Jan 17, 2023

Photo by Andreas Klassen via Unsplash The University of Notre Dame’s Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society (Notre Dame, Ind.) is receiving support from professional services company Accenture (Dublin, Ireland) to “leverage the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand and aim to solve the most intransigent healthcare challenges, specifically at the intersection of medical and social care” ( Jan. 4 ). Nitesh Chawla, PhD, Lucy Family Institute founding director: “We are extremely grateful for Accenture’s support. We hope to develop a framework for co-creation and co-innovation to advance solutions to tackle health disparities challenges, including but not limited to responsible AI for health, an annual health equity data index and adding precision to social determinants of health actions.”   MRI software supplier Perspectum (Oxford, U.K.) has raised a fresh $36 million, hiking its total take from investors to around $120 million ( Jan. 5 ). The company plans to use the backing to expand market share beyond the 77 million U.S. adults who’ve had covered access to its tool for assessing chronic liver disease on MRI, LiverMultiScan. Leading the new funding round was Oppenheimer Holdings (New York, N.Y.). Oppenheimer Holdings president Robert Lowenthal: “Perspectum is a truly disruptive company with medical imaging software that can dramatically improve the standard of care for millions of patients, as well as provide a higher level of decision support for physicians. We anticipate Perspectum will continue to lead the field of AI-enhanced imaging for years to come.”   Canon Medical Systems USA (Tustin, Calif.) is partnering with image-management outfit ScImage of Los Altos, Calif. ( Jan. 9 ). Canon will leverage the collaboration to build its hemodynamics customer base while boosting its presence in cardiac markets. Sai Raya, PhD, founder and CEO of ScImage: “[I]n collaboration with Canon, we are providing a powerful cloud-centric platform for the advancement of enterprise imaging. With a shared vision and perfectly complementary products, we can drive the future direction of cardiology and beyond.”   Promaxo (Oakland, Calif.) sold eight of its systems for AI-equipped, MRI-guided prostate interventions in the fourth quarter of 2022 ( Jan. 9 ). The company launched a year prior and has now topped $15 million in sales. Promaxo client Kalish Kedia, MD, Cleveland Urology Associates and Infinity Surgery Center: “This novel and disruptive technology will support our goals in in clinical research to further improve urological care.”   RaySearch Laboratories (Stockholm, Sweden) has secured an order from the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center for RayStation, a proton-therapy planning system incorporating deep learning segmentation and other tech-forward features ( Jan. 9 ). RaySearch founder and CEO Johan Löf: “[W]e are proud that yet another prominent proton clinic has selected RayStation. We look forward to supporting OSUCC … in their clinical operation.”   Viz.ai of San Francisco has introduced a suite of applications for automatically detecting vascular abnormalities and triaging affected patients ( Jan. 12 ). The company says its Viz Vascular Suite works with several imaging modalities and is capable of flagging pulmonary embolism, right heart strain, aortic dissection and abdominal aortic aneurysm. Philip Batista, MD, Cooper University Health Care in New Jersey: “When Viz identifies an abnormal scan, it quickly notifies the appropriate specialists regardless of their location. We’ve been using the Viz software for the last several months and have seen improvements in patient care across our institution.”   Perimeter Medical Imaging AI closed 2022 by recording two new commercial installations of its flagship optical coherence tomography (OCT) system used to visualize excised cancer tissues at the cellular level in real time during surgery ( Jan. 10 ). Perimeter CEO Jeremy Sobotta: “[T]he expansion within our existing customers’ networks indicates the value [our] early users are experiencing. These positive metrics are highly encouraging, and we remain focused on placing our innovative medical imaging technology in ORs across the U.S. with the goal of improving patient outcomes and reducing overall healthcare costs.”   Gentuity (Boston) has announced the first human use of its high-frequency optical coherence tomography (HFG-OCT) system for navigating the intricate blood vessels of the brain ( Jan. 12 ). Vitor Mendes Pereira, MD, director of endovascular research and innovation, St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto): “This is an incredibly exciting milestone. The direct visualization technology we evaluated here offers unprecedented potential in the diagnosis and treatment of aneurysms, stroke, intra-cranial atherosclerotic disease and other neurological pathologies.”   Medality of Cincinnati (formerly MRI Online) has been chosen as the radiology training and partner of choice by 72-location Integral Diagnostics (IDX) of Australia and New Zealand ( Jan. 12 ). Medality CEO and co-founder Daniel Arnold: “We found a perfect partner in IDX, whose belief in professional development, continuing education and dedication to empowering radiologists to learn new skills matches our own.”   Seno Medical (San Antonio) has entered into an exclusive distributor agreement with Genetik (Republic of Singapore), which will market, sell and service Seno’s Imagio opto-acoustic/ultrasound breast imaging system in Southeast Asia ( Jan. 13 ). Seno Medical president and CEO Tom Umbel: “This agreement represents a major milestone for Seno Medical and the continued acceptance and adoption of our new fusion modality in breast imaging.” Genetik CEO Balrai Singh: “We are proud to work with innovative and highly accurate technologies that can change the standard of care for patients. We look forward to representing … the only global FDA-approved technology based on photoacoustic imaging fused with ultrasound for diagnosing breast cancer.”