Punjab government, Roche Pharma and Niramai Health Analytix launch ‘Pink Project’ initiative

Programme to screen 15,000 suspected females within one year and help establish a referral pathway for follow-ups for diagnosis and treatment initiation

The Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Punjab, Roche Pharma India and Niramai Health Analytix have inked a partnership to accelerate screening and treatment for breast cancer in the state of Punjab. The partnership – Punjab Breast Cancer AI-Digital project,” also known as the ‘Pink Project’ will focus on efforts to ensure timely identification, treatment initiation and robust referral pathways across various health centres through technology-enabled, live patient-tracking support, Roche Pharma said in a statement.

“This public-private partnership is a significant step forward in the battle against cancer and a real boost to the potential of reducing the disease’s burden and serving the last mile, said Dr Vijay Singla, Minister, Health and Family Welfare, and Medical Education and Research, Government of Punjab, in the statement. He further stated that a total of 15, 000 screenings of suspected females are targetted to be carried out in a span of one year, and the Punjab Health Department will ensure the mobilisation of people for the screening.

Further, according to the statement, the Punjab Breast Cancer AI-Digital project –Pink Project will focus on:

• state-wide screening for early detection of breast cancer cases with an innovative solution – a thermal-based AI-enabled platform for screening, linking to an integrated referral pathway for end-to-end closure with follow-ups for diagnosis and treatment initiation.
• the epidemiological data generation to further support policy planning and mapping of the spread of breast cancer cases.

The project aspires to initiate early detection and maintain consistency with its digital referral capability by linking tertiary care centres. Screening solutions and the digital referral pathway would be integrated and patients’ information would be shared from the Niramai software to the digital referral pathway, and provide end-to-end closure of screening, diagnostics and treatment modalities.

Roche will act as a technical partner for project planning, implementation and monitoring of the state-wide breast cancer project plan, thereby strengthening the referral pathway through digitisation. The digital system will help capture epidemiological statistics and provide GIS mapping of screened patients to generate MIS reports for the government officials.