Zebra Medical To Co-Develop AI Model That Detects Osteoporosis With UK Group

Israeli AI medical imaging insights startup Zebra Medical Vision announced this week a new partnership with Scottish digital transformation consultancy Storm ID to develop an AI-based preventative care solution that will identify people at risk of osteoporosis, a bone disease that can cause bones to become weak and brittle.

Zebra Medical and Storm ID won a UK-Israel research and development competition to develop the solution, aimed at improving patient care and reducing costs through early detection and prevention. The solution will analyze medical imaging data and patient records to help clinical teams identify and treat people with risk of fractures before they happen.

The companies will collaborate with an international multidisciplinary team of clinicians, data scientists and computer scientists who will work together over two years to run clinical trials. The solution will be implemented in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, a national health care provider in Scotland, and Assuta medical centers in Israel.

The project is co-funded in part by the UK and Israel under the EUREKA framework to foster industrial research collaboration between the UK and Israel.

Zebra Medical Vision was founded in 2014 by Eyal Toledano, Eyal Gura, and Elad Benjamin. The company uses AI to read medical scans and automatically detect anomalies. Through its development and use of different algorithms, Zebra Medical has been able to identify visual symptoms for diseases such as breast cancer, osteoporosis, and fatty liver as well as conditions such as aneurysms and brain bleeds.

A number of the company’s solutions have received FDA clearances.

Based in Edinburgh, Storm ID helps clients develop digital processes and experiences in the fields of digital health, software and design. As part of its works, the company developed a digital health platform, Lenus, that connects patients with clinical care services.

“We’re aiming to combine the powerful data exchange capabilities of our own Lenus Health Platform with the machine learning models developed by Zebra Medical Vision to transform osteoporosis screening,” said Paul McGinness, director at Storm ID. “By predicting ahead of time the potential risk of bone fracture, we can intervene earlier to treat and manage the risk, which is better for the patient and for the health system.”

Zebra Medical Vision CEO Ohad Arazi said the company was “honored to enhance our collaboration with the NHS and Assuta Medical hospital through this incredible initiative, allowing Zebra Med’s solutions to even more widely spread in the UK and Israeli healthcare facilities to bring earlier identification and treatment of patients at risk of a break, which in turn will help healthcare payers and providers.”

David Lowe, emergency consultant at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde called it “another example of a successful collaboration between industry and the NHS to move forward innovative healthcare.”