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How the cloud tools behind Google Maps and Photos can advance medtech

Alissa Hsu Lynch is Google Cloud’s global lead for medtech strategy and solutions. [Photo courtesy of Google]

Alissa Hsu Lynch leads medtech strategy and solutions at Google Cloud, previously serving in executive roles at Johnson & Johnson and Bausch Health.

As part of Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s ongoing series of conversations about the cloud’s contributions to the medical device industry and its future, Lynch offered her perspective from the Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) subsidiary’s cloud-computing business. The following exchange has been edited for clarity and length.

MDO: What are some surprising and inspirational examples of what cloud computing enables with regard to medical device/drug development, manufacturing and capabilities/performance?

LYNCH: First is using data and artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly respond to emerging crises. COVID-19 accelerated …

iRhythm plans silent AFib screening pilots, high-level hires and Zio Watch evaluations

Verily’s Study Watch will serve as iRhythm’s Zio Watch. [Photo courtesy of Verily]iRhythm Technologies (NSDQ:IRTC) has big plans for 2022 and its remote external electrocardiogram monitors as the medical device developer gears up for growth.

President and CEO Quentin Blackford is looking to hire an international general manager among other roles in the coming months, he told Medical Design & Outsourcing after presenting at this month’s 2022 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, where he laid out his vision for profitably scaling the company.

Blackford also previewed plans to roll out asymptomatic atrial fibrillation (AFib) screening pilots with payors in 2022. Screening for “silent” AFib can detect problems before an event like a stroke or heart failure, giving doctors more time for treatment at a lower cost.

Get the full story at our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

iRhythm plans silent AFib screening pilots, high-level hires and Zio Watch evaluations

iRhythm’s Zio XT cardiac monitor [Image from iRhythm]

iRhythm Technologies (NSDQ:IRTC) has big plans for 2022 and its remote external electrocardiogram monitors as the medical device developer gears up for growth.

President and CEO Quentin Blackford is looking to hire an international general manager among other roles in the coming months, he told Medical Design & Outsourcing after presenting at this month’s 2022 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, where he laid out his vision for profitably scaling the company.

Asked by MDO whether Blackford is planning a reorganization or restructuring after he discussed the cost-consciousness side of his growth plans, an external spokesperson offered more details from the CEO.

“At a leadership level, we are actively structuring our C-suite in order to create long-term sustainable growth,” Blackford said. “The goal is to enable iRhythm to be a glo…

Google’s sister company Verily opens new AI-focused R&D center in Israel

Verily today said it opened a new R&D center in Israel to focus on applying artificial intelligence in healthcare.

The Israel-based team will focus on applying AI to biomedical problems, including applications in endoscopy, minimally invasive surgery and other imaging modalities. The center will continue early research conducted by Google Health and Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center on using AI in the detection of colonic polyps.

“Through this collaboration, we have introduced a highly precise model using AI to identify and map colonic polyps in ways that will enhance diagnosis and treatment. This represents how close partnerships between clinical and technology leaders can have very significant and lasting benefits for the medical community,” Eran Goldin, director of the Digestive Diseases Institute at Shaare Zedek, said in a news release.

Verily’s Israel team will be co-located with Google in Haifa and Tel Aviv and will be led by …

DTW Podcast: How AtriCure built a big business in Afib; A deep look into Abbott’s new Coronary imaging platform

In this week’s episode of the DeviceTalks Weekly Podcast, Dr. Nick West, CMO & divisional VP of global medical affairs at Abbott’s vascular business, discusses the European launch of the company’s new coronary imaging platform.

Dr. West explains how the AI-powered platform works and the benefits it offers for decision-making during coronary stenting procedures. He also delves into the AI-based technology behind the platform and the direction both imaging and medtech as a whole are heading with AI.

In our second interview, Mike Carrel, CEO and president of AtriCure, explains how the company became a force focusing on the atrial fibrillation (Afib) and left atrial appendage (LAA) markets.

Carrel walks listeners through the company’s efforts to expand its reach into the connected pain management market. But then he makes a strong case building out its Afib pipeline which includes the EPi-Sense System, which in April received FDA approval to treat…

MedTech 100 roundup: Turnaround for the industry?

A turgid month for the medtech industry might be drifting into the past after the past week indicated a slight turnaround as summer nears.

MassDevice‘s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — finished the week at 107.74 points, marking a 1.4% rise from the 106.22-point mark set one week prior.

Having endured its largest slide of 2021 in recent weeks, the index is already demonstrating signs of a rebound after April brought the industry’s all-time best performance.

Despite the setbacks that have plagued the industry over the past month or so, medtech’s performance continues to reflect a rebound from the struggles brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, it has registered a 16.7% rise from the pre-pandemic high of 92.32 (set on Feb. 19, 2020), plus a 73.4% increase from the mid-pandemic low of 62.13 (March 23, 2020).

The overall markets were on the opposite end of the spectrum over the p…

Google set to launch its first medical device

[Image from Google]Google yesterday unveiled an artificial intelligence-powered dermatology assist tool designed to identify dermatologic issues.

In a news release, the technology giant cited billions of yearly Google searches related skin, nail and hair issues as a reason for developing the technology. The company plans to launch the web-based application as a pilot later on this year in an effort to help users figure out what might be going on with their skin in an easier fashion.

For users, once they launch the app, they use the phone’s camera to take three images of the skin, hair or nail concern from different angles before being asked questions about skin type, how long the issue has persisted and other symptoms that would help the app narrow down possibilities.

Once the images and information is collected, the AI model analyzes the information given and draws from its knowledge of 288 conditions to provide a list of potential matching condition…

MedTech 100 roundup: Industry roars back

In the blink of an eye, the medtech industry exited its spring slump and neared its all-time best performance levels.

MassDevice‘s MedTech 100 Index offered signs of a rebound last week and has built on that momentum, registering a final tally of 109.39 points on April 9. That represents a 2.9% increase from the 106.26-point mark set a week prior (April 2).

The industry’s rebound has been impressive, given that just over one month prior, the index had dropped to 102.16 points (March 8), having just set its all-time best of 110.96 on Feb. 15. Medtech companies had no seen that degree of a fall since October 2020.

Improvements highlight the secure position the industry has nestled into a year on from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on medtech, as the industry has produced an 18.5% rise from the pre-pandemic high of 92.32 (set on Feb. 19, 2020), plus a 76.1% increase from the mid-pandemic low of 62.13 (March 23, 2020).

The overall …

DTW Podcast: Herrera on how military lessons led to Medtech career; Ulmer ready to redo landmark FDA survey

Derek Herrera and Kwame Ulmer are featured on this week’s DeviceTalks Weekly Podcast.

In this week’s podcast, Derek Herrera explains how a serious battle injury he received while leading Marines in Afghanistan led him to build a career in medtech.

Herrera has founded two companies – Spinal Singularity and Habit Camera – to create devices that can improve and save the lives of people who need help the most. Herrera also explains how his military training is serving him so well in medtech and how the medical device industry would benefit from including more veterans in its workforce.

We’ll also hear from Kwame Ulmer, principal at Ulmer Ventures and a lecturer at UCLA Anderson’s School of Management, about an effort his helping to lead to update the landmark study compiled by Josh Makower in 2010. The study blasted a regulatory process that it called “unpredictable, inefficient and expensive.”

Its finding led to introspection and changes, according to…

Google, Varian partner on AI to boost cancer radiation therapy

Varian (NYSE: VAR) announced today that it is working with Google Cloud to build an AI-based diagnostic platform.

The companies’ focus is on AI models for organ segmentation—a crucial, labor-intensive step in radiation oncology that can often turn into a clinical workflow bottleneck. Organ segmentation can take hours per patient. It involves identifying the organs and tissues in diagnostic images that must be targeted or protected during radiation therapy.

Varian is using Google Cloud AI Platform’s Neural Architecture Search (NAS) technology to create an AI segmentation engine that it’s training — using Varian’s proprietary treatment planning image data — to create customized auto-segmentation models for organs in the body. Varian plans to incorporate the new models into its treatment planning software tools in cancer centers worldwide.

“At Varian, we are working towards a world without fear of cancer, where high-quality can…

Could your smart speaker monitor your heart rate?

Lead author Anran Wang sits with the smart speaker prototype (white box in foreground) the team used for the study. (Image by Mark Stone, University of Washington)

Hey Alexa, how’s my heart rate?

Researchers at the University of Washington say they’ve devised a way to enable smart speakers to work as contact-free heart-rate monitors.

Their proof-of-concept uses algorithms that transform the smart speaker into a short-range active sonar system and measure heart rate and inter-beat intervals (R-R intervals) for both regular and irregular rhythms, according to a study published in Nature Communications Biology.

Get the full story on our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Google opening office near Mayo Clinic

Google announced today that it will open an office in downtown Rochester, Minn., to be close to Mayo Clinic.

The tech giant plans to have an office up and running with a handful of workers as soon as possible, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to a news release posted on the website of the 20-year Destination Medical Center project. Under the DMC, $585 million in state and local government infrastructure funds are expected to leverage about $5 billion of private investment in Rochester, which is about an hour and a half drive south of Minneapolis.

Google will occupy space at Collider Coworking in the historic Conley-Maass-Downs building in downtown Rochester. The news comes nearly a year and a half after Google and Mayo Clinic announced a 10-year partnership to use advanced cloud computing, data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve healthcare delivery.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance o…