PUNE AI-enabled radiology platform DeepTek is playing an important role in precise diagnosis of diseases like TB and Covid-19. The Pune-based startup has received strategic investment from a clutch of investors so far, and is eying another VC round in next six months. Patil completed his schooling from SSPMS school and engineering from COEP in 1992. He has a Master's degree from IIT-Kharagpur in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Amit Kharat, with a DNB and PhD in Radiology, has been engaged in the radiology space for the last 17 years.

India faces a drastic shortage of radiologists with just one radiologist available for 100,000 people living in the country. In comparison, this ratio is one to 10,000 in the US. With such a shortage of qualified professionals in the field, radiologists tend to see hundreds of X-rays in a day making the process error-prone. DeepTek, a Pune-based health-tech firm, has created an AI-based platform, Augmento, that assists radiologists to make faster and accurate diagnoses through X-rays for 20 different pathologies. To understand how the platform works and the advantage it provides in terms of making accurate diagnoses using AI in radiology, Analytics India Magazine caught up with Viraj Kulkarni, Principal Data Scientist at DeepTek.

Tuberculosis is an issue close to home for Pune, India-based healthcare startup DeepTek. India has the world's highest prevalence of the disease -- accounting for over one-quarter of the 10 million new cases each year. It's a fitting first project for the company, whose founders hope to greatly improve global access to medical imaging diagnostics with an AI-powered radiology platform. India aims to eradicate TB by 2025, five years before the United Nations' global goal to end the epidemic by 2030. Chest X-ray imaging is the most sensitive screening tool for pulmonary TB, helping clinicians determine which patients should be referred for further lab testing.

Japanese IT service provider, NTT DATA has invested in medical imaging AI start-up company DeepTek. NTT has not disclosed the size of investment. Ajit Patil, co-founder, DeepTek, said this was a seed stage funding and NTT had picked up 10-15% stake in the company and they had formed a strategic equity partnership with NTT Data. This funding would take care of their need for around two and half years but they are looking at further global alliances and venture funding, he said. DeepTek is co-founded by Dr Amit Kharat a leading radiologist in the country, Aniruddha Pant an AI technology expert with a Berkeley University PhD, and Ajit Patil, a serial entrepreneur, whose earlier start-up exited to NTT DATA Corp.