Oncoshot receives funding to further expand in India, Australia

Singaporean medical startup Oncoshot has scored an undisclosed investment through a pre-Series A funding round led by Biofurmis and Qure.ai investor MassMutual Ventures.

Based on a press release, the funding will support the company's further expansion into India and Australia. 

There are four hospital networks in India and some networks of over 20 hospitals in Oceania that are about to set up their respective nationwide public-private clinical trial ecosystems like Singapore's Project EISE. The latter uses Oncoshot's clinical trial matching platform to connect cancer patients, healthcare professionals, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

It is said that clinical trials worldwide lose around $35 billion each year due to inefficient processes in cancer research and patient recruitment. 

Oncoshot has developed a solution to such issues by enhancing the health records of clinical partners through AI and machine learning. Its federated data system securely hosts critical and sensitive patient data within hospital premises and provides full protection, access and control of analyses and insights to hospital administrators. 

Health knowledge website Happiest Health goes live in India

Indian IT service and consultancy firm Happiest Minds Technologies has launched a new online repository of health and wellness knowledge and information.

Called Happiest Health, the website aims to provide "in-depth, credible, and trustworthy" information on health and wellness, according to a press statement.

It will educate its audience with breakthroughs and developments in health and wellness, sourced from new research and studies from partner global institutes. The portal will also put a spotlight on new tools for early diagnosis, as well as user stories and comments.

Moreover, a panel of doctors and wellness experts will contribute guest essays and articles that offer unique perspectives and interesting medical experiences.

"Through Happiest Health, we want to build the importance of integrated medicine, provide valuable knowledge through experts on early diagnosis and evidence-based therapies and do so with empathy and passion," said Happiest Health chairman Ashok Soota. 

By next year, the website will publish written and video content in regional languages to cater to lower-tier cities in India. Happiest Health will also launch a podcast, web series, and audio content soon.

Clinical trials in India affirm AI's effectiveness in detecting referable glaucoma

Indian medical device maker Remidio Innovative Solutions has reported positive results from separate clinical trials of its AI solution in detecting referable glaucoma. 

Remidio offers an integrated screening solution for referable glaucoma, a stage wherein the disease can still be better managed through treatment. It consists of a fundus on phone, a retinal imaging device, and an AI algorithm for offline inferencing. The Medios Referable Glaucoma AI detects structural changes in the optic nerve head and surrounding retinal nerve fibre layer.

According to a press statement, the whole detection process only takes 15 seconds.

The company recently partnered with two local eye hospitals, Aravind Eye Hospital in Pondicherry and Narayana Nethralaya (NN) in Bangalore, to test its screening solution. 

In the clinical trial at NN, the AI algorithm was found to attain a high sensitivity of 93.5% and high specificity of 85.4% in detecting referable glaucoma while early results from the clinical trial at Aravind showed the algorithm to also achieve high sensitivity and specificity of 91.3% and 91.67%, respectively.

The company noted that while treatment options for managing referable glaucoma exist, simple screening tests are difficult to find. At present, glaucoma specialists are still conducting a series of complex investigations using multiple devices to spot referable glaucoma.

"Promising results show that our AI can empower healthcare workers and general ophthalmologists to make an objective screening diagnosis, specifically at centres lacking sophisticated diagnostic equipment," said ​​Dr Divya Rao, medical director and head of AI at Remidio.