Veriskin Inc. has emerged from stealth mode with a noninvasive technology for skin cancer diagnosis and screening. The hand-held device, called Truscore, is designed to help nonexpert users quickly ascertain if a suspicious skin lesion is cancerous. Truscore works by detecting and interpreting force-induced hemodynamic differences between normal and malignant skin sores. It uses a proprietary artificial neural network-based artificial intelligence algorithm and protocols to differentiate skin cancers from other harmless skin conditions.

TORONTO – Startup company Stoko Inc. has raised C$6 million (US$4.74 million) in seed funding to accelerate market expansion of a device it said will give rigid knee braces a run for their money.

While saying "white rabbit, white rabbit" on the first of the month may be a luck-bringing superstition, Whiterabbit.ai aims to take luck out of the equation in identifying early breast malignancies. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company emerged from stealth mode with FDA clearance for its Wrdensity tool, two other products, and more than $49 million in funding to date.

Egnite Inc. emerged from stealth mode in February 2021 with the goal of combining data analytics and digital health technology to illuminate and solve persistent issues in the diagnosis and treatment of structural heart disease. Three months later, it has added artificial intelligence (AI) to its flagship solution, Cardiocare, to drive better diagnosis of aortic stenosis and help physicians predict patient outcomes.

PARIS – Imageens SAS just raised a $1.4 million seed round to develop its two artificial intelligence (AI) systems in the field of medical imaging in Europe. Its first solution Artfun+, an AI software application, makes it possible to anticipate cardiovascular pathology thanks to new prognostic biomarkers. Its second product is Label, an algorithm which automatically classifies and assesses medical imaging data.

Xenter Inc. has officially launched, positioning itself as the first startup device/data/drug med-tech company. The company is developing wireless solutions for interventional cardiology, interventional radiology and neurointerventional radiology. The company’s goal is to take the medical devices that have been used most ubiquitously throughout medicine, one by one, and replace them with smart technologies that incorporate such things as software, sensors and signals technologies.

PERTH, Australia – Ferronova Ltd. has developed an injectable magnetic and fluorescent tracer that can map the spread of cancer in the lymph nodes more accurately for improving the staging of complex cancers. The polymer-coated iron oxide nanoparticles show more detailed assessment of sentinel lymph nodes and detect micro-metastasis and isolated tumor cells that would otherwise not be detected.

The animal world is full of species that can perform astonishing, and sometimes disgusting, feats. Take vultures, for example. “They eat this rotten meat that is full of pathogens and toxins, and they stay healthy,” Neta Raab told BioWorld. Raab is the co-founder and CEO of Wild Biotech Ltd., an Israeli startup that is seeking to understand gut microbiome contributions to these animal superpowers, and harness them for therapeutic use.

Medi-Scan Inc. has emerged from stealth mode with cloud-based software that converts the data on ultrasound analog 2D grayscale images into a digital 3D high-definition (HD) format in less than two minutes. The company is currently focusing its efforts on the heart and lungs, with the aim of providing quick, point-of-service evaluation and triaging of patients with heart disease and other conditions, including COVID-19.

TORONTO – Novel. Unique. Revolutionary. Terms too often used to indiscriminately describe medical devices that have yet to prove their stuff. Not so at France’s Ministry of Health which takes care to deem winning devices under its Forfait Innovation (FI) program “truly innovative, not simply incremental developments.” Last week the FI awarded Vancouver, British Columbia’s Evasc Neurovascular Inc. €2.76 million (US$3.37 million) to test its CE-marked Eclips for treating intracranial bifurcation aneurysms during a 119-patient trial at 20 French sites in 2021.