„Með þessari lausn getum við sparað bæði einstaklingum og heilbrigðiskerfinu mikla fjármuni.“
Frá þjálfunardegi hjá Heilbrigðisstofnun Norðurlands vegna innleiðingar á RetinaRisk lausninni. Ljósmynd: Aðsend mynd
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Heilbrigðisstofnun Norðurlands (HSN) hefur hafið samstarf við íslenska hugbúnaðarfyrirtækið RetinaRisk um að bjóða reglubundna augnskimun fyrir fólk með sykursýki með notkun gervigreindar. Áætlað er að með notkun RetinaRisk lausnarinnar sparist að meðaltali um 99% af kostnaði miðað við að senda sjúklinga til Reykjavíkur í augnskoðun. Að auki sparist hundruðir ferðalaga á ári hverju, sem auðveldar fólki með sykursýki að fá þjónustuna sem hluta af sinni reglubundnu sykursýkiseftirfylgni á nærheilsugæslu. „Lausnin var fyrst tekin í notkun hjá Heilbrigðisstofnun Suðurnesja (HSS) með góðum árangri, og er nú komið að íbúum á Norðurlandi að njóta sama ávinnings,“ segir í fréttatilkynningu. „Samstarfið með HSN er stórt framfaraskref í að færa þjónustuna nær fólki. Við vitum að ferðalög til höfuðborgarinnar eru bæði tímafrek og kostnaðarsöm fyrir sjúklinga, og með þessari lausn getum við sparað bæði einstaklingum og heilbrigðiskerfinu mikla fjármuni. Fyrst og fremst snýst þetta þó um að bæta lífsgæði fólks með sykursýki með því að gera skimunina aðgengilegri,“ segir Ægir Þór Steinarsson, forstjóri RetinaRisk.

Spari yfir 90% með samningi um augnskimun

Chennai eye hospital ties up with Iceland firm to adopt mathematical algorithm to predict diabetic retinopathy
Sankara Nethralaya is collaborating with RetinaRisk, a health tech company from Iceland, to put in place a mathematical tool to predict an individual’s risk of developing sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy. To start with, about 20 doctors from Chennai and the rest of the country will be the first users of the algorithm. Rajiv Raman, senior consultant, Vitreoretinal department, Sankara Nethralaya, said 12.5% of persons with diabetes develop diabetic retinopathy that could lead to blindness. Of them, 5 to 6% may develop sight-threatening retinopathy. With the objective of early detection to reduce blindness, the Indian version of RetinaRisk algorithm was developed based on the Sankara Nethralaya Diabetic Retinopathy Epidemiology and Molecular Genetics Study dataset from 2019. “This is a mathematical modelling to find out the risk a person has to develop sight-threatening retinopathy in a year. We need to feed information on a number of parameters based on the history of the patient such as age, gender, duration of diabetes, HbA1c, type of diabetes and prior retinopathy to know the risk of retinopathy,” Dr. Raman told reporters on Saturday. He said “champion users” —physicians, ophthalmologists and retina specialists — would put it to use in their clinical practice and provide feedback. Ægir Þór Steinarsson, chief executive officer, RetinaRisk said the algorithm was introduced in 2009 and was deployed including in South Africa, Netherlands, U.S. and Brazil. Bala Kamallakharan, chairman of RetinaRisk, said it would help identify people who are at high risk and get them care. Girish Shiva Rao, medical director and president of Sankara Nethralaya, said this would reduce the need for highly skilled manpower. Once physicians feed in data and the algorithm provides an alert on at-risk persons, the onus is on physicians to use the algorithm to direct the patient to an eye centre. Pramod Bhende, director, Vitreoretinal department, Sankara Nethralaya, spoke.

Chennai eye hospital ties up with Iceland firm to adopt mathematical algorithm to predict diabetic retinopathy

Apoglyx, Respinor and RetinaRisk Announced as NLSInvest Rising Star Award Winners
Apoglyx, Respinor and RetinaRisk Announced as NLSInvest Rising Star Award Winners
 
Pressmeddelande
2021-04-20 08:01
Sigurbjörg Ásta Jónsdóttir, CEO of RetinaRisk (Iceland), Michael Rützler, CEO of Apoglyx (Sweden) and Trude Tingvoll, CEO of Respinor (Norway). Over 150 Nordic companies applied to the launch of the first-ever Nordic Life Science Investment Day, NLSInvest. Following a long review of the applications by a pan-Nordic committee of industry leaders, 80 Rising Stars were ultimately selected to pitch to investors across three dedicated tracks: biotech/pharma, medtech/diagnostics and digital/e-health. From the 80 Rising Stars, one company from each track was selected as the category winner. The three winners will be awarded a package prize of 15,000 DKK, two registrations to NLSDays 2022, and one company presentation at the 2022 conference. This year, the NLSInvest Rising Star Award Winners are: 
Biotech / Pharma: ApoGlyx (Sweden) is developing small molecule inhibitors for Aquaporin-9. Aquaporins have been well recognized as important drug targets. Apoglyx’s most advanced approach targets sepsis, for which there is currently no cure. Medtech / Diagnostics: Respinor (Norway) is developing a novel, non-invasive, ultrasound based medical device for continuous diaphragm monitoring, with potential applications towards many aspects of critical care and respiratory medicine. Digital / E-health: RetinaRisk (Iceland) is an app that helps determine individualized risk of developing diabetic retinopathy, one of the leading causes of blindness today, which can be prevented in over 90% of cases with early detection. NLSInvest is a a joint collaboration between Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Denmark to highlight the unique phenomenon that all five excel in the same industry: life sciences. This phenomenon is increasingly gaining global attention and NLSInvest has now attracted 150+ investors, all eager to connect with Nordic companies. ‘We look upon this as the Olympics of life science innovation, where each Nordic country´s strength in this field is proudly demonstrated by the “best of the best” of our entrepreneurs,’ says Helena Strigård, CEO of SwedenBIO, the Swedish Life science Industry organization and host of NLSInvest / NLSDays. This year’s NLSInvest Rising Star Awards are sponsored by SwedenBIO and BioInnovation Institute (BII), an international life science entrepreneurship initiative and part of the NLSInvest Committee. ‘We believe the Nordic ecosystem has all the ingredients required for success and are happy to see international investor interest in the NLSInvest Rising Star companies. Our view is that high-growth Nordic start-up companies must play on a global playing field, and the Rising Star Award is a step in that direction. We wish the participants and the winners of the competition continued success,’ says Bobby Soni, Chief Business Officer at BioInnovation Institute. Read more about NLSDays and the 80 Rising Stars here:  https://www.nlsdays.com/
Press contacts: 
Bobby Soni, Chief Business Officer, BioInnovation Institute, telephone: +45 20 71 44 28, email:  bgs@bii.dk   
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Apoglyx, Respinor and RetinaRisk Announced as NLSInvest Rising Star Award Winners

Meet Bala Kamallakharan, managing director at Iceland Venture Studio

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Healthcare entrepreneur and doctor Arna Gudmundsdottir has spent decades treating diabetics, and she learned that effective treatment often involves encouraging patients to take matters of care into their own hands. She helped make this possible when she and her team began working on a method to aid diabetics in monitoring their eye health. They developed RetinaRisk—an app that helps people determine, through an algorithm, their individualized risk of developing diabetic retinopathy—or vision loss that affects over 120 million  diabetics worldwide . The algorithm takes into consideration factors that highly impact retinopathy, such as blood glucose levels, blood pressure and gender. The company, which Gudmundsdottir, an endocrinologist, cofounded with ophthalmologist Dr. Einar Steffanson is based in Iceland, and has raised $1.8 million. In 2019 they launched the app, RetinaRisk, which has been downloaded in multiple countries by nearly 800,000 people. By having this at their fingertips, diabetics can frequently track their own eye health, take early action and help prevent this leading cause of blindness. According to RetinaRisk, early detection and treatment can prevent avoidable vision loss in 95% of cases. The setup allows hospitals and healthcare systems worldwide to prioritize high-risk patients by streamlining diabetic retinopathy eye screening. It also provides overall diabetes management, offering guidance on what types of foods to avoid to maintain blood sugar, for example. Gudmundsdottir always felt a pull toward treating diabetics, and doing it methodically. “It’s a chronic disease, and it’s so important that the patient takes responsibility on his or her own health,” she said. “If you empower the patient, their destiny is in their own hands. That’s where the app fits so well.” Now, after extensive research and one year into monetizing the app, the team behind  RetinaRisk  has seen growth and improvement in patients’ conditions. Gudmundsdottir earned her medical degree in Iceland before completing residency and a fellowship at the University of Iowa. She moved back to Iceland, where she currently sees patients at her private medical clinic and is affiliated with a university hospital. She began working on this system with her husband Thor Aspelund, a biostatistician and Dr. Steffanson. The couple read up on the literature, applied for research grants and developed the advanced algorithm around 2009. “But maybe we were a little ahead of our time,” she said with a laugh. Insurance companies weren’t interested, and doctors said they preferred seeing patients in person, using their clinical judgment instead of an algorithm. This left the team in a quandary, with a working solution but no interest from others. Fast forward to 2019 and the app-centric world was much more open to it. They launched RetinaRisk for iOS and Android, and in 2020, began charging users $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year. To date, the company has raised money from grants and investors, including Iceland Venture Studio and the Icelandic Technology Development Fund. “I believe we’re witnessing the rise of digital health and fundamental changes in healthcare with patients becoming more knowledgeable and active participants in their wellness journey,” CEO Sigurbjörg Ásta Jónsdóttir said. “The Covid-19 situation has only served to accelerate this process.” 
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Meet The Women Who Raised $1.8 Million For An App That Measures Risk Of Blindness From Diabetes

The digital health collection includes vendors developing software, platforms, sensor & robotic hardware, health data infrastructure, and tech-enabled services in healthcare. The list excludes pureplay pharma/biopharma, sequencing instruments, gene editing, and assistive tech.

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Unattributed VC

Unattributed VC - II

RetinaRisk serves as a healthtech company specializing in diabetic retinopathy care within the healthcare sector. The company offers predictive analytics tools and clinical decision support services to assist healthcare providers in conducting screenings for eye diseases associated with diabetes. RetinaRisk primarily serves healthcare providers, diabetes hospitals, ophthalmology clinics, and health insurers. It was founded in 2009 and is based in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Date	Round	Amount	Investors	Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model.	Revenue	Sources
1/1/2021	Unattributed	$1.8M	Undisclosed Investors	$XXM	0 FY undefined	1
7/10/2020	Unattributed VC - II	$XXM	Subscribe to see more	$XXM	0 FY undefined	10
1/25/2019	Unattributed VC		Subscribe to see more	$XXM	0 FY undefined	10

Date	1/1/2021	7/10/2020	1/25/2019
Round	Unattributed	Unattributed VC - II	Unattributed VC
Amount	$1.8M	$XXM
Investors	Undisclosed Investors	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more
Valuation	$XXM	$XXM	$XXM
Revenue	0 FY undefined	0 FY undefined	0 FY undefined
Sources	1	10	10

First funding	1/25/2019
Last Funding	7/10/2020
Investor	Iceland Venture Studio
Rounds	2 Unattributed VC, Unattributed VC - II (2020)
Board Seats
Type	Venture Capital
Location	Iceland

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