Dive Brief:

• Google Health has licensed its mammography artificial intelligence research model to cancer detection company iCAD.
• The agreement, which is the first time Google has licensed the technology, positions the partners to try to use the AI to improve iCAD’s existing 3D and 2D algorithms for breast cancer screening. 
• Automating more of the breast cancer screening process may help reduce the impact of the global shortage of specialists and thereby enable the timely diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

Dive Insight:

Google Health, a company-wide effort at the tech company, demonstrated the potential of its AI in 2020 with the publication of a paper in Nature. The study found the AI outperformed six radiologists and, in a simulation of the double-reading process used in the U.K., reduced the workload of the second reader by 88%.  

Separately, iCAD has built up a portfolio of cancer detection technologies, including algorithms for 2D and 3D mammography. The licensing deal positions iCAD to enhance its portfolio with Google’s AI. Greg Corrado, Ph.D., head of health AI at Google, outlined the thinking behind the deal in a blog post about the tie up with iCAD.

“This commercial partnership with iCAD underscores an inflection point in our mammography work. After several years of investment and intentional research and testing, we’re now ready to partner with iCAD to take the next steps toward integrating this technology into a real-world clinical setting and work together to make a difference in the lives of millions of people undergoing breast cancer screening,” Corrado wrote.

Google is also making its cloud capabilities available to iCAD. The integration with Google Cloud will enable iCAD to move from on-premise to cloud-hosted solutions, a switch that the partners see helping customers to deploy the breast cancer detection technology.