Emerging trends in brining novel technologies, advanced imaging and AI – learnings from China Bio
Many conversations and presentations at China Bio 2020 have been focused on the expectations of high growth in biotech / pharma of the Asia Pacific region. Mainly due to rapidly improving healthcare infrastructure, increased investments into use of technology and clarity on reimbursement strategy. As we closely follow the development and investment strategies in the first of technology, AI, data science and medical imaging as they applied to novel drug development, we wanted to share a few observations.
Since COVID-19 shook the market to its core, a lot of funding and resources were diverted to the development of vaccines and therapeutics for it. In that setting, the Asia Pacific region as well as the rest of the world, saw an increase in the utilization of technologies, including imaging-based interventions in clinical practice to support novel therapeutics’ development and re-purposing.
This include vast use of CT and Xray imaging, and AI applications for the diagnosis and severity assessment of COVID-19.
Recently, with the pandemic leaving millions of people suffering long term effects of covid19, novel imaging approaches are being used as surrogate markets for prognostication and prediction of long-term outcomes.
Much like in Europe and North America, there is a clear paradigm shift in the biotechnology and biopharma sectors in Asia. Technology driven drug development is playing an ever increasing role in clinical development and this offers unique opportunities for clinicians and researchers.
Specifically, to IAG’s field of expertise, the global market for multimodal imaging is experiencing an exponential increase and is projected to reach USD 2.9 billion by 2024 from USD 2.3 billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 4.4% from 2019 to 2024. This is attributable to growing clinical applications of multimodal imaging systems, favorable reimbursement including growing insurance coverage, and technological advancements in imaging modalities, tracers and contrast agents.
Furthermore, the availability of research funding and an increasing focus on using imaging-based biomarkers for drug and device development are also key drivers of this trend.
Major components of this market growth are found to be related to functional and molecular imaging, and include the modalities of PET/CT and to a lesser extent SPECT/CT, and more recently PET/MR. OCT/Fundus Imaging and other specialty-based highly specialized imaging modalities are also playing a significant role.
PET/CT is by far the biggest contributor in this growing market and this is on one hand due to advancements in the equipment and the development of new radiotracers, and on the other hand, due to an ever increasing list of clinical indications, both oncologic and non-oncologic, it is finding applicability in.
There are now a variety of PET-based biomarkers that are beginning to have a pivotal role in drug development. Some examples include solid tumors, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and immunologic/inflammatory disorders.
In terms of its application, the biggest segments of the PET market are oncology, neurology and cardiology. In oncology, it allows for a faster and more accurate diagnosis, staging and restaging, and therapy response assessment.
Structural imaging including CT and MRI is also seeing a growth in its market. As CT approaches get more sophisticated, such as perfusion CT, and MR imaging getting the realm of multiparametric imaging using diffusion and perfusion imaging, their use in a variety of clinical and R&D settings continues to expand.
It is an exciting time to be in the field of medical imaging and AI and support the accelerated drug development efforts.
We believe that further investments into AI and data sciences will continue to be the bridge between drug development and use of highly advanced technologies to aid clinical practice and drug development, leading to a formidable change in the way we develop and use new medicines.
About Image Analysis Group (IAG)
IAG, Image Analysis Group is a unique partner to life sciences companies. IAG leverages expertise in medical imaging and the power of Dynamika™ – our proprietary cloud-based platform, to de-risk clinical development and deliver lifesaving therapies into the hands of patients much sooner. IAG provides early drug efficacy assessments, smart patient recruitment and predictive analysis of advanced treatment manifestations, thus lowering investment risk and accelerating study outcomes. IAG bio-partnering takes a broader view on asset development bringing R&D solutions, operational breadth, radiological expertise via risk-sharing financing and partnering models.
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Dr. Olga Kubassova, CEO: www.linkedin.com/in/olgakubassova/
David Chia, CCO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jahyungdavidchia/
Dr. Diana Dupont-Roettger, Chief Scientific Alliance Officer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianaroettger/