Olympus Asia Pacific Innovations Program Finalist Feature - Vesica AI
Olympus APAC
Worldwide leading manufacturer of optical and digital precision technology.
We’re on the home straight in our search for a winner in the Olympus Asia Pacific Innovations Program!
Over the past twelve months, Olympus APAC, alongside MedTech Innovator Asia Pacific has been on the search for new and innovative approaches, creating a meaningful role in the advancement of minimally invasive care and new ways to detect, monitor, and treat conditions and diseases. ?The winning innovator will receive grant funding of $75,000 as well as an exclusive mentorship program with key thought leaders from within Olympus.
In the leadup to the winner’s announcement at the Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association (APACMed) Medtech Forum during the 5th and 6th of December, we caught up with the finalists of the Olympus Asia Pacific Innovations Program so that we could learn more about each member, and the groundbreaking technologies they were developing.
Today, we introduce and feature Vesica AI. To follow their journey on LinkedIn, click here:
You can find their website here:
A bit about Vesica AI
Vesica AI is a US-based medical technology company that is engaged in the process of commercializing a proprietary and innovative AI-based clinical support system that supports and enhances the early detection of bladder cancer through cystoscopy. Vesica AI holds exclusive worldwide rights to this technology, which was the result of research and development by Dr. Atsushi Ikeda , MD and his team at the 筑波大学 Hospital in Ibaraki-prefecture, Japan, in collaboration with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) , a Japanese public agency promoting scientific development.
What disease states do Vesica AI specialise in?
Bladder cancer is the sixth most common form of cancer worldwide, and one of the most expensive forms of cancer to treat. Over 500,000 new cases are diagnosed annually; 87% of patients are treated with transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) procedures to remove cancerous tissue. Bladder cancer is often a progressive disease for which patients undergo multiple cystoscopies due to the high risk of recurrence.
Cystoscopy is essential in diagnosing and treating bladder cancer and is a frequently performed procedure (~2M+ in US annually) , especially in the treatment of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), which accounts for over 75% of all bladder cancer cases. Vesica’s technology primarily addresses NMIBC.
Could you share more about the solution that made you a finalist for the Olympus Asia Pacific Innovation program?
Vesica AI's current product is UroAI, a patented AI platform that processes in real-time the video feed from a urologist’s cystoscope while he or she is examining a patient’s bladder. The AI assists the physician by identifying and graphically highlighting (in color) any suspicious areas on the inner surface of the bladder that may indicate carcinoma, with emphasis on the small tumors and flat lesions that are easily missed by a physician’s eye.
Vesica AI's UroAI supports white light-based cystoscopy (WLC), providing compatible operation with cystoscopes of any manufacturer.? It can also be used in combination with Image Enhancement Endoscopy such as narrow band imaging (NBI) and blue-light cystoscopy (BLC).? AI detection of lesions in NBI was presented at the American Urological Association meeting in New Orleans in 2022. Vesica’s published lab research data demonstrates the highest rates of sensitivity and specificity achieved to date, the key benchmarks of any medical imaging AI.??
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What does the perfect future look like for Vesica AI? What are your company ambitions and aspirations?
Vesica AI aims to launch the world’s first-in-market AI clinical decision support software for the detection of bladder cancer through cystoscopy. Our AI visualization technology assists urologists by highlighting certain types of lesions that are difficult to spot and therefore frequently overlooked, leading to cancer recurrence, suboptimal patient outcomes and increased payer costs.
Cystoscopy represents the specialized urological application of endoscopy, a broad field that includes gastrointestinal, colonoscopy, and many other sub-disciplines. Our medical software engineering team is also pioneering novel AI techniques around augmented annotation and artificial image generation, which have demonstrated potential to accelerate AI adoption into other fields of endoscopy by eliminating the need for extensive clinical training data sets.?
Vesica’s overall corporate goals are therefore twofold: 1) the rapid clinical commercialization of cystoscopic AI for the urology market, and 2) the further development of AI methodologies that have impact the endoscopy and medical visualization fields as a whole. We plan to realize those ambitions in partnership with a combination of specialty endoscope manufacturers, global medical device companies, AI software delivery platforms, and big pharma names.
What opportunities do Vesica AI see in potentially winning the Olympus Asia Pacific Innovation Program?
It is a tremendous honor to have been selected as one of the teams by MedTech Innovator and Olympus Corporation, and to enjoy the myriad of benefits in participating MedTech Innovator program, including access to mentorship, focused webinars on key topics in the medical device ecosystem, and state-of-the-art expert opinions.
Should we have the good fortune to win the Olympus APAC program finals, our team would be thrilled at the opportunity to work closely with Olympus mentors to gain deep industry insight into the urology and endoscopy markets, understand the health economics of the rapidly evolving medical visualization landscape, and ‘see around the corner’ to grasp how medical AI software and platforms are likely to be regulated, delivered, paid for, and reimbursed in the near future.
We strongly believe the opportunity to work directly with Olympus will be transformational for us in refining our business model, laser-focusing our commercialization and R&D efforts, and accelerating our fundraising and strategic collaboration plans.
The Vesica Corporation Executive Team:
Dr. Atsushi Ikeda, MD, PhD
Co-Founder, Chief Medical and Technology Officer
Department of Urology, Institute of Medicine, University of Tsukuba.
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Former CEO of a specialty urology company that was acquired by a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company.
Charles Zahl, MBA
Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer
Former CFO of Amplify Surgical, Inc and former President of SoCalEED, Inc.
Alan Waskin, Esq.
Founder and Senior advisor
Former President of TWT Audio LLC, a technology accessory company, and Former Senior Vice President, Legal and Business Affairs for a multinational conglomerate.