Founded by Nicole Junkermann, an entrepreneur and investor who has previously raised her own significant private equity fund. NJF Capital brings a deep understanding of business strategy, entrepreneurial know-how and a wide network across business and government. They use that experience in disciplines including brand building, recruitment, admin and legal and regulatory environments, to help their portfolio companies on their growth journey.

NJF Capital

In 2015, two independant investment teams were created in Paris inside Otium Capital, Pierre-Edouard Stérin's family office: * Otium Venture, focused on Seed investments in Tech companies (€40m invested in 14 companies among which Payfit, Doctrine, Owkin...) * Otium Brands, focused on Seed & Series A investments in Consumer Goods companies  In 2019, the two teams spun off to become independant investment firms: * Otium Venture became frst * Otium Brands became Eutopia

Otium Capital

Plug and Play is a seed and early-stage investor focused on great teams leading emerging growth companies.  Plug and Play runs 12 industry-specific accelerator programs twice a year, that acts as a platform for major corporations and high quality startups to connect and collaborate.  Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Plug and Play participates in Seed, Angel and Series A funding where they often co-invest with their strategic partners. Through years of experience and as part of their network, Plug and Play has put together a world-class network of serial entrepreneurs, strategic investors, and industry leaders who actively assist the firm with its successful and growing investment portfolio.  SEED ROUND. Plug and Play participates in seed round investing through a program called Startup Camp. Startup Camp is a 10-week program based in Silicon Valley for top-notch entrepreneurs to work intensively on building out their business model. Select startups will refine their business models and prototypes with help from a combination of structured workshops, speaker series and mentorship sessions, as well as active coaching from their investment team. At the culmination of Startup Camp, founders will have crystalized their business plans and pitched their company to the venture capital community at EXPO Demo Day.''  ANGEL ROUND Plug and Play makes angel round investments throughout the year, sourced from their monthly Plug and Play Angels (PAPA) sessions. They are partnered with local angel investors in Silicon Valley who participate in PAPA to find the most promising startups and best new technologies.  SERIES A. Series A typical Series A round is in the range of $2 million to $10 million, and is intended to provide operating capital for the company for six months to two years. This round capitalizes the company as it develops its products, performs initial marketing and branding, acquires talent, and conducts other early-stage business operations. It is in this stage that Plug and Play will co-invest with over 180 venture capital partners.  Plug and Play has helped grow market leaders such as PayPal, Danger, Google, DropBox, LendingClub, Zoosk, SoundHound, CreditSesame, Skytree, and has over 400 more early-stage startups in its portfolio.

Plug and Play

Cathay Innovation is a global venture capital firm, created in affiliation with Cathay Capital, investing in startups at the center of digital revolution across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Its global platform unifies technology investment across continents, investors, entrepreneurs and leading corporations to accelerate startup growth with access to new markets, invaluable industry knowledge and introductions to potential partners from the start. As a multistage fund with over $1.5 billion assets under management and offices across San Francisco, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, Cathay Innovation partners with visionary entrepreneurs and startups positively impacting the world through technology.  To learn more, please visit www.cathayinnovation.com or follow us on Twitter @Cathayinnov.

Cathay Innovation

Google Ventures invests in sectors including life sciences, consumer, enterprise, crypto, climate, and frontier technology. With Alphabet as its sole limited partner, Google Ventures focuses on long-term investments. Its operating partners assist startups in design, equity, diversity & inclusion, talent, and engineering and help them connect with Google for technology and expertise. Founded in 2009 as Google Ventures, Google Ventures manages over $8 billion in assets with 400 active portfolio companies in North America and Europe. Some notable investments include Uber, Nest, Slack, GitLab, and One Medical. Google Ventures is based in the San Francisco Bay Area with offices in Cambridge, New York, and London.

Google Ventures

Eight Roads Ventures is a global venture capital firm managing $11bn of assets across offices in the UK, China, India, Japan, and the US. Together with our associated funds, including our US sister fund F-Prime Capital, our 50-year history of investing includes partnerships with over 500 companies such as Alibaba, AppsFlyer, Chewy, Fareye, Fever, Flywire, Fireblocks, Funnel.io, Gloat, Hibob, Icertis, Neo4j, Otrium, Owkin, Paidy, Spendesk, Tibber, Toast, Wallapop and Xoom.

Eight Roads Ventures

F-Prime's roots are in one of America’s great entrepreneurial success stories. Fidelity Investments was founded in 1946 and grew from a single mutual fund into one of the largest asset management firms in the world, with over $2 trillion in assets under management. For the last forty years, this venture capital group has had the privilege of backing other great entrepreneurs as they built ground-breaking companies in technology and life sciences, including Atari, MCI, ROLM Corp., Alibaba, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and Ultragenyx.  Today, F-Prime's funds are larger and more global, but its teams are still small and local. F-Prime stays true to its entrepreneurial roots. In the US and Europe, F-Prime Capital Partners is investing in healthcare (formerly Fidelity Biosciences) and in technology (formerly part of Devonshire Investors). In other geographies, its sister fund is called Eight Roads (formerly Fidelity Growth Partners), with investment teams in London, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Mumbai.   Together F-Prime brings a world of insight, domain expertise and relationships to support entrepreneurs. Without the pressure of fundraising from outside investors, F-Prime Capital Partners focuses all of its time finding and helping great entrepreneurs build important companies.

F-Prime Capital

Bpifrance provides financial solutions for companies that are booting up the listing on the stock exchange and credit equity. It includes OSEO, CDC Entreprises, FSI, and FSI Regions to offer in your area of financial solutions at every stage of the life of your business.

Bpifrance

Mutuelle d'Assurance du Corps de Santé Français (MACSF) is the provider of insurance to health professionals. MACSF protects and accompanies 950,000 members of all medical and paramedical specialties, offering professional and personal solutions in insurance, savings, financing, and pensions. Its products and services meet the real needs of its members by accompanying them in the evolution of their profession and their projects. MACSF was founded in 1935.

MACSF

Mubadala Capital’s Ventures business builds on Mubadala’s 10-year track record of being an active investor in advanced technology. The Ventures platform includes a direct investment business, a fund of funds business and the management and oversight of Mubadala’s partnership with SoftBank, including its U.S. $15 billion LP commitment to the SoftBank Vision Fund.  The Ventures team is based in Abu Dhabi, San Francisco, and London with strong connectivity to European and Chinese venture capital markets through other Mubadala Capital managed vehicles.

Mubadala Capital Ventures

Sanofi offers research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of innovative therapeutic solutions. It covers areas such as diabetes solutions, human vaccines, innovative drugs, consumer healthcare, emerging markets, animal health, and the new G enzyme.

Sanofi

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the discovery, development, licensing, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sale of pharmaceuticals and nutritional products.  Bristol Myers Squibb focuses on areas such as oncology, cardiovascular, immunoscience, and fibrosis to develop therapies that address significant unmet medical needs. The company's research and development efforts are centered around discovering new drugs and advancing existing ones to improve patient outcomes. BMS has a diverse portfolio of medicines, including several blockbuster drugs used in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. The company is committed to advancing the science of medicine to help people fight serious diseases and improve their quality of life.

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Owkin

Foundation Models

<div>
 
 France-based Bioptimus specializes in drug discovery, utilizing a large-language model (LLM) for the biotechnology sector. Bioptimus aims to adopt AI in understanding and utilizing multi-scale biological data, simplifying complex information to aid in discoveries.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In February 2024, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26795">
 Bioptimus raised USD 35 million 
 </a>
 in seed funding led by Sofinnova Partners to integrate AI with biological sciences, aiming for scientific discoveries and personalized medical treatments. Moreover, the company planned to create models that predict and adapt to individual biological scenarios.
 
 
 
</div>

Bioptimus is a developer of a universal AI foundation model that connects biology at all sizes, from molecules to cells, tissues, and entire organisms. The company's technology turns multiscale data into actionable representations, allowing clients to spark breakthrough discoveries and expedite biomedical innovation.

Tribun Health drives the digital transformation of cancer detection by creating innovative solutions. These systems enable diagnostic laboratories and pharmaceutical/biotech businesses to manage, analyze, and share cellular pictures.

Owkin is a French-American startup that uses artificial intelligence to find the right treatment for every patient. Our focus is to use AI to discover and develop better treatments for unmet medical needs, starting with the fight against cancer. They use AI to identify new drug candidates, de-risk and accelerate clinical trials and build diagnostic tools that improve patient outcomes.  Using federated learning, a pioneering collaborative AI framework, Owkin enables medical and biopharma partners to unlock valuable insights from siloed datasets, while protecting patient privacy and securing proprietary data.  Owkin was co-founded by Thomas Clozel MD, a clinical research doctor and former assistant professor in clinical onco-hematology, and Gilles Wainrib, a pioneer in the field of machine learning in biology, in 2016. Owkin has raised over $255 million and became a ‘unicorn’ – a startup valued at more than $1 billion – in November 2021 through a $180 million investment from French biopharma company Sanofi.

Owkin is a biotechnology company focused on leveraging AI to advance personalized medicine. The company's core activities encompass multimodal patient data analysis, and AI-enhanced drug discovery, development, and diagnostics. Owkin's research platform facilitates collaborative research across data scientists, clinicians, academic researchers, and pharmaceutical companies, while ensuring data privacy by allowing patient data to remain within hospital infrastructure. It has global reach with locations in cities like Boston, New York, London, Paris, Nantes, and Geneva.

Artificial intelligence is identifying and testing new therapies faster than ever.

AI Drug Discovery

Headquartered in New York, Owkin supports clinical trials with patient recruitment through a range of solutions. Its primary solution is Owkin Connect, a software solution that uses federated learning to allow users to apply AI models and algorithms to larger data pools across multiple parties. In terms of industry standards, the platform is compliant with HIPAA and GDPR and is ISO 27001 certified.

Incorporating technology to improve efficiency and success rate of clinical trials

Clinical Trial Technology

Owkin signs up another pharma partner for its AI platform

Proscia

To leverage Proscia's Concentriq platform and AI toolkit to accelerate the development and commercialization of AI solutions for pathology research and diagnostics, enhancing the impact of AI in medicine.

Leveraging personal data for custom-fit diagnosis and treatment

Precision Medicine

Secure cloud-based platforms and data sharing networks that collect, index, store, and analyze large amounts of health data and patient population data sets from sources including genomic, clinical, wearables, imaging, and population data.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to identify biomarkers (measurable biological signs used to determine disease progression) and predict drug response.

AstraZeneca

To develop an AI solution for pre-screening breast cancer for gBRCA mutations.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies aggregating and analyzing biomedical data with the help of AI to generate insights across the drug development pipeline.

Roche

To support pathologists and scientists in cancer research and diagnosis by using the algorithm for the screening of microsatellite stability in colorectal cancer.

Owkin and Sanofi expand existing partnership for AI-driven drug discovery in immunology

Bioptimus

Sofinnova Partners

Headline

Hummingbird Ventures

Frst

Top Harvest Capital

Fine-tuned versions of large language models, which are focused on specific tasks and applications (e.g. code generation, medical event prediction, financial NLP tasks, etc). These are usually developed by training LLMs using custom data and also serve as foundation models that can be developed even further. These models typically use text inputs and can generate text and/or code outputs.

Amazon Web Services

To optimize drug discovery, improve efficiency in clinical trials, and develop AI diagnostics.

Tribun Health

LBO France

Vivalto Partners

To utilize Owkin's AI capabilities to carry out more targeted and efficient clinical trials on a wide range of therapeutic candidates for hard-to-treat diseases.

Companies that provide software tools that help with the design of clinical trials, including identifying protocol violations, collecting participant input on potential design ideas for the trial, and crowdsourcing of protocol ideas for clinical trials

Sanofi and Owkin entered into a strategic collaboration for novel drug discovery and development.

NVIDIA

Owkin teams up with Nvidia  to deliver AI to hospitals

Owkin is a biotechnology company focused on leveraging AI to advance personalized medicine. The company's core activities encompass multimodal patient data analysis, and AI-enhanced drug discovery, development, and diagnostics. Owkin's research platform facilitates collaborative research across data scientists, clinicians, academic researchers, and pharmaceutical companies, while ensuring data privacy by allowing patient data to remain within hospital infrastructure. It has global reach with locations in cities like Boston, New York, London, Paris, Nantes, and Geneva.Key customers and partnershipsOwkin has collaborated with major biopharmaceutical firms like Sanofi (November 2021), Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) (June 2022), and Merck Sharp &amp; Dohme (MSD) (December 2023), focusing on AI drug discovery, development, and diagnostics.The company entered a licensing agreement with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29723">Idoris</a> in May 2024,&nbsp; for the development of OKN4395, an advanced inhibitor of prostanoid receptors EP2 and EP4. In &nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31147">July 2024</a>, Owkin entered into partnerships with nine healthcare institutions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, to gather and analyze medical data to improve patient outcomes and strengthen Owkin's MOSAIC network, a global initiative aiming to build the world's largest spatial omics dataset in oncology.

<div>
 
 HiberCell is a biotechnology company that develops novel therapies focused on oncology. It entered the AI drug discovery space when it acquired AI genomics analysis company Genuity Science (and its subsidiaries in Iceland and Ireland) in August 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 Genuity Science&rsquo;s solutions include end-to-end therapeutic discovery and development services such as building custom disease datasets, discovering and prioritizing targets, identifying biomarkers, and optimizing clinical trials. Genuity Science leverages its AI-powered platform to manage, process, and analyze genomic data. HiberCell intends to use Genuity Science&rsquo;s AI/ML capabilities to advance its oncology pipeline of five programs, of which one has reached the Phase 2 clinical trial stage.
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company&rsquo;s pipeline included three drug candidates, namely: 1) HC-7366, targeting the general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2) kinase as part of the integrated stress response (ISR) signaling pathway; 2) HC-5404, aimed at inhibiting the PKR-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK) involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR) signaling pathway; and 3) odetiglucan, a therapy targeting tumor-immune interactions within the tumor microenvironment​.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In December 2023, HiberCell and Merck &amp; Co partnered to conduct a Phase Ib trial to evaluate the combination therapy of belzutifan and HC-7366 for treating clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Further, in January 2021, the company partnered with Biodesix to develop an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay as a companion diagnostic test.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://hibercell.com/news/hibercell-closes-67-4-million-series-b-financing-and-secures-30-million-debt-facility-from-hercules-capital/">
 May 2021
 </a>
 , HiberCell completed a Series B financing round, raising USD 67.4 million, and secured an additional USD 30 million in debt financing from Hercules Capital. The funds were expected to be used for clinical advancement of its novel therapeutic candidates. 
 
</div>

HiberCell

<div>
 
 Arbor Biotechnologies specializes in gene editing to develop novel therapeutics for a variety of indications, starting with liver-related diseases. It operates an AI-powered biodiscovery platform to discover novel CRISPR enzymes, which are sequences of repeating genetic code. To do this, its platform deploys computational search techniques, genome sequencing, gene synthesis, and high-throughput screening. This can eventually be turned into drugs or even applied to agriculture and other industrial uses. In 2018, the company announced the discovery of Cas13d, a new type of gene editing enzyme that helps to alter RNA to treat genetic diseases.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of February 2024, the company had five internal drug discovery programs, of which one was in the IND-enabling stage. It also has multiple collaborative programs under development focused on oncology and various other therapeutic areas.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has a long-standing partnership with Vertex Pharmaceuticals since
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005194/en/Vertex-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Establish-Collaboration-to-Discover-Novel-Proteins-to-Advance-Discovery-of-Gene-Editing-Therapies">
 January 2019
 </a>
 , which focused on developing gene-editing treatments for cystic fibrosis and four other diseases. The alliance was further extended in 
 <a href="https://www.biospace.com/article/vertex-and-arbor-strike-a-1-2-billion-deal-for-gene-editing-programs/">
 August 2021
 </a>
 and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15741">
 January 2023
 </a>
 .&nbsp;
 
 
 Other partnerships included a collaboration with 
 <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arbor-biotechnologies-announces-collaboration-with-ginkgo-bioworks-to-advance-the-discovery-and-development-of-precision-gene-editors-302011991.html">
 Ginkgo Bioworks
 </a>
 (December 2023) to leverage Ginkgo's R&amp;D services to further optimize Arbor's novel precision editors, a non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/08/2380680/0/en/EdiGene-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Announce-Worldwide-Non-exclusive-License-Agreement-to-Advance-Ex-Vivo-Engineered-Cell-Therapy-Programs.html">
 EdiGene
 </a>
 (February 2022) to leverage Arbor&rsquo;s platform for ex vivo oncology therapies, a strategic research and non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://investors.tcr2.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tcr2-therapeutics-and-arbor-biotechnologies-establish">
 TCR2 Therapeutics
 </a>
 (January 2022) to develop allogeneic TRuC T-cell therapies using Arbor&rsquo;s CRISPR technology, and a license agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.lonza.com/news/2020-12-23-14-00">
 Lonza
 </a>
 (December 2020) to use Arbor&rsquo;s gene-editing technology for Lonza&rsquo;s bioproduction products and services.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In its latest Series B funding round in November 2021, which was led by Ally Bridge Group, TCG Crossover, and Temasek, Arbor Biotechnologies raised USD 215 million. The proceeds of the round were earmarked to fuel the company&rsquo;s clinical development pipeline.
 
</div>

Arbor Biotechnologies

Based in the UK, Arctoris provides an automated drug discovery platform, offering fully validated research and development (R&amp;D) processes under an Experiments-as-a-Service model. The company works with biotechnology companies, AI drug discovery companies, pharma and academic institutions enabling these institutions to run experiments in Arctoris’s platform and provides on-demand access to a broad scale of datasets for AI drug discovery companies to train their algorithms.

Arctoris

<div>
 
 Frontier Medicines leverages AI/ML technologies to develop treatments for cancer-causing proteins that are dismissed by traditional pharma companies as undruggable.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company has a proprietary chemoproteomic platform which entails an approach based on the interaction of small-molecule compounds and proteins to screen a large number of targets and combine them with a protein database that contains more than 150,000 novel binding pockets (hotspots). This enables it to access 90% of the human proteome that were not previously targeted due to lack of hotspots. The platform&rsquo;s AI/ML engine incorporates a library of diverse compounds, a hotspot map that serves as the starting point for understanding the druggability of a potential therapeutic target, and lead design and generation.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company focuses on oncology and immunology target and, as of February 2024, it had five wholly-owned therapeutic programs and three AbbVie-partnered programs in its pipeline. All programs were in their discovery stage, except the company&rsquo;s lead candidate, FMC-376 (activated and inactivated forms), focused on treating different cancer types, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), colorectal carcinoma (CRC), and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which is in the IND-enabling stage.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company entered a USD 100 million partnership with 
 <a href="https://news.abbvie.com/2020-12-02-AbbVie-and-Frontier-Medicines-Establish-Global-Partnership-to-Discover-and-Develop-Novel-Therapies-and-E3-Degraders-Against-Difficult-to-Drug-Targets">
 AbbVie
 </a>
 In December 2020 to develop small-molecule therapeutics against hard-to-drug protein targets including around 600 E3 ligases (the enzymes that drive the ubiquitination and degradation of proteins.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In July 2021, the company raised USD 88.5 million in a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4347">
 Series B
 </a>
 funding round co-led by Woodline Partners LP and RA Capital Management, with equal participation from Deerfield Management Company. The proceeds were earmarked for advancing the company&rsquo;s drug pipeline and expanding operations in Boston, where its new facility was to complement the company&rsquo;s headquarters in California. 
 
</div>

Frontier Medicines

<div>
 
 Verge Genomics is a biotechnology company engaged in developing therapeutics for neurological diseases using human genomics and AI to accelerate drug discovery. The main target areas are Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson&rsquo;s Disease (PD), and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD).&nbsp;
 
 
 It has built a proprietary all-human platform (unlike standard clinical trials that rely on animal data), called CONVERGE, that uses data sets from brain tissue samples of deceased patients with ALS and PD. While most drugs target only one gene at a time, the company claims its technology can identify hundreds of genes that cause disease and develop drugs that target all the genes at the same time. The company uses AI technology to optimize the drug discovery process as a whole.
 
 
 As of March 2024, Verge had one drug candidate in the clinical stage (Phase I) and 10 drug candidates in the discovery stage.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has partnerships with various tissue banks (such as Harvard University and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine) and several educational institutes and foundations (such as Target ALS, Answer ALS) that enabled its drug discovery platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 In addition, the company&rsquo;s customers include several pharmaceutical companies, such as 1) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-announces-research-collaboration-with-the-sheffield-institute-for-translational-neuroscience">
 Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
 </a>
 to accelerate the validation of novel drug targets and screening of drug compounds for Parkinson's disease (February 2021), 2) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4146">
 Eli Lilly
 </a>
 to research and develop novel therapies to treat ALS (July 2021), 3) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21707">
 Alexion
 </a>
 to identify novel drug targets for rare neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases (September 2023), and 4) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-and-the-pritzker-neuropsychiatric-disorders-research-consortium-form-cutting-edge-schizophrenia-research-collaboration">
 Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium
 </a>
 to analyze data from schizophrenic patient&rsquo;s brain tissue with Verge&rsquo;s technology (October 2023).
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In December 2021, Verge raised USD 98 million in an oversubscribed 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7426">
 Series A
 </a>
 funding round led by BlackRock. The funds were used to scale up its pre-clinical and clinical candidate programs in the pipeline and enhance its lead therapeutics through clinical testing. 
 
</div>

Verge Genomics

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies for drug discovery services such as target selection, validation and lead optimization.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to design and run preclinical experiments.

Biotechnology companies that have integrated AI as a core component of their in-house drug development process. They typically have a few in-house drug development programs, and also collaborate with pharma companies to develop certain drugs.

Includes companies that use GenAI as a core part of their product offering for drug discovery & development

Companies leverage GenAI to support drug discovery through accelerated drug designing

Companies offer AI/ML-based SaaS products to accelerate the discovery and development of novel therapeutics

Offers AI/ML-based solutions to accelerate drug discovery and development

Headquartered in New York, Owkin supports clinical trials with patient recruitment through a range of solutions. Its primary solution is Owkin Connect, a software solution that uses federated learning to allow users to apply AI models and algorithms to larger data pools across multiple parties. In terms of industry standards, the platform is compliant with HIPAA and GDPR and is ISO 27001 certified.The company also offers a diagnostic solution that incorporates AI to speed up the diagnosis process and match them with suitable clinical trials.Key customers and partnershipsThe company noted that, as of June 2024, it had 61 academic partners (across Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and the US) and was operational across seven global locations (Berlin, Boston, Geneva, London, Nantes, New York, and Paris).Owkin works with a consortium of partners, which includes Innovative Medicines Initiative, Melloddy, Horizon 2020, BigPicture, BPI France, and Health Chain as of May 2022. These partners all share data with Owkin Connect to improve the volume of data for the AI models to be trained on.In February 2024, Owkin partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to optimize drug discovery, improve efficiency in clinical trials, and develop AI diagnostics. Through the partnership, Owkin planned to use AWS's cloud platform's security, scalability, and robust global infrastructure to optimize data operations and promote precision medicine research. Owkin also planned to rely on AWS’s data sovereignty controls to secure its research data.

Headquartered in Amsterdam, Castor is a cloud-based e-clinical data platform that can be used for a range of tasks and processes during a clinical trial. It offers four solutions: 1) electronic data capture (EDC) to capture and process data from multiple sources including researchers, 2) electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) to collect and manage patient-reported data on a centralized platform, 3) e-consent - to enable patients to be recruited, screened, and enrolled remotely, and 4) a decentralized clinical trials (DCT) platform to assist operators with managing DCT technologies and devices through a central platform. The company’s solutions are targeted at industries like biotech and pharma, diagnostics, and clinical research organizations. Its solutions are built in line with industry-standard compliance and data protection standards including HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO 27001.Castor aimed to collect enough clinical trial research data to enable the reuse of data for AI-driven clinical trials, which would lower the costs of operating clinical trials and reduce the time taken to bring new drugs to market.Key customers and partnershipsAs of June 2024, the company had supported 14,000+ studies and 6 million patients through clinical trials across 90+ countries, since launching in 2007. In terms of therapeutic areas, Castor had supported a range of different areas, including oncology, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. The company had been engaged by 500+ organizations, including the World Health Organization, Click Therapeutics, and Stryker. It was the first to incorporate machine learning into its system for the identification of Covid-19 patients. The company offered free access to its system for Covid-19 research projects, with over 200 projects using the platform as of June 2022. In February 2024, the company partnered with Microsoft to use Microsoft Azure to bring modern AI to clinical trials. The feature was released to help Castor users develop their studies faster by simplifying complex tasks in the study build process. The company additionally noted that it was planning to release its first in a line of Practical AI features to all its users in public Beta. Funding and financialsThe company raised USD 45 million in Series B funding in July 2021, led by Eight Roads Ventures and F-Prime Capital. The funds were earmarked for product development, interoperability with partner systems, and market research on decentralized trials. The company had a headcount of 150 at the time of the Series B and was planning to expand to 200 by the end of 2021.

Castor

Florence Healthcare offers a platform for clinical trial management. It has four key components: 1) SiteLink to start-up and monitor remote clinical sites, 2) eBinders to digitize and store research binders, 3) eConsent to simplify and digitize the consent process, and 4) Electronic Trial Master File to digitize the storage and transfer of files between sites and research sponsors. The platform is compliant with standard industry requirements including HIPAA, 21 C.F.R Part 11, ICF/GCP, and GDPR.Key customers and partnershipsAs of June 2024, Florence supported over 18,000 research sites, across 55+ countries, with key customers including Pfizer. The usage of the company’s software tripled in 2020, driven by an industry shift toward digitalization as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. In February 2022, the company was ranked as the best clinical trial platform out of a group of 190 for ease of setup, ease of use, and customer support.Florence partnered with Greenphire, a company focusing on patient convenience and financial management for clinical trials, in Janauary 2024. Through the partnership, Florence's platform will be integrated with Greenphire's to improve payment systems within clinical trials. Benefits of the partnership included reduced manual work for sites, faster payments, and better visibility of site activity for sponsors and Contract Research Organizations (CROs). Funding and financialsThe company raised USD 80 million in Series C funding in May 2021 led by Insight Partners. The proceeds were to be used to scale up its sales and marketing teams and improve the value proposition of the platform by reducing the time required by customers to implement and manage clinical trials.

Florence Healthcare

Huma is a UK- and US-based clinical trial tech startup that provides a digital platform to manage clinical trials, including decentralized clinical trials. The platform can be used throughout the clinical trial process, including patient recruitment, screening, electronic consent, clinical outcome assessments, patient-reported outcomes, and telemedicine. The platform is built up to industry standards in data privacy and security, including ISO 27001, 21 C.F.R. Part 11, and TxP.In June 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19352">received FDA 510(k) Class II FDA clearance </a>for its configurable disease-agnostic platform, including its cardiovascular risk score algorithm. The company received this FDA clearance in partnership with Health Canada and it allows Huma's platform to be used to monitor patients of all ages with any condition, including pediatrics and pregnancy. The Class II clearance also enables the platform to host algorithms that provide automated AI-driven data analytics for diagnosis, screening, clinical decision-making, predictions on health outcomes, and recommendations on dosage.In July 2024, the company was <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31552">estimated to be valued at nearly USD 1 billion</a> when it secured a Series D investment of USD 80 million. Key customers and partnershipsSome of the key partners working with Huma include AstraZeneca, Johnson &amp; Johnson, Bayer, Stanford University, and the University of Cambridge. As of July 2024, the platform supported 3,000+ hospitals and clinics, screened over 35 million individuals, and had 1.8 million active users across 70 countries. Huma was awarded the 2021 Prix Galien Award, which is widely considered the “Nobel Prize” for pharmaceuticals and life sciences.The company announced a partnership with Xyla Elective Care in June 2022, to provide support to the UK’s National Health Service in delivering and managing virtual wards.

Huma

Based in California and founded in 2015, Medable is a digital clinical trial management platform with a range of modules for different processes. These modules include a decentralized clinical trial platform to support decentralized trials using remote tools for data gathering, monitoring, televisits, and consent; digital patient screening to screen patients remotely and at scale; e-consent to enable patients to digitally consent for clinical trials; electronic clinical outcome assessments; and patient-reported outcomes to document data in real time and provide easy access for researchers. It also includes remote patient monitoring to make it easy for patients to record and share data with clinical research teams.Medable operates on a SaaS business model, with customers having the option of selecting and deploying only the modules required as part of their uniquely customized solution.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32647">August 2024</a>, Medable launched 'Medable Studio', an all-in-one application for configuring, translating, validating, and launching electronic clinical outcome assessment (eCOA) Plus solutions (which include eCOA, e-consent, televisits, and sensors) into clinical trials. The no-code suite aimed to simplify the complex eCOA launch process, offering biopharmaceutical companies greater control and transparency. Medable Studio includesda point-and-click builder for creating assessments and instruments, a visual schedule of assessments builder, a translation workbench, and a content library. The platform enabled users to rapidly build and launch complex clinical trials, with the ability to create protocol-fit study designs in hours instead of months.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35913">November 2024</a>, Medable launched Medable AI, a suite of GenAI capabilities integrated into its Studio platform. The suite aimed to streamline digital and decentralized clinical trials for sponsors and research organizations. The AI suite features automated eCOA creation that converts existing outcome assessments into a digital format, a ChatGPT-like interface for editing assessments, and scalable assessment-generation capabilities.&nbsp;As of <a href="https://hitconsultant.net/2024/10/30/medable-partners-with-google-cloud-to-accelerate-clinical-trials/">October 2024</a>, the company offered its platforms across 60 countries and was used across 300 decentralized and hybrid clinical trials. The company’s platform is compliant with industry standards, including HIPAA, FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11, and GDPR.Key customers and partnershipsAs of <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240607926468/en/Medable-Wins-2024-Prix-Galien-UK-Award-for-Best-Digital-Health-Solution">June 2024</a>, Medable claimed to work with 14 out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, in addition to working with a range of partners, including Cognizant, Accenture, Oracle, and PwC.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35456">October 2024</a>, the company partnered with Google Cloud to offer its decentralized clinical trial platform on Google Cloud's marketplace. The collaboration combined Medable's clinical trial technology with Google Cloud's infrastructure and AI capabilities to streamline trial processes.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29843">May 2024</a>, Medable partnered with Masimo, a medical technology provider, to incorporate new wearable devices in clinical research. Medable announced it would include the MightySat Rx pulse oximeter by Masimo in its platform for various major clinical trials, particularly in lung and breast cancer research.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22394">October 2023</a>, the company partnered with Pluto Health, a healthcare coordination company, to enhance the clinical trial experience for participants and improve data collection during trials. Through the partnership, the companies aimed to connect patients to the right medical resources including access to clinical trials and home delivery of medication.&nbsp;In <a href="https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/gsk-taps-medable-decentralized-clinical-trials-patient-diversity">September 2022</a>, the company announced a four year agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to use Medable’s platform for clinical trials across multiple products. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Medable

Headquartered in New York, Obvio Health provides a full service for clients, supporting them throughout the clinical trial process from the design and recruitment stages to outcome measurement and reporting. In addition to its technological platform, the company provides professional services to execute clinical trials using its in-house clinical operations team. The platform caters to 17 therapeutic areas, including cardiology, oncology, respiratory, men's and women's health, dermatology, gi, hepatology, mental health, oral health, and infectious disease (Covid-19). The platform is compliant with industry standards including 21 CFR Part 11, ICH-GDP, GDPR, and ISO 27001.According to the company, its platform was designed from the ground up to cater to digital trials run by virtual clinical teams, which resulted in faster patient recruitment (three months for Obvio compared to 12 months for physical site trials). In January 2022, the company launched an augmented electronic patient-reported outcome (augmented ePRO) module, which incorporates AI and manual scoring by experts/clinicians. The company claims this improves the accuracy and quality of data collected.In April 2024, the ObvioHealth launched ObvioGo 2.0, an enhanced platform and mobile application designed to meet the unique needs of trial sites and sponsors. The upgraded platform allows the combination of hybrid and virtual trial designs within one study. It includes features such as the ability to create site-specific workflows, integration with other clinical systems, and a streamlined translation process. Additional features include a built-in virtual assistance team, COACH, for trial tasks support and a patient identifier tool for patient registration and data correlation.As of June 2024, the platform catered to 17 therapeutic areas, including cardiology, oncology, respiratory, men's and women's health, dermatology, GI, hepatology, mental health, oral health, and infectious disease (Covid-19). The platform is compliant with industry standards including 21 CFR Part 11, ICH-GDP, GDPR, and ISO 27001.Key customers and partnershipsAs of June 2024, Obvio Health’s client base included companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bayer, Danone, and General Mills. As of June 2024, the company’s operations were spread over 28 countries and had supported obtaining consent from 40,000+ patients across 40 clinical trials since its launch.In March 2022, Obvio partnered with Renovia to conduct the first fully virtual trial in urogynaecology, based on Renovia’s Leva device. The device helped patients with performing kegel exercises more effectively, in addition to monitoring compliance over the trial period.In November 2023, Obvio then partnered with Chemist Warehouse, the largest retail pharmacy chain in Australia, to improve the reach and efficiency of clinical trials. Through the partnership, Chemist Warehouse agreed to promote ObvioHealth-managed trials to its customers in Australia, using both offline and online channels. Additionally, ObvioHealth agreed to utilize Chemist Warehouse's Telehealth services for studies that require clinician assessments. The collaboration aimed to increase the awareness and convenience of clinical trials, addressing two major hurdles in participant recruitment. The long-term goal of the partnership was to expedite the introduction of innovative therapies to the market more efficiently and economically.&nbsp;

Obvio Health

Companies offering data and workflow management platforms and solutions to assist with the operational management of a clinical trial, including site management, monitoring processes in terms of risk and documentation, and payment automation

Companies using remote patient monitoring tools and other connectivity solutions to enable remote collection of patient data and monitoring and run trials virtually without requiring the patient to be physically present at the clinical trial site

Companies that offer workflow management platforms that are used to manage logistics tasks and processes for clinical trials, primarily the randomization of assigning patients in a clinical trial and automation of logistics workflows based on clinical trial data

This is the use of software, incorporating AI and machine learning technology to improve the matching process of patients with suitable clinical trials

Companies that offer software solutions for identifying and evaluating potential trial sites, along with documentation and workflow management systems to complete the processes before launching, including electronic patient consent and other required regulatory tasks

Includes companies that provide digital data management platforms to collect and store patient reported outcome data. These platforms are also incorporating data analytics to help understand the results and identify trends and patterns. Additionally, the platforms enable connectivity with remote monitoring devices, including the Medical Internet of Things

Companies that use GenAI as a core part of their product offering for Clinical Trial Tech

Startups in this hub use IoT to support report patient monitoring and data gathering

AI/ML algorithms can be used to automate the analysis of patient data

Offers digital platforms that accelerate clinical trials and evaluations

Most CTT platforms are offered on a B2B basis to companies carrying out clinical trials

Startups in this hub seek to improve clinical trial diversity by including underrepresented communities

Clinical Trial Technology providers incorporate GenAI to enhance their platform’s capabilities and utility

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 
 AI-based bioinformatics startup Proscia has partnered with AI-operated biotech firm Owkin with the intention to push the capabilities of pathology from the realm of drug discovery into diagnostics. They aim to jointly enhance the potential impact of AI in medicine.
 Owkin will be part of Proscia's Ready partner alliance under this collaboration. This is a group of solution providers helping labs and life science companies to roll out AI-powered digital pathology on a large scale. Both companies also plan on creating and marketing artificial intelligence solutions applicable in research and diagnosis. These can then be added into Proscia's Concentriq precision medicine AI portfolio. The key focus of this partnership is to promote pathology for innovative medical treatments, boosting decision-making processes, and sharpening the scope for AI in the field of medicine.&nbsp;
 
</div> Analyst QuickTake: 
 In <a href="https: 
//sp-edge.com/updates/34416"> October 2024 </a> , Proscia introduced the Concentriq Embeddings to its Concentriq platform and the Proscia AI toolkit to speed up AI use in pathology and aid the development of diagnostic procedures and drug discovery. The Embeddings facilitates the conversion of whole slide images into numerical representations, and the AI Toolkit was designed to provide developers with open-source resources to design and implement AI solutions.

Owkin

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