ASX BRIEFS
Welcome to 'ASX BRIEFS,' the definitive podcast for enthusiasts, investors, and professionals keen on staying ahead of the curve in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Hosted by Andrew Musgrave, 'ASX BRIEFS' delves deep into the heart of Australia's financial markets, bringing you insightful conversations with the minds shaping the future of investing down under. Each episode, join Andrew as he interviews a diverse lineup of fund managers, executives, and industry insiders, offering you a unique blend of expert analysis, strategic insights, and the latest trends affecting the ASX. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, 'ASX BRIEFS' is your go-to source for comprehensive updates and thought-provoking discussions designed to inform, inspire, and empower your investment journey. Tune in to 'ASX BRIEFS' and take the pulse of Australia's financial markets right at your fingertips.
ASX BRIEFS
OPTISCAN IMAGING LTD (OIL) - Digital Pathology Revolutionized: How Optiscan is Transforming Medical Diagnostics with Real-Time Microscopic Imaging
Imagine transforming a days-long pathology process into minutes while maintaining or improving diagnostic accuracy. That's exactly what Optiscan Imaging is accomplishing with their groundbreaking miniaturised confocal end microscopy technology.
Dr Camile Farah, CEO and Managing Director of Optiscan, returns to the podcast to unveil Inform – their revolutionary digital pathology device designed specifically for pathologists and pathology labs. This innovative technology captures microscopic-grade images in real-time at 1,000 times the resolution of standard medical imaging, dramatically streamlining workflows between surgeons and pathologists while slashing diagnostic waiting times from days to minutes.
What truly sets Optiscan's approach apart is their comprehensive cloud-based telepathology platform. This system enables surgeons in Melbourne to collaborate instantly with pathologists in Arizona while the patient remains on the operating table. For rural and remote areas, this technology eliminates the need for on-site specialists, democratising access to world-class pathology services regardless of location.
Ready to explore the future of medical imaging? Listen now and discover how Australian innovation is transforming global healthcare one microscopic image at a time.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Welcome again to ASX Briefs, the podcast where we dive deep into the stories and strategies shaping Australia's most innovative public companies. And today I'm joined again by Dr Camile Farah, the CEO and Managing Director of Optiscan Imaging Limited. With headquarters in Australia and a commercial hub in Minnesota, Optiscan is a global medtech innovator, redefining digital pathology and precision surgery through proprietary technology.
Camile, thanks for joining me again and welcome back to the ASX Briefs podcast.
Camile Farah Guest
Thanks for having me again.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Now it's been a while since we last spoke, so just to kick things off, if you just want to give us a brief overview of the company for investors that may be unfamiliar with Optiscan.
Camile Farah Guest
Yeah. So Optiscan Imaging is a Melbourne-based ASX-listed company. It's been around now for 30 years, and it's spent that period of time perfecting a technology called miniaturized confocal endomicroscopy. Basically, what that means is, instead of putting a camera at the end of an endoscope, Optiscan has been able to put a microscope at the end of an endoscope and we can capture live digital microscopic-grade images in real time at about 1,000 times resolution of that of a standard medical CT or medical MRI. So, we can capture microscopic imaging in real time. That's our claim to fame.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, now let's talk about InForm™ your newly unveiled digital pathology imaging device. So, what makes this technology a game changer for pathology workflows?
Camile Farah Guest
01:37
Yeah.
So, some of your audience might be aware that we unveiled the InView last year.
That was a flagship surgical device, and that device is to be used by surgeons in the operating theater to understand cancer detection, to determine surgical margin clearance while they're operating in real time. So, what we've done this time is create this new device called InForm™ and that's for the other part of the spectrum of this surgery to pathology continuum. So, InForm™ is designed specifically for pathologists and pathology labs so they can have access to the same technology in their labs and in their workflows so a sample, for example, comes to the path lab, they can use our platform to create immediately microscopic images in real time. That cuts down the workflow that they have to go through, cuts down a whole myriad of processes and cuts down, very importantly, time and money to get a diagnostic answer from a pathologist. So, we're basically targeting specifically the journey of a sample from the OR to the path lab and we want to provide technology for both the surgeons and the pathologists to be able to use that technology to the betterment of patients. So, InForm™ is our flagship pathology device.
Andrew Musgrave Host
And I'm guessing that's going to improve diagnostic accuracy and efficiency in a big way.
Camile Farah Guest
Definitely efficiency. So currently it takes a couple of days to obtain a pathology report from a pathologist after a sample is received in the path lab. We can do that within a couple of minutes. So obviously that creates a significant amount of efficiency. It reduces costs to the path labs. It obtains the answer to the patient and the surgeon near immediately, so that gives better informed decision-making capabilities to the surgeons. In relation to accuracy, our technology uses the current gold standard as the comparator, which is what we call H&E histopathology. We've shown through many, many studies and many, many papers that our technology is as accurate, if not more accurate, depending on the tissue type that we're assessing. So, we have no problems in making claims around maintaining diagnostic accuracy.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, and you've mentioned integration with a cloud-based telepathology platform, so can you tell us more about this and how it fits into the broader AI and remote diagnostics ecosystem that you're building?
Camile Farah Guest
Yeah. So, what we've decided to do very early on is to make sure that we're building hardware devices for the operators, so whether they be surgeons or pathologists working in either the operating room or the path lab. But what we wanted to do also is to create a mechanism or a software in this instance, where those images could be transmitted anywhere in the world in real time, and that opens up the possibility then for remote work. So, you could have a surgeon operating in Melbourne and you can have a pathologist working in Arizona and they could be working on a case together. The patient would still be on the operating table. You could get direct feedback from that pathologist.
It also opens up a whole myriad of possibilities for path labs. So, you can have our InForm™ device, for example, placed in a whole myriad of regional or rural areas. The pathology samples are coming into the path lab. You don't need to have a pathologist situated at every one of those path labs. You can have a pathologist centrally located somewhere very distant. So, our telepathology platform allows all of those images we're generating on our devices to be transmitted in real time to a central hub and that way pathologists can log in, they can assess the case, they can report a case. They can view exactly what the surgeons are viewing or what their pathology colleagues are viewing at the point of contact. So, it really opens up that interaction between surgeons and pathologists but also provides an opportunity for rural, remote regional areas to access our technology without having to have personnel manning them.
Andrew Musgrave Host
And you've got collaborations with institutions like the Mayo Clinic and Monash University, and they are central to your R&D. So how are these partnerships enhancing your product pipeline and regulatory strategies?
Camile Farah Guest
Yeah, so in relation to Mayo Clinic in particular, we have a relationship with them developing a robotic imaging system. So, imaging sorry, surgery with robotic systems, has become more commonplace, especially in the US. It's starting to take hold in other Western countries and other regions, especially in China. So, we see a great benefit for our technology in the robotic surgery space. So, we're co-developing a system that allows Optiscan's imaging platform to be integrated with robots, and that work is with Mayo.
Now, obviously, we're not a clinical entity, so we're needing clinical evidence for all of the products that we develop, and so we need to make sure that we've got very good partnerships with clinical partners. So that's the relationship with Mayo. In relation to the relationship with Monash, we're developing a flexible endoscope, for we're developing a flexible endoscope for GI endoscopy and that has an AI arm to it, and Monash are working with us to develop one part of the AI platform for GI endoscopy. So again, bringing that know-how and that technical expertise from the partners and then building that into our products and obviously with the intention of then using that for regulatory clearance.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Can you also give us insight into how your work with Prolucid and Design and Industry contributes to your AI and device development roadmap?
Camile Farah Guest
Yeah, so Prolucid and Design and Industry or D&I for short they've been long-term partners with us several years now. With Prolucid, we work with them on software development and AI development for our devices. Historically, Optiscan has been focused on hardware and we're trying to buttress that with creating our own software. So, we've gone to experts in the area to work with us on that, and Prolucid have been great partners in that regard. D&I are helping us design the hardware and think about utility of the end user and create products that are more fit for the end user but also for the environment that they'll be sitting in. So, they've partnered with us along the way, and we continue that relationship with various devices. Again, we can't build and design all of these things on our own, so having partners to work with us is very, very important. The AI is built into all of our hardware and software offerings and that's something we continue to develop with Prolucid in particular.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, and looking at things at a more macro level, with the anatomic pathology market predicted to exceed USD53 billion by 2031, how is the company positioning itself to capture a meaningful share in this fast evolving space?
Camile Farah Guest
Yeah, so what we're trying to do with the pathology space, in particular with InForm™ and the telepathology software and then ultimately with our AI tools for pathology, is to really bring anatomical pathology into the 21st century.
So anatomical pathology currently is very analog based it's very demanding on consumables, on physical glass slide preparation before a pathologist can provide an interpretation or a diagnosis, and we really want to be a disruptor in that space and basically convert that analog workflow into a purely digital workflow. So, there is no technology currently that can assess that point of care with a sample or with a patient microscopic grade imaging that is equivalent to what the gold standard in anatomical pathology is. We believe our technology can do that and obviously then penetrating into path labs and working with hospitals to put our and place our devices in those workspaces is very important. So, we think that once the end users see what the capabilities are from a diagnostic accuracy point of view, from a workflow efficiency point of view and obviously from a cost savings point of view, our technology will become the norm in digital pathology and we're working very hard to make that happen.
Andrew Musgrave Host
Okay, and now just to wrap things up, Optiscan's transformation over the last few years has been very impressive, so can you share what the vision is for the company heading into the rest of 2025 and beyond?
Camile Farah Guest
Yeah, for the rest of 2025, We've got a couple of further reveals. We've been revealing our hardware portfolio over the last 18 months. We're focused on delivering the telepathology platform by the end of this financial year and that's on track. We've tested that, we've obtained user feedback, and we've made the enhancements that we need along the way. We're obviously continuing to work on our robotic and GI platforms and our AI offering. Importantly, where we see ourselves going over the next couple of years is one continuing to develop that clinical evidence base so we can put regulatory submissions in for our devices and, beyond that, really taking the company into a real space where it allows turnkey solutions in digital pathology and precision surgery and really setting itself up for commercial success beyond the next couple of years. So, we're super excited about what we've done so far, but also more excited about where we're going.
Andrew Musgrave Host
All right, Camile. Well, it's been great to chat again, to get an update on the company, and we look forward to further updates in the upcoming months.
Camile Farah Guest
Thank you very much.
Andrew Musgrave Host
That concludes this episode of ASX Briefs. Don't forget to subscribe and we look forward to catching you on our next episode.