The Watson supercomputer first made a splash three years ago when it dominated a special Jeopardy! tournament against two legendary former champions. Now, its backers are getting into the laboratory business. The IBM division that manages the supercomputer, the IBM Watson Group, has invested in Pathway Genomics, the San Diego-based molecular laboratory. The two companies will work to create a consumer-oriented application that will draw on a variety of data sources to help them focus on making healthier choices in their daily lives. The investment is part of $100 million the Watson Group is putting into companies to help develop cognitive applications. “The medical industry is undergoing a dramatic and systemic change, giving consumers and their physicians a powerful tool built upon cognitive learning, and Watson will make the change even more transformative,” said Michael Nova, M.D., Pathway Genomics’ chief medical officer. The specific size of the investment was not disclosed. Pathway Genomics has received some $80 million in startup funds over the last half-dozen years. The application will be called Pathway Panorama and will be a variation of the mobile application Pathway Genomics released last month for consumer use. It will blend the available health care literature with the […]
The Watson supercomputer first made a splash three years ago when it dominated a special Jeopardy! tournament against two legendary former champions. Now, its backers are getting into the laboratory business.
The IBM division that manages the supercomputer, the IBM Watson Group, has invested in Pathway Genomics, the San Diego-based molecular laboratory.
The two companies will work to create a consumer-oriented application that will draw on a variety of data sources to help them focus on making healthier choices in their daily lives. The investment is part of $100 million the Watson Group is putting into companies to help develop cognitive applications.
“The medical industry is undergoing a dramatic and systemic change, giving consumers and their physicians a powerful tool built upon cognitive learning, and Watson will make the change even more transformative,” said Michael Nova, M.D., Pathway Genomics’ chief medical officer.
The specific size of the investment was not disclosed. Pathway Genomics has received some $80 million in startup funds over the last half-dozen years.
The application will be called Pathway Panorama and will be a variation of the mobile application Pathway Genomics released last month for consumer use. It will blend the available health care literature with the user’s specific wellness biomarkers to create answers to questions posed by the user. For example, the user can ask Pathway Panorama how much exercise it should do or how much coffee they should drink during the day. The app would then provide an answer based on both the available data and the user’s specific biomarker data and vital signs at the time they made the query.
Takeaway: Pathway Genomics and IBM’s Watson division are taking steps together to create a high-tech, consumer-oriented approach to personalized medicine.
