Topcon Healthcare, Inc. has announced a new collaboration with Microsoft Corporation to utilize their respective technologies to provide an artificial intelligence (AI)- and cloud-based healthcare platform.
This partnership is part of Topcon’s ongoing initiative to deliver Healthcare from the Eye solutions—as the company has dubbed its mission—that not only improve healthcare access, but cost and quality as well.
Give me a quick refresh on Topcon.
As a division of the Japanese optical equipment manufacturer Topcon Corporation, Topcon Healthcare is a global provider of medical devices and software solutions to the ophthalmic community.
See here for our latest coverage of the company.
Hold up. Didn’t they just partner with another company?
Yes! Last week, Topcon and RetiSpec, Inc. launched a partnership to bring RetiSpecis AI-based eye diagnostic technology to the commercial market.
However, per the companies, this Microsoft collaboration was actually established months ago in February 2024.
Oh, do tell …
First, let’s get to the center of this partnership: a robotic, rapid, and non-invasive eye scan that takes just 2 minutes.
How this is being developed: The companies have combined their technologies to promote patient and healthcare provider (HCP) participation in pre-screenings for system and neurological diseases and make the process both easy and more affordable.
Go on …
As Topcon’s CEO and President Ali Tafreshi stated: “We are committed to making healthcare accessible and affordable through pre-screening using oculomics—leveraging the eye for insights into systemic and neurological health.”
Watch the announcement video below.
Let’s discuss these technologies.
We’ll start with Microsoft's Nuance Precision Imaging Network (PIN), which it acquired from Nuance Communications in 2022.
Per the software company, this is an AI-powered cloud platform marketed as providing the following image-sharing and image-reporting capabilities:
- Increased predictability and improved disease management, support treatment, and follow-up recommendations
- Enhanced patient engagement and follow-up compliance with less-invasive treatment options, lower complication rates, and shorter recovery periods
- Improved diagnostic precision by detecting, triaging, and tracking diseases and abnormalities for more consistent protocols, treatment planning, and delivery
- Reduced duplicate imaging, complete with notifications of prior imaging
- Access to advanced analytics to improve cost-control measures and optimization plus model performance tracking
Now talk about Topcon’s tech.
Topcon Harmony is a clinical image and data management platform that streamlines clinical practice workflows and organizes all ophthalmic clinical data via a single screen.
Its key features include:
- A minimization of transcription errors
- Customized reporting
- Reduced reliance on instrument-specific software
- Connectivity for all devices, regardless of type or brand*
- Secure, browser-based access
- Telehealth portal for referrals and second opinion consulting
*A key component of this partnership
Note: This software enables the short (2-minute) eye scanning technology central to this partnership.
Gotha. So how is this being kickstarted?
In support of this partnership, Topcon has already launched a few initiatives:
- Collaboration with the University of California (UC), San Diego
- Purpose: to promote the use of AI-based screening and coordinated care (primary, ophthalmology, and optometry) for diabetic patients
- Establishment of the Institute for Digital Health (IDHea)
- What it is: A large, secure population database platform controlled by an external data access and governance (DAG) committee to guarantee ethical and fair access to data.
- Involved in research studies with:
- Visionworks
- Keplr Vision
- UC San Diego Health Shiley Eye Institute
- Purpose: to integrate Microsoft Azure (another key tech) cloud storage and advanced computing technologies for data security and proprietary algorithm protection
- Involved in research studies with:
- What it is: A large, secure population database platform controlled by an external data access and governance (DAG) committee to guarantee ethical and fair access to data.
Note: Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that provides access and management as well as application and service development through global data centers (via AI).
What other AI-based ventures are they working on?
Topcon’s Corporate Venture Capital fund is also investing in AI-focused companies by providing funding, business consulting, and its Harmony platform to help advance AI-based healthcare solutions to commercialization, according to Fumio Ohue, senior vice president of Topcon Corporation and chairman of Topcon Healthcare.
- Case in point: Topcon recently participated in the recent closing of $6.8 million in financing for Ikerian AG (formerly RetinAI Medical AG) and its subsidiary RetinaAI U.S. Inc., which recently launched an AI-based platform for clinical decision workflows.
And what’s the overall advantage of these companies’ collaboration?
As Microsoft Health & Life Sciences’ Corporate Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Peter Durlach noted, the company’s expertise in healthcare and AI—including the use of Microsoft Azure and PIN—“adds a powerful dimension” to Topcon’s own patient care-focused technologies.