Shares of Culver City-based NantHealth Inc. shot up 56% on Jan. 28 after the company announced a partnership with an HMO for use of its online portal and the unveiling of new AI platform to help pathologists identify types of lung cancer.
News of both announcements sent NantHealth shares up 33% at market open on Jan. 28 from the Jan. 27 close of $1.31; the share price continued to rise throughout the day, closing with a gain of 74 cents to $2.05. Trading volume was unusually heavy at 21 million shares, about 85 times the average daily volume of roughly 250,000 shares.
NantHealth’s online portal partnership is with Health Plan, a major managed care organization serving over 200,000 enrollees in West Virginia and Ohio. NantHealth will provide its multi-payor software platform that allows for enhanced communication between the health insurer and physician groups and other healthcare providers.
Specifically, the software allows for communications about plan eligibility and benefit criteria, claims status inquiries, claims management, authorizations, referrals and document exchange.
“We’re excited to be working in partnership with The Health Plan to enable a direct connection with their provider networks with an outcome of impressive cost savings, ongoing support, product improvements, and enhanced communications,” Mark Mozley, NantHealth’s senior vice president for global sales and marketing, said in the announcement.
Financial terms of the partnership transaction were not disclosed.
Separately, representatives from NantHealth unveiled at a Silicon Valley imaging science symposium a new artificial intelligence platform designed to aid pathologists in diagnosing specific types of lung cancer.
NantHealth said in the announcement that the diagnoses achieved by the software platform closely match analyses performed by trained medical pathologists.
NantHealth’s Chief Executive, Patrick Soon-Shiong, said in the announcement that accurately identifying tumor-infiltrating white blood cells currently requires manual review of multiple slide images by pathologists, incurring significant delays and costs. “Our goal was to develop a scalable remote cloud-based diagnostic imaging system, a NORAD of pathology diagnosis so to speak.”
Soon-Shiong said in the announcement that NantHealth’s platform was able to distinguish correctly between two different types of lung cancer with 86% accuracy.
Healthcare/biomed, energy, engineering/construction and infrastructure reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @howardafine.
