A computation service centered business model for clinical diagnostics based on image analysis of microscopic data

Parameters like the number of genetic elements or their position within the cell nucleus can give valuable hints for diagnosis or cancer treatment. They are determined by commercial or specially designed hybridization markers which are applied in a biochemical pro-cedure to tissue or blood samples. Analysis of microscopic images reveals the necessary data, possibly after a statistical evaluation. We design a business model for one or more service providers in the biochemical, optical, or informatical branches. As this model is very flexi-ble, it offers several possibilities for realization. We have implemented all experimental and computational steps of the model, some in sev-eral variants and simulated the whole diagnostic pipeline as a proof of principle, especially for the breast cancer gene Her2neu. We also point out the possible problems which arise in the context of medical data handling, computational algorithm licensing, monitoring, account-ing, and billing. It is therefore still a challenge to organize the whole diagnostic pipeline within the framework of our business model.