PLAKK, a Montreal-based Medtech start-up, was founded in 2019 with the mission to revolutionize the prediction, treatment, and prevention of heart attacks and strokes, the leading causes of death and disability worldwide, by improving the identification and characterization of dangerous (i.e. unstable) atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary and carotid arteries of the heart and neck.
“Trying to treat arteries without assessing plaque composition is like trying to treat hypertension without measuring blood pressure!”– – Stella S. Daskalopoulou, Co-Founder/CMO – ClinicianScientist/Associate Professor in Medicine at McGill University
Current clinical guidelines recommend surgical removal of plaques or intervention based solely on the degree of artery blockage caused by the plaque. However, blockage alone is an incomplete and imperfect determinant of heart attack or stroke risk, thus, leading to suboptimal medical decisions and inappropriate treatment allocation. Instead, research has shown that plaque composition is a more accurate indicator of plaque instability and better predictor of clinical outcomes.
To address this clinical need, PLAKK offers healthcare professionals and researchers an artificial intelligence-based image analysis platform, that harnesses the power of computer vision in medical imaging to provide:
1) an accessible, cost-effective, and fast approach to characterizing plaque composition and,
2) an accurate heart attack or stroke risk score by taking into account patients’ clinical and plaque characteristics.
Atherosclerosis currently costs the Canadian health care system $22 billion each year in direct and indirect costs with a significant portion of this loss due to unnecessary surgeries and ineffective preventive strategies. At PLAKK, we build disruptive software solutions that
a) improve clinical decision-making processes and patient clinical outcomes by achieving early detection, effective prevention, and improved treatment of atherosclerotic disease, and
b) reduce the economic burden that atherosclerosis places on our healthcare system.
Our growing and dynamic team comprises Kashif Khan (CEO), Karina Gasbarrino Ph.D. (COO), Nicolas Bent (CTO), Stella S. Daskalopoulou MD Ph.D. (CMO), and Robert Brown Ph.D. (Technical Advisor), who are passionately committed to establishing PLAKK as a global leader in artificial intelligence-powered healthcare technology that will transform clinical care for patients suffering from atherosclerosis.
