Impact case study database

The LVM has produced three types of impact in three areas.

A. New digital pathology products

Software: The LVM research produced intellectual property spanning novel software [ 3,4,6], know-how and patents (US8970618; EP3489733). That intellectual property was assigned in 2016 to Roche-Ventana [ A] for a value that cannot be disclosed. Roche is a top 3 laboratory vendor (turnover GBP45 billion, 94,000 employees), with commercial distribution in over 100 countries and established relationships with anatomic pathology laboratories with over 50% market share worldwide [ B].

The LVM was the basis of a fundamental redesign of the entire Roche digital pathology system in 2016-2018 to provide users with “ an innovative and intuitive way of interacting with their digital pathology cases” [ B]. Treanor and Ruddle acted as consultants during the prototyping and detailed design phases for the new software (2016-2017) and were part of its beta-testing team (2018). Since the software’s commercial launch as the uPath digital pathology enterprise software in 2019 [ C], Roche have issued over 100 active uPath licences in Australia, Europe, the USA and other countries [ B].

Scanner hardware: FFEI (a British Small & Medium-sized Enterprise) are the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) developer and manufacturer of the Roche DP 200 scanner, which is an integral part of the Roche’s uPath system and compatible with the LVM. In 2012, FFEI started discussions with Leeds about the LVM, under a non-disclosure agreement. The “ market established by LVM//uPath” helped FFEI secure internal and external investment to fund new imaging technology developments, upgrade R&D and production facilities, and retrain staff, driving their future business strategy [ D].

FFEI have supplied WSI devices to over 27 countries in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. From 2016-2019 their revenues from medical imaging grew from 20% to 50% of total revenue (GBP12,000,000 per annum), and FFEI expect this trend to continue and include “ direct-to-market products as a diversification of FFEI's current OEM business model” [ D].

B. Influence pathology practice

The LVM underpinned pathology going fully digital in 2018 at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT). LTHT is a major cancer centre and tertiary referral pathology laboratory serving a population of 3 million people, and England’s second largest acute hospital trust.

After pilot evaluations during the LVM development [ 3,4], LTHT chose the LVM as the digital pathology platform for a 15,000-slide validation study ( https://doi.org/10.1111/his.13403) that directly led to national Royal College Guidelines for the pathology profession (Jan 2018; https://www.rcpath.org/resourceLibrary/best-practice-recommendations-for-implementing-digital-pathology-pdf.html).

When LTHT pathology went digital, the LVM was rolled-out to the entire department. Benefits include efficiency (“ really speeded up interpretation and turnaround times of some of the most complex cases”), understanding of disease “ much clearer appreciation of low power distribution of the interstitial abnormalities”), reducing delays for patients (“ more timely delivery of second opinions between hospital sites”), and organisational change (“ allowed us to reframe our thinking around future Cellular Pathology strategy for the region”) [ E].

C. Shaping research & development programmes

As well as Roche and FFEI, the LVM also shaped the R&D programmes of two other companies under non-disclosure agreements.

Display hardware: Barco dominates the global medical display market ( https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/medical-display-market.asp). From 2012, the LVM team worked with Barco and gave privileged access to research results. Barco gained confidence that “ ultra-high definition medical displays made sense commercially” [ F], invested in developing a new product to double display resolution (to the 12 megapixel Coronis Unit) that thousands of doctors now benefit from, and in 2017 started a four-year project to develop a new collection of high-resolution pathology displays. Barco draws parallels between the MIT Media Lab and the way the LVM team “ had a visionary idea … quickly assembled a real working example, and sat people in front of it to see what it looked like” before “deploy[ing] it in a hospital to see how it should be improved” [ F].

Pathology software: The LVM influenced the Swedish multinational Sectra Ltd, whose products are used in 2,000 hospitals and clinics around the world. The LVM provided Sectra with “ two foundational insights”: (i) “ it was possible to develop a digital viewer with performance matching diagnosis with a conventional microscope, which was under much debate at the time”, and (ii) there was “ great potential” for digital diagnosis to go “beyond what was possible in the traditional microscope”. This “ had a great positive influence on the Sectra business decision to invest and start a branch in pathology” [ G].

The LVM’s success cemented Leeds as the go-to place for digital pathology R&D, evidenced by the Leeds-led National Pathology Imaging Collaborative (NPIC) [ H] (GBP30,000,000 Innovate UK/ GBP11,000,000 industry funding and Leeds Centre for Doctoral Training (GBP6,000,000 UKRI funding) in Artificial Intelligence for Medical Diagnosis and Care [ I]. They include Roche, FFEI, Sectra and NHS England as partners.