RetinAI Medical AG and Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH are collaborating in support of identifying novel biomarkers and predictors of geographic atrophy (GA) progression via the companies’ artificial intelligence (AI) technology and retinal disease research.
Give me a rundown on each company first.
RetinAI is a Swiss and United States-based software company developing software solutions to accelerate clinics, research, and pharmaceutical workflows across the globe via advanced machine learning and computer vision.
Boehringer Ingelheim is a pharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing, and marketing pharmaceuticals parasiticides, vaccines, and therapies for unmet medical needs.
What kind of research has Boehringer conducted?
In the ophthalmic space, the company’s focus has expanded to the global research and development of retinal diseases—with the goal of preventing vision loss in the at-risk and preserving / restoring vision in patients.
Gotcha. Now talk about this RetinAi tech.
The RetinAi Discovery platform is a medical and imaging data management platform designed to analyze ophthalmic images such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans and fundus photographs from a variety of medical devices.
FDA-cleared in 2022, the integrated platform delivers cloud- and web-based access to enable a collaborative and interactive, real-time analysis of clinical cases.
How will this be used in the partnership?
The Discovery platform will be used to analyze Boehringer’s imaging datasets accumulated from its clinical trials and real-world evidence to identify potential novel biomarkers and GA progression predictors.
Exactly how does the platform analyze these datasets?
Unlike standard data transfer processes of clinical trials—which typically add time for recruitment, reading, reviewing, and data transferring—the Discovery provides an all-in-one platform for all trial data via an accelerated process.
According to RetinAI, the platform allows for real-time centralization of data as well as the ability to assess enrollment criteria (including same-day patient evaluation workflows) and endpoints.
See here for a visual.
So what’s the intent with this collaboration?
The long-term goals for RetinAI’s platform would be to accelerate novel treatment development and, as a result, lead to an earlier and more accurate diagnosis of GA and other retinal diseases.