ScreenCancer Mole Scanner - Easily accessible mole scanning service for early detection of skin cancer.

Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease. Specially, skin cancer is in many cases hard to diagnose. Discriminating suspicious moles to be biopsied from normal moles requires experience and training in the use of a dermatoscope. E.g. in France only 8% of GPs have access to a dermatoscope leading to unnecessary medical referrals, which delay the diagnosis. Moreover, malignant melanoma is the fastest growing cancer, so early diagnosis and intervention is vital for a positive outcome. To this end ScreenCancer has developed the ScreenCancer Mole Scanner (SCMS), a high quality, low threshold “pop-in” service for screening of suspicious moles easily available in pharmacies and skin clinics. The instrument provides a dermatoscopic image, a clinical image of the surroundings, patient information, image storage and transfer of data to a remote specialist (tele-dermatology) solution, all embedded into the Mole Navigator platform. The image is analyzed by an algorithm which can recognize malignant or suspicious moles (99%sensitivity, 73% specificity) and recommend biopsy or further inspection by a dermatologist. This service can remove a worry or allow early intervention against skin cancer being an affordable life-saving service making early detection of skin cancer easier than ever. To date, the company has obtained close to €3,5 million in funding from VC and grants (Innovation Norway) and reached €660.000 turnover in the last year from sales of their current service. ScreenCancer has also obtained a long term loan of €400.000 from innovation Norway. The proposed work in Phase 1 of the SME instrument fits into the overall plan to reach the market by contributing the financial resources needed to plan a fast sound wider deployment of SCMS and its market uptake.