Investors pour billions of dollars into cancer research and treatment innovation each year. However, pennies on the dollar are directed toward rare cancers and cancers such as cervical cancer that disproportionately affects women and marginalized communities.
In order for these fields to have sufficiently funded research that yield breakthrough advances, the healthcare industry needs novel funding models to target these fields. This is where the greatest innovation potential exists to close cancer equity gaps.
As a healthcare innovator, I’m bullish on cervical cancer advances because the science is well-defined, critical unmet needs are well-documented and clear solutions exist for rapid application and profound impact.
Funding challenges for a cervical cancer startup are extraordinary
Though cervical cancer is preventable, treatable and curable, it remains the fourth most common among women worldwide. Each year cases rise, with 660,000 new diagnoses and 350,000 deaths annually, with women of color and low income ¹ communities and countries disproportionately impacted. It’s also among the lowest funded fields of cancer research. Patient outcomes reflect this funding shortfall: while five-year survival rates have improved dramatically for cancer overall in the last 50 years, cervical cancer outcomes have remained stagnant since the 1970s ².
My interest in this field is personal – I’m a technology executive who spent 10 years at Google developing and commercializing technology to advance industry. In 2020, I survived a deadly stage IIB cervical cancer diagnosis. My professional training illuminated the low-lift opportunities exposed in treatment and gave me the expertise to partner with field leaders to problem-solve together. By good fortune, my physician, world-renowned radiation oncologist Dr. Onyinye Balogun, also shares this point of view. This led us to found a cervical cancer innovation company, Mission-Driven Tech, in 2022.
Of all the challenges an early-stage MedTech company faces, raising capital for an under-funded field like cervical cancer continues to be the greatest obstacle. As female-founders developing curative treatment hardware, the stakes are even higher.
Female founders receive 2% of venture funding
At Google, I closed tens of millions of dollars in contracts every year, creating and contributing to billion dollar businesses. And so, when it came to raising seed capital for the first, modern, female-fitted brachytherapy device we invented at Mission-Driven Tech and Weill Cornell Medicine, we were excited. Our device, The Blossom, is the first patient-centric update to the field in decades, replacing today’s inflexible, rigid medical device that leads up to 40% of patients to prematurely abandon treatment and die instead of reaching cure.
We studied the field and conducted customer discovery, hearing a chorus of brachytherapy practitioners and patients asking for a better way. We spoke with experts to learn the well-trodden regulatory roadmap and reimbursement landscape that favors innovation. We saw our path to market.
What’s more, our work answered the call from the World Health Organization’s Cervical Cancer Elimination initiative: an opportunity to expand treatment to 90% of diagnoses, where today in the US, fewer than one in three women access standard of care that includes brachytherapy. To us, the investment opportunity and value was obvious.
Unfortunately, the market behaves differently.
U.S. companies founded solely by women received only 2% of venture capital funding in 2023, and 46% of U.S. female entrepreneurs have reported facing gender bias while raising capital for their businesses. As strong as our team, product and vision are, our company is not immune to these statistics.
Finding value-aligned funders
Drawing from our complementary backgrounds, my partner and I searched for accelerator and entrepreneurial networks to provide scaffolding for our startup: capital, mentors, field experts and introductions. Doors opened to us at every turn, though finding the resourcing at the intersection of cancer research and medical device hardware was difficult.
Everything opened up when we discovered BrightEdge, the venture capital and impact investment arm of the American Cancer Society. BrightEdge is a next-generation funding model that actively invests in companies developing breakthrough technology that closes cancer equity gaps.
BrightEdge recognizes that cancer research requires significant capital: the cost to develop a single new drug can be as high as $2B. Only with access to capital can important technology like The Blossom get to market to disrupt 50 years of stagnant patient outcomes.
Philanthropists giving to BrightEdge see the impact of their donation multiply because it’s invested in companies that advance care and deliver economic and societal gains. The WHO estimates every $1 dollar invested in cervical cancer elimination returns $26 to the global economy. Dr. Balogun’s research uncovered that for every 100 women no longer at risk of dying from cervical cancer, helps an additional 14 to 30 children also survive childhood³. Zambia-based gynecologic oncologist Dr. Groesbeck Parham describes this phenomenon as “The Halo Effect.”
In addition to investing donor-sourced venture capital in portfolio companies, BrightEdge convenes the BrightEdge Entrepreneurs program, which in 2024 is providing funding, mentoring and education support to 10 entrepreneurs, including our team at Mission-Driven Tech. As an entrepreneur, the right access, mentoring and education is invaluable and I encourage oncology startups to consider applying for BrightEdge’s 2025 program.
Breakthroughs that end cancer as we know it depend on smart, new funding models. BrightEdge is leading the way by directing funding to facilitate scientific innovation where it’s needed most.
Eve McDavid is a former Google executive turned MedTech entrepreneur, and a stage IIB Cervical Cancer survivor. She is co-founder and CEO of Mission-Driven Tech, a Cervical Cancer innovation company. Eve and her co-founder, world-renowned radiation oncologist, Dr. Onyinye Balogun, MD MS, are on a mission to eradicate Cervical Cancer by building inclusive products for people with a cervix and the providers who treat them.
References
¹ World Health Organization. (2024, March 5). Cervical cancer. World Health Organization.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cervical-cancer
² Gaffney, D. K., Hashibe, M., Kepka, D., Maurer, K. A., & Werner, T. L. (2018). Too many women are
dying from cervix cancer: Problems and solutions. Gynecologic oncology, 151(3), 547–554.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygyno.2018.10.004
³ Mailhot Vega, R. B., Balogun, O. D., Ishaq, O. F., Bray, F., Ginsburg, O., & Formenti, S. C. (2019).
Estimating child mortality associated with maternal mortality from breast and cervical
cancer. Cancer, 125(1), 109–117. https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.31780
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