“We will become the largest global player in secondary screening and diagnostics for women with dense breasts. . .”
SmartBreast CEO, Dr. James Hugg, on his MBI startup’s big goals.
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- GE Healthcare – Enabling clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions through intelligent devices, data analytics, applications and services.
- Healthcare Administrative Partners – Empowering radiology groups through expert revenue cycle management, clinical analytics, practice support, and specialized coding.
- Hitachi Healthcare Americas – Delivering best in class medical imaging technologies and value-based reporting.
- Novarad – Transformational imaging technologies that empower hospitals and clinicians to deliver clinical, operational and fiscal excellence.
- Nuance – AI and cloud-powered technology solutions to help radiologists stay focused, move quickly, and work smarter.
- Riverain Technologies – Offering artificial intelligence tools dedicated to the early, efficient detection of lung disease.
- Siemens Healthineers – Shaping the digital transformation of imaging to improve patient care.
- Zebra Medical Vision – Transforming patient care with the power of AI.
The Imaging Wire
Making an MBI OEM
SmartBreast continued to acquire and partner its way to Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI) leadership this week, buying GE Healthcare’s MBI assets and signing a MBI manufacturing deal with FoxSemicon. SmartBreast might not be a household name and MBI might not be a mainstream modality, but this is turning into a really interesting story.
- The GE Deal – SmartBreast acquired GE Healthcare’s Discovery NM750b Molecular Breast Imaging assets (designs, manufacturing tools, instructions, patents, installed-base service business) and will manufacture/sell the NM750b as the “SmartBreast EVE CLEAR SCAN e750.” GE Healthcare will continue to manufacture and supply the MBI system’s CZT detectors.
- The Dilon Deal – The GE MBI acquisition comes about a month after SmartBreast similarly acquired Dilon Technologies’ 6800 MBI scanner and its related assets, combining to give SmartBreast a respectable MBI portfolio and installed base (217 global installs). Dilon was already GE Healthcare’s exclusive MBI distributor in many regions (including the U.S.), suggesting that SmartBreast’s GE/Dilon-based MBI products and customer base comes with minimal overlaps.
- The FoxSemicon Deal – One day after the GE deal, SmartBreast announced an alliance with FoxSemicon Integrated Technologies (FITI, a Foxconn subsidiary) that includes a “substantial” investment, contract manufacturing, and co-development of its future MBI systems.
- About SmartBreast – SmartBreast has a two-person workforce (at least according to LinkedIn), which isn’t what you’d expect to see from a company that just took an entire modality off of GE’s hands. However, SmartBreast and its parent company EVO WorldWide have deep MBI ties (EVO previously sold GE MBIs in Asia, company execs are MBI/CZT/SPECT veterans) and SmartBreast has a really big goal to make MBI the go-to modality for women with dense breasts.
- Up Next – With SmartBreast’s MBI acquisitions complete and its manufacturing plan in place, the company is now working on a $5m seed round that it will use to “become the largest global player in secondary screening and diagnostics for women with dense breasts.”
The Wire
- Echo AI Mortality Predictor: A Geisinger team developed an echocardiogram-based machine learning system that can accurately predict patients’ one-year all-cause mortality, calling it a milestone for AI trained on unstructured data (videos). The model (trained w/ 812k echos, 34k patients) predicted 2,404 patients’ mortality outcomes more accurately than the Seattle Heart Failure score and a separate EHR-based model, while improving cardiologists’ mortality prediction sensitivity by 13% without affecting specificity.
- Hyperfine’s $90M: Point-of-care MRI startup Hyperfine Research just closed a $90M Series D round that it will use to “aggressively scale-up” the Swoop portable MR’s commercial expansion and fund ongoing product development. That’s a big number, but Hyperfine (a Butterfly Network sibling company) also has big plans to democratize MRI.
- Huami’s Imaging Push: Chinese smartwatch giant Huami continued its expansion into the medical arena, contributing $5m to Hyperfine’s $90m Series D round (see above), just a few weeks after investing in PoC MRI rival Promaxo, and about six months after signing a product development and marketing partnership with X-ray manufacturer Aspen Imaging Healthcare that “could lead to an investment.” Huami has always focused on consumer wellness, but the company’s recent moves definitely suggest a new focus on medical imaging (two portable MRI investments in a month is more than a coincidence).
- Appendicitis Imaging’s Mixed CDS Results: A Children’s Minnesota Hospital-based research team found that a custom pediatric appendicitis CDS solution (estimates appendicitis risk at EHR, makes imaging recommendations) didn’t actually reduce emergency ultrasound or CT volumes. The researchers randomly assigned 17 hospital EDs to either use their CDS software or follow standard procedures (n = 3,161 patients w/ CDS, 2,779 w/o CDS), finding no statistical difference in imaging utilization or outcomes (e.g. missed appendicitis, negative appendectomies, costs) between the two groups. However, one 11-hospital system in the study reduced all imaging use among patients with <15% risk of appendicitis and reduced CT use among patients with 15% to 50% risk of appendicitis.
- Envision’s ESOP Suit: A former Envision Radiology MRI/CT technologist filed a class action lawsuit against the Colorado-based practice (36 imaging centers, 1k employees) for allegedly taking advantage of employees when it rolled out its employee stock ownership plan. The lawsuit claims that when Envision’s management sold their shares to company employees for $164m they: 1) Significantly overvalued the company; 2) Didn’t allow employees to negotiate; 3) Required the ESOP to take on $154m in debt to finance the deal; 4) Still retained all control of the company.
- Follow-up Variations: A new Brigham and Women’s Hospital study revealed wide variations in pulmonary nodule follow-up recommendations. The researchers reviewed 24.5k chest and abdominal CT reports with pulmonary nodules, finding follow-up recommendations in 4.9k reports (20.1%) and revealing an up to 4.3-fold difference in recommendation probability when comparing radiologists within the same subspecialty divisions.
- Signify on Teleradiology: New Signify Research analysis published on auntminnie.com shared an optimistic view of the global teleradiology market after a difficult 2020, due in part to advances in AI-integrated teleradiology (and presumably a post-COVID volume rebound). The firm also forecast that: 1) Many telerad practices will gradually shift to more standard off-the-shelf imaging IT products, and away from self-developed imaging IT; 2) As a result, telerad practices’ overall IT costs will decline; 3) Teleradiology practices M&A will continue, but the segment will remain fragmented.
- OXOS Democratizing X-Ray: OXOS Medical’s flagship Micro C Medical Imaging System recently gained FDA approval, paving the way for the unique handheld X-ray system’s commercial launch. OXOS historically positioned the Micro C as a surgery guidance solution for extremities, but now touts it as a “democratized” diagnostic X-ray solution for settings that aren’t size/cost-relevant for traditional X-ray (e.g. nursing homes, urgent care, home health, and sports medicine practices).
- A Case for Screening at 40: A new MD Anderson study supports the cost effectiveness of starting breast cancer screening at the age of 40 to assess density, followed by a density-tailored screening approach (dense = annual screenings from 40-75yrs; non-dense = biennial from 50-75yrs). Using a microsimulation model, the study found that this density-based screening approach came with an additional $36k in screening costs per quality-adjusted life-years compared to the current standard (dense & non-dense = biennial 50-75yrs), which is well below society’s $100k/QALY benchmark.
- Vuno IPO: South Korean imaging AI developer, Vuno, announced plans to IPO on the Kosdaq stock exchange and use the $24m-$31m in new capital to “leap from a top AI-based medical device company in Korea to a global player.” Specifically, Vuno plans to expand overseas through partnerships with global healthcare companies and medical institutions and expand its AI product pipeline.
- COVID’s MRI Impact: A new survey from IMV Medical revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic drove a 35% reduction in U.S. MRI exam volumes in 2020 (to ~27.4m exams). The report highlighted a massive drop in monthly MRI volumes in April 2020 (1.42m vs. 2.79m in Jan 2020) and estimated that monthly MRI volumes rebounded to 2.28m later in the year (still below pre-COVID levels).
- Flosonics’ Wearable Ultrasound Funding: Flosonics Medical closed a $14m round that it will use to develop and commercialize its FloPatch wearable ultrasound device. FloPatch adheres to a patient’s neck, performing on-demand Doppler blood flow measurements during clinical interventions in the ED, OR, or ICU. This might not be our type of imaging, but it’s a good example of wearable ultrasound’s potential to expand across clinical applications and departments.
- AVC DL: A South Korean team developed a cardiac CT deep learning algorithm that’s able to accurately detect and quantify aortic valve calcium (AVC). The model (trained w/452 CTs, tested w/ 137 separate CTs) detected 98.5% of patients with AVC and determined these patients’ AVC volume grades with 97% accuracy (vs. four radiologists’ 69.7% to 91.9% accuracy), specifically outperforming radiologists when grading severe AVC.
- SyntheticMR AB & United Imaging: SyntheticMR AB announced a license agreement with United Imaging, allowing UIH to sell SyntheticMR’s SyMRI NEURO MRI solution package globally (provides multiple contrast images, tissue volumes, myelin-correlated volumes, and quantitative data). The partnership expands United Imaging’s MRI solutions portfolio while giving SyntheticMR even wider MRI market coverage (SyntheticMR already partners w/ GE, Siemens, and Philips).
The Resource Wire
– This is sponsored content.
- Learn how Salem Regional Medical Center improved its radiology workflows and cut service and syringe costs after adopting Bayer’s MEDRAD Stellant FLEX system.
- Read about the 2021 CPT code changes impacting radiology practices in 2021 in this blog article from Healthcare Administrative Partners.
- Check out this GE Healthcare perspective on imaging AI’s adoption evolution, the AI ecosystem shift, and the importance of seamless AI integration.
- Researchers at Saint Joseph Hospital (Paris, France) used Arterys’ Cardio AI solution in this study detailing how 4D flow is becoming essential for assessing cardiovascular disease.
- The phrase “Prevention is better than cure” was made famous 520 years ago, and it’s a core part of Zebra Med’s strategy today. Learn how and why Zebra Med is shifting its emphasis to population health as we head into 2021.
- Check out these four major shifts driving the era of intelligent CT imaging in a post-COVID world.
- Watch Jared Christensen, MD, MBA explain how Duke University Health uses Riverain Technology’s ClearRead CT Vessel Suppress and ClearRead CT Detect in its daily practice.
- Check out how Novarad’s enterprise imaging patient storyboard view gives specialists more and better information from across a hospital system to better care for their patients.
- Workflow improvement, remote access, high image quality, and some major time savings. These are just a few of the benefits that cardiologists and their teams experienced with Hitachi Healthcare’s VidiStar platform.
- Check out how Nuance’s mPower Clinical Analytics solution helped Summa Health improve its incidental lung nodule follow-up rates by nearly 8x.
