Spatial omics refers to the ability to measure the activity of biomolecules (RNA, DNA, proteins, and other omics) in situ--directly from tissue samples. This is important because many biological processes are controlled by highly localized interactions between cells that take place in spatially heterogeneous tissue environments. Spatial omics allows previously unobservable cellular organization and biological events to be viewed in unprecedented detail. A few years ago, these technologies were just prototypes in a handful of labs around the world. They worked only on frozen tissue and they required impractically large amounts of precious tissue biopsies.

Check out all the on-demand sessions from the Intelligent Security Summit here. The potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve human health cannot be understated, but it does face challenges. Among the big challenges is dealing with siloed data sources, so researchers are not able to easily analyze data from multiple locations and initiatives, while still preserving privacy. It's a challenge that can potentially be solved with an approach known as federated learning. Today in a research report first published in Nature Medicine, AI biotech vendor Owkin has revealed just how powerful the federated model can be for healthcare.

Too much of it kills you." A new report by Data Bridge Market Research analyses the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in drug discovery market and forecasts that is expected to reach the value of USD 24,618.25 million by 2029, at a CAGR of 53.3% during the forecast period. The start of the world's first Phase 1 clinical trial of a drug developed from scratch using AI was announced by Insilico Medicine. "At the core of this issue is the complexity of human biology. After decades of molecular biology research, we're lucky if we know 5% of the circuitry of human disease." Just to give you a perspective, this is just the 5% of a simplified view of the brain's circuitry (for more about AI neuroscience news): Owkin's CEO Dr. T Clozel (his parents were the founders of Switzerland's Actelion), is intent on using AI to usher in a new era of drug development, by accessing data at scale with federated learning to preserve patient privacy and data security, and by creating an interpretable AI to answer a broad range of research questions. Last September rapid diagnostic solutions for breast and colorectal cancer from Owkin have been granted approval for use, while this month Sanofi's chief dealmaker (Alban de La Sablière) heads to Owkin as CBO, and all these after Owkin secured $80 million from Bristol Myers Squibb last year and a total raised to over $300 million. The Chicago-based Tempus (@TempusLabs), that specialises in AI and precision medicine and has one of the world's largest libraries of clinical and molecular data, announced this week it raised $275 million through equity from previous investors and debt financing from Ares Management (so far the company has raised over $1.3 billion). And also this month GSK announced that expanded its collaboration with Tempus to improve clinical trial design, speed up enrolment and identify drug targets. "This collaboration will provide GSK with unique insights to discover better medicines and transform drug discovery.

Owkin and Sanofi have announced that Owkin is now a unicorn – a startup valued at more than $1 billion – through a new $180 million investment from Sanofi. Sanofi will take a $180 million equity stake and alongside the investment, Owkin and Sanofi will enter a strategic multi-year collaboration to seek out new cancer therapies using AI. The project will focus on four types of cancer including non-small cell lung cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, mesothelioma, and multiple myeloma. They will use Owkin's predictive biomedical AI models to find new biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Owkin will also build prognostic models to predict how a patient will respond to a particular treatment.

In the context of the digital economy, data is often referred to as the new fuel driving the economy. This comparison has its origin in the title of a May 2017 report by The Economist entitled "The world's most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data". The saying "data is a new oil" became a kind of cliché. While this comparison is highly evocative, it doesn't fully reflect reality. There are a number of differences between how oil and data affect the economy.

King's College London (KCL) is partnering up with two companies to deliver an artificial intelligence model in the healthcare and life sciences sector. KCL is joining forces with Owkin, a company that develops AI algorithms for cancer centres and pharmaceutical companies, and American technology company, NVIDIA, to provide Federated Learning, a framework for AI. Federated learning is a machine learning technique that trains an algorithm across multiple decentralised servers holding local data samples, without exchanging their data samples. Owkin aims to demonstrate that the Federating Learning model is safer for patients, and statistically equivalent to the traditional pooled model for analysis. KCL will use Owkin's Federated Learning software and NVIDIA's EGX Intelligent Edge Computing platform to develop research, clinical and operational improvements across a large number of clinical pathways, with cancer, heart failure, dementia and stroke likely areas of early focus.

Owkin, which is developing federated learning and AI technologies to advance medical research, has announced a collaboration with technology company NVIDIA and King's College London (KCL) to deliver federated learning in the healthcare and life sciences sector. It will initially connect four of London's teaching hospitals before expanding throughout the UK, and will offer AI services with the aim of accelerating research and improving clinical practice in a wide range of therapeutic areas, including cancer, heart failure and neurodegenerative disease. Owkin's co-founder and chief scientific officer, Gilles Wainrib, said: "This partnership brings together the best players in life science & healthcare, machine learning and data centre infrastructure. NVIDIA's platforms create the ideal and flexible footprint for hospitals to invest in machine learning. King's College London has assembled the engineering, medical and data science talent, the high-quality patient data, and the governance framework in the AI4VBH Centre, that will show the world the future of healthcare analytics and the power of machine learning. Together we will be enabling the formation of a decentralised dataset that will generate enormous value for research and clinical practice. "Owkin hopes to demonstrate that a Federating Learning architecture is safer for patients, and statistically equivalent to the traditional pooled model for analysis.

Owkin, which is developing Federated Learning and AI technologies to advance medical research, announces it is teaming up with technology company NVIDIA and King's College London (KCL) to deliver Federated Learning in the healthcare and life sciences sector. The King's College London Medical Imaging and AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare (AI4VBH) is one of the world's most ambitious Federated Learning projects in healthcare. It will initially connect four of London's premier teaching hospitals before expanding throughout the UK, and will offer AI services to accelerate research and improve clinical practice in a wide range of therapeutic areas, including cancer, heart failure and neurodegenerative disease. Owkin's co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Gilles Wainrib, said: "This partnership brings together the best players in life science & healthcare, machine learning and data center infrastructure. NVIDIA's platforms create the ideal and flexible footprint for hospitals to invest in machine learning. King's College London has assembled the engineering, medical and data science talent, the high-quality patient data, and the governance framework in the AI4VBH Centre, that will show the world the future of healthcare analytics and the power of machine learning. Together we will be enabling the formation of a decentralized dataset that will generate enormous value for research and clinical practice. Owkin hopes to demonstrate that a Federating Learning architecture is safer for patients, and statistically equivalent to the traditional pooled model for analysis. Owkin also sees huge research potential to analyse the patient data in the AI4VBH Centre to identify new biomarkers, and high value subgroups for clinical trial design and diagnostics."

A mesothelioma prognostic model from medical machine learning firm Owkin has been showcased in the journal Nature, and is being used to help further drug research into the often fatal disease. The paper, entitled "Deep learning-based classification of mesothelioma improves prediction of patient outcomes" describes Owkin's technology called MesoNet, which has been trained using images from nearly 3,000 mesothelioma patients. Owkin used data from MESOBANK, a dataset containing images from several French institutions, and results were validated by experts in pathology at the renowned French Cancer Institute, Centre Leon Berard. As well as giving a prognosis, Owkin was able to use its deep learning technology to highlight regions of interest in the image associated with prognosis prediction. This has led to identification that helps explain different subtypes of the disease, the company said.

Join us for Outsourcing-Pharma's upcoming editorial webinar, titled Real Use Cases for Artificial Intelligence: Where are we now? This discussion will feature expert insights from Sudip Parikh, PhD, senior vice president and managing director, Americas, DIA Global; Doug Peddicord, PhD, executive director, Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO); and Thomas Clozel, MD, co-founder and CEO, Owkin . The Real Use Cases for Artificial Intelligence webinar is sponsored by: Acorn AI (a Medidata company); OM1; ICON plc; and Elligo Health Research . For more information and to register for FREE, please click HERE . The industry, across the drug development continuum, has so far this year announced myriad new partnerships, strategic alliances, product launches, and reports.