Marubeni Corporation (hereinafter, “Marubeni”) is pleased to announce that it has invested in Enlitic Inc. (hereinafter, “Enlitic”), which has developed an AI deep-learning backed image diagnosis system (hereinafter, “Product”), through a third-party allocation of shares and entered into an exclusive business alliance with Enlitic in December of 2018 for the development and sales of this Product in the Japanese market.
This Product applies deep learning and the latest AI technology to medical data to help doctors diagnose such disease as malignant tumors that are detectable through image diagnosis (i.e. X-Ray, CT scanning, MRI) much faster and more accurately than could be previously done. This Product is especially focused on chest x-rays which have the most numerous cases of misdiagnosis. Enlitic has now had its hand in the data related to over 10 million cases, a number said to be at the highest levels worldwide, and it is expected that the Product will continue its highly accurate detection. In the meantime, Enlitic is also sparing effort in developing an image diagnosis system related to cranial/chest CT imaging and mammography imaging.
It is widely recognized that healthcare resources are growing scarce globally. Japan, in particular, suffers from an aging population and a shrinking birthrate, placing a heavy burden on hospitals and radiologists. In the future, with this product fully functional, it could go a long way to relieving the strenuous loads faced by radiologists by enhancing the efficiency of the image diagnosis and screening process and improving accuracy through early detection and reduction of misdiagnosis.
Marubeni will begin to further business development of this Product in Japan with and select additional business partners, with the vision of easing the problems of healthcare resource scarcity by promoting the efficiency of medical image diagnosis. It has been widely recognized that the global digital healthcare market, including imaging diagnosis, is expected to reach 10 billion US dollars in size by 2020. This is the reason why Marubeni is actively engaging in licensing and promoting Enlitic’s Product in Japan, after which Marubeni will seek to build a remote medical diagnosis online platform with the function of data collection and management dedicated to providing a generic remote imaging diagnosis service to de-populated areas.
On April 1st, 2017, Marubeni reorganized the “IoT · Big Data Strategy Team” and on April 1st, 2018, the company established the new “Digital Innovation Department” with aim of creating new business models utilizing digital technology. With this aim in mind, Marubeni is set on collaborating with multiple AI savvy medical partners with the vision of building this platform into a comprehensive AI prophylaxis and diagnosis service which will contribute greatly to the digital healthcare industry of Japan.
