Innovative Medtech companies selected to join new AI accelerator

As part of a new accelerator starting this month, three Australian businesses will use the power of data and AI to enhance their medical products to become internationally competitive.

Cortical Dynamics, Microbio, and Resonait Medical Technologies have been selected for the Biomedical AI Sprints Accelerator (BASA) run by leading innovation centres, the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Hub and MTPConnect.

These innovative companies will harness their data and AI to revolutionise their products, which range from perioperative management of anaesthetic agents to diagnosing sepsis using an advanced PCR-based platform and accelerating the path to recovery from depression.

ARM Hub CEO and Founder Professor Cori Stewart and MTPConnect CEO Stuart Dignam jointly congratulated the companies on their successful selection.

Professor Stewart said BASA will help unlock valuable intelligence within their businesses.

“AI and automation are estimated to increase Australia’s productivity by 50% to 150%,” Professor Stewart said.

“We are already seeing life-changing evidence of the value of AI in biomedicine with accelerated drug discovery, precision medicine, and enhanced diagnostics.”

MTPConnect CEO Stuart Dignam said this groundbreaking program is addressing an urgent need for specialised data and AI services within the Australian biomedical sector.

“We are delighted to be working with the team at the ARM Hub to make this AI accelerator a reality to support innovations in medical product discovery and to advance human health,” Mr Dignam said.

“Providing support to these promising innovative companies means we are building sovereign AI capabilities in our medical science sector and that is a smart approach if we want to be globally competitive.”

ARM Hub and MTPConnect established BASA to address a lack of expertise in AI and big data management in particular, addressing critical skills shortages within Australia’s life sciences sector.

At the conclusion of the accelerator, companies will have a tailored plan of how to scale their innovative AI applications and leverage data infrastructure to overcome AI adoption hurdles.

About our accelerator participants

Microbio

Microbio is a molecular pathogen diagnostic company based in Brisbane. It is commercialising InfectID-BSI, a revolutionary qPCR test to improve sepsis management by identifying 26 pathogens that cause >94% of sepsis cases directly from blood. Currently, it can take between 11 hours and multiple days to identify the pathogens that cause sepsis, meaning clinicians must rely on broad-spectrum or empiric antimicrobials.

Microbio has launched InfectID-BSI in Europe, the United Kingdom and India and is starting additional clinical trials in late 2024 aimed at facilitating regulatory clearance in the US (FDA) and Australia (TGA).

Microbio is developing AI enhanced data systems that allow processing, storage and analysis of human pathogen genomic information, integrated with patient clinical metadata.

Founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr Flavia Huygens (pictured) said AI functionality will enable Microbio to interrogate the data, providing intelligence to allow the company to respond to the emergence of new infectious diseases.

“This program will enable Microbio to rapidly track and identify emerging infectious disease trends, which we can respond to by developing innovative diagnostic solutions to improve patient treatment and health outcomes,” she said.

Resonait Medical Technologies

Resonait Medical Technologies team (l-r) Gabrielle Provost, Kevin Hou, Dr Cameron Higgins (Founder & CEO), and Brendan Harris.

Resonait Medical Technologies is a neurotechnology company on a mission to accelerate the path to recovery from depression.

There is a crisis of accessibility in mental healthcare, with wait times to see psychologists and psychiatrists at record levels. Demand for mental healthcare has continued to grow, vastly outpacing the growth in the mental health workforce capable of delivering this care.

Resonait is developing tools to alleviate this problem by tailoring treatment to individuals based on their personalised brain network expression. Resonait’s team of neuroscientists and biomedical engineers have developed customised artificial intelligence algorithms that monitor changes in an individual’s EEG recordings that provide early indications if a patient is responding to treatment, allowing psychiatrists to adapt treatment protocols in a manner optimised for each patients’ recovery.

Founder and CEO Dr Cameron Higgins said the company is working closely with the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and the Queensland Neurostimulation Centre to rigorously test their technology, and this program will help them scale that technology into a clinic-ready product.

“There are so many challenges taking an established research result and deploying it in a product that clinicians can easily access in their normal workflows. This program will help us overcome these challenges and make this complex technology accessible to clinicians at the click of a button”.

Cortical Dynamics Limited

Cortical Dynamics is a neurotechnology medical device company that has added AI to intellectual property originally developed at Swinburne University. Cortical’s core product is the Brain Anaesthesia Response (BARM™) System.

Utilising EEG interpretation, BARM™ is a non-invasive medical device with global approvals used in the operating theatre to help anaesthesiologists better administer analgesic and anaesthetic drugs to deliver improved patient outcomes perioperatively.

BARM™ addresses a global market exceeding 200 million operations per year where a general anaesthetic is administered and has particular application in cases involving total intravenous administration of drugs. The device operates in real-time and has been designed with feedback from global key opinion leaders and practitioners.

CEO Ashley Zimpel said they were applying AI to the device and related App Cordyan™ to further develop a diagnostic tool that predicts individual patient outcomes based on the anaesthetic and analgesic drugs they are given in surgery.

The BARM™ technology will better aid the total intravenous administration (TIVA) of drugs used during general anaesthetic-based surgery and help significantly reduce the carbon footprint effect of inhaled gas in surgery.

“Enhancing our core technology with machine and deep learning applications will undoubtably result in better patient outcomes, reduce possible negative post operative complications, and positively impact on hospital costs and environmental outcomes,” Mr Zimpel said.

ARM Hub celebrates the launch of its new AI centre

We are celebrating the official launch of the new ARM Hub AI Adopt Centre today!

The multi-partner Centre was launched at South by Southwest (SXSW) Sydney as part of the Australian Government’s AI Month celebrations.

ARM Hub Founder and CEO Professor Cori Stewart said the Centre was a ‘front door’ to expertise, support and services that will foster AI-driven business growth.

“Many businesses feel uncertain about where to start with AI. The common barriers include a lack of data readiness, a skills gap, or simply not knowing which AI applications are relevant to their business. The Centre is offering access to practical solutions to help businesses move forward with AI,” Professor Stewart said.

Professor Stewart said the Centre would play an important role in helping Australia’s SMEs (which make up 96% of all industry) scale their innovation, preventing it from going offshore.

She said SMEs using the Centre will be tapping into expertise from internationals Microsoft and Databricks, as well as local AI SMEs Data and Knowledge Enterprise and Raytracer.

“Australian industry is ready to invest in AI and robotics to increase its productivity and competitiveness. We’ve designed this Centre to provide practical pathways to de-risk the adoption and use of AI and Generative AI, helping businesses to make the most of this fast-moving frontier of technology.

“Research shows AI and automation are expected to increase Australia’s productivity by up to 150%. We want industry to be transforming their operations for long-term success by having their data organised, structured and ready for AI.

“The ARM Hub AI Adopt Centre is here to make businesses better using the benefits of AI and Generative AI. Our collaboration of 28 partners includes AI and robotics experts across Australia, which ensures we are delivering the best skillsets into all corners of the country.

“Over the next three years, we expect to engage with up to 30,000 SMEs on their digital transformation journeys.”

The key Features of the ARM Hub AI Adopt Centre are its practical guidance for SMEs; a collaborative, industry-led network; and a focus on ethical and safe AI practices to ensure sustainable business growth.

In May this year, the Australian Government announced the establishment of four centres under its AI Adopt Program to facilitate the safe and responsible use of AI by SMEs.

The ARM Hub AI Adopt partners are here.

ARM Hub and DKE collaborate on Data and AI-as-a-Service

ARM Hub is pleased to announce an official collaboration with Australian software company Data Knowledge Enterprise (DKE) to deliver its Data and AI-as-a-Service initiative.

Data and AI-as-a-Service is scalable and secure data and AI infrastructure designed to help companies to maximise their data to make informed business decisions.

Introduction of Data and AI-as-a-Service

The ARM Hub has been working with its manufacturing clients and university partners on data and AI since 2022.

One of the key challenges faced by manufacturers is data management – a necessity for companies committed to digital transformation.

An initial service to clients through five voluntary digital advisors was replaced with the Data and AI-as-a-Service in 2023 as industry sought to harness the value of GenAI following the release of ChatGPT.

DKE, led by Dr Roozbeh Derakhshan*, was appointed following a public tender process to collaborate on the delivery of the service.

The importance of data management

Data and AI-as-a-Service is designed to help companies to grow their business using AI.

Every business collects data, whether from operations, sales, or customers. Unfortunately, many miss out on valuable intelligence because they do not have the ability to bring the date from its many sources into one platform.

This is particularly true for small and medium-sized companies (93% of all Australian business) because they cannot afford to build and maintain internal data management infrastructure.

A solution is the tailoring of AI tools for each business, such as chatbots and synthetic data generation.

Working with DKE

DKE has played a significant role in helping the ARM Hub to partner with Databricks, which is supporting its Data and AI-as-a-Service.

The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform combines capabilities in data engineering, data science, analytics, and machine learning. It is designed to streamline the process of turning big data into actional insights by providing tools for managing data workflows, collaborative project environments, and robust analytics, all of a scalable cloud infrastructure.

In mid-2024, the ARM Hub hosted an industry seminar to showcase the application of the Data and AI-as-a-service with Databricks and DKE.

A key aspect was the demonstration of ARMBot by ARM Hub AI Engineer, Callum Elder.

Developed with DKE, ARMBot is a Retrieval Augmented Generation-based Large Language Model (LLM) for ARM Hub.

Like ChatGPT, ARMBot is a query and response-based model; however, ARMBot stores selected LLMs locally, only drawing on ARM Hub data.

DKE is also helping the ARM Hub to deliver the ARM Hub AI Adopt Centre for the Australian Government.

*Dr Derakhshan is married to ARM Hub Founder and CEO Professor Cori Stewart. Professor Stewart was not involved in the selection process of the public tender.