Belfast’s Sonrai Analytics signs partnership agreement with Arab Health in Dubai to enhance cancer detection

Belfast software company, Sonrai Analytics and Dubai-based Alliance Care Technologies (ACT) have announced a strategic partnership to bring transformational AI solutions to enhance cancer detection and biomarker discovery to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) market.

The collaboration will play a vital role in achieving the region's vision of reducing cancer mortality via early detection and screening.

The Preferred Partnership agreement signed at the Arab Health Congress will give UAE researchers and clinicians access to AI-supported clinical systems to assist in the accelerated detection of cancerous tumours and improve patient outcomes.

Through this partnership, ACT can access Sonrai’s proprietary AI technology and expertise to bring this precision oncology capability to more UAE oncologists, hospital systems and other medical providers.

Sonrai’s pedigree in building AI assets for regulatory approval has been deployed in high-level programmes with Roche and the NHS. Through ACT, leading healthcare organisations will have access to Sonrai’s comprehensive AI suite and cloud services, including the potential to co-develop algorithms that could become AI biomarker tests for healthcare organisations.

Founder, CEO of Sonrai Analytics, Dr Darragh McArt, said: “We are delighted to have this partnership in place to expand our market opportunity to new territories and to introduce our AI data analytics platform and algorithms to key individuals in the care pathway to improve patient outcomes. ACT has a fantastic understanding of the area in which Sonrai operates, and I look forward to a successful relationship.”

Michele Tarnow, CEO, ACT, explained: “UAE's diverse population makes it uniquely situated for universal population health research. Sonrai provides the ideal platform for collaborative research across omics medicine, biotech and pharma. Alliance Care Technologies is excited to announce Sonrai's arrival in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the opportunity to support the region's growth in global health.”

Northern Ireland's dynamic Life and Health Sciences sector employs over 18,000 people and generates over £1.3 billion in revenues. This region of the UK is home to a wealth of innovative companies, as well as internationally recognised universities, such as Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, both renowned for world-leading research in biomedical sciences. Today, researchers are at the forefront of convergent technology in the areas of health data analytics, machine learning and diagnostics.

Fahd Asif, senior business development manager at Invest Northern Ireland, added: "This agreement will play a vital role in achieving the region's vision of reducing cancer mortality via early detection and screening. We were delighted to facilitate the introduction between both parties and this partnership arises as part of our efforts in the Middle East to promote Northern Ireland's capability in Life and Health Sciences.

"As Northern Ireland's Economic Development Agency, we continue to support Sonrai Analytics in achieving its growth, which has the potential to transform and progress the preventative healthcare system in the region."

Sonrai Analytics was founded in 2018 and recently announced a seed plus funding round of £2.175 million to accelerate the global adoption of its technology. This added investment will help Sonrai reach more companies globally to translate precision medicine’s complex multi-omics data into real insights leading to better-personalised treatments for patients.