NHS patients throughout the West Midlands are to benefit from a digital pathology programme, designed to help reduce cancer backlogs, transform services, and improve the speed and accuracy of cancer diagnosis.

As one of the largest digital pathology programmes in Europe, the West Midlands Cancer Alliance initiative covers a population of 5.8 million people across four NHS pathology networks and 17 NHS trusts.

Siemens Healthineers is splitting its Asia Pacific operations into two to allow both China and the rest of the region to achieve their full potential. China, now its own region, continues to be headed by Jerry Wang, while the new Asia Pacific Japan region is headed by Vy Tran, formerly Varian's chief compliance and quality officer.

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, announced two new advances in MR-only workflows to advance head and neck cancer radiotherapy imaging and simulation. The company's artificial intelligence (AI) enabled MRCAT Head and Neck radiotherapy application, which allows the use of MR as the sole or primary imaging modality for radiotherapy planning in the treatment of soft tissue tumors in the head and neck, along with the brain, pelvis and prostate, has received FDA 510(k) clearance and is commercially available in the U.S.

Siemens Healthineers and UHealth - University of Miami Health System - announced a Value Partnership(1) agreement. This strategic relationship will further technological advancement and standardization of equipment at the health system, while allowing the university to create educational and training programs for clinicians and technologists. This unique agreement is the first of its kind in Florida.

University of Tübingen, a leading member of Cyber Valley, Europe's largest Artificial Intelligence (AI) research consortium and Boehringer Ingelheim launch an AI and data science fellowship program for top talents from around the world. Three to five fellowships will be awarded per year for up to three years with a target of nine to fifteen fellows in the program after five years.

Shared care record and population health management provider Orion Health has a new chief executive. Brad Porter will lead the transition to a new phase for the business after 30 years of Ian McCrae at the helm.

Speaking during his first visit to the United Kingdom in his new role, Porter said: "The UK has always been an important market for Orion Health globally and we remain committed to our UK partners and customers."

Digital speech biomarker company ki:elements has published validation results on the use of its ki:e speech biomarker for cognition (SB-C) in early Alzheimer’s disease in the "Karger - Digital Biomarkers" journal.(1)

Two European dementia studies - the Dutch DeepSpA study in collaboration with Maastricht University & the Scottish SPeAK study in collaboration with University of Edinburgh - helped to validate the psychometric properties of the SB-C.