Ibex Medical Analytics, an Israel-based startup founded in 2016 which is developing their own AI-driven computational pathology cancer diagnosis system, recently completed an $11M Series A funding round led by aMoon Fund. Additional investors in the round include Kamet Ventures, an investment arm of AXA Insurance, one of the largest global health insurance providers, 83North, a global venture capital fund and Dell Technologies Capital.

According to the article titled Computational Pathology: A Path Ahead, DN Louis and his co-authors suggested two practical definitions of computational pathology:

1. An approach to diagnosis that incorporates multiple sources of raw data (e.g. clinical electronic medical records, laboratory data including “-omics,” and imaging [both radiology and pathology imaging]); extracts biologically and clinically relevant information from these data; uses mathematic models at the molecular, individual, and population levels to generate diagnostic inferences and predictions; and presents this clinically actionable knowledge to customers through dynamic and integrated reports and interfaces, enabling physicians, patients, laboratory personnel, and other health care system stakeholders to make the best possible medical decisions.

2. More generally, using computation for the interpretation of multiparameter data to improve health care.

WHAT THEY DO

Ibex's initial product is the Second Read system for prostate core needle biopsies diagnosis, which has been clinically deployed at Maccabi Healthcare Services (one of the four Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) currently active in Israel) and will soon be commercially deployed  internationally in pathology labs.

Through its strategic collaboration with Maccabi Healthcare Services, Ibex has access to a unique dataset with millions of pathology slides and EMRs of 2.5 million patients, enabling it to develop breakthrough algorithms at unprecedented accuracy levels. This is in addition to collaborations with leading institutes and international hospitals, including Pittsburgh-based UPMC, a world-renowned health care provider, and MediPath, the largest private pathology lab in France.

WHAT'S THE TREND

Earlier this month, New York-based Paige.AI, a pathology company that uses AI for diagnosis and development, was granted a Breakthrough Device designation by the FDA. Page.AI has been working with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to digitise pathology slide and create a pathology dataset.

In March 2018, Precision Health AI, a company that specialises in applications of AI to oncology, launched a platform called Eureka Health Oncology, which uses EMR data to provide practical AI applications for real oncology use cases. The platform is designed to help researchers and clinicians design targeted therapies, shape clinical trials, and determine what therapies offer the greatest patient benefits.

ON THE RECORD

"Many cancer cases are diagnosed too late or are missed due to human error. We have already witnessed the life-saving impact that our platform has delivered to Maccabi patients," said Joseph Mossel, Ibex's co-founder and CEO in a statement. "With this new funding, we plan to expand our engineering team in order to extend our product offering to additional types of cancer. This will empower pathology institutes to significantly improve their efficiency and accuracy, thereby saving the lives of more patients."