Owkin announced the spinout of Waiv, formerly known as Owkin Dx, alongside $33 million in financing led by OTB Ventures and Alpha Intelligence Capital.
The new company is focused on developing AI-powered precision testing to better identify and stratify patients in both clinical settings and clinical trials. The spinout follows significant investor interest and is intended to accelerate the deployment of AI-enabled diagnostics designed to improve patient care.
Waiv builds on a decade of medical AI research conducted by Owkin and leverages access to a large patient data network and proprietary AI models trained on multimodal data. The company develops tests designed to predict biomarkers and patient outcomes, helping clinicians identify appropriate treatments and helping pharmaceutical companies better design clinical trials.
Among its existing technologies is RlapsRisk BC, a prognostic risk profiling test, along with the Destra deployment platform used to implement AI-powered diagnostics in clinical workflows. Waiv has also collaborated with pharmaceutical companies including MSD on MSIntuit, an AI-powered diagnostic initiative focused on cancer.
As an independent company, Waiv will remain closely integrated with Owkin’s broader patient validation ecosystem. This ecosystem includes patient-derived organoid testing and Owkin’s therapeutic clinical trial INVOKE, which is targeting triple inhibition of EP2, EP4, and DP1 with a first-in-class phase 1 therapy candidate known as OKN4395.
According to Owkin, these combined capabilities create a feedback loop in which AI models are validated through real-world clinical application, helping convert computational insights into clinically validated intellectual property.
Waiv aims to bring greater speed and scalability to oncology testing while enabling drug developers to access insights that have traditionally been difficult to obtain. The company’s goal is to expand the use of AI-enabled precision testing across global healthcare systems.
KEY QUOTES
“The spin out of Waiv represents the natural evolution of our strategy to validate AI in the real world. It’s not enough to build models. You need feedback from real world applications to continuously improve the AI, ensuring models work for all patients in actual clinical workflows.”
Thomas Clozel, CEO And Co-founder, Owkin
“Waiv brings the scalability and speed of AI to oncology testing, while enabling drug developers to access insights that were previously out of reach. Our goal is to make AI-enabled precision testing the global standard.”
Meriem Sefta, CEO And Co-founder, Waiv
