In a big scientific trial, a pharmaceutical firm may gather data from a whole lot of sufferers. However there are a number of steps in between gathering that knowledge and making it usable for analysis.
Flywheel, an organization serving to automate these processes, raised $22 million in funding led by 8VC. It’s utilizing a portion of the funds to amass longstanding competitor Radiologics. Though the businesses didn’t disclose the phrases of the deal, Flywheel CEO Jim Olson mentioned about half of the funds are for the acquisition, together with fairness, and the opposite half is to increase the mixed firm’s runway.
Minneapolis-based Flywheel was began by two Stanford researchers six years in the past. They had been searching for a greater method to handle rising and more and more complicated analysis datasets. Flywheel began with tutorial researchers as its prospects, and has since added clinics and hospitals which have a analysis phase, and life sciences firms.
“The principle factor we realized is all of them have the identical drawback,” Olson mentioned: managing massive databases and supporting analysis workflows.
He mentioned Flywheel helps save researchers time by serving to them handle their knowledge, particularly imaging knowledge. For instance, throughout a number of scientific trial companions, there’s no standardized format to obtain the info, even when it’s for a similar trial. So Flywheel’s work is to normalize that knowledge, going into metadata to make photos searchable, or eradicating any figuring out data. In addition they tag and group photos, reminiscent of by tumor traits.
Radiologics’ work is analogous. The St. Louis-based firm, which has been round for greater than a decade, additionally processes medical imaging knowledge.
But it surely caters to completely different shoppers, with an open supply software program product, and a few paid hospitals and clinics. It additionally has a barely completely different background. The place Radiologics targeted on oncology and radiomics, Flywheel has extra of a background in neurobiological imaging.
With the acquisition, Olson will proceed as CEO of the mixed firm and Radiologics’ CEO, Dan Marcus, will grow to be its chief scientific officer.
“Collectively, we’re going to assist pace the event of scientific trials, get to discovery quicker, and cut back wasted time and assets alongside the way in which,” Marcus in a information launch. “I’m thrilled that our mixed firm will proceed to serve the analysis group via open supply and enterprise informatics options.”
Flywheel’s final aim is to construct out a broader life science platform, extending past its strengths in medical imaging, Olson mentioned. It at the moment has one massive pharma buyer, and a complete of 60 shoppers throughout each firms. Radiologics’ open supply software program additionally has greater than 300 customers.
Photograph: AndreyPopov, Getty Photos