5C Network launches remote Centre of Excellence for Nuclear Medicine

5C Network, an AI-native radiology platform, has announced the launch of its remote Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Nuclear Medicine. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the distributed, remote-delivery network is designed to address the shortage of nuclear medicine physicians in India by providing sub-specialty remote reading capabilities directly to hospital scanners across the country.

The launch addresses a shortage in nuclear medicine. More than 500 PET-CT installations and 350 SPECT/gamma cameras rely on around 800 nuclear medicine physicians nationwide. With PET-CT reporting restricted to licensed specialists, the pool of physicians is growing by around 40 annually while scan volumes are increasing by 13 per cent. According to 5C Network, scanners outside major metros therefore operate below capacity. The Centre of Excellence is expected to address an estimated national market potential of nearly 7,500 daily PET-CT studies.

Through a distributed remote-reading framework, the CoE connects local scanners to a national panel of credentialed specialists. The platform incorporates standardised reporting criteria including PERCIST, Lugano, PSMA-RADS and SSTR-RADS, along with AI decision-support tools for lesion tracking, SUV quantification and response assessment.

5C Network has appointed Dr Ajit Shinto to lead the CoE. He has more than 20 years of experience, commissioned India’s first digital PET-CT scanner and has reported more than 30,000 studies. He has established nuclear medicine departments across Kovai Medical Center, Amala Institute, Apollo Proton Cancer Centre and Bharath Hospital. Dr Shinto chairs WARMTH’s Rhenium Task Force, serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Research, and is Principal Investigator on the NOBLE and 68Ga Basket trials.

“India has the scanners but not enough physicians to read them, and it cannot add them fast enough, at roughly 40 new specialists a year against volumes compounding at 13%. A Centre of Excellence is how you make scarce expertise travel: pooled sub-specialty readers, interpreting to a high standard, with AI supporting them for speed and accuracy,” said Kalyan Sivasailam, Co-Founder & CEO, 5C Network. “Ajit has built this three times over, at Amala, Kovai and Apollo Proton. He has read 30,000 studies himself and commissioned the country’s first digital PET-CT scanner. Very few people in India could recruit the readers this needs and set the clinical standard they read to. He is one of them. And we are delighted to have him lead our CoE.”

“It is a privilege to join 5C. I have not seen another company here that combines medical technology, operational discipline and clinical depth at this scale. Put those together and sub-specialty nuclear medicine comes within reach of any centre in the country,” said Dr Ajit Shinto, Head of the Centre of Excellence for Nuclear Medicine at 5C Network. “Nuclear medicine in India is limited less by equipment than by reading capacity. A remote reading model built on credentialed physicians takes that scarce expertise to centres that cannot hire it. What a Centre of Excellence adds is depth sub-specialty readers, structured reporting, peer review, AI in the read. Better science, closer to the treatment decision.”

5C Network’s mandate also extends to research, multi-institutional collaborations, theranostics and new diagnostic molecules. The company said this is intended to support nuclear medicine standards and attract incoming talent.

The platform will initially scale capacity for Tier-2, Tier-3 and metro hospitals across India. It is also structured for future international expansion.