Mount Sinai Announces Partnership to Launch Renal Disease-Fighting AI System

One of the nation’s leading health systems announced today that it will collaborate with a new artificial intelligence (AI) firm to commercialize a kidney disease detection, management, and treatment platform for diabetes patients and other at-risk populations.

New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System and RenalytixAI, a subsidiary of UK-based EKF Diagnostics, plan to launch their new product in in Q2 2019. The partnership will take advantage of over 3 million health records held in Mount Sinai’s “massive data warehouse” in combination with more than 43,000 patient records in the BioMeTM BioBank.

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The health system and AI company plan to use the de-identified data to create an advanced learning platform that will flag patients at elevated risk for kidney disease and work to predict catastrophic health events associated with renal disease. They hope to develop what RenalytixAI CEO James McCullough called “a powerful model for translating, validating and driving high-impact medical technology as quickly and safely as possible.”

EKF Diagnostics primarily produces medical devices to track blood glucose and analyze hemoglobin levels. The company announced earlier this year that it was looking to raise $25 million to float RenalytixAI into the US market and begin developing AI tools that combined its diabetes expertise with kidney disease management insights.

“We’re proud to be advancing prognostics at the nexus of artificial intelligence and healthcare analytics,” Mount Sinai Innovation Partners senior vice president Erik Lium, PhD, said in a statement. “The accomplished innovators and rich data resources of Mount Sinai combined with the expertise and vision of our colleagues at RenalytixAI are evolving the development of cutting-edge renal prognostics for the benefit of patients and healthcare globally.”

Barbara Murphy, MD, is chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. She’s also dean of Clinical Integration and Population Health Management—and she heads up ReanlytixAI’s scientific advisory board.

“Our ability to apply the power of artificial intelligence against such a deep repository of clinical data in combination with prognostic biomarkers has the potential to change the game for all of our patients with diabetes and other populations at risk for kidney disease,” she said.

According to the announcement, additional major US-based healthcare systems are also expected to participate in the platform’s development and launch, though they aren’t named. No financial details of the arrangement have been disclosed.

Last month, EKF Diagnostics’ DiaSpect hemoglobin measurement device was granted FDA approval. The company’s CEO, Julian Barnes, called the US market “a key target” for the product. He called the Mount Sinai and RenalytixAI news “a significant partnership” for an EKF subsidiary that will “improve patient care in end stage renal disease,” according to today’s announcement.

“The fact that so many patients on dialysis have never seen a specialist has to change both from a patient care and cost perspective. I believe that this partnership will result in RenalytixAI being leaders in the field of kidney care, alongside Mount Sinai,” Barnes said.

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