Remidio Innovative Solutions, an Indian medical technology company, has launched a groundbreaking AI-powered smartphone app that can detect diabetic retinopathy (DR), a serious eye condition that can lead to blindness in individuals with diabetes. The app, called Remidio Medios DR AI, pairs with a handheld retinal camera, enabling healthcare professionals to conduct eye screenings in remote locations without requiring expensive infrastructure like GPU-based servers or even an internet connection.
The app has already been deployed in regions such as Himachal Pradesh and rural West Bengal, where access to specialized medical screening facilities is limited. One of the key advantages of the system is that it does not require the patient's pupils to be dilated for an effective screening.
Diabetic retinopathy occurs when high blood sugar damages the blood vessels in the retina, causing swelling, leakage, or blockages that can eventually lead to blindness if untreated. Early detection and treatment are critical to preventing irreversible vision loss.
The Remidio Medios DR AI app detects signs of DR using a deep learning algorithm based on Google’s Inception-V3 convolutional neural network architecture, widely used for image analysis. The algorithm was trained on over 50,000 retinal images, with and without DR, making it highly accurate in detecting early stages of the disease. According to a study by the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, the app has proven to be highly effective in real-world settings.
The app has recently been approved by India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and has also gained approval from the European Commission and Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority. It is currently unavailable in the United States but is already making a significant impact in India, where early detection of diabetic retinopathy is essential for preventing diabetes-related blindness.
"The CDSCO's approval helps us bring care closer to patients, but we are particularly excited to see India become a global leader in leveraging AI to eliminate preventable blindness caused by DR," said Divya Rao, Chief Medical Officer at Remidio. The public health benefits of this innovation are substantial, particularly in rural areas, where the lack of access to specialists can delay critical diagnoses.
Rajiv Raman, a senior vitreo-retinal consultant at Sankara Nethralaya, a leading eye-care hospital in India, emphasized the app’s public health impact: "A science-first, public-health approach has helped Remidio not only assess the performance of its AI in real-world settings, but also for the AI research ecosystem to learn from clinical outcomes associated with primary care-led DR screening programs, care-gap closure pathways, and the cost-benefit analysis of bringing screening closer to the patient."
Remidio’s AI-driven solution represents a significant step toward reducing blindness caused by diabetic retinopathy on a global scale. With its approval in multiple countries and deployment in underserved regions, the app holds great promise for making critical eye care more accessible to populations at risk.
As India continues to push the boundaries of AI technology in healthcare, Remidio’s innovation showcases the potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize public health solutions worldwide.
