Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Bonatra expanding chronic disease management platform with MyAva acquisition Bonatra, which is once focused on treating chronic health conditions in men, is expanding its platform to deal with women's health and wellness through its latest acquisition of MyAva. Founded in 2019, the femtech startup provides curated programmes and personalised plans to help women manage their chronic conditions, including PCOS and thyroid disorders. "Acquiring MyAva enables us to expand our reach and deepen our expertise in women’s health, specifically for conditions like PCOS," said Bonatra CEO and co-founder Rahul Kishore Singh. Bonatra offers personalised treatment plans based on IoMT-collected data to help men treat and manage their chronic conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes. MyAva CEO and founder said they are elated to join Bonatra and "further the vision of making chronic care management accessible to all women" while strengthening their joint commitments to "making femtech more inclusive and integrated." Startoon gets US FDA clearance for wearable recovery tracking device Indian medical device startup Startoon Labs has received the United States Food and Drug Administration's 510(k) clearance for its flagship wearable health product. Called Pheezee, the device measures the surface electromyogram of bulk muscles and the range of motion of primary joints to determine joint health. It is intended for use in tracking patients' recovery from physiotherapy, neurological, and musculoskeletal injuries. Indian researchers use ML to detect CNS tumours Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have developed an ML-based computational tool to better detect cancer-causing tumours in the brain and spinal cord. Available publicly online, the GBMDriver (GlioBlastoma Mutiforme Drivers) identifies driver mutations and passenger mutations in glioblastoma, which are key to developing therapeutic options for patients. Ubie expands rare diseases partnership with Takeda Japanese health tech startup Ubie has expanded its digital transformation partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. The expanded collaboration, according to a press statement, seeks to promote the early detection of rare diseases and gastrointestinal diseases. The two companies started their partnership in 2021 with the promotion of Ubie's symptom checker and patient intake form. Ubie also intends to introduce additional functions on top of its current offerings and to collaborate with Takeda on IT systems and data.

Lunit obtains new CE mark for AI DBT solution South Korean medical AI company Lunit has received a CE mark under Europe's latest Medical Device Regulation for its AI software for digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) analysis. Called Lunit INSIGHT DBT, the software solution analyses 3D images from DBT, enabling fast and accurate diagnosis of breast cancer. In a press statement, Lunit disclosed its plan to start rolling out the software product in Europe by the end of March, noting an uptick in interest. It also announced its plan to begin the process of acquiring the US FDA's approval for Lunit INSIGHT DBT in the third quarter. The technology has already been approved for commercialisation in South Korea early this year. Jolly Good creates emergency care VR content with Brigham and Women's Hospital Jolly Good has revealed its latest collaboration with Harvard Medical School-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). According to a press statement, their partnership seeks to verify the educational benefits of medical VR and its implementation in North America. As part of their collaboration, the organisations have developed VR content on emergency care. Meanwhile, the Japanese VR company announced that Dr Kei Ouchi, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, has become its medical advisor who will guide its full entry into the US medical market. IIT Madras researchers develop coronavirus antibodies database Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) have built an open-source database of coronaviruses' antibodies. Called Ab-CoV, the online database includes antibody features such as binding affinity and neutralisation profiles, source, and identifying viral proteins and strains. Currently, Ab-CoV has data on 1,780 coronavirus-related antibodies and contains more than 3,200 data points on their features. "Ab-CoV is an exhaustive repository of antibodies, not just specific to SARS-CoV-2, but also to other members of the coronavirus family, such as SARS and MERS viruses," Dr Vani Janakirama of the Department of Biotechnology explained. Based on a press statement, the Ab-CoV database can be used to aid the development of new drugs against emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. "This repository would aid in comparative studies among different neutralising antibodies across coronaviruses and assess their properties and interaction patterns with epitopes on the native and mutant viral proteins. Such an effort eventually would help to gauge the efficacy of these antibodies towards existing and emerging viral variants," Dr Janakirama added.

IIT Madras develops IT tool to improve rural health The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has created an IT tool to monitor and improve the health of Scheduled Caste (SC) communities in Andhra Pradesh. It was deployed for a project in E. Palaguttapalli SC in the Chittoor district where it was used to gather detailed household-level health-related information year-round and to make an objective assessment of the impact of medical treatment and dietary advice on major health conditions. The project also organised online live interactions every other month where special lectures on improving one's health were delivered. Following this pilot, IIT Madras researchers plan to build a mobile application to digitise health status monitoring and mapping in SC communities. AIIMS New Delhi to go all digital for payments All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi (AIIMS New Delhi) will be implementing all-digital payments at its counters starting in April next year. The public medical university and hospital is setting up a smart card facility to enhance the payment experience for patients. It will be integrated with its existing billing facility with arrangements to be made for instalment payments. Once the facility goes live, no cash payment shall be accepted at the counters of AIIMS New Delhi other than its smart card. Top-up counters will also be installed at different locations within OPDs. ASUS, Octopian to bring AI medical coding solutions to the Middle East IT providers ASUS and Octopian have tied up to deliver an integrated cloud solution for optimising revenue cycle management in the Middle East. This collaboration will see ASUS's AI-powered coding assistant Miraico integrated with the Octopian Cloud platform. The resulting solution will help healthcare providers analyse medical terms in clinical records and automatically suggest appropriate ICD-10 codes to optimise Diagnosis-Related Group assignments and enhance hospital operations. According to a press release, this integrated offering will first come to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.