Interview with Manuel González de la Rosa, founder of INSOFT: “CDTI Innovation funding and ERDF funds have boosted a low-cost solution for the early diagnosis of glaucoma”
Transforming a two-dimensional image of the ocular fundus into key three-dimensional information to anticipate glaucoma is the challenge addressed by INSOFT in its latest R&D project. With the support of grants co-funded by CDTI Innovación and European FEDER funds, this Spanish health-technology SME is advancing the development of artificial-intelligence-based tools that improve early diagnosis and monitoring of one of the leading causes of preventable blindness worldwide, combining clinical knowledge, technological innovation and an international outlook.
Since its creation in 1990, Instrumentalización y Oftalmología has followed a distinctive path within the Spanish health-technology ecosystem. The company was founded with a very specific aim: to transfer to industry the intense research activity that Professor Manuel González de la Rosa, Professor of Ophthalmology, had been carrying out for years in the field of ocular examination. “INSOFT was created to channel into industry developments that, at that time, had no clear commercial orientation,” explains its founder, who had worked on instruments such as automated perimeters or ocular spectrophotometers when they were still strictly academic tools.
That origin decisively shaped the company’s identity. From the outset, the goal was to transform advanced scientific knowledge into ophthalmic diagnostic products useful in real clinical practice, with a particular focus on the visual field, the optic nerve and, later on, glaucoma. Today, more than three decades later, INSOFT remains a highly specialised technology-based SME, made up of five people—four of them devoted to R&D—and with a family shareholding structure.
Throughout its history, the company has been behind some of the most relevant developments in ophthalmic perimetry at international level. “For many years our work consisted of designing perimetric strategies and hardware that today form part of the clinical standard,” notes González de la Rosa.
Artificial intelligence applied to glaucoma
This technological background has led, in recent years, to the development of its flagship product: Laguna ONhE. It is an application capable of estimating the distribution of haemoglobin in the optic nerve from colour fundus photographs, combining colourimetry techniques with deep learning. The system, offered as a B2B SaaS service and used for glaucoma screening and follow-up via the Internet, holds patents in the United States, Europe and Japan, has CE marking and is clinically deployed. “It is the only commercial product in the world that analyses glaucoma through optic nerve perfusion,” its founder emphasises.
Currently, although Europe is one of the main markets where the technology operates—both in opticians’ practices and in hospitals and diabetic retinopathy networks—INSOFT does not commercialise directly in either the domestic or international markets. Its model is based on agreements with strategic partners, especially the Danish company RetinaLyze, which integrates Laguna ONhE into its telemedicine platforms and distributes it in Europe, including Spain. In terms of revenue, 100% of sales come from exports, with a strong presence in countries such as Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and Spain, and active expansion into the United Kingdom, Brazil and Canada, as well as emerging markets such as China and South Africa.
A qualitative leap in diagnosis
Within this context of international consolidation lies the project “Obtaining three-dimensional information from 2D images of the optic nerve and association with perimetry,” an initiative that represents a qualitative leap in the company’s technological offering. The initiative arises from a very specific clinical need. “The optic nerve is the pathway through which visual information reaches the brain, and in glaucoma the nerve axons are progressively damaged, reducing both the volume of tissue and the amount of blood that nourishes it,” explains González de la Rosa. Until now, instruments capable of studying the shape and vascularisation of the optic nerve were costly and subject to subjective interpretation, which limited their widespread use.
The aim of the project has been precisely to overcome these barriers by providing “a simple, automatic, objective and low-cost method to obtain morphological and vascular information on the optic nerve, without the need for highly qualified personnel.” Until the completion of this initiative, Laguna ONhE provided two-dimensional information on blood distribution in the optic nerve from colour photographic images. The project’s results now make it possible to add three-dimensional estimates of the shape and volume of nerve tissue, obtained from those same 2D images.
From a clinical point of view, the advance is particularly relevant for optometrists and ophthalmologists. “Early diagnosis of glaucoma requires functional, morphological and vascular information,” recalls the founder of INSOFT. The project enriches perfusion information with morphological estimates and also links these structural features to functional visual-field analysis. Specifically, perimetric defects are integrated with perfusion and morphology data to generate a single index that encompasses the three fundamental pillars of glaucoma assessment.
Another key element is added to this comprehensive approach: detection of disease progression over time. “We have developed an index that allows significant progression to be identified even within ranges of statistical normality,” explains González de la Rosa. The ability to detect subtle changes is essential to anticipate the irreversible damage caused by glaucoma when diagnosis is delayed.
From a technological standpoint, the project is based on scientific hypotheses arising from the company’s previous work. One of these proposed that the volume of optic nerve tissue should be related to the amount of blood that nourishes it. This hypothesis has been verified by comparing morphology obtained through Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)—a sophisticated and costly technology—with haemoglobin density estimates obtained from conventional photographic images. “That correlation has enabled us to reconstruct three-dimensional information about the optic nerve from two-dimensional data,” he summarises.
Lessons learned and other potential applications
The project also capitalises on lessons learned from the commercialisation and real-world use of Laguna ONhE. In the past, INSOFT had accessed the market through large international companies, transferring a significant part of the knowledge associated with its developments. “Current Internet-based analysis methods have allowed us to reach agreements while retaining most of the critical knowledge,” says González de la Rosa. In the current model, images are sent to INSOFT’s servers, where the analysis is performed and the results returned to the user, making it possible to protect intellectual property even in the new functionalities incorporated thanks to this project.
The potential applications go beyond glaucoma. Some independent research groups have already used the tool to study neurodegenerative diseases affecting optic nerve axons, such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease, and its usefulness is also anticipated in other optic neuritis conditions, such as those associated with multiple sclerosis. “Establishing the procedure’s credibility in a disease with such a high incidence as glaucoma will make it easier for other researchers to become interested in its application to these processes,” he notes.
Another distinguishing feature of the solution is its accessibility. The software does not require complex instrumentation or advanced knowledge: it is enough to obtain a good photographic image of the optic nerve, something that is possible even with battery-powered handheld cameras in resource-limited settings. “All that is needed is an Internet connection, and the automatic interpretation is performed in seconds,” highlights González de la Rosa.
Public support for health innovation
The development of this project has been made possible thanks to public support co-funded by CDTI Innovación and European FEDER funds—support that, according to INSOFT’s founder, has had a decisive impact. “Competitive public funding allows us to tackle developments with a high technological risk that we could not assume with our own funds alone,” he states. These grants have made it possible to strengthen the team, increase the dedication of the machine-learning specialist, improve clinical supervision, upgrade equipment with high-performance workstations, and finance hospital collaborations and regulatory processes such as the new CE marking, all without decapitalising commercial activity.
Beyond the direct impact on the company, González de la Rosa underlines the systemic effect of this type of funding: “it has made it possible to transform an academic technology into a real medical product that improves glaucoma screening and follow-up at low cost, optimising resources in healthcare systems and avoiding unnecessary referrals.” “Programmes like these make it easier for Spanish technology SMEs to retain advanced intellectual property, generate skilled employment, internationalise and provide high-impact public-health solutions,” he concludes.
Looking to the immediate future, the project’s advances will be incorporated into the commercial version of Laguna ONhE in January 2026. INSOFT expects these improvements to accelerate entry into new markets currently under evaluation, such as Canada, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and to increase interest from new research groups. “Such use in independent studies will contribute to its prestige and dissemination,” concludes González de la Rosa, convinced that the combination of technological innovation, clinical validation and public support can make a real difference in preventing one of the world’s leading causes of preventable blindness.
CDTI Innovación
The Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation (CDTI E.P.E.) is the innovation agency of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, whose objective is to promote technological innovation in the business sector. CDTI’s mission is to ensure that the Spanish business fabric generates and transforms scientific and technical knowledge into globally competitive, sustainable and inclusive growth. In 2024, within the framework of a new strategic plan, CDTI provided more than €2.3 billion in support to Spanish companies and startups
More info:
Web: www.cdti.es
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Image: RetinaLyze technology model
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