Alibaba’s AI cancer detection tool clears FDA hurdle for faster approval process

Alibaba Group Holding’s research arm, Damo Academy, has secured a key endorsement from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cancer detection tool, as Chinese technology giants look to play a larger role in the global healthcare industry.

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.

Alibaba established Damo Academy in 2017, with focus areas including AI and the open-source chip architecture RISC-V. The research group is behind a series of RISC-V processors named XuanTie, which includes a server-grade central processing unit announced in February.

South China Morning Post