Cancer incidence is increasing, especially among young people, but most new drug compounds have not gone through clinical trials. According to French entrepreneur Fanny Jolin (pictured above, right), the problem lies in the design of clinical trials.
“Just because a drug doesn't succeed in clinical trials doesn't mean it's not a good drug,” she told TechCrunch. Therefore, better ways to test new molecules are needed, especially for cancer, where innovation has failed to bear fruit in recent decades.
Her startup, Orakl Oncology, is applying AI to this problem, but Jaulin is quick to admit that her team is not alone in doing so. In fact, she believes AI is becoming a key element in drug discovery. But that's not what differentiates Orakl, she says.
Founded in 2023 as a spin-off from the Gustave Roussy Institute for Oncology, Orakl operates at the intersection of data and biology, unlike companies that do only one or the other, and is a publicly traded AI health tech. It is very similar to a certain Tempus. At the beginning of this year.
Both sides are complementary. The data side helps address the fact that each tumor is unique, and the biology side is the best way to consider the complexity of cancer, Jolin said.
The result is a hybrid, with avatars that combine real patient backgrounds and tissues. Currently, this means working on organoids, miniaturized, simplified in vitro versions of organs that can be used for testing.
In terms of data layer, it includes approximately 40 variables per patient, compensating for the fact that its corpus is still small compared to its larger competitors, with an initial focus on colorectal and pancreatic cancer. I was guessing.
With this foundation in place, Orakl plans to commercialize two products. One is O-Predict, which helps customers predict a patient's response to a drug candidate, and the other is O-Validate, where the process is reversed. This makes the former better suited for drug developers, while the latter can also serve AI and data-driven biotech companies, Jolin said.
The commercialization plan will be funded by the just-raised seed round, in addition to the €3 million pre-seed round the company secured in 2023. It is led by European VC fund Singular, with some non-dilutive funding. The funding from Bpifrance, including the Grand Prix i-Lab, brings Orakl's total capital raised to date to nearly €15 million.
Most of the proceeds go toward building a commercial team to close deals, but that's not what made Jolin an entrepreneur. As cancer becomes a chronic disease and drugs are “too small for what is at stake,” her long-term goal is to remove obstacles to the precision medicine discovery process and bring “as many drugs to patients as possible.” “Delivery to the people.”