March 10, Cleveland Clinic and Boston Path AI Announce they are working together Deploy PathAI’s artificial intelligence pathology algorithms to conduct research and improve patient care. Specifically, the collaboration will enable the digitization of hundreds of thousands of pathology specimens, creating millions of complete slide images across multiple disease areas.
On Wednesday, less than a week later, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Pramana Announce It is launching its digital pathology-as-a-service offering and has reached its first commercial agreement with the Mayo Clinic. Through the deal, Pramana will digitize 5 million slides in Mayo, which the startup claims is “one of the largest digitization efforts in the world to date, at an unprecedented rate.”
Both announcements underscore how artificial intelligence and machine learning are rapidly changing the field of pathology, which has historically meant pathologists evaluating tissue samples from the glass side under a microscope.Other companies in this space include Page, Prosciaand Indica Lab.
For PathAI, by taking digital images of these tissue slices and creating a vast library, machine learning algorithms can then be created to label relevant cell types and disease areas. Pathologists can then use PathAI’s platform to examine the slides on a high-resolution monitor.
“A side-by-side analysis generated from an algorithm [calls] List the key focus areas that led to the overall analysis.Machine-assisted pathology can improve speed, efficiency, and even confidence in accuracy compared to the human eye alone,” explained Andy BakerCEO and co-founder of PathAI, in an email correspondence with MedCity News.
Digital pathology helps address more than just the accuracy of the human eye. A Pramana executive pointed to another area of human limitation that its services could alleviate: time and convenience factors.
“It’s often misunderstood that the challenge of digitizing tissue and fluid slices ends with the purchase of a scanner,” Prasanth Perugupalli, chief product officer at Pramana, said in a news release. “We realized that the greater pain and cost of operating the scanner was the The human capital required, which includes making the correct choice of parameters and checking each slide image for any errors after the scan is complete. Pramana’s DPaaS solution overcomes these challenges with minimal laboratory burden and standardization and open data formats provide quality-assured images of the entire slide.”
While Pramana’s agreement with Mayo Clinic appears to be a more direct commercial agreement, Cleveland Clinic’s agreement with PathAI appears to be more collaborative. For example, PathAI will gain access to digitized pathology slides and will help develop and improve its AI-driven algorithms. At the same time, the Cleveland Clinic medical team will provide expertise to ensure that the algorithm works in both clinical and research settings.
The PathAI platform is designed to significantly improve the accuracy of diagnosis and the measurement of treatment effects.
“[Cleveland Clinic’s] Clinical and research teams have deep expertise in diagnostic medicine and actively treat and treat patients with a large number of different cancer types. This means that through digitization, the pairing of CC’s clinical and genomic data, and the application of artificial intelligence, we are able to create an extremely rich dataset that will drive new product development leveraging our machine and deep learning models,” added Baker “As we build these models, we will have the support of world-renowned medical teams to ensure that our algorithms work in both clinical and research settings. “
Faster, more accurate diagnosis through artificial intelligence can have a significant impact on patient outcomes.As a case in point, Baker mentions PathAI’s Artificial intelligence-based nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) scoring study, which demonstrated reduced diagnostic variability and improved biomarker sensitivity, thereby increasing the chance of success. Beck added that NASH is a disease area that has left patients without many treatment options until now.
If PathAI can achieve its goals, it will be a success story in the field of AI and ML-assisted digital diagnostics. It has a busy 2021.The company has landed $165 million in Series C financing and Acquisition of Poplar Healthcare. In the latest round, one participant is the integrated payer-provider healthcare system – Kaiser Permanente. In the press release announcing the partnership with the Cleveland Clinic, there’s a little nugget hidden: Cleveland Clinic is taking an equity stake in the company. The investment amount was not disclosed.
In addition to the Cleveland Clinic, PathAI has partnered with several other companies to date, including Akoya Biosciences, Novo Nordisk and Roche. But ultimately health systems and doctors are an important piece of the puzzle because of their role in actual medical practice.
“[Partnering with Cleveland Clinic is] A step forward in realizing our vision of digitizing all anatomical pathology and demonstrating the use of artificial intelligence as standard of care in drug development and diagnostic medicine,” Baker said. “To be successful, we need to be a part of the healthcare ecosystem. Build bridges across the system, including physicians, biopharma partners, and Academic Medical Centers (AMCs). We are excited to partner with AMC at this level and we plan to continue building meaningful relationships to help ensure success. “
Photo: Mikdan, Getty Images and PathAI
