Ibex Medical Analytics raises $38 million for AI-powered cancer diagnostics solutions
Ibex’s solutions detect cancer in real-time, enabling 100% quality control, while also reducing turnaround times
Ibex Medical Analytics, which uses AI to develop clinical-grade solutions that detect cancer, announced on Tuesday a $38 million series B financing round led by Octopus Ventures and 83North, with additional participation from aMoon, Planven Entrepreneur Ventures and Dell Technologies Capital, the corporate venture arm of Dell Technologies. The new round brings the company's total funding to $52 million.
The company, which was founded in 2016 by Chaim Linhart and Joseph Mossel, employs 35 people, 31 of them in Israel.
Pathologists play a crucial role in the detection and diagnosis of disease, with their assessment being vital for correct treatment decisions in cancer care. However, a rise in cancer prevalence and advances in personalized medicine have resulted in growing diagnostic complexity that significantly increases pathologists’ workloads. Coupled with a global shortage of pathologists, these increasing workloads lead to delays and concerns over diagnostic quality. This situation has underscored the need for new tools that enable pathologists to more efficiently and accurately view and analyze tissue samples. Ibex’s solutions detect cancer in real-time, enabling 100% quality control, while also reducing turnaround times. Installed in labs worldwide as part of everyday clinical practice, Ibex’s Galen Prostate and Galen Breast solutions use AI algorithms and routinely detect misdiagnosed and mis-graded cancers in digitized slides, guiding pathologists to areas of cancer in support of a prompt review.
Ibex will use the investment to support a rapidly expanding customer base of clinical deployments in labs and health systems in North America and Europe and grow talent across R&D, clinical and commercial teams. The investment will accelerate expansion of the Galen solution portfolio at Ibex, bringing new AI tools for more tissue types, including novel AI-based enhancements of the pathology workflow and oncology focused AI-markers.
“Ibex is at the forefront of digital transformation in pathology and we are committed to supporting our customers on their AI journey,” said Joseph Mossel, Ibex CEO and co-founder. “Quality diagnosis is our top priority and a cornerstone of cancer care programs. I am proud of our team, demonstrating through clinical studies and, more importantly, in live clinical settings, that our AI is a game changer in eliminating misdiagnosis and ensuring real-time patient safety. This investment will help us meet the growing demand for AI and digital pathology rollouts and develop AI-markers for a more targeted treatment of cancer.”
According to Will Gibbs, early stage health investor at Octopus Ventures, who will be joining the Ibex Board as part of this funding round, the Ibex team has managed to successfully translate a rich collection of digital pathology data assets and deep learning technology into clinical-grade products. “The Ibex platform has the potential to deliver meaningful changes to parts of the cancer pathway that have historically been neglected but are critical to improving outcomes for the most common cancer types, but this is quickly changing,” added Gibbs.
Gil Goren, General Partner at 83North and an Ibex Board member, said: “In a relatively short amount of time, Ibex has proven its utility to users, making AI a key driver in their decision to go digital. We are proud of the company’s achievements and look forward to the next phase in the company’s continued growth.”
