Riaz Rahman, Sales Director, EMEA, reflects on his 8 years with Brainomix, a period of time that has seen broad adoption of stroke AI imaging and transformative growth for the Oxford-based AI pioneer, whose Brainomix 360 system has processed more than 2-million scans globally.
My career has predominantly been shaped by sales and commercial management roles spanning the pharmaceutical, health informatics & data, and health technology sectors.
I joined Brainomix in March 2016 tasked with exploring commercial growth opportunities, revenue generation and key opinion leader (KOL) relationship management across various markets.
More recently, I have taken up the role of Sales Director, EMEA to drive the regional commercial strategy and to provide sales tactics and coaching to a team of country sales leaders, working together to fortify our position as the European market leader.
Internally, a significant part of my time involves teamwork across multiple divisions of the company, spanning commercial, finance, marketing, product and technical field operations. Externally, the role calls for close collaboration with various systems of care and end users of the Brainomix 360 platform, including neurologists, radiologists and interventional neuroradiologists.
You've been with Brainomix for more than 8 years, witnessing the company’s journey from an Oxford University spinout to an established player in the AI imaging space. What have been the most transformative moments for you during this period?
In 2016, the clinical appetite for AI in stroke was still quite nascent, with many clinicians remaining skeptical and holding out for more real-world evidence to demonstrate the value and impact of such software. This was a real eye opener and a marker for the significant scale of the challenge ahead; fortunately, at Brainomix, academic excellence and scientific rigor are at our core.
Over many years we have built and curated robust evidence from multiple network deployments with clear, cohesive messaging to alleviate these concerns and to remove the barriers. Moving to the present day, the situation and policy drivers have dramatically changed, as evidenced most acutely by the NHS, where the use of AI in stroke is hardwired into the NHS Long Term Plan strategy, the National Optimised Stroke Imaging Pathway (NOSIP), and NICE guidelines.
International systems have followed, as exampled by Hungary, Poland & Wales. Others are now taking note and inspiration and building cases for funding, making it a stimulating time to be working in this space.
3. How have you seen the role of stroke AI imaging evolve?
Stroke AI is now firmly embraced as a transformative tool for healthcare compared to when I first started. Policy and clinical guidelines are increasingly becoming more supportive, with deeper regulatory coverage.
It is clear that stroke AI is now seen as an enabler by clinicians in what is a very time critical yet complex pathway. The value of our technology is now viewed not through the prism of a point-to-point solution for a single hospital, but rather at a multi-hospital network level. As mentioned previously, the value of stroke AI is being realised at a macro level with national deployments.
I see the next wave of opportunities for stroke AI imaging built around new treatment and interventional pathways as device technologies evolve and improve, enabling clinicians to access parts of the brain not currently in reach. There is also significant present and future scope for AI vendors to work with wider technologies to provide a more cohesive longitudinal set of tools to support the clinical pathway, which we are beginning to showcase with our expanding global channel partners eco-system.
Collaborating with customers is one of the favourite parts of my role.
I have seen during my time at Brainomix the full narrative arc of our customers shift from doubters to believers of health systems shunning AI to now fully embracing AI.
In the early years the focus was working with early adopters and partners to deliver real-world evidence, laying the foundation to build an influential ecosystem of expert clinical champions delivering frontline care and driving wider adoption through their own positive experiences.
The engagement process is never ending and, if anything, is becoming even more demanding and challenging as the capabilities of AI grow.
We stand still at our own peril and this is in itself a very enjoyable part of the role. Every year that passes by is a long time in AI where competition is fierce. The market demands that we continuously adapt in a hyper dynamic environment.
The factors are various and multifaceted. Typically, they include the lack of readily available 24/7 expertise across networks to consistently interpret complex brain scans with subtle clinical signs; variability in treatment rates and resultant patient healthcare outcomes; undertreatment of eligible patients leading to an avoidable high cost burden of care; lack of real time image sharing; unnecessary futile patient transfers and the pressing need to deliver national targets.
For context from the patient perspective, every 1 minute of delay results in 2 million neurons lost. With every 15 minutes of delay 1 month of healthy life is lost.
This has forged a collective focus of minds.
I believe in fully empowering our commercial leaders and my philosophy is of ownership and accountability, both individually and collectively. As a small company, every win is highly visible and matters.
This means our commercial leaders are expected to adapt quickly to country-level market dynamics and opportunities, which in the world of health technology and AI is fast paced. I feel it is important that they have ownership to build their commercial tactical plans with guidance and oversight from a strategic perspective, but also to have the space to showcase their domain expertise and free thinking. If needed, we fail fast and pivot to realise the opportunities available.
As a team, across various functions, we continuously strive to make smart and informed choices to deliver success. We should never be afraid to learn from each other and from what is happening in our own and other similar markets. And anyone who knows me, life is for living and we will certainly have fun along the way.
Covid hit us all in many ways. A particular highlight during this period was being able to deploy our software remotely to more than 40 customers during such a challenging time for frontline physicians. At the heart of one of these projects was The Royal London Hospital in London, where we built a fully connected network spanning London, East of England, Kent & Medway, serving a patient population of over 9 million (larger than Wales and Scotland combined) and helping to build the busiest mechanical thrombectomy service to ever exist in the UK at that time.
And I cannot fail to mention the seminal success with the UK Government-funded AI award culminating in the largest independent assessment of stroke AI in over 83,000 UK patients, demonstrating a 50% additional increase in treatment rates where our Brainomix 360 Stroke platform was used.
These were cornerstones to delivering not one but three national wins of which we are immensely proud, a first in the stroke AI market globally.
What we do is making a difference to millions of patient lives. I am immensely fortunate to work with incredibly driven, talented and smart colleagues, commercial partners and customers.
No day is the same. The role has taken me to many different parts of the globe to collaborate and build success with people of many different cultures.
We’ve reached 2 million patient scans across 35+ countries and the journey is far from over. The best years are ahead of us with an exciting vista in clear view.