Paige’s collaboration with Microsoft reaches a new frontier in AI-driven technology for propelling cancer diagnosis forward

Paige, the pioneer in AI-driven pathology solutions designed to improve the fight against cancer, in collaboration with Microsoft, has achieved an important milestone with the publication of a significant study in Nature Medicine. The study highlights the capabilities of Virchow, the first million-slide foundation model for cancer.

Virchow demonstrated clinical grade cancer detection showcasing state-of-the-art performance across 16 types of cancer, including seven rare cancers. The extensive dataset used to train Virchow empowers it to deliver advanced capabilities and accuracy that allow for the ability to create novel applications in cancer diagnosis that previously weren’t possible due to limited data.

Virchow works by breaking down each gigapixel H&E slide into thousands of image tiles and characterizing intricate cancer patterns that may not be visible to the human eye. This is made possible by self-supervised learning, which does not require task-specific data and can leverage the information gained from billions of image tiles extracted from 1.5 million whole slides, containing diverse cancer subtypes.

“Today marks another historic achievement for Paige. The publication of our Virchow Foundation Model in Nature Medicine is a testament to our team's dedication and expertise in developing transformative AI for healthcare,” said Razik Yousfi, Senior Vice President of Technology at Paige. “Virchow's ability to detect, analyze and characterize diverse cancer types, including rare cancers, exemplifies its extraordinary power and unprecedented potential to unlock new insights into cancer.”

“As Paige continues to lead in healthcare technology and machine learning, with the creation of the world’s first FDA-approved AI model for pathology and now, with a prestigious scholarly journal publication of the industry’s first million-slide foundation model for cancer, I am both proud and inspired,” said Thomas Fuchs, Dr.Sc., Founder and Chief Scientist of Paige. “The Virchow Foundation Model is just the beginning, ushering in a future of revolutionary discoveries in cancer detection and treatment.”

In addition to cancer detection, the study also highlights Virchow's state-of-the-art performance across a variety of biomarker prediction tasks. "Biomarker prediction is crucial for tailoring treatments to individual patients and sets the path for personalized precision medicine," explained Dr. Siqi Liu, PhD, Director of AI Science at Paige. "Virchow's superior performance in biomarker prediction tasks across multiple tissue types demonstrates its transformative potential in clinical and pharmaceutical settings."

The lessons learned in this study demonstrate the power of the latest advances in AI. “Scaling has driven significant progress in AI, and our work with Paige demonstrates its crucial role in pathology as well,” noted Jonathan Carlson, Managing Director of Microsoft Research Health Futures. “By developing a million-slide foundation model, we achieved unprecedented accuracy and capabilities, particularly benefiting patients with rare cancers, where traditional methods lack the predictive power needed for informed decisions.”

Empowered by this technology, Paige has made significant strides in developing transformative products such as Paige Pan Cancer Suite, a single application capable of detecting cancers across the broad array of tissue types, and PRISM, a multi-modal, slide-level Foundation Model providing comprehensive written diagnostic assessments.

Paige continues to lead the charge in expanding Virchow's capabilities with ongoing developments. For more information on Virchow or Paige’s pioneering advancements in AI-driven pathology, please email bd@paige.ai

About Paige

Paige uses the power of AI to drive a new era of cancer discovery and treatment. To improve the lives of patients with cancer, Paige has created AI technology and cloud-based platform that transforms AI development, pathologists' workflow and increases diagnostic confidence as well as productivity, all on a global scale. Paige is the first company to receive FDA approval for a clinical AI application in digital pathology. The same Paige technology empowers pharmaceutical companies to more effectively evaluate drug discovery.

Cindi Goodsell | Stanton cgoodsell@stantonprm.com