MVision AI Receives $5.8 Million in Funding to Accelerate Cancer Treatment Planning

Finnish medical imaging and AI startup MVision AI is on a mission to accelerate the cancer treatment planning process while still delivering high-quality care. The approach requires AI-powered automatic segmentation tools, enabling it to streamline the all-important radiotherapy treatment planning workflow. Today, the company announced that it has raised $5.85 million (€5.4 million) in post-seed funding.

Compared to manual treatment planning, which often requires two to three weeks of anxious waiting before radiotherapy treatment planning begins, MVision’s automation enables same-day treatment, MVision founder and CEO Mahmudul Hasan told VentureBeat.

Saving time is crucial here. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that the number of patients treated with radiotherapy will exceed 29 million by 2040.

“Our AI segmentation model uses CT and MRI scans as input and produces 3D volumes of organs and tumors. Therefore, it automates the manual tasks of radiooncologists. Typically, these manual tasks would take 30 minutes to 90 minutes per patient. MVision automates this within minutes,” said Hasan.

Auto-segmentation for more personalized cancer treatment

The company’s auto-segmentation tool enables a more personalized treatment plan and enforces best practices to minimize the radiation dose healthy organs are exposed to. More broadly, it aims to standardize the quality of global cancer care and improve clinical decision making through its cloud-based decision support tools.

MVision’s AI segmentation models are developed by collecting imaging data from clinical partners. The platform has a CE marked and FDA cleared automatic segmentation function for radiotherapy planning.

The company plans to release more features for a full MR image planning and segmentation service.

According to an evaluation by Sociedad Española de Oncologia Radioterapica in Madrid, Spain, MVision AI technology has significantly contributed to reducing contour time and improving patient care through reduced waiting times. Contour demarcation refers to the part of treatment planning in which tumors are outlined along with nearby organs at risk for potential radiation toxicity.

Encouraging early results from MVision AI

After the implementation of MVision AI, it was reported that 44% of breast cancer scans were ready to be scheduled on the same day. Without MVision AI, only 10% of scans were ready to be scheduled on the same day.

MVision was founded in 2017 by Hasan, Saad Ullah Akrram and Jarkko Niemelä with the aim of transforming radiotherapy using innovative AI technology. The idea came to Hasan while attending a clinical training session during his time at a major supplier of radiotherapy systems. During the session, he faced the challenge of manually contouring organs based on CT scans, and realized the potential of AI to simplify the process.

Together with Akrram and Niemelä, both experienced software engineers, medical physicists and AI researchers, Hasan set out to improve radiology treatment using AI.

Since then, MVision has grown to a team of more than 30 professionals with extensive backgrounds in the medical industry and AI research. The company said its technology has been used to treat more than 100,000 cancer patients in 14 countries, with significant wait time reductions at many facilities, including the University of Florida Gainesville Department of Radiation Oncology.

Hasan said the new investment will be used to research and develop new solutions to accelerate radiotherapy treatment planning and build a globally scalable cloud-based cancer treatment platform.

“We also want to expand further and bring the solution [to] more patients worldwide,” he said. “Our mission is to build a globally scalable cloud platform for a clinical decision support system for cancer care.”