OpenEvidence Leverages AI to Accelerate Patient Care

According to market research, the global AI in healthcare market is estimated to grow 39% annually to reach $187.7 billion by 2030. The need for enhanced efficiency, accuracy, and better patient outcomes is driving the adoption of AI in the industry.

 OpenEvidence’s Offerings

Miami-based OpenEvidence is a leading player in the industry that is attracting quite the attention. Founded in 2022 by Daniel Nadler and Zachary Ziegler, OpenEvidence claims to be among the most widely used medical search engine among US clinicians. This is not Nadler’s first gig. Prior to setting up OpenEvidence, he had sold his earlier company Kensho Technologies to S&P Global in 2018.

After selling Kensho Technologies, Nadler was still dabbling with emerging technology. In 2021, he teamed up with another fellow Harvard Ph.D. Zachary Ziegler. Ziegler was working on a Ph.D. in machine learning and wanted to build things. The two believed that AI’s capability of sensing patterns in large data could help doctors. Both were motivated by personal experience where they had lost or had seen close family suffer through serious medical issues. They realized that doctors deal with enormous complexities while accessing information in textbooks.

Together, they decided to build OpenEvidence that could apply AI to glean medical insights from medical journals. The number of new papers being published within the healthcare industry are phenomenal, making it difficult for medical professionals to remain fully aware of medical updates. Within a year of founding, OpenEvidence was invited by Mayo Clinic to join its accelerator for health tech startups.

OpenEvidence’s proprietary algorithms search millions of peer-reviewed publications to help doctors find the best answers fast. It accompanies search results with full citations so that doctors can read more for themselves. It also has content partnerships to access Journal by American Medical Association (JAMA) and The New England Journal of Medicine to inform answers. The platform has seen strong adoption. It claims that more than 40% of physicians in the US use its platform for medical search, and it is adding 65,000 medical professionals’ portfolio each month.

Like other AI engines, OpenEvidence does not deny that hallucinations from the model are possible. But it is keeping them to the minimum by only training on peer-reviewed medical literature, and using an ensemble of specialized models rather than a single large model, and allowing full transparency into source citations.

Recently, it also launched DeepConsult, a new feature that does deeper research by connecting dots between different studies to help carry out advanced research on a particular topic. While OpenEvidence’s core search product is focused on speed, DeepConsult is best used when physicians have more time. A physician can pose a question to the platform and the platform will refer to content and connect the relevant dots to provide deeper insights and knowledge for care. Each DeepConsult run requires over 100 times the compute and cost of a standard OpenEvidence search. Yet, OpenEvidence is offering DeepConsult entirely free to all verified US clinicians.

OpenEvidence’s Financials
OpenEvidence’s search engine is available to the doctors for free, but it makes money through advertising, primarily from pharmaceuticals with big budgets. According to recent reports, the company is operating at annualized revenue rates of over $50 million being generated from advertising. Since it is privately held, it does not disclose profitability figures.

OpenEvidence has raised over $300 million in funding from investors. It recently raised $210 million in a funding round led by GV, Kleiner Perkins, Coatue, Conviction, and Thrive Capital at a valuation of $3.5 billion. An earlier round held in February this year had valued it at $1 billion. 

OpenEvidence is not the only player in the market though. There are several others such as Medwise AI, Ask Aletta, and Dr. Oracle that claim to offer similar services. It is still early days to see who remains competitive in the industry. A solution that can keep hallucinations at bay while providing the best care options will be the winner.

Photo Credit: Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay