Roche, Ibex Medical Analytics and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have partnered to enable pathology laboratories to access Ibex's AI-powered decision support tools to aid in the diagnosis of breast and prostate cancer through Roche’s navify Digital Pathology software platform.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasing in clinical diagnostics, with radiology and imaging being the early adopters of the technology. GlobalData forecasts AI to be a key driver of medical device innovation and predicts that the AI market is expected to generate $93bn in sales this year.

Digital pathology technology can improve workflows and increase efficacy for laboratory pathology while the use of AI can further improve productivity and shorten turnaround time in pathology laboratories.

Ibex's AI algorithms would integrate with the navify platform to display information to help clinicians in diagnosing breast and prostate biopsies. Ibex’s algorithms have a CE-mark for in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) for breast and prostate cancer detection in Europe. However, these are marked as ‘research use only’ in the US.

Both Roche’s navify platform and Ibex’s algorithms will be hosted on the AWS platform to ensure scalability. The cloud infrastructure will also allow for accelerated adoption of digital pathology, as per the 26 October press release.

In September, Ibex raised $55m in Series C financing to advance the development of its AI-powered diagnostic solutions. It also plans to provide broad tissue coverage for gastric cancer diagnosis, in addition to breast and prostate pathology, along with providing AI-powered treatment plans to support clinical decision-making.

In August, Roche partnered with Scottish Brain Sciences to develop a new blood test to detect Alzheimer’s disease.