Oracle, AstraZeneca Team Up on AI for Clinical Trials as Fortrea Buys Austin Lab

On a quiet Tuesday in Silicon Hills, Austin-based Oracle signs an AI healthcare pact, an Austin bioanalytical lab changes hands, and a UT spinout makes its pitch for light-based chips.

Austin-based Oracle Corp. and drugmaker AstraZeneca said Tuesday they will explore using artificial intelligence and real-world health data to speed up clinical trials, leading to a slower-than-usual stretch of Central Texas tech news. Also in the past day, North Carolina contract research firm Fortrea Holdings closed a $45 million deal that includes a 60,000-square-foot Austin lab; Austin drug developer XBiotech reported Phase II cancer trial results; a University of Texas spinout described its plan to move chip data with light; and Austin software company ABBYY added a generative AI layer to its document-processing platform.

Oracle and AstraZeneca Sign AI Healthcare Pact

Oracle and AstraZeneca signed a non-binding agreement to test how AI and real-world data could help clinicians find eligible patients for clinical trials, produce evidence faster and move research findings into everyday care, according to a release issued early Tuesday with an Austin and Abu Dhabi dateline.

The companies said they may first examine cancer, cardiovascular, renal and metabolic disease, respiratory and immune conditions, and rare diseases. AstraZeneca will contribute scientific expertise, while Oracle will bring its health data, cloud infrastructure, and clinical workflow tools. The two plan to share governance, reusable technical components, and agreed outcome measures. They did not disclose financial terms.

“Some of the most important opportunities for AI are in healthcare,” Oracle CEO Mike Sicilia said. Oracle, which moved its headquarters to Austin in 2020, has made health care a major focus of its AI business. The agreement is exploratory and is not tied to a local site.

Fortrea Buys Worldwide Clinical Trials Unit With Austin, Pflugerville Sites for $45 Million

Durham, North Carolina-based Fortrea completed its roughly $45 million all-cash purchase of Worldwide Clinical Trials’ early-phase services division, the company announced Monday.

The deal includes a 60,000-square-foot bioanalytical laboratory in Austin that operates under good laboratory practice standards, a biospecimen storage facility in Pflugerville and a 200-bed clinical research unit in San Antonio. Fortrea said the addition lifts its global early-phase capacity to more than 570 beds. The operations will join its clinical pharmacology services business, and a strategic alliance agreement is meant to keep ongoing studies and staff in place. The company did not say how many employees are covered.

The deal puts two Austin-area drug development facilities under a new, publicly traded owner. Fortrea CEO Anshul Thakral called it “tangible progress in Fortrea’s return to growth.”

XBiotech Reports Phase II Colorectal Cancer Results

Austin-based XBiotech Inc. said its antibody vilamakitug met the primary success threshold in a Phase II trial in patients with hard-to-treat metastatic colorectal cancer, according to a Monday release.

In the randomized, double-blind study, 49 of 80 patients who received the drug with standard chemotherapy were alive at 12 months, above the protocol’s bar of 42. In the placebo group, 44 of 79 were alive. Progression-free survival and time to treatment failure did not differ significantly, while a small exploratory group of patients with right-sided tumors showed a stronger survival signal.

A French cancer center sponsored the trial, and France’s National Cancer Institute funded it. XBiotech, which develops and manufactures its antibodies in Austin, targets a protein called interleukin-1 alpha that is linked to inflammation and tumor growth.

UT Spinout La Luce Cristallina Pursues Light-Based Chip Links

La Luce Cristallina, a startup that grew out of research at the University of Texas, is growing ultra-thin crystal layers on silicon wafers that chipmakers could use to build photonic devices, CBS Austin reported Monday night.

Photonic components move data between chips with light rather than electrical signals. CEO Alex Demkov told the station the devices could be much smaller and, if development succeeds, use “probably 100 times less power.” Roger Bonnecaze, dean of UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering, said faster chip-to-chip communication could cut energy costs and speed up computing, including AI.

The report did not include details on funding or facilities. Austin Mayor Pro Tem José “Chito” Vela said the work complements the region’s growing semiconductor industry, including Samsung’s fab in Williamson County.

ABBYY Adds Generative AI Layer to Document Platform

Austin-headquartered ABBYY launched PHOENIX Plus, a set of generative AI models built into its Vantage intelligent document processing platform, the company said Tuesday.

ABBYY hosts the models and keeps customer data in the same region as the customer’s Vantage data. It charges a fixed annual fee rather than per-token pricing, and customers can also connect models from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic or Mistral. The tool lets users pull fields from unfamiliar documents, such as supplier contracts, by writing prompts instead of training on labeled data. It is currently open to select Vantage customers.

ABBYY, with offices in 13 countries, said a logistics customer reported 99% first-pass accuracy in extracting handwritten and printed text from complex forms.

Also in Silicon Hills

  • Austin-based Natera will have 20 abstracts, including four rapid oral presentations, at the ESMO cancer congress in Madrid on Oct. 23-26. One study found its Signatera test changed planned post-surgery treatment for about 1 in 3 colon cancer patients. (Natera via BioSpace)
  • AI chip designer Tenstorrent, which has an office in Austin, raised a $1.5 billion Series E at a $6.2 billion post-money valuation, led by Trace Capital and Innovation X. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. (Rio Times)
  • The American Solar Energy Society’s SOLAR 2026 national conference runs through Wednesday at the Palmer Events Center. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and Austin Energy’s Stuart Reilly were among six local leaders honored at Monday’s opening reception. (ASES)
  • A Houston Advanced Research Center report projects that Texas data centers could raise statewide nitrogen oxide emissions 35% by 2031 even with grid and renewable power, and nearly 400% if they rely on on-site natural gas. (Texas Tribune)
  • Roamly, a mobility insurance company whose parent, The Ride Platform, is co-headquartered in Austin and London, hired Christine Franzi as head of insurance programs. (Roamly)
  • Austin-based Caprock Direct Lithium Extraction said it is pursuing a patent with Texas Tech University for a method to pull lithium from oilfield wastewater and plans field operations for its first modular unit in spring 2027. (Caprock via Business Wire)

Only in Austin

Today’s deals have nothing on the one that built the Texas Capitol. The 1876 state constitution set aside 3 million acres of Panhandle public land to pay for a new statehouse, and a Chicago-backed “Capitol Syndicate” received the land in exchange for building it. Those acres became the famous XIT Ranch. The owners of Granite Mountain in Burnet County donated the “sunset red” granite. Dedicated May 16, 1888, the Capitol stands 302.64 feet to the tip of the Goddess of Liberty’s star, about 14.6 feet taller than the U.S. Capitol, though the two are measured from different points. (Texas State Preservation Board)

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