Medical imaging includes different technologies used to diagnose diseases. French startup Gleamer has been improving X-rays and mammograms with AI. Now, it is stepping into magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Buying Instead of Building Rather than developing new MRI technology from scratch, Gleamer has acquired two companies specializing in AI-powered MRI analysis: Pixyl and Caerus Medical.
A Growing AI Startup in Radiology Gleamer belongs to the second wave of AI-driven medical imaging startups. Many companies launched in 2014 and 2015, but only a few survived. Some, like Zebra Medical Vision and Arterys, were acquired by larger firms such as Nanox and Tempus.
Founded in 2017, Gleamer has developed an AI tool to assist radiologists. This software acts as a smart assistant, helping doctors analyze medical images more accurately.
Gleamer’s Growing Reach So far, 2,000 medical institutions in 45 countries use Gleamer’s technology. The company has processed 35 million medical exams. Its AI has earned CE and FDA approvals for diagnosing bone trauma. In Europe, it also offers AI tools for chest X-rays, orthopedic analysis, and bone age measurements.
Why AI Can’t Do It All at Once Gleamer’s CEO, Christian Allouche, believes a single AI model cannot handle all types of medical imaging. “It’s too complex to create one system that delivers top performance across all imaging types,” he told TechCrunch.
For this reason, Gleamer builds separate AI teams. One team focuses on mammography, another on CT scans. The company recently launched a mammography product after 18 months of development, using AI trained on 1.5 million mammograms.
MRI: A New Challenge MRI is different from X-rays and CT scans. It involves multiple tasks, including detection, segmentation, characterization, and classification.
To accelerate progress, Gleamer acquired Pixyl and Caerus Medical, two startups already working on AI for MRI. The financial details of these deals remain undisclosed.
“These two companies will serve as our MRI platforms,” Allouche said. “Our goal is to cover all MRI use cases within two to three years.”
The Future of Preventive Imaging Gleamer’s AI is promising but not perfect. For example, its mammography model detects four out of five cancers, while a human radiologist without AI assistance detects three out of five.
AI tools could significantly improve medical imaging. A missed tumor might be caught earlier with AI, reducing the risk of late diagnosis.
“In the near future, insurance companies may cover routine full-body MRIs because they are radiation-free,” Allouche predicted.
However, some cities already struggle with too few radiologists to meet demand. If the industry moves toward preventive imaging, AI will be essential.
AI: The Future of Medical Imaging? Gleamer’s CEO sees AI as a crucial tool for organizing and prioritizing medical scans. Many imaging tests rule out diseases rather than confirm them.
“There’s a real need for AI to automate this process with a highly sensitive model,” Allouche said. AI could soon play a major role in making medical imaging faster and more accurate.
