From Motley F. How Pro Medicus Limited aims to use Artificial...

From Motley F.

How Pro Medicus Limited aims to use Artificial Intelligence to beat its competition

Pro Medicus Limited (ASX: PME) is a leading health imaging IT provider known for its Visage 7 technology.

Its share price performance has been nothing short of breath taking having gone up a phenomenal 1,400% over the last 5 years.

Just when you think that run can’t go up any further, its CEO Sam Hupert has stated in an open briefing that the Visage 7 technology is 18-24 months ahead of the competition and artificial intelligence (AI) could be a game changer for them to increase that gap significantly.

This is because AI could make it possible to fully automate Visage 7 functionality such as the volume measurement of tumours and or hot spots on a PET scan thereby improving radiologist accuracy and productivity.

The company at the end of last year unveiled its advances in AI at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2017 machine learning showcase. The company announced that the Visage 7 technology was the first and only system to combine both AI research and AI assisted diagnostic interpretation in the same Enterprise Imaging Platform.

The growth in AI is tipped to be one of the mega trends for the decades to come and the applications of AI at Pro Medicus could be quite lucrative.

Pro Medicus released its HY 18 results, here were the highlights:

• Underlying after tax profit was up 33% to $5.42m
• Margins increased to 41%
• The company remains debt free with cash reserves of $22m

In my view, the company’s long-term future certainly appears to be exciting but there may be short to medium term volatility as the company develops its technology.

I’d love to have some exposure to this company, but it won’t be for the faint hearted. This could be a buy and hold play for at least the next decade or more.