Award recognises the role of Congenica’s artificial intelligence initiative in using data to help rare disease patients get the right care faster and more accurately

Congenica, the digital health company enabling rapid and accurate analysis of complex genomic data to transform people’s lives, is pleased to announce that it is one of the two joint winners of the Horizon Prize.

The Horizon Prize, run by MIT Solve, seeks technology-based solutions that use data to help rare disease patients get the right care faster and more accurately. MIT Solve is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission to solve world challenges.

Congenica’s winning proposal was based on the deployment of Congenica’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered genomic analysis software platform, which is designed to improve diagnosis. Congenica’s pioneering, highly scalable, and fully evidenced AI framework is able to detect differences, not only in disease patterns between different groups, but also in their responses to therapy.

The proposal focuses on deployment of the platform to candidate institutes recommended by Congenica’s Patient Advocacy and Engagement Advisory Board and the International Rare Disease Research Consortium (IRDiRC) for the free processing of samples from 10,000 rare disease patients from ethnic minority groups. The aim is that a diverse set of patients from around the world will benefit from access to genetic testing that may resolve their diagnostic odyssey. In addition, the project will allow a more complete data set on ethnic minority rare disease patients to be formed, enabling clinical models to be further refined and improving the rate of diagnosis as part of a virtuous feedback loop.

Sandro Morganella, PhD, Head of Artificial Intelligence, Congenica:

“Receiving this award highlights the importance of AI in clinical genomics. We are now able to extract complex patterns from large amounts of data and build prediction models that have a direct impact on patients’ lives. We are just at the beginning of this AI revolution and look forward to the generation of further evidence of the benefits of using Congenica’s AI initiative in healthcare in the years to come.”

Charles Steward PhD, Patient Advocacy and Engagement Lead, Congenica, said:

“At Congenica, the patient is central to everything we do. By deploying our platform to under represented communities we can remove the barriers to the diagnostic testing of rare diseases, shortening the diagnostic odyssey for individual patients and improving our clinical models more broadly.”

Dr David Atkins, Chief Executive Officer, Congenica:

“It is an honour to win such a prestigious award, which is testament to the continued dedication of our team in developing our world-leading platform to improve the diagnosis of rare diseases.”