Albatrus Builds Apollo AI, a Core System for Japanese Hospitals

Albatrus, a startup spun out of the University of Tokyo, is developing Apollo AI, a hospital core system built around AI agents. According to the company, the platform supports tasks such as automating in-hospital work, allocating patients, analyzing management data and extracting data for clinical research and trials.

The company says Apollo AI can already be used at 70% of Japan's roughly 5,000 hospitals, a sign that its effort to remove vendor lock-in is progressing. Albatrus names three design priorities: ending vendor lock-in, running multiple agents at once, and delivering more value than existing systems.

An agent that finishes discharge paperwork overnight

The first agent in use drafts the documents that must be written when a patient is discharged. When staff arrive in the morning, the records for patients discharged the previous day are already complete. Albatrus says it will keep developing further agents.

Why the founder is going after the core system

CEO Hoshino comes from a family that runs a general hospital in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, and founded the company to solve problems he met while helping with the family business. He sees several weaknesses in the booming market for generative AI in hospitals. Without a technological edge, vendors can only compete on price. Vendor lock-in remains a problem, and tools that merely draft text or transcribe speech are unlikely to bring fundamental change to hospital operations.

The backdrop is a labor shortage across the medical sector and a large systems market: the market for hospital electronic medical records alone is worth 300 billion yen. Albatrus aims for Apollo AI to become the core system that follows them.

The company was presented at Monthly Pitch, a closed event where early-stage startups meet investors each month.