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GE Healthcare has selected seven companies to test their AI imaging technologies with GE’s Edison Digital Health Platform. [Image courtesy of GE Healthcare]

GE Healthcare and Nex Cubed have selected seven companies focused on artificial-intelligence-augmented medical imaging for the first cohort of the Edison Accelerator in Canada.

The companies will be matched with mentors and test their technologies with GE’s new Edison Digital Health Platform over the next three months. The program will end with innovation showcase presentations to potential investors and customers, and some startups could have their products distributed through the GE Healthcare Marketplace.

The cohort’s six startups are:

  • 16 Bit, a physician-founded startup that uses routine chest, spine, pelvis, knee or hand x-rays with computer-aided detection and notification software for low bone mineral density prescreening.
  • Bot Image, which has developed a post-processing MRI product using AI for prostate cancer diagnostics.
  • CardioWise, an AI cardiac image analysis company that uses CT data for the diagnosis of heart disease.
  • Contextflow, which develops deep-learning-based tools for radiologists and offers comprehensive clinical decision support for lung CT related to interstitial lung disease, COPD and lung cancer.
  • Corelinesoft, developing AI for simpler, faster diagnosis and screening, such as detection of nodules before they progress into lung cancer.
  • Us2.ai, a heart disease software startup with AI-structured reports processed automatically in less than 2 minutes.

A seventh company that has already been working with GE Healthcare, Circle Cardiovascular Imaging, will also participate in the program. Circle Cardiovascular Imaging’s cvi42 imaging platform is used in more than 1,000 hospitals across more than 50 countries. The company’s stroke-focused AI-based tools have been integrated with GE Healthcare’s FastStroke processing platform, and the Edison Accelerator will speed up integration of its StrokeSENS software with the Edison Platform.

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“Each of our finalists are solving real problems in medical imaging and we look forward to working with them over the coming months,” Matthew Khoory, senior director of solutions and digital development for GE Healthcare Canada, said in a news release.

GE Healthcare designed the accelerator program and partnered with startup development firm Nex Cubed.

“Nex Cubed has a successful heritage of startup formation and acceleration for companies ranging from ideation to innovation, angel to seed, and growth to IPO,” Nex Cubed CEO Marlon Evans said in the news release. “This enables us to work with companies at any stage, across the globe from the USA, Luxembourg, Singapore, Korea, Canada and beyond.”