STAT+: Federal regulators invite industry, researchers, and lobbyists to closed-door meetings on clinical AI
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- The FDA and CMS held a closed-door "clinical AI demo day" on July 8 at the FDA's White Oak headquarters, aimed at giving federal health officials firsthand experience with AI doctor technology currently in use.
- Anthropic, Microsoft AI, and Amazon One Medical were among the 10 companies that attended, alongside health-focused startups Counsel Health, Curai, K Health, Doctronic, Ellipsis Health, Hippocratic AI, and Welldoc.
- Counsel Health, K Health, Hippocratic AI, and Ellipsis Health — four of the attending companies — spoke with STAT, with their leaders summarizing the comments they made to regulators at the meeting.
- Several of the startups in attendance are backed by prominent venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures.
- The closed-door format gave attending companies — a mix of tech giants and VC-backed startups — a rare opportunity to help shape federal policy on regulating health AI and determining how to pay for it.
Why it matters: With the FDA and CMS convening AI developers behind closed doors, the 10 invited companies — including tech giants and Andreessen Horowitz- and Khosla-backed startups — gain direct influence over how clinical AI gets regulated and reimbursed. The meeting signals regulators' urgency to develop frameworks while hearing from the very firms whose products those rules will govern.
