The Spanish medical imaging analysis startup, Quibim, has announced its consolidation after registering solid growth in the United States. This year, the company has multiplied its turnover by five, thanks to its collaborations with radiologists, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies first level. The objective of the company is accurately predict patient outcomes using data extracted from medical imaging to avoid unnecessary procedures.
Nowadays, repeat biopsies as standard of care is not frequent, nor the evaluation of the resistance of a tumor over time. For their part, the molecular biology techniques they have limited accessibility, high costs and long delivery times, causing delays of approximately 2-3 weeks in the initiation of treatments for critical illnesses such as lung cancer. As a perfect complement, medical imaging tests, such as magnetic resonances, TACs and TEPs, are performed in each of the stages of the disease. Quibim’s business model takes advantage of this standard of care and offers different solutions that deeply analyze the image and extract critical information, helping in the accurate detection and rapid diagnosis of the disease throughout the patient’s journey.
The AI-based medical devices of the company, such as QP-Prostate, marketed in the United States and Europe, and QP-Brain, sold only in Europe, aim to reduce the workload of healthcare professionals by independently conducting detailed analysis and comparison of medical images, allowing automatic and accurate filling of radiological reports. Since images are Quibim’s main source of data, the company participates every year in international congresses in the field of medical imaging. The company has been present at the Congress of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), where he has presented his medical imaging solutions, and his vision of transforming imaging data into actionable predictions.
A new category within precision medicine
Quibim was born with its roots in data and its ability to transform medical research. The founders of Quibim, the Dr. Ángel Alberich-Bayarri and Dr. Luis Martí Bonmati, they saw an opportunity to improve healthcare through deep analysis of medical imaging and biotechnology research. Now, Quibim’s uniquely designed tools have allowed them to extract data from multiple imaging modalities, increasing the probability of early detection of pathologies and their prognosis in various areas of medicine, such as oncology/immunotherapy, rheumatology and neurology.
Quibim’s technology also provides great value to blue chip pharmaceutical companies by enhancing their drug programs and answering critical questions. His most recent collaboration with one such company was to understand why the results of his new immunotherapy drug for lung cancer were not equal to or better than standard care, leading to the discontinuation of the entire program for this drug. . Quibim created an AI model that analyzes the reference TAC and predicts which non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients will respond to immunotherapy. The collaboration allowed the biopharmaceutical partner to improve the design of future clinical studies in immunotherapy and NSCLC, through better selection of patients in the enrollment process.
These types of collaborations allow Quibim to improve the company’s existing products, as well as create new ones that cover urgent unmet needs of cancer patients.
Solutions to optimize the detection and diagnosis of diseases
Seeking to improve diagnostic accuracy, Quibim has created several solutions based on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) to speed up the interpretation of medical images and reduce disease detection processes.
One of their solutions is QP-Prostate, an innovative software that uses AI to streamline prostate MRI interpretation and pre-populate radiology reports. This software can help specialists extract imaging biomarkers for critical conditions involving the prostate by analyzing the organ in depth. QP-Prostate can also detect the various regions of the prostate and surrounding structures and perform automated regional segmentation of the gland and seminal vesicles based on convolutional neural networks (an artificial intelligence technology applied directly to images).
The company has also created other AI software for analysis at the neurological level: QP-Brain. This tool offers the opportunity to precisely and accurately examine changes in the brain over time, providing insight into disease progression and treatment success. QP-Brain automatically analyzes the volumes of specific structures in the brain and the number and volume of brain lesions, allowing immediate comparison with reference data from a healthy cohort. The company hopes to introduce this novel solution to the US market in 2023, as it is currently only available in Europe.
