Artificial Intelligence is touching every aspect of our lives, from education to e-commerce, logistics to healthcare. AI is offering enormous possibilities, and it has been making strides in healthcare worldwide, with several companies in the domain adopting innovative applications of the technology to deliver tailored solutions for various healthcare needs. When it comes to preventive healthcare, AI could soon be a game-changer. Indian-American entrepreneur Naveen Jain founded Viome Life Sciences in 2016. The company provides nutritional genomics testing and analysis service especially for gut microbiome and dietary advice. In his recent interview with Bloomberg Technology, Jain said that the future of healthcare will be about delivering medicines at home from farms and not pharmacies. “Our health has always been delivered at hospitals but I think the future of healthcare will be delivered at home and the medicines of the future will come from the farm, not the pharmacy,” Jain said. What is Viome? According to Jain, Viome offers at-home tests using blood, saliva, and stool samples. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, Viome is able to identify all that is happening inside the gut. Jain said that their analysis can share vital information of the users such as biological age, cognitive health, heart health and even advise them about the foods that they should eat and should avoid. According to the entrepreneur, there is no such thing as universal healthy food. He said that most of us eat spinach and kale because it is healthy, while for many it may be harmful. “Every person has a unique microbiology – 39 trillion living in our gut, 100 trillion all over our body. These microbes work with us as human hosts and we outsource many of the functions to them.” The at-home test by Viome shares information about digestive efficiency, inflammatory activity, and immune health system. How does Viome use AI? The company uses an AI system named Vie to analyse biological data and learn from multiple sources of information. The tool essentially uses data gathered from biological testing, expert knowledge, customer feedback, and scientific literature. The AI tool is supported by a variety of algorithms that build models of biology that help in making decisions about customers' health indicators and make appropriate recommendations. According to the company, the AI system is trained using expert knowledge and judgement. It also uses unsupervised algorithms to detect patterns that human experts may miss. The process is ongoing as Vie is trained continually, analyses situations, and applies the outcomes to ongoing improvements and discoveries. Vie is capable of analysing patterns at various levels and connecting dots with greater accuracy. The company on its website says that Vie comes embedded in the Viome app and has termed it as a hand-held version of the company’s AI system. Viome’s trajectory When the interviewee asked about subscription cost, Jain said that five years ago they were at $1000 and that now they have come down to $299. He asserted that Viome was selling at cost and justified it, saying it was about economies of scale and the amount of information. Jain claimed that his company has collected over 750 trillion data points from 6,00,000 samples that allow them to diagnose early-stage cancer. “We can diagnose stage one cancer in the mouth or throat. And, we have received FDA breakthrough device designation for accelerated approval for stage one cancer with 90 per cent sensitivity and 95 per cent specificity. The Indian-American businessman grew up in New Delhi and parts of Uttar Pradesh. He is an alumni of IIT Roorkee. Throughout his career, Jain has donned many hats. While he started his career with Microsoft in 1989 and worked closely with Bill Gates, Jain went on to establish companies such as Infospace, Moon Express, and Viome. In one of his interviews, billionaire Jain revealed that he was born into poverty and growing up his life was marked by frequent ups and downs. Accordimg to Jain, the secret to creating a billion-dollar company is to build a product or service that could help billions live a better life.
