AI in oncology enhanced by Lucida Medical funding boost
Cambridge University spin-out Lucida Medical has secured substantial funding to develop AI for cancer screening.
The start-up – incorporated in 2019 – raised significant seed capital from a group of investors led by XTX Ventures and Prostate Cancer Research.
The “multi-million-pound” investment is a major advance towards Lucida Medical’s goal to disrupt the cancer diagnostic pathway with technology that finds cancer more accurately by analysing MRI, enabling radiologists to save time, and patients to receive the best possible diagnosis and treatment.
The initial focus is prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men in Europe, Africa and North and South America, with 1.4 million diagnosed worldwide each year and 375,000 deaths. Earlier and better detection saves lives.
Lucida Medical’s technology, presented at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in March 2021, helps to automate labour-intensive tasks – such as marking out lesions and avoiding unnecessary invasive biopsies – with unprecedented accuracy and consistency. The funding will be used to extend the team, achieve regulatory approvals for the company’s technology, and complete a 2,000-patient clinical study.
Dr Antony Rix, CEO and co-founder, said: “We are grateful that XTX Ventures and Prostate Cancer Research recognise the potential of AI in oncology.
“Today, about half of cancers are found when they have already spread and this makes them difficult and costly to treat. Our unique approach could allow patients to get exactly the tests, diagnosis and treatment that they need.
“With around 20 million new cases of cancer diagnosed each year worldwide, there is enormous potential for us to improve patients’ outcomes and reduce costs for health systems like the NHS.”
Co-founders Dr Rix and Prof Evis Sala developed the software using radiogenomics, machine learning and image processing to analyse magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
MRI is now the preferred technique to assess a range of cancers, including prostate and metastatic disease. However, the current process of radiologists interpreting oncological MRI requires specialist training and is labour-intensive, creating a growing skills challenge. The shortfall in the UK radiologist workforce is forecast to reach 43 per cent by 2024.
Prostate cancer diagnosis using MRI represents a major step forward compared to earlier methods but remains prone to human error. The ground-breaking PROMIS study (Lancet 2017) indicated that radiologists can miss 12 per cent of significant cancers on MRI, and lead to 55 per cent of individuals without significant cancer receiving a painful and costly biopsy. The study presented at ECR 2021 suggests that Lucida Medical’s AI technology could help cut missed cancers to seven per cent and unnecessary biopsies to 24 per cent, as well as making the process faster.
Lucida Medical co-founder and chief medical officer Prof Evis Sala, Professor of Oncological Imaging at the University of Cambridge
Oliver Kemp, CEO of Prostate Cancer Research, said: “Prostate cancer patients deserve the best possible care and to live as full a life as possible. For that to happen, great ideas need to be supported so that they can reach the clinic.
“Lucida’s work could have significant patient benefits and we hope that our investment will support them to take their invention forward so that soon, more people will receive the treatment they need more quickly, and fewer men with suspected prostate cancer will have to face an unnecessary biopsy, which would spare them the discomfort of the procedure and unnecessary side effects – and reduce some of the burden on the NHS.”
