MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Health2047 Inc., the Silicon Valley-based innovation subsidiary of the American Medical Association (AMA), today announced the spin out of Phenomix Sciences (Phenomix), a phenotype testing company whose AI-derived test analyzes genomics, metabolomics and hormone levels to deliver a new personalized measure for obesity that enhances treatment outcomes. Phenomix provides a solution that identifies four specific obesity phenotypes; the company’s MyPhenomeTM test gives doctors the ability to prescribe individualized anti-obesity therapies that are more effective.
Approximately 42% of adults in the U.S. are affected by obesity, putting them at increased risk for heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, knee and hip disease, and premature death. In fact, obesity drives $480B of direct healthcare costs annually in the U.S., in large part because existing “one size fits all” therapies have proven ineffective for roughly 70% of patients suffering from obesity.
There is a growing body of evidence that obesity is not a single disease. Rather, it is a constellation of diseases that can be grouped into four primary phenotypes:
- Hungry Brain®: defect of satiation (the brain not knowing when to stop eating)
- Hungry Gut®: defect of satiety (eating in between meals to satisfy hunger)
- Emotional Hunger®: emotional reward from eating (eating in response to negative or positive emotions)
- Slow Burn®: defect in energy expenditure (slow basal metabolic rate and low overall activity level)
Founded by physician-scientists Andres Acosta, M.D., Ph.D., and Michael Camilleri, M.D., Phenomix offers physicians a solution to distinguish between these four types of obesity early in a patient’s care. The company’s blood-based test uses phenotype-driven multi-omics technology that—together with rigorous analysis of clinical data using sophisticated AI tools—requires only a single sample to determine the appropriate phenotype.
Phenomix’s newly expanded leadership team–led by CEO Mark Bagnall, former Executive in Residence at Health2047–brings the market and technology experience needed to meet the challenge of significantly reducing obesity in the United States. Financial investment to date has been provided by Mayo Clinic and Health2047 Inc.
“The future of healthcare will be defined by the increase in personalized medicine and widespread adoption of artificial intelligence,” said Dr. Acosta. “By leveraging AI tools to better understand the phenotype of each patient’s obesity, we can devise more appropriate and effective treatments.”
“The physician perspective is central to everything we do at Health2047,” said Health2047 CEO Lawrence K. Cohen. “Phenomix brings unique and valuable technology to address long-standing physician challenges in the diagnosis and treatment of obesity; as the science available to physicians gets better, so do patient outcomes.”
Recent clinical trials have shown that obesity therapies guided by phenotype are twice as likely to succeed as non-phenotype-guided approaches. “It is clear that we should stop viewing obesity as a single disease with a single treatment type,” said Phenomix CEO Mark Bagnall. “We expect our MyPhenome test to fundamentally change the way obesity is both understood and treated.”
Phenomix is the most recent company to spin out of Health2047, the Silicon Valley-based innovation company founded by the AMA in 2016. Other Health2047 spin-out companies include:
- First Mile Care, a preventive chronic care company building an affordable, scalable and sustainable platform to reverse prediabetes.
- Zing Health, a tech-enabled Medicare Advantage plan that helps doctors and communities coordinate improved and individualized care for chronically underserved populations.
- Medcurio, an instant data access solution that simplifies insight extraction and allows healthcare organizations to harness the full value of their data quickly and efficiently while protecting patient data privacy.
- Akiri, a secure, private “network-as-a-service” that enables the sharing and use of trusted health data in real time.
About Phenomix Sciences
Phenomix Sciences is a biomedical startup company whose inaugural product is a phenotype-driven multi-omix blood test used to predict responses to FDA approved obesity interventions. Mayo Clinic physicians, scientists and professors, Andres Acosta and Michael Camilleri, founded the company. For more information, please visit https://www.phenomixsciences.com/index.php#home.
About Health2047 Inc.
Health2047 Inc. is a Silicon Valley business formation and commercialization enterprise committed to enabling fundamental transformation in U.S. healthcare. In partnership with the AMA, Health2047 is transforming healthcare at the system level, seeking powerful ideas, industry partners and entrepreneurs to address systemic transformation in the areas of data utility, chronic disease prevention, radical productivity enhancement, and value-based payment. Health2047’s deep relationships with both the AMA and its network of strategic partners create a unique force multiplier that helps drive informed, large-scale change in healthcare. For more information, please visit www.health2047.com.
