Check4Cancer is delighted to announce that our digital skin cancer pathway has been chosen by the Laing Buisson judges as a finalist in the ‘Innovation in Health Tech’ category for this year’s Laing Buisson Awards.
The prestigious Laing Buisson Awards celebrate industry excellence at every level of healthcare, and they received an outstanding number of nominations for the 2022 awards in every single category, with over 400 entries in total.
Professor Gordon Wishart, founder, and CEO of Check4Cancer comments; "the Laing Buisson judges have recognised that the development of our digital skin pathway, with an App to capture high-quality images and an AI model to semi-automate reporting, provide early and accurate diagnosis of skin cancer and increased early cancer detection for patients. The model could save up to 3.5 million people in the UK from unnecessarily long waits and manual clinical examination to receive a non-cancerous diagnosis."
The incidence of melanoma in the UK is predicted to rise by 7% between 2014 and 2035 and more streamlined pathways for skin cancer diagnosis are required for patients, including digital solutions. Check4Cancer is currently working with the University of Essex (UOE) to develop an AI model using our bank of 50,000 skin images and key clinical data to partly automate the classification of skin lesions into “suspicious” or “non-suspicious” and this will be integrated with the Skin App.
In June, Check4Cancer was awarded a Smart Grant Award from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, for our Skin App. This award of £350,000 follows an Innovate UK grant award for £180,000 in April 2022 to build the AI model, which has already funded a data scientist as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Essex. Check4Cancer were supported in all parts of the submission process by Vivolution, who provide a range of services to commercialise new technologies and innovations.
Since founding Check4Cancer, Professor Wishart has disrupted the way that UK private cancer diagnostic and screening services are delivered by close collaboration with insured and corporate sectors. He is the former Director of the Cambridge Breast Unit and current Visiting Professor of Cancer Surgery at Anglia Ruskin University, with a strong track record in clinical research and modernisation of cancer services. In 2010 Professor Wishart led a team of scientists that developed the PREDICT breast cancer survival model, used worldwide (www.predict.nhs.uk).
The Laing Buisson Healthcare Awards ceremony will take place on the 17th November at Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, London. Click here to find out more.
