The way that pathology has traditionally been practiced for the last 150 years involves a human viewing tissue, such as biopsies, on a glass slide under a microscope in order to identify patterns that may be cancer or other disease. Cases of cancer, however, are on the rise; they are expected to increase by 55 percent in the next 10 years. That’s happening while the number of pathologist around the globe are declining, creating a longer time-to-diagnosis. Frankly, the whole thing is unsustainable.
Proscia wants to fix that by digitizing pathology, using computing, visualization, and machine learning in order to aid the pathologists, allowing them to more rapidly and accurately diagnose cancer and other diseases.
Investors have taken notice as well: on Tuesday, the company announced that it raised $23 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Hitachi Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Hitachi. This round brings its funding total to $35 million.
