Canadian computational imaging company Altis Labs will lead an international project that includes drug giants AstraZeneca and Bayer to advance the use of "digital twins" in clinical trials.
Digital twins are simulations that help drug developers and clinicians understand how a patient and/or a therapy may perform in real-life situations. Altis, which develops AI-supported computational imaging to accelerate clinical trials, will contribute its Nota imaging platform that manages and analyzes imaging data from previous and current clinical trials using prognostic AI models, the company explained in an Aug. 23 release.
Other members of the digital-twin-focused project include Canadian health systems Trillium Health Partners and the University of Calgary. SapienSecure will provide natural language processing tools.
“With a track record of building and operationalizing the world’s largest real-world cancer imaging database for AI research in collaboration with Canada’s top cancer centers and leading biopharma sponsors, we’re excited to leverage our cutting-edge AI tools to help improve patient outcomes,” Altis CEO Felix Baldauf-Lenschen said in the release.
In addition to participating in the initiative, AstraZeneca and Bayer will both get early access to the AI twin models generated by Altis' Nota platform for four of their clinical trials.
Toronto-based Altis hauled in $6 million in seed funding in June, which it said at the time would be used to expand the Nota platform.