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OptraScan set to raise Rs. 50 crore in Series B funding by March to spur growth
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Laxmi Yadav, Mumbai
February 22 , 2019
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OptraScan, a leading digital pathology solution provider, is all set to raise Rs.
50 crore in its Series B funding by the end of March this year to scale
up manufacturing of devices to 50 a month from existing 10 devices a
month at its Pune facility as well as expand footprint in European Union
and US.
It is in talks with venture capitalists in Silicon
Valley to get Series B funding within a couple of months. The firm has
already raised Rs. 25 crore in Series A funding three and a half years back, said Abhi Gholap, founder & CEO, OptraScan.
Focused
on delivering fully integrated and affordable digital pathology
solutions, OptraScan serves as a perfect tool for transition from
conventional microscopy to digital pathology for the effective
acquisition of whole slide images, viewing, storing, sharing,
consulting, analysis and management of digital slides and associated
metadata.
The firm is expected to get US FDA clearance for
OptraScan shortly. Following this, it is planning to launch product in
the US market. The medical device startup has already received EU patent
for OptraScan last year where it is looking to scale up product
marketing.
Besides EU and US, the company, started in 2014, is
also aggressively looking to expand presence in UAE and South East Asian
region including Singapore, Malaysia.
The firm which has
already received Indian patent has undertaken a mass validation study of
3,300 cancer cases under Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme
(BIPP) last year, kicked off by the Biotechnology Industry Research
Assistance Council (BIRAC).
After a mass validation of over
3,300 cancer cases, OptraScan was approved by the government of India as
an approved medical device to provide real-time access to digitized
tissue samples and cancer cases in India, to improve clinical
turn-around time for millions of patients in India.
OptraScan
products are used by institutions to digitize tissue samples in order to
improve cancer treatment and education through computer-aided
mechanisms. The FDA cleared the first digital pathology system in 2017
for primary diagnosis in humans, paving the way for similar technologies
like OptraScan to advance cancer research though artificial
intelligence (AI) and computer-aided mechanisms.
Recently
OptraScan collaborated with Neuberg Diagnostics, one of the top four
diagnostics service provider in India to launch global Telepath Network
for the pathologist community in UAE, India and South Africa.
OptraScan
has pioneered the concept of introducing world’s first on-demand
digital pathology system and provides a complete whole slide image
solution system via an on-demand pay-per-use model or outright purchase.
It provides the ultimate flexibility for storing, archiving and
managing digital images and metadata, said Gholap.
OptraScan’s
digital pathology system comprises of 15-slides small-footprint, low and
high throughput WSI scanners that are well equipped for brightfield
application; an integrated image viewer and image management system -
IMAGEPath, image analysis - OptraASSAYS, a cloud-based LIMS - CLOUDPath,
and CARDS (computer aided region detection system). OptraScan’s
integrated solutions include TELEPath, a comprehensive telepathology
solution and AI & ML- based automated image analysis solutions that
have been developed to provide accurate assessment of nuclear and
membrane biomarker, immuno-oncology and prostate cancer, he added.
So
far we have deployed close to 30 devices across the country including
Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital, SRL labs and Zydus Pharmaceuticals. We
are also looking to offer this solution to labs in smaller towns where
access to a highly skilled pathologists is difficult. The scanned slides
can easily be transferred to a lab in one of the bigger cities where it
can then be double-checked by a pathologist, he opined.
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