AIRA Sciences

Earlier detection is not simply about identifying disease sooner. It is also about reducing the time patients spend navigating the path to diagnosis. For many patients, delays do not occur because of a single event. They accumulate across the patient journey through access, coordination, follow-through and the way healthcare systems are designed. Understanding those barriers is an important part of improving patient outcomes. Study referenced: https://lnkd.in/exX6Fa6y

Lung cancer outcomes are often shaped long before treatment begins. For patients diagnosed at Stage IA, 5-year relative survival can be around 91%. For those diagnosed after the disease has progressed to late stages, that figure can fall below 15%. The difference highlights an important reality: earlier detection can create opportunities for earlier intervention, broader treatment options and potentially better outcomes. As conversations around cancer care continue to evolve, timing of detection and diagnosis remains one of the most important factors influencing a patient's journey.

More than 15 million Americans are eligible for annual lung cancer screening.  Only 18% receive it. The problem isn't the science. It isn't awareness alone. It's the five barriers that sit between a patient and a timely diagnosis — availability, affordability, accessibility, accommodation, and follow-through. Any one of them can break the chain. Screening is the difference between a scare and a loss....that's what we're working on.

Today we are launching in the United States as AIRA Sciences, with the appointment of Dr. Scott Tackett as Chief Executive Officer & President. Founder Dr. Liberty Foreman becomes Chief Innovation Officer and Chair of the Board, where she will lead our product and platform roadmap and the long-term direction of the company. AIRA Sciences (Advanced InfraRed Application Sciences) is pioneering the use of infrared spectroscopy combined with AI for early multi-cancer detection. Our lead product, AIR-DS Lung, is a non-invasive cheek-swab early detection device, UKCA approved and supported by prospective clinical evidence in over 500 patients. We are currently running RADICAL-REACT, a multi-site UK clinical performance evaluation study, while preparing for US LDT launch and FDA submission. Dr. Tackett joins from Intuitive Surgical, where he most recently served as Vice President, Global Market Access, Value & Economics. Over 11 years at Intuitive he built and led the global organisation that supported the company's growth from $2B to $11B in annual revenue across more than 30 international markets. His 2025 Doctor of Public Health dissertation focused on lung cancer screening programs and hospital effectiveness. At AIRA Sciences, we believe multi-cancer screening and detection should be accurate, non-invasive, simple, accessible, and affordable, so people can live life fully. We are planting a flag in the ground, and we will not stop until we get there. Read the full announcement: https://lnkd.in/eHKe43Xy #cancer #earlydetection #lungcancer #medtech #healthtech #leadership

Current lung cancer screening guidelines in the US recommend yearly LDCT scans for people aged 50 to 80 who smoke or used to smoke, with at least a 20 pack-year history. That is a meaningful recommendation for a high-risk group. But it leaves an enormous number of people outside the criteria entirely. Around 10 to 15 percent of lung cancer diagnoses in the US occur in people who have never smoked. That is tens of thousands of people every year. People with occupational exposures, genetic factors, or no identifiable risk factor at all. People the current screening pathway was not designed to catch. There is no clear answer to this yet, but a non-invasive, accessible tool that does not require a smoking history to justify its use is a step toward a system that thinks about everyone, not just those who fit the existing risk profile. Nobody should fall through the gap because a guideline wasn't written with them in mind.

The ACS guidelines on lung cancer screening include a detail that does not get talked about enough. Screening should only be done at facilities that have the right type of CT scanner and experience in LDCT for lung cancer screening. And then, almost as a footnote, you might not have the right kind of facility nearby, so you may need to travel some distance to be screened. For some people, that distance is manageable. For others, it is a reason not to go at all. Add to that the cost, the time off work, the anxiety of sitting inside a large scanner, and the fact that your insurance may or may not cover it, and you start to understand why so many high-risk people never show up. Accessibility should not be a secondary concern in lung cancer screening. It should be a primary one. Sierra Medical was built on the belief that where you live, what you earn, and how far you can travel should not determine whether you get an early diagnosis. A cheek swab processed through a local logistics network is not the whole answer. But it is a meaningful part of one.

Right now, the gold standard for lung cancer screening is a low-dose CT (LDCT) scan. It requires a large machine, specialist facilities, trained radiologists, and repeat annual visits. It also exposes patients to radiation each time, and it is only recommended for people aged 50 to 80 with a significant smoking history. For those people, it saves lives. That is not in question. But CT infrastructure is finite. Not every patient lives near a facility equipped to do it properly. Not everyone who needs screening fits the criteria. And not everyone who walks into a clinic with a lung health concern is going to get fast access to a scanner. AIR-DS starts with a 10-second cheek swab. It requires no specialist equipment at the point of care, no radiation, and no large clinical footprint. Results are returned within 24 hours. It is not designed to replace LDCT. It is designed to make the decision of who needs one faster, smarter, and more accessible.

A 10-second cheek swab. That is all AIR-DS needs to assess whether a patient has a high suspicion of early-stage lung cancer. No needles. No imaging. No genetic sequencing. No discomfort. No waiting for a scanner to become available. The sample goes to the lab. The results come back within 24 hours, alongside a clear decision support report for the clinician. It is not a replacement for the diagnostic pathway. It is a smarter, kinder way into it. A way of making sure that the people who need urgent investigation get there faster, and the people who don't are spared unnecessary procedures. People from low-income households are five times more likely to develop lung cancer. Accessible diagnostics is not a nice-to-have, it is a neccessity. AIR-DS is a leveller, providing equitable access to lung cancer screening no matter where you are, or who you are.

Infrared spectroscopy is not a new technology. It has been used for decades in aerospace, food safety, agriculture, and forensics. It works. The science is proven and trusted across multiple industries. So why has it never made it into clinical medicine? Because to apply it to a biological sample, you need to bring together physics, biology, statistics, AI, and medicine at the same time. The preprocessing is complex, the quality control is bespoke, and the analytics require a level of deep specialism that is rare and expensive. That is why its use has historically been limited to large, well-funded organizations. Sierra Medical has built and patented a platform that automates all of it. What once required a team of specialists now runs in the cloud, without any expert analyst in the loop. That is the big unlock. And it took a PhD, a decade of work, a dedicated team, and a refusal to accept that clinical medicine should be left behind.

When a patient presents with a lung health concern today, the pathway goes almost immediately to imaging. CT scans are expensive, in high demand, and in many parts of the world, there is a diagnostic waiting list crisis. A huge proportion of those scans come back clear. So why are medical professionals spending significant clinical resource on patients who don't need it, while the ones who do wait longer than they should? The system doesn't have a treatment problem. It has a triage problem. Sierra Medical's AIR-DS acts as a decision support tool at the start of that pathway. Independent health economics modelling shows it could reduce CT scans by 50% and X-rays by 70%, while still getting the right patients through faster. Better for the system, definitely, but more importantly it is better for the patients.