Perimeter Medical Imaging (TSXV: PINK; OTCQX: PYNKF) has announced it has been selected to receive a contribution from the INOVAIT Pilot Fund to advance next-generation AI capabilities for its flagship product Claire, which received FDA approval earlier this year as the first AI-enabled device for use during breast cancer surgery. The project was one of 10 selected for funding in the latest round of the INOVAIT Pilot Fund call for applications.
The project will focus on building more robust and scalable AI to support continued improvement of Perimeter’s OCT+AI platform. The Company expects to receive up to nearly $148,000 in INOVAIT contributions. An additional $100,000 Mitacs Business Strategy Internship award will support graduate student participation through the university collaboration. The project is conducted in partnership with Dr. Ervin Sejdić, professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto.
In a statement, Adrian Mendes, CEO of Perimeter, commented, “We’re grateful for INOVAIT’s support of this work. While advances in breast cancer treatment have accelerated over the past decade, surgeons still have limited tools in the operating room to assess microscopic disease. This project helps to advance what Claire’s AI can do in the operating room. Better tools lead to better decisions. And better decisions can change what’s possible for patients on the day of their surgery.”
David Rempel, co-founder and INOVAIT project lead at Perimeter, added, “This project goes beyond a single model update—it’s about building the next layer of Claire’s AI infrastructure. By improving how we label data, characterize performance, and deploy AI on operating-room hardware, we can aim to make future enhancements faster, more robust, and more directly connected to the surgical workflow. The goal is to give surgeons increasingly precise intelligence at the moment it matters most.”
The work supported by this contribution will target four specific areas: developing tools to reduce the burden of manual expert labeling required to train AI models; building a clearer understanding of how the AI performs across different tissue types and disease presentations; designing a two-tier AI architecture that combines fast initial screening with more detailed follow-up analysis; and optimizing the system for efficient performance on the hardware used in operating room environments. The future deployment of these capabilities will proceed in accordance with standard FDA review processes for class III devices.
Raphael Ronen, Co-Executive Director of INOVAIT, remarked, “Perimeter represents exactly the kind of company the INOVAIT Pilot Fund is designed to support—one that has demonstrated real clinical impact and is now building on that foundation to go further. Pilot Fund projects have the potential to transform patient outcomes, and we are proud to support Perimeter’s work at this important stage.”
Claire combines wide-field optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging with proprietary AI to help surgeons see microscopic cancer in the operating room, guiding them to areas that warrant a closer look, particularly in the critical margin zone where cancer is most likely to be missed. The technology works alongside other intraoperative margin assessment techniques, giving surgeons additional intelligence that combines real-time imaging with AI detection support before post-operative pathology evaluation.
INOVAIT is a pan-Canadian network funded by the Government of Canada and hosted at the Sunnybrook Research Institute with the objective of building a truly integrated image-guided therapy and AI ecosystem, fueling continuous innovation that revolutionizes healthcare globally. Funding for this project was provided in part by INOVAIT through the Government of Canada’s Strategic Response Fund.
