news

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:


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:



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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: 


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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Modality.AI CEO Travels to San Diego and Malta, Speaks at MedTech Summit

October 22, 2023



This was a busy week of travel for Modality.AI CEO David Suendermann-Oeft. 


First to San Diego for the Precision Clinical Trials Summit which brought together decision-makers from pharma and biotech to discuss and debate the evolving process of operating clinical trials. 


Then it was back in the air, this time to Malta to speak at the MedTech Summit where advancements and trends in medical technology were showcased and experts and innovators from the medical and technology sectors came together to discuss the future of healthcare.  


While in Malta, David took the opportunity to visit Bjorn and Maria Formosa at the Dar Bjorn Zebbug ALS Center. The center provides care for people with ALS and other neurological diseases in multiple facilities across Malta. Dar Bjorn is an initiative of ALS Malta, an important European partner working with Modality to understand better the impacts on people living with neurological illnesses. Founder Bjorn Formosa was 28 when he was diagnosed with ALS, a life-changing event that saw him become a face of ALS activism. The documentary “A Little Smile” tells the story of Bjorn, ALS, and his love for his home country.




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ISCTM Autumn 2023

October 5, 2023



This week at the International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) Autumn Conference in Barcelona, Modality’s Chief Science Officer, Vikram Ramanarayanan, will present two posters written in collaboration with the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. 


The first is titled “Differentiating primary and secondary expressive negative symptoms for remote digital trials using a multimodal dialogue platform“. This work serves as proof of concept to develop digital phenotypes for primary and secondary expressive negative symptoms in schizophrenia, allowing for timely identification and treatment.


The second “Towards an Interpretable Index Score for the Assessment of Schizophrenia based on Multimodal Speech and Facial Biomarkers” shows that a single interpretable index score derived from a weighted linear combination of speech and orofacial biomarkers performs better than individual component features in distinguishing between people with schizophrenia and healthy controls.


https://modality.ai/publications 



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Modality CMO presents results in Huntington Disease

September 12, 2023



At the 148th Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association, Modality’s Chief Medical Officer, Ira Shoulson presented a poster titled “Online Self Report Of Problems And Functional Consequences In Huntington Disease: Feasibility And Informativeness”. 


Discussion and conclusions included:



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Journal article evaluates Modality's virtual assistant Tina for monitoring depression, anxiety, and suicide risk

September 11, 2023



The rise of depression, anxiety, and suicide rates has led to increased demand for telemedicine-based mental health screening and remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions to alleviate the burden on and enhance the efficiency of, mental health practitioners. Multimodal dialog systems (MDS) that conduct on-demand, structured interviews offer a scalable and cost-effective solution to address this need. This study evaluates the feasibility of a cloud-based MDS agent, Tina, for mental state characterization in participants with depression, anxiety, and suicide risk.

Continued at: https://www.frontiersin.org




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Modality.AI at Interspeech 2023

August 23, 2023



As the world’s largest and most significant speech technology conference, it was quite a milestone to present five breakthrough papers coauthored by Modality team members:







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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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Modality CEO Presents at the
Digital Health Innovation Summit 

June 3, 2023


The first Digital Health Innovation Summit, to be held in San Francisco June 6-7, will bring together leaders from biopharma, healthcare, and medtech to discuss digital health technologies and clinical trial innovation. If you’re attending, please look out for Modality CSO, Vikram Ramanarayanan; CBO David Fox; and CEO David Suendermann-Oeft who will speak on the topic "Can AI help make our world healthier?"


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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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Digital Biotyping of Negative Symptoms: Advances and Challenges

May 19, 2023


Modality.AI CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft is attending INVEST 2023, May 22-24 in Chicago. Presented by MedCity News and the Mid-America Healthcare Investors Network this 3-day conference brings together healthcare’s most promising entrepreneurs with investors focused on biopharma, diagnostics, health IT, medical devices, and health services. 


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Digital Biotyping of Negative Symptoms: Advances and Challenges

May 10, 2023


Our collaborators Jean-Pierre Lindenmayer and Anzalee Khan from the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research and New York University, School of Medicine will present our joint work “A Multimodal Speech and Facial Digital Assessment to Assess Negative Symptoms” at the upcoming symposium Digital Biotyping of Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia at the 2023 Annual Congress of the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS), May 11-15 in Toronto, Canada. The organization's mission is to bring together researchers from across the world who work on schizophrenia and other related disorders.


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Modality.AI CEO Participates in LSX World Congress

May 2, 2023


After two years of virtual attendance, Modality CEO David Suendermann-Oeft joined the LSX World Congress in person this week. LSX brings together the CEOs and senior decision makers from the world's most innovative biopharma, medtech and healthtech companies with investors, R&D leaders and industry key opinion leaders. Together, they share best practices, forge partnerships and put capital to work to help create the world's future medicines and improve patient outcomes.

David Suendermann-Oeft pictured with Simone Haubner and Cornelia Jahnel from German accelerator Biosaxony, and investor Jan Van den Berghe, Co-Founder at Novalis Fund 


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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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CEO David Suendermann-Oeft in Vancouver

April 24, 2023


Last week Modality’s board chair Brenda Irwin hosted CEO David Suendermann-Oeft in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada for events ranging from the Relentless Venture Fund Annual Meeting, Vancouver Entrepreneurs Forum's Future of Human Health event, and presentation at Creative Destruction Lab's Alumni Showcase. 


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International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) Poster Presentation

February 24, 2023


“Can an artificial intelligence (AI) agent interviewing patients and analyzing their facial and vocal expressions and acoustic features detect negative symptoms of schizophrenia?”

Last week, our collaborators from Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research and New York University, School of Medicine shared answers to this question in a poster presentation co-authored with Modality.AI at the 19th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM). 

Our CEO David Suendermann-Oeft notes: “We find that both speech and facial measures show significant correlations with clinician-administered standard scales for schizophrenia and were able to demonstrate reliability, validity, and internal consistency of our measures.” 


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Presentation of Three Papers at the International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue Systems Technology (IWSDS 2023)

February 20, 2023


Three Modality researchers Jackson Liscombe, Hardik Kothare, and Daniel Tisdale will present papers at the International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue Systems Technology (IWSDS 2023), Feb 21-24 in Los Angeles.

This year’s theme: "Diversity in Dialogue Systems" (DiDS). Examples include diversity in languages spoken, diversity in domain/task being performed, user population, training data (e.g., ethics/bias considerations), and dialogue system evaluation methodologies. 

The three papers can be found on the Modality Publications page.


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Silicon Saxony

January 30, 2023


Members of Modality’s Euro team were invited to present at Silicon Saxony’s Digital Health - Unlocking the Potential for Saxony symposium on February 2nd in Dresden, Germany. 

Led by the organization's Artificial Intelligence Working Group, this event will focus on the impact of AI in digital and networked diagnostics, health data from wearables, and medical robots, and builds on Silicon Saxony Day 2022. 


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Biotech Showcase 2023

January 7, 2023


Join us at the upcoming 2023 Biotech Showcase and hear Modality CEO David Suendermann-Oeft discuss our multimodal approach at a Showcase panel "Discovery at Warp Speed: Unlocking the Power of AI and Machine Learning".


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Sachs Neuroscience Innovation Forum 2023

January 5, 2023


Modality CBO David Fox is attending the 6th annual Neuroscience Innovation Forum on January 7th in San Francisco. 


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Modality.AI Catapults into 2023 with Further Funding from Original Investors, New Investors, and Major Grants

December 31, 2022


Confirming its innovative and transformative model for detecting and assessing neurological and psychological conditions, Modality.AI's original venture backers doubled down to close a $3.6M seed round, which includes four new investors as well.  In addition, the mission-driven startup -- whose team has published 58 scientific papers and been invited to present at global scientific and biotech conferences -- received $2.7M grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Michael J. Fox Foundation, among others, for a total of $6.3M of funding.

Continued... 


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Modality CEO speaks at CNS Summit 2022

November 2022


The CNS Summit was created by life science leaders to advance clinical development, with a focus on collaboration, innovation, and technology. The CNS Summit is a community of innovators and industry leaders who are not afraid to challenge the status quo. 


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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. 


Karl Kieburtz

Niel Starksen


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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.

Continued…


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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. 

Continued…

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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.

Continued…

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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.

William Burke M.D., Director of Business Development

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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:


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


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

September 10, 2021


The technology, developed by Modality.ai, is a web-based computer program that uses audio (speech) and video (facial) recordings to assess neurological states automatically through AI and machine learning algorithms.

Its greatest advantage is that data can be collected remotely at home on any computer device with the help of a virtual assistant called "Tina." This is important for people with ALS, who often have limited mobility due to muscle weakness, which may affect their ability to participate in clinical studies.

Read more in the ALS News Today article


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Investors Champion Modality.AI Technology That ‘Self-Drives’ Neurological and Psychiatric Assessments

August 31, 2021


Modality.AI, pioneering AI technology for assessing neurological and psychiatric conditions remotely and in clinical settings through speech and facial measurements, has received a $2.1 million seed round led by the Relentless Venture Fund (“Relentless”), with major funding from Novalis Biotech Acceleration (“Novalis”), alongside several other funds and private investors. 


Read more in the press release


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Relentless Pursuit Venture Fund adds Modality.AI to its portfolio

August 19, 2021


Brenda Irwin, Managing General Partner at Relentless Venture Fund, writes in a LinkedIn post, "Thrilling new addition to the Relentless Venture Fund portfolio just announced."


Read more from the Relentless Partners press release


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Modality.AI integrated in APST's ALS app

June 15, 2021


Modality.AI, developers of multimodal remote patient monitoring solutions for neurologic conditions, is pleased to announce a partnership with APST (Ambulanzpartner Soziotechnologie GmbH). 


Commenting on the launch, CEO and Founder David Suendermann-Oeft said: “2020 was a pivotal year for diagnostic and remote patient monitoring solutions. Without the need for software installation or hardware purchase, Modality's conversational AI system 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.”


The ALS App is currently available to German language speakers facilitating the capturing of the ALS Functional Rating Scale-revised (ALS-FRS) on smartphones, iPhones and tablets. Further information can be found here.

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Human Behavior Club HEALTHTECH chat

April 16, 2021


David Fox, Chief Business Officer and David Suendermann-Oeft, CEO and Founder of Modality.AI, will speak at the Human Behavior Club

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Healthtech Award Winner: The Story of Modality.AI

March 29, 2021


HealthTech Networking Club member and winner of the HealthTech Startup Award in January, David Suendermann-Oeft, CEO and Founder of Modality.AI, spoke with the bene : studio team about what inspired him to start the company, their biggest achievements so far, and advice for startup leaders in the digital health space.

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Modality.AI presentations this month

March 2021


It has been a busy month here at Modality. Last week, we were one of the youngest companies to present at the Landmark Health Innovations Forum 2021 sponsored by MorganStanley and NIH.

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Modality.AI also presented at Life Science Nation's Innovator's Pitch Challenge RESI Conference Investor's Pitch Challenge, in March, 2021.


It has just been announced that Modality.AI was awarded Second Place in the Investor's Pitch Challenge. We are thrilled that the #RESI community thinks so highly of our groundbreaking technology and accomplishments! Thank you for the opportunity to present at the event. We look forward to future #RESI and @LSciNation conferences.


https://blog.lifesciencenation.com/2021/03/18/announcing-the-digital-resi-march-innovators-pitch-challenge-ipc-winners/

https://twitter.com/LSciNation/status/1374449472546074624?s=20

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And Modality.AI was selected to present at the Startup Springboard in partnership with BIO-Europe Spring, Europe's largest springtime digital partnering event, March 22-25, 2021.


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Modality.AI presents paper at April 2021 American Academy of Neurology Meeting

February 2021


We are pleased to announce that our work titled "Towards a large-scale audio-visual corpus for research on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis" in collaboration with @everything_als, @MITdeptofBE, @harvardbrainsci and @IBMResearch will be presented at this year's virtual #AANAM .

https://www.aan.com/conferences-community/annual-meeting/ 



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Modality.AI wins Healthcare Startup Award

January 2021


"Modality.AI was chosen as the winner of the monthly HealthTech Startup Award after pitching alongside 4 other startups in January 2021. 


The session was moderated by Sandra Miller (Runway Innovation Hub). Judges Roger Kuo (GoingVC), Dr. Orrin Ailloni-Charas (Global Health Impact Fund), Dr. Gary Goldman (GHIF), Michael Koutsoudakis (Paulson Investment Company), and Balint Bene (bene : studio) awarded this month’s prestigious title."


https://benestudio.co/healthtech-startup-award-january-2021-modality/


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Modality.AI presents at 2021 Biotech Showcase

January 5, 2021


Modality.AI, developers of multimodal remote patient monitoring solutions for neurologic conditions, presented at the Seed Showcase, part of the Biotech Showcase, held between January 11-14 2021. Prof. Dr. David Suendermann-Oeft, Founder and CEO presented. Please contact David Fox david.fox@modality.ai or search “Modality.AI” in the partneringONE platform to book a meeting.


Commenting on the event, Suendermann-Oeft said: “2020 has been a pivotal year for diagnostic and remote patient monitoring solutions. Without the need for software installation or hardware purchase, Modality's conversational AI system 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.”


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.


“We were delighted to see Modality.AI raise funding at the 2020 Seed Showcase,” said Lila Taylor, CBO of Demy-Colton. “We created the Seed Showcase to bring early-stage life science entrepreneurs and investors together to accelerate the development of innovative technologies that will drive the future of drug discovery.”

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Artificial intelligence taking role in developing technology to help Parkinson’s patients during COVID-19 pandemic

November 24, 2020


Jessica Huber, a professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences and associate dean for research in Purdue’s College of Health and Human Sciences, leads Purdue’s Motor Speech Lab. Huber and her team are now doing virtual studies to evaluate speech disorders related to Parkinson’s using artificial intelligence technology platforms.

Huber and her team have been working to develop telepractice tools for the assessment and treatment of speech impairments like Parkinson’s disease. They received a National Institutes of Health small business innovation and research grant to develop a telehealth platform to facilitate the provision of speech treatment with the SpeechVive device, which has received attention at the Annual Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

In the current study, Huber and her team are collaborating with a startup company, Modality AI, which developed the AI platform that will be used in the study. 

“The application of the technology we are evaluating may lead to far-reaching insights into more standardization in assessments, earlier diagnoses and possibly an easier way to track discrete changes over time to guide interventions,” said Andrew Exner, a graduate research assistant in the Motor Speech Lab. “My personal research passion, and the mission of our lab, is to find ways to improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s and other related diseases.”

Purdue University Research Foundation News

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Modality Names Tom Sellig to Board of Advisors

April 8, 2020


Modality, a pioneer in AI-backed healthcare screening solutions, announced that it has named Tom Sellig to its Board of Advisors. Mr. Sellig is Chief Executive Office of LabConnect, a leading global provider of central laboratory and support services for biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, medical device, and contract research organizations. He also sits on its Board of Directors.

“We are pleased to welcome Tom to Modality,” said David Suendermann-Oeft, Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of Modality. “His experience in the clinical research space, as well as broader medical technology landscape, will be a tremendous value in helping us optimize how data is collected and used in the research and treatment development process.”

Added Mr. Sellig, ”What Modality is doing with facial and voice recognition data in its AI-powered screens to improve research outcomes is vitally important and highly needed. The cleaner the data, the more accurate the results – and I am excited to join David and his team in delivering that to a wide range of opportunities in digital health today.”

Prior to joining LabConnect, Mr. Sellig served as Chief Commercial Officer at ConnectiveRx and from 2014 to 2018, he was Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Patheon, which was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2017. From 2007 to 2014, he held a variety of roles of increasing responsibility within global contract research organization and drug development services company Covance. Before Covance, he had executive leadership roles at Ventana Clinical (now part of Syneos) and Medical Broadcasting Company. He earned his bachelor's degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from New York University.

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Modality Names Four to Board of Advisors

January 22, 2020


Modality named four leading professionals in the medical and healthcare industries to its board of advisors:

“Modality is delighted to have such a distinguished group of professionals join our advisory board.  Their collective expertise will synergistically help Modality’s automatic speech and facial analytics capabilities to expedite drug trials, reduce the failure rate of trials, and increase the profitability of drugs,” said Dr. David Suendermann-Oeft, CEO and co-founder of Modality. “Their commitment to Modality further confirms the value that we provide to the clinical research space and to the pharmaceutical industry.”

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Modality is featured as one of the five conversational AI companies in the Tooploox AI Trend Report 

January, 2020


www.tooploox.com/ai-trend-report-2020/files/AI_Trend_Report_2020_Tooploox.pdf

Modality is featured as one of the five conversational AI companies in the Tooploox AI Trend Report 2020

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Modality.AI's first VC visits the office

January 22, 2020


Voxel Ventures, a Digital Health fund from Frankfurt, Germany, and the first VC to invest in Modality, visited us January 22, 2020 at the San Francisco Office.

Voxel Ventures' Julian Wichmann, Startup Investor & Advisor and Radiologist, MD, said, 

"Great meeting yesterday here in San Francisco with the Modality.AI team (a Voxel Ventures portfolio company). 

So their fully functional software platform is able to analyze your voice and facial movement in real time, allowing for clinical assessment from home! I tried it out myself and was impressed by the flawless and smooth integration - all you need is a web browser, camera, and internet access (=mobile friendly)! Their #artificialintelligence software is already being tested in clinical trials at a major university hospitals, in which patients with severe neurological diseases can be evaluated at their own pace from home with much more and better data being generated - at a fraction of the cost! Obviously the use cases and business cases for such a system in the future are endless! 

True innovation that really helps patients and advances the field is unfortunately hard to find in my opinion when you‘re in #digitalhealth or #healthcare #venturecapital and most #startups often only have an idea for a product. Modality.AI and its brilliant team stood out to me from the beginning and I‘m very excited about their progress and big news in 2020!"

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Modality Announces UCSF Partnership

September 20, 2019


Modality announced its partnership with the University of California, San Francisco’s Weill Institute of Neurosciences at the Alchemist Accelerator’s demo day in Menlo Park on September 20, 2019.  Under the terms of the partnership, UCSF researchers are using Modality to help streamline their research process and optimize data collection and analysis.

“We just started using Modality to collect our data, and we can already see it saving us a great deal of time while collecting accurate information,” said Dr. Carly Demopoulos, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Institute. “Our research has become vastly more efficient and I’ve already started planning future studies that are made feasible by Modality.”

Dr. Dempoulos and her team study autism spectrum disorder, particularly characterizing the pathology’s underlying symptoms in order to develop targeted therapies. Autism affects more than 60 million people globally. 

Traditionally in research, patients and their caregivers need to go to the lab for interviews, from which speech behaviors are manually recorded, analyzed, and categorized. This has historically been a very cumbersome and labor-intensive process. 

“The underlying process to develop drugs and therapies are extremely inefficient,” said David Suendermann-Oeft, CEO and co-founder of Modality. Presently, drug trials take on average six years to complete, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, with 80% failing to secure FDA approval and a spend of roughly $70 billion a year.

“Modality has created a solution,” Dr. Suendermann-Oeft said. “We have created a neurological test that is based on the principle that engages the patient with an avatar in a conversation using the same protocols that the neurologist is using. We are extracting facial movements and speech patterns and producing in real time accurate metrics that are predictive of the clinical outcome.” 

As a result, Modality can help close the trials four months earlier, reduce the failure rate by 15%, and increase return on investment in a drug’s investment by 80%. 

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Alchemist Accelerator Demo Day 

September 20, 2019


Modality.AI Alchemist Accelerator presentation 



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