INNOVATIVE healthcare solutions provider Novartis Malaysia has made a breakthrough that can save the lives of many potential heart attack victims with its real-time, fully-digitised platform AXON – an electronic device that can predict the likelihood of patients experiencing life-threatening clinical outcomes.
AXON will allow cardiovascular specialists to screen high-risk patients on time and provide necessary interventions much earlier, thereby improving their quality of living and survival outcomes.
The tool is able to predict clinical outcomes of patients within one year of undergoing a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedure – more commonly known as balloon angioplasty.
This pilot project is the first machine-learning-powered platform developed in Malaysia that can predict cardiac events for heart disease patients’ post-PCI.
Novartis Malaysia has recently won the Medical Technology-Pharmaceuticals Award for its AXON at the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards 2022.
Hosted by the Singapore Business Review, the awards are now in its fourth year of spotlighting outstanding companies that made exceptional contributions in pursuit of technological innovation.
AXON is the result of a unique collaboration between Novartis Global Service Centre Kuala Lumpur’s CONEXTS team and internal specialists who prove high-quality commercial, scientific, legal, digital, and consulting services and solutions across the organisation.
This project is a research collaboration between Novartis, Malaysia’s leading cardiovascular centres and renowned cardiologists.
In Malaysia, coronary artery disease remains the leading cause of death for Malaysians of all genders and ethnicities, hence posing a huge economic disease burden impact. A common procedure to treat complex coronary artery blockages with unstable angina and heart attack is balloon angioplasty.
According to the Health Ministry (MOH), some 11,000 PCI procedures are conducted yearly in Malaysia, placing a huge burden on the country’s stressed healthcare ecosystem. The cases were recorded at the National Heart Institute (IJN) and other hospitals under the MOH, including Serdang Hospital and Penang Hospital.
“AXON harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and insights from data analytics that optimises individualised disease management,” commented Novartis Global Service Centre Kuala Lumpur’s head Akhil Kapoor.
“We believe its methodology and machine learning model can be adapted to other diseases such as diabetes – prevalent in 18.3% of Malaysian adults – thus reducing the burden on the local healthcare ecosystem exponentially.” – June 16, 2022
