news

7th Annual ALS Research Symposium

November 5, 2024

On Thursday (November 14) at 1:20 PM ET, Modality’s CEO David "DSO" Suendermann-Oeft and Senior Research Scientist Hardik Kothare will present our work on "Multimodal Speech Biomarkers for Remote Monitoring of ALS Disease Progression" at the 7th Annual ALS Research Symposium hosted by ALS-ONE. On Friday (November 15) at 11 AM ET, DSO will join the neurotechnology panel “From Nice to Have to “Must Have” - What it Takes” moderated by Everything ALS collaborator Karl A Sillay, MD. Further details: https://www.alsoneresearchsymposium.org. 

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Five New ALS Publication Acceptances

October 3, 2024

At Modality.AI, ALS remains at the very heart of our mission, so we're pleased to share that our research has recently been recognized with five new presentations at three seminal ALS conferences, highlighting the impact of our work in the field. We'll be actively participating in the following conferences where we look forward to sharing our latest findings and engaging with the global ALS community:

Annual NEALS Meeting - October 21-24, Clearwater, Florida

• Towards Personalized Prediction of ALS Disease Progression Trajectories using Digital Speech Biomarkers

• Canonical Timing Alignment of Read Speech in ALS is Correlated with Perceived Speech Impairment and Listener Effort 

ALS ONE Research Symposium - November 13-15, Online

• Multimodal Speech Biomarkers for Remote Monitoring of ALS Disease Progression

International Symposium on ALS/MND -  December 6-8, Montreal, Canada 

• Towards Improving Clinical Trial Design and Participant Stratification in ALS with Digital Speech Biomarkers

• Linguistic Features of Automatically Transcribed Speech from ALS Patients

Please let Meredith Bartlett know if you will be attending any of these conferences, and let’s make time to connect in person.

We're also proud to announce a new partnership with Target ALS, which will further advance our collective efforts against this challenging disease (see news item below).

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Target ALS and Modality.AI Collaborate in Multimodal Study of ALS

September 26, 2024

Target ALS, the global foundation for ALS research, is partnering with Modality.AI to launch a groundbreaking direct-to-participant study. The study will utilize Modality's innovative digital health platform to monitor disease progression in ALS patients. The study, part of the Global Natural History Study, will recruit 150 participants across five international sites, including Spanish-speaking countries where the first two participants have been enrolled.

Modality’s AI-driven platform uses a virtual guide to capture participants' speech and facial biomarkers, activities of daily living such as brushing their hair and washing their face, and various cognitive tasks such as word recall and sequential movements, providing a self-directed assessment from the comfort of participants' homes. This approach promises to enhance patient diversity, retention, and the sensitivity of tracking ALS progression.

“Modality.AI’s technology is at the forefront of digital health technologies being evaluated for the utility of predicting and tracking disease progression in ALS patients,” says Amy Easton, Senior Director of Scientific Programs at Target ALS. "These technologies are being developed to allow clinicians, patients, and caregivers to measure disease symptoms more sensitively and reliably than standard clinical assessments, and in the future, may even replace clinical outcome assessments used to evaluate novel treatments for ALS."

Learn more about this innovative collaboration in the full Press Release.

Research from this pioneering study will be made available on the Target ALS Data Engine: https://dataportal.targetals.org/collections 

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Meeting at Movement Disorders Conference

September 24, 2024

If you're heading to Philadelphia for the International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders®, we invite you to connect with Modality's Head of Science Sales, Meredith Bartlett. Convened by the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society, this annual conference brings together clinicians, researchers, trainees, and industry supporters interested in current research and new approaches to diagnosing and treating movement disorders.

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Webinar: Digital Biomarkers in CNS  Trials

September 18, 2024

Join us on Friday, September 27 at 10 AM PT as we discuss digital biomarkers that use audiovisual signals to assess how trial participants feel and function, analyzing their speech, language, facial movements, body movements, communicative and cognitive behaviors, and other traits. 

Our discussion will center around a recent paper by Modality.AI’s Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan titled "Multimodal Technologies for Remote Assessment of Neurological and Mental Health" We’ll explore:

• The role of automated audiovisual analytics in assessing conditions like Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and schizophrenia

• How Modality.AI’s multimodal platform leverages a point-in-time interaction with the virtual guide Tina to enable objective, sensitive, robust, reproducible, explainable, self-administered, clinically and analytically validated, real-time CNS assessments

• The deployment and impact of these technologies in traditional and decentralized clinical trials

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INTERSPEECH 2024

September 10, 2024

Last week, three Modality team members flew to Kos, Greece to present across multiple tracks at INTERSPEECH 2024, the world’s largest and most important speech science and technology conference.

• Our Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan, co-organized and co-chaired a special session on Speech and Language in Health: From Remote Monitoring to Medical Conversations. This session brought together researchers in the field of speech and language analysis for health applications, with contributions ranging from exploratory research to robust tools for clinical use. 

• At the Young Female Researchers in Speech Workshop (YFRSW), Research Intern Emma Leschly presented work titled Towards Interpretable Deep Learning for Neurological Assessment. 

• During the Pathological Speech Analysis session, Emma presented work first-authored by Research Scientist Michael Neumann: Multimodal Digital Biomarkers for Longitudinal Tracking of Speech Impairment Severity in ALS: An Investigation of Clinically Important Differences.

• At the Speech and Language in Health special session, Vikram presented work first-authored by Senior Research Scientist Hardik Kothare titled How Consistent Are Speech-Based Biomarkers in Remote Tracking of ALS Disease Progression Across Languages? A Case Study of English and Dutch and Research Scientist Oliver Roesler presented his work titled Towards Scalable Remote Assessment of Mild Cognitive Impairment Via Multimodal Dialog.

• Finally, during a special session on Thursday connecting speech-science and speech-technology for children's speech, Vikram presented work first-authored by UCSF collaborator Carly Demopoulos titled Preliminary Investigation of Psychometric Properties of a Novel Multimodal Dialog Based Affect Production Task in Children and Adolescents with Autism.

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New Publication: Multimodal Technologies for Remote Assessment of Neurological and Mental Health

August 29, 2024

A scientific article by Modality.AI Chief Science Officer Vikram Ramanarayanan reviewing the advantages of using multimodal technologies for remote assessment of neurological and mental health was recently published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Titled “Multimodal Technologies for Remote Assessment of Neurological and Mental Health,” the article reviews findings from various research studies as well as from the Research Symposium at the 2023 ASHA Convention. The discussed work combines multiple modalities of health information – speech acoustics, natural language, conversational dynamics, orofacial and full body movement, eye gaze, respiration, as well as cardiopulmonary and neural signals – extracted remotely from various signal sources – audio, video, text, or sensors.  This allows for improvements in (a) scientific interpretability, (b) performance on downstream health applications such as early detection and progress monitoring, (c) technological robustness, and (d) user experience. The paper also illustrates how these principles are implemented in Modality.AI’s assessments today. 

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Making Patients Heard in Clinical Trials – The Patient Report of Problems™ (PROP™)

August 23, 2024

How can we capture a fuller picture of patient experiences in clinical trials? In this recording of a recent Modality webinar, we discuss the Patient Report of Problems™ (PROP™) and the role it can play in bringing patient perspectives into clinical research, ensuring the data collected is relevant and meaningful.

Our special guest: Andrew McGarry, MD, head of the Clinical Development Division at Clintrex, where he brings extensive expertise in analyzing and interpreting preclinical and clinical data. Dr McGarry has significant experience designing Phase 1 - 3 clinical trials, overseeing study enrollment, and ensuring the safety of numerous studies, including serving as Chair of the Safety Monitoring Committee. 

Watch now to learn how PROP can enhance the quality and reliability of your clinical trials. 

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Modality to Present Four Papers at Premier Speech Conference

July 30, 2024

Interspeech, taking place in Greece September 1–5, is the world’s most important speech technology conference, a meeting point for professionals across the spectrum from academic researchers to industry experts. 

The four accepted papers showcase Modality’s work in developing multimodal digital biomarkers for neurological and mental health conditions. By analyzing speech, facial expressions, movements, and patient-reported symptoms through our conversational AI platform, Modality.AI is advancing the state of the art in measuring, diagnosing and remotely monitoring these conditions.

• MCI: Towards Scalable Remote Assessment of Mild Cognitive Impairment Via Multimodal Dialog  O. Roesler, J. Liscombe, M. Neumann, H. Kothare, A. Hosamath, L. Arbatti, D. Habberstad, C. Suendermann-Oeft, M. Bartlett, C. Zhang, N. Sukhdev, K. Wilms, A. Badathala, S. Istas, S. Ruhmel, B. Hansen, M. Hannan, D. Henley, A. Wallace, I. Shoulson, D. Suendermann-Oeft and V. Ramanarayanan

• ALS: Multimodal Digital Biomarkers for Longitudinal Tracking of Speech Impairment Severity in ALS: An Investigation of Clinically Important Differences M. Neumann, H. Kothare, J. Liscombe, E.C.L. Leschly, O. Roesler and V. Ramanarayanan

• ALS: How Consistent are Speech-Based Biomarkers in Remote Tracking of ALS Disease Progression Across Languages? A Case Study of English and Dutch H. Kothare, M. Neumann, C. Zhang, J. Liscombe, J.W.J. van Unnik, L.C.M .Botman, L.H. van den Berg, R.P.A. van Eijk and V. Ramanarayanan

• AUTISM: Preliminary Investigation of Psychometric Properties of a Novel Multimodal Dialog Based Affect Production Task in Children and Adolescents with Autism C. Demopoulos, L. Lampinnen, C. Preciado, H. Kothare, V. Ramanarayanan

We at Modality are also committed to shaping and contributing to community discourse around standardizing the use of speech biomarkers in the digital healthcare ecosystem. At Interspeech, our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Vikram Ramanarayanan, is part of the organizing committee of a special session on Speech and Language in Health: from Remote Monitoring to Medical Conversations. 

In addition to Vikram and Drs. Oliver Roesler and Hardik Kothare, two of our 2024 research interns, Emma Leschly and Cathy Zhang, will attend the conference. Emma and Cathy were invited to participate in the Young Female Researchers in Speech Workshop at Interspeech 2024 on the basis of their rigorous scientific work at Modality - their conference fees were waived and each was awarded a stipend. We are proud of our team's commitment to research and sharing key findings through publications and conferences.

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Modality.AI Celebrates Milestone with 100th Peer-Reviewed Publication

July 17, 2024

We are proud to announce a significant milestone in Modality.AI's journey of advancing clinical research. Our team has achieved 100 peer-reviewed publications, underscoring our commitment to scientific excellence and innovation. 

This achievement is marked by the publication of a groundbreaking study in the journal Neurology: Clinical Practice titled “Cognitive Symptoms in Cross-Sectional Parkinson Disease Cohort Evaluated by Human-in-the-Loop Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing.” The article was co-authored by our late Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Ira Shoulson, MD, who was the senior author alongside Modality Chief Operating Officer Lakshmi Arbatti, MS, and Data Scientist, Abhishek Hosamath, MBM. The study exemplifies our dedication to leveraging the patient’s voice and technology in clinical research to enhance clinical monitoring. In this study, we examined problems self-reported by over 25,000 PD patients collected using the PD-PROP™, Dr. Shoulson’s brainchild, through the online Fox Insight platform. Study results highlighted the cognitive challenges faced by people living with Parkinson’s disease (PD), revealing that up to 32% of patients report substantial cognitive symptoms early on in their illness.

Dr. Shoulson's visionary leadership, invaluable contributions, and commitment to making patient voices heard continue to inspire our work. His legacy of rigorous scientific inquiry and dedication to improving patient outcomes through innovative research remains a cornerstone of Modality.AI.

As we celebrate this milestone, we remain committed to pushing the boundaries of clinical research outside traditional clinic settings and into patients’ homes. We sincerely thank our team, collaborators, and the scientific community for their support and contributions.

All 100 publications can be found at: https://modality.ai/publications 

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In Conversation:
"A Turning Point in ALS Trials"
with Karl Kieburtz, MD, MPH

June 28, 2024

Modality is building the most comprehensive audio/visual dataset of people living with ALS to enable biopharma organizations to run more informative clinical trials. New measures of what patients say and do can provide key insights into understanding the course of disease progression in natural history studies and treatment effects in clinical trials.  In this 45-minute conversation, Modality CEO David "DSO" Suendermann-Oeft discusses advancements in digital endpoints and the potential to accelerate clinical research with special guest Karl Kieburtz, MD, MPH, the Co-Founder and Chair of Clintrex, and principal investigator for numerous multi-center trials in neurology over multiple decades. We are pleased to share this recording of their discussion over Zoom on International ALS/MND Day - June 21, 2024.

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Modality CEO to Present at the 7th Annual
Digital Biomarkers in Clinical Trials Summit

June 23, 2024

This week, Modality's CEO, David "DSO" Suendermann-Oeft, will attend the Digital Biomarkers in Clinical Trials Summit, which is now in its seventh year. The summit brings into focus new digital health tools (DHT) that can supplement existing biomarker strategies to collect better data and improve the patient experience in clinical trials. DSO will be joining over 40 speakers and advisors, 300+ senior-level pharma, clinical trials, technology, and digital health executives in person on June 26, 2024, at Roche Headquarters in Basel. Please be sure to connect if you’re attending.

Poster: When Words Speak Just as Loudly as Actions: Virtual Guide Based Remote Health Assessment Integrating What Patients Say with What They Do

Abstract: We present a unified multimodal dialog platform for the remote assessment and monitoring of patients' neurological and mental health. Tina, a virtual agent, guides participants through an immersive interaction wherein objective speech, facial, linguistic and cognitive biomarkers can be automatically computed from participant speech and video in near real-time. Furthermore, Tina encourages participants to describe, in their own words, their most bothersome problems and what makes them better or worse through the Patient Report of Problems (PROP) instrument. We argue that combining these patient reports (i.e., what they say) with objective biomarkers (i.e., how they say it and what they do) can greatly enhance the quality of telemedicine and improve the efficacy of siteless trials and digital therapeutic interventions.

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Modality CEO Interviewed by Bio.News

June 21, 2024

Modality.AI was one of the companies supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) SEED program chosen to present on the NIH Innovation Zone Stage at the 2024 BIO International Convention. Bio.News interviewed Modality's co-founder and CEO, Dr. David Suendermann-Oeft, about our work and vision for the future of AI-based neurological assessments.

https://bio.news/health/modality-ai-nih-innovation-zone-bio-international-convention-2024/ 

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Modality CEO Presents at ALS Meetings in Sweden

June 15, 2024

This week, June 17-20, Modality.AI CEO David Suendermann-Oeft will present at the ENCALS Meeting taking place in Stockholm. ENCALS is a network of European University and hospital centers active in clinical/research activity in ALS.  

Ahead of ENCALS he will attend a meeting hosted by Precision ALS, a pan-European organization working to build a “Patient Data Platform” so that research sites across Europe can work together towards a common goal of finding a treatment for ALS. 

David will present two posters at ENCALS: 

• Multimodal Digital Biomarkers for Longitudinal Tracking of Speech Impairment Severity in ALS: An Investigation of Clinically Important Differences 

• How Consistent are Speech-Based Biomarkers in Remote Tracking of ALS Disease Progression Across Languages? A Case Study of English and Dutch

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Modality Webinar: A Turning Point in ALS Trials

June 12, 2024

June 21st is the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice – a turning point – and on this day the ALS/MND community undertakes activities to express their hope for a turning point in the search for cause, treatment and cure of ALS/MND. To drive a turnaround in trials for ALS and other neurological diseases we at Modality advocate for new tools that increase understanding of the course of disease and response to treatment. Together with MGH and Everything ALS and more recently Verge Genomics, Modality’s platform is building the most comprehensive audio/visual dataset of people living with ALS. 

We invite you to join us on Friday, June 21 at 11 AM PT for a 45-minute live webinar in which we will share highlights from our recent publications and discuss advancements in digital endpoints and the potential to accelerate clinical research with special guest Karl Kieburtz, MD, MPH, Co-Founder and Chair of Clintrex, and principal investigator for numerous multi-center trials in neurology.

Please register here: A Turning Point in ALS Trials (you'll be prompted to "Sign in with Zoom" or "verify with email"). 

Also this month, some opportunities to meet in person:

• Precision ALS June 16, Stockholm 

• ENCALS  June 17-20, Stockholm 

• Digital Biomarkers in Clinical Trials June 26, Basel

If you or a colleague are also attending, please connect with our CEO, David "DSO" Suendermann-Oeft: david.suendermann-oeft@modality.ai  

New measures of what patients say and do can provide key insights into understanding the course of disease progression in natural history studies and treatment effects in clinical trials. I hope you can tune into the webinar on the 21st, but if not feel free to register anyway and we will share a recording.  

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Modality.AI Joins Digital Medicine Society's DATAcc to Advance Digital Endpoints in Clinical Trials

June 6, 2024

We are excited to announce that Modality.AI has joined the Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community (DATAcc) by the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) alongside the FDA, multiple top 10 pharmaceutical companies, and several academic institutions and innovators focusing on digital health measurement. This collaboration aims to enhance the development and deployment of digital endpoints in clinical trials, driving innovation and inclusivity in healthcare research.

Making the Case for Digital Endpoints in Clinical Trials

Digital endpoints are transforming clinical trials by making them more patient-centric, data-driven, and adaptable. However, widespread adoption remains challenging due to the need for clear value assessments and efficient deployment strategies. DATAcc aims to address these challenges by developing a framework and resources to communicate the business case for digital endpoints in clinical trials.

Modality.AI's Role

Modality.AI brings its expertise in automated, multimodal systems for assessing neurological and psychiatric conditions to the DATAcc community. Our conversational AI system monitors conditions through speech and facial measurements and is deployed in observational studies and interventional clinical trials for conditions such as ALS, Parkinson’s, and schizophrenia. By joining DATAcc, Modality.AI aims to contribute to the collective effort of advancing digital health measurement and ensuring inclusivity in clinical research.

Looking Ahead

As part of DATAcc, Modality.AI will collaborate with industry leaders to advocate for the transformative potential of digital measures. This partnership underscores our commitment to leveraging technology to accelerate clinical trials, improve efficiency, and expand the understanding of therapeutic effects.

Further information about this initiative can be found at: https://datacc.dimesociety.org/building-the-business-case-for-digital-endpoints 

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Modality.AI Presenting at BIO 

June 3, 2024

Join us at the BIO International Convention, June 3-6 in San Diego where CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft will present:

• Wed, June 5, 2:45 PM in Company Presentation Theater 4 and

• Thu, June 6, 12:15 PM at the NIH Booth (#825), in the U.S. Federal Area in Hall B.

BIO is the industry’s largest event, connecting over 20,000 industry leaders from around the world. If you're attending BIO, I encourage you to check out David's talk and plan to meet. We'd love to discuss how our platform can enhance your understanding of treatment efficacy in clinical trials.

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ALS Drug Development Summit 

May 19, 2024

Meet Modality CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft this week at the 3rd Annual ALS Drug Development Summit. 40+ industry leading speakers from the likes of Biogen, Novartis, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB, Denali, AbbVie and Verge Genomics will converge on Boston to discuss biomarkers, novel surrogate endpoints advancing beyond ALSFRS-R, emerging therapeutic targets, combination therapies, new drug modalities and clinical trial designs.

https://www.als-drug-development.com  

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International Seminar on Speech Production 

May 18, 2024

Modality Research Scientist, Michael Neumann, attended the 13th International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP) in Autrans, France to present a poster titled “On The Utility of a Single-Breath Counting Task for the Remote Digital Assessment of Respiratory Function in ALS”. ISSP provides an interdisciplinary forum for researchers working on all aspects of speech production, including articulation, acoustics, neural substrates, motor control, disorders, and its links to perception, communication, development and language.  

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In Memory of Ira Shoulson MD 

May 17, 2024

It is with uttermost sadness that we need to convey the news that Ira Shoulson, our highly respected and inaugural Chief Medical Officer, passed away this week. He is considered one of the greatest clinicians and researchers in the field of neurology, shaping how Parkinson's Disease and Huntington's Disease are understood today through hundreds of scientific papers, trials he led, and therapeutical interventions he developed. 

Ira was a founder who created organizations such as the Parkinson Study Group, the Huntington Study Group, and Grey Matter Technologies, formed powerful alliances to bring these organizations to fruition and everlasting, growing impact. He was a visionary, one of whose greatest aspirations was to make patients heard, which led him to conceptualize the Patient Report of Problems, now one of the hallmarks of Modality, and form the Making Patients Heard Research Foundation. 

Ira never stood still, never gave up, and provided us and the people around him with invaluable insights until the very end. His legacy will be carried forward through us, his students, mentees, colleagues and friends, for generations to come.

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Digital Biomarker Summit USA 

May 11, 2024

Regeneron sponsors the second annual Digital Biomarker Summit bringing together biopharma industry leaders including Modality's CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft at their headquarters in Tarrytown, New York, on May 14. The summit will cover advancements in digital assessments in observational and interventional clinical research and the latest updates on the regulatory readiness of these technologies.  

At the conference, David will speak on a panel on the 'Future Beyond Digital Endpoints' to discuss opportunities in digital phenotyping, the use of AI and LLMs in clinical research, and developments in digital therapeutics.  

Modality will also showcase a poster on their virtual guide-based multimodal remote assessment platform, which combines digital biomarkers with patient-reported outcomes.

https://digitalbiomarkersusa.panagorapharma.com 

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Target ALS Annual Conference 

May 9, 2024

Modality CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft (DSO), and Head of Scientific Sales, Meredith Bartlett attended the 10th Annual Target ALS Meeting in Boston, May 7 - 9. Participants included 124 Pharma/Biotech companies, 102 academic institutions, 37 non-profit organizations - and a dozen VC firms. Founder Dan Doctoroff (pictured with Meredith) announced the organization had exceeded its goal of raising $250 million.  

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Meet us at LSX World Congress 

April 22, 2024

For the fourth year running, Modality.AI CEO David Suendermann-Oeft will attend the annual LSX World Congress, an industry-leading gathering in London - April 29-30. The 10th LSX World Congress is a leading partnering, strategy and investment event in Europe, bringing together the CEOs and senior decision makers from innovative biopharma, medtech and healthtech companies with investors, business development teams, R&D leaders and industry key opinion leaders. LSX highlights the breadth and depth of research and technology driving the advances in medicine.

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World Parkinson's Day 

April 11, 2024

Today we celebrate #WorldParkinsonsDay and the focus it brings to this challenging disease. Parkinson's Europe estimates it affects 10 million people globally and as the fastest-growing neurological condition that number is expected to double in the next 25 years, affecting people of all races and cultures, mostly over 60 years of age, but one in ten are under 50. 

Many biopharma companies are working on symptom remediation and ultimately a cure but to date no disease-modifying therapies are available.  

Modality.AI has published extensively on our research and collaboration including a five years long study with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

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Assessing Expressive Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia 

April 2, 2024

Today at the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) Annual Congress in Florence, Italy our collaborators with the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research will present a poster titled “AI Driven Platform to Detect Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia Through Facial and Acoustic Analysis" to answer the question: "Would a novel artificial intelligence (AI) system analyzing facial and acoustic features be equivalent to traditional measurement of expressive negative symptoms in schizophrenia?"

Conclusions: 

▪ Speech and facial AI technology could aid in negative symptoms assessments

▪ The NEMSI showed adequate reliability, validity, and internal consistency

▪ The NEMSI metrics showed significant separation between schizophrenia and HCs

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Modality CSO Presents at AAAI Conference

March 5, 2024

This year’s AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-24) accepted two publications from our team:

• Towards Remote Differential Diagnosis of Mental and Neurological Disorders Using Automatically Extracted Speech and Facial Features presents an analysis of the utility, as measured by sensitivities and specificities, of multimodal features for the assessment of different health conditions. 

• On The Feasibility of Multimodal Dialog Based Remote Balance Assessment analytically validates a novel, dialog-driven methodology for remote balance assessment, important for movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease. This demonstrates that Modality can measure yet another important modality of health information, i.e., body pose and movement. 

Modality’s Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan was also invited to be a part of an expert panel on Future Directions in ML/AI for Health at the Machine Learning for Cognitive and Mental Health Workshop. 

AAAI-24 promotes AI research and fosters scientific exchange between researchers, practitioners, scientists, students, and engineers across AI and affiliated disciplines.

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Interview with Modality.AI CEO

February 28, 2024

Clinical Trials Arena interviewed Modality CEO David Suendermann-Oeft following his panel appearance at the annual SCOPE conference. 

Abigail Beaney: Tell me about Tina, and what inspired you to create a service like this?

David Suendermann-Oeft: We want this technology to be as relatable as possible to the patient, so that they can build a relationship with Tina and have confidence in carrying out these regular assessments to provide as much evidence as possible to pharmaceutical companies and sponsors using the technology. We found technical ways in which you could capture information for example an app where you capture 15 seconds of speech, and then you hold a camera in front of your face and do some facial exercises, but it is not very relatable, it’s very technical. We believe that including relatability can make it a much more pleasant experience. In fact, patients report that they prefer to speak to Tina over a physician or human because she is never judgemental and always patient. You can have as much time as you want expressing yourself and sharing your thoughts.

Continued  at: https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/features/tina-modality-ai-neuodegenerative-disease-marker/ 

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Meet Modality.AI CEO in New York

February 23, 2024

Modality.AI founder and CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft (DSO for short) will be in New York February 26-27 for the annual Bio CEO & Investor Conference. This event brings together industry leaders, investors, and professionals from biotech and pharma. It serves as a platform for networking, collaboration, and discussion of the latest trends and developments in the life sciences industry. DSO will be available for meetings and discussions on Modality’s work in clinical trials.

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Presenting at the International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology

February 21, 2024

This week, Modality Senior Research Scientist, Hardik Kothare, PhD, was recognized as a New Investigator awardee during the opening of ISCTM’s 20th Annual Scientific Meeting and presented a poster on the relationship between sample size and responsiveness of speech-based digital biomarkers in ALS. 

The International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) is a prominent organization dedicated to advancing clinical research methods in CNS therapeutics. 

https://isctm.societyconference.com/v2/ 

Update: Our presentation won a "Distinguished Poster Award".

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Modality to Deliver Five Presentations at
Motor Speech Conference 2024

February 20, 2024

This week Lakshmi Arbatti and Vikram Ramanarayanan of our research team will attend the biannual Motor Speech Conference in San Diego, a biennial international conference for researchers who are interested in speech motor control and motor speech disorders. 

The 3rd biennial Signal Analytics for Motor Speech (SAMS) workshop also occurs the day before the conference, to bring together the engineering community and the motor speech community to explore their intersection and foster new collaborations. 

Our team had five presentations accepted to the conference in four disease areas: 

PARKINSON'S DISEASE

Computational Linguistics Analysis of Cognition-Related Problems Reported by Parkinson’s Disease Patients

A. Hosamath, L. Arbatti, H. Kothare, S. Desai, I. Shoulson and V. Ramanarayanan 

PARKINSON'S DISEASE / HUNTINGTON DISEASE

Multimodal Dialog Based Remote Assessment of Balance in Parkinson’s Disease and Other Movement Disorders

N. Sukhdev, O. Roesler, M. Neumann, S. Desai, I. Shoulson and V. Ramanarayanan

ALS

Analytical Validation of Canonical Timing Alignment and Other Timing-Related Speech Biomarkers in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Extracted Automatically Using a Remote Patient Monitoring Platform

J. Liscombe, R. Bajjuri, H. Kothare and V. Ramanarayanan 

Analytical Validation of Facial Metrics in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Extracted Using a Multimodal Remote Patient Monitoring Platform

C. Zhang, O. Roesler, J. Liscombe, R. Bajjuri, H. Kothare, and V. Ramanarayanan 

AUTISM

Objective and Subjective Assessment of Facial and Vocal Affect Production in Autistic and Neurotypical Children and Adolescents. 

C. Demopoulos, L. Lampinen, C. Preciado, H. Kothare and V. Ramanarayanan

Program: https://www.madonna.org/motor-speech-archives

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Modality.AI CEO Presenting at SCOPE:
“The Promise of Speech and Video in Cognitive Evaluation”

February 8, 2024

Clinical research is fundamental to advancing medical knowledge, improving patient care, and developing new treatments. Now in its 15th year of fostering collaboration and innovation in clinical trials and clinical research, SCOPE Summit 2024 will take place February 11-14, in Orlando. 

Modality.AI founder and CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft will present “The Promise of Speech and Video in Cognitive Evaluation”.  Hosting the panel will be Stephen Ruhmel, Associate Director at J&J  Innovative Medicine. Also joining the panel will be Arthur Wallace, Vice Chair at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco. Together they will discuss details of a recent study to understand the feasibility and informativeness of the Modality platform in assessing mild cognitive impairment among veterans. Their discussion will underscore the significance of non-invasive and scalable digital measures for early detection and monitoring of neurocognitive conditions, in the convenience of patients’ homes.  

Measures produced by Modality’s platform include speech, language, facial expressions, body movements, cognitive tasks, and the Patient Report of Problems™, which analyzes what patients say in their own words about their illness.

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Modality Awarded Danish Bioinnovation Scholar

January 31, 2024

A Danish government institution has awarded Modality.AI (“Modality”) – developers of the Digital Lab Test, a pioneering AI platform to assess neurological and psychiatric conditions through analysis of what patients say and do – one of its six International Bionnovation Scholarships to fully fund a master’s scholar from a Danish university for one semester. 

Bioinnovation Program Manager Josefine Strandgaard explains that key selection criteria for companies include groundbreaking research-based technology, a diverse team of experienced scientists, and the provision of a dedicated project and mentor for the scholar’s research project. “Modality has the AI technology as well as a diverse and highly qualified team with backgrounds in health, data science, and enterprise technology development. It’s very unique,” says Strandgaard. Her team met with the Modality leadership in person, which fueled their interest in setting up a match with a Danish scholar.

Scholars are required to be in a master’s STEM program at a Danish university, and applicants to work with Modality were required to have bioinformatics and computer science degrees. Strandgaard – who has a background in entrepreneurship and moved to San Francisco in 2019 – worked with Modality to interview a short list of candidates, and ultimately, MSc student Emma Cathrine Liisborg Leschly was selected as the best match between Modality, the students, and the program. Emma is in her fifth and final year in the Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen specializing in machine learning and health tech and working as a teaching assistant. 

Emma shared: "I am very excited to spend a semester at Modality doing research and experiencing first-hand how it is to be part of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ecosystem."

Fully funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the program is administered by the Innovation Centre Denmark Silicon Valley based in Palo Alto and is a partnership between the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Higher Education and Science. Since the program's founding in 2019, 21 master's students from Danish Universities have gone through the program, bringing talented graduate students to Silicon Valley for a five-month research stay in a startup.

The scholarship covers the cost of student housing in San Francisco, stipend, health insurance, visa, and travel, as well as diverse entrepreneurial sessions and social events. The program strengthens ties between the Danish bioinnovation ecosystem and Silicon Valley technology companies.

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Interpretable Multimodal Modeling for Neurological and Mental Health

January 8, 2024

Modality’s Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan presented a session titled “Interpretable Multimodal Modeling for Neurological and Mental Health” as part of the 3 day hands-on “EEG Workshop 2024 - An Introduction to Neuroscience and EEG Processing” at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Tamil Nadu, India.

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Modality CEO to Present at Biotech Showcase

January 3, 2024

For thousands of companies and investors, the year gets off to a fast start with JP Morgan Week in San Francisco.  CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft  will present at the largest of several dozen related events, opening the Biotech Showcase conference on January 8th with a panel titled: “Neurodegenerative Disease: The Quest to Make it a Thing of the Past". He will share the spotlight with:

• Vivian Lee - Managing Director, Aqua Partners LLC

• Beth Hoffman - CEO, Origami Therapeutic

• Marc Jones - CEO, Altoida

• Michael Notaras - VP, Biotech Public Equities & Venture Capital, Decheng Capital

• Brent Vaughan - CEO, Cognito Therapeutics

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Modality Research Scientist wins ISCTM New Investigator Award

December 22, 2023

In 2012 the International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) created a program to recognize promising new investigators across the broad range of methodological, regulatory and substantive programmatic interests of the society. Up to five “New Investigator Award” applicants are selected each year.

We are very pleased to share that Modality Research Scientist, Hardik Kothare, PhD, will be recognized as a New Investigator awardee during the opening of ISCTM’s 20th Annual Scientific Meeting in February 2024. He will be presenting a poster on the relationship between sample size and responsiveness of speech-based digital biomarkers in ALS.

Congratulations Dr. Kothare!

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Modality CEO attending the International Symposium on ALS/MND

December 1, 2023

The Motor Neuron Disease Association (MNDA) and the ALS/MND research community come together for the 34th International Symposium on ALS/MND Symposium to discuss the latest advances in research and clinical management. Modality.AI CEO David Suendermann-Oeft will be in Basel and available to meet starting December 4th.

The Symposium is expected to attract over 1,000 delegates, representing the energy and dynamism of the global MND research community. It is the largest medical and scientific conference specific to MND/ALS and is the premier event in the MND research calendar for discussion on the latest advances in research and clinical management.

https://symposium.mndassociation.org 

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Verge Genomics Will Use Modality.AI in its ALS Phase 1b Clinical Trial of Lead Drug Candidate VRG50635

November 29, 2023

Modality’s multimodal AI platform will capture critical speech and language changes

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 29, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Verge Genomics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company transforming drug discovery using artificial intelligence and human data, announced that its Phase 1b proof-of-concept (POC) study of its lead drug candidate, VRG50635, will incorporate Modality.AI, the first automated, clinically validated, multimodal system to assess speech and language patterns. VRG50635 is a potential best-in-class small molecule inhibitor of PIKfyve that is in clinical development for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and is expected to move into Phase 1b in the coming months.

“Gradually deteriorating vocal communication is one of the major issues many people with ALS experience. It is, therefore, crucial for us to capture objective data to quantify changes in speech during therapeutic trials and explore how this data can be used to better understand the potential benefits of VRG50635,” said Diego Cadavid, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Verge Genomics.

“Endpoints used in ALS trials are often subjective, biased, and only limited objective biomarkers of neurological function are available. We are enthusiastic to incorporate Modality.AI in our first ALS trial with the PIKfyve inhibitor, VRG50635, because their multimodal platform has been extensively used by the broader ALS community and can provide insights into ALS disease progression,” said Anil Tarachandani, Ph.D., Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine at Verge Genomics. “There are several publications already on the ability of Modality’s platform to measure vocal communication in ALS. Using speech as an objective endpoint in ALS trials can provide evidence of the efficacy of potential therapeutic interventions, such as VRG50635.”

“At the core of both Verge Genomics and Modality.AI is the use of machine learning in combination with proprietary data sets to optimize drug development. While the Verge platform is designed to predict new drugs with a higher probability of clinical success, Modality.AI’s multimodal platform reduces inefficiencies in clinical trials of these new drugs, increasing the success probability even further by delivering more accurate and comprehensive insights into how these drugs may benefit people with ALS,” said David Suendermann-Oeft, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Modality.AI.

Modality.AI’s multimodal platform produces objective speech measures by analyzing what patients say, and how they say it, without a clinician present and without any special devices. A great advantage of this approach, particularly for ALS patients, is the ability to collect data not only at the clinic but also in the convenience of their homes, where they can use their own devices, such as a laptop or smartphone.

The collaboration with Modality.AI builds on Verge’s efforts to enhance how patient data will be collected in its Phase 1b study for VRG50635. Earlier this year, Verge announced a partnership with Emerald Innovations that will incorporate Emerald’s wireless digital biosensors in study participants’ homes to continuously measure key neurological functions affected by ALS, including sleeping, breathing, walking, and mobility.

Monitoring and data collection in clinical trials for ALS traditionally involve subjective patient or physician reporting that includes diaries and questionnaires coupled with periodic neurological and mobility assessments in a clinical setting. These procedures provide useful information but have limitations in their precision and ability to capture data at patients’ homes.

VRG50635 completed a Phase 1 single- and multiple-ascending dose clinical trial in healthy volunteers in June 2023. More information about the Phase 1 study is available at: https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN14792372.

About Verge Genomics

Verge Genomics is focused on developing therapeutics for complex diseases with high unmet need, using human genomics from patient disease tissues and machine learning. Verge has created the proprietary all-in-human CONVERGE® platform, featuring one of the field’s largest and most comprehensive databases of multi-omic patient data. The company is led by experienced computational biologists and drug developers who are successfully advancing clinical and preclinical therapeutic programs in various diseases, including ALS and Parkinson’s disease. For additional information, please follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter/X. 

Update: This news was featured in ALS News Today.

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Future of Parkinson’s Disease Conference

November 28, 2023

From Nov 30 – Dec 3, Modality’s head of Scientific Sales, Meredith Bartlett will attend the Future of Parkinson’s Disease Conference, in Austin, TX. The event is jointly organized by the Parkinson Study Group (founded by Modality’s CMO Ira Shoulson) and the Parkinson’s Foundation. Both organizations have undertaken multi-decade efforts to improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s through excellence in clinical care and research. Appreciating the critical role of educating clinical, patient, and research communities, the conference convenes leading investigators, coordinators, trainees, advocates, and allied stakeholders to exchange the latest advances and practices. 

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Journal article on internal tremor - published in Clinical Parkinsonism & Related Disorders

November 22, 2023

Internal Tremor in People with Parkinson’s Disease: Demographic Characteristics and Comorbid Symptoms

Internal tremors are sensations of trembling or shaking that are felt by the person with Parkinson's disease (PD) but may not be noticeable to others.  Internal tremor occurs in more than 30% of people with PD but remains largely uninvestigated. 

This paper, co-authored by three of our team members and published in the Elsevier journal Clinical Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, describes demographic characteristics and associated symptoms. 

Key findings include: 

• PD patients with internal tremor are more likely to report bothersome external tremor.

• Patients with internal tremor are more likely to report a range of nonmotor symptoms.

• In one-third of patients with internal tremor, anxiety is also a bothersome symptom.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prdoa.2023.100229 

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ASHA 2023 – American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Annual Convention

November 14, 2023

Modality’s Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan, will present two invited lectures at this week’s ASHA Convention ​​in Boston, November 15-18, 2023. 

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is a national professional, scientific, and credentialing association, and its annual convention brings together as many as 15,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists.

Collaborating with Vikram in the first masterclass is Prof. Yana Yunusova at the University of Toronto in a session titled “Integrating Speech Biomarkers and Outcome Measures Into Clinical Practice: Opportunities and Challenges.”  The second invited lecture – “Multimodal Conversational AI for Neurological and Mental Health Assessment” – will be delivered as part of a symposium organized by Jordan Green, PhD (MGH Institute of Health Professions) on “Artificial Intelligence in Communication Sciences & Disorders.”

In addition, Modality Senior Scientist, Jackson Liscombe will present “Speech Biomarkers of Lyme Disease: A First Exploratory Analysis”, which won a “Meritorious Poster” award and will be honored as part of ASHA’s “Changemaker Session.” A second poster “Assessing the Utility of Vowel Space Characteristics in Remotely Recorded Speech for ALS Progress Monitoring” will also be presented at the conference. 

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Winner of the 2023 ASHA Meritorious Poster award

November 7, 2023

Modality.AI's Lyme Disease poster has been awarded a “Meritorious Poster” award and honored as part of ASHA’s “Changemaker" Session.

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Huntington Study Group 2023

October 31, 2023

Since 1993, the Huntington Study Group (HSG) has hosted an annual, internationally recognized forum for training and education of Huntington’s disease (HD) researchers, and to share new research findings and treatments with the worldwide community. If you’re attending look out for Chief Medical Officer (and HSG founder!) Ira Shoulson, MD, and our Head of Scientific Sales, Meredith Bartlett.

Find out more at: https://huntingtonstudygroup.org/about/our-annual-meeting/ 

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Meredith Bartlett Joins Modality as Head of Scientific Sales

August 1, 2023

Meredith Bartlett, a former sales manager for Aural Analytics, developer of speech analytics software, has joined Modality as Head of Scientific Sales. Meredith brings expertise in speech disorders, with a master’s degree in communication disorders from George Washington University, and years of experience in speech and language therapy for patients with Parkinson’s disease, ALS, Huntington’s disease, stroke, and traumatic brain injury at institutions such as Barrow Neurological Institute and Dignity Health. 

Meredith transferred her skills to sales when hired as the first employee for SpeechVive, a medical device company developing speech support technology for people with Parkinson’s. Later, at Aural Analytics, she supported a diverse portfolio of pharmaceutical companies and nonprofit organizations.

Meredith is excited about working with Modality not only because she is familiar with speech technology but also because the platform goes further to include video. Particularly impressive, she says, is Modality’s integration with the PROP™ (Patient Report of Problems™) which prioritizes what patients say, and is now integrated with what patients do through the Modality Platform. “It’s so much more meaningful to have someone express what’s going on with them in their own words, and to be able to do so from the comfort and privacy of their own home.”

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Modality Team Invited to Present Five Breakthrough Papers at INTERSPEECH 2023

July 5, 2023

INTERSPEECH 2023 – the world’s largest and most significant speech technology conference – has accepted five breakthrough papers co-authored by Modality team members at its conference August 20-24 in Dublin, Ireland. The papers encapsulate Modality’s multimodal approach to identifying digital biomarkers – through speech, language, facial gestures, and limb movements as well as patients’ own verbal descriptions of their symptoms – for neurological and mental health disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, ALS, schizophrenia, and depression.

Vikram Ramanarayanan, Modality’s chief science officer, said it was remarkable to have this many papers from one startup accepted at the conference, which reflects the selection committee’s recognition of the significance of Modality’s scientific breakthroughs. 

Ramanarayanan is the lead author of the paper “When Words Speak Just as Loudly as Actions: Virtual Agent Based Remote Health Assessment Integrating What Patients Say with What They Do” Summarizing the paper, he says, “We capture objective biomarkers of what patients do and also listen to what they say.”

What differentiates Modality’s approach is that it has pioneered a holistic, unified product for early diagnosis and monitoring applications that integrates what patients say with objective biomarkers of their disease from multiple modalities – hence the company’s name – including speech, orofacial movement, cognition, and language. 

Three papers – all headed by Modality researchers as first authors – deal with ALS research. 

“Combining Multimodal Speech Features into an Interpretable Index Score for Capturing Disease Progress in ALS” by Michael Neumann et al. develops a single, clinically interpretable score to assess the progression of the disease.

Is remotely acquired data of sufficiently high quality as compared to data acquired in a controlled laboratory environment? Vanessa Richter et al. answer that in “Remote Assessment for ALS Using Multimodal Dialog Agents: Data Quality, Feasibility and Task Compliance” which validates remote data capture via a virtual agent and expands the ability of clinicians and researchers to diagnose and assess patients in their homes rather than in clinical settings, thus expanding access to lower-income patients in rural areas.

Hardik Kothare is first author on another seminal paper that quantifies and stratifies the longitudinal progression of limb and bulbar onset ALS, which is a crucial determinant in evaluating the effectiveness of drug treatments. The paper is titled “Responsiveness, Sensitivity and Clinical Utility of Timing-Related Speech Biomarkers for Remote Monitoring of ALS Disease Progression”

Neumann is lead author on the fifth accepted paper that explores how such multimodal biomarkers can differentiate between depression patients who are on antidepressant medications versus those who are not. The paper, “A Multimodal Investigation of Speech, Text, Cognitive and Facial Video Features for Characterizing Depression with and Without Medication,” could have a large impact on the treatment of depression.

Ramanarayanan, Neumann, and Kothare will be presenting their work in person at INTERSPEECH 2023. Ramanarayanan notes that the multidisciplinary nature of the Modality team – which includes clinical experience, signal processing, software engineering, natural language processing, computer vision, speech motor control, cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and machine learning expertise – contribute to producing a well-rounded, holistic, product. Attribution must also be given to Tina, a virtual team member, who engages the patient in an immersive conversational experience on the way toward creating more accurate assessments for better treatments and care.

We would like to thank the Peter Cohen Foundation for their collaboration, working with their community of people living with ALS through the ongoing Everything ALS speech study.

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6th Annual World
Parkinson Congress Presentations 

June 25, 2023

Our collaborators in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Purdue University and MGH/Harvard Medical School will present results from data collected using the Modality Platform in three poster sessions during the 6th Annual World Parkinson Congress, July 5-7 in Barcelona, Spain. Publications can be found https://modality.ai/publications/parkinsons-disease.

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Dr Amir Lahav Joins
Modality.AI's Board of Advisors 

May 31, 2023

We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Amir Lahav to our Board of Advisors. Dr. Lahav is a clinical neuroscientist and a leading innovator in digital health with a special focus on developing and validating novel digital biomarkers and AI-driven technology for remote monitoring of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. 

Amir has over 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry, academic research, clinical data science, and Around the Pill solutions. He is currently the Head of R&D at Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, and a consultant for several healthtech companies. 

Formerly, Amir served as the Head of Digital Innovation at Pfizer’s Rare Disease Unit, where he led the development of technology solutions and mobile health apps, from proof-of-concept studies to global scale-up implementation in clinical trials. Prior to pharma, Amir was a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator on multiple technology-driven clinical trials.

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6th World Parkinson Congress 2023

April 26, 2023

World Parkinson Coalition received a record number of submissions for the 6th World Parkinson Congress, so we’re pleased to report two abstracts featuring Modality's latest work in Parkinson’s were accepted.  We thank our collaborators at Purdue University and University of California, San Francisco.

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Modality Presentations at ASHA 2022

November 15, 2022

Modality.AI Senior Scientist, Jackson Liscombe speaks this week at the annual conference of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) on a panel titled "Digital Footprints: Use Digital Biomarkers to Support Clinical Decision Making in Motor Speech Disorders”. Jackson will be joined by Panying Rong, Visar Berisha, and Adam Lammert. 

Modality.AI Senior Scientist, Jackson Liscombe will also present “Use of a Telehealth Platform to Automatically Assess Prosodic Contours in Parkinson Disease”. 

The ASHA Convention is one of the largest professional development events for audiologists; speech-language pathologists; and speech, language, and hearing scientists.

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Modality Presentations at ICMI 2022

November 7, 2022

Two Modality.AI team members each presented papers this week at the International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2022) in Bangalore sharing our work in Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s. 

The first titled “Towards Multimodal Dialog-Based Speech & Facial Biomarkers of Schizophrenia” presented our scalable multimodal dialog platform for the remote digital assessment and monitoring of schizophrenia. 

The second “Exploring Facial Metric Normalization For Within- and Between-Subject Comparisons in a Multimodal Health Monitoring Agent” examined the use of facial metrics obtained through remote web-based platforms and showed promising results for at-home assessment of facial function in multiple neurological and mental disorders. 

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Expanded Advisory Board 

November 5, 2022

We have two new advisors joining Modality's Advisory Board - Karl Kieburtz and Niel Starksen.

Karl Kieburtz MD MPH is President of Clintrex Research Corporation and a Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester. In his academic career, he was the founding Director of the Center for Health & Technology, the initial Robert J. Joynt Professor in Neurology, and served as the Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research and Director of the Clinical & Translational Science Institute in Rochester. 

Dr Kieburtz’s primary research interest is novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases, having held INDs for novel investigations in HIV neurological, Parkinson and Huntington diseases.

Niel Starksen is the Director, Board of Governors at Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine. 

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Modality CMO Speaking at HSG 2022

November 3, 2022

At the 29th Annual Meeting of the Huntington Study Group, Modality.AI CMO Ira Shoulson MD will be presenting on myHDstory™, a research study to enable people affected by Huntington’s Disease to report their symptoms and voice their priorities. 

Central to this research is the PROP (Patient Report of Problems) developed by Grey Matter Technologies, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Modality.

https://huntingtonstudygroup.org/hsg-2022/ 

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Clinical Trials Strategic Summit Keynote

October 27, 2022

Modality.AI founder and CEO David Suendermann-Oeft delivered a keynote presentation on "Digital Measures for CNS Trials" at the 9th Clinical Trials Strategic Summit. 

CTSS brings together leading clinical trials, development, and data analytics experts and thought leaders in San Francisco this week.

9th Clinical Trials Strategic Summit

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CMO Ira Shoulson MD presented at the 147th Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association (ANA2022) in Chicago 

October 25, 2022

Modality.AI CMO Ira Shoulson MD presented at the 147th Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association (ANA2022) in Chicago. 

The poster was titled “Human-in-the-Loop Machine Learning Curation of Problems That Bother Parkinson Disease Patients”. Verbatim reports using natural language processing and human-in-the loop curation can be used to analyze problems reported by PD patients in their own words and applied to observational studies and clinical trials - at scale.

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Modality Announces Huntington’s Disease Collaboration

October 19, 2022

The Huntington Study Group (HSG), a world leader in clinical research for Huntington’s Disease (HD) for over 30 years has announced a pilot study in collaboration with Modality.ai. The study “Making HD Voices Heard“ was launched on the new online myHDstory™ research platform and has now reached its enrollment target. 

“We hope the data and lessons learned from this pilot will inform and drive further virtual studies that will engage larger segments of the Huntington’s Disease (HD) population, family members, and caregivers, thereby improving the overall development of HD care and treatments,” said Ira Shoulson, MD, Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester and founder of Grey Matter Technologies, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Modality.ai.

Continued: 

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ALS Research Symposium

October 6, 2022

Modality.AI CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft will speak at the annual ALS Research Symposium on Tuesday, October 11th. The event unites researchers, clinicians and individuals living with ALS from around the world for three days of sharing important ALS research and hope.

He will be joined by Dr. Robert Brown, MD, DPhil, of UMass Memorial Medical School;  Dr’s Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MSc, James Berry, MD, MPH, and Sabrina Paganoni, MD, PhD, of the Sean M Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital; and Dr. Fernando Vieira, MD, of The ALS Therapy Development Institute.

This year’s symposium promises to be a robust and informative forum to discuss and review current research that is underway across the globe to help uncover therapeutic options leading to an ultimate cure for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). 

Sponsors include Amylx, Biogen, Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics, Cytokinetics, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, Quralis and Prilenia.

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Speech for Social Good Workshop

September 24, 2022

Modality’s Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan, presented a Keynote at the “Speech for Social Good Workshop, 2022” with a presentation titled "Multimodal Dialog Technologies for Neurological and Mental Health". 

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Interspeech 2022 Conference

September 20, 2022

This week at the world’s largest speech technology conference, Interspeech 2022, Modality’s Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan will present a poster featuring results from our collaboration with Jessica Huber at Purdue University:

“Statistical and Clinical Utility of Multimodal Dialogue-Based Speech and Facial Metrics for Parkinson's Disease Assessment”

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8th International Conference on Speech Motor Control

August 24, 2022

Modality research scientist Hardik Kothare presented on Autism, Multiple Sclerosis and ALS at the 8th International Conference on Speech Motor Control in Groningen, the Netherlands.

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Interview: Designing an App to Diagnose ALS

August 10, 2022

Our collaborator Dr. Jordan Green of MGH Institute of Health Professions discusses his research partnership with Modality, investigating whether an app could be used to diagnose speech decline due to ALS effectively.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220804/Designing-an-app-to-diagnose-ALS.aspx

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Ira Shoulson, MD, Joins Modality.AI as Chief Medical Officer

August 3, 2022

Modality.AI, Inc., a digital health company pioneering self-driven, remote assessment of neurological disorders using patented AI to analyze speech and facial gestures, has appointed Ira Shoulson, MD its Chief Medical Officer.

Prior to joining Modality, Shoulson founded Grey Matter Technologies (GMT) in 2017 to develop a better way for patients to share what bothers them and how it affects their lives.  The result is the clinically validated Patient Report of Problems™ -- the PROP™ -- which analyzes verbatim descriptions of the problems patients face, including their functioning, priorities, and symptoms.

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Modality.AI presents at the 2022 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society

July 12, 2022

Modality research scientist Hardik Kothare presents our recent paper “Speech, Facial and Fine Motor Features for Conversation-Based Remote Assessment and Monitoring of Parkinson’s Disease” at the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society

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Modality.AI and MGH Institute of Health Professions Awarded Grant for App to Track and Help Diagnose ALS

July 6, 2022

Can a digital health app be used to help diagnose ALS, track its progression, and determine whether the medicine used to treat the disease is even effective?

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is about to find out. It has awarded a $2.3 million grant to Modality.AI and the MGH Institute of Health Professions to determine if data collected from an app is as effective, or more effective, than the observations of clinical experts who diagnose and treat ALS. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) could have a profound impact on improving ALS diagnosis, decreasing costs for patients and healthcare providers while eliminating the need for patients to travel to clinics for assessment.

The app developed by Modality features a virtual agent, Tina, who guides patients through the assessment.  Tina interviews patients in a way very similar to a clinician and in doing so gathers their speech and facial behaviors and uses AI to measure and analyze the data. 

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Grey Matter Technologies Joins Modality.AI to Advance Self-Driven Neurological Assessments

June 23, 2022

Modality.AI, Inc., a San Francisco digital health startup that has developed a conversational AI system remotely assessing neurological disorders using speech and facial gestures, announced today the acquisition of Grey Matter Technologies (GMT), whose NLP technology interprets patient-reported symptoms of neurological diseases. 

GMT, a startup based in Florida and Toronto, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Modality. The integration of GMT’s technology into Modality’s award-winning platform will significantly expand its capabilities for more accurately and comprehensively assessing neurological and psychiatric disorders.

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Modality to Present at RESI Digital

June 2, 2022

The Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) conference connects start-ups, global investors, and strategic partners in early-stage life science, device development, diagnostics and healthcare. RESI is hosted by Life Science Nation (LSN) which was founded to help move science forward through partnering events. 

Modality CEO David Suendermann-Oeft will present as a finalist in the “Innovator's Pitch Challenge”. 

More about the June 7 - 9 conference at https://resiconference.com/ 

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Medcity calls Modality's virtual agent Tina "...the Alexa of clinical trials"

May 18, 2022

Modality.AI CEO David Suendermann-Oeft recently presented at the Medcity INVEST Conference in Chicago, earning a co-winner acknowledgement in the pharmatech category. Now Medcity News goes deeper into our story in this article. 

“Suendermann-Oeft emphasized that Modality is not trying to replace clinicians. Diagnosis and treatment decisions are still up to doctors. But Tina helps inform those decisions. The patient’s responses are recorded and catalogued. The technology analyzes how fast and how loud the responses were. Facial movements during those responses are also analyzed. Making these assessments virtual frees clinicians to do other tasks.”

https://medcitynews.com/2022/05/invest-pitch-perfect-winner-modality-ai-makes-tina-the-alexa-of-clinical-trials/ 

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Modality.ai Presents at the 9th Annual LSX World Congress

May 16, 2022

This week, Modality.AI founder David Suendermann-Oeft will present at the annual LSX World Congress. The event brings together the founders and CEOs of innovative start-ups through to large pharmaceutical companies. 

The LSX event represents the breadth and depth of research and technology driving the advances in the industry right now and in the near future. LSX is an industry-leading gathering with partnering at its core, connecting the biotech, healthtech and medtech industry c-suite with the sector’s most active pharma, investors and health technology business development teams, R&D leaders, and key opinion leaders are driving the sector forward. https://www.lsxleaders.com/lsx-world-congress

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Modality.ai Attends ​​Target ALS Annual Meeting

May 3, 2022

May 3, 2022. In the US alone some 15,000 ALS patients live with the diagnosis and during their illness they will become progressively paralyzed, losing speech and independence. Finding effective treatments would finally bring new hope to patients and change the future for anyone who faces this disease.

The mission of Target ALS: discovering a world where no one dies of ALS. Every year the organization brings together over 300 attendees, and the gathering has emerged as one of the premiere ALS research meetings. This year our Director of Business Development, William Burke MD attended and had the opportunity to meet with academic and industry scientists, foundations and thought leaders working on effective diagnostics and treatments.

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Modality.ai Presents at the Annual Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2022 Annual Meeting

April 28, 2022

The Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) is an academic group committed to the development of mind and brain research investigating the psychological, computational, and neuroscientific bases of cognition. Its annual meeting brings together leaders in the field from around the world to share research results and encourage collaboration among peers. 

This year, CNS 2022 was held in San Francisco and our Director of Business Development, William Burke presented early pilot study results of a newly created Modality Cognitive Battery. A significant amount of audio/visual data has been collected through Modality’s platform and it is showing utility in many neurological and psychiatric diseases, including ALS, Parkinson’s disease, and depression. 

A pilot study is now testing the feasibility of a new patent pending remote “Cognitive Battery” in patients with cognitive impairment, with the goal of being able to distinguish between patients with and without cognitive impairment, or to help assess the level of impairment. All patients were able to complete the study, an encouraging sign that the cognitive load of using the system is lower than the cognitive load being tested with the battery. Modality is now working to make the study available to a larger group of participants and we look forward to presenting further results later this year.

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A Modality Milestone: 

SOPs, QMS & FDA Listing

April 18, 2022

Modality.AI is now registered with the FDA, and the Modality platform is listed as a Class II SaMD (Software as a Medical Device) 510(k) Exempt. 

Key to achieving this milestone was the implementation of a Quality Management System (QMS) in compliance with FDA Title 21 CFR Part 820 and ISO 13485 standards. This required the development of over thirty Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), followed by implementation and training involving our entire team. 

To date Modality has been used in academic research and clinical trials; now with Class II listing, the Modality platform may be purchased for use in health care to analyze speech, facial gestures, and hand movements, providing clinicians a new way to assess neurological and psychiatric disorders. 

We thank the team at Enzyme (our QMS vendor and regulatory consultants)  for their guidance over the past many months. 

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Project Medtech podcast with Modality CEO

March 29, 2022

How does a medtech startup start? 

In this wide-ranging interview, “Mister MedTech” Giovanni Lauricella talks with Modality.AI Founder and CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft about his transition from academia to startup CEO, the problem Modality is solving, raising capital as software as a medical device, the type of investors who have supported the company, and more.

Apple Podcast  •  Spotify  •  Interview website  

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Conferences

March 10, 2022

With conference season in full swing this month you’ll find our CEO David Suendermann-Oeft at:

• LSI (Life Science Intelligence) Emerging Medtech Summit March 15 - 18, 2022 (Dana Point, CA)

• MedCity's INVEST March 28 - 30, 2022 (Chicago, IL); presenting

• RESI (Redefining Early Stage Investments) Digital RESI, March + June, 2022 (virtual)

Meanwhile, our Research team is working on multiple papers for these important upcoming conferences: 

• Motor Speech Conference (Madonna) 2022

• American Association of Neurology Annual Meeting

• Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2022

Let us know if you’re attending any of these events and we’ll be happy to meet up!

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Modality.AI Supports Biomarker Discovery

Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Joins EverythingALS Consortium to Help Accelerate Biomarker Discover for Neurological Diseases

February 28, 2022

Today, EverythingALS.org (EALS), a patient-centric, citizen-based California nonprofit accelerating the discovery of digital biomarkers for neurological diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), announced that Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Holdings America, Inc. (MTHA) has joined its consortium to promote accelerated development of digital biomarkers for neurological diseases.

EverythingALS was founded in 2020 with the mission of bringing technological innovations and data science to support efforts -- from care to cure -- for people with ALS. 

In 2021, the nonprofit teamed up with Modality.ai, which has developed artificial intelligence (AI) technology to remotely spot biomarkers and assess the progression of ALS through speech and facial gestures using a virtual agent, or avatar. In less than a year, EALS enlisted a team of volunteers to recruit more than 700 participants in its speech study and has produced multiple scientific publications. Continued...

See the article on the announcement on BioSpace.com

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Modality.AI To Present Advances in Digital Biomarkers and Assessments for Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders at 2022 Biotech Showcase

January 04, 2022

Modality.AI, developers of self-driven, remotely controlled AI technology analyzing speech, facial gestures, and limb movements for neurological and psychiatric disorders, is pleased to announce that it will be presenting at the Biotech Showcase, to be held January 10 to 19, 2022. Modality Founder and CEO, Dr. David Suendermann-Oeft, will be presenting.

Announcing his company’s progress since launching at last year’s Biotech Showcase, Suendermann-Oeft said, “This past year, 2021, has been pivotal for the positive results from studies using our patient monitoring  platform. 

“In particular,” he added, “findings regarding digital biomarkers and progression metrics for ALS, Parkinson’s, and autism spectrum disorder – all based on Modality’s sophisticated AI software for tracking and analyzing speech and facial gestures as well as limb movements – were published and presented at several major scientific conferences, including Interspeech 2021 (the world’s largest speech science and technology conference), the International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, and the National Autism Conference.”

Without the need for software installation or hardware purchase, Modality's self-driven conversational AI platform can accurately, frequently, and objectively analyze and track patients’ data through facial and speech patterns. Modality's system frees up physicians' time by administering asynchronous tests, while collecting accurate data for the physician to use, reducing the need for manual annotation.

Modality takes an inclusive approach to neurological and mental health disorders. The company’s team and SaaS technology builds on many years of peer-reviewed external and in-house research showing that conditions ranging from autism to depression, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, ALS, and stroke can be accurately measured by applying Modality’s novel self-driven, conversational AI platform analyzing speech, facial gestures, and limb movements. Modality is well positioned to make a distinct and complementary contribution to the realms of remote health monitoring, clinical trial participant screening, early disease detection, monitoring and treatment response. 

About Biotech Showcase

Biotech Showcase, produced by Demy-Colton and EBD Group, is an investor conference focused on driving advances in therapeutic development by providing a sophisticated networking platform for executives and investors that fosters investment and partnership opportunities. The conference takes place each year during the course of one of the industry’s largest gatherings and busiest weeks.

For interviews with Modality’s CEO and further information, contact David Fox at david.fox@modality.ai

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Bay Area Nonprofit Seeks 300 Volunteers in ALS Speech Study

November 21, 2021

EverythingALS, a partner with Modality.ai in providing self-driven neurological assessments, is seeking 300 volunteers to participate in a Speech Study to help end ALS.

Bay Area Nonprofit Seeks 300 Volunteers in ALS Speech Study - CBS San Francisco

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/11/21/bay-area-nonprofit-seeks-300-volunteers-in-als-speech-study/

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Modality.AI podcast by CEO David Suendermann-Oeft

November 1, 2021

Modality.AI on LinkedIn: 

Episode #11: Audiovisual Assessments for ALS

Modality.AI is paving the way for more efficient, effective, less costly clinical trials. 

This interview takes you through the company’s journey: only six months after kick-off of the large-scale data collection with EverythingALS, the Modality team of PhDs and neurologists at MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, and other academic institutions published a paper showing strong signals of biomarkers for ALS.

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2021 Biofuture Conference

October 5, 2021

Modality Founder & CEO David Suendermann-Oeft spoke on "Next Wave Diagnostics: AI and Health Innovations Accelerate" at the 2021 Biofuture Conference in New York City.

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Speech Study Using AI Technology to Spot ALS Biomarkers