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PETRI DISH PERSPECTIVES

Episode 27: Tempus AI

October 30, 2025 • Manead Khin

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What if the cure for cancer or the key to mental health, wasn’t hidden in a new drug, but in data itself? In this episode of Petri Dish Perspectives, we uncover the story of Tempus AI, the company turning raw medical information into lifesaving insight.

Founded by Eric Lefkofsky, the entrepreneur behind Groupon, Tempus began as a deeply personal mission to bring clarity to cancer care. Today, it’s one of the most advanced AI-driven healthcare platforms in the world, combining genomics, clinical data, and machine learning to help doctors make better, faster decisions.

We explore how Tempus built one of the largest clinico-genomic databases in existence, its bold leap into psychiatry, cardiology, and COVID research, and how it went public to cement its place at the forefront of precision medicine.

If you’ve ever wondered how AI is reshaping healthcare from the inside out, this episode is your front-row seat.

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Hello and welcome to Petri Dish Perspectives, the podcast where we geek out about science and the companies shaping the future of healthcare. I’m your host, Manead, and I’m a PhD scientist by training, biotech storyteller by choice. With every new episode released on Thursday, my goal is to deliver digestible pieces of information on healthcare companies under 30 mins.

Today’s story is about a company that has disrupted the healthcare industry by using AI.

Why should you listen to this episode? Now imagine a world where all that data, genomic, clinical, molecular, is instantly analyzed by AI to pinpoint the best possible treatment, based on millions of past cases.

That world isn’t futuristic anymore. It’s being built right now by Tempus AI.

Quick disclaimer, I give full credit to the original articles cited in the references in the transcript!

Grab a coffee or tea, settle in, and let’s jump in!

Segment 1 – Origins: From Groupon to Genomes

The story begins in 2015, in Chicago. Eric Lefkofsky was no stranger to disruption; he had already helped build multiple companies, including Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, and Uptake. But Tempus was different. It was personal.

His wife had been diagnosed with cancer, and as he sat in on doctor consultations, Lefkofsky realized something shocking: even at world-class hospitals, clinical decisions were often made with limited data.

Doctors had vast amounts of patient information, pathology reports, imaging, genetic data but it was trapped in isolated silos, rarely analyzed in a way that could help the next patient.

In an interview years later, Lefkofsky recalled,

“It was like being in the cockpit of a plane, but none of the instruments were working. Everyone was making decisions blind.”

That moment became the spark for Tempus.

Lefkofsky invested over $100 million of his own money to launch a platform that could organize, analyze, and make sense of the messy universe of healthcare data. He brought in experts from Google, Illumina, and leading hospitals. Together, they began building what he called “the operating system for precision medicine.”

The vision: to combine genomic sequencing, clinical data, and AI analytics to guide doctors toward better, faster, and more personalized treatment decisions, starting with oncology.

Segment 2 – Building the Engine: AI Meets Oncology

Tempus’ first challenge was monumental: turning chaos into clarity.

Hospitals stored patient data in incompatible systems, lab results here, genomic data there, radiology scans somewhere else. Notes were often handwritten or buried in PDFs. None of it was standardized.

Tempus started by building its own sequencing labs , now among the largest in the U.S., to collect tumor and germline DNA from cancer patients. That gave them a molecular view of the disease.

Next, their engineers developed pipelines to structure electronic health record (EHR) data, transforming unstructured text into analyzable datasets.

Layer by layer, Tempus built one of the most powerful clinico-genomic databases ever assembled.

But the true breakthrough came when they began applying machine learning models, algorithms capable of detecting hidden relationships between mutations, treatments, and outcomes.

Soon, oncologists using Tempus’ reports could see exactly which therapies worked best for patients with the same genetic profile, what clinical trials were open nearby, and even predicted responses to specific drugs.

By 2018, over half of the top U.S. cancer centers were collaborating with Tempus. The company became the silent engine behind oncologists’ decision-making, helping translate petabytes of raw medical data into precision-guided care.

The approach was that, “If the human body is the most complex data problem on Earth, then Tempus is the algorithm trying to solve it.”

Segment 3 – Expansion Beyond Cancer: The Rise of a Precision Health Ecosystem

After conquering oncology, Tempus began applying its AI platform to other therapeutic areas.

The next frontier was neurology and psychiatry, conditions where diagnosis often relies on subjective observation rather than biomarkers. Tempus started collecting clinical and molecular data from patients with depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, hoping to bring precision to mental health care.

Then came cardiology, using genomic and real-world data to better understand heart disease progression.

But one of the company’s biggest tests came during the COVID-19 pandemic. With its infrastructure already capable of processing massive datasets, Tempus partnered with public health agencies and hospitals to analyze COVID patient outcomes, help identify risk factors, and accelerate research into potential treatments.

By 2021, Tempus had evolved from a genomics company into a full-blown health data and AI powerhouse. Its products expanded to include:

TIME Trials: AI-driven patient matching for clinical trials.
Lens: A platform helping biopharma companies discover and validate drug targets.
Tempus One: An interactive clinical assistant providing real-time insights to physicians.

In short, Tempus wasn’t just helping doctors choose treatments anymore, it was helping design the next generation of them.

Segment 4 – The IPO and Business Model: Turning Data into a Market Force

Tempus operates at a rare intersection, where diagnostics, analytics, and pharma data converge.

Its core revenue streams come from three areas:

Genomic testing – sequencing and analysis for hospitals and oncologists.
AI analytics – providing insights to pharmaceutical companies for drug discovery.
Data licensing – anonymized, aggregated datasets that fuel real-world evidence studies.

By 2024, Tempus had reached a level of growth few biotech startups ever achieve. Tempus AI completed its initial public offering (IPO) in June 2024, pricing shares at $37 each on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "TEM". The IPO raised approximately $410.7 million at a valuation of about $6.1 billion, with shares beginning to trade on June 14, 2024

This was a symbolic moment, one that validated the business model of AI-driven healthcare. Investors and clinicians alike began seeing Tempus as more than a diagnostics firm. It was a data infrastructure company for the future of medicine.

But going public also brought new scrutiny. Analysts began asking tough questions: How sustainable was the data advantage? Could AI predictions translate to clinical and commercial success?

And, inevitably, concerns about data privacy emerged: how Tempus handled sensitive medical information, who had access, and whether patients were fully informed about how their data was being used.

Despite this, Tempus maintained a strong ethical stance, emphasizing de-identification protocols, HIPAA compliance, and transparency in data partnerships.

In Lefkofsky’s view, the payoff of using data responsibly wasn’t just business, it was survival. “The cost of ignorance in medicine isn’t inefficiency. It’s human life.”

More recently, Tempus AI has entered into strategic partnerships with AstraZeneca, Genialis, and Boehringer Ingelheim to build out cancer models.

Segment 5 – Controversies and Challenges

No innovation in healthcare comes without its controversies.

Tempus has faced questions about data ownership and patient consent, particularly in collaborations where de-identified patient data is shared with pharmaceutical partners.

Some critics argue that the pace of AI adoption in medicine risks outpacing ethical frameworks. Can algorithms truly understand the nuance of clinical care? What happens when AI predictions contradict human judgment?

There’s also the challenge of integration; many hospital systems still lack the technical capability to implement Tempus’ tools seamlessly.

Yet, even amid criticism, Tempus continues to be seen as a pioneer of AI in medicine, working closely with regulators, health systems, and research institutions to set best practices for the entire industry.

Segment 6 – Lessons from Tempus: Data Is the New Drug

The story of Tempus is, at its core, about translation, turning data into decisions, and information into impact.

It shows that the next revolution in medicine may not come from a new molecule or a surgical technique, but from how we understand and use data.

Tempus proves that AI can serve as a bridge, connecting science and care, research and reality, and patients to possibilities they didn’t have before.

The lesson? In the age of precision medicine, data itself is the most powerful therapeutic tool we have.

Tempus AI’s market cap currently stands at $15B and the stock stands at $86.27 by the time the episode was recorded. This is a 3 times jump from the original share offering which is quite amazing since it’s only been over a year.

Tempus AI currently has approximately 2,500 employees with headquarters still in Chicago. Tempus maintains a number of locations in the United States and has international offices in Canada and Spain.

As for PhDs, since Tempus is AI-focused, it looks like they prioritize hiring those with data science or biostatistics background. According to Glassdoor, Tempus AI salaries for roles that typically require a Ph.D. generally range from approximately $110,000 to over $175,000 annually.

Segment 7 – What’s Next for Tempus?

As Tempus enters its next chapter, the company is doubling down on generative AI and multi-modal learning algorithms that combine genomic, imaging, and clinical data to create richer patient models.

Its recent partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies aim to integrate AI at every stage of drug discovery and clinical development, from identifying new targets to optimizing trial design.

Tempus is also expanding into international markets, bringing its precision medicine tools to Europe and Asia, where healthcare systems are eager to adopt AI for efficiency and equity.

Another major frontier is real-time decision support, embedding AI into hospital workflows so that insights surface instantly during clinical care, not weeks later.

The company’s ambition is clear: to build an ecosystem where every patient interaction contributes to a smarter, more connected healthcare system, a true learning network that improves with every case.

Outro

From Groupon to genomics, from commerce to care, Eric Lefkofsky’s Tempus AI stands as one of the boldest bets in modern medicine that data can heal.

The company’s journey reminds us that precision medicine isn’t just about sequencing DNA, it's about understanding the human story behind every dataset.

And as healthcare continues its digital transformation, Tempus is proving that the most powerful drug of the 21st century may not be chemical at all, it may be information.

References

Manead Khin

Host