Funding to Accelerate Hiring as Outcomes4Me Diversifies Cancer Support and Expands to Empower Patients in Europe
Outcomes4Me Inc., developer of an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered platform to empower cancer patients to navigate their care, today announced it has raised $12 million in an oversubscribed Series A round. Funds will be used to extend Outcomes4Me’s platform beyond breast cancer to other cancers, grow the platform’s regulatory-grade dataset, and expand to more patients in Europe.
The round was led by Northpond Ventures, with participation from all existing investors, including Sierra Ventures, Asset Management Ventures, Merstal Ltd, IRA Capital, and others. Andrea Jackson, a Northpond Ventures Director, will join Outcomes4Me’s board.
“We are thrilled to partner with Northpond Ventures. Their science-driven approach and global reach make them a strategic partner in our quest to democratize cancer care and accelerate research, empowering patients around the world to achieve better outcomes,” said Maya R. Said, Sc. D., Founder and CEO of Outcomes4Me. “This latest round of financing will be used to magnify our reach to meet patients where they are and support them in their fights against all types of cancers.”
After experiencing first-hand the challenges of being a patient, Dr. Said, a former Senior Vice President and Global Head of Oncology Policy and Market Access at Novartis, co-founded Outcomes4Me in 2017, with the company’s Chief Medical Advisor, Dr. Osama Rahma, a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-trained practicing oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Clinical Director of its Center for Cancer Therapeutic Innovation. They were later joined by Chief Operating Officer Sami Shalabi, a former Google executive who sold his company to Google and co-founded and led Google Play Newsstand and the all-new Google News, growing both to over a billion users.
“We are excited to be partnered with Outcomes4Me. We think the company’s forward thinking leadership team is poised to deliver tremendous value to cancer patients, through its unique AI-driven, direct-to-patient approach,” said Mike Rubin, MD, PhD, Founder and CEO of Northpond Ventures.
Leveraging AI to Inform and Empower Cancer Patients and Improve Outcomes
A cancer diagnosis can overwhelm patients and their families – both emotionally and with information that may be unclear and even inaccurate. Despite information overload, data from a 2016 CancerCare Patient Access and Engagement Report shows 80% of patients are not informed about clinical trials options, 40% do not report side effects because they don’t want to burden their doctors, and 25% are not getting the most advanced treatments. In addition, Outcomes4Me’s own data, published in December 2020 at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, shows only one in three breast cancer patients are offered potentially life saving genomic tests.
Outcomes4Me helps patients navigate their cancer treatment journey using a personalized approach that provides the appropriate evidence-based information when patients need it most. Outcomes4Me uses a sophisticated collection of AI and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to personalize information for each patient, factoring in their clinical histories, personal preferences and broader context. The platform’s AI-powered personalization unlocks an adaptive experience that empowers patients to stay informed, understand their treatment options, find clinical trials, manage their quality of life, and ultimately advocate for themselves.
Regulatory Grade Approach Unlocks Real-World Datasets that Improve Care, Accelerate Research and Achieve Better Outcomes
By sharing experiences and interactions with the platform, patients have the opportunity to contribute to unique regulatory-grade, real-world datasets, which generate deeper insights to improve care, accelerate research and achieve better outcomes. The ability to continually build on these data sets will be critical as healthcare shifts toward precision medicine in an effort to win the war on cancer.
“Despite tremendous acceleration in new cancer drug approvals, there is much to learn to further understand disease progression. Real-world longitudinal data, including both clinical and patient-reported, is critical to better understand and improve cancer care,” said Jackson. “Outcomes4Me has an enormous opportunity to improve access to drug trials and cultivate a patient-first treatment approach. We look forward to working with the team to transform the lives of millions.”
Building on Success in Breast Cancer, Outcomes4Me is Expanding to More Cancers and Rolling Out into Europe
Outcomes4Me initially focused exclusively on building a platform to empower in-treatment breast cancer patients in North America. In less than three years, the company has achieved significant market penetration and repeat engagement with breast cancer patients across more than 1,000 medical institutions in all 50 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces.
Outcomes4Me will replicate this approach to other cancers and expand it to patients in Europe. The company’s commitment to patient privacy and giving individuals control over their own health data aligns it seamlessly with local privacy laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To support the diversification and geographic expansion, Outcomes4Me expects to triple its size over the next two years with strategic hires in engineering, product, data science, clinical operations, regulatory and quality compliance, business development and marketing.
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