VUI DIAGNOSTICS, INNOVATION CHALLENGE 2020 WINNER PRESENTS NEW SIGHT-SAVING IMAGING TOOL


  • Meet VUI Diagnostics sight-saving imaging tool founded by Uddhav Vaghela and Simon Rabinowicz

  • VUI Diagnostics wins MSDUK Innovation Challenge 2020


According to the WHO, about 80% of global blindness is avoidable. Imaging the retina can diagnose over 50 eye and whole-body diseases – including glaucoma and diabetes – however, current tools are neglected due to being slow, inaccurate and high cost. Over the past 10 years, the inability to recognise eye disease early on has cost the global economy £4.8 trillion.


Two young doctors graduated from Imperial College London, Uddhav Vaghela and Simon Rabinowicz, passionate about helping people and making a difference in detecting eye disease as early as possible founded VUI Diagnostics. According to Dr. Vaghela and Dr. Rabinowicz, the ophthalmoscopes used for examining the inside of a patient’s eye are complicated to use and have a narrow field of view, meaning it is slow and difficult to get an adequate view of all parts of the eye. It is known that 32% of GPs lack confidence when performing retinal examinations.

VUI Diagnostics “ViewEye” solution is a simple, affordable, and accurate plug-and-play retinal imaging tool that can wirelessly connect to any smart device. They say that their tool is considerably faster than ophthalmoscopy, supporting non-mydriatic imaging in seconds, and can image ten times more of the eye – allowing for greater diagnostic sensitivity.


According to the team, the device is so easy to use that it could be operated even by those without clinical training and is 1/20 of the costs of rival solutions costing over £20,000. With 90% of the world’s blind living in the developing world, their solution could support remote retinal imaging to enhance access to such previously unavailable and unaffordable technology.


The two entrepreneurs mentioned: “We want to make avoidable blindness a thing of the past for everyone, everywhere and so, we decided to participate in the popular MSDUK Innovation Challenge to raise awareness of our solution, meet investors and take VUI Diagnostics to the next level.”


VUI Diagnostics was announced as the winner of MSDUK Innovation Challenge 2020 after 12 finalists spent the afternoon presenting their innovations to potential investors, buyers, and industry experts via an intensive, live online pitch at the MSDUK Virtual Business Expo that took place 9th December 2020.



CTO of VUI Diagnostics, Dr. Uddhav Vaghela commented: “1.3 billion people suffer from avoidable blindness worldwide. At VUI we have a plug-and-play imaging device and software to help doctors detect eye disease early. Winning a major award such as this is obviously a very proud moment for us as a team and a business. More importantly perhaps is the chance to spread the message about our goal of tackling this global challenge with simple, affordable retinal imaging for anyone, anywhere.”


Dr. Vaghela added: “We thank MSDUK for the award and this wonderful opportunity and besides the £5K cash prize, we won the opportunity to take part of a programme at the Ivy League Tuck School of Business and we’ll get mentoring from Accenture and Digital Catapult.”


MSDUK’s Head of Programmes and Partnerships, Ioana Axinte, commented: “At MSDUK we are committed to building a diverse ecosystem of partners that work collaboratively to build an inclusive economy that leads to opportunities for ethnic minority businesses to grow and succeed. We believe that developing sustainable businesses, sharing knowledge and networks is a mutual benefit for all. The partnership with Imperial College London brings mutual benefits to an aligned purpose for both organisations – opening doors for our members to access world class executive education and expertise and at the same time offering a platform for ethnic minority talent such as VUI Diagnostics (Imperial graduates) to showcase innovative ideas to gain exposure to a global audience. Looking forward to continue developing our partnership and bringing more ideas to life and making the world more inclusive.”


VUI Diagnostics have a minimal viable product (MVP) and will soon be commencing clinical validation studies at Western Eye Hospital. In these we will be stress testing our device and obtaining qualitative and quantitative data on safety, performance and efficacy. This wealth of data will contribute to our market adoption and health economics strategy, and future U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.


This 2021, VUI will aim is to perform a soft launch of the ViewEye device in their beachhead market in London, including NHS Primary Care Networks and private healthcare. Having already obtained customer buy-in, VUI will be working with these early adopters to optimise their solution for their needs. Alongside this, VUI will be developing a blueprint to efficiently scale their manufacturing processes, expand their intellectual property (IP) protection globally and seek to establish pilot device trials with their global partner eye charities. Finally, they will be significantly enhancing the capability of their software-as-a-service to provide a fully integrated image sharing, record and AI analysis backend, to deliver one of the world’s first end-to-end retinal imaging solution. 


References

Case study: https://www.imperialenterpriselab.com/casestudies/vui-diagnostics/


Imperial news story: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/190632/sight-saving-imaging-tool-wins-imperials-biggest/

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