Roman Kasianov

Mayo Clinic has announced collaborations with Microsoft Research and Cerebras Systems to explore the potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in patient care, diagnostics, and treatment planning. These projects, introduced during the 43rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, focus on developing foundation models tailored for medical use by integrating diverse datasets, including radiology images and genomic sequencing data.

Researchers from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and ETH Zurich, in collaboration with the University Hospital Zurich and the University of Zurich, have introduced VirTues (Virtual Tissues), a foundation model framework for analyzing tissue architecture using spatial proteomics data.

Researchers from the Baker Lab at the University of Washington, in collaboration with the Digital Biotechnology Lab at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and other institutions, have developed AI-designed proteins capable of neutralizing snake venom toxins.

Proscia, a company specializing in AI-enabled pathology solutions, reported significant growth in 2024, driven by an increasing demand for enterprise pathology platforms.

Umoja Biopharma has secured $100 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round. Based in Seattle, Washington, and founded in 2019, Umoja focuses on developing technologies to expand the accessibility and efficacy of CAR-T cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Vevo Therapeutics has announced plans to open source its Tahoe-100M dataset, described as the world's largest single-cell transcriptomic atlas of drug impacts on patient cells.

Developed in collaboration with NVIDIA's biology foundation model research team and Parse Biosciences' GigaLab Platform, the dataset represents a significant resource for advancing machine learning applications in drug discovery. NVIDIA will contribute expertise in model training and data engineering to make the dataset usable for the broader research community.

Bioptimus, a French AI startup, has announced a $76 million funding milestone, with $41 million secured in its latest round led by Cathay Innovation less than 12 months from its initial seed round.

The funding, supported by Sofinnova Partners, Bpifrance, Andera Partners, and others, will propel the development of a multi-scale, multi-modal AI foundation model for biology, expected to launch in 2025. This model is designed to simulate biological processes across scales and modalities, offering applications in medicine, biotech, cosmetics, and more.

AbCellera has announced an expansion of its collaboration with AbbVie to include the development of T-cell engagers (TCEs) for oncology, leveraging AbCellera’s T-cell Engager platform.

AbbVie has partnered with Simcere Zaiming, a subsidiary of Simcere Pharmaceutical, to advance a trispecific antibody candidate, SIM0500, for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma—a blood cancer that arises from malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow, which can lead to weakened immunity, anemia, bone damage, and kidney dysfunction. The deal includes an undisclosed upfront payment, with Simcere eligible for up to $1.05 billion in milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on sales outside Greater China.

The health data company Truveta, in collaboration with Regeneron and Illumina, and 17 major U.S. health systems, has launched the Truveta Genome Project. The initiative aims to sequence the exomes of up to 10 million consenting participants, creating a diverse database that links genetic information with de-identified medical records.