Ascertain—a joint venture platform started by Aegis Ventures and Northwell Health—has launched its first startup: Optain, an artificial intelligence-backed company that uses retinal imaging to focus on early disease detection and prevention.
Let’s start with Ascertain.
Launched in 2022, Ascertain is the brainchild of Northwell Holdings (the venture arm of Northwell Health; a New York-based, for-profit integrated healthcare network and NY’s largest healthcare provider / private employer) and Aegis Ventures, a (also NY-based) next-generation venture capital company.
What about it?
As a joint company creation platform, Ascertain is a first-of-its-kind partnership focused on developing / commercializing breakthrough healthcare AI companies.
The goal: to identify new, cost-efficient ways to create and accelerate effective, equitable solutions in order to improve access to—and quality of—healthcare.
Gotcha. What About Optain?
Ascertain launched Optain, its first AI, retinal-imaging company on May 9, 2023, with $12 million in seed funding.
According to Jeff Dunkel, its CEO, the platform will utilize the healthcare industry’s proactive preventative care treatment approach to accelerate it and “make preventive care ubiquitous by placing smarter, faster and more efficient diagnostic tools in the hands of clinicians everywhere,” he stated.
How does it work?
The company’s AI technology analyzes data taken from a basic, portable retinal camera to screen for and diagnose ophthalmic diseases (such as diabetic retinopathy [DR]; age-related macular degeneration [AMD]; and glaucoma) as well as throughout the body.
In total, the technology can screen and diagnose from a catalog of 140 diseases.
Talk more about this technology.
The AI technology was originally developed by Mingguang He, MD, PhD, FRANZCO and the Australian company Eyetelligence, and is just one of several products developed for eyecare (including a suite of clinically-validated and regulatory-approved AI products that have been commercialized in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East).
The lineage of Eyetelligence draws back to a decade of intensive research on the first generation AI tool called Eyegrader by Professor Mingguang He and his colleagues in China.
What will Optain’s role be in these markets?
According to the company, Optain will work in collaboration with Eyetelligence (rather than take over international sales), with an ultimate goal to bring the technology to the U.S. market.
And how will this tech be used in ophthalmology?
The company’s immediate goal, according to Dunkel, will be within ophthalmology: expanding access to screenings and diagnosis for preventable eye disease, closing critical health equity gaps, particularly in underserved communities where diagnostic and screening tools aren't available.