Aifred Health Named Top 3 Finalist in Global IBM Watson AI XPRIZE Competition

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Feb 16, 2021, 07:00 ET

MONTREAL, Feb. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Aifred Health announced today that the XPRIZE jury has selected Aifred Health as one of the 3 finalists for the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. The company is competing for the grand prize of US$3.0 million which will be awarded in June, 2021, with 2nd and 3rd prize winners receiving US$1.0 million and US$0.5 million respectively.

Montreal-based Aifred Health was one of more than 700 applicants for this XPRIZE focused on employing AI to solve the world's grand challenges. Teams were judged by world-leading experts in AI who conducted extensive due diligence and reviews of each team's application and their ability to meet the key criteria of achieved technical impact; evidenced real-world impact; scalability of real-world impact; and ethics and safety.

"To be named as one of the Top 3 global AI teams in the world is an incredible accomplishment and endorsement of our approach to better serving patients suffering from debilitating depression. Over the last 4 years, our AI technology and tools have been reviewed and validated by some of the best AI and subject matter talent on the planet. We are indebted to the XPRIZE organization and IBM Watson for their leadership and vision throughout the process. The prize money, along with our C$4 million seed financing that closed in December 2020, is being used to fund the clinical trial required to attain US FDA and Health Canada approval for our AI decision support device for depression and will also permit us to further develop our therapy-agnostic AI tool in other areas of high unmet medical need", declared Marina Massingham, CEO.

Dr. David Benrimoh, Chief Scientific Officer added: "We began Aifred Health because of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE and our belief that modern AI tools could be developed and applied to identify patterns in clinical data that would allow the use of simple personal information to choose the right treatment for each individual patient. I want to thank all of the incredibly talented people who have worked with and supported us as employees, students, investigators, advisors, investors, physicians, and patients for their contributions to creating and building Aifred."

About Aifred Health

Aifred Health, a Montreal based healthcare technology company, is delivering clinician-focused solutions for the treatment of mental health including electronic access to best practices guidelines and a world-class AI approach to providing decision support for personalized therapeutic choices for clinical depression. Aifred is initiating its regulatory approval clinical trial for decision support for therapeutic treatment choice for depression in H1/2021. For more information, please see www.aifredhealth.com.

SOURCE Aifred Health Inc.