On July 14th, Alden Scientific, the leader in AI-based multi-omic innovation and precision health technologies, announced the acquisition of Oncimmune Germany GmbH. This strategic move enables expanded investment in Oncimmune’s core technologies and partnerships, while preserving scientific independence under Alden Scientific’s broader strategic umbrella.
In his first blog as CEO of Oncimmune, Jamie Heywood shares the thinking behind the acquisition and his ambitions for the future.
Read his blog below.
A Personal Note from Jamie Heywood, CEO of Alden Scientific and Oncimmune
Since my brother Stephen was diagnosed with ALS 25 years ago, I’ve been applying science and engineering to build enterprises (ALS TDI, PatientsLikeMe, AOBiome, ICHOM) that create insights that reduce the impact of disease and enable more joyful and vibrant lives.
Your DigitalMe®
This work has culminated in Alden Scientific, the world’s most advanced individual health prediction platform. We collect and process research-quality blood samples, utilizing advanced multi-omic discovery assays not available in any clinic. Each sample contributes to creating a unique DigitalMe®, a biological digital twin, which integrates genetics, proteomics, metabolomics, microbiome, transcripts, epigenetics, glycomics, lipids, and comprehensive clinical labs over time. These DigitalMe’s® form the basis of Alden’s foundational human state machine AI model. Alden’s team and independently published research have demonstrated that advanced proteomic assays combined with machine learning dramatically enhance our ability to predict disease and mortality by 4- to 50-fold. This is the service we provide to our members and partners.
Acquisition Brings Adaptive Immunity to DigitalMe® Today
Despite our world-leading predictions, the adaptive immune system remains a core missing variable. Antibodies in your blood hold information about every infection and exposure, allergies, and current immune responses. Autoimmune diseases, long COVID, chronic Lyme, predictive oncology, and even cardiovascular and neurological conditions are shaped by our antibodies. There are few diseases where the adaptive immunity does not influence the outcome.
Alden Scientific’s acquisition of Oncimmune GmbH, the global leader in measuring and interpreting adaptive immunity, fills a key gap in our understanding of health, disease, and the aging process. Oncimmune uniquely measures antibodies with scale, specificity, and clinical accuracy. The combination of Alden’s DigitaMe AI and Oncimmune‘s expertise, along with the measurement of the adaptive immune system, enables an unrivaled understanding of our members’ present and future health. We are already processing samples.
Multiomic data is central to our AI health future.
The uncomfortable truth is that current diagnostics, genetics, and medical records cannot adequately explain the significant variation in health outcomes from person to person to enable effective precision health. All the AI in the world is of no use if you don’t have the necessary data. To understand individual health, you need multi-omic data at scale.
Alden Scientific’s Massive Multi-Omic Personalized Medicine Data Moat:
- Alden continues to invest in our proprietary 2,300-participant 100M DigitalMe study®, the most comprehensive multiomic study in existence, now approaching 10 years duration.
- Alden collaborates with leading institutions, including MIT, the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, and Holobiome, among others, to advance our disease models and measure the effectiveness of interventions targeting key indications such as long COVID, chronic Lyme, and Alzheimer’s.
- Oncimmune,in addition to offering Alden exclusive clinical application of the only viable adaptive immune measurement platform, brings key biobanked assets, including infectious and autoimmune as well as predictive oncology, to the Alden Family.
- Alden Scientific, alongside Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, Calico Life Sciences, Roche, GSK, Isomorphic Labs, Johnson & Johnson, MSD, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Regeneron, and Takeda, are funding and have exclusive early access to The UK Biobank Pharma Proteomic Project, involving over 600,000 samples processed on the Olink platfrom to create the largest genomic & proteomic dataset ever assembled.
Discovering the Universes that are You
“The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.” – Marcel Proust
Alden Bespoke Members know more about their health today and in their future than anyone in history. No one offers anything close to the comprehensive biological assessment and AI comparison provided by DigitalMe®. Insights are already changing how members live and redefining health and disease, and we improve with each sample and learning cycle.
Alden’s Voyage of Discovery:
- Oncimmune continues to operate as a stand-alone company, serving clients with secure access to the B-cell repertoire and pivotal biomarkers for drug development and disease discovery. Most leading Biopharma companies have used ImmunoINSIGHTS®, and Alden’s acquisition ensures ongoing access and significant forward investment.
- Alden Scientific Signal Intelligence makes our sample processing and DigitalMe® AI available to biopharma and research institutions to measure intervention impact and advance disease understanding.
- Alden Scientific Bespoke Discovery is designed for individuals who are comfortable with evolving insights. Slots are limited, consent is required, we don’t accept everyone, and it is absurdly expensive. It is expensive because it’s expensive (today…) to do this right, and that’s the only way we do it.
Welcome to our Oncimmune Team
It is an honor to welcome the Oncimmune team to the Alden family. You’re here because we share a desire to pursue scientific truth with humility and integrity, and a dedication to quality and continuous improvement.
Join Us
I am not just Alden’s CEO, I am also a member, as are our family, friends, and the Alden team. We are building DigitalMe® to enable health-filled, joyful, vibrant lives for ourselves and those we love. We are committed to having maximal human impact, and our goal is to make DigitalMe® accessible to everyone.