24 May 2018

Deciphex Awarded €2m from EU Fast Track to Innovation Program to Accelerate Development of AI Driven Workflows for Preclinical Pathology.

Deciphex in conjunction with commercial partners, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and PDS, has been awarded €2m from the EU Horizon2020, Fast Track to Innovation program, to accelerate development of artificial-intelligence based workflows for preclinical pathology.

A considerable number of biopsies are reviewed annually as part of preclinical toxicology assessments. There is a growing challenge in meeting the resourcing requirement needed to fulfil this important stage of the drug development pipeline. The work facilitates accelerated commercialisation of Deciphex’s Patholytix platform, through the verification of performance and productivity benefits in a pharmaceutical collaborator, along with the important consideration of how this capability interacts with existing laboratory information management systems (LIMS) through the involvement of Swiss company PDS, an industry leader in the provision of LIMS systems for preclinical toxicology.

Dr Donal O’Shea, Chief Executive of Deciphex: This program from the European Union facilitates our engagement with key industry partners to explore how to deploy our patented abnormality detection approaches in a “real world” setting. We believe that the application of Patholytix in a preclinical setting can have a considerable impact on productivity and consistency. As the only successful application in Ireland, it speaks to the quality of the proposed project we plan to undertake with our collaborators.

The Fast Track to Innovation Scheme is for relatively mature ground-breaking technologies, concepts and business models which are close to market. The SME Instrument and the Fast Track to Innovation are now a central part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot, targeting radically new, breakthrough products, services, processes or business models that open up new markets. Between 2018 and 2020, the EIC pilot will provide €2.7 billion to breakthrough, market-creating innovations under Horizon 2020.

Deciphex, an Enterprise Ireland High Potential Startup, based in INVENT DCU, Dublin, Ireland, plan to revolutionise pathology through automation of visual examination of tissue. Founded by former Danaher executives’ Dr Donal O’Shea and Mark Gregson, our mission is to optimise pathology workflows by helping pathologists focus on critical content. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Fast Track To Innovation under grant agreement No 820588.