CancerAid, a revolutionary app that hopes to alleviate the cancer treatment experience by providing personalized information to patients has secured $1.25 million funding from a group of business investors.
The app, founded by Sydney-based doctors Nikhil Pooviah and Raghav Murali-Ganesh, provides patients with information relevant to their illness and treatment, a digital journal, access to their entire medical record, news and latest research in the field, and connects patients to a global community of charities and other patients battling the disease.
Describing the app, Dr. Pooviah said,
Having cancer is a very isolating experience. Patients and carers are confused during their journey, they feel disorganized, and access to cancer-centered care is currently inadequate.
Up until now, the development of the app was self-funded by the doctors, with the planned revenue model to have cancer institutions license the app as a subscription service. CancerAid has already secured 17 deals with research groups and cancer specialists to license the app, enabling the company to provide it to patients for free, but still generate revenue.
The app would be offered free of charge to patients and caregivers, which is “how cancer care should be,” said Pooviah. The $1.25 million capital raise was arranged by Clinton Capital Partners, who specialize in helping early stage businesses find funding. On future plans, Pooviah said,
We want to take this initiative forward, not just in Australia, but also worldwide. A lot of the components can easily be cross-expanded to other chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and arthritis so we are not trying to limit ourselves. Our goal is to produce a gold-standard resource of personalized patient information that doctors can ‘prescribe’ to their patients.
The app is also looking at expansion in overseas markets— it has already struck deals with Hong Kong Oncology Center, a health insurance company in Florida, and a health tech promoter in San Francisco.
