Augsburg University Hospital partners with Visiopharm for digital transformation

Augsburg University Hospital, one of Germany’s leading hospitals, has selected Visiopharm, a world-leading developer of precision AI image analysis software, to realise its ambition of becoming a digital pathology powerhouse.

The partnership will see Visiopharm implement its digital pathology software to accelerate the hospital’s diagnostic workflows, to provide faster diagnoses to patients and even with a higher degree of accuracy.

The hospital will be using Visiopharm’s CE-IVD marked APPs, starting with HER2 and then expanding to other APPs like ER, PR, Ki67 and lymph node metastasis detection to quantify breast cancer biomarkers.

The partnership builds on an existing collaboration between Visiopharm and Prof Ralf Huss, a member of Visiopharm’s Scientific Advisory Board and Head of the Center for Digital Medicine at Augsburg Hospital. In a collaborative paper published recently, Augsburg pathologists reported on the use of Visiopharm’s AI software to discover an impaired maturation of dendritic cells leading to an inadequate T-cell response in severe cases of COVID patients at the hospital.

Augsburg and Visiopharm intend to collaborate on demonstrating the value of introducing digital pathology and AI into the clinical workflow with the aim for Augsburg to confirm its role as a reference site for other hospitals to base best practice on. This will involve conducting scientific and rigorous studies, as well as developing and testing new algorithms for diagnostic decision support, stain quality management and slide control.

To ensure a seamless workflow, Visiopharm software will be integrated into the existing pathology workflow of the pathology department, together with NEXUS AG, which is the provider of the laboratory information system used in Augsburg.

Michael Grunkin, Visiopharm CEO said:

“We’re excited to be given this opportunity to help Augsburg University Hospital achieve their digital transformation ambition. It’s an exciting milestone to modernize their pathology services and show the value of a fully digital workflow in improving patient care. Throughout the project, we very much look forward to sharing what we achieve together with the healthcare community.”

Prof Bruno Märkl, Institute for Pathology and Molecular Diagnosis, Augsburg University Hospital said:

“This is the beginning of a new chapter for our hospital’s future. With Visiopharm’s AI software we can introduce a truly digital workflow, which includes diagnostic decision support and enables standardization of stain quality. The whole team is determined to deliver the best quality of care for our patients, and we cannot do this without digitizing our pathology workflow. Hopefully we can inspire other hospitals to follow in our footsteps.”

About Visiopharm

Visiopharm® is a world-leading developer of precision AI image analysis software. Their pioneering image analysis tools support thousands of scientists, pathologists, and image analysis experts in academic institutions, biopharmaceutical industry, and diagnostic centers. AI-based image analysis and tissue mining tools support research and drug development research worldwide, while CE-IVD APPs support primary diagnostics. With the most advanced and sophisticated artificial intelligence and deep learning, Visiopharm delivers tissue data mining tools, precision results, and workflows.

Visiopharm was founded in 2002 and is privately owned. The company operates internationally with over 900 licenses and countless users in more than 40 countries. The company headquarters are in Denmark’s Medicon Valley, with offices in Sweden, England, Germany, Netherlands and United States.