AI-powered digital pathology: disrupting healthcare services

Over 27,000 people die of cancer every day, representing a staggering one in six deaths in the world¹.

Treating cancer takes teamwork. Pathologists, in particular, play an increasingly crucial role. Inputs from these behind-the-scenes specialists, who examine body tissues, diagnose, and guide patient care, contribute to some 70 percent of all hospital decisions.

The problem is that pathologists are in short supply around the world. In the US alone, the pathologist population declined by over 17 percent between 2007 and 2017, while their diagnostic workload rose by over 41 percent². Patients can wait up to 60 extra days to begin treatment because of understaffed laboratories³ . The problem is getting even worse after Covid. 

Singapore-based start-up Qritive is trying to ease the burden with the help of artificial intelligence. Qritive uses AI to process large data sets, which leads to faster and more accurate cancer diagnoses. The company works with a network of more than 150 pathologists around the world to train the digital pathology software, which has already analysed almost half a million images.

“In some cases, you need to count millions of cells to establish a ratio and treat the patient accordingly. Most often it’s an estimate, but if a computer can count it, the result is much more accurate by default,” says Aneesh Sathe, co-founder.

"Weeks to minutes"

Qritive’s technology is based on Sathe’s PhD research at the National University of Singapore.

Sathe, with an interest in both biology and computation, was studying mechanobiology – an emerging field of science which involves analysing the world of cells through the lens of physics and engineering.

During the research, he realised how laborious the process of biological image analysis was. Sathe created a programme that used machine learning and AI to assist him.

“It brought the (image analysis) time down from three or four weeks, to 10 minutes,” he says.

Persuading hospitals to take a bet on Qritive’s system was an early obstacle for the company, which was founded in 2017. It took two years for Qritive to publish its first studies.

Seeing clients use its tools a year later in Singapore, then in some of the largest hospitals in India, was a significant step for the start-up.

“It proved the tech was feasible,” says Sathe.

In January 2023, Qritive received USD7.5 million in funding to develop new products and expand its operations. Qritive has been gaining traction in the US, where the shortage of pathologists is becoming acute. Currently, the number of practicing pathologists in the US stands at 5.7 per 10,000 people, but this is forecast to fall to 3.7 by the end of decade.

Sathe hopes Qritive will make diagnostic expertise more accessible to hospitals and patients in developing regions, such as Africa – where there is just one pathologist for every million people – and even in rural parts of Europe.

“In these smaller towns it takes way too long,” he says.

The patient has to be sent to the big hospital in the city to get a diagnosis. If we can democratise who gets access to this care, I see that as an area where we can grow.”