Mayo Clinic, Thermo Fisher Scientific launch new AI-supported diagnostics company
The nonprofit academic medical group Mayo Clinic has teamed up with Thermo Fisher Scientific, a biotech supply company, to found a new data analysis company working on early detection for a variety of diseases.
Dubbed Precure, the new entity will utilize data from one million biospecimens to create one of the largest biomedical datasets, integrating genomic and proteomic information, combined with Mayo Clinic’s patient data from clinical encounters, to accelerate new drug development in addition to new early diagnostic capabilities, with an emphasis on cancer, cardiometabolic conditions, auto-immune diseases and neurological disorders.
That information comes from a press release by the Mayo Clinic, where it was also revealed that “advanced AI and large-scale data-analytics” will be key technologies used to identify “patterns within these complex datasets and translating them into actionable insights.”
"At Mayo Clinic, we are committed to transforming patient care through innovation," says Gianrico Farrugia, MD., president and CEO, Mayo Clinic, said in the release. "By harnessing the full potential of multi-omics data, Precure aims to help us better understand disease before symptoms appear, accelerating discoveries that can lead to earlier diagnoses, more targeted treatments and better outcomes for patients."
The world-renowned Mayo Clinic will serve as the majority owner of Precure, with Thermo Fisher holding a minority stake, the organizations said. The biotech company will provide its expertise in mass spectrometry and associated products to fuel the success of Precure.
“Precure has the potential to create a step change in how we generate and apply multi-omics data to improve human health,” Marc Casper, Chairman and CEO, Thermo Fisher Scientific, said in the same announcement. “By combining Thermo Fisher’s leadership in scientific technology with Mayo Clinic’s leadership in clinical care, research and innovation, we can create new opportunities at unprecedented scale to detect disease earlier, accelerate drug development and enable more precise therapies.”
The seeds of development
Precure began as a research project by Mayo Clinic, with support from Thermo Fisher, in July of this year, with the same mission of understanding the signs of early disease so that interventions can be made in a timely manner, before conditions emerge or worsen.
As part of the initiative, Mayo Clinic worked to make use of the wealth of data it has from not only patient records, but details on genes that could be linked to biomarkers for illness. Further, as part of the initial research project, the Minnesota-based healthcare group was also looking into how environmental factors, and data captured from patient wearables, could factor into the overall mission of disease mitigation and prevention.
Thermo Fisher has been working with the Mayo Clinic since 2021, providing support for the Precure research project, due to its history of working on advanced gene sequencing.
Precure, the company, complements the research, the Mayo Clinic said. While the research project, which remains ongoing, “advances the science of identifying and understanding early disease signals,” the new company makes the findings actionable.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the new company, in cooperation with Thermo Fisher will offer the “infrastructure and collaborations needed to generate population-scale molecular data and help translate discoveries into new diagnostics, therapeutics and other healthcare solutions.”
Mayo Clinic added that the work of Precure will impact operations at its hospitals and clinics, bringing “meaningful advances into patient care.”
Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.