My name is Bill Taranto, and I’m president of the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund. And on behalf of Columbia HITLAB and the Breakthrough Alliance Board of Directors, John Hammit and Stan Kachnowski, I want to welcome you to the Columbia HITLAB 2023 Summer Conference. So welcome, everybody. Today I stand before you to shed some light on a topic of utmost importance, what is the state of digital health today? And in an area where technology continues to shape and redefine our lives, it’s crucial to recognize the tremendous impact that it’s had on healthcare and the industry today. The convergence of healthcare and digital innovation has unlocked unparalleled opportunities transforming the way we approach and experience healthcare. So the big question that we have to ask ourselves, is digital health dead? And the answer is no. But what is next for digital health? I want to share a couple slides with you on where digital health is going and where I think we have some opportunities to move forward. So what this slide tells us is that if you look at where healthcare funding is today, it’s fallen to pre-pandemic levels, but I think the pandemic in and of itself likely created some unrealistic expectations around how quickly digital health can be adopted and used by the public. But this slide is a little deceiving, actually. If we take a closer look at actually where funding is occurring and what’s actually happened over the last three or four years, what we actually see is something quite different. What this slide actually tells us is that if you look at where funding is, there’s actually some good news. Notwithstanding the big 2021 year that we had, if you really look at where digital health funding is and what’s happened so far what happened in 2022, it’s actually surpassed what happened in ‘18, ‘19, and ‘20. So if we just look at the pandemic year of ‘21, that was pretty big, and we just think of that as an anomaly, actually digital healthcare funding is actually increasing. And we’ve already seen a huge uptick in the first quarter and second quarter of 2023 that should surpass at least what happened in 2022. So the good news is there’s a lot of capital out there and funding is happening. So like I said, we just got to take 2021 as a year that was a bit of an anomaly. So funding is happening, and that’s actually a really good thing. The other thing we actually see is the mega deals in ‘22 were nearly what we saw in 2020. And we’re already seeing an uptick in funding in 2023 of these mega deals. So again, if you just kind of take that outlier year, we’re actually seeing really good trading around these big deals that are happening, whether it’s M&A, whether it’s IPOs, or even SPACs to an extent, but the whole idea is that by no means is digital health dead. We’re actually seeing a really good uptick in the mega deals that are happening. And despite lower funding there’s plenty of reasons to believe in digital health. If you look at the pandemic, it made it painfully obvious that there are significant shortfalls in our healthcare system. There’s not enough capacity in the system. There are significantly understated communities or underserved communities. Costs are continuing to skyrocket. And with tax revenues down, there’s less ability to pay. So there’s greater need for solutions that can help increase access to care. That’s digital health. Increased system capacity, again, digital health. Improved outcomes, digital health. Lower system costs, digital health again. And do it in a consumer-friendly way. Yes, digital health can do all those things. So digital health transformation that we’re seeing is only the path forward, I believe, for healthcare. And if we can embrace it, expand it, and scale it, it can only improve what we’re doing today. So by no means at all is digital health dead. It’s actually improving what we intended it to do to help patient get better healthcare and improve and save lives. So what’s next is tomorrow, I’m going to be doing a keynote talk, and I’m going to give you five bold predictions of where digital health is going in the future. And I think these things are actually going to happen. So I look forward to giving you that tomorrow. What I would tell you all today to do is really embark with enthusiasm. Digital health is a great place to be. It’s a great place to be an entrepreneur. It’s a great place to be an investor, and it’s a great place to be an employee today. So look at digital health as a future of where healthcare is going.