NICE Recommends Nanox.AI Spine-Assessment Software for NHS Evaluation
Nanox.AI has secured a significant regulatory milestone in the UK, with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommending its two AI-powered bone-assessment solutions, HealthOST and HealthVCF for Early Value Assessment (EVA) in National Health Service hospitals. The inclusion places the company among a select group of AI innovators being evaluated for real-world effectiveness in detecting vertebral fragility fractures, one of the most common yet frequently missed indicators of osteoporosis.
The recommendation authorizes the technologies for use over a three-year period, during which they will receive core NHS funding while evidence is gathered on clinical value, workflow impact and health-economic benefit. The decision follows NICE’s broader push to evaluate AI tools that can support earlier detection of chronic diseases by analyzing scans originally acquired for unrelated clinical reasons. In the case of Nanox.AI’s solutions, the technology surfaces early indications of low bone mineral density and prior vertebral fractures using existing CT imaging, with no need for new scans, added radiation exposure or patient burden.
NICE’s assessment emphasizes the clinical potential of opportunistic detection in osteoporosis care. Vertebral fragility fractures often appear on CT or X-ray studies performed for unrelated concerns, but they frequently go unreported. NICE stated that AI-powered interpretation could allow clinicians to identify patients who need treatment, improving quality of life and reducing the risk of future fractures. The UK diagnoses tens of thousands of fragility fractures each year, many only after a sentinel event. As a result, tools that automate earlier identification are seen as increasingly important to preventing disability, loss of independence and downstream healthcare expenditure.
HealthOST, the newest version of the company’s vertebral-fracture detection technology, evolved from HealthVCF, an algorithm previously evaluated in the ADOPT (AI-enabled Detection of Osteoporosis) study. That trial demonstrated meaningful improvements in identifying vertebral fractures that had previously gone unnoticed. Building on those results, NICE is now allowing continued deployment within the NHS under a structured evidence-development pathway.
Academic experts welcomed the decision. Kassim Javaid, Professor of Osteoporosis and Adult Rare Bone Disease at the University of Oxford, called the recommendation a major step forward for proactive detection. He noted that Oxford has secured an additional three-year period to use HealthOST as part of its NHS practice, allowing clinicians to deliver earlier, data-driven insights at a broader scale. The recommendation, he said, enables the NHS to pursue evidence generation “needed to bring earlier detection to many more patients,” while validating the performance of Nanox.AI’s tools beyond controlled trial settings.
Nanox CEO Erez Meltzer said NICE’s decision demonstrates confidence in the real-world utility of the company’s technology. He emphasized that many AI-based radiology tools never progress beyond conceptual demonstration. By contrast, he said, Nanox.AI’s products have generated clinically validated evidence and shown impact in practice, a key factor in NICE selecting two of the five solutions admitted into the Early Value Assessment program. Meltzer added that the recommendation will help the company expand its footprint within NHS hospitals as additional data is generated on HealthOST and HealthVCF.
The AI tools are designed to integrate directly into standard PACS workflows, analyzing routine CT imaging in real time to highlight potential findings for radiologists. Because most patients at risk for osteoporosis do not undergo dedicated bone-density imaging, opportunistic review of incidental vertebral findings is increasingly seen as a promising approach for population-level fracture prevention. Nanox.AI positions its technology as a low-friction method that leverages imaging the health system already captures, without requiring changes to clinical scheduling or added patient appointments. Early detection is considered an essential step in reducing the burden of hip fractures, which are associated with long-term disability, chronic pain and substantial social-care costs.
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Beyond the bone-solutions portfolio, the company describes Nanox.AI as part of a broader ecosystem focused on early detection through AI-driven interpretation of routine imaging. That ecosystem includes cloud infrastructure for data management, a decentralized reading marketplace and Nanox’s proprietary digital X-ray source technology. The company’s overarching vision is to shift health systems toward preventive care by identifying disease signals earlier in the clinical pathway.
With NICE’s Early Value Assessment now underway, the next three years will determine how effectively AI technologies like HealthOST and HealthVCF can scale across NHS hospitals. If evidence confirms the expected benefits, the tools may become candidates for broader national deployment as part of the NHS’s long-term strategy to integrate AI into diagnostic imaging and early disease detection.