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Nelson Advisors referenced by Astra Capital ResearchAstra Capital is a private equity and asset management firm investing in lower mid-market, privately owned businesses across Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. We work with founders, operators and management teams building enduring businesses in healthcare, wellness and beauty, consumer, and specialty retail. Our approach is disciplined and operator-led, focused on partnering with businesses for the long term rather than simply seeking an exit.Source: <a href="https://www.astracapital.net.au/blogs/white-papers/is-cochlear-a-reset-opportunity-or-a-structural-slowdown" data-mce-href="https://www.astracapital.net.au/blogs/white-papers/is-cochlear-a-reset-opportunity-or-a-structural-slowdown">https://www.astracapital.net.au/blogs/white-papers/is-cochlear-a-reset-opportunity-or-a-structural-slowdown</a>Astra Capital partners with founders, operators and management teams building enduring businesses across healthcare, wellness and beauty, consumer, and specialty retail in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. If you are building or leading a business in one of these sectors and would like to discuss capital, strategy, or an eventual transaction, we would welcome the conversation.Is Cochlear a Reset Opportunity or a Structural Slowdown?A single delayed contract renewal wiped out three quarters of Cochlear's market value. What that says about the hearing implant category, and what would need to be true for the reset to be an opportunity rather than a warning. Astra Capital Research August 2026Executive Summary Cochlear Limited (ASX: COH) enters the second half of 2026 having delivered one of the more dramatic single-year re-ratings in ASX healthcare history. Shares that peaked above $350 in July 2024 traded as low as $88.74 in April 2026, a fall of roughly 75 per cent, on the back of a delayed contract renewal process for the new Nucleus Nexa implant system and a guidance cut that trimmed the midpoint of underlying profit expectations by close to 30 per cent. On 18 August 2026, Cochlear released full year results that landed at the top of its revised guidance range, with underlying net profit of $322 million, accelerating second half revenue growth of 6 per cent, and free cash flow more than doubling. The market responded by pushing shares up 7.2 per cent on the day.This paper asks whether that year of shocks amounts to a genuine reset and a mispriced entry point into a structurally growing category where Cochlear holds roughly half of global market share, or whether it is the first visible sign of a maturing franchise meeting a structurally repricing channel, most visibly China's volume based procurement program, alongside consolidation among global peers. We hold a position in Cochlear. This paper sets out that disclosure, the bull and bear cases in full, and a practical framework for judging the company's next results and AGM on their merits rather than on narrative alone.References Cochlear Limited, FY26 Full Year Results and ASX announcement, 18 August 2026. cochlear.com Cochlear Limited, HY26 Half Year Result, ASX and media release, 13 February 2026. investsmart.com.au Cochlear Limited, Trading update and reduction to FY26 earnings guidance, ASX announcement, 22 April 2026. announcements.asx.com.au Cochlear Limited, Notice of 2026 Annual General Meeting key dates, 26 October 2026. tipranks.com IG International, Cochlear FY26 earnings preview, 12 August 2026. ig.com Investing.com, Cochlear FY26 slides: cash flow doubles despite margin pressure, 18 August 2026. investing.com Healthcare Digital, Australian HealthTech Market: 2026 State of Play and Outlook to 2028. healthcare.digital

Nelson Advisors referenced by Astra Capital Research

Nelson Advisors have been invited to attend the Leaders in Health Summit 2026 for the second year in a row , taking place on the 17th November 2026 in Havas' offices, Kings Cross, London.The Leaders in Health Summit 2026 WellFounded, the concierge medicine and performance-health practice built around Dr Jack Kreindler and the Centre for Health &amp; Human Performance (CHHP), is bringing its flagship gathering back for another year: the Leaders in Health Summit, scheduled for 17 November 2026. The event is staged in partnership with global communications group Havas, under the "Havas x WellFounded Health" banner that has run the summit in previous years, and applications are being taken through a dedicated registration portal rather than open ticket sales, signalling an invitation-led, curated audience.WellFounded's own framing of the summit is less "conference" and more "experience": it describes the day as an immersion in healthy environments combined with deep debate and eye-opening science, aimed at advancing medicine among the leaders and decision-makers who attend. That fits the organisation's broader positioning. WellFounded calls itself the pioneering Founders' Health Service, a tech-enabled medical practice built for founders, investors, athletes and other high-performing individuals, with a stated mission to help people "get more out of life, for longer." Its heritage goes back through CHHP, founded in 2007, and further still to Vielife, the executive-health venture Kreindler helped build before its acquisition by Cigna in 2006, giving WellFounded roughly two decades of experience translating performance medicine and longevity science into services for high-pressure operators.Past editions give a sense of what to expect. The 2025 summit carried the theme "Making Medicine Personal Again," pointing to a focus on personalised and precision medicine as a counterweight to one-size-fits-all healthcare. The prior London edition drew a genuinely multidisciplinary crowd — public commentary from attendees at the time referenced live panels on subjects like whether citizen science should drive clinical trial design, suggesting the format leans toward debate and challenge rather than straight keynote delivery. Given WellFounded's client base, the audience typically spans startup founders, venture investors, clinicians and health-tech operators rather than a single professional silo.Running alongside the summit is the LiH Awards programme, WellFounded's recognition scheme for founders and CEOs who go beyond the ordinary in prioritising the health and wellbeing of their teams. Previous cohorts have been drawn from the portfolios of venture firms including Balderton Capital and Mosaic Ventures, with entrants and nominators given access to WellFounded's Impact Report detailing outcomes from its work with early groups of founders. The awards reinforce the summit's underlying thesis: that founder and leadership health is not a personal indulgence but a determinant of company performance, and that the startup ecosystem has been slow to treat it that way.For anyone in healthcare, health-tech or the investment community around them, the Leaders in Health Summit is worth watching less as a typical trade event and more as a barometer of where concierge, longevity and performance medicine are heading next and who in the founder and investor world is willing to put their name behind that shift publicly, both on stage and through the accompanying awardsSource: <a href="https://wellfounded.health/leadersinhealth-2026">https://wellfounded.health/leadersinhealth-2026</a>.

Nelson Advisors invited to the Leaders in Health Summit 2026

Nelson Advisors Partner Lloyd Price has been invited to Judge the PitchFest Awards at ReWired 2027. This is the 4th time Lloyd has Judged the prestigious awards, highlighting the pedigree of UK Digital Health and MedTech companies.Source: <a href="https://digitalhealthrewired.com/">https://digitalhealthrewired.com/</a>Digital Health Rewired, the UK's largest digital health and NHS technology event, returns to Hall 2 of the NEC in Birmingham on 16–17th March 2027. Now firmly established as the sector's key meeting point, Rewired has grown to attract more than 4,500 attendees, over 180 exhibitors, and 350+ speakers, with 95% of NHS trusts represented on the show floor or in the audience. Access Group returns as co-headline sponsor for a third consecutive year, reflecting the event's deepening ties to NHS digital transformation programmes across 45 trusts.The 2027 programme is structured around eight themes that map closely to the priorities dominating NHS digital strategy right now: Digital Transformation, AI, Digital Leadership, Data &amp; Digital, EPR Implementation &amp; Optimisation, Digital Frontline, Neighbourhoods, and Cyber &amp; Infrastructure. That spread signals where the conversation has moved — beyond pilot projects and towards scaled AI deployment, interoperable data, workforce-facing "digital frontline" tools, and the practicalities of keeping increasingly connected systems secure. For anyone advising healthtech vendors or NHS bodies on partnerships, procurement or market entry, the agenda is a useful proxy for where NHS digital budgets and attention are heading in 2027.Alongside the keynotes and exhibition, Rewired's Pitchfest Awards have become one of the most closely watched fixtures of the event. Pitchfest is a live startup pitch competition: a shortlist of early-stage and scaling health tech companies pitch in front of a judging panel of NHS leaders, investors and industry figures, with the audience of NHS decision-makers and innovation teams watching alongside. At Rewired 2026, eight finalists took the stage on the NEC floor, including Astron Health, Cogniss, Into-Action.Health, Jigsaw Medical, LightHearted AI, Mavis Technologies and Upskill.Health. The judging panel drew on figures from Future Health Intelligence, the NHS Innovation Accelerator, Innovate UK, Moorfields Eye Hospital and venture capital, giving finalists direct exposure to the people who actually fund and buy into the NHS.The 2026 winner was Daye, a women's health biotech company founded by Valentina Milanova, recognised for its diagnostic tampon — an at-home test for detecting high-risk HPV, the leading cause of cervical cancer. The win came with tangible NHS access rather than just a trophy: expert advisory support from CW+ and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust's innovation team, plus the chance to develop and run a project within the trust itself. In previous years, Pitchfest has also run a "revenue-generating" category alongside its main track, recognising that judging pre-revenue innovation and commercially proven products side by side doesn't always do either justice — Daysix took that category at Rewired 2025.For founders, Pitchfest offers something scarcer than prize money: a direct route into NHS trusts, credibility with an audience of buyers and investors, and validation in a market notoriously hard to break into. For everyone else at Rewired — trust digital leaders, system integrators, and advisors like Nelson Advisors working across NHS digital M&amp;A and partnerships — Pitchfest is worth watching as an early signal of which health tech categories, from femtech to AI-driven diagnostics, are about to get serious NHS traction. Applications and shortlist announcements for the 2027 edition typically open in the months leading up to the March event, so it's worth keeping an eye on Digital Health Rewired's own channels as the date approaches.

Nelson Advisors invited to Judge the PitchFest Awards at ReWired 2027

Nelson Advisors has been invited to Chair the Healthcare AI panel at the Barclays Elevate 2027 Conference scheduled for the 3rd March 2027.Barclays Health Elevate is a flagship event series hosted by Barclays Eagle Labs and their specialist Health, Wellbeing, and Life Sciences team. The initiative brings together healthcare founders, life sciences researchers, tech innovators, investors, academics, and NHS/social care providers to focus on how to scale healthcare innovation and solve critical industry challenges.The conference typically centers around three core pillars:Disruptive Technology &amp; AI: Integrating artificial intelligence safely into heavily regulated environments to ease administrative burdens, reduce staff burnout, and improve diagnostic accuracy.Sustainable Healthcare: Strategies for healthtech and life sciences businesses to advance toward net-zero operations.Scaling &amp; Investment: Navigating post-pandemic healthtech funding, unlocking UK growth champions, and managing NHS procurement pathways.Recent &amp; Upcoming IterationsThe event has transitioned from a single annual London summit into an expanding regional series:Health Elevate: Scaling Scotland (June 17, 2026): Held in Glasgow, this recent regional extension focused specifically on local ecosystem growth, featuring panel discussions and TED-style talks from industry experts on scaling in the current economic environment.&nbsp;Barclays Health Elevate 2025 (June 25, 2025): Hosted at the Barclays London headquarters in Canary Wharf, this major summit featured a keynote from NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and showcases from over 100 healthtech startups.The Inaugural Event (July 3, 2024): The initial launch event at Canary Wharf introduced immersive technology showcases (like VR in clinical training) and foundational debates regarding the ethical boundaries of health-based AI.Source: <a href="https://www.barclayscorporate.com/insights/industry-expertise/health-elevate/" data-mce-href="https://www.barclayscorporate.com/insights/industry-expertise/health-elevate/">https://www.barclayscorporate.com/insights/industry-expertise/health-elevate/</a>

Nelson Advisors invited to Chair the Healthcare AI panel at the Barclays Elevate 2027 Conference

Nelson Advisors partners Lloyd Price and Paul Hemings were interviewed by ION Analytics for the 'Electronic patient record asset owners mull exits as AI potential grows’ story featured in Mergermarket.Source: <a href="https://mergermarket.ionanalytics.com/content/1004530343?source=news" data-mce-href="https://mergermarket.ionanalytics.com/content/1004530343?source=news">https://mergermarket.ionanalytics.com/content/1004530343?source=news</a>Strategics and sponsors are considering exits from electronic patient record (EPR) holdings as artificial intelligence (AI) promises to disrupt the market. &nbsp; In the UK, CVC Capital Partners appointed Arma Partners to find a buyer for System C, one of the country's leading NHS software providers, as reported. Meanwhile, UnitedHealth Group sold its subsidiary Optum UK, including the healthcare software firm EMIS, to TPG, according to UnitedHealth's earnings report. &nbsp;&nbsp; Outside EMEA, sponsors TA Associates and GI Partners are looking to sell US software companyNetsmart Technologies for the second time in two years, as reported. And research by TD Cowen suggested that Oracle is considering offloading the EPR vendor Cerner, per multiple news outlets. &nbsp;&nbsp; Exit attempts this year may reflect efforts to secure a good return amid a broad downturn in valuations in the Software as a Service (SaaS) space driven by increasing AI competition, known as the “SaaSpocalypse”, said Lloyd Price, partner and co-founder at Nelson Advisors. &nbsp;&nbsp; In the long term, however, EPR providers are also likely to benefit from investor interest in AI because they hold high-quality patient data to feed models, data that is unavailable to competitors, Price said. The readiness to sell EPR assets right now could even be surprising, giventheir huge potential in AI, he added. &nbsp; Another factor in the favour of EPR vendors is that multi-year deals with healthcare providers provide high revenue visibility for buyers, according to Price and Reece Donovan, CEO of EPR specialist Mayden. "It can take a long time to earn trust and build confidence with our customers, but once you have done this it tends to lead to successful, longer-term relationships," Donovan said. &nbsp;&nbsp; "In terms of the capital available, this is certainly the right time to exit an asset like System C and similar assets," said a sector advisor, adding that there is an increasing number of fundraisings in the space. "We have tons of conversations with owners now." &nbsp;&nbsp; Likely buyers in these cases include sponsors in Europe and North American strategics, the sectoradvisor said. Strategics, such as major EPR players or those in adjacent markets, may want to tap into the target's data or stop a rival from accessing it, Price said. &nbsp;&nbsp; Click here to subscribe to Mergermarket and read the story in full - Electronic patient record asset owners mull exits as AI potential grows <a href="https://mergermarket.ionanalytics.com/content/1004530343?source=news" data-mce-href="https://mergermarket.ionanalytics.com/content/1004530343?source=news">https://mergermarket.ionanalytics.com/content/1004530343?source=news</a>

Nelson Advisors interviewed by ION Analytics for the 'Electronic patient record asset owners mull exits as AI potential grows’ story featured in Mergermarket

Nelson Advisors has been interviewed by Adriel Bettelheim, senior health care editor at Axios for the story 'AI turns to health care for an image fix'Source: <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/08/31/ai-health-care-cures-disease-anthropic-open-ai">https://www.axios.com/2026/08/31/ai-health-care-cures-disease-anthropic-open-ai</a>AI has an image problem. And one way to fix it is for top companies to dive headlong into health care.Why it matters: Saving the world with AI-designed cures is better than being blamed for ruining the environment or driving up Americans' utility bills.But even the most advanced AI models can't produce miracle treatments at the moment — and could create serious security risks if they try.That could set up a fraught debate over the next two or three years about the allocation of resources and whether the benefits of throwing vast amounts of computing capacity into medical research outweigh the costs.Driving the news: The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Anthropic was trying to shore up investor confidence ahead of its massive initial public offering with talk of pushing harder into health care and biology.CEO Dario Amodei wrote on X that Anthropic is moving quickly in biology and medicine "and we hope to have incredible results in the coming years and some early glimmers in the coming months." Anthropic isn't alone: Nvidia and Eli Lilly are building a $1 billion drug discovery lab in San Francisco that will team up life science researchers with AI model builders and engineers.Isomorphic Labs, the AI drug discovery spinoff from Google, recently raised $2.1 billion to hire more AI and clinical talent and has ongoing research collaborations with Novartis, Lilly and Johnson &amp; Johnson. Yes, but: Breakthroughs may still be years away. That's hardly reassuring to an increasingly anxious U.S. public that's gone NIMBY against data centers, with moratoriums, threatened lawsuits and fears of AI models taking more jobs.The technology is dramatically speeding up drug development and helping clinicians analyze medical scans and diagnose conditions. But it's also making health care more expensive, with software and scribes that more thoroughly document the care that's delivered.There also are concerns that AI-enabled research tools could be used for nefarious purposes, including potentially making a biological weapon.Anthropic implemented strict safeguards on its next-generation Claude Fable 5 model after concluding it could provide "significant uplift" to a bad actor.Between the lines: AI's push into health care comes as frontier labs like Anthropic and OpenAI prepare to go public to help cover the huge cost of training new models and maintaining multi-gigawatt computing infrastructures.Moving into the life sciences is a way to both diversify the companies' revenue streams and reshape public sentiment, said Lloyd Price, a partner at Nelson Advisors, a digital health M&amp;A firm."It's a bit of a hearts-and-minds play ... the bad guys are stealing all of the resources but they could help humanity. The truth is very in the middle," Price told Axios.Price said real medical advances could transform people's perception of AI from an environmental and security risk into an essential public utility.Friction point: There still are big hurdles ahead, including rocky relations with the Trump administration, which is trying to take a hands-off regulatory approach while maintaining oversight of safety and privacy concerns.What's more, the public isn't wild about big drug companies, believing their profits are a big factor in high drug prices.An AI company could face backlash if the public thinks it's putting profits ahead of patients and contributing to the affordability crisis.The bottom line: AI labs will need to prove they're bringing measurable benefits to society, not just satisfying investors. The question is whether the public will put up with more server farms in their backyards to get there."What I hear a lot is, where is the material contribution or breakthrough that's directly led to a drug discovery? It's a team sport, and AI is just a player on the field," Price said.Adriel Bettelheim is senior health care editor at Axios and oversees Vitals and Axios Pro Health Policy. He has also worked at Politico, Bloomberg and CQ Roll Call.<a href="https://www.axios.com/authors/abettelheim">https://www.axios.com/authors/abettelheim</a>

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Nelson Advisors referenced by Astra Capital Research

Nelson Advisors invited to the Leaders in Health Summit 2026

Nelson Advisors invited to Judge the PitchFest Awards at ...

Nelson Advisors invited to Chair the Healthcare AI panel ...

Nelson Advisors interviewed by ION Analytics for the 'Ele...

Nelson Advisors interviewed by Adriel Bettelheim, senior ...