health-equity.ai wins 2024 PING Innovation Award

This award, organised by national law firm and sector specialists, VWV, honours individuals and organisations whose innovative ideas, products, services, or processes in the Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences sector make a significant positive impact on people's lives.

2024 PING Innovation Award Winner: health-equity.ai

At the award ceremony, Paul Gershlick, PING chair and Head of Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences at VWV, announced health-equity.ai as the winner.

health-equity.ai is driven by the mission to harness AI for good, analysing vast healthcare datasets to identify and address health disparities. With the proliferation of artificial intelligence throughout the pharmaceutical ecosystem, health.equity.ai has uniquely leveraged this technology.

The platform’s efforts are pivotal in regions with significant health inequalities, such as in certain cancer types where disparities in occurrences and death rates are stark. Some UK regions see 50% more occurrences and 40% higher death rates than the national average. Similar issues are seen in other therapy areas such as diabetes and rare diseases.  Collaborating with pharma companies like Beigene and Roche Diabetes Care, health-equity.ai is promoting fair healthcare access and enhances patient care.

Accepting the award were Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Rav Seeruthun, and Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Professor Ian Colwill. Rav commented, "We are honoured and thrilled to receive this prestigious award. Using Artificial Intelligence, our team are able to analyse massive healthcare datasets to identify patterns of health inequalities. Our mission is to create partnerships to 'level up' these inequalities and ensure better outcomes for more patients."

He added, "We are grateful to VWV, the organisers of the event, and the selection committee for recognising our achievement and potential. We would like to thank Paul Gershlick and Adrian Hawkins OBE, Chair at Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, for presenting us the award at the PING Conference 2024"

Paul Gershlick, alongside Adrian Hawkins OBE, Chair of the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, presented the award. Paul commented, "At its core, health-equity.AI is driven by the mission to harness AI for good, using it as a tool to analyse vast healthcare datasets and identify patterns of health disparities.  By doing so, it aims to level the playing field. The dedication to fairness, AI expertise, and potential for global impact make health-equity.ai a shining example of innovation for the greater good."

Paul further commented, "Health-equity.AI offers hope that, through technology and collaboration, we can create a world where every individual, regardless of their background, has an equal opportunity to live a healthy life".

Other commended entries

Ignota Labs:

Pioneering advancements in computational toxicology, Ignota Labs’ platforms, TOXSCAPE and SAFEPATH, have revolutionised drug safety assessment. Their work ensures safer, more effective therapies and addresses industry challenges by using AI to repurpose deprioritised assets due to toxicity - thus saving potential R&D losses and finding uses for drugs that had otherwise been discarded.

Charlie Mitchell of Sciopolis:

Nominated by Geoff Biggs, Sciopolis addresses the pressing need for flexible lab and office space to support innovation in multiple locations. Their dual approach provides excellent lab, office, meeting and community spaces in a flexible way, and focused support for quicker commercialisation, benefiting the UK life sciences community in a growing need for having access to more life sciences space.