Optellum, Bristol Myers Squibb to Leverage AI to Boost Early Lung Cancer Diagnosis

April, 15, 2025 — Optellum  has entered an agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb to leverage AI in early diagnosis and precision lung cancer care. Under the agreement, Optellum will apply its AI-powered imaging and clinical decision support platform to evaluate the real-world impact on patient outcomes.

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, often going undetected until it reaches an advanced stage. Late-stage diagnosis limits treatment options and reduces survival rates. While screening programs exist, they frequently fail to reach the majority of lung cancer patients due to low enrollment rates and patients not meeting eligibility criteria. However, there are 93 million computed tomography (CT) scans already conducted annually in the U.S. for other reasons, such as emergency room scans. Many pre-symptomatic cancers can be identified earlier by automated AI-driven real-time analysis or “opportunistic screening” of those scans.

Optellum’s Virtual Nodule Clinic (VNC) is an FDA-cleared AI-powered decision support tool for early-stage lung cancer, reimbursed by CMS and implemented by leading health systems. The platform integrates Patient Discovery AI, which utilizes Natural Language Processing to identify at-risk individuals from scan reports across healthcare systems, and a clinically validated Lung Cancer Prediction (LCP) score based on imaging AI and radiomics. This combination of AI tools enables clinicians to identify and prioritize at-risk patients for follow-up by multidisciplinary thoracic oncology teams, potentially leading to earlier intervention and improved patient outcomes.

Optellum and Bristol Myers Squibb are building on an existing research collaboration¹. As part of this new agreement, Optellum is deploying its VNC platform at multiple healthcare systems across the United States to democratize access to life-saving early diagnosis. These deployments will assess the platform’s real-world impact before and after implementation. The aim is to generate and promote evidence as well as AI implementation best practices. This will help accelerate deployment of such AI-optimized lung cancer care pathways.

“Early diagnosis is critical in improving survival rates for lung cancer patients. However, 30% to 60% of Stage I-II NSCLC patients still experience recurrence after surgery. The agreement between Optellum and Bristol Myers Squibb presents a significant opportunity to diagnose lung cancer earlier and improve thoracic care pathways so that the right patients can benefit from available modern treatment” said David Carbone, MD, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine, Director of the James Thoracic Oncology Center at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“The agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb is a key step that helps Optellum accelerate AI-powered early diagnosis, from top academic medical centers to community centers caring for underserved patient populations who can benefit the most,” commented Václav Potěšil, PhD, Optellum Founder and Chief Business Officer. “Our vision is to help drive opportunistic screening across lung cancer and other diseases – helping care teams efficiently find the right candidates for the right treatment, while augmenting their expertise so that every patient can benefit from top quality care.”

For more information, visit optellum.com.

1. Nathan R Hill, Travis L Dotson, Sarah E Maus, Christina R Bellinger, Annika Rings, Lyndsey C Pickup, Noah Waterfield Price, Václav Potěšil, John R Penrod, Kevin Pollock, David P Carbone and Jasleen Pannu. “1212 Utilization of artificial intelligence support for early lung cancer diagnosis in a lung nodule program: a retrospective cohort study.” Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (2024)