Perimeter Medical Imaging secures INOVAIT grant to advance AI for breast cancer surgery
What's the deal? Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, a Toronto-based medtech company, has secured funding from the INOVAITDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → Pilot Fund to develop new AI capabilities for Claire — its FDA-approved imaging system used during breast cancer surgery. The project was one of 10 selected in INOVAIT's latest round.
Perimeter expects to receive up to nearly $148,000 from INOVAIT, plus a $100,000 MitacsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → business strategy internship award. The work will be carried out in collaboration with the University of Toronto's Ervin Sejdić.
The funding will go toward strengthening the software behind Claire's optical coherence tomography platform. Priorities include reducing the manual labelling needed to train AI models, improving performance across different tissue types, and optimising how the system runs on operating-room hardware.
Why now? Claire won FDA approval earlier this year as the first AI-enabled imaging device cleared for use during breast cancer surgery in the US. The company has said the system showed a statistically significant reduction in residual cancer after surgery compared with standard care alone.
Chief executive Adrian Mendes said surgeons still have limited tools to spot microscopic disease mid-operation. Co-founder and project lead David Rempel framed the effort as building more robust AI infrastructure — not just updating a single model — with the longer-term goal of tying future enhancements more closely to surgical workflow.
What could go wrong? Any new capabilities developed through this project will still need to clear standard FDA review for class III devices before clinical deployment. That process can be lengthy and unpredictable.
The funding itself is modest — under $250,000 combined — which limits how far the R&D can stretch. Scaling a surgical AI platform across hospitals with varying hardware and clinical environments remains a significant technical and commercial challenge.
The signal: This story sits at the intersection of two powerful trends: AI moving into the operating room, and regulators beginning to greenlight these tools. Claire's FDA clearance marked a milestone — the first of its kind in breast cancer surgery — and the follow-on funding suggests the company is pushing to widen its technological moat while the regulatory window is open.
The broader pattern is clear. AI in healthcare is shifting from diagnostics and back-office automation to real-time clinical decision-making. Investors and grant bodies are backing companies that can pair regulatory approval with genuine clinical evidence. For medtech startups, the playbook is becoming: get cleared, prove outcomes, then iterate fast.
Read more: Noah News
