CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Iterative Scopes, a pioneer in the development of precision-based technologies for treating gastrointestinal diseases, announced today that it has entered into an AI-powered diagnostic tools partnership with the Crohns & Colitis Foundation (the Foundation), the leading patient organization dedicated to improving the quality of life of those affected by inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). A major goal of the relationship is to incorporate the Foundation’s comprehensive repository of data on the patient journey into the company’s next-generation endoscopic tools that have the potential to improve the care of IBD patients worldwide.
The partnership gives Iterative Scopes rights to access IBD Plexus®, the Foundation’s first-of-its-kind research information exchange platform, for the purpose of delivering artificial intelligence-driven endoscopic solutions to life sciences researchers and healthcare providers. IBD Plexus is a groundbreaking initiative that provides the IBD research community with analysis-ready datasets and biosamples, offering longitudinal, clinical, genetic, biosignature, and patient experience data from a broad network of sources.
Iterative Scopes intends to collect imaging data from sites participating in IBD Plexus research initiatives to inform its computational models of disease severity scoring algorithms and to further advance its precision medicine initiatives. The results of this work will be eventually integrated with IBD Plexus rich, multi-dimensional data to enable deeper understanding of the full patient journey, which is a key component of the company’s efforts to better predict individual disease progression.
“We are excited to partner with the globally respected Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation as we recognize the importance of bringing the patient voice into the process of building the next generation of AI-driven IBD therapeutic tools,” said Sahir Raoof, VP Growth, Iterative Scopes. “Current disease severity endpoints are subjective and lead to suboptimal clinical decisions. We will be able to learn from the deep expertise and clinical-trial grade datasets provided by the Foundation’s IBD Plexus initiative, as we strive to improve the systematic collection of high-quality disease severity scores for IBD patients and build out our AI-driven models of predictive medicine.”
The collaboration is the first AI-based partnership for the Foundation, signaling the strong patient need for a new era of precision medicine.
“The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation works to find cures for patients with IBD and improve patient quality of life,” said Caren Heller, MD, MBA, Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. “We’re excited to partner with Iterative Scopes to further leverage the use of artificial intelligence to help improve the treatment of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.”
Iterative Scopes was founded in 2017 as a spin out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by Dr. Jonathan Ng, a physician-entrepreneur, who developed the company’s foundational concepts while he was at MIT and Harvard. In August, the company and its investors closed a $30 million Series A financing, which attracted a roster of A-list venture capitalists, big pharmaceutical companies’ venture arms, and category leaders in healthcare.
About Iterative Scopes
Iterative Scopes is fast becoming the leader in computational gastroenterology through its pioneering application of powerful, proprietary artificial intelligence tools to the practice of gastroenterology and drug development. It is taking a multi-tiered approach to tackling the challenges of endoscopic-driven disease management. The initial products and services offered by Iterative Scopes aim to identify and standardize relevant insights from endoscopic videos used for detection and monitoring of colorectal cancers and IBD. Longer term, the company is building predictive models that can augment clinical trial endpoints and individualized therapeutic selection processes, with the potential to create novel endpoints that are better predictors of therapeutic response and disease outcomes. Spun out of MIT in 2017, the team is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For more information, visit www.iterativescopes.com.
About the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation
The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation is the leading non-profit organization focused on both research and patient support for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The Foundation's mission is to cure Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and to improve the quality of life for the millions of Americans living with IBD. Our work is dramatically accelerating the research process through our investment initiatives; we also provide extensive educational resources for patients and their families, medical professionals, and the public. For more information, visit http://www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org, call 888-694-8872, or email info@crohnscolitisfoundation.org.
