Qure.ai's Prashant Warier on making healthcare proactive, not reactive
Prashant Warier's venture is using AI to revolutionise global health care diagnostics, bringing early, accessible and affordable detection of diseases like TB and lung cancer
Prashant Warier, Founder and CEO, Qure.ai
Image: Mexy Xavier
When Prashant Warier began his career building artificial intelligence (AI) models to optimise trucking networks in the US, few could have predicted that he would one day be at the forefront of transforming global health care.
Today, as the founder and CEO of Qure.ai, Warier is pioneering the use of AI to tackle some of the most pressing diagnostic challenges in medicine—from tuberculosis to lung cancer—across more than 100 countries.
With a PhD in operations research, he initially applied AI to various fields, from logistics to advertising. But a deeper calling emerged: “I felt that, with health care, there was an opportunity to solve some big-theory problems using AI,” he says. That conviction led to the founding of Qure.ai, a company now recognised globally for its cutting-edge diagnostic tools.
Warier’s team is reimagining how customers will operate with AI. The company’s strength lies in its ability to integrate multiple data types—imaging, text, and voice—into a seamless diagnostic experience. “We can combine imaging plus text plus voice and have a multimodal AI that is available to customers,” Warier explains.
On May 22, the company launched a new AI-powered co-pilot tool called ‘AIRA’ for frontline health care workers, in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). This was launched at the World Health Assembly in Geneva. “It is a voice-based diagnostic assistant for doctors. This will free up their time for more patient interactions via automated data collection and better clinical protocol adherence. With AI, we can multiply every dollar spent and realise significantly more impact and returns in LMIC health systems,” explains Warier.
The team started building an X-ray screening product for tuberculosis, reports for which would typically take a few days to arrive. “We were able to launch the first autonomous AI tool in health care to read X-rays as soon as they were taken and get reports in 30 seconds,” says Warier. The qXR became Qure,ai’s flagship product.
While Qure.ai’s technology is sophisticated, its greatest impact may be in the world’s most underserved regions. “In countries like Malawi with two radiologists, or Liberia with none, AI is not replacing anyone—it’s filling a critical gap,” adds Warier.
It is also transforming lung cancer detection by using AI to analyse routine chest X-rays—an approach that bypasses the limitations of traditional CT-based screening. “Lung cancer is probably one of the deadliest cancers,” says Warier. “About 80 percent of cases are diagnosed at a late stage, and most people won’t make it past one year.”
Recognising that CT scans are expensive and underutilised—especially in countries with limited health care infrastructure—Qure.ai developed an AI-powered risk scoring system that flags early signs of lung cancer from standard X-rays taken for unrelated reasons like infections, pre-op checks, or annual exams. “We said, why don’t we look at the 1.3 million chest X-rays taken routinely and find signs of lung cancer in those?” he asks.
In partnership with AstraZeneca, Qure.ai has screened over 5 million people. “We are seeing the number of lung cancer cases diagnosed through this has the potential to be more than 50 percent early,” Warier says. The number is a dramatic improvement from the current 20 percent early detection rate.
To support this, Qure.ai has built a comprehensive diagnostic pathway that includes tools for chest X-ray analysis, chest CT interpretation, and workflow management to ensure follow-ups and timely diagnosis. “We have a whole suite of solutions for the lung cancer diagnostic pathway,” Warier adds. Alongside its work in tuberculosis, Qure.ai’s lung cancer tools are now deployed in over 4,000 hospitals across 100 countries, helping screen 10 to 15 million patients annually.
The Road Ahead
“Over the years, Qure.ai has built one of the most advanced AI radiology products for detecting lung cancer, tuberculosis, and other diseases. The company has 1.5 billion annotated X-ray images and has created one of the most accurate AI algorithms in the world. They are also one of the most widely deployed products in this category with 3,200 sites in the US, Europe, and the global South,” says Dev Khare, partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners which has invested in Qure.ai.
Qure.ai has 18 FDA clearances and approvals in 95 to 100 countries. “Every product is cleared by the regulatory authorities,” Warier says. The company also adheres to strict data privacy standards like HIPAA and GDPR, and invests heavily in clinical validation, with over 200 peer-reviewed papers published.
“We need a future where health care is proactive, not reactive. I think we have enough data to make it happen with AI,” says Warier. “There is so much information you can track—sleep, heart rate, blood sugar. The question is, how do you make sense of that information to help people before they become patients?” he asks.