Medical algorithms have the potential to support clinicians in more precise and timely decision-making, which can lead to an elevation of patient care and provide a better allocation of resources from screening to post-discharge monitoring.
At Roche, we have been delivering innovations, including digital health solutions, to labs and hospitals that improve healthcare or address patients’ needs. These products range from solutions to challenges around operational excellence to increasing the potential for delivering personalized, comprehensive care that optimizes clinical decision-making approaches. We aim to assist healthcare providers in making better operational advancements as well as potentially discovering processes for more informed decisions related to diagnoses.
We take an ecosystem approach because innovation needs to be accessible to everyone, and innovation can happen anywhere.
One recent development in digital health solutions is introducing the use of the navify® Algorithm Suite, which is a platform where physicians and labs can access a growing range of both Roche and non-Roche algorithms to assist physicians with clinical decision-making. On the platform, physicians use an algorithm to better assess which individuals may be at risk for certain illnesses, such as within the oncology space. For example, physicians can access a machine-learning-based algorithm (referred to as LGI-Flag in the U.S. and ColonFlag elsewhere) to assist in identifying individuals at risk of harboring colorectal cancer (CRC) by leveraging Complete Blood Count (CBC) data.
Medical algorithms have the potential to support clinicians in more precise decision-making and may lead to an elevation of patient care and potentially earlier diagnoses, likely improving better allocation of resources from screening to post-discharge monitoring. This can also potentially streamline testing, which may lead to better cost control and an acceleration of preemptive care for patients.
The driver behind our ecosystem approach is recognizing that external collaboration with a range of companies with different capabilities and perspectives is vital to unlocking the full potential value of digital health technologies for better or more patient-centric care in clinics and laboratories.
To facilitate long-term collaborations with our collaborators, we ensure that each party can derive value from the relationship. This includes our collaboration with Medial EarlySign, which facilitates the joint operation of our lung cancer algorithm. Additionally, for digital pathology, we have an ongoing development and distribution agreement with PathAI, a U.S.-based pathology artificial intelligence (AI) company. This allows their image analysis algorithms to be available on our navify® Digital Pathology Platform within the U.S.
To reinforce, maintain, and continuously improve our commitment to cybersecurity, we also offer cybersecurity solutions and processes as well as collaborating with other external security leaders to ensure we stay at the forefront of this rapidly evolving technology, especially as threat actors grow increasingly sophisticated.
Throughout our strong 125-year history, we have maintained an emphasis on patient-centric care, or, as our purpose states, doing now what patients need next. With respect to digital health solutions, we follow a robust product lifecycle framework to guide the development of digital health solutions. Patients and healthcare system needs are always prioritized from the product ideation phase and throughout all of our processes with a strong eye for preserving data privacy and security. We strive to support a robust hypothesis with an early identification of potential partners, including healthcare providers, to ensure that our products work in tandem with each other and external partners securely. On the one hand, this process helps to address healthcare needs — such as operational and clinical decision-making — of institutions and individuals, and on the other hand, it enables us to derive feedback from appropriate stakeholders to improve patient experiences and overall utility.
AI and increased data and digital regulations and policies are two very prominent trends affecting healthcare, including the pharmaceutical and MedTech industries. As an institution with both pharmaceutical and diagnostics divisions, leveraging AI is also key to speeding up development and enabling access to the latest innovations.
For example, in our (Genentech) 2023 collaboration with NVIDIA, we aim to accelerate drug discovery using AI as a tool in research and development. Within Diagnostics, Roche Information Solutions (RIS), our Center of Excellence for digital solutions, is actively using AI to address a myriad of health system challenges and patient health.
What changes/improvements would you like to see in the regulatory space to support the growth/sustainability of the industry?
There is currently a proliferation of global digital health regulatory frameworks. However, some of the lack of collaboration and harmonization of digital data may lead to overlaps and contradictions. This in turn makes it difficult, particularly for multinational organizations, to operate and elevate technologies toward greater sustainability in the healthcare industry. Preemptively ascertaining risks and creating legal precedent in upcoming and existing regulatory frameworks is key. Legal certainty and clarity in the MedTech industry will facilitate Roche’s ability to deliver on all possible innovative solutions to patients in a timely, sometimes lifesaving, manner.
Further resources – Roche Sponsored studies with more details
The Economist (Advancing the frontier of health and technology integration)
Harvard Business Review (Innovation in Data-Driven HealthCare)
