000 IU/ml via an FDA-authorized companion test.
Phase 3 B-Well 1 (NCT05630807) and B-Well 2 (NCT05630820) trials (published in NEJM, n=1,220 vs 614 placebo) demonstrated a 19% functional cure rate (233/1,220) at 24 weeks post-treatment cessation vs 0% on placebo.
Granted FDA Breakthrough Therapy and Priority Review, shifting the chronic hepatitis B treatment paradigm from indefinite lifelong suppression to finite 24-week targeted RNA degradation.
The Signal: Hibsago represents a pivotal inflection in chronic virology, demonstrating that targeted RNA degradation via antisense oligonucleotides can dismantle viral antigen tolerance and restore host immune surveillance. Achieving a 19% functional cure rate in a disease with a historical <1% annual clearance rate establishes a commercial and clinical blueprint for finite curative therapeutics across chronic viral and liver pathologies.
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