Coronary heart disease is the most prevalent type of heart disease and the leading single cause of death in Australia, representing 11% of all deaths in 2018. 42% of coronary heart disease related deaths resulted from a heart attack. 

Medtech company Artrya (ASX: AYA) is working to improve diagnosis of this often silent disease. Their proprietary software solution, Artrya Salix is an artificial intelligence driven cardiac CT scan analysis tool which is capable of detecting a variety of coronary disease biomarkers to assist with diagnosis and management. 

The Company has announced their first clinical partnership with Huntsville Heart Centre in Alabama, US. The Centre prides themselves on being a national leader in coronary computed tomography angiography, treating 80,000 patients per year. 

The Centre will utilise Artrya’s software ‘Salix Coronary Anatomy’ to evaluate and interpret a variety of anonymised CT scans. These will then be compared to interpretations from experienced cardiologists to see how the tech holds up. 

“This is the Company’s first clinical partnership in the US, and we are pleased that such a well-regarded heart centre has joined in our mission to create better detection of the world’s leading killer- heart disease,” said Co-CEOs Jory Tremblay and Ted Schwab.

“This clinical trial should be completed by October this year and provide validation of the technology and pave the way for its commercial use in the USA.” 

The US represents a massive 42% of the world’s healthcare market and is an attractive entry point for companies due to the predominantly privatised health-care system. The country spends twice as much on healthcare as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average and, since 1980, healthcare spend has quadrupled per capita. 

The data gleaned from the upcoming clinical trial will help develop the tech’s learning algorithms and further validate the clinical efficiency of the software.

Well positioned for growth, the fledgling med tech rounded out the March quarter with $39.9 million in the bank