Jorge Reis-Filho, Chief of AI for Science Innovation, Enterprise AI Unit at AstraZeneca, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“I am delighted to announce the acquisition of Modella AI to AstraZeneca. The addition of the talented team at Modella and the unique solutions they provide represents a significant step in our strategy of leveraging innovative and impactful AI solutions in oncology R&D.
AI is continuing to reshape the way we discover and develop next-generation therapies, as well as derive new biomarkers for patient selection and therapy response. Some of the largest gains being experienced are in the realm of domain-specific foundation models. Throughout our collaborations with Modella, we have seen how the models they develop, combined with our proprietary data, have helped address key questions across clinical development.
I am excited to bring Modella’s frontier state-of-the-art multimodal foundation models and agentic AI tools in-house and continue driving the development of biomarkers to identify the patients with the potential to most likely derive meaningful benefit from our therapies in oncology.
I extend my sincere thanks to the Faisal Mahmood, Jill Stefanelli, Long Phi Le and the Modella AI team for their excellent partnership and look forward to working alongside them as we pursue our bold ambition in oncology: to one day eliminate cancer as a cause of death.”
Richard J. Chen, Chief Technology Officer at Modella AI, shared a post on X:
“I’m incredibly excited to share some big news to ring in the new year:
Modella AI is joining AstraZeneca!
From the very beginning, Modella was built with a clear conviction: for AI and machine learning to solve grand challenges in oncology, it has to meaningfully improve how clinicians and scientists work – reducing friction in discovery and enabling better decisions where complexity is highest. That belief shaped our focus in building not only better foundation models, but also breakthrough systems that can reason across the biological spectrum, from single cells to pathology slides to patient cohorts.
When we first partnered with AstraZeneca, it was immediately clear that we shared this mission. Transforming oncology and biomarker discovery requires more than powerful models. It demands deep clinical context, rigorous validation, and scale. This next step brings those elements together by combining Modella’s GenAI and AgenticAI capabilities with AstraZeneca’s oncology portfolio and translational science expertise, unlocking impact that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
Building Modella alongside this team has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my career thus far. From our earliest angels to our most recent hires, every person has contributed to our mission in immeasurable ways: Faisal Mahmood, Jill Stefanelli, Long Phi Le, Max Lu, Gabi Raia, David Dalton, Kuan Chen,Bowen Chen, Paul Doucet, Drew Williamson! I’m excited to bring this team into AstraZeneca and continue our work with Jorge Reis-Filho and the broader AZ organization.
Please see our press release.”
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