As technology is progressing faster than ever, early identification of life threatening diseases using healthcare imaging is increasing the ability to respond and treat them quickly and effectively, saving time and lives.
Medical imaging for radiologists is a platform that has drastically improved over the years, as part of this technological advancement.
Revolutionising the way doctors can treat patients, according to FDA, medical imaging refers to several different technologies that are used to view the human body in order to diagnose, monitor, or treat medical conditions.
Each type of technology gives different information about the area of the body being studied or treated, in terms of possible disease, injury or the effectiveness of medical treatment.
The list below highlights seven medical imaging start-ups impacting the work of radiologists, helping them improve patient treatment and quality of care.
Healthcare imaging start-ups:
VoxelCloud
Founded in 2016, VoxelCloud is a medical AI start-up company developed by Dr Xiaowei Ding, which provides automated medical image analytics, diagnostics services and cloud computing technologies to clinical practices and practitioners.
VoxelCloud uses AI and cloud computing technologies to interpret medical images and clinical data, and provides doctors with comprehensive diagnostic assistance on screenings for lung cancer, retina diseases and heart diseases.
Based in Los Angeles, California, VoxelCloud also has offices in China’s Shanghai and Suzhou.
Aidoc
Founded in 2016, the Tel Aviv start-up using AI to analyse medical scans claims to enable radiologists to detect high-level visual abnormalities from various types of medical scans, which could save lives.
Aidocs’s FDA-cleared and CE-marked AI software is currently being used in more than 100 hospitals worldwide to analyse medical scans in real-time, helping doctors prioritise the most urgent and critical cases.
It was named one of TIME magazine’s “50 genius companies” in 2018.
Osimis
Based in Belgium, the medical image management start-up is a spin-off of the University Hospital of Liège.
Founded in 2015, the company aims to simplify the process of exchanging medical images across the healthcare sector in a cost efficient way, through the use of open source software.
The company’s product, Orthanc, is an open source imaging server that runs everywhere from the PC to the cloud, and is used in 192 countries with more than 230,000 downloads.
The latest Osimis solution, Lify, was created to increase collaboration and improve the management of its studies.
The start-up is currently working to strengthen its presence in Europe, North America and Asia.
Osimis CEO Frédéric Lambrechts said: “Our goal is to improve the clinical pathway and the patient’s life across all dimensions of medical imaging.
“Technology and innovation are tools that must be put to the service of the patient.”
Lunit
Lunit, abbreviated from “learning unit,” is a medical software start-up developing AI-powered diagnostic and therapeutic imaging biomarkers, using deep learning technology for chest, breast, and cardiac imaging and digital pathology.
Based in South Korea, and founded in 2013, its Lunit Insight for Mammography platform claims to be the first ever real-time imaging AI analytics on the web, and lowers the rate of misdiagnosis.
Lunit aims to reduce costs by gathering more accurate information from accessible basic tests like mammography, and using this clinically accurate information to increase efficiency in diagnostics.
Zebra Medical Vision
Founded in 2014 by Eyal Gura, Eyal Toledano and Benjamin Elad, Zebra Medical Vision is an Israel-based start-up that uses AI technology to help read medical scans.
The healthcare imaging company uses a proprietary database of millions of imaging scans, along with machine and deep learning tools to create software that analyses data in real time with human level accuracy.
The company claims its online software is able to produce medical reports with 90% accuracy.
VIDA Diagnostics
The Coralville, Iowa, company uses a combination of AI and quality-controlled image analysis as part of its automated software and analysis services, which aids the early detection, evaluation and treatment planning of lung diseases.
VIDA’s software is sold to hospitals to provide greater precision and personalisation across a range of lung diseases, including cancer, emphysema, airway obstructive diseases, asthma and interstitial lung disease.
The AI-powered software was featured in a New England Journal of Medicine article, showing that millions of people were living with undiagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in 2016.
VIDA also has an office in Minneapolis and staff in Silicon Valley.
Advantis Medical Imaging
Advantis Medical Imaging is a Greek medtech start-up making advanced medical imaging more accessible, user-friendly and data-driven by merging it with cloud technology.
Founded in 2016, the healthcare imaging company claims to have the “first web-based multimodal software”, in its Brainance MD product.
The software includes multiple image handling and manipulation features to assist in displaying, reviewing and analysing 2D & 3D brain MRI scans to identify serious conditions such as tumours and sclerosis.
Advantis CEO Zoe Giaver said: “Brainance, the company’s first product, allows remote access to examinations and collaboration among users, while offering higher accuracy in results.
“Having completed the development of Brainance, our goal is to expand the company both commercially and technologically.
“Next-generation plans include the consolidation of Advantis in the European market, a first approach to the American market and the development of new products for the prostate and the breast.”
