Tech giant Google Cloud and global enterprise Bayer are partnering to develop AI applications aimed at reducing radiologist burnout and increasing efficiencies in diagnoses.  

Bayer will expand its innovation platform by using Google Cloud technology, including its generative AI tools. Other tools that will be available on the platform include Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, BigQuery, Healthcare API and Chronicle. 

The offering is intended to help organizations build scalable and compliant AI-enabled software for medical imaging while ensuring data security.

Bayer’s new platform will be available for extended testing to E.U. and U.S users later this year. 

"Radiologists and other clinicians face burnout due to the sheer volume of work they face every day. Gen AI can help tackle repetitive tasks and provide insights into massive data sets, saving valuable time and helping to positively impact patient outcomes. We look forward to our continued collaboration with Bayer as it shapes the future of diagnostics and helps its customers deliver insights to patients with greater accuracy and speed," Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said in a statement. 

THE LARGER TREND

Bayer Equity Investments, the investment arm of the pharma giant, announced a partnership with digital diabetes-management company One Drop in 2020. Bayer led the company’s $34.7 million in Series C funding that included a deal worth $64 million in development fees and potential commercial milestone payments. The deal had the potential to secure One Drop $100 million in new funds.

In 2021, the pharma giant partnered with AI-based assessment platform Ada Health on a chatbot that allows Bayer website users to identify the best care pathways based on their risk factors and symptoms. 

A year later, Bayer partnered with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to launch a digital hub for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension. The hub focused on virtual patient referrals and enabling knowledge exchange between primary care physicians, specialists and patients. 

Google Cloud teamed up in 2022 with Fitbit Health Solutions for a data-analytics software dubbed Device Connect for Fitbit. The application allows Fitbit users to make their data available to providers, and is interoperable with clinical data. 

Google Cloud also teamed up with pharmacy Rite Aid and announced a multiyear technology collaboration. The partnership moved Rite Aid applications, such as vaccine scheduling, customer messaging and digital engagement, to Google Cloud.

In March, health IT provider Magentus tapped Google Cloud’s generative AI tools to help build a centralized and secure foundation for customer data in the cloud, aiming to assist providers by extracting insights from unstructured medical data.