Oncoustics AI and UHN Awarded OBIO® Early Adopter Health Network Grant to Trial Point of Care Liver Assessment Solutions in Clinic
September 14, 2022 (TORONTO, ON) – Oncoustics (www.oncoustics.com), the world’s leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) based analytics for processing raw ultrasound signal to do tissue characterization, real-time diagnostics and non-invasive surveillance, announced that, in association with University Health Network (UHN), they have been awarded an Early Access Health Network (EAHN™) Grant to trial the OnX Liver Assessment Solutions in UHN clinics. The grant, which is funded by the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO®), enables Oncoustics and UHN to pilot and further develop the innovative technology that Oncoustics has developed and is deploying.
Oncoustics is a unique and innovative player in the medical AI space today. Creating and deploying AI solutions for low-cost surveillance and diagnostics for disease detection, early intervention and treatment monitoring, Oncoustics uses artificial intelligence applied to raw ultrasound signals to automatically differentiate healthy versus diseased tissues. The first product, the OnX Liver Assessment Solution, while still in investigational use only, has demonstrated a 95% AUROC at detecting liver cirrhosis in a 5-minute point of care exam.
Working with Dr. Mamatha Bhat’s teams at the Liver Transplant Clinic at UHN’s Ajmera Transplant Centre and Dr. Jordan Feld’s teams at the Toronto Centre for Liver Disease, the Oncoustics team will collect data on the use and clinical values provided by its OnX Liver Assessment Solution. “The technology we developed and continue to build on is unique in that we mine the raw sound signal to do tissue characterization at point of care,” said Beth Rogozinski, CEO of Oncoustics. “The clinical value of this is far reaching: this can enable fast and efficient point of care assessment, diagnostics and surveillance, all of which can decrease costs, and advance early detection of disease states, thereby promoting personalized medicine. Patients have the additional value of being able to get all of their assessments done in one department and in a single visit.”
“I’m a proponent of non-invasive testing to detect liver disease and I’ve long been an advocate of applying machine learning to improve assessments in our clinic and in my research,” said Dr. Bhat. “Oncoustics combines both of these and their innovative tools promise to be invaluable resource that I can carry in the palm of my hand.”
OBIO® EAHN™ creates a collaborative ecosystem in Canada where health technology companies and health organizations can work together to develop, test, refine, adopt, and disseminate novel technologies across the health system. “The Oncoustics/UHN partnership represents the ideal of what we’re working to do at EAHN™,” said Bibaswan Ghoshal, Director of Market Acceleration for the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization. “By supporting this partnership, we’re advancing Canadian health innovation and helping to accelerate it to market so patients and our health systems can benefit.”
The Oncoustics/UHN partnership will be supported for just under one year and reports and publications of the program and results will be made available to the public.
About Oncoustics:
Oncoustics (www.oncoustics.com) is creating and deploying advanced AI solutions for low cost, non-invasive surveillance, diagnostics, and treatment monitoring of diseases with high unmet clinical need. Unlike other players in the space, Oncoustics does not do image recognition alone. Instead, they apply AI to raw ultrasound signals from readily available handheld ultrasound devices to rapidly differentiate healthy versus diseased tissues. There’s a wealth of information in these raw signals and this approach reveals novel biomarkers and insights that can go beyond what can be seen by the human eye. Initially, targeting liver disease, the Oncoustics platform is expandable to any anatomical area of the body that ultrasound can image and the company has several follow-on liver products are in development and clinical data on other organ indications including prostate, kidney, breast and thyroid diseases and cancers.
The Oncoustics platform is hardware agnostic and enables a whole new level of access to care with the benefits of ease of use, affordability, and optimizing current clinical workflow.
The Oncoustics solutions for ultrasound, including liver and prostate applications, will be submitted for regulatory approval in the United States (FDA 510(k)), Canada (Health Canada medical device license) and the European Union (CE Mark). The OnX Liver Assessment Solution has not been cleared for clinical use and is For Investigational Use Only.
For further information, please contact:
Beth Rogozinski, CEO Oncoustics
brogozinski@oncoustics.com
www.oncoustics.com