Digital pathology solution provider, Inspirata to launch its R&D facility in Bengaluru

To invest up to $3 million in setting up and operating the facility, will hire 50 product development engineers, scientists and informaticists with healthcare domain expertise

Inspirata a cancer diagnostics solution provider with a digital pathology solution will launch its India operations with their first research and development facility in Bengaluru. This facility is an extension of their US operations and will be set up and run at cost of around $3 million. To begin with Inspirata will hire 50 high-end software product development engineers, scientists and informaticists from the healthcare domain in the next two months. The Indian development centre will deliver cutting edge support to all three of its business units, i.e. digital pathology work-flow solution, companion diagnostics and the cancer information data trust, and also will work on data mining, data analytics and predictive software algorithms.

Commenting on the initiative, Satish Sanan, CEO Inspirata said, “The Indian R&D centre will play a very strategic and vital role in our endeavour to help speed up cancer diagnosis, research, teaching and most importantly provide doctors and patients with predictive data that will change the way cancer is diagnosed and treated. Bengaluru has the right ecosystem to support our plans and hence our decision to locate one of our key initiatives here.”

Inspirata, which originally formed in 2013 as 2DP by its founder Mark Lloyd, was incorporated in the US September 2014. It has developed an end-to-end Digital Pathology Workflow Solution that scans glass pathology slides, making the digital images available for high-resolution viewing and sharing anywhere in the world. Reportedly, Inspirata’s pathology cockpit employs advanced computational image analytics algorithms called Companion Diagnostics that pre-screen and highlight suspicious cells on the digital images of glass pathology slides, helping pathologists to more rapidly diagnose cases.

These novel detection and diagnostic algorithms are at the leading edge of cancer research and are expected to transform how cancer patients are treated throughout the world. For example, the turnaround time for cancer detection and diagnosis will be shortened from 12-13 days to two to three days. Additionally, patients will have more rapid and affordable access to second opinions and consultations from a worldwide pool of pathologists who specialize in specific forms of cancer.

The company’s long-term vision is to also develop a Cancer Information Data Trust—an extensive database of cancer signatures cross-referenced to clinical treatment protocols and patient outcomes.