People behind healthcare innovation: Interview with Jacky Hochner and Michael Assouline, Co-Founders of MIKAJAKI.

As part of my work, I have the privilege to speak with many inspiring innovators. The business community usually focuses on companies, pitches, and valuations— and less on the innovator. We thought it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the people behind healthcare innovation. In this series, I am sharing some of my conversations with innovators in a condensed format to gain insights into their experience, their opinions, and their learnings.

This latest conversation is with Docteur Michael Assouline and Jacky Hochner Co-Founders of? MIKAJAKI, SA , a company that uses AI to provide comprehensive ophthalmological diagnostics.

Gila: What's your story? How did you become an innovator in healthcare?

Jacky: I started my career in the business development of digital technologies such as live video OCR (optical character recognition) and was in optoelectronic high tech for 20 years. When I met Dr Assouline, we quickly realized that we shared a common desire to “do better” for eye doctors, their patients and those who finance eye healthcare. We felt lots of technologies could be harnessed to make this happen.

Michael: I started med school at age 17 and became a resident in ophthalmology at age 23. I got involved in fundamental research in cell biology, materials, pharmacology, and medical devices early and went to get a PhD in the USA. I was excited by the opportunity to translate basic research and technology into significant life-changing medical innovations. That led to 35 years of multi-disciplinary career as an eye surgeon, a journal editor and an R&D consultant, specifically in the field of lasers for refractive surgery and intra-ocular lenses. I met Jacky in 2017 at a conference and it was refreshing to meet someone as eager as me to work on re-engineering the rather inefficient diagnostic process in ophthalmology. We launched our startup the next year to re-engineer ophthalmic diagnostics with the latest available technologies such as virtual agents, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Gila: Where do you see?innovation in healthcare?moving in the next ten years?

Michael: Healthcare progress is dependent on both 1) solving unmet issues with disruptive diagnostic or therapeutic innovations and 2) making them accessible to most at a sustainable cost. We created a fully automated solution that brings together the patient data and over 100 anatomical and optical parameters so people can benefit from a comprehensive eye check-up in less that 6 minutes (vs 1 hour in a conventional set up) AND at a tenth of the usual cost. The station can be used as a supervised onsite self-service exam or as part of a telemedicine process. AI algorithms then generate a synthesis for Eye Healthcare Professional with the most significant risk factors, probable diagnostics, prescription for glasses, contact lenses, intraocular lenses for cataract surgery and recommendation for the best possible surgical correction of vision. We have the CE mark and deployed our solution in major eye centers in 8 countries.?We have demo'd the system at a dozen conferences, and are always thrilled when our system diagnoses a previously undetected, or rare eye condition, in reputable ophthalmologists. The give us a very rewarding look when they realize our robot did a better job in a few minutes than their colleagues did a few years.

Jacky: For many patients, getting good medical care is impossible - because it requires too much transportation, time, and expenses, and there is a lack of consistency. For many doctors, providing medical care requires a lot of personal time, space, capital equipment and human resources; and the amount of data they must process is starting to exceed human's ability. For payors, governments or health insurers, it is increasingly difficult to objectively assess the relevance and value of specific medical services for specific individuals.

Gila: Looking more broadly, what’s the biggest opportunities and obstacles you see for innovation in the ophthalmology space?

Jacky: World demographics (aging), economic growth, and current pandemics in diabetes and myopia are very strong drivers in our market. Many markets are emerging from poverty and they need more advanced services at an affordable cost - which is both a major challenge and opportunity. The hardest obstacle for us has been administrative roadblocks in the regulatory approval processes for example - the Medical Device Reporting regulations in Europe must be thought through with more efficiency and realism to keep pace with the innovation flow and avoid distortion of competition with the USA or Japan.

Gila: What role do you think innovators should / could play to address health inequities?

Michael: It was obvious to us that it should be a requirement. We chose to combine cutting-edge technologies with a comprehensive diagnostic approach into an efficient, reliable, and accessible device. We can achieve a lot with limited resources in medicine. As companies grow, they tend to become less agile, which sometimes impairs or slows down their ability to develop new disruptive concepts. We need innovators to do this and we need VC to actively play its role.

Gila: When you look at the health system as a whole (pharma, providers, payers, doctors, patients) who do you see driving innovation the most??

Michael: ?Modern innovation happens because of the constant dedication and interaction of a chain of these actors. During my PhD, I was studying growth factors and I helped develop the first model of the inhibition of neovascularization in the retina (a leading cause of blindness though age related macular degeneration, high myopia or diabetes). It was only tedious lab work on a scientific hypothesis circulated between niche biochemistry specialists at the time. An eye doctor in Florida noticed a striking benefit of a similar compound for one patient. Years later “Big pharma” turned this into a vision-saving product generating billions of revenues.

Jacky: Most medical intelligence until the 19th century was based on individual experience. Then came the age of collective intelligence, based on exponential information sharing (meetings, journals). We are now the witnesses and actors of the revolution of data sciences. Medical data are collected by machines and processed with artificial intelligence algorithms. We must make sure that this medical and scientific transition can be designed to benefit the larger number, with similar expansion models as those implemented for web search engines or social networks.? ?

?Gila: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were starting out as an innovator and entrepreneur?

Michael: Brace yourself and do not give up. Trust your first impression when building up your team. You must be able to trust them with the future of your company.

Jacky: Never hope for the best.

Click to learn more about Michael Assouline , Jacky Hochner and MIKAJAKI, SA

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the guest contributor