Sarve Santu Niramaya, the Sanskrit phrase, means may all be happy and may all be free from illness. This is exactly the motto and the idea behind Niramai. We find ourselves fortunate to be having this conversation with Dr. Geetha Manjunath, CEO & Co-Founder Niramai.

Our tech world, since 2015, has been witnessing news around AI every week. Chatbots, gadgets, automation have been the focus areas of most startups. 

However, in between this wave of AI involvement in bots, consumer electronics, and gadgets, there is a very interesting startup whose line of work caught attention is Niramai, which developed a novel software medical device to detect breast cancer at a much earlier stage than traditional methods or self-examination. 

The idea is quite remarkable as the primary intention of Dr. Geetha Manjunath, Dr. Geetha Manjunath, CEO & CTO, NIRAMAI, was to make cancer screening more affordable. 

Let's see how this idea originated and how Dr. Geetha brought it to reality. Dr. Geetha is a computer scientist at the core with great experience as a lab director for a multinational company. With that kind of background, she was already working on various projects in various hospitals both in the US and the UK around the usage of AI in various healthcare domains.

However, during this period, two cases of cancer were detected in her own family. She realized there was a need for something that could ease cancer detection and medical assistance to make the process more available and more affordable.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women today. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in every 12 women has the risk of a breast abnormality. Early diagnosis is very critical to decrease mortality rates.

In an attempt to do something in the direction, she came across "Thermal Imaging" as the technology that had much research around it for its role in cancer detection. Post extensive research, she realized machine learning could refine the process further. That's when she quit her job and plunged into creating a solution. 

Niramai is all about low-cost, accurate, automated, portable cancer screening tool that can operate in any clinic. 

"Breast cancer is a major concern today comprising about 25% of all cancers with about 90,000 people dying of the disease in India." said Dr. Geetha.

She added that late detection is the cause of 50% of deaths due to cancer.

Dr. Geetha also explained how using conventional mammography had certain limitations that could well very be dealt with thermal Imaging. Unlike mammography, the thermal imaging method is radiation-free, non-touch, not painful, and works for women of all ages. The core technology of our solution has been developed using our patented Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) algorithms for reliable and accurate detection of breast cancer. 

This unique solution from Niramai is easier, portable, and privacy-sensitive. For these advantages, this can be adopted as a cancer diagnosis test in hospitals during regular preventive health checkups. 

Dr. Geetha believes that since this is a non-invasive risk assessment that works on AI has great potential for large-scale screening in rural and semi-urban areas.

Detailing about the technology behind this technique, Dr. Geetha briefed, "The core of NIRAMAI solution is Thermalytix, a computer aided diagnostic engine that is powered by Artificial Intelligence. The solution uses a high resolution thermal sensing device and a cloud hosted analytics solution for analysing the thermal images."

Niramai's SaaS solution has been developed using big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. This innovative approach has led to multiple US patents and has been successfully peer-reviewed in international scientific conferences.

When asked about the method's efficiency concerning several types of cancers, Dr. Geetha mentioned that currently, the system is highly efficient to diagnose any abnormal tissue activity in the breast/chest region or any other lymph nodes in the nearby area. However, she envisions expanding the model/method's capabilities for a full body analysis in the future. 

The results from the trials state 90% accuracy in case of Thermalytix. This technology is also claimed to be 27% more accurate than mammography, along with detecting cancer lesions as small as 4 mm with no palpable lumps.  

Niramai is receiving a lot of interest and support from people in the medical fraternity, and they are already in the process of evaluating the model's capabilities for other types of cancer or in other parts of the body. The process works in sync with radiologists who further investigate any discrepancy to narrow down to the most accurate results.

Dr. Geetha also talked about the challenges that medical startups today face is the fact that it all looks good for research papers, citations, and so on. However, the critical aspect is that how it performs in the production setting or clinical validation in a real setting. Niramai, too, faced these challenges taking energy from a noble thought and passion for making cancer screening more affordable and less complicated.

She also said, "organized screening programs and AI assistance are going to be crucial in making healthcare programs in general reach remote and rural areas in India." AI can help bridge the gap between doctors' availability and remote location requirements. We know having a screening cater or deputing a doctor at every nook and corner is not going to be an easy and cost-effective solution.

As a message to other aspiring female entrepreneurs, Dr. Geetha said, "have faith in your idea keep it backed up with facts and figures for when you may get questioned. Most importantly courage is the key."

Watch INDIAai's Jibu Elias interview Dr. Geetha here.