Roivant Sciences, helmed by biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, launched a new subsidiary, Lokavant, a technology company with the important mission of ensuring that no clinical trial fails due to operational error.
Roivant Sciences, helmed by biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, launched a new subsidiary, Lokavant, a technology company with the important mission of ensuring that no clinical trial fails due to operational error.
The mission of Lokavant is to centralize the data from clinical trials that will power a machine learning program that “anticipates trial risk, provides risk mitigation strategies and predicts the impact of mitigation strategy implementation.” That anticipatory monitoring capability is grounded in a compendium of data from over 1,000 clinical trials and will improve with each deployment, Switzerland-based Roivant said in its announcement this morning. Lokavant provides real-time visualizations and risk alerts to study sponsors and contract research organizations (CROs) to enable data-driven decisions.
The new Vant, as the subsidiaries of Roivant are typically called, will be helmed by Rohit Nambisan, who previously served as head of Digital Product at Roivant Sciences. Nambisan will take over as president of the new company.
Lokavant also tapped a number of clinical trial innovation veterans to serve as advisers to the new company. The advisory board includes:
- Richard Thomas, former president of Technology and Solutions at Quintiles
- Craig Lipset, former head of Clinical Innovation at Pfizer
- Gavin Nichols, executive vice president of Informatics & Technology at Parexel
- Dan Rothman, chief digital officer at Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma
- Afsheen Afshar, former chief data science officer and managing director at J.P. Morgan
Not only has Lokavant launched with its mission, but the startup has also entered into its first multi-year enterprise license agreement. Lokavant inked a deal with contract research organization Parexel. The CRO will leverage the Lokavant platform to bolster the operational execution of clinical trials through improved real-time risk-based monitoring, Roivant announced.
Jamie Macdonald, chief executive officer of Parexel, said Lokavant and Parexel share a focus on innovation in clinical development. Macdonald said they look forward to “deploying Lokavant’s platform to access real-time data-driven insights for our sponsors, to ultimately improve clinical trial execution and accelerate the delivery of important new therapies to patients.”
For Roivant, the formation of Lokavant comes two weeks after Roivant sold off five of its Vant companies to Japan’s Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma for $3 billion. The five Vants will merge into one company called Sumitovant Biopharma. The five Vants that form the new company include Myovant Sciences, Urovant Sciences, Enzyvant Therapeutics, Altavant Sciences, and Spirovant Sciences. Sumitovant Biopharma will be helmed by Myrtle Potter, a former Genentech executive who has served as the operating chair of Roivant since July 2018. As BioSpace previously reported, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma also has options to acquire Roivant’s ownership interests in six more biopharma companies.
