Owkin and Amgen announced results of a three-year project leveraging artificial intelligence to more accurately predict cardiovascular risk. This study demonstrates the ability of AI to improve the way clinicians predict patients’ risk of suffering major cardiovascular events, such as strokes and myocardial infarctions.
 
Using data from 13,756 patients who were part of FOURIER, a large Amgen clinical trial, Owkin trained a machine-learning algorithm to predict those at higher risk of cardiovascular events. The results show that machine learning is more efficient and effective than the statistical models routinely used by clinicians.
 
The goal is to better predict which patients will suffer major cardiovascular events and improve both patient outcomes and efficiency. Identifying at-risk patients sooner will allow them to benefit from better care, adapted to their individual risk profile. With electronic medical records being more complete and prevalent, the use of machine learning aims to better predict cardiovascular risk and could have wide application.
 
Owkin and Amgen have been collaborating for five years on projects across cardiology, hematology and oncology to develop clinical applications for artificial intelligence. Last month, Owkin became a ‘unicorn’ – a startup valued at over $1 billion – through a $180 million investment from Sanofi, which was announced alongside $90 million of joint cancer research projects.