Pharma companies are seeing increasing time pressures on early-stage Drug Safety Assessment Study completion with many organizations outsourcing to CROs, leveraging digital pathology to improve the efficiency of the Study Review process.

While digital pathology alleviates many of the logistical challenges associated with traditional peer review, it’s use has been constrained owing to poor user experience, sub-optimal workflow and regulatory limitations.

The Patholytix platform has taken great strides to address these challenges, offering users a tailored workflow solution & unparalleled image viewing experience that makes digital pathology a reality for routine non-clinical study review. In 2020, Patholytix Preclinical became the only digital platform proven to enable GLP Peer Review, creating further avenues for broader use of digital pathology within the Pharma and CRO landscape.

With Release 2.1, we are continuing our efforts in solving the challenges our users face in adopting digital pathology for routine use; our new capabilities within Patholytix AI and Patholytix Preclinical bring significant benefits to our users, helping them reach critical study decisions more quickly, and more confidently.

Patholytix AI - Automated Screening of Non-Clinical Studies

At Deciphex, we understand the importance of accelerating workflow through focussing on the most critical content. With Release 2.1 comes a significant new suite of Quantitative Pathology tools to our Patholytix AI platform. 

Quantitative Pathology introduces morphometric analysis of digital images, with fully interactive segmentation masks that facilitate dynamic filtering of up to 1 million discrete objects based on morphometric data. Morphometric data from any class within a model can be used to create study-level filters based on lesion morphometry, providing an entirely new approach to assess model performance across different groups, and even across different studies. Quantitative data can be easily exported for detailed statistical analysis in 3rd party applications.

‍Probability Masks provide an interactive view to assess class-based probability of each feature identified within an image, helping the pathologist examine confidence in specific lesions against a target class within a chosen model.

Through this combination of Quantitative and Probability-based capabilities, Patholytix AI facilitates deeper analysis of whole slide images, and allows the user to gain a better understanding of the study/studies of interest. 

Faster Access to Critical Study Content

For the pathologist, time is of the essence, and with Patholytix Preclinical Release 2.1 we have made significant improvements to the study integration process, maximizing the time available to the pathologist for review & analysis of study content. Through simplification of data entry using our Universal Study Spreadsheet and the elimination of wasteful pre-processing steps, studies now upload 45% faster than before. 

We have introduced strategies to better handle variable networks, including automated retry on failed uploads and multi-part image uploads to mitigate scenarios where bandwidth is limited. Uploading errors will no longer pause study uploads; if errors are encountered, a new interactive error log provides a simple mechanism for the operator to perform bulk error correction at the end of the upload process. Real time prioritization of study uploads provides greater flexibility to allow critical study content to be uploaded as quickly as possible. These improvements deliver a more convenient and efficient workflow for lab technicians and pathologists.

Helping Pathologists Work Efficiently - Even From Home

Patholytix Preclinical is the only digital pathology solution proven to enable GLP Peer Review of non-clinical drug safety studies; we have designed our Study Browser based on continuous input from non-clinical pathologists to ensure we continue to deliver on the most critical needs of our users.

With Release 2.1 of the Study Browser we have introduced customizable metadata filters which allow user-specific customization of metadata display, giving the pathologist rapid access to the most relevant metadata for their study. Display preferences can be customised differently between studies, helping to optimize the study review workflow for GLP and non-GLP safety assessment studies.

We pride ourselves on enabling efficient study review from the office or at home, something of particular importance in the climate of COVID-19. Working from Home has been made even better; new options are available to configure download speed of study content while silent downloading ensures that download processes don’t interfere with your use of the Study Browser application. When choosing to view studies that have been downloaded locally, a simple checkbox allows you to easily access study content you downloaded to your own laptop, even when connected to your organization’s network. For the pathologist, this makes Work from Home life easier than ever before.

This latest release of our award winning digital pathology platform delivers significant workflow improvements for our users and provides even greater support for early stage research applications through the introduction of Quantitative Pathology.‍

To learn more about Patholytix AI & Patholytix Preclinical please contact sales@deciphex.com to arrange a consultation with our specialists.