Start-up Owkin announced that it has closed its Series A with a total of 18 million from Mubadala Capital, the asset management arm of Mubadala Investment Company, and Bpifrance’s Large Venture fund. This funding will enable Owkin to accelerate the federation of its research ecosystem and continue to build bridges between researchers and the pharmaceutical industry.

Owkin, a startup applying federated learning technologies to medical research, announced 70 million.

Mubadala Capital’s investment is based on its expertise as an early-stage investor in the field of life sciences and health technologies, as well as its strategic partnership with Bpifrance. Mubadala joins Owkin’s other Series A investors: Bpifrance, through its Large Venture fund, Cathay Innovation, MACSF, GV, F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads, Frst, and NJF Capital.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the imperative of reliable access to high-quality medical data and the importance of collaborative research. Owkin’s platform connects scientists, clinicians, academic researchers and pharmaceutical companies and gives them access to its multimodal and interpretable artificial intelligence technologies. Owkin’s ecosystem is transforming medical research from a siloed and disjointed environment to one focused on innovation and interconnection while ensuring the protection of patient data.

Thomas Clozel, co-founder and CEO of Owkin, says:

“We are changing the world of medical research. We are proud to break down existing barriers and increase the capabilities of researchers. Owkin’s discoveries – multimodal biomarkers and mechanisms of action – are changing the way pharmaceutical companies approach drug development and the way clinicians develop patient care protocols”.

Ibrahim Ajami, Investment Director at Mubadala Capital, comments :

“Owkin is creating an unprecedented global network that connects the medical research ecosystem, enabling pharmaceutical companies to access high quality data to improve their R&D processes.

Owkin has everything we look for in a startup: a strong team to solve a large and complex problem, and cutting-edge technologies. We are delighted to partner with Thomas and his team in their mission to revolutionize medical research and improve patient care.

Laurent Higueret, Chief Investment Officer at Bpifrance Large Venture, added :

“This second Large Venture investment in Owkin, just a few weeks after the first, demonstrates Bpifrance’s commitment to supporting the company in its ambition to provide patients with better medicines, faster, while reducing the R&D costs of pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Owkin now has the resources and partners necessary to position itself as an undisputed leader in AI for biomedical research. We are also delighted to team up with Mubadala Capital for their first direct equity investment in France and to further capitalize on our strategic partnership with them”.

Owkin’s global research network is powered by federated learning, a machine learning technology that allows scientists to train advanced AI models on distributed data, while protecting the privacy and security of the data by keeping it in its original location. With federated learning, creating a high-performance AI model no longer requires centralized data.

Owkin is the pioneer of federated learning applied to health, and coordinates two consortia: MELLODDY (with ten pharmaceutical companies) and HealthChain (with four hospital centres). Owkin also deploys this federated search technology within hospitals and with the medical experts in the Owkin Loop network.

Through the application of this technology, Owkin enables researchers to learn from the high quality, longitudinal, multi-modal, multi-center data enhanced by its network of medical experts, while maintaining patient data securely within the hospital’s IT infrastructure.

The Owkin Studio platform integrates biomedical images, genomic data and clinical data to find new biomarkers and mechanisms associated with disease progression and treatment efficacy. These technologies will enable the next generation of drugs to emerge.

Finally, the AI developed by Owkin accelerates the clinical research process by providing a high level of protection for patient data, traceability of algorithms for hospitals and quality collaboration for researchers.

Translated from Recherche médicale : Owkin clôture sa série A avec un total de 70 millions de dollars levés