Naitive Technologies, a population health company, has secured £334K co-funding from Innovate UK under the Biomedical Catalyst competition, to increase the accessibility of its osteoporosis screening technology, OsteoSight.
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Man standing face against wall while doctor using X-Ray machine scan him in darkness. Lungs x-ray image. Pulmonology, coronavirus prevention.
Osteoporosis is a huge global health challenge. Every year, it leads to 37 million fractures and costs health systems billions. It is widely underdiagnosed and undertreated, and uptake of screening, which uses a dedicated scan called a DEXA, is low. Many cases are only diagnosed when it's too late, and a fracture has already occurred. Opportunistic screening could hold the key to changing this picture.
X-rays are amongst the most common, most accessible, and most cost-effective diagnostic exams performed. Each year, millions of X-rays are taken for a wide variety of purposes. These exams contain a wealth of information that, until now, has not been possible to access. This is where OsteoSight comes in. Researchers at Naitive Technologies have invented a technique powered by artificial intelligence that extracts new, clinically valuable information from these routine X-rays without requiring additional equipment or physician time. By opportunistically screening X-rays, OsteoSight automatically estimates a person's bone mineral density (BMD), a key indicator of bone health, and informs the interpreting physician if a patient is at risk of low BMD. Clinicians can deliver more impactful and cost-effective care by finding these people before they suffer a fracture.
The Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst co-funding of this project will allow Naitive to increase the number of people who stand to benefit from opportunistic screening with OsteoSight by incorporating spine and chest X-rays into their platform. Currently, the technology can be used on hip and pelvis X-rays, and by adding spine and chest X-rays, the team will be able to reach more than an additional 40% of all X-rays performed. OsteoSight's expansion into spine and chest X-rays produces another benefit. The spine, which is visible on these X-rays, is an area of high metabolic activity and, therefore, one of the earliest sites to experience loss in bone mineral density, making it ideal for early identification of osteoporosis.
Dr. Will Briggs, CEO of Naitive, said: "We are thrilled to announce that with the support of Innovate UK, Naitive is able to increase the accessibility of our osteoporosis pre-screening tool. This expansion means that millions more people stand to benefit from an improved care pathway and a significantly enhanced ability to detect and manage their osteoporosis."
This most recent grant follows a host of other announcements by Naitive, including another Innovate UK funded project announced in December 2023 and the designation of Breakthrough Device by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
You can listen to Cat Kelly, chief operating officer at Naitive, discuss the tool on The FemTech Series here.
