SOPHiA GENETICS, a data-driven medicine software company, told investors it is partnering with AstraZeneca PLC (LSE:AZN) to apply its multimodal technology and expertise to the biopharmaceutical company’s oncology portfolio, sending its shares higher in early trade.
Lausanne, Switzerland and Boston-headquartered SOPHiA said its multimodal approach will go beyond a single data modality, combining radiomics analysis of medical imaging data, molecular data, digital pathology, clinical and biologic data for a more comprehensive assessment of multimodal signatures leveraging proprietary AI and machine learning technology.
Together, the companies will examine ways to accelerate clinical trials, support evidence generation for market access, and improve clinical decision-making, helping clinicians to select the best possible treatments, SOPHiA said in a statement.
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“AstraZeneca is a global leader in innovative oncology therapeutics and has built one of the most diverse and robust oncology portfolios and R&D pipelines in the industry, SOPHiA chief biopharma officer Peter Casasanto said in a statement. “Building on our existing partnership with AstraZeneca, notably to expand access to HRD testing, we are incredibly excited to deepen our collaboration to multimodal approaches that will further enable their precision oncology capabilities.”
AstraZeneca noted that multimodality aims to harness the power of advanced AI and machine learning models by integrating multiple data modalities to obtain key insights, which inform prognosis and response to therapy at the individual patient level.
“This approach is synergistic with AstraZeneca’s focus on developing personalized cancer treatment and has the potential to elevate precision oncology, currently driven by genomic-based biomarkers, into a truly multimodal connected health ecosystem,” AstraZeneca vice president of oncology for Europe and Canada Greg Rossi said.
In parallel, SOPHiA GENETICS also announced it launched its own real-world DEEP-Lung-IV clinical study to leverage its multimodal machine learning-powered analytics capabilities to identify multimodal predictive signatures of response to immunotherapy for patients with advanced lung cancer.
The company’s shares traded 5.4% higher at $2.91 in early New York trade.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com