Latest news with #EnigmaHealth
Business Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- Business Times
SingHealth Duke-NUS' AI spinoff inks MOUs with Roche, ST Engineering to improve healthcare operations
[SINGAPORE] Enigma Health, a healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) spinoff from SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, has inked separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and Singapore technology player ST Engineering to expand the reach of its agentic AI platform. Agentic AI is a class of artificial intelligence that can reason and act autonomously. The platform, Enigma, was developed by a team of clinicians and AI scientists to optimise workflow and streamline data-intensive, time-consuming processes at healthcare organisations. This could range from administrative work to analysing surgeries as part of clinical audits. At the same time, the platform is able to maintain the security and regulatory compliance of the data. 'We are not taking any data out from anywhere... we are deploying (Enigma) at the source,' said Dr Dario Heymann, chief executive of Enigma Health, at a media briefing on Tuesday (May 27). The MOUs, signed at the Asia Tech X Singapore Summit, will enable Roche and ST Engineering to make use of Enigma in certain areas. The first MOU signed by Enigma Health and Roche will enable the two entities to jointly explore advanced AI and digital technologies to accelerate clinical trial recruitment, improve market access and enhance business intelligence. 'When you look at clinical trials, 40 per cent of the cost is actually on the recruitment side,' said Dr Heymann. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Enigma would be able to identify patients much faster based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria selected by the company, which would then save time and costs for these trials. Better oversight The second MOU signing between Enigma Health and ST Engineering will add the AI firm's small language model to ST Engineering's Agil Genie Studio platform, which enables users to build and deploy AI applications. Small language models are streamlined versions of large language models, which refer to AI systems such as ChatGPT that process vast amounts of text data to comprehend and generate human language. ST Engineering builds command centres for hospitals, which serve to manage crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, said Tan Bin Ru, president of enterprise digital at ST Engineering. 'The command centre leverages open-source large language models, but we realised that for specific areas, you actually need the small language model that Enigma is building, and it makes sense then to partner (with Enigma Health),' she said. For example, the hospital command centre has oversight of operating theatre capacity, but may not have the ability to check more specialised data such as post-surgery audits. Enigma's addition may then allow the command centre to look at both types of information from the same command centre. The two signings were witnessed by Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam at the summit's Scaling and Sustaining Healthcare with GenAI Symposium. In her closing remarks, she said that good governance is as crucial as technological advances in advancing the adoption of AI in healthcare. Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam says: 'Without clear rules, companies hesitate to invest, and doctors hesitate to adopt new technologies.' PHOTO: SINGHEALTH 'Without clear rules, companies hesitate to invest, and doctors hesitate to adopt new technologies,' she said. While Singapore has provided clear regulatory pathways for adopting AI in healthcare, 'healthcare transformation requires collective effort and shared expertise', added Rahayu, who is also minister of state for health. 'The two MOUs exemplify our collaborative approach to healthcare innovation,' she added. Prior to the announcements, Enigma was piloted in several SingHealth institutions, such as the Singapore National Eye Centre, SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine (Prism) and KK Women's and Children's Hospital. 'At KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Prism, a pilot with Enigma cut genetic reporting time from 30 minutes per report to just seconds, or 1,400 reports in an hour, instead of weeks,' noted Rahayu.
Business Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- Business Times
SingHealth Duke-NUS' AI spin-off inks MOUs with Roche, ST Engineering to improve healthcare operations
[SINGAPORE] Enigma Health, a healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) spin-off from SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, has inked separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and Singapore technology player ST Engineering to expand the reach of its agentic AI platform. Agentic AI is a class of artificial intelligence that can reason and act autonomously. The platform, Enigma, was developed by a team of clinicians and AI scientists to optimise workflow and streamline data-intensive, time-consuming processes at healthcare organisations. This could range from administrative work to analysing surgeries as part of clinical audits. At the same time, the platform is able to maintain the security and regulatory compliance of the data. 'We are not taking any data out from anywhere... we are deploying (Enigma) at the source,' said Dr Dario Heymann, chief executive of Enigma Health, at a media briefing on Tuesday (May 27). The MOUs, signed at the Asia Tech X Singapore Summit, will enable Roche and ST Engineering to make use of Enigma in certain areas. The first MOU signed by Enigma Health and Roche will enable the two entities to jointly explore advanced AI and digital technologies to accelerate clinical trial recruitment, improve market access and enhance business intelligence. 'When you look at clinical trials, 40 per cent of the cost is actually on the recruitment side,' said Dr Heymann. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Enigma would be able to identify patients much faster based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria selected by the company, which would then save time and costs for these trials. Better oversight The second MOU signing between Enigma Health and ST Engineering will add the AI firm's small language model to ST Engineering's Agil Genie Studio platform, which enables users to build and deploy AI applications. Small language models are streamlined versions of large language models, which refer to AI systems such as ChatGPT that process vast amounts of text data to comprehend and generate human language. ST Engineering builds command centres for hospitals, which serve to manage crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, said Tan Bin Ru, president of enterprise digital at ST Engineering. 'The command centre leverages open-source large language models, but we realised that for specific areas, you actually need the small language model that Enigma is building, and it makes sense then to partner (with Enigma Health),' she said. For example, the hospital command centre has oversight of operating theatre capacity, but may not have the ability to check more specialised data such as post-surgery audits. Enigma's addition may then allow the command centre to look at both types of information from the same command centre. The two signings were witnessed by Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam at the summit's Scaling and Sustaining Healthcare with GenAI Symposium. In her closing remarks, she said that good governance is as crucial as technological advances in advancing the adoption of AI in healthcare. Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam says: 'Without clear rules, companies hesitate to invest, and doctors hesitate to adopt new technologies.' PHOTO: SINGHEALTH 'Without clear rules, companies hesitate to invest, and doctors hesitate to adopt new technologies,' she said. While Singapore has provided clear regulatory pathways for adopting AI in healthcare, 'healthcare transformation requires collective effort and shared expertise', added Rahayu, who is also minister of state for health. 'The two MOUs exemplify our collaborative approach to healthcare innovation,' she added. Prior to the announcements, Enigma was piloted in several SingHealth institutions, such as the Singapore National Eye Centre, SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine (Prism) and KK Women's and Children's Hospital. 'At KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Prism, a pilot with Enigma cut genetic reporting time from 30 minutes per report to just seconds, or 1,400 reports in an hour, instead of weeks,' noted Rahayu.
Straits Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Tech spin-off slashes clinical audit time by 90%, signs AI deals with Roche and ST Engineering
Enigma Health CEO Dr Dario Heymann (front left) and Roche Singapore General Manager of Pharmaceuticals Yeoh Ying Ying (front right) with the MOU, witnessed by (standing, from left) SingHealth AI Office Director Assoc Prof Daniel Ting, Minister of State at the Ministry of Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam and Swiss Ambassador to Singapore Frank Grutter. STPHOTO: GAVIN FOO SINGAPORE - An artificial intelligence (AI) platform piloted in Singapore has helped to cut the time taken to do labour-intensive clinical audits by as much as 90 per cent. Following the successful pilot, the locally-based company behind the AI platform signed agreements on May 27 to expand its reach and capabilities with biotech giant Roche and engineering firm ST Engineering. The memorandums of understanding (MOUs) were signed at the ATxSummit technology conference held at Capella Singapore. Enigma Health, established in 2024, is a health-tech spin-off from SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre. Its flagship product Enigma is an AI platform developed by a team of clinicians and AI scientists. It is a small language model, which when compared with the more commonly known large language model, uses less computing power, works faster, and is usually not connected to the Internet, making it safer in protecting sensitive data. Enigma was piloted at SingHealth institutions, including at the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC), KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) and the SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine ( Prism ). At SNEC, the pilot took place from January to June 2024. Enigma was used to conduct clinical audits for cataract surgeries. Clinical audits are mandatory processes to check if healthcare was delivered well by comparing cases and results to expected standards. During the pilot, Enigma analysed over 7,000 cataract surgeries and 1.2 million data points like consultation notes, clinical summaries, diagnosis entries, physical examination notes and visual acuity test results. It slashed the time needed to complete the audit from 528 hours, if it were done traditionally by administrators, to just seven hours. The risk of human error was also significantly reduced. Associate Professor Daniel Ting, who is the director of SingHealth's AI Office, said that the AI model also freed up valuable time for healthcare professionals to focus on patient care, especially when there is a manpower crunch in the sector. 'Instead of hiring more people to come in, this is a very good technology for us to use to leverage on existing manpower, and transform their job scope,' said Prof Ting. With the MOUs signed, the small language model can help in other healthcare use cases in clinical trials and building AI-powered healthcare apps. Under the MOU with Roche, the AI model will be able to help accelerate clinical trial recruitment. Engima Health CEO Dario Heymann said that the AI model will be able to go through a large database of patients to highlight the ones who are eligible for clinical trials based on certain exclusion or inclusion criteria. 'When you look at a clinical trial, 40 per cent of the cost is actually on the recruitment side. If you take away some of the time it takes to recruit a certain patient cohort, you can save a lot of money. You can also bring the drug earlier to market, and give care to a patient significantly earlier,' said Dr Heymann. In its collaboration with ST Engineering, Enigma Health's small language model will be integrated with the AGIL@Genie Studio, which is a platform to build apps. This will better allow those with no coding experience to build better and more precise AI-powered healthcare apps – they can simply type in their instructions. Announcing the collaborations, Minister of State at the Ministry of Digital Development and Information Ms Rahayu Mahzam said that healthcare transformation requires collective effort and shared expertise. 'No single institution can tackle the complexity of healthcare AI alone. We need to collaborate across sectors and stakeholders, between the public and private sectors,' said Ms Rahayu. 'Collectively, these efforts to solve real problems, scale responsibly, and collaborate widely enables Singapore to leverage on AI to augment human expertise in healthcare, thereby delivering better outcomes for Singapore and Singaporeans.' Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
