Six digital health start-ups from five countries have officially become the first cohort of the Edison Accelerator in Canada – a program designed by GE Healthcare and delivered in collaboration with Nex Cubed to accelerate, validate and scale innovative solutions that address important challenges in the healthcare sector.
The companies all focus on applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to augment medical imaging with the potential to transform how healthcare is delivered. AI is poised to increase productivity and the efficiency of care delivery and allow healthcare systems to provide better care to more people. AI can help improve the experience of healthcare practitioners, with the goal of enabling them to spend more time in direct patient care and reducing burnout.
The companies in the program are:
- 16 Bit Inc: 16 Bit is a physician-founded startup that created a computer-aided detection and notification software that is intended to function as an opportunistic prescreening device for low bone mineral density using routinely acquired x-rays of the chest, spine, pelvis, knee or hand.
- Bot Image: Bot Image is a medical device company that created a product for post-processing MRI that is using artificial intelligence (AI) to aid physicians in image interpretation by providing highly accurate prostate cancer diagnostics. The software is provided as a SaaS model or can be installed behind the client’s firewall.
- CardioWise: CardioWise is an AI cardiac image analysis company that simplifies the diagnosis of heart disease enabling a quantitative diagnostic evaluation of the heart system using CT data. CardioWise analysis will provide caregivers with next generation algorithms and data to help physicians to make better more informed decisions about patient care.
- contextflow: contextflow develops deep learning-based tools to enable radiologists to complete their daily workload faster and with higher quality and offers comprehensive clinical decision support for lung CT, providing quantitative and qualitative analysis of lung disease patterns and nodules related to ILD, COPD and lung cancer.
- corelinesoft: corelinesoft specializes in AI development that provides medical image processing solutions with a mission to drive for a future where one simple scan can reveal any ailment and provide for early screening and prevention – for example utilizing AI to detect nodules that have the possibility of progressing into lung cancer.
- US2.ai: Us2.ai is a software start-up founded in 2017 and backed by Sequoia; Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research; and IHH Healthcare that automates the fight against heart disease through AI with AI-structured reports processed automatically in under 2 minutes.
As such, in addition to the six startups, Circle Cardiovascular Imaging, a prominent global medical imaging company, who is already collaborating and has integrated its stroke-focused AI-based tools with GE Healthcare’s FastStroke processing platform, is leveraging the Edison Accelerator to accelerate the integration of its StrokeSENS software with the Edison Platform.
Over the next three months, the seven companies will test their solution within the Edison Digital Health Platform, which takes a vendor-agnostic approach to developing and deploying Artificial Intelligence at scale integrated within the clinical workflow. Each company will get a customized program plan and hand-picked mentors with the aim to accelerate integration and commercialization.
The program culminates with an Innovation Showcase during which all participants will present to a network of investors, potential business partners and customers, who could help take their companies to the next level. Subject to applicable regulatory authorizations, successful applications may have the opportunity to be distributed through the GE Healthcare Marketplace after culmination of relevant steps that include commercial distribution agreements. GE Healthcare Marketplace is GE Healthcare’s online store that allows customers to find and buy applications and algorithms from a range of third-party developers that can be integrated within their clinical and operational workflows to help healthcare providers improve outcomes for patients.
