Ezra, a New York City-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup, has secured $4 million in funding for its new direct-to-consumer prostate cancer screening program.

The program, through a partnership with RadNet, helps patients undergo prostate MRI examinations and get screened for cancer. It is currently still in the invite-only stage, serving patients at RadNet's Lennox Hill Radiology facility in New York. 

Ezra’s screening could prove to be an alternative—and a less invasive screening method—to the standard means of treatment to diagnose prostate cancer. Traditionally, a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test is taken, and if the blood test shows increased PSA levels, a biopsy is performed.  

“We should all check our bodies for cancer as part of our routine health regimen,” Emi Gal, CEO and co-founder of Ezra, said in a statement. “To make that possible, we’re aiming to combine a better patient experience with the most advanced medical imaging technology and the Ezra AI. Our goal is to improve the speed, accuracy and affordability of cancer screening.”

“Ezra’s uniqueness stands as much in the company’s investigational AI technology as it does in its innovative consumer-centric cancer screening model,” John Crues, MD, RadNet’s medical director, said in the same statement. “I am excited to be partnering with Emi and his team to make MRI-based prostate cancer screening available to all men at risk of prostate cancer.”