PolaSight

PolaSight SA is a Swiss MedTech company headquartered in Lausanne, developing PolaOne, an AI-powered polarimetric imaging platform that transforms how surgeons assess tumor tissue during cancer surgery. The platform combines optical polarimetry, a physics-based imaging technique that reveals tissue microstructure invisible to white light, with deep learning classifiers, delivering real-time tissue characterization without contrast agents, dyes, or drugs.

The clinical problem is universal across oncologic surgery. Achieving complete tumor resection is the strongest predictor of survival in nearly all solid tumors, yet current intraoperative tools fall short: frozen section pathology takes 20 to 30 minutes, fluorescence agents require IV administration with timing constraints, and visual inspection misses infiltrative tumor. Positive margin rates remain clinically meaningful across the spectrum of cancer surgery, with each percentage point improvement translating to substantial survival and cost benefits.

PolaOne addresses these limitations through wide-field, label-free polarimetric imaging at video rate, delivering sub-30-second decision time on fresh tissue specimens with no workflow disruption.

Clinical and scientific foundation: over 1,700 patient biopsies, six peer-reviewed publications, six hospital partnerships including Charité Berlin and MD Anderson, and a 1,484-case multi-center validation cohort across three European academic hospitals. PolaSight is a University of Bern spin-off with two exclusive licenses and three patents in preparation.

The team is led by CEO Roi Finish (17 years at J&J and Dentsply Sirona), CTO Davide Scandella (PhD in AI for medicine), and CSO Pablo Márquez-Neila (15+ years in computer vision and ML), supported by Co-Founder and Advisor Professor Raphael Sznitman (University of Bern).

Commercial model: Device-as-a-Service for hospital surgical pathology workflows. Regulatory path: IVDR Class A (CE Mark) and FDA 510(k) clearance, escalating to diagnostic claims as evidence accumulates. PolaSight is defining a new category of intraoperative tissue characterization, the first label-free, AI-driven, multi-indication polarimetric platform purpose-built for the operating room.