Latest news with #preventiveHealth
Geek Wire
07-07-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Microsoft and the microbiome: Viome works with tech giant to optimize AI for molecular health
Naveen Jain, Viome CEO and founder, worked at Microsoft early in his career. (Viome Photo) Viome, a life sciences startup founded by veteran tech entrepreneur Naveen Jain, announced a collaboration with Microsoft to scale its molecular analysis platform — part of what Viome describes as a new era of AI-powered preventive health and wellness. Viome says Microsoft's cloud and AI infrastructure — specially tuned for its purposes in conjunction with the tech giant — will allow it to process biological data more efficiently. The idea is to expand access, reduce costs, and accelerate data processing and diagnostics. For Jain, it's a full-circle moment. Before founding such companies as InfoSpace, Intelius, and Moon Express, he was a Microsoft group manager in the 1980s and '90s, working on the business side of MSN while current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella ran engineering for Microsoft's online division. 'Satya will someday be known as being one of the best CEOs in human history,' Jain said, using some of his trademark exuberance to describe Viome's work with the tech giant. 'He has changed Microsoft to be a company that's an unbelievably great partner.' Their collaboration addresses a massive scaling challenge. Viome says it has data from more than 1 million samples (including blood, saliva, and stool) from people in 106 countries, generating what it calls an unprecedented set of more than 10 quadrillion biological data points. Processing this data requires large memory footprints and high-speed storage, rather than the GPU-heavy computing more typical of everyday AI workloads. That difference is what drove the Microsoft collaboration, said Guru Banavar, Viome's CTO and head of AI, who previously led the team that built the foundational AI platform for IBM's Watson. Guru Banavar, Viome's CTO and head of AI. (Viome Photo) The underlying architecture developed by Microsoft and Viome 'was put together specifically to handle this type of bioinformatics with a very large-scale catalog, with a large-scale data set that's being transferred back and forth,' Banavar said. Other life sciences companies on Microsoft's Azure cloud and AI platform may also now benefit from this work, but Banavar said their early collaboration gives Viome a strategic advantage. The Bellevue, Wash.-based company's platform analyzes how genes and microbes in the body are actively functioning in real time, not just which ones are present in the body. Viome then uses that data to generate personalized health insights and recommendations. Viome does this by focusing on RNA, which plays a key role in how genes are expressed and regulated, rather than DNA, which serves as the body's more static genetic blueprint. The long-term idea is to create what it calls 'biological digital twins' — computer models that can predict how individuals will respond to specific foods and interventions. Viome is straddling the line between consumer wellness and clinical diagnostics as it looks to address issues ranging from depression to early-stage oral cancer. On the consumer side, it offers testing kits for saliva, blood and stool samples, with prices currently ranging from $229 to $299. Customers collect the samples at home and send them to Viome's lab for analysis. Results include personalized diet and nutrition insights, with options to subscribe to supplements and oral care products ranging from $79 to $199 a month. These offerings fall under the wellness category and are generally not subject to FDA regulation. According to Jain, Viome distinguishes itself in the wellness space by conducting blinded, placebo-controlled studies to validate its recommendations, publishing in peer-reviewed journals. A Viome testing kit and the company's app. (Viome Photo) The rise of AI and molecular analysis has led to a boom in competition in the personalized health sector, with companies like Thorne, ZOE, BIOHM and others offering various approaches to microbiome testing and wellness insights. At the same time, Viome has developed diagnostic tools that analyze RNA biomarkers to detect disease — including a test for early detection of oral cancer that has received FDA breakthrough device designation. That designation is designed to speed the review of promising technologies, but it is not equivalent to full FDA clearance or approval. Jain said he was inspired to start the company after his late father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The experience led him to question why people develop chronic conditions, and whether diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease could be prevented by detecting earlier biological changes. The company's technology originated from a biodefense project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This was an outgrowth of an approach Jain started pursuing in 2015 with his company BlueDot, aiming to commercialize scientific breakthroughs from institutions like Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Founded in 2016, Viome has raised $225 million in total funding from investors including Khosla Ventures, Bold Capital, West River Group, Marc Benioff, Ezaki Glico, and Jain himself. Viome now employs close to 100 people and had nearly 100% year-over-year revenue growth, according to Jain, who declined to provide specific financials. Most customers, he said, not only take the tests but also subscribe to personalized nutrition products.
CBC
17-06-2025
- Health
- CBC
Major overhaul ordered for group that sets Canada's cancer screening guidelines
Social Sharing A major overhaul is expected of the national body that issues Canada's cancer screening guidelines. The changes were ordered by the federal health minister, following an external review of the Task Force on Preventive Health Care. The task force is an arm's-length panel set up by the federal government to publish national guidelines for family doctors, advising them on when to send their patients for routine screenings of various illnesses, including common cancers. But the panel has been criticized for years for failing to fully take in expert advice, using outdated research and being too slow to update its guidelines. Many of the task force's recommendations are over a decade old. "Those cancer screenings translate into survival," said Dr. Anna Wilkinson, an Ottawa family physician who helps care for cancer patients. "We know that technology and medical science changes so rapidly," she said. "We're not keeping pace and that's impacting people's health." The health minister suspended the task force's work last year and ordered the review, after it came under mounting scrutiny for continuing to recommend routine breast cancer screening only start at 50 years of age. That guideline flew in the face of evidence that screening should start at 40 — advice supported by the Canadian Cancer Society and already implemented in several provincial breast screening programs. The cancer most commonly diagnosed in Canadians aged 30 to 49 is now breast cancer. "We know that we're seeing more and more early-age onset of breast cancer," Wilkinson said. "We need to have guidelines that are in line with those changes." A 'pressing need' The review calls on the task force to be more accountable and transparent, streamline and speed up its guideline updates and ensure experts are consulted, citing a "pressing need to modernize its approach." The task force has been criticized for other recommendations, including cervical, prostate and lung cancer screening. Its guidelines on cervical cancer, for example, haven't been updated since 2013, and recommend against screening for HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer. The U.K. and Australia replaced Pap tests with HPV screening in 2016 and 2017, respectively, because HPV can be detected much sooner. Wilkinson said she's hopeful the major changes to how the task force operates will save lives, especially since many primary care physicians are trained to use those guidelines when deciding to refer their patients for tests. Her own research found Canadian women who lived in provinces where breast cancer screening started at 40 had a better chance of surviving than those who were screened in their 50s. Early screening would have changed the life of Carolyn Holland. At 43, she discovered lumps in her breasts. By that point, the cancer had spread so aggressively that she needed chemotherapy, radiation and a double mastectomy. A mammogram could have caught her cancer sooner, but she had never had one. Her family physician was following the task force guidelines that said she didn't need a routine screening until 50. "Had my cancer been caught earlier with mammography at 40, my treatment and outcome would have been drastically different," Holland said. In a statement, the task force said it looks forward to helping bring about the changes, which will "bolster the task force's credibility," adding that its work is "internationally known for its rigorous evidence-based guidelines." "The recommendations in this report are not only about modernizing the approach but about ensuring that preventive health care remains responsive to evolving scientific evidence, inclusive of diverse perspectives, adaptable to real-world delivery settings and to local public health priorities," the statement reads.
CTV News
14-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
‘A landmark decision': advocates celebrate reform of health screening task force
Women in their 40s in Ontario can now book a mammogram without needing a doctor's referral. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press via AP) Advocates and doctors are applauding the recently released external expert panel report on the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, which calls for modernization and reform of the task force. Some of the recommendations to modernize the task force include ensuring preventive health care remains up to date with evolving scientific data and applying it to guidelines in a timely manner, the inclusion of equity-centred perspectives, patient involvement, and collaboration with pre-existing guidelines to help eliminate disparities across the country. 'This is great news,' said Dr. Anna Wilkinson, a family physician and general practitioner-oncologist at The Ottawa Hospital, in a phone interview with 'They are saying that we need to modernize the task force, and I think that's because we're recognizing that we are kind of behind the times on our cancer screening guidelines and many of our other preventive health care guidelines.' Task force halted amid criticism The task force, which is responsible for developing preventive health guidelines like cancer screening across Canada, is an independent body that develops clinical guidelines for family doctors about screening and prevention measures for cancer and other diseases. The task force's work was halted last year following criticism of its proposed incoming breast cancer screening guidelines, which did not recommend mammography screening begin at age 40. Instead, it upheld its 2018 guidelines recommending screening begin at age 50, despite growing evidence and calls from numerous medical experts and organizations urging earlier screening in response to rising breast cancer rates among younger women. This prompted then-Health Minister Mark Holland to request that the Public Health Agency launch an external expert review panel, which began in October 2024, to recommend changes and improvements to the task force's structure, governance, and methodology for developing the guidelines. Dr. Wilkinson, one of the medical experts who advised the external review panel, says she is pleased the report acknowledges the need to modernize the task force. 'We cannot afford economically as a health system to not be,' she said. 'We know that it's so much cheaper to deal with cancers when they're smaller, we know the outcomes are better, the cost to our health-care system is better.' 'I think one of the ways forward for a health-care system is to do preventive care more effectively. (…) This is a high-level view of how we might do that, so I look forward to seeing how it gets implemented.' With implementation of the recommendations currently underway, Health Minister Marjorie Michel has requested that the Public Health Agency of Canada have the task force operational by April 2026. 'Landmark change' Kimberly Carson, CEO of Breast Cancer Canada, was one of many advocates calling for the incoming breast cancer guidelines to recommend screening begin at age 40 rather than 50. Carson, who met with Holland and the external expert review panel, is content with the report's findings. 'It's going to be fantastic for Canadians,' Carson told in a phone interview. 'We know that if we catch breast cancer early, it's better for the patient, it's better for the health-care system, it costs less, there's less financial toxicity for the patients and a better cure rate. (…) It changes the paradigm for Canadian patients.' The task force began meeting on the upcoming breast cancer guidelines in May 2023. For two years, Breast Cancer Canada advocated for the inclusion of subject matter experts in guideline development, the timely integration of the latest data, and the incorporation of patient perspectives. With the report acknowledging all these points, Carson says she is satisfied that the sustained mobilization efforts have yielded results. 'It's such a landmark change in a landmark decision,' Carson said. The Canadian Cancer Society, which also stated in a media release its approval of the report, also had its recommendations reflected in the findings. Some of these recommendations echo those of Breast Cancer Canada, including the inclusion of cancer experts, patient perspectives, and staying current with evolving perspectives, experiences and scientific evidence. 'Once they reform the task force and it becomes functional in April, we would hope that they would immediately take a look at the screening guidelines for breast cancer,' Carson added. In addition to the 2018 breast cancer guidelines, the current cancer screening guidelines for other cancers — like colon cancer (2016), prostate cancer (2014), and cervical cancer (2013) — are also due for updates, Dr. Wilkinson notes. She says this report is a 'critical step' towards modernizing all of Canada's screening guidelines. 'In today's strained health-care environment, optimizing preventive care is essential to making the most of our limited resources,' she said in an email to 'The integration of diverse and evolving evidence, equitable care and ongoing evaluation pave the way for agile, 'living' guidelines that keep pace with scientific advancements. 'This approach will help ensure Canada no longer relies on cancer screening recommendations that are over a decade old.'
