We won't rest until every deadly breast cancer is detected early
Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women across the globe, and is also a major cause of cancer mortality (Global Cancer Observatory, 2020). Most countries that have experienced reductions in mortality in the last decade have implemented a combination of strategies at the population level. These are early detection, timely diagnosis, and effective multimodality treatments. Since there are no precursors of breast cancer that can be detected by screening, these three strategies have to be implemented sequentially to achieve a reduction in breast cancer mortality. The goal is to detect breast cancer as early as possible, when treatments are more effective, less toxic and less costly. Mammography is the only modality proven to reduce mortality. The Vara platform makes AI assisted mammography accessible and affordable for the benefit of women everywhere.
Dr. med. Renate Tewaag
radprax
About two years ago, we knew that the future of breast cancer screening would include artificial intelligence. But we didn’t quite know how AI would be integrated into the radiologist’s workflow. We needed to deliver both superior AI — and a superior experience for radiologists.
So, from day one, we partnered closely with screening units in Germany who believed in the transformative potential of AI. These development partners - or co-creators, as we like to call them - collaborated with the Vara team to not only design a breast cancer screening platform that would improve overall performance and quality metrics of screening radiologists, but most importantly, always keep screening radiologists in the loop.
November 2018
Spin-off from Merantix Venture Studio
January 2019
First screening centers in Germany joined our journey as development partners
September 2019
Vara certified as a CE (class IIb) medical device
May 2020
€6.5M Series A led by OMERS Ventures, Toronto
February 2022
Vara Teams Up with Mamotest to Launch the Company’s First International Breast Screening Unit in Mexico
March 2022
Vara obtains stringent European Medical Device Regulation (MDR) certification
March 2022
Vara brings AI-driven breast screening to Greece with partner MITERA
March 2022
Vara and University of Lübeck kick off first-ever prospective AI study for breast cancer screening in Germany
April 2022
Largest study of its kind shows promising results in preventing missed breast cancer with AI (European Journal of Radiology)
May 2022
Novel, complementary approach to applying AI to breast cancer screening improves accuracy (Lancet Digital Health)
January 2023
Vara launches in India
June 2023
Vara launches in Egypt
November 2023
World’s largest prospective study AI for in breast cancer screening concludes with almost 500k participants
Jonas Muff
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Assoc. Prof. Pascal Baltzer
Medical University of Vienna, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, Vienna, Austria
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Dr. Alexandra Athanasiou
Director Mammography, MITERA Hospital, Athens, Greece
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Prof. Katja Pinker-Domenig
Director of Research; Director of Breast MRI, Breast Imaging Service, Department of Radiology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA
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Prof. Lale Umutlu
Vice-Chair, Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology, Medical University of Essen, Essen, Germany
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Werner Boeing
Former CIO Roche Diagnostics, currently CEO and co-founder of evisory
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Vara's research and development is co-financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Funds from the Eurostar project are used to extend the Vara machine learning model designed to support human experts during the detection of breast cancer.