Interview with the Founders
Cardiovascular disease kills 17 million people each year. Idoven’s founders, Dr. Manuel Marina Breysse and José María Lillo Castellano, together with their team, created Willem, an AI that reads electrocardiograms (ECGs) with expert-level accuracy. Their goal: to provide faster diagnoses for doctors, enhance patient care and foster a future in which AI transforms cardiology.
How did you get the idea to use AI to fight heart disease?
Manuel: I’m a cardiologist. Every day at the hospital I saw patients suffering from cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. One in three people will die from this disease unless we improve our healthcare systems. It’s also the biggest cost driver in healthcare. Diagnosing it starts with reading ECGs, a repetitive and time-consuming task. José and I were convinced there was a better way: to build an AI that can read ECGs.
When was that and what happened in the preparation phase
before the foundation of your startup Idoven?
José: We founded Idoven in 2018, building on our collaborative research and PhD work in machine learning applied to cardiology which began in 2014. Willem is our AI platform, capable of detecting arrhythmias and diseases in ECGs.