Early diagnosis/prognosis of a cancer type is critical, but the clinician is expected to look at a huge volume of data. Imaging modalities like Pathology are complicated to report, and time-consuming. There are only 500 cancer pathologists in India, who have the skill to report on a biopsy slide and give an accurate report. But in India, there are about two million cancer patients being reported every year, leading to huge waiting times and sub-optimal outcomes. Moreover, the Founders say that interviewing oncologists made them realize that most diagnostic and prognostic scoring tools are either non-existent for cancer, or the ones which are available for cancer have been built for western populations.
The Founders add that Onward Assist enables cancer pathologists with automated Analytics tools for faster and better reporting. “These tools help extract better prognostic information and with higher accuracy, which are then used by treating oncologists to take better cancer treatment decisions leading to better outcomes”.
Dinesh
Vikas
Onward’s core team – Dinesh, Vikas and Dr. Lata, bring a combined 70-plus years of experience. “Our team brings strong healthcare domain expertise, which includes in depth knowledge of working with cancer centres, managing client relationships with healthcare providers, and building and running cutting-edge AI and signal processing tools with a focus on healthcare. This is reflected in the clinical collaborations we have been able to establish, the quality of the pathology AI tools that we have been able to build and deploy as well as the ongoing feedback we get from our clinical collaborators.”
Highlighting the fact that their association with NSRCEL has added a lot of value to their venture as well as their business skills, they add: “The NSRCEL incubation programme has helped Onward Assist through the structured mentorship programme to get feedback and guidance on our GTM efforts, as well as the collaborations that we need to build, specific to our focus areas.”
