There’s an App for That: Skin Cancer Prevention
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Speaker 2:Dear listeners, welcome to today's podcast. My name is Thomas Tompetta. I'm head of client services and portfolio solutions at SCORE Global Life and Health in the market area, Continental Europe. My special guest today is Albin Skaza. Albin is the CEO of a startup company from Austria called Midea, and Midea has developed a screening app for the prevention of skin cancer, which is based on artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2:Welcome, Albin, and great to have you here.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, Thomas.
Speaker 2:Albin, MEDEA has set out to improve the prevention of skin cancer. Why skin cancer? Do you think prevention of skin cancer is relevant for societies and for insurance companies?
Speaker 3:Well, yes. Because the incidence rate of skin cancer has risen sharply over the last years and also decades. Due to the climate change, the Robert Koch Institute also awaits a doubling of the invasive melanoma cases over the next 10 years. So in Germany, actually, 1 out of 5 is getting statistically skin cancer in once in his or her lifetime. This figure is even higher in Australia and New Zealand where it is about 70% chance to get skin cancer.
Speaker 3:So so, yes, I think it is important.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a lot. Really alarming figures, I would say. And what's the role of Medea here? To what extent can the skin screener app improve prevention?
Speaker 3:Well, when skin cancer is detected early, the chances of cure are about 99%. On the other hand, if you detect skin cancer at the later stage, however, this is associated with high mortality rates. For this reason, many countries offer some types of skin cancer prevention programs. In Germany, for instance, public health insurance covers a screening every 2 years over the age of 35. Unfortunately, only 39% of the population takes advantage of this service.
Speaker 3:That means that people are not aware of this increased risk of skin cancer or simply spoken an appointment with a doctor is too inconvenient for them. SkinScreener does not replace a medical doctor but optimizes prevention of skin cancer through AI backed self monitoring.
Speaker 2:I think that's, really an important statement. That means that people who do not go for regularly follow ups benefits most from the app. Right?
Speaker 3:Yes. They are target customers because it right from the beginning, it was the intention of our founders to develop an easy to use and low threshold and also a cost effective solution for skin cancer prevention.
Speaker 2:That's in particular what we really like very much, these low threshold approach of skin screen, which allows us to offer the app to larger portfolios in life and health insurance. Can you shortly explain how the app works and how you can make it accessible to larger portfolios?
Speaker 3:Of course. You simply download the app via both big stores, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and after the onboarding, you can take images of your skin lesions and get a risk assessment within just a few seconds because it's AI supported and there is no need for a medical doctor. You get this risk assessment in a free color code, which is simply to understand because green is for low risk, amber is for medium risk, and red is for high risk. When it comes to insurances, they can distribute promo codes to their policyholders, and those end users can then redeem those promo codes to unlock the app for unlimited scans.
Speaker 2:The use of AI in early detection of skin cancer is already well established. But the question is, what is new about the skin screener approach? What is the actual innovation here?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Good question. Right from the beginning, as I mentioned before, we would always aim for an easy to use tool without any additional hardware because it was originally designed for lay users, not professionals. So this is what differs us from others because SkinScreener also is the first device for lay users having an external class 2a MDR certification. The additional differentiation comes from the accuracy of our algorithm, which is actually better with unpigmented or non melanoma skin cancer because this is 10 times more common than the pigmented one and we are really good at detecting it Or SkinSchener can detect 98% of all relevant skin cancer types existing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But, of course, the detection of a malignant melanoma is the most important feature you have. So I think that's it's worth to point out here. But sorry, Albin, I would like to come back to what you mentioned just before. You mentioned class 2 a MDR certification.
Speaker 2:Can you shortly explain what's this exactly means?
Speaker 3:Yes. In the European Union, you have different classes of medical devices from 1 to 3. Class 2a means a medium risk category, but from this medium risk category, you need an external certification by notified body to ensure a certain development quality of solutions, and that's what we have.
Speaker 2:So the requirements are stronger and higher compared to lower levels of classifications. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. The higher you aiming for, risk class, the more you have to do for post market surveillance, post market claims follow-up, and so on. So you have to really look what's going on on the market. How is your medical device reacting? What reaction do users, submit, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3:So with each category, the need for surveillance is getting higher.
Speaker 2:Ah, okay. But it's for the time being, it's limited to the EU. Do you have already plans to extend this?
Speaker 3:Yes. Of course. I mean, there are really 2 interesting markets to us. It's, first of all, China, because there is a very high population, of course, with really white skin, which fits us very well. And on the other hand, of course, the biggest health care market are the United States.
Speaker 3:But in both countries, you have, of course, a certain threshold when it comes to a medical device certification, especially FDA. Probably, this requires a class 3 de novo case here. We are currently working on it, but it is a long and, I would say, hard way to obtain FDA clearance.
Speaker 2:Yes. So very ambitious quotes then for my day and great.
Speaker 3:You always have to set some visions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's right. Absolutely. Albin, but why is AI so successful in the early detection of skin cancer? Why does it work so well?
Speaker 2:Or in other words, what is the secret behind these convincing results here you just mentioned?
Speaker 3:Simply spoken, the assessment of skin cancer is mostly all about the pattern recognition according to shape, size, color, surface, structure, and, of course, the borders. This is well acknowledged in the scientific community since years. We we all know. And the interesting thing is that AI, of course, especially SkinScreener, is really superior to the eyes of human medical doctors in this case. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Skinscooter recognizes skin cancer types with a clinical accuracy of 95%, which is much higher than the rates of general practitioners, competing with the top dermatologists, which have about 96%. So I think AI is here a really a really a step ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's say, at least for this use case, we can say AI beats human eye. Right?
Speaker 3:In this case, yes. But this is only when it comes to assess a certain image. Yeah. If you have, of course, additional information, then I would say a medical doctor, especially when talking to patients, is then superior. But from the assessment of just one image, I would say yes.
Speaker 2:Very interesting here. I've been looking a couple of months back. Our collaboration began with a kind of a pilot project. We at SCORE Germany tested the app or, let's say, the functionalities of the app. The results, remember correctly were very positive.
Speaker 2:Nevertheless, we also had some comments and, suggestions for improvement. And, SkinScreener has now recently launched a completely new version. What are the new developments or improvement in that brand new version of skin screener?
Speaker 3:Well, we are really happy that we now can provide our new version on both big stores. That's the most important thing because this version comes with a much better UI UX than the old one and, of course, with a new algorithm because what drives us is always customer's feedback. The old app, we have recognized certain, remarks from the scientific specialists, and we then improved the the algorithm, which is now in the new app, of course. But the next bigger step will be a major update with a telemedical functionality in case of a medium or high risk scan so that users can ask for second opinion by dermatologists. Very, very on a low threshold, of course, because if you have to wait for a doctor's doctor's appointment, you will wait probably for months.
Speaker 3:That's, I think, the same in Germany as in Austria. This is a very logical step to offer this, And I would say we will be ready with this at the mid of this year. Yeah. That's the plan. So Alright.
Speaker 3:The next step the next step in, let's say, a patient journey.
Speaker 2:So you don't leave the user alone with the red flag? You offer then support for a second opinion by the doctors. That's great. Yes. That's good news.
Speaker 2:And we look forward then to the new version And, of course, to continue in our fruitful cooperation with Madea. To everyone listening, take good care of your skin, especially in the upcoming summer months, and use the May skin cancer wellness month to visit your dermatologist and take a look at Skinscreener in the App Store if you like. Thank you so much for listening, and, goodbye. Albin, thank you very much for the interview, and have a great sunburn free time. Thank you so much, and see you soon.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Thomas, and thanks to the audience for your interest. Bye bye. Thank you.
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