AI in Medical Imaging Round Up – July 2024

Publication Date: 05/08/2024

Written by

Amy Thompson

Cranfield, UK, 5th August 2024, Written by Amy Thompson –

I’m excited to be taking over the AI in Medical Imaging round-ups at Signify Research Ltd, to continue bringing everyone the latest news from the Medical Imaging AI market. July has been a busy month, and below is a summary of news that’s caught my attention:

Funding Returning in 2H 2024?

After a quiet 1H of 2024, funding announcements in July boomed. For context, the four rounds announced in the month of July, has boosted the total volume of deals for medical imaging AI by 50%, in 2024 YTD.

AIRS Medical kicked off the month, with the announcement the vendor secured $20m in Series C funding. With the latest injection of cash, the company noted plans to expand its presence in international markets and continue to invest in R&D to accelerate growth beyond the SwiftMR product.

The last week of the month witnessed three announcements, with Reveal-Dx landing a $4.2m Seed round kicking off momentum. Reveal-DX’s solution using machine learning techniques to assess the probability that a lung nodule found on chest CT scans are cancerous. Next up, Subtle Medical confirmed the success of its Series B+ round of almost $10m, bringing the vendors Series B to over $30m and total financing to over $50m. The additional investment will primarily support accelerating US and global sales initiatives and expediting the launch of new AI-driven products.

To round off the week, deepc closed an extension to its Series A round, adding an extra $13m, and bringing the total amount raised to date to $30m. The vendor expects to leverage the additional capital to extend deepc’s presence in the US market, as well as further expanding in the UK and doubling down on key European markets.

Although this is a positive indication that the 2H of the year will witness further investment. The longer-lead time for vendors to succeed in raising, as well as two of the announcements this month being extensions of previous rounds suggests that many vendors still face an uphill battle.

Acquisition & Partnerships

GE HealthCare announced an agreement to acquire Intelligent Ultrasound for approximately $51m. In addition to the existing technology, in which GE intents to integrate into its existing ultrasound portfolio, the vendor will also add an AI innovation pipeline to drive future development – aided by the plan that the Intelligent Ultrasound R&D team will join the GE roster. This is the vendors second AI acquisition, following the Caption Health acquisition in February 2023.

In addition to the acquisition, July also witnessed a number of partnerships. CARPL – Radiology AI Platform partnered with AdvaHealth Solutions, a radiology IT vendor, with the intention to leverage the vendors presence in the Asia Pacific market.

GLEAMER joined the Siemens Healthineers Digital Marketplace, making its BoneView AI solution available to Siemens customers. This partnership expands Gleamers availability across channel partners, with Siemens marking the 10th AI platform (third party and imaging IT vendor) in which providers can deploy Gleamer’s solutions.

Ahead of the funding announcement, deepc reported that PAIRE‘s Pionus solution, a solution that detects, segments and quantifies every hypermetabolic foci in FDG PET/CT exams, will be available via the deepcOS platform.

Beyond image analysis, Bayer announced a partnership with Rad AI, making Rad AI solutions available via the Calantic Digital Solutions platform. The integration of operational tools will be important for Bayer, following suit with other platform vendors such as CAPRL and its own arms-length company, Blackford. With increasing procedure volumes and intensifying workforce challenges, operational tools that drive efficiency are a priority for providers, globally.

Brainomix continued to invest in the pharma opportunity with its latest partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim. The project intends to evaluate the real-world impact of Brainomix’s e-Lung solution to improve the identification and access to people with progressive pulmonary fibrosis in the US. The pharma market, although less predictable and “lumpy” from a revenue perspective, offers a solid secondary market to support business operations for AI companies; an opportunity to validate solutions and in some examples, support regulatory approval. Beneficial whilst the clinical AI market matures.

Reimbursement

Early on this month, Ultromics announced that AMA issued a Category III CTP code for EchoGo® Heart Failure. The solution uses AI to detect heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) from a single, routinely acquired echocardiographic video. The new CPT code will become effective January 1st, 2025, and will replace the previous HCPCS outpatient code, C9786.

Avenda Health announced the CMS has assigned a national payment rate for its Unfold AI. Additionally, effective 1st July 2024, the AMA implemented a new Category III code, 0898T, enables healthcare providers to bill for these non-invasive prostate cancer estimation maps, which are derived from advanced analysis of image-guided fusion biopsy and pathology.

Regulatory Approvals

Qure.ai received a Class III medical device license from Health Canada, for all its medical imaging AI solutions. This will enable qure.ai to enter to Canadian market with its qXR, qCT and qER solutions. Although the Canadian AI market remains relatively small and therefore limited revenue prospects short-term, this does offer a less competitive market and allows the vendor to benefit longer-term from the first mover advantage.

Subtle Medical announced FDA clearance of SubtleSYNTH, which uses deep-learning to generate synthetic STIR images from already acquired T1 and T2 weighted contrasts. The vendor has plans to expand the technology to Brain and MSK imaging in the future releases.

EU – AI Act

The AI Act will enter into effect on August 1st 2024, and relates to all AI systems put into service in the EU, including healthcare. The legislation is intended to protect EU citizens from the potential harmful effects of AI systems, with AI systems classified as “high risk” required to meet certain requirements to ensure safe and responsible use. All AI solutions that require MDR regulation, are deemed as “high risk” in accordance with the Act. Importantly, beyond the manufacturer’s responsibility, the AI Act also places expectation on the users – ensuring that those deploying AI have been sufficiently trained, monitor AI solutions and that relevant personnel, medical practitioners and leadership become AI literate. As such, it will be important for vendors to ensure thorough training and service offerings are available to support customers in adopting and monitoring AI.

Screening Initiatives

As of the 1st July 2024, Germany’s lung cancer screening program came into effect. The new BMUV Ordinance now allows the use of low-dose CT (LDCT) for the early detection of lung cancer in smokers in Germany for the first time, thus representing the first decisive step towards a structured national lung cancer early detection programme. The Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) will examine within the next 18 months, whether this program is to be provided as part of the statutory health insurance fund.

In addition to Germany, further progress has been observed in France. The Institut national du cancer (National Cancer Institute of France) published recommendations on lung screening in France. Currently, this raises many questions to evaluate in terms of “how” to screen, and is seen as a positive step forward, with a clear need in the country. Overall, another signal to the growing trend and investment observed in Europe for lung screening programmes.

Moving to the Middle East, Lunit Cancer Screening announced the implementation of INSIGHT MMG in Qatar’s national breast cancer screening program “Screen for Life”, a partnership that is set for an initial period of five-years. This is the first nationwide adoption of AI in a national-level breast screening workflow in the Middle East.

That’s all for this month but do subscribe to receive regular updates!

If you have any questions, or would like to delve further into any of the announcements discussed above, please don’t hesitate to drop me a message!

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About Amy Thompson

Amy joined Signify Research in 2020, starting as an Analyst in the Imaging IT market, and since progressing to become Research Manager. In Amy’s role, she manages the Imaging IT, AI in Medical Imaging and Teleradiology research portfolio. She brings over eight years of experience as an Analyst in the healthcare sector.

About the Medical Imaging / Healthcare IT Team

Signify Research’s imaging IT service provides expert market intelligence and detailed insights across radiology IT, cardiology IT, and advanced visualisation IT, alongside operational workflow & business intelligence tools. Combining primary data collection and in-depth discussions with industry stakeholders, our thorough research approach yields credible quantitative and qualitative analysis, helping our customers make critical business decisions with confidence.

About Signify Research

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