• Pentavere partnered with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre to demonstrate how Pentavere’s DARWEN™ AI platform can help enhance cancer staging to improve patient outcomes.
  
• Results of this collaboration were presented at the prestigious American Head and Neck Society annual conference and published in JAMA Otolaryngology, which is the highest impact journal for Otolaryngologic or ‘head and neck’ cancers.
• This is the first published paper of its kind demonstrating artificial intelligence analyzing unstructured clinical text within electronic health records to accurately support the automation and acceleration of cancer staging for complex head and neck cancers.

TORONTO, May 21, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HEALWELL AI Inc. (“HEALWELL” or the “Company”) (TSX: AIDX) (OTCQX: HWAIF), a data science and AI company focused on preventative care, is pleased to announce that its subsidiary Pentavere Research Group Inc. (“Pentavere”), has partnered with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Dr. Tony Eskander, a globally recognized head and neck surgical oncologist to demonstrate how Pentavere’s DARWEN™ AI platform can help improve cancer staging to support treatment decisions and improve patient outcomes.

• Results of this collaboration were presented at the prestigious American Head and Neck Society annual conference and published in JAMA Otolaryngology, which is the highest impact journal for head and neck cancers.
• This is the first published paper of its kind demonstrating artificial intelligence analyzing unstructured clinical text within electronic health records to accurately support the automation and acceleration of cancer staging for complex head and neck cancers.  
• This work underscores the potential of AI in enhancing patient care and oncological decision-making and demonstrates the potential impact of AI powered clinical decision support as a Co-pilot to physicians to improve cancer patient outcomes.

Aaron Leibtag, Co-Founder and CEO at Pentavere, commented, “This exciting collaboration with Dr. Eskander and his team shows how Pentavere’s DARWEN™ AI platform has the ability to support the critical decision-making processes of clinicians ensuring they remain central to patient care and is further proof of our mission to be a leading AI Decision Support for disease detection and preventative care that is supported by peer reviewed validation and partnerships of the highest quality and reputation. To our knowledge this is the first validation of this nature ever published in a peer reviewed publication.”

Dr. Eskander and his team at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre partnered with Pentavere to assess the use of DARWEN™ AI to improve cancer staging. The results highlighted in the JAMA paper found AI has the potential to enhance patient care and oncological decision-making.

“Head and neck cancers are incredibly complex to stage and up to 75% of patients don’t have an accurate stage documented within the first 6 weeks” said Dr. Eskander. “Pentavere’s AI DARWEN™ allows clinicians to rapidly make sense of varied clinical documentation buried within the electronic medical record and accurately predict early vs late-stage cancers. Automating this capability as part of a physician Co-pilot for clinical decision support would be a game changer for cancer treaters and ultimately help improve outcomes for patients.”

The Canadian Cancer Society reports that approximately 8,000 Canadians are diagnosed with head and neck cancers each year and over 2,000 will die from it⁽¹⁾. For clinicians to make the best treatment and prognosis decisions requires accurate and timely staging of the cancer but this often doesn’t happen or is poorly documented. This directly impacts patient outcomes and the ability of the institution to evaluate pathways, quality, and survival. For these reasons clear documentation of cancer stage is a recognized metric of quality cancer care⁽²⁾.

DARWEN™, Pentavere’s AI platform, unlocks a deeper understanding of patient treatment needs by enabling effortless data access and rapid insight generation. DARWEN™ harnesses EMR data and utilizes advanced large language models to analyze disparate and siloed clinical notes that are otherwise very challenging to access, allowing meaningful solutions to some of healthcare’s biggest challenges and delivering on the current need for medicine to become more personalized.

Footnotes:

(1) source: Canadian Cancer Society, https://cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-types/oropharyngeal/statistics
(2) source: National Quality Forum, https://www.qualityforum.org/Home.aspx

Dr. Alexander Dobranowski
Chief Executive Officer
HEALWELL AI Inc.

About Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is inventing the future of health care for the 1.1 million patient visits the hospital provides each year through the dedication of its more than 12,000 staff and volunteers. An internationally recognized leader in research and education and a full affiliation with the University of Toronto distinguishes Sunnybrook as one of Canada's premier academic health sciences centres. Sunnybrook specializes in caring for high-risk pregnancies, critically ill newborns and adults, offering specialized rehabilitation, and treating and preventing cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurological and psychiatric disorders, orthopaedic and arthritic conditions and traumatic injuries. The hospital also has a unique and national leading program for the care of Canada's war veterans.

About HEALWELL AI

HEALWELL is a healthcare technology company focused on AI and data science for preventative care. Its mission is to improve healthcare and save lives through early identification and detection of disease. Using its own proprietary technology, the Company is developing and commercializing advanced clinical decision support systems that can help healthcare providers detect rare and chronic diseases, improve efficiency of their practice and ultimately help improve patient health outcomes. HEALWELL is executing a strategy centered around developing and acquiring technology and clinical sciences capabilities that complement the Company's road map. HEALWELL is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”) under the symbol “AIDX” and on the OTC Exchange under the symbol “HWAIF”. To learn more about HEALWELL, please visit https://healwell.ai/

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release, constitute "forward-looking information" and "forward looking statements" (collectively, "forward looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, and are based on assumptions, expectations, estimates and projections as of the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by words or phrases such as "improve", "potential" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain future conditions, actions, events or results "will", "may", "could", "would", "should", "might" or "can" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon management’s perceptions of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as a number of specific factors and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by HEALWELL as of the date of such statements, are outside of HEALWELL's control and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies which could result in the forward-looking statements ultimately being entirely or partially incorrect or untrue. Forward looking statements contained in this press release are based on various assumptions, including, but not limited to, the following: the stability of general economic and market conditions; sufficiency of working capital and access to financing; HEALWELL's ability to comply with applicable laws and regulations; HEALWELL's continued compliance with third party intellectual property rights; the effects of competition in the industry; the requirement for increasingly innovative product solutions and service offerings; trends in customer growth and the adoption of new technologies in the industry; anticipated viewership and impact of the publication; and that the risk factors noted below, collectively, do not have a material impact on HEALWELL's business, operations, revenues and/or results. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections, or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct, and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved.

Known and unknown risk factors, many of which are beyond the control of HEALWELL, could cause the actual results of HEALWELL to differ materially from the results, performance, achievements, or developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include but are not limited to those factors which are discussed under the section entitled "Risk Factors" in HEALWELL's most recent annual information form dated April 1, 2024, which is available under HEALWELL's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca. The risk factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect HEALWELL and the reader is cautioned to consider these and other factors, uncertainties and potential events carefully and not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that forward looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management’s expectations and plans relating to the future. HEALWELL disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable law. All of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements.

For more information:

Pardeep S. Sangha
Investor Relations, HEALWELL AI Inc.
Phone: 604-572-6392
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