Changing Global Breast Cancer Screening from Wellington
Ralph Highnam, is the founding CEO & Chief Scientist for Volpara Health, a listed company in Australia but based here in Wellington since 2009.
The mission is to Save Families from Cancer.
Ralph Highnam, is the founding CEO & Chief Scientist for Volpara Health, a listed company in Australia but based here in Wellington since 2009.
The mission is to Save Families from Cancer.
Ralph has spent his entire career working on ways to improve breast screening using Artificial Intelligence starting work on this in the UK in 1989.
As an academic researcher Ralph was happy, but he had to admit he got bored as papers wouldn’t always be published and those that did; didn’t always result in a significant change to health services.
He realised that an idea needs to be commercially viable to make a difference. Ralph admits he was surprised Wellington would be Volpara’s base, but thanks to the great support of the seed investors it is working well.
Over $100m has been raised to support the business and 15 million women around the world are screened every year.
Ralph emphasized that accurate breast cancer screening saves lives. 80% of all biopsies are not cancer so better screening will avoid as many biopsies (invasive testing).
Trying to catch cancer early and improve image quality with less radiation and less recalls is the goal. To do that image quality has to be high and to measure breast density because it is twice as difficult to find cancer in dense breasts.
The next step is to be able to offer breast MRI’s to women with dense breasts whatever their age because breast density decreases with ageing and unfortunately, younger women are experiencing breast cancer.
In the US women FDA regulations require all women to know their breast density which is a boost to Volpara’s software as it enables the high level of screening and provides this information to ultimately personalise breast care.
Volpara is a SAS model and is world leading in providing information on breast density to patients and their clinics. 90% of revenue comes from the US so there is room for growth with one clinic in Lower Hutt now using the software.
The European Society of Breast Imaging (EUSOBI) is also now recognising the significant improvement in outcomes for women by providing breast density information.
There is always more to research and Ralph is looking forward to working on the impact contraceptive pills, diet and other factors have on breast health and the information provided by Volpara will assist in this work.