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Cancer screenings are so important in many people's lives, but their effectiveness is alarming. With lung cancer screenings, for example, 56% of the tests have false positives, which means that these patients are exposed to more tests and radiation.
Ezra is a new society that seeks to end this problem by changing the way we track cancer. In particular, he wants to use a full body MRI, associated with artificial intelligence, to detect any anomalies or potential problems, which is not only more effective, but also safer for the patient.
The company unveiled Thursday the launch of its private beta and a partnership with the company RadNet Ambulatory Imaging.
In addition, the company also announced that it had raised $ 4 million worth of seeds, led by Accomplice. Other strategic investors include Founders Future, Credo Ventures, Seedcamp, Esther Dyson and several founders of startups and angel investors.
Founded in 2017, Ezra is a direct-to-consumer cancer screening platform that uses a combination of MRI scans and artificial intelligence to perform more accurate cancer screenings.
Members pay 999 Ezra dollars to get a projection per year, although they may eventually pay more if they wish to make other screenings. They can make an appointment with a RadNet imaging center on the Ezra platform and, upon arrival, they will be greeted by an Ezra staff member who will guide them through the process. The member gets his scan and the results will then be available in his Ezra interface. By simply pressing a button, he can schedule a call or meeting to talk to Ezra's doctor to view the results.
"In summary, the problem we are trying to solve is that today there is no easy way to get cancer screening anywhere in the body – if you want to do a test once a year to tell you if you have cancer, wherever you are.Our mission is to solve this problem by trying to create a new method of detecting cancer from anywhere in the body using MRI and MRI. IA, "said Emi Gal, CEO and co-founder of Ezra at an interview.
From prostate cancer
Although the New York-based company ultimately wants to use its technology to detect all types of cancer, it is modest initially, just starting prostate cancer screening "because the current method of screening for cancer of the prostate the prostate is rather disproportionate, "said Gal.
Currently, prostate cancer is screened first with a PSA blood test followed by a prostate biopsy. On average, said Gal, in 48% of cases, men will have cancer and this process will be missed completely. On the other hand, the precision of the MRI of the prostate is 90%.
The reason why Ezra addresses directly to consumers, rather than selling to hospitals or institutions, is that it is the best way to help people detect cancer, even though it 's the best way to help people detect cancer. said Gal.
"We did not launch Ezra to apply AI to medical imaging, we created Ezra because we wanted to help people detect cancer early, so we turned directly to consumer to target consumers at risk and show them why Ezra can help them detect cancer, we believe that more people will find cancer early, rather than providing our technology to hospitals or imaging centers where you do not solve not the problem or to people not knowing that they must be screened and not knowing that it is an available solution. them, "he said.
The other reason to address directly to the consumer is that, for the moment, the insurance will not pay for an MRI for cancer treatment because it is not the standard treatment .
"If you're a man at risk for prostate cancer, what an insurer will cover today is a PSA blood test.They will not cover an MRI of the prostate because this is not a standard treatment.Our goal is to start by going directly to the consumer and, eventually, collect data to show that our work is more accurate than the current standard treatment and that it should therefore be covered by insurance, "said Gal.
"I expect the process to take some time and, in the meantime, we are targeting men who are worried about the risk of prostate cancer and wish to have a better way to do or know if they are affected. " And are ready to pay the pocket. "
The use of MRI to detect cancer is not only more accurate, he said, but it is also safer because it does not expose the patient to unnecessary radiation.
"The great advantage of MRI is that it is the best imaging modality for the body because it is very high resolution and does not generate radiation on the body." why you can basically use MRI to image all internal organs and tissues.In the body, so you can use MRI to look for abnormalities or lesions in any organ, anywhere in the body. body, "he told me.
"The reason it's not being used today is because MRI scans are expensive, but it's also expensive. We therefore plan to use AI to reduce costs to make MRI-based cancer screening more affordable. Envision, you perform a full body MRI analyzed by AI, which tells you whether or not you have cancer in the body. "
Of course, the long-term mission is to go beyond prostate cancer and be able to scan the entire body to detect any kind of abnormality.
"Once we can do it, think about it: you can have a scan a year, be comfortable and be at peace without cancer and this scan can save your life, and I think that Is very important, "Gal says.
Ezra will be deployed about 100 men over the next month in its private beta.
Use artificial intelligence
The other part of the Ezra platform is its artificial intelligence. However, since the company is seeking FDA clearance, artificial intelligence will not be part of the platform until next year.
Once the AI is removed, the goal is to appeal to Ezra AI radiologist in three cases of use. The first of them offers them clinical support when they analyze the scans of Ezra members.
"What we will do, once the AI has approved the IA, will be to provide the IA to RadNet radiologists so that they automatically analyze the number of tasks that they are doing." they perform manually, "explained Gal.
"One of the tasks of a radiologist is to measure the size of the prostate, which takes a few minutes, we can do it automatically in a few seconds." There are lesions, such as abnormalities in the 39, MRI, the radiologist must measure the size of the lesion, the location, which we also automate.Finally, we also provide a thermal map of what the AI sees, so, if there are any abnormalities that the radiologist missed, we will report them. "
The second case of use is to help the radiologist prioritize the cases that he sees each day so that he knows which ones are critical and require urgent action.
"If you are a radiologist, you arrive in the morning and you analyze 50 patients that you have to analyze that day.What we will do is we prioritize the cases according to the most abnormal., Or the most important, based on what the AI has discovered, which then help the radiologist to start the morning with the most complicated cases, when they are rested and potentially have a lower error rate ", said Gal.
The last use case is the radiologist's quality assurance. Each patient is analyzed by both the radiologist and the AI, which means that the radiologist will always have a resonance table to consult during his analysis, which will eventually help to eliminate bias.
Ultimately, IA will help make Ezra a better experience for its members, giving them more accurate results.
"Part of what we are solving is not only developing AI to improve the productivity of radiologists and reducing the cost of prostate cancer screening, but also improving the client experience," he said. said Gal. "We make prostate cancer screening as easy as ordering an Uber, as it should be, and it certainly is not the case at the moment."
The future of cancer screenings
The company will use its funding, in part, to expand its team of five to 20 by the third quarter of next year, including strengthening its engineering team. It will also use the funds to continue to obtain more data to train the IA, either by acquiring it or through partnerships.
Finally, the company will use this capital to acquire members and run campaigns to "make sure we identify men at risk for prostate cancer, maybe even that they do not." are not aware and that they become members of Ezra, "said Girl.
This could mean targeting social media to men who are in the right age range or who have googled about prostate cancer. Or those who loved a prostate cancer charity on Facebook.
"Our advertising and marketing will focus on explaining the importance of screenings and then explaining why what we do with Ezra is more accurate and more clinically relevant than the current standard of care."
And this fits in with the company's main goal: to get people to detect their cancer as early as possible.
"Our belief is that, and this is corroborated by many studies conducted by third parties, if you detect cancer at an early stage, not only do people have a much greater chance of surviving cancer, but their treatment is also much more profitable, "he said. I said.
The difference in cost to detect cancer at an early stage is striking: if detected early, prostate cancer will cost the health system $ 20,000. If it is detected late, the same cancer, once it is potentially spread to other areas of the pelvic area, treatment may include surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, which can cost up to $ 1 million a year.
"What we think will happen once everyone has detected cancer early in the body, is that the cost of treatment will decrease, which means that insurance premiums will remain unchanged or fall; which will reduce the incomes of everyone, "said Gal.
"In addition to the benefits of helping people survive longer, we believe we can help the health system save money, which is important given that the US health care system represents 17% of GDP every year – a very important mission to pursue and we believe that early detection will help reduce costs in the medical ecosystem. "
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