In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at the federal program to use agentic AI against heart failure, the billionaire dentist, Wegovy by subscription, Kailera’s planned IPO, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Yet nearly half of all counties lack a cardiologist and 86% of rural counties don’t have one. That’s why the federal government’s health moonshot agency, ARPA-H, is requesting ideas for how to develop agentic AI to solve the problem.

The FDA has already authorized more than 1,000 AI-enabled medical devices, says Haider Warraich, a program manager at ARPA-H, who came up with the idea in August 2024 while working as a senior advisor for chronic diseases to the FDA Commissioner. But all are predictive devices, primarily used for diagnosis–not agentic AI used to provide care. This program is one way in which AI doctors (though Warraich dislikes the term) could be structured to be safe for patients and improve health.

“The FDA has regulatory authority, but for something like this you need to fund new science,” he tells Forbes. “The way people are going to use the technology in real life is going to be different than how people use it in a clinical trial or controlled setting.”

In January, ARPA-H requested proposals for the program, dubbed Advocate, for agentic AI for cardiovascular disease. Teams that include healthtech players and major health systems were asked to pitch development plans for patient-facing technologies to provide clinical care to manage patients with heart failure and those who’ve survived heart attacks, as well as how they’d scale, monitor and supervise the technology after it’s deployed. The agency has received nearly 300 solution summaries as of Tuesday. That makes it “one........

© Forbes