2018年8月19日星期日

Verge Genomics Raised $32 Million for Clinical Trial Work of AI Based Neuroscience Drugs

San Francisco based Verge Genomics, the Neuroscience based drug discovery company launched in 2015, has raised $32 million in early venture capital financing to bring its AI-generated compounds against Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to clinics within the next three years.

This company has worked in developing its exclusive genomic datasets derived from brain tissue samples of patients who died due to neurodegenerative diseases. Out of 22 novel targets against ALS, a dozen compounds were selected that have shown promising initial data.
Alice Zhang, the co-founder and CEO of Verge Genomics said, “It’s hard to do drug development on your own; But I think the nice thing about this most recent round of $32 million is that it allows us to focus on our internal development—and not need to necessarily rely on pharmaceutical companies to generate revenue—and to develop our own most promising candidates; it also gives us space to pursue partnerships when they can help give us multiple shots on goal, or to continue to validate the platform.”
Alice Zhang further reported, “Our belief is that the most promising applications of AI will come from owning multiple parts of the value chain, and integrating cross-disciplinary teams that break down the silos between biology and computation; Generating your own proprietary data, and focusing on developing your own drug products, is the best way of incentivizing the company to develop the right methods and the right algorithms. I do think there's a scientific and technological renaissance happening in this field, and this is a better moment than any to make real breakthroughs.”

from Drugdu  https://goo.gl/QgQoHk

Microsoft, Walmart Merge in AI, Cloud Deal to Battle Amazon

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A five-year engineering pact between Walmart and Microsoft was signed on Tuesday to clash with Amazon in the AI, cloud computing and retail sectors.

Both companies have marched into healthcare and have been rivals of the online giant Amazon at individual levels.
Company executives at Microsoft say that its optimized Azure services for a health cloud platform facilitate customers to focus on clinical and operational competence. The company is also offering AI capabilities and Microsoft Genomics, which the  St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital utilizes.
Likewise, Walmart already operates pharmacies and a growing healthcare business, a market that Amazon forayed into late last month after acquiring the online pharmacy Pillpack. 
For the new alliance, Walmart and Microsoft engineers will team up on the evaluation, expansion, and maintenance phase of shifting hundreds of existing applications to cloud-native structures. 
 Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, said Walmart will gain entry into Microsoft’s Azure cloud and Microsoft 365 to speed up transformation.
After having used some of Microsoft’s services, Walmart is now looking up for new possibilities, such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and data platforms that bring new capabilities which company officials remarked will make shopping quicker and easier. It also plans to transport a notable segment of walmart.com and samsclub.com to Azure, including its cloud-powered check-out.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon commented that the affiliation will compel the company’s “ability to innovate further and faster.” 
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from Drugdu  https://goo.gl/QgQoHk

Viz.ai Develops AI Software to Detect Stroke

Viz.ai Develops AI Software to Detect Stroke
Viz.ai Develops AI Software to Detect Stroke
Artificial intelligence based company Viz.ai, currently developing software for the detection of urgent stroke cases, has recently raised $21 million in venture capital to develop its portfolio.
The San Francisco and Tel Aviv Company received FDA clearance in February for its cloud computing platform named Viz LVO, which could analyze the brain scans for occlusions and send a notification to neurovascular specialists immediately.
Viz.ai also grabbed a second FDA clearance in April for CT perfusion analysis for its automated cerebral image processing software named Viz CTP.
Mamoon Hamid, the General Partner of Kleiner Perkins who merged the company’s board of directors said,“We were attracted not only to the technology behind Viz.ai and its impact on patient outcomes but also its adoption model; Many new health-tech solutions struggle to gain traction because they are an outside-in sale to medical teams, requiring changes to procedures and workflows. In contrast, physicians and their teams are driving adoption of the Viz.ai platform because it is not disruptive to emergency room procedures and fits naturally into existing systems.”
Viz.ai submitted its LVO to the FDA for detecting large vessel blockages. An alert notification will be sent to the specialist for an intervention if a blockage is detected.
Robert Ochs, Ph.D., the acting deputy director for radiological health from FDA said, "Strokes can cause serious and irreversible damage to patients; The software device could benefit patients by notifying a specialist earlier thereby decreasing the time to treatment. Faster treatment may lessen the extent or progression of a stroke.”
from Drugdu  https://goo.gl/QgQoHk

AI Code of Conduct to be Laid Down by NHS Later in 2018

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In the latter part of this year, a code of conduct for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare will be introduced by the NHS, England, announced Harpreet Sood, associate CCIO at NHS England, at The King’s Fund’s Digital Health and Care Congress 2018 on 11 July.
Sood said NHS England was hoping to publish a “basic terminology of what AI means” and a code of conduct later in 2018 in response to a question by an audience member about concerns regarding AI use in the NHS, adding that the documents will help provide ‘principles’, ‘guidance’ and ‘transparency’ for the use of AI within the NHS.
The prospective benefits of AI use in the NHS have garnered a lot of interest among the medical community in recent months. Consequently, the Prime Minister announced in May 2018 that the NHS and technology companies should use AI as a “new weapon” in research.
However, AI use brings with it the issue of data protection. For instance, an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which looked into Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust transporting data to DeepMind to evaluate an acute kidney injury alert app called Streams.
Eric Topol, an expert in cardiology, genetics and digital medicine, is presently leading a report into the need of training NHS staff to use AI and robotics. It signifies that there are no official guidelines from NHS England.
from Drugdu  https://goo.gl/QgQoHk

AI Based Software to Develop Radiation Therapy Plans

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It is a very time-consuming task for the doctors to develop radiation therapy plans for patients with tumors. In response to this issue, an engineering research graduate named Aaron Babier from the University of Toronto's Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, including Justin Boutilier, supervisor Professor Timothy Chan and Professor Andrea McNiven of U of T's Faculty of Medicine has developed an automation software that could reduce the time to mere hours.
This software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to mine radiation therapy data. This information is then proceeded for optimization to develop relevant treatment plans.
This AI based therapy achieved better results compared to patients' conventionally planned treatments within 20 minutes. The research team recently published these findings in Medical Physics.
Aaron Babier said, "There have been other AI optimization engines that have been developed. The idea behind ours is that it more closely mimics the current clinical best practice; Right now treatment planners have this big time sink. If we can intelligently burn this time sink, they'll be able to focus on other aspects of treatment. The idea of having automation and streamlining jobs will help make health-care costs more efficient. I think it'll really help to ensure high-quality care."  
Babier believes that with further commercialization, the physicians might someday use this tool in clinics.
from Drugdu  https://goo.gl/QgQoHk

2018年8月7日星期二

PatientWisdom receives $1M funding for Real-World Data Collection Services

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New sponsor OCA Ventures along with existing financiers have granted $1 million in Series A funding to PatientWisdom, a digital health corporation working on real-world data compilation tools. The company’s total funding is now worth $3.45 million.
The company’s software collection encompasses PatientWisdom, which assembles data to enhance patient experience and care services, ProviderWisdom, which applies information to engender healthcare provider-level views to develop engagement and care while preventing exhaustion, and CommunityWisdom, which gives organizations a vivid picture of the wide patient population.
“The missing link in healthcare is understanding what matters to the people involved,” Gregory Makoul, founder and CEO of PatientWisdom, said in a statement. “We are leveraging communication science to improve health and care by focusing on what matters, bringing new meaning to ‘personalized’ medicine.”
Referring to a statement, PatientWisdom aims to employ the new funding to present the set of tools to the market by empowering its sales competence. The company will also improve implementation of the pooled data by developing its platforms and creating new analytic skills.
Till now, PatientWisdom’s products have been distributed to Yale New Haven Health, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, and OSF Health, all being strategic allies having invested in the company. PatientWisdom’s website reveals that the company is also teaming up with the Healthcare Transformation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Signal Center for Health Innovation at the University of Iowa Health Care.
“We have been following PatientWisdom, Inc. closely and see their scalable approach to focusing on what matters as highly overdue, unique, and valuable. We are delighted to help fuel the company’s growth,” Bob Saunders, general partner at OCA Ventures, said in a statement.
from Drugdu  https://goo.gl/QgQoHk
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AI Based Software to Develop Radiation Therapy Plans

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It is a very time-consuming task for the doctors to develop radiation therapy plans for patients with tumors. In response to this issue, an engineering research graduate named Aaron Babier from the University of Toronto's Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, including Justin Boutilier, supervisor Professor Timothy Chan and Professor Andrea McNiven of U of T's Faculty of Medicine has developed an automation software that could reduce the time to mere hours.
This software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to mine radiation therapy data. This information is then proceeded for optimization to develop relevant treatment plans.
This AI based therapy achieved better results compared to patients' conventionally planned treatments within 20 minutes. The research team recently published these findings in Medical Physics.
Aaron Babier said, "There have been other AI optimization engines that have been developed. The idea behind ours is that it more closely mimics the current clinical best practice; Right now treatment planners have this big time sink. If we can intelligently burn this time sink, they'll be able to focus on other aspects of treatment. The idea of having automation and streamlining jobs will help make health-care costs more efficient. I think it'll really help to ensure high-quality care."  
Babier believes that with further commercialization, the physicians might someday use this tool in clinics.

from Drugdu  https://goo.gl/QgQoHk