We won't rest until every deadly breast cancer is detected early

Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women across the globe, and is also a major cause of cancer mortality (Global Cancer Observatory, 2020). Most countries that have experienced reductions in mortality in the last decade have implemented a combination of strategies at the population level. These are early detection, timely diagnosis, and effective multimodality treatments. Since there are no precursors of breast cancer that can be detected by screening, these three strategies have to be implemented sequentially to achieve a reduction in breast cancer mortality. The goal is to detect breast cancer as early as possible, when treatments are more effective, less toxic and less costly. Mammography is the only modality proven to reduce mortality. The Vara platform makes AI assisted mammography accessible and affordable for the benefit of women everywhere.

Dr. med. Renate Tewaag

radprax

We started from scratch

Back in 2018 we understood that the future of breast cancer screening includes artificial intelligence. But we didn’t quite know how AI would be integrated into the radiologist’s workflow. We needed to deliver both superior AI — and a superior experience for radiologists.

So, from day one, we partnered closely with screening units in Germany who believed in the transformative potential of AI. These development partners - or co-creators, as we like to call them - collaborated with the Vara team to not only design a breast cancer screening platform that would improve overall performance and quality metrics of screening radiologists, but most importantly, always keep screening radiologists in the loop.

2018

November 2018

Spin-off from Merantix Venture Studio

January 2019

First screening centers in Germany joined our journey as development partners

September 2019

Vara certified as a CE (class IIb) medical device

May 2020

€6.5M Series A led by OMERS Ventures, Toronto

February 2022

Vara Teams Up with Mamotest to Launch the Company’s First International Breast Screening Unit in Mexico

March 2022

Vara obtains stringent European Medical Device Regulation (MDR) certification

March 2022

Vara brings AI-driven breast screening to Greece with partner MITERA

March 2022

Vara and University of Lübeck kick off first-ever prospective AI study for breast cancer screening in Germany

April 2022

Largest study of its kind shows promising results in preventing missed breast cancer with AI (European Journal of Radiology)

May 2022

Novel, complementary approach to applying AI to breast cancer screening improves accuracy (Lancet Digital Health)

January 2023

Vara launches in India

June 2023

Vara launches in Egypt

November 2023

World’s largest prospective study AI for in breast cancer screening concludes with almost 500k participants

Our Leadership

Jonas Muff

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Meet the Advisors
Assoc. Prof. Pascal Baltzer

Assoc. Prof. Pascal Baltzer

Medical University of Vienna, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, Vienna, Austria

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Dr. Alexandra Athanasiou

Dr. Alexandra Athanasiou

Director Mammography, MITERA Hospital, Athens, Greece

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Dr. Thilo Töllner

Dr. Thilo Töllner

Head of Mammography, Klinik Dr. Hancken, Stade, Germany

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Prof. Lale Umutlu

Prof. Lale Umutlu

Vice-Chair, Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology, Medical University of Essen, Essen, Germany

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Ian Rentsch

Ian Rentsch

Vice President, Head of Global Data Partnerships at TriNetX

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Werner Boeing

Werner Boeing

Former CIO Roche Diagnostics, currently CEO and co-founder of evisory

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Dr. Moritz Brehmer

Dr. Moritz Brehmer

AI Program Director at Quartz Healthcare

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Meet the Vara Investors
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Our Sponsors
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Vara's research and development is co-financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Funds from the Eurostar project are used to extend the Vara machine learning model designed to support human experts during the detection of breast cancer.