ContextVision sees strong quarterly growth and breakthroughs within artificial intelligence
ContextVision had a very strong Q3 with sales reaching 20,3 million SEK, which is 19% higher than Q3 2015. ContextVision’s research program within the Deep Learning technology had a major breakthrough and placed second in a prestigious competition.
STOCKHOLM – October 27, 2016 – ContextVision, the world leading provider of medical image processing software, delivered a strong third quarter with strong sales and placed itself as an international top-level company in applying artificial intelligence to image analysis.
During the third quarter ContextVision embarked on an official challenge to evaluate the tumor proliferation rate in breast cancer by applying deep learning technology to samples provided by the Tumor Proliferation Assessment Challenge (TUPAC) 2016 within the MICCAI. Participating teams were given a dataset of whole slide images to assess tumor proliferation speed by applying machine learning algorithms. Teams from companies like IBM and Microsoft participated. Contextvision participated in three tasks and placed second in the key task to analyze the proliferation score and third within the other two.
“Our strategy to assume leadership within machine learning is showing positive results. By using deep learning, we placed second in an international competition against many reputable academic teams and research groups,” said Anita Tollstadius, CEO of ContextVision.
Taking part in the competition also contributed to the development of the company’s Eurostar research program, which now includes breast cancer in addition to prostate cancer.
“Our Eurostar research program now includes breast cancer, the most common cancer in women in the world, with almost 1.7 million new cases diagnosed in 2012. This represents about 25% of all cancers in women. Treatments for breast cancer have improved over the last decades and screening programs are now established in many countries. However, there is a great need for decision support tools for the pathologists assessing the biopsies used for diagnosis,” said Tollstadius.
Combining growth and research
The company’s sales increased significantly during this quarter, partly as a result of a solid customer base and a versatile ultrasound product portfolio. The products for 2D ultrasound image enhancement offers great flexibility and can be customized and integrated into a wide range of equipment. This has allowed the company to broaden sales to present customers as the software is integrated into further models. Sales generated from the company’s 2-D ultrasound portfolio increased by 21 percent and 20 percent within the 3-D ultrasound portfolio.
The MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) segment also contributed to the substantial sales increase. Due to the high costs for this equipment, this market is well consolidated compared to the ultrasound market. When healthcare providers are reluctant to invest heavily in new MRI equipment, the manufacturers see the opportunities to support their business by offering upgrades to the existing products. ContextVision offers such opportunities by providing software to upgrade the image quality, leading to extraordinarily high sales within MRI this quarter.
When looking at the core business alone, the underlying operating margin for the quarter improved from 31 percent in Q3 2015 to 33 percent in the same quarter this year. The cost for new research activities was 4,7 MSEK this quarter, which is an increase of over 100 percent compared to Q3 last year. The change in cash flow was 0,4 MSEK for the period, and the company’s cash position continues to be strong.
“We are pleased about our progress within the digital pathology research program. Preliminary results look promising. The strong sales numbers support our investments in future growth and allow us to not only broaden our research program, but also identify and evaluate further opportunities,” said Tollstadius.
For further information, please contact ContextVision’s CEO, Anita Tollstadius telephone +46 70 337 3026, e-mail
About ContextVision:
ContextVision is a medical technology company specializing in image analysis and image processing. Its cutting-edge technology helps doctors more accurately interpret medical images, a crucial foundation for better diagnosis and treatment. As an industry pioneer for more than 30 years, ContextVision has decided to take a lead position within deep learning, the latest technology within artificial intelligence. ContextVision is currently investing heavily in this field to develop a broader product portfolio. The present product portfolio includes state-of-the-art image enhancement software for 2D/3D/4D ultrasound, MRI, X-ray and mammography and is used by leading equipment manufacturers worldwide. ContextVision is based in Sweden and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker COV. For more information, please visit www.contextvision.com.
About Deep Learning:
Deep Learning is the fastest growing area of machine learning. Deep learning mimics the brain to create a self-learning computer. It uses neural networks, many layers deep, and large datasets (“Big Data”) to teach computers how to detecting recognizable patterns in data. Deep learning is used in the research community and in industry to help solve many big data problems such as speech recognition and face recognition.