PINK Project: Fostering early detection to reduce breast cancer burden in the society.

The collaboration will focus on efforts to ensure timely identification of breast cancer, treatment initiation, and robust referral pathways linking them to tertiary care and health centers through technology enabled and live patient tracking support. Pink Project will also initiate screening of 15,000 suspected females within one year, and help establish a referral pathway for follow-ups, for diagnosis and treatment initiation.

Here is what Micha Nussbaum, COO of the Punjab-Chandigarh cluster, Roche Pharma India has to say, “At Roche, our ambition is to transform health systems to make our therapies available to many more people. This starts with screening and diagnosis, but it does not end there. We have to ensure that patients who get diagnosed will have faster and better access to treatment with standard of care. In this context, this partnership with the Department of Health, Government of Punjab and Niramai marks a milestone, as it will not only allow us to have a better understanding of the patient journey but also help us improve it, so that patients can get access to holistic care.”

Pink Project is also known as ‘Punjab Breast Cancer AI-Digital project’, and following is its scope of work:

Patients: State-wide screening for early detection of breast cancer cases with an innovative tracking solution, linking to an integrated referral pathway for end-to-end closure with follow-ups for diagnosis and treatment initiation. A total of 15, 000 screenings of suspected females are targeted to be carried out in a span of one year, where the Punjab Health Department will ensure the mobilization of people for the screening.

Health Systems: Screening solutions and the digital referral pathway would be integrated and patients’ information would be shared from the Niramai software to the digital referral pathway, and provide end to end closure of screening, diagnostics and treatment modalities. The core technology of Niramai software has been developed using patented machine learning algorithms for reliable and accurate detection of breast cancer, which are non-invasive and respect the privacy of the patient.