DIVE Medical helps diagnose visual and neurocognitive problems in childhood

The company, which has specialists in ophthalmology and optometry from the IIS Aragón and the IACS, uses technology based on artificial intelligence to objectively explore vision in any patient through gaze tracking.

DIVE Medical began to be conceived in 2013 in Aragon. It was born from the need to Victoria Pueyo, a pediatric ophthalmologist and one of the co-founders of the company who, in her day-to-day work, experienced problems in carrying out objective visual explorations in babies and children. Pueyo told him about it Diego Gutierrez and Belen Masia, from the engineering research group Graphics & Imaging Lab from University of Zaragoza and, together with a multidisciplinary team that also included ophthalmologists and optometrists from the IIS Aragon and IACS, created DIVE Medical. Currently, the company operates from Gipuzkoa, specifically from the headquarters of BIC“The business ecosystem of the province, as well as some potential collaborations that were emerging, encouraged us to move to the Basque Country,” says Marta Ortín, co-founder of the company.  

DIVE Medical helps diagnose pathologies through vision. It has developed 'DIVE', a technology based on artificial intelligence to objectively explore vision in any patient, even in babies from 6 months old. To do this, it uses eye tracking o gaze tracking.

We know where the patient looks on a screen. We show stimuli to assess different visual functions and, by analyzing where they look in relation to the stimuli, we can obtain quantitative and objective metrics to help with visual screening, diagnosis and monitoring of a pathology.

Marta Ortin

The company has already started marketing its product in Spain. At the state level it works with the distributor FarmaMix, a leader in the ophthalmological sector. Several private clinics in different cities of the State already have it. Likewise, the Complutense University of Madrid She is using it for several of her research projects. As for internationalisation, the device has been used in various clinical studies that she has carried out in different countries. “What we are looking for now are distributors like the one we have in Spain, especially in other European countries and the United States,” says the co-founder. 

As for his most relevant projects, Ortín highlights two. One of them began before DIVE Medical was established as a company and was a collaboration with Huawei“Part of our Corporate Social Responsibility program is related to financing healthcare projects and we wanted to show the use of technology in this regard,” says Ortín.  

It focused on visual screening and the project lasted four years. Thanks to this collaboration that financed the development of the device and validation, the company was able to carry out visual screenings on boys and girls in countries such as Mexico, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong or Russia, as well as in different autonomous communities of the State. “This collaboration allowed us to collect a database of more than 6.000 patients that has served to validate that what we do has scientific robustness behind it. And it has also allowed us to train the algorithm with which this visual screening works,” says the co-founder.    

DIVE Medical is currently carrying out a project funded by the Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI). “What we are doing is demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of this visual screening. Demonstrating that, if it is integrated into public health, this early detection of pathologies that we can achieve and the avoidance of unnecessary referrals will in the long term generate benefits both in the care of the visual health of patients and economically for the health system,” says Ortín. Although the device was initially used in children, it is now also available for adults.

There are visual functions that are measured subjectively even in adults. Or if we look at the older population, there are also examinations that are complicated for them, so, with some adjustments, incorporating stimuli with a more adult aesthetic and revising algorithms, we have already generated an adult version.

Marta Ortin

Looking ahead, the big goal is improve the device which the company has already brought to market. DIVE Medical also wants to obtain information "not only purely ophthalmological but also neurocognitive”, since as the co-founder explains, “there are also neurological pathologies that manifest themselves through vision”. Currently, the Cruces University Hospital (Barakaldo) and BioBizkaia Health Research Institute are using DIVE in projects aimed at detecting Alzheimer's y parkinson's, and DIVE Medical is working on the detection of childhood neurocognitive diseases. 

Source: SPRI Group.