Digital Pathology News Round-Up – May 2024

Publication Date: 04/06/2024

Written by

Imogen Fitt

Cranfield, UK, 4th June 2024 – Hello everyone, below is May’s update for the digital pathology community!✨

We start with 3DHISTECH – The Digital Pathology Company announcing the launch of its ‘P480 2nd Generation Scanner’. The company has upgraded its most popular scanner with several features related to ergonomics and extending product lifespan. In addition, the unit offers both brightfield imaging and now, polarization scanning, which will allow clinical users of the system to better examine heavy metal deposits in bone marrow. It also enables the company to appeal to wider technology markets that might utilise whole slide imaging, such as geology within mining, and mineralogy!
Digital Pathology Today launched a new series which will offer an audio version of my monthly updates! So, if you’re finding it hard to find the time to read through this monthly digest, subscribe to the podcast to listen in.
One of the major pieces of news that followed this month was that PathAI sold PathAI Diagnostics to Quest Diagnostics. Some misunderstanding was brought about by the announcement, PathAI in its entirety isn’t being sold off to Quest. The giant will be acquiring ‘select assets of PathAI Diagnostics’, which will evolve into Quest’s ‘AI and digital R&D and solutions centre’. This deal does NOT include the biopharma lab business; however Quest will also license AISight™ and some of PathAI’s AI algorithms in the United States, with some potential for the two entities to also pursue algorithm product development together. It makes sense for the bigger private chains like Quest to acquire select AI services rather than license or build – that was some of the reasoning behind Sonic Healthcare‘s acquisition of PathologyWatch some time ago! But does that mean there may be more to come?
Next, Aiforia Technologies published a press release stating its clinical software solutions are now available on Google Cloud‘s Marketplace. Aiforia noted that it does plan to offer its complete portfolio, including research solutions, eventually on the Marketplace. I’ve mentioned before that I believe ‘marketplaces’ or ‘AI Orchestration Platforms’ will become increasingly important sales channels for AI vendors. Whilst most might sell solutions direct to customers today, as the market looks to scale customers will increasingly want to consolidate spending and avoid having to deal with multiple vendors at once.
Along the same vein, HistoWiz and AIRA Matrix Private Limited announced the two companies had partnered to offer AIRA’s AI solutions on HistoWiz’s PathologyMap™ Platform. Planned integrations include pre-clinical safety assessment models and predictive toxicity models on major organs such as liver, kidney, heart, and lung. Another example of AI distribution on a third-party platform.
Aiforia Technologies again made the news this month announcing it had won a framework agreement with Fimlab Laboratories in Finland – for context Fimlab is the largest private lab company in Finland so this is great news for the use of AI in the Nordics. Fimlab’s call for tender specifically stated it wanted suppliers of AI models for nine apps and a development platform for AI models – the latter of which is something Aiforia is known for. AI is popping up in an increasing amount of tenders across Western Europe – signalling that the market is starting to mature and look ahead to see how AI can supplement its digital pathology workflows.
Indica Labs announced FDA clearance with Hamamatsu Corporation‘s NanoZoomer S360MD scanner, indicating the platform can now be used for primary diagnosis of surgical pathology slides. The number of FDA approvals in the digital pathology market is ramping up this year, with more to come! Considering the recent announcements around LDT regulation, soon it’ll be a necessity to compete in the US clinical domain.
Finally, I noticed Paige announced a new service line based on its Foundation Models which was targeted at ‘AI developers, organizations building computational pathology products, and life sciences companies’. This announcement marks a distinct change from Paige’s usual clinical focus. In the Radiology AI market, we saw many vendors pivot to research markets in order to maintain growth in light of slow clinical uptake. Indeed, cementing oneself in the academic domain can provide a handy ‘foot in the door’ to clinical use, as many DP vendors have experienced today.

That’s all for this month but do subscribe to receive regular updates! Interested in learning more? If you’re a healthcare technology vendor, VC investor or healthcare institution wondering what opportunity there is for your business in digital pathology drop me a note!

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About Imogen Fitt

Imogen joined Signify in 2018 as part of the Healthcare IT team. She holds a 1st class Biomedical Sciences degree from the University of Warwick where her studies included molecular biology and pharmacology. Since joining the team Imogen has studied the medical imaging software and hardware markets and is now expanding Signify Research’s Diagnostics and Lifesciences coverage.

About the Diagnostics and Lifesciences Team

The Diagnostics and Lifesciences team provides market intelligence and detailed insights on the multiple healthcare technology markets where the clinical world intersects with the preclinical. Our areas of coverage include digital pathology, laboratory information systems, clinical Real-World Data (cRWD) platforms, oncology information systems, tumour board software, oncology decision support software and radiotherapy IT. Each report provides a data-centric and global outlook of its markets with granular country-level insights. Our research process blends primary data collected from in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals and technology vendors, to provide a balanced and objective view of the market.

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