The Singular Health Group Ltd (ASX: SHG) share price was flying today. The medical software company reached an intraday high of 64.5 cents per share – up 9.32% on the previous day's close.
The price rocketed after the company announced the completion of a project developed with the Australian Government.
At the time of writing, the Singular Health share price had retreated slightly, trading for 60 cents each, still up 1.7%. By comparison, the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is down 0.04%.
Let's take a closer look at Singular Health's announcement.
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Singular Health and CSIRO develop AI medical technology
Today's announcement shook the Singular Health share price. In a statement to the ASX, Singular Health declared it and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) had developed "an artificial intelligence [AI] model capable of automatically segmenting spinal vertebrae from CT scans."
According to Singular Health, the automatic segmentation of the spine will enable surgeons and radiologists to closely examine the spines of patients through 3D models. Doctors will be able to manipulate models down to individual vertebrate. This will enable medical professionals to "better plan their surgeries and even design custom surgical implants and guides."
Consequently, Singular Health believes the product will drastically cut diagnostic times for practitioners. Overall this should reduce times from a few hours to only a couple of minutes.
The project was made possible due to the CSIRO's Kick-Start program. The agency provides funding and research assistance to small-and-medium Australian technology companies. The program matches company investment in research and development between the sums of $10,000 – $50,000. Additionally, this program allows companies to use CSIRO staff, equipment, and related expenditures.
Management Commentary
Dr. Guan Tay, executive director of Innovation at Singular Health, said the following about today's announcement:
Singular Health has had the unique opportunity to access the deep-domain knowledge of CSIRO's data scientists to develop this semi-automated instance segmentation and labelling of the spinal vertebrae. We are conducting further testing and validation of the spine segmentation function before commercial release.
The use of artificial intelligence in medical imaging, and more specifically radiology, has the ability to profoundly change the workflow for radiologists.
With around 45,000 Australian's undergoing spinal surgery every year, the rapid segmentation will save thousands of hours for radiologists and surgeons who will only have to make small mark-ups and/or validate the segmentation as opposed to manual segmentation slice-by-slice.
We would like to thank the team at CSIRO and the efforts of our internal developers for their dedication to the collaborative research project and for delivering a successful outcome.
Singular Health share price snapshot
Since its IPO in early February, the Singular Health share price has increased by 57.89%. A healthy return for a company not even 2 months old.
At its current valuation, Singular Health has a market capitalisation of $61.3 million.
