COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Deep Lens Inc., a digital pathology startup combining artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced cloud-based, pathology workflows to improve efficiency and enable patient access to cancer clinical trials, today announced the appointment of three new executives and a top-tier advisory board.
“Our ambitious mission to support and empower pathologists around the world will require expert help on two major fronts,” said Dave Billiter, co-founder and CEO of Deep Lens. “We are engaging with pathologists and hospitals so we can evolve our offering and expand the communal reservoir of knowledge. We are also working with biopharma to support the next wave of cancer drug development and clinical trials. To execute on our vision, Deep Lens is building an innovative, passionate team and relationships with a diverse group of outside advisors.”
The following senior executives were announced today:
- Simon Arkell will serve as co-founder and president and lead finance, sales, marketing, and business development. Arkell was previously the founding CEO of Predixion Software, a venture-backed predictive analytics cloud vendor ranked as “Visionary” by GartnerGroup. Arkell is program chair for Megan’s Wings, a California non-profit helping the families of children diagnosed with cancer.
- TJ Bowen, Ph.D., was appointed chief scientist and will lead platform development, FDA validation, scientific studies, biopharma business development and market research. Dr. Bowen was formerly an executive in the Fuse Innovation division at Cardinal Health.
- Vijayan Asari, Ph.D., will lead the Deep Lens AI development team as vice president of AI. Dr. Asari, currently a professor at the University of Dayton, Ohio, where he heads up the computer vision lab, has published nearly 600 articles on computer vision, machine learning, and image processing.
“The technology behind Deep Lens, called VIPER, has been thoughtfully designed and built by pathology industry leaders to enable pathologists to perform their best work to better fight cancer,” noted Dr. Jason Jarzembowski, Medical Director, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and long-time VIPER user. “With the VIPER launch, I believe now is the time that the pathology industry can reap the benefits of AI to save time, reduce costs, and deliver faster and more accurate diagnoses.”
In addition to the executive team, Deep Lens has also appointed the following advisors:
- Jeff Elton, Ph.D., CEO of Concerto Health AI and recently Managing Director, Predictive Health and Life Sciences at Accenture, who will also join the Company’s board of directors
- Michael J. Parini, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal and Administrative Officer of Vertex Pharmaceuticals
- Clarence So, an early employee and Executive Vice President of Salesforce.com with past roles including Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer
- Sean Cassidy, a successful healthcare IT executive with leading healthcare companies including Premier Healthcare Alliance, SA Ignite, Zirmed, Initiate Systems, and IBM
- John Walsh, serial tech and e-commerce entrepreneur, investor, and advisor
Deep Lens recently exited stealth mode with a $3.2 million seed financing round and a strategy to expand access to VIPER, the company’s cloud-based digital pathology service. VIPER (Virtual Imaging for Pathology Education and Research) is the culmination of 10 years of active use and refinement by pathologists at more than 65 major institutions worldwide and is now available as a public beta. With the launch of Deep Lens, the technology will be made available free of charge to all pathologists.
About Deep Lens
Deep Lens was founded with one goal: to enable the acceleration of cancer diagnoses and clinical research and empower patients in diagnosis through treatment. Deep Lens is advancing VIPER, one of the world’s first digital pathology cloud platforms that for more than ten years has allowed pathology groups to collaborate on groundbreaking cancer research across dozens of cancer types. Based on feedback from hundreds of expert global users, VIPER will include AI-powered image detection, workflow support, telepathology, pathologist and patient collaboration, cloud storage, and built-in APIs for integration by hardware and software vendors and biopharma companies. The company has exclusively licensed the VIPER digital pathology platform and image analysis algorithms with the goal of extending the platform with integrated and automated artificial intelligence. The company’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, please visit www.deeplens.ai. Stay up-to-date with Deep Lens on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
To sign up for Deep Lens VIPER, visit www.deeplens.ai.