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Powered by Purpose: THINC EMEA Grand Opening Celebrates the Coalition Delivering Healthcare from the Eye

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London, UK – 27 April 2026 – The grand opening celebration of THINC EMEA, Topcon Healthcare’s Innovation Centre for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, held in London on April 16, was defined by the people who have already committed themselves to delivering Healthcare from the EyeTM.  Clinicians, researchers, healthcare leaders, AI innovators and patient advocacy groups gathered not as an audience, but as stakeholders in a shared mission: using eye data to enable earlier diagnosis, expand access to care and drive meaningful change across healthcare systems.

“This evening reflected something deeply important,” said Krysten Williams, Head of THINC EMEA. “Everyone who attended is already building, already publishing, already deploying to make Healthcare from the Eye a reality. The energy in the room came from shared purpose. THINC exists to make that work compound.”

Chaired by Ali Tafreshi, CEO of Topcon Healthcare Inc.,  the evening ran as a connected narrative rather than a sequence of keynotes. Through personal reflections and introductions, he highlighted the long‑standing relationships, shared journeys and common goals that connected the speakers, innovators and healthcare leaders in the room. 

Speakers who contributed to the evening’s narrative included:

  • Hideyuki Takizawa anchored the evening in Topcon’s long-term commitment to the ophthalmic ecosystem and its partnership-first approach to scale.
  • Professor Anat Loewenstein showed how evidence-based innovation rewrites patient pathways – not incrementally, but structurally.
  • Professor The Lord Darzi of Denham was blunt: without community-based care, digitalization and prevention, modern health systems don’t survive the next decade.
  • Professor Pearse Keane walked the full arc of clinical AI – algorithm, validation, spin-out, deployment – as a template others can follow.
  • Michael Bowen made the case that optometry is not adjacent to this shift, it’s central to it.
  • Cathy Yelf reminded the room that none of this works without patient trust, and that trust is earned, not assumed.

They were joined by eight AI companies stood alongside Topcon, each solving a different slice of the same problem:

  • Cascader – AI-aided OCT interpretation of ocular and systemic disease at the point of scan, from optometry to hospital.
  • Foresight Research – charity-led retinal biomarker discovery; 500,000 community participants with linkable data targeted in the UK.
  • OKKO Health – smart-phone remote vision monitoring, no hardware required.
  • RetInSight – AI-based OCT for age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular oedema, and retinal vein occlusion.
  • Toku Eyes – fundus-based cardiovascular and metabolic risk screening.
  • Pangaea Data – using clinical guideline-driven AI to close care gaps by finding untreated patients.
  • machineMD – neurological disease assessment via the eye.
  • Ocumetra – delivering better vision, quality of life, and lifelong ocular health to every child with myopia.

Different companies, different stages, one thesis: Healthcare from the Eye is not a future aspiration — it is already being delivered through collaboration across disciplines, sectors and geographies.

“Healthcare from the Eye isn’t a roadmap slide anymore,” explained Ali Tafreshi. “It’s a coalition with a calendar.”  The centre will operate as a neutral platform for clinical validation, real-world evidence generation and joint development — the connective tissue the field has been missing.

 

About Topcon Healthcare Inc.

Topcon Healthcare, Inc. is part of Topcon Corporation, a leading provider of digital healthcare solutions. Our vision is to improve access and quality of healthcare while reducing the cost of care. To achieve this vision, we created Healthcare from the Eye™, a connected care ecosystem that leverages AI-powered disease detection and management applied to noninvasive retinal imaging. For more information, visit topconhealthcare.com.

Media Contacts:

Topcon Healthcare
Mely Medel
Head of Marketing EMEA
[email protected]