The merger combines Canexia Health’s advanced molecular cancer solutions with Imagia Cybernetics’ healthcare and AI expertise
Imagia, Canexia Health combine operations. (Credit: Darko Stojanovic from Pixabay)
Canada’s AI-healthcare company Imagia Cybernetics and cancer genomics company Canexia Health have combined their businesses to enhance access to precision oncology.
The two companies have been working with four pharmaceutical companies. They are integrated with 20 hospital systems and reference labs worldwide.
Their expertise in genomics, oncology, artificial intelligence, and informatics is said to help health systems deliver precision oncology to patients.
The merger also includes a C$20m ($15.8m) funding from BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund, Desjardins Capital, and PacBridge Capital.
Imagia CEO Geralyn Ochab said: “Combating cancer is what Imagia set out to accomplish through advanced AI technology, and merging with Canexia speeds up our momentum to realize that goal.
“Imagia’s Evidens platform, with its distributed model providing onco-clinical solutions generated from real-world data, is critical to our joint ecosystem’s ability to provide earlier treatment selection and recurrence monitoring.”
The new combined company will operate as Imagia Canexia Health, under the leadership of Imagia CEO Geralyn Ochab. Canexia Health board chairperson Sue Paish will also chair the new entity.
Imagia Canexia Health is said to improve accessibility to cancer care through cost-effective local testing, reduced expenses and rapid results.
It will leverage Imagia’s data insights technology to preserve the privacy of cancer healthcare data and Canexia’s end-to-end solution tests to deliver the analysis.
The integrated solution is said to leverage AI-based informatics for treatment selection, patient monitoring, and support clinical laboratories with in-house testing.
The new company will have the ability to integrate patient clinical and genomic data which facilitates effective treatment decisions by oncologists.
Paish said: “Targeted cancer therapies transform access to cancer treatment, patient outcomes, and health system effectiveness.
“Through Imagia Canexia Health these precision treatments can be available to physicians and patients around the world. This merger with Imagia will greatly enhance access to life-saving cancer treatments and improve health equity.”
Canexia Health CEO Michael Ball said: “This merger realises new revenue streams from integrated workflow solutions and more services that bring therapeutics to where patients need them most.”
The deal is expected to complete at the end of this month, subject to shareholder approval.