ModAstera Inc. and Taiwan's Wellgen Medical Form Strategic Partnership

ModAstera Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo), a company providing an AI medical development platform, announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Wellgen Medical CO., LTD, a Taiwanese company specializing in tomographic imaging technology for cytopathology, to jointly develop an AI screening model in the field of cancer cytopathology.

This partnership will combine Wellgen Medical's FDA-cleared tomographic imaging technology and clinical dataset with ModAstera's medical AI development platform to advance the development of AI to assist in the detection of metastatic cancer cells in body fluid cytopathology.

**Global Shortage of Pathologists and Challenges in Diagnostic Accuracy**

Cytopathology, which analyzes cancer cells present in body fluids such as pleural effusion and ascites, plays a crucial role as the frontline for detecting metastatic cancer. However, the shortage of pathologists is becoming a serious global issue, with approximately 5,000 pathologists projected to be lacking in the United States by 2030. In Japan, the number of pathologists per 100,000 population is about 1.4, which is only about one-fifth of the level in the United States.

Furthermore, the sensitivity of metastatic cancer detection in body fluid cytopathology ranges from approximately 32% to 77% depending on the cancer type and diagnostic method, posing a challenge where some Stage 4 cancer patients may be missed.

**The Challenge of "Cell Overlapping" Difficult for Conventional Pathology AI**

Conventional pathology AI has primarily developed around Whole Slide Imaging (WSI) technology, which assumes planar tissue sections (Histology). However, in cytopathology, cells overlap three-dimensionally, meaning that parts of cells can be hidden by conventional scanners, making accurate AI analysis difficult.

Wellgen Medical's CytoScope is characterized by its ability to visualize the 3D structure of cells using tomographic technology. Information that cannot be acquired by conventional scanners cannot be analyzed by AI either.

This joint development aims to solve the unique challenges of cytopathology by combining this 3D imaging technology with AI.

**Streamlining Pathology Diagnostic Workflow with AI-Assisted Screening**

The two companies will jointly develop and validate an AI screening model for serous fluid cytopathology and integrate it into Wellgen Medical's CytoScope workflow.

The goal is to reduce pathologist review time by having AI pre-extract suspicious fields of view, and also to build a foundation for future telepathology.

**Future Outlook**

Through this partnership, ModAstera and Wellgen Medical will contribute to improving the efficiency and accuracy of pathology diagnostics, reducing the burden on medical professionals, and expanding opportunities for early treatment for patients.

**[About ModAstera Inc.]**

ModAstera Inc. is a startup that provides an AI development platform. It aims to accelerate and reduce the cost of medical AI development by providing consistent support from data annotation, AI model generation, to cloud deployment.

URL: https://www.modastera.com

**[About Wellgen Medical CO., LTD]**

Wellgen Medical is a Taiwan-based medical device company. It develops "CytoScope," a tomographic imaging technology for cytopathology, promoting advanced and efficient pathology diagnostics.

URL: https://www.wellgenmedical.com

**[Contact Information]**

ModAstera Inc. E-mail: info@modastera.com