Owkin tie-up bets on AI to spot bile duct cancers early

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Owkin on Friday announced a research collaboration with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) Innovation Hub to use machine learning to identify patients with some of the most aggressive forms of bile duct cancer so that they can be treated earlier in the disease course. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Meriem Sefta, chief data and clinical solutions officer at Owkin, remarked that "the richness and uniqueness of [MSK's] research cohorts, together with [our] extensive expertise in developing predictive AI models, will pave the way for forward-thinking science." Meanwhile, William Jarnigan, chief of the MSK hepatopancreatobiliary service, believes the tie-up "will have a positive impact on how clinicians evaluate and treat patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, and potentially other cancers, as well."

MSK data to train deep learning models

Under the collaboration, Owkin will use de-identified data from MSK patients to train deep learning models in order to predict the prognosis of cholangiocarcinoma and determine biomarkers of treatment response. Owkin said the work will allow clinicians to better target treatments and "drastically improve" survival times for these patients. "This application of AI on multiple data modalities also serves as a proof-of-concept for how to discover novel prognostic and treatment biomarkers in other less common cancers," the company added.

Owkin, which has published research on AI and medicine in the journals Nature Medicine, Nature Communications and Hepatology, has raised over $75 million and is working with a number cancer centres and pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson, in Europe and the US.

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