Brain imaging AI start-up Neurophet raises $15M to better direct Alzheimer’s treatments, lower ARIA side-effects

Kore­an AI star­tups All­ga­nize, Neu­rophet raise over $35 mn (The Korea Eco­nom­ic Daily):

Found­ed in 2016, the com­pa­ny plans to next year roll out its new AI analy­sis pro­gram that can detect side effects of Alzheimer’s dis­ease treat­ments with a micro­he­m­or­rhage diagnosis.

The Kore­an AI start­up is famous for its flag­ship AI analy­sis tech­nolo­gies, Neu­rophet AQUA, which is a brain MRI analy­sis tech­nol­o­gy, and Neu­rophet SCALE PET, an AI-based positron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy (PET) image analy­sis program.

It plans to go pub­lic in Korea next year, said Neu­rophet CEO Bin Joon-gil, adding that it is cur­rent­ly work­ing with its under­writer Mirae Asset Secu­ri­ties for the IPO.

The Announcement:

Neu­rophet secures 20 bil­lion in Series C fund­ing to launch AI demen­tia treat­ment solu­tion (Korea Bio­med­ical Review):

Alzheimer’s drugs such as lecanemab and donanemab, being devel­oped and launched by glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, are anti-amy­loid anti­body treat­ments that aim to remove amy­loid beta … Amy­loid-PET imag­ing is required before pre­scrib­ing treat­ment to deter­mine whether amy­loid beta is deposit­ed in the cere­bral cor­tex and whether it decreas­es afterward.

Neu­rophet has devel­oped Neu­rophet SCALE PET, a soft­ware that auto­mat­i­cal­ly ana­lyzes amy­loid-PET images that would oth­er­wise require a time-con­sum­ing man­u­al analy­sis by radiologists.

Neu­rophet SCALE PET com­bines PET and MRI images to ana­lyze Alzheimer’s dis­ease bio­mark­ers such as amy­loid beta pro­tein and tau pro­tein at ultra-high speed.

Anti-amy­loid anti­body ther­a­pies, on the oth­er hand, have the side effect of caus­ing Amy­loid-Relat­ed Imag­ing Abnor­mal­i­ties (ARIA), which are swelling and micro­he­m­or­rhages in the brain dur­ing administration.

Neu­rophet said it has advanced tech­nol­o­gy in the field of auto­mat­ed quan­tifi­ca­tion of vas­cu­lar neu­ropathol­o­gy that can mon­i­tor and ana­lyze ARIA and plans to launch an Alzheimer’s total solu­tion includ­ing ARIA analy­sis tech­nol­o­gy next year.

News in Context:

• Amy­loid-relat­ed imag­ing abnor­mal­i­ties (ARIA) found in approx­i­mate­ly 40% of patients tak­ing “Alzheimer’s drug” Aduhelm
• Should doc­tors pre­scribe lecanemab (Leqem­bi) to women? The answer, giv­en avail­able evi­dence, is prob­a­bly No