Houston digital health startup acquired by Illinois-based company

M&A moves

Houston-based Melax Tech has been acquired. Photo via MelaxTech.com

A Houston startup has exited to a clinical terminology management and data quality solutions company.

Melax Technologies Inc., an artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology company, has been acquired by Intelligent Medical Objects, which is headquartered in the Chicago area. It's the first acquisition for IMO, and the deal will allow for the company to expand its offerings to various segments in the health care market.

"Today marks an exciting moment for IMO as we complete our first acquisition,” says Ann Barnes, CEO at IMO, in a news release. “Combining Melax Tech’s analytics and NLP capabilities with IMO’s clinical terminology and data quality platform will enable healthcare organizations to have a more comprehensive solution for both clinical operation and research.

"The acquisition will also help extend our state-of-the-art capabilities to payer, pharmaceutical, and life science companies,” she continues.

Founded in 2017 and based out of the Texas Medical Center Innovation Factory, Melax Tech is used by over 650 organizations for clinical trials optimization and more.

“We are thrilled to join forces with IMO and combine our NLP expertise with their clinical terminology and knowledge management solutions,” says Andre Pontin, CEO of Melax Tech, in the release. “Together, we will be able to offer healthcare organizations a powerful suite of solutions that will enable them to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.”

Melax Tech has entered into a handful of strategic partnerships over its six-year existence and raised $600,000 in grant funding from the National Institute of Health and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The details of the acquisition transaction have not been disclosed.

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Houston-based Melax Tech has developed multiple Natural language processing tools that are used by more than 650 health care and life science organizations. Photo via MelaxTech.com

Houston-based language processing co. lands latest partnership with UC Irvine

teamwork

Melax Tech Partners, a leader in natural language technology processing, announced a new partnership with the University of California at Irvine that will help researchers derive insights from the UCI Health Data Science Platform’s electronic health records system and improve patient care.

Melax will implement its signature text annotation tool LANN to pull information from clinical notes, and its CLAMP product to develop natural language processing customizations through the use of AI, according to a statement from the company.

“There has been a strong desire among UCI researchers to have the capability to analyze free-text clinical narrative data using cutting-edge NLP technologies," Kai Zheng, chief research information officer at UCI Health Affairs, says in a statement. "We are delighted to have this opportunity to work with Melax Tech to deploy their AI-driven annotation and analytics tools to help our researchers advance their research agenda by leveraging the vast amount of free-text data that our health system has accumulated in the past two decades.”

Natural language processing, or NLP, allows organizations and healthcare groups to sift through and analyze massive amounts of data at a rapid rate through the use of machine learning and AI. Houston-based Melax Tech, founded in 2017, has developed multiple NLP tools that are used by more than 650 health care and life science organizations, according to its website.

In addition to the recent partnership with UC Irvine, Melax has also recently partnered with Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Western Pennsylvania on similar clinical projects.

Melax has also used its platforms to pull vital information from datasets relating to COVID-19, in both medical and social settings.

In March 2022, it was awarded a Phase 1 NIH Award, valued at $300,000, to develop informatics tools based on COVID-19 datasets with the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego. The tool aims to help researchers better understand vast amounts of virus-related data and connect findings with other similar results.

In August, Melax also received another $300,000 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to develop NLP-based algorithms that will "model, extract and synthesize vaccine misinformation from multiple popular social media sources," according to a statement. Melax will also develop a visualization that presents its findings on the misinformation into a compressible format.

"This is a very real topic affecting culture at present," Andre Pontin, CEO at Melax Tech, says in a statement. "And shows that we as a collective business and group of experts continue to be on the cutting-edge of science in the NLP and AI domain."

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Houston-based HPE wins $931M contract to upgrade military data centers

defense data centers

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), based in Spring, Texas, which provides AI, cloud, and networking products and services, has received a $931 million contract to modernize data centers run by the federal Defense Information Systems Agency.

HPE says it will supply distributed hybrid multicloud technology to the federal agency, which provides combat support for U.S. troops. The project will feature HPE’s Private Cloud Enterprise and GreenLake offerings. It will allow DISA to scale and accelerate communications, improve AI and data analytics, boost IT efficiencies, reduce costs and more, according to a news release from HPE.

The contract comes after the completion of HPE’s test of distributed hybrid multicloud technology at Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) data centers in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and Ogden, Utah. This technology is aimed at managing DISA’s IT infrastructure and resources across public and private clouds through one hybrid multicloud platform, according to Data Center Dynamics.

Fidelma Russo, executive vice president and general manager of hybrid cloud at HPE, said in a news release that the project will enable DISA to “deliver innovative, future-ready managed services to the agencies it supports that are operating across the globe.”

The platform being developed for DISA “is designed to mirror the look and feel of a public cloud, replicating many of the key features” offered by cloud computing businesses such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, according to The Register.

In the 1990s, DISA consolidated 194 data centers into 16. According to The Register, these are the U.S. military’s most sensitive data centers.

More recently, in 2024, the Fort Meade, Maryland-based agency laid out a five-year strategy to “simplify the network globally with large-scale adoption of command IT environments,” according to Data Center Dynamics.

Astros and Rockets launch new streaming service for Houston sports fans

Sports Talk

Houston sports fans now have a way to watch their favorite teams without a cable or satellite subscription. Launched December 3, the Space City Home Network’s SCHN+ service allows consumers to watch the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets via iOS, Apple TV, Android, Amazon Fire TV, or web browser.

A subscription to SCHN+ allows sports fans to watch all Astros and Rockets games, as well as behind-the-scenes features and other on-demand content. It’s priced at $19.99 per month or $199.99 annually (plus tax). People who watch Space City Network Network via their existing cable or satellite service will be able to access SCHN+ at no additional charge.

As the Houston Chronicle notes, the Astros and Rockets were the only MLB and NBA teams not to offer a direct-to-consumer streaming option.

“We’re thrilled to offer another great option to ensure fans have access to watch games, and the SCHN+ streaming app makes it easier than ever to cheer on the Rockets,” Rockets alternate governor Patrick Fertitta said in a statement.

“Providing fans with a convenient way to watch their favorite teams, along with our network’s award-winning programming, was an essential addition. This season feels special, and we’re committed to exploring new ways to elevate our broadcasts for Rockets fans to enjoy.”

Astros owner Jim Crane echoed Feritta’s comments, adding, “Providing fans options on how they view our games is important as we continue to grow the game – we want to make it accessible to as large an audience as possible. We are looking forward to the 2026 season and more Astros fans watching our players compete for another championship.”

SCHN+ is available to customers in Texas; Louisiana; Arkansas; Oklahoma; and the following counties in New Mexico: Dona Ana, Eddy, Lea, Chaves, Roosevelt, Curry, Quay, Union, and Debaca. Fans outside these areas will need to subscribe to the NBA and MLB out-of-market services.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Rice University researchers unveil new model that could sharpen MRI scans

MRI innovation

Researchers at Rice University, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed a new model that could lead to sharper imaging and safer diagnostics using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

In a study recently published in The Journal of Chemical Physics, the team of researchers showed how they used the Fokker-Planck equation to better understand how water molecules respond to contrast agents in a process known as “relaxation.” Previous models only approximated how water molecules relaxed around contrasting agents. However, through this new model, known as the NMR eigenmodes framework, the research team has uncovered the “full physical equations” to explain the process.

“The concept is similar to how a musical chord consists of many notes,” Thiago Pinheiro, the study’s first author, a Rice doctoral graduate in chemical and biomolecular engineering and postdoctoral researcher in the chemical sciences division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said in a news release. “Previous models only captured one or two notes, while ours picks up the full harmony.”

According to Rice, the findings could lead to the development and application of new contrast agents for clearer MRIs in medicine and materials science. Beyond MRIs, the NMR relaxation method could also be applied to other areas like battery design and subsurface fluid flow.

“In the present paper, we developed a comprehensive theory to interpret those previous molecular dynamics simulations and experimental findings,” Dilipkumar Asthagiri, a senior computational biomedical scientist in the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said in the release. ”The theory, however, is general and can be used to understand NMR relaxation in liquids broadly.”

The team has also made its code available as open source to encourage its adoption and further development by the broader scientific community.

“By better modeling the physics of nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation in liquids, we gain a tool that doesn’t just predict but also explains the phenomenon,” Walter Chapman, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice, added in the release. “That is crucial when lives and technologies depend on accurate scientific understanding.”

The study was backed by The Ken Kennedy Institute, Rice Creative Ventures Fund, Robert A. Welch Foundation and Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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