Top 10 Innovative Healthcare AI Startups
What if you could diagnose breast cancer in under ten minutes? Detect Alzheimer’s 20 years before the onset of symptoms? Dramatically reduce the cost of prescription medicines in Ghana?
A handful of startups are disrupting a heavily-regulated healthcare industry through the power of artificial intelligence (AI). Everything from health outcomes to administrative processes can be improved using high-quality data and machine learning, allowing healthcare practitioners to focus on what matters most: the patients they treat.
Experts predict that by 2026, the Global Healthcare AI market will account for $19.25 billion. In 2017, the same market was valued at $0.95 billion –– highlighting the rapid growth of the industry and the scale of these time-saving, cost-reducing, and accuracy-boosting technologies.
What organizations are driving the future of healthcare artificial intelligence (AI)?
These are the top 10 innovative healthcare AI startups from around the world:
North America
1. Insitro, United States
Insitro combines cutting-edge machine learning technologies to develop a fresh approach to drug development. By leveraging the tools of modern computational biology, Insitro “generates high-quality, large data sets optimized for machine learning.” Biologists and data scientists work hand-in-hand to reduce the costs of research, increase the success rate of drug development, and provide better medicines for patients in need. Insitro advances the pharmaceutical value chain by focusing on gathering insightful population-scale data, in-vitro disease modeling, and scalable machine learning methods.
Year Founded: 2018
Location: San Francisco, United States
Employee Count: 193
2. CorVista Health, Canada
CorVista’s mission is to improve cardiovascular patient experiences and outcomes using its novel diagnostic platform. Through a simple hand-held digital device, physicians can quickly collect patient signals and use machine-learned algorithms to enable rapid diagnosis. CorVista’s next-generation and non-invasive system can evaluate cardiovascular anomalies without the need for radiation or patient-intensive stress testing, decreasing patient burdens and allowing for efficient predictive assessments on cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular conditions that CorVista can diagnose include coronary artery disease, pulmonary hypertension, and decreased heart function.
Year Founded: 2012
Location: Toronto, Canada
Employee Count: 51
Asia
3. Doctor Anywhere, Singapore
Doctor Anywhere is on a quest to “make healthcare simple, accessible, and efficient for everyone.” Much like Teladoc in the United States, Doctor Anywhere enables over 2.5 million users in the APAC region to access primary and specialized healthcare through an easy-to-use mobile application. Patients can schedule video consultations, access home care services, and craft preventative health plans at the click of a button. Doctor Anywhere seeks to become the largest tech-enabled omnichannel healthcare provider in Southeast Asia & holistically improve patient outcomes.
Year Founded: 2017
Location: Singapore, Central Region
Employee Count: 200+
4. FRONTEO, Japan
Based in Tokyo, FRONTEO is a pioneer in AI-assisted electronic discovery. While its applications stem across sectors from finance to government, FRONTEO’s most recent notable work is in healthcare. In 2018, FRONTEO developed a fall prediction system for elderly hospital patients in Japan. Why? The total number of fall-related deaths in Japan increased from 5,872 in 1997 to 8,030 in 2016, with 78.8% of cases involving people aged 65 and over –– and as Japan faces demographic challenges with a record-breaking aging population, it’s more important than ever to identify preventative care solutions for geriatric patients.
According to FRONTEO, “Prevention of fall incidents and resultant avoidance of extended hospital stays helps the inpatients have better prognosis and quality of life, [and] further, reduces the burden of medical professionals and social medical costs.” Consequently, “Coroban Care,” was released in July of 2022 in collaboration with Eisai Inc., a U.S. research-based human healthcare organization that discovers, develops, and markets products around the globe. This AI-powered fall prediction system improves upon previous risk assessment tools such as the Morse Fall Scale and STRATIFY, reducing the time and effort of healthcare providers and increasing quality of care for elderly patients in Japan.
Year Founded: 2003 (“Corobon Care,” 2022)
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Employee Count: 387
Europe
5. Onera Health, Netherlands
With approximately one in five individuals struggling with sleep, Onera Health’s mission is to easily identify ailments such as insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and more through groundbreaking diagnostic patch systems.
The traditional sleep testing process often requires numerous consultations with physicians, overnight stays at hospitals, and costly (and invasive!) machinery for testing. Onera Health offers an alternative: non-invasive sensors that record physiological parameters related to cardiovascular, respiratory, and brain functions. The no-wire solution is attached to the forehead, upper chest, abdominal area, and lower leg –– allowing physicians to collect and analyze data from electroencephalograms (EEGs), electromyograms (EMGs), and electrocardiograms (ECGs).
Onera Health recently received FDA 501(k) clearance for its Onera STS system, allowing a commercial launch in both Europe and the United States by 2023.
Year Founded: 2017
Location: Eindhoven, Netherlands
Employee Count: 49
6. Bottneuro, Switzerland
Bottneuro, a spin-off of the University of Basel, specializes in developing non-invasive home-based therapy systems for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. Using personalized transcranial electrical stimulation of selected brain areas, Bottneuro is able to provide a rapid, reliable, and cost-effective diagnostic process for those affected by neurodegenerative disorders.
Alzheimer’s is currently estimated to affect 9.8 million people in Europe and 50 million people globally. Bottneuro improves upon existing diagnostic methods by allowing for early detection of Alzheimer’s and dementia –– up to 10 to 20 years before the first symptoms of these diseases appear. Better yet: Bottneuro’s diagnostic headset can be 3D printed and data can be analyzed on a tablet, increasing accessibility for personalized care around the world.
Year Founded: 2021
Location: Basel, Switzerland
Employee Count: 10
Latin America
7. Eva Tech, Mexico
Named one of the Top 30 Most Promising Businesses of 2018 by Forbes Magazine, Eva strives to improve patient outcomes and increase efficiency for clinics by digitizing radiology processes. Co-founders Raymundo González Leal, José Antonio Torres, and Julian Rios Cantu initially devised high-tech wearables to help women self-diagnose breast cancer, with garments holding biosensors to identify potentially malignant lumps. By 2020, Eva evolved into a network of booths in Mexico to perform thermal-imaging tests that deliver results in under 10 minutes.
Now, more than 350 companies use Eva’s picture-archiving and communication system (PACS) to allow physicians remote access to radiology reports –– expanding medical access and care to individuals who might otherwise need to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see a radiology specialist or oncologist. Eva’s services are also more cost-effective than physical imaging plates that are traditionally used for cancer identification, further reducing barriers to entry for quality medical care.
Year Founded: 2017
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Employee Count: 48
8. Osana Salud, Argentina
Osana Salud is building an API-connect infrastructure to lead digital transformation in South America’s healthcare system. By connecting providers, payors, and the pharmaceutical industry in one streamlined application, Osana Salud creates a patient-centric healthcare experience for everything from telehealth consultations to online prescription management. The company’s digital platform aggregates provider information, scheduling, treatment plans and more –– offering “more convenience, better results, and lower costs” for all parties.
Year Founded: 2019
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Employee Count: 96
Africa
9. Ilara Health, Kenya
Ilara Health’s mission is to provide affordable diagnostic tools for primary care settings across Kenya. Through artificial intelligence and tech-powered diagnostic equipment, Ilara Health allows doctors and healthcare systems to provide high-quality care, reduce turnaround times for testing, and increase revenue. Since 2019, Ilara Health has worked to solve critical challenges in Kenya’s healthcare system: high-cost barriers for legacy diagnostic tools, a shortage of specialist expertise to operate them, and a vastly distributed medical system across the nation. Its developments in point-of-care diagnostic technology and smart financing packages allow patients to receive community-based care for blood tests, ultrasounds, diabetic screening, and more.
Year Founded: 2019
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Employee Count: 25 – 100
10. mPharma, Ghana
Ghana’s mPharma is “building a network of community pharmacies across Africa as it plans to be the primary go-to-primary healthcare service provider for millions of people residing in the region.” Originally founded in 2013, mPharma’s mission is to use the collective power of pharmacy networks to negotiate lower prices with the best manufacturers, eliminating inefficiencies and increasing access to high-quality prescription medication. African countries with small to medium-sized economies often pay up to 30x more for the same prescription medication as those in Western nations –– leading many to opt for low-grade alternatives or even counterfeit medications. mPharma harnesses AI technology to account for price fluctuations, supply-chain disruptions, and market inefficiencies, allowing pharmacies to effectively stock life-saving medicines.
Year Founded: 2013
Location: Accra, Ghana
Employee Count: 293
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