South African AI platform gains global recognition for speeding up clinical trial prep
Johannesburg-based BioInformatiCo (seen here) took second-place in an international AI challenge with African technology designed to accelerate clinical trial database preparation, improve data quality and help research teams make limited funding go further.
A South African AI platform called "Leova" created by BioInformatiCo, a clinical data management organisation in Johannesburg, has earned global recognition for accelerating clinical trial preparation processes. The platform, which was named second in the 2026 CDISC AI Innovation Challenge, aims to reduce the time and manual effort required to build and test digital databases used to collect information during new medicine and vaccine trials.
By automating these processes, Leova helps research teams identify errors and inconsistencies earlier, allowing them to dedicate more resources to the actual research. Shirley Collie, the Founder and CEO of BioInformatiCo, emphasized the importance of this achievement for African-developed technology in addressing clinical research challenges worldwide.
The platform is particularly relevant for South Africa, where funding cuts for health programs and medical research have strained the research ecosystem. Leova is designed to support clinical research teams in sub-Saharan Africa and is set to expand internationally, with a US site launching soon and plans for sponsor discussions in Europe and Australia.
The AI innovation challenge, organized by the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), attracted 50 submissions from 30 organisations and individual entrants, showcasing the potential of African innovation to compete on the global stage.
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