Thomas Clozel trained as a doctor in Paris and New York and became an assistant professor of clinical haematology and oncology at Henri Mondor hospital. His parents, Jean-Paul and Martine Clozel, founded Actelion and later Idorsia.
In 2016 he and Gilles Wainrib founded Owkin in Paris. Clozel brought the clinical side and Wainrib the machine learning. The company used federated learning, which trains models across hospitals without moving identifiable patient data.
In November 2021 Sanofi invested $180 million, and Owkin passed a $1 billion valuation. Swiss operations opened near Basel from October 2021, at the Idorsia site in Allschwil.
In 2022 two of Owkin's cancer diagnostic tools received CE-IVD certification in Europe. In 2024 the Paris hospital network AP-HP renewed its partnership with Owkin for five years.