Donal O’Shea is joking about the tech community’s penchant for using the Uber or Airbnb as relatable concepts of modern marketplaces. 

For a while, he recalls it was hard to move for the number of start-ups calling themselves the ‘Airbnb of cars’ or the ‘Uber of hairdressing’. 

But when it comes to O’Shea’s explanation of Diagnexia as the ‘Uber of pathology’, it is genuinely useful in understanding how the company works, no matter how banal the description may now be. 

While almost everyone will have a biopsy taken, or blood tests done or a urine sample tested at some point in their lives, almost no one will interact directly with the pathologist that tests their sample, potentially detecting disease, and informing their care pathway. 

Pathologists have no patient interaction and yet their work is the backbone of patient care and they are, O’Shea told The Currency podcast, usually the most intelligent people in any room.

Working in a lab and staring down into a microscope, the physicality of their work has remained largely unchanged over the past century. 

But O’Shea, along with the team at his start-up Deciphex, which raised €10.9 million in Series B funding last May, and has been backed by ACT Venture Capital, Novartis and Charles River laboratories, is both changing the career path of a pathologist and the traditional process of lab work and microscopes by applying artificial intelligence to the specialisation.

Grass on a football field

The company currently has two products on the market, Diagnexia – the aforementioned Uber of Pathology, which provides medical centres with on-demand access to pathology services and Patholytix, which focuses on speeding up the drug development process. 

To date, Deciphex has 100 pathologists working with them on its platform, and counts nine of the ten biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world as clients. 

“We are an intricate part of what they refer to as the drug development life cycle,” O’Shea said.

“Our part of that journey is working with contract research organisations and pharma companies to ensure that the drugs are safe, for clinical trials, so just before they go into clinical trials, these tests are conducted to make sure they are safe.”

Over the past five years Deciphex and Patholytix have have built a strong reputation in the pharma industry, working with most of the major pharmaceutical companies. 

But O’Shea felt there was a need in clinical pathology for AI technology, which is where the diagnostics platform Diagnexia comes in. 

Traditionally pathologists, of which there is a global shortage, are looking for the equivalent of a single blade of grass, in an area the size of a football field, that is out of place. 

“It’s a very very tedious process,” O’Shea said. “What we have done is develop an AI algorithm which finds and detects an abnormality and almost puts an arrow to where the problem is for the pathologist to look at.

“The input of the pathologist is really important, we are trying to drive a higher level of efficiency using this. The way we talk to it, and there are differing opinions, we see it as autopilot on the aircraft. There is still a pilot in the seat but the plane can fly higher and faster, on the basis of having autopilot engaged. “

An ongoing trial in the UK using the services has reduced diagnosis times from six weeks to one day. 

“In the UK right now, there are tremendous problems with backlogs. Where samples are sitting in pots or on slides, for weeks and weeks on end, and not being read,” O’Shea said.

“If you as a patient go into hospital and you have a biopsy, you are waiting for data and you are worried, you are thinking about; well it could be bad news or good news.

“Ultimately the anxiety that is creating for the patient is terrible, for us trying to improve that turnaround time, so that patient gets their information quicker and gets their minds put at ease quicker is really really important

“We are creating a marketplace, for international high quality pathologists, so that we can provide services to places in the world where those services are less available.”

The service is just launching in the UK, the Middle East, Canada and is focusing its attention on the “flyover states” in the US. 

Markets of scale

Diagnexia’s focus is dominantly on the US market, which accounts for 40 per cent of the global spend on diagnostics.

It has yet to be used in an Irish context, predominantly because as O’Shea puts it they are focused on “markets of scale and real opportunity”, but if they were to be used in hospitals here he believes there would need to be a “change management” process put in place as there could be some resistance to new technologies.

As a method of working, Diagnexia is also capable of transforming the way pathologists, who by the lab-based nature of their work, would traditionally be chained to a single location. 

“The platform provides a vista of the future, where effectively they have choice, they can drive guaranteed income, they can do and be what they want to be,” he said.

Pathologists working with Diagnexia can effectively work using just a laptop and minimal home set-up, meaning they can travel, work from home and become digital nomads, in a way that has never before been possible for their sector.

“In any market where there is supply and demand dynamics, the guy in demand has choice and can drive terms and conditions for himself that are favourable,” he said.

“What we are seeing in this market place is that pathologists are looking for change, not to be chained to their microscopes.”

Able to operate anywhere in the world and without the traditional constraints of bricks and mortar, O’Shea’s ambition is to make Deciphex, the world’s biggest virtual diagnostics company. 

“We are bridging the gap in supply and demand that exists all over the place right now, in terms of the amount of  materials that need to be diagnosed, versus the amount  of people that are there to do them,” he said.

The company’s set target is to have 500 pathologists working with them by 2025.

“As we bring more pathologists on board, our ability to layer in artificial intelligence, to make those pathologists more efficient and more cost effective, all these factors are just going to  embed our position in the marketplace to a greater extent.”

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