Navigating Cancer, an online cancer support site, received a $2.3 million investment to hire developers and integrate its patient portal with EMR vendors.
Company name: Navigating Cancer.
Industry: digital health.
Location: Seattle, Washington.
Solution/product: An online portal to help cancer patients prepare for doctor visits, fill out common medical forms, stay organized during treatment and track how they’re feeling. It’s also an interactive community for cancer survivors.
Money raised: $2.25 million in debt, which brings the company’s total raised to more than $5 million.
How it will be used: The company will add developers to its 14-person team and continue adding onto the portal. Marketing director Brendon Smyth said the team is now working on giving patients electronic access to their health information by integrating with EMR vendors and building features to make the release of health information seamless and useful for patients.
Investors: Western Technology Investment. Previous investors include Rustic Canyon Partners.
Management team: Co-founder and CEO Gena Cook was previously vice president of sales and marketing at McKesson Specialty Care Solutions and Oncology Therapeutic Network after a 12-year tenure at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Co-founder Michael Graff, a software developer, has worked for Ancestry.com and Microsoft.
Market opportunity: The National Cancer Institute estimates that about 12 million Americans have or have had cancer, with about 1.6 million new cases diagnosed each year (PDF). A number of online companies are devoted to providing tools for these patients including social networking sites like MyHealthTeams and PatientsLikeMe, along with sites like Avva Health and Onc Charts. Navigating Cancer says it’s already being used by more than 500 oncology providers across the country.
[All Color Support photo from BigStock]
By Deanna Pogorelc MedCity News
Deanna Pogorelc is a Cleveland-based reporter who writes obsessively about life science startups across the country, looking to technology transfer offices, startup incubators and investment funds to see what’s next in healthcare. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ball State University and previously covered business and education for a northeast Indiana newspaper.More posts by Author
@genomicslawyer Thanks for the tweet.