SOPHiA GENETICS: Democratizing Data-Driven Medicine

Celebrating 15 years of the Top100 Swiss Startup Award, we spotlight the pioneers who shaped their industries. Among them is SOPHiA GENETICS, recognized early in the ranking and now a global leader in data-driven medicine. Founded at EPFL, SOPHiA appeared in the Top100 Swiss Startups from 2012 to 2016 and in the Scale-Up Ranking from 2019 to 2021. From its early conviction that AI and genomics could transform healthcare, the company built a best-in-class cloud-based AI platform connecting hospitals into a single network — democratizing access to precision medicine.

As Top100 marks its 15th anniversary, SOPHiA GENETICS shows how Swiss innovation can evolve from academic research into a global healthcare platform. From its first office at EPFL to a NASDAQ listing and a worldwide hospital network, the company has redefined how medical data is shared and analyzed. We spoke with Co-Founder and CEO Jurgi Camblong about SOPHiA’s evolution from lab research to worldwide adoption, the challenges of scaling trust in genomic data, and what’s next for AI-driven medicine.

Jurgi Camblong, Co-Founder and CEO of SOPHiA GENETICS

How did the idea for Sophia Genetics come together?
SOPHiA GENETICS was founded in 2011, but the real journey began in 2012, when we opened our first office at the EPFL Innovation Park. From the start, we believed that AI and emerging technologies like genomics would transform the way medicine is practiced. 
 
We began without proprietary technology and gradually built what became the best-in-class cloud-based AI platform — starting in a small room with brilliant data scientists and software engineers. Our mission was clear from day one: to connect hospitals through a shared AI-driven platform that helps clinicians identify biomarkers to better diagnose and treat patients with cancer and rare inherited disorders.

"We support over 800 tier-1 university hospitals
and cancer centers across more than
70 countries and 5 continents."

What was your first prototype or platform like?
It took us a few years to build our first beta platform, continuously refined through discussions with potential customers to achieve the right product-market fit. Early on, we focused on security, privacy, scalability, data annotation, and visualization. 
 
However, hospitals were hesitant to invest until we enhanced the platform with AI-powered bioinformatics — technology that could separate signal from noise in genomic data. Many institutions had NGS instruments but didn’t fully trust their data quality or were reluctant to shift from traditional molecular tests to sequencing.

SOPHiA first listed on NASDAQ in 2021

From Swiss startup to global stage — Which milestones marked your rise to a leader in data-driven medicine?
Well, this didn’t happen overnight. y the end of 2014, we had begun to understand product-market fit. The clinical genomics field was still young, with hospitals transitioning NGS instruments from research to diagnostics, unclear reimbursement models, and limited cloud computing budgets. 
 
By 2015, demonstrating our AI’s diagnostic value helped hospitals improve patient outcomes, and we signed our first 100 customers across Europe. As traction grew, we expanded our teams and secured funding to scale internationally. 
 
Today, SOPHiA supports over 800 hospitals across 70 countries and five continents, analyzing more than 2.2 million patient cases. One could argue we already have a global impact — but this is only the beginning, as precision medicine continues to expand worldwide.

What has been the hardest challenge in earning trust with genomic data?
The hardest challenge was convincing hospitals that without our AI capabilities, they weren’t fully optimizing diagnoses or patient care. In many cases, key mutations behind cancers went undetected. 
 
Once institutions saw the sensitivity and specificity of our technology — and how accurately we could identify those mutations — trust followed. Data privacy concerns became secondary to the clinical value our platform delivered.

"SOPHiA will be the company to make it happen."

How has Sophia Genetics changed the way hospitals and researchers use data?
Today, over 30,000 patients every month benefit from our technology. Most hospitals would tell you that SOPHiA enables them to test with higher accuracy, reduce turnaround times, and make faster treatment decisions. Our technology helps them build in-house expertise, preparing them to leverage future innovations in precision medicine. 
 
Beyond clinical use, our platform supports over 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications each year. In one recent Nature study, researchers used SOPHiA technology to uncover new principles of cancer evolution and clonality.

SOPHiA DDM Hereditary Cancer Solution v2

What role will Sophia Genetics play in the next decade?
We believe medicine will evolve from “stand-alone intelligence” — where each hospital holds isolated knowledge — to “collective intelligence,” where shared insights help every institution optimize patient care and cancer therapy. And I believe SOPHiA will be the company to make that vision a reality.

What was the most unexpected application of your platform?
One of the most unexpected moments came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals repurposed our platform — originally designed for oncology and rare diseases — to analyze thousands of SARS-CoV-2 genomes and identify variants of concern. Even with limited infrastructure, they processed massive datasets locally, tracking viral mutations in real time. 
 
At the time, only about half of Europe’s NGS instruments were connected to our cloud-based platform. With greater coordination, near real-time pandemic monitoring across the continent would have been possible.