• Christian Allouche, CEO of Gleamer , has reason to be confident and ambitious. Its third startup , Gleamer, has just raised €27 million to put its artificial intelligence products at the service of medical imaging analysis. With the acceleration of AI subjects in recent months, Gleamer wants to provide radiologists with the “most complete product range possible” in no time, in order to “reduce diagnostic errors by 30%”, in a first time. Because the entrepreneur sees further, hoping to move Medicine into a more preventive model thanks to its solutions, its partnerships and the help of other startups in the sector. Exchange with a man who is as passionate about Health as his desire to undertake.
  • Bpifrance Le Hub: Can you tell us about your background and the genesis of Gleamer?
  • Christian Allouche , CEO of Gleamer: I have always been an entrepreneur, mainly in Healthtech. I did a Grande Ecole de Commerce (ESCP) but I’ve always had a taste for Maths and Science. I was attracted by the idea of ​​doing business in Deeptech, Health and/or in areas with a strong societal impact. So I set up several start-ups, which had some success and allowed me to learn a lot – first a platform for exchanging clinical cases between doctors, then a Biotech company based on gene therapy treatment for diseases of the central nervous system.
  • In the meantime, I resumed my studies to do a DU (University Diploma) in neuroscience 7 years ago, when I really discovered AI and felt its full potential . It was therefore natural for me to create a startup mixing AI and Healthtech with my partner, Alexis Ducarouge , which gave rise to Gleamer, whose core business is to use AI in radiology.
  • The mission we set ourselves is to seek to raise the standard of care in radiology thanks to AI (‘ Elevate standard of care with imaging AI’ ). The chapter that is being written starts from the observation that there are great disparities between radiologists, whether they are experts in a subject or more generalists. We want to succeed in making every radiologist multi-expert thanks to AI tools . We have therefore brought to market a top notch artificial intelligence platform, which is as complete as possible and which covers the clinical routine of radiologists.
  • “There are great disparities between radiologists, whether they are experts in a subject or more generalists”
  • What have been the milestones in Gleamer’s development to date?
  • In December 2017, we launched Gleamer with an ambitious vision. After assembling a dedicated team, we worked diligently to obtain CE certification for our first algorithm, boneView. In March 2020, we proudly launched our product on the market, thus meeting the strict standards of medical devices. Since then, our business has grown exponentially. With a team of 50 talented members, we look forward to doubling our workforce in the next 18 months, demonstrating our success and our determination to innovate in healthcare.
  • On the fundraising side, in July 2018 we made a first seed of €1.5M with XAnge, Elaia and the Bpi (plus business angels). In July 2020, we are raising funds again in Serie A to the tune of €7.5M for scaling. And this year €27 million, therefore, always alongside the Bpi . Having raised funds before, especially for my Biotech startup, helped me save time on the progress of Gleamer!
  • Gleamer raised €27 million in Series B to expand its portfolio of AI solutions: which ones? What are Gleamer’s areas of development?
  • Personally, I don’t believe in a massive wave of reimbursement for artificial intelligence in medical imaging. If we manage to put great solutions in the hands of doctors and radiologists at an affordable price, we have to do it! This is how we will improve the quality of care.
  • The promise is very strong, it’s an error reduction of about 30% , which is huge! Our objective is to create “companions” for the radiologist to reduce reading time and increase productivity, at an affordable price, which for us is a mission of public utility. We are integrating functionalities that allow radiologists to have complete expertise in the most complete range of different fields possible to cover 70% of their routine needs, which we are doing and which we hope to finalize by now. 2 to 3 years.
  • Our fundraising allows us to develop our model. Everything we have built over the past 5 years goes beyond our products : we have built an AI Factory internally with multidisciplinary teams including data, AI, software, regulatory, ‘Clinical Affairs…
  • Making these professions work together gives us unique assets. We also have our own data lake. We are equipped to produce quickly (and well) when we want to release a product and bring it to market. Our challenge will be to succeed in delivering many products that are concretely useful to radiologists . We are well deployed and the feedback on our first products is good, we are convinced that we will get there.
  • The products that we are going to develop are multiple and include a range for scanners, particularly in oncology, and a range for mammography and tomosynthesis.
  • “Our objective is to create ‘companions’ for the radiologist to reduce reading time and increase productivity”
  • Gleamer’s deployment strategy is based on a series of strong partnerships. What are they today and what will they be tomorrow?
  • We have many private partners but also academic partnerships, indeed. In particular, we have two massive partnerships with the APHP which are really important for us in the co-construction of products. This partnership gives us a valuable opportunity to access data that contributes to the continuous improvement of our models.
  • In addition, we are delighted to announce our recent partnership with the Center de Lutte contre le Cancer Léon Bérard (CLB), an organization of paramount importance to us. This partnership allows us to benefit from privileged access to rare and extremely precise data in the field of oncology. This collaboration strengthens our ability to develop innovative solutions adapted to the specific needs of cancer patients.
  • AI in medicine is disrupting the industry today. What other big breakthroughs do you see potentially moving the field as well?
  • Already, on the subject of AI, there are 2 dimensions:
  • computer vision , on which we are working – and I think we have the best teams in the world on the subject – for the fine processing of images and symptoms
  • and generative AI which, in my opinion, will open a new chapter in our mission to raise the standard of care, through its multimodality.
  • I think generative AI will allow us tomorrow to retrieve and cross-reference complex patient information to establish more contextualized diagnoses from an image. For example, I have no doubt that in the future AI will reach a level of diagnosis equivalent to that of the best doctors in certain fields and applications of medicine.
  • AI will really be a lever to arrive at precision medicine because it will be able to manage data that is impossible for the human brain to grasp. The doctor of tomorrow will have these tools and will be able to use them, and these generative multimodal AIs will allow us to go much further. The idea is to go so far as to reveal the invisible of today to determine the weak signals and warning symptoms of disease much earlier, which is what many startups are working on today. The interconnection between all these HealthTech startups will be essential to group and analyze large quantities of data and arrive at precision medicine, which looks like the Holy Grail of the Pharma and Tech industries.
  • I strongly believe in predictive and preventive medicine. Tomorrow, we will all do a medical imaging examination to try to predict the appearance of chronic pathologies as early as possible in order to include as many people as possible in the care pathway and to keep them in good health before the onset of symptoms and avoid paying the high price of the consequences of an illness. The idea is to anticipate as much as possible to get out of our reactive Health system.

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