Topcon Healthcare has launched Oku Digital Health, an artificial intelligence-powered company that aims to use routine eye-care data to support disease detection, clinical referrals and pharmaceutical research. The global launch brings diagnostic tools, electronic health record integration and referral workflows under one digital health business.
Oku is designed to connect eye care with primary care and other specialties. The company also plans to offer patient data and real-world evidence for pharmaceutical research, including drug development and precision medicine programs.
Connecting Eye Data to Care
The company’s approach draws on oculomics, a field that uses ocular imaging and other eye-derived data to identify biomarkers associated with systemic health. Oku says measurable changes in the eye may be associated with conditions including cardiovascular and kidney disease. It aims to turn those insights into clinical workflows that can facilitate earlier intervention and disease management.
“The eye is becoming the front door to medicine, but a front door only matters if it leads somewhere,” Ali Tafreshi, CEO of Oku Digital Health, said in a statement. He said the company puts information revealed by the eye in the hands of clinicians and researchers across eye care, primary care and drug development.
Built on Topcon Healthcare’s existing infrastructure, Oku will operate across a connected network of more than 10,000 care locations, according to the company. Its planned provider capabilities are intended to link primary care clinicians, optometrists, ophthalmologists and other specialists through diagnostics, EHR integration and referrals.
For pharmaceutical companies, Oku plans to provide data and real-world evidence that could support clinical development and precision medicine programs. The source announcement does not specify which companies will use the platform or when those services will become available.
Leadership and Industry Debut
Topcon Healthcare president Lance Patton said the company had invested in software, clinical decision support and AI over the past 5 years to advance its “Healthcare from the Eye” vision. He described bringing those capabilities together under Oku as an expansion of that strategy.
Tafreshi will lead Oku as CEO while remaining chief strategy officer for Topcon Corp.’s Eyecare Business Division and CEO of Topcon Healthcare. He previously served as global head and vice president of product management and clinical affairs at Heidelberg Engineering.
Oku’s founding leadership team also includes Trent Norris, its chief operating officer, who previously led business development for digital health at Nvidia and held roles at Flywheel.io and Microsoft. Matthew Lungren, MD, MPH, has been appointed chief data AI officer. He is also an adjunct professor of biomedical data science at Stanford University School of Medicine and previously served as chief scientific officer at Microsoft Health and Life Sciences.
Daniela Ferrara, MD, PhD, FASRS, FARVO, will serve as chief medical officer. She is an assistant professor of ophthalmology at Tufts University School of Medicine and spent nearly 11 years at Genentech, where she became principal medical director of ophthalmology. Jacques Gilbert will serve as chief strategy and business development officer; his previous roles include vice president of healthcare strategy, partnerships and M&A at Microsoft, as well as positions at Nuance Communications and GE Healthcare.
Oku is scheduled to make its industry debut at the 2026 American Academy of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting in New Orleans, October 9-12. The company will showcase provider and pharmaceutical solutions within the Topcon Healthcare exhibit at booth 1737. The meeting will be the announced setting for the first public presentation of those solutions.
Read the Eyewire+ announcement for the company’s launch details.
