Owkin is a tech company specializing in AI biotechnology and privacy computing.
Company Overview
- Established:: 2016
- Headquarters location: New York (but the firm has offices in Cambridge, Paris, London, Nantes and Geneva)
- creator: Thomas Clozel (clinical research physician) and Gilles Wainrib (pioneer in machine learning for biology)
- Core Team: Jean-Frédéric Petit-Nivard, Chief Commercial Officer, and Joseph Lehár, Senior Vice President, R&D Strategy.
- Financing: has raised over $300 million and reached a unicorn valuation. Major investors include Sanofi, Bristol Myers Squibb, Fidelity and BPI, among others
Business Areas and Products
Owkin is primarily focused on providing AI-driven solutions for the healthcare industry, with three main areas of business:
- AI Drug Discovery: Discovering new drug candidates using AI technology.
- AI drug development: Using AI technology to reduce clinical trial risk and accelerate the clinical trial process.
- AI diagnosis: Develop diagnostic tools integrated into digital pathology workflows to support accurate and timely diagnosis.
Core products include:
- Owkin Studio: a user-friendly software development platform designed for medical researchers to enable them to apply AI to their research cohorts and scientific questions.
- Owkin Connect: A privacy-preserving federated learning framework that enables researchers to securely federate training and validation of AI techniques without moving data.
- Owkin Loop: Owkin's foundational platform that provides medical data interconnectivity, connecting medical researchers with high-quality datasets from leading academic research centers around the world.
Technical features and advantages
- Federal Learning: Owkin uses federated learning technology, a distributed machine learning framework with privacy-preserving, secure encryption. It ensures data privacy protection while pooling insights from various healthcare datasets.
- blockchain technology: Owkin's platform is based on a private blockchain and uses Substra as the software framework in its federated learning stack to securely orchestrate distributed machine learning tasks. This helps achieve tamper-proof and traceable data.
- Privacy: Owkin's Federated Learning Framework allows servers to be installed at each research center node to run large-scale machine learning computations, while the data is retained within the firewalls of the respective medical centers, ensuring data security and privacy.
Cooperation and Projects
- cooperative partner: Owkin works extensively with academic institutions, hospitals and biopharmaceutical companies to enhance the drug discovery and development process through its AI and machine learning platform.
- major project: For example, Owkin is working to create the world's largest spatial genomics dataset for cancer (the MOSAIC project), which aims to generate and mine data to find and identify target molecules that can be used to design new drugs.
- Strategic investment and cooperationOwkin has received strategic investments from a number of well-known pharmaceutical companies and investment organizations, such as Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). These partnerships not only provide Owkin with financial support, but also bring valuable industry resources and collaboration opportunities.
Market position and prospects
- market position: Owkin is a leader in AI biotechnology and privacy computing, and its unique federated learning technology and strong partner network give it a significant competitive advantage in the market.
- development prospect: Owkin is expected to continue its strong growth momentum in the future as AI technology continues to evolve and the digital transformation of the healthcare industry accelerates. The company plans to strengthen its market position and expand into new application areas through continuous technological innovation and business expansion.
Owkin is a technology company with significant strength and potential in AI biotechnology and privacy computing. Its unique federated learning technology and strong partner network provide strong support for its application in the healthcare industry and are expected to achieve even more significant results in the future.