Topcon Healthcare, Inc. and BeeKeeperAI, Inc. have entered into a strategic partnership that will combine the companies’ cloud-based digital health information platform and a secure collaboration platform, respectively, to develop advanced artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for real-world eye data.
To note: This latest collaboration is part of Topcon’s ongoing Healthcare from the Eye solutions initiative (more on that later).
Give me the rundown on these companies.
First up: Topcon.
The company is a global provider of medical devices and software solutions to the ophthalmic community—and is most notably a division of the Japanese optical equipment manufacturer Topcon Corporation.
Next: BeeKeeperAI.
Stemming from the University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) Center for Digital Health Innovation, BeeKeeperAI was developed to “solve the healthcare data access problem” by creating secure data access to support high-quality, impactful algorithm validation and development.
Tell me more about this.
BeeKeeperAI’s technology enables secure collaborations and confidential, multi-party AI development and deployment workflows.
- Get a 45-second explanation of how this works.
Specifically: BeeKeeperAI uses and provides the following:
- Protected cloud storage
- Encrypted primary data
- Healthcare-specific tools and workflows
- Secure enclave technology
- “Middleman and matchmaker” capabilities
Interesting … now talk about these companies’ technologies.
Let’s circle back to Topcon and its cloud-based digital health information platform: Topcon Harmony.
What it is: A clinical image and data management platform that streamlines clinical practice workflows and organizes all ophthalmic clinical data via a single screen.
Key features:
- 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
Note: This platform is instrumental in Topcon’s previously announced AI-based partnerships with:
- Microsoft Corporation (part of its Healthcare from the Eye initiative)
- RetiSpec, Inc. (for a retinal hyperspectral imaging AI diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s disease)
Refresh me on that initiative ...
The company refers to the Healthcare from the Eye initiative as a “strategy of applying AI models to imaging data from the eye to facilitate earlier detection and better management of disease (ocular, neurological, and systemic).”
In addition to the utilization of Harmony, Topcon also established the Institute for Digital Health (IDHea), a large and secure population database platform to advance AI research.
- Learn more about IDHea’s role in various research studies designed to ensure data security and protection of proprietary algorithms.
- To note: BeeKeeperAI—along with National Vision Inc. and Toku Inc—is involved in a proof-of-concept study that uses an AI-powered algorithm to securely deploy in a large-scale clinical setting via BeeKeeperAI’s confidential computing technology and end-to-end encryption.
Keeping with the theme of BeeKeeperAI’s tech … what’s involved with this collab?
The program EscrowAI.
What it is: A secure, privacy-preserving collaboration platform in which an algorithm is protected as it’s sent by an algorithm owner to a computer.
- How it works: The program enables algorithm owners to validate their AI models against primary, real-world patient data, where they can define the type of data needed and upload their encrypted algorithm to the portal.
- In turn: Data stewards create a matching data set and upload a link to the encrypted data—all while that patient data never leaves the data steward’s secure cloud environment.
And from there?
Both the data set and algorithm are then deployed to a secure enclave, where they’re decrypted and can interact—the only thing to leave the enclave is a report of the AI performance based on measures defined by an algorithm owner.
- To note: Neither the data nor the algorithm are exposed to the other party—or to BeeKeeperAI.
And Harmony + EscrowAI?
Together, these platforms intend to advance the process of adding AI models to patients’ ocular imaging data in order to enable earlier detection and better disease management,
Via this partnership: Topcon President and CEO Ali Tafreshi stated, “We are helping accelerate a new wave of advanced AI solutions drawing insights from real-world data, while maintaining the highest levels of security, privacy, flexibility, and efficiency.”
- Also: Both platforms are in the Microsoft Azure cloud environment (through the Azure Marketplace), with Harmony hosting millions of patients’ data and images and EscrowAI providing end-to-end data, image, and algorithm encryption and protection.
So what’s first for this duo?
The companies report an initial project will involve enabling AiScreenings, a French medical technology company, to “validate its aiVista model on fundus photographs hosted on the Harmony platform in the U.S.”
EscrowAI’s role in this: Permitting Topcon to maintain data privacy while also protecting the AiScreening algorithm’s intellectual property.
Why AiScreening: As AiScreening CEO Arnaud Lambert noted, the company has faced challenges with having its algorithm approved in the U.S. market.
- So with the assistance of this technology duo, it “provides computing access to Topcon Healthcare’s fundus photographs, enabling us to accelerate our time to market in the U.S.,” Lambert stated.
What’s the big-picture advantage of this collaboration?
BeeKeerpAI Co-Founder and CEO Michael Blum described the integration as one that creates “a new model for protecting sensitive data access and algorithm intellectual property end-to-end.”
And, perhaps most importantly: This also advances the use of AI development and deployment in healthcare.
And how does this translate to the healthcare setting?
Based on the capabilities of this partnership, “It is no longer necessary to share or move data to support AI-powered innovation that is trustworthy and responsible,” stated David Rhew, MD, Microsoft's global chief medical officer and vice president for Healthcare.
He added that, instead, confidential computing occurs where the data lives.
“This is a significant milestone for accelerating AI innovation in healthcare and other regulated data industries,” he concluded.