An Orlando medtech company has partnered with Canadian prostate cancer test developer Nanostics, Inc., to bring a blood-based diagnostic tool embedded with artificial intelligence to the U.S. market.
The Protean BioDiagnostics partnership brought Nanotics’ CDX Prostate risk score to healthcare providers last month.
The tool, which uses biological data, clinical information and AI-powered learning models to generate a risk score, targets patients suspected of potentially developing aggressive prostate cancer.
Nanostics CEO Dr. John Lewis called its partnership with Protean a “huge milestone.”
“When used as a reflex test, CDX Prostate is a powerful tool to help identify men with aggressive prostate cancer sooner, leading to better outcomes while also minimizing the negative effects associated with overdiagnosis of the disease,” he said in a news release.
Protean CEO Dr. Anthony Magliocco said the partnership made sense for the Orlando company.
“We are trying to make a difference for cancer patients and general wellness,” he said in an interview with Orlando Tech News.
Protean, based in UCF Business Incubation Program’s Lake Nona site, works with doctors to enhance their ability to provide quality care for patients.
The company was recently named a company to watch by Grow Florida, which targets second-stage companies that indicate future growth.
Magliocco said recent trends in medical advancements have helped democratize the best treatments for even the most-severe ailments.
In addition, efforts like the CDX Prostate risk score helps somewhat level the playing field for private practice doctors with those based in mammoth hospital systems.
“Before, you’d have to go to castles on the hill to get the best care,” he said. “Now we can bring advances to people everywhere.”
Magliocco has more than 40 years of experience in the medical industry. He spent nearly a decade at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa before launching Protean in 2017.
As the complexities of a disease like cancer continue to become clear, the research side must quickly adapt, developing tests for specific cancers at specific stages.
Magliocco said his company has started to use AI and other technologies to connect patients with the more than 200 different treatments for cancer.
Protean is a platform that can connect doctors, patients and support systems with test options that target specific criteria.
“We are trying to gather them and make them available to people and medical systems that are underserved,” he said. “We have packaged it all up into an easy button.”
One function Protean hopes to simplify is discovering pertinent information in usually long-winded medical reports.
Instead of having to read through what can sometimes be 2,000-page reports, using AI can quickly scan for usable information.
“It’s like having an assistant that is tireless and finding things you missed,” Magliocco said.
Magliocco has become a staunch advocate for artificial intelligence, saying that it will eventually be like electricity because everybody will be using it.
As stored data continues to grow, it will allow these AI-based methods of diagnosis and treatment to continually improve.
The goal is to deliver better healthcare at a lower cost and higher margins for everyone, he said.
“There is opportunity in collaboration,” he said. “We need to move past this highly competitive environment. There is massive untapped opportunity and we are just going to be squabbling over the diminishing returns.”
“We should be competing over who can get more resources out there.”