The FDA granted the “breakthrough device” designation to the research group’s Damo Panda model, allowing for an expedited review and approval process, Alibaba said in a statement on Thursday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Alibaba first revealed Damo Panda, which is designed to identify pancreatic cancer, in November 2023 in a paper published in the medical journal Nature Medicine. The tool can effectively detect early-stage malignancies in asymptomatic patients, according to the paper.
Panda is a deep learning model trained on abdominal non-contrast computed tomography (CT) scans of 3,208 pancreatic cancer patients. Testing showed a 34.1 per cent higher sensitivity than radiologists in identifying the disease, Damo researchers said at the time.
Alibaba has already deployed Damo Panda in trials across China, the company said on Thursday. It has screened 40,000 people at a hospital in the eastern city of Ningbo, where it identified six early-stage cases, including two missed by routine exams, the company said last month.
