CancerX has announced the 16 startup members of its inaugural Accelerator cohort, launched in partnership with MassChallenge.
Launched a year ago, CancerX is public-private national accelerator to boost innovation in the fight against cancer. Its more than 150 members are working to achieve the national goals of reducing the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years, and improving the experience of people and their families living with and surviving cancer.
The 16 members in the inaugural cohort are Blue Box, C the Signs, Cancer Insights, Curvia, EnteroTrack, Gesund.ai, Gray Oncology, LindAI, Mika Health, Navya, Oatmeal Health, Orbit Genomics, Realyze Intelligence, Reimagine Care, Survivor Plan, and Xanthos.
These startups were selected after three rounds of judging led by Accelerator Champions, Debiopharm, Reveal HealthTech, UCDavis Health, Atrium, Dell Technologies, Intel, Astra Zeneca, AWS, and Oncology Ventures, as well as judges from the CancerX community.
The inaugural cohort proposed ideas focused on using digital innovation in the areas of clinical research; screening and diagnosis; treatment and management; clinical operations; and patient, caregiver, and survivor experience.
“Leveraging the InnovationX model for cancer is positioning us to harness digital innovation to reduce the cancer death rate and improve the lives of those living with cancer,” said Kristen Honey, Ph.D., P. M.P, chief data scientist and executive director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “InnovationX” team, in a statement. “The public-private partnership model allows us to lean on the complementary expertise of government agencies, coupled with industry leaders in digital innovation and oncology, to identify promising new innovations, nurture them, and put together the right pieces to convert it into real change for the people impacted by cancer.”
“Today’s announcement is another important milestone for CancerX, bringing us closer to achieving our mission to achieve the Cancer Moonshot goals,” added Stephen Konya, senior advisor to the Deputy National Coordinator, and Innovation Portfolio Lead for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, in a statement. “The potential to win the battle against cancer is within our grasp. Working together with the CancerX community is helping us harness the power of data and put it to use to fast track new digital innovations in cancer research and care.”
The cohort will participate in a four-month program during which they will work with Accelerator Champions and engage with mentors and CancerX members from across the healthcare ecosystem, including investors, provider organizations, and oncology experts, to test and validate their solutions. Startups will graduate from the Accelerator with a roadmap to successfully scale their company, an opportunity to move forward with their sponsor, and a community that will continue to support their solution development.
CancerX will build on the success of the inaugural round and plans to open Accelerator applications for a second cohort in the fall of this year.
CancerX is co-hosted by Moffit Cancer Center and the Digital Medicine Society, alongside ONC and the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. To date, CancerX has launched two projects: a data sprint to support the collective efforts of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and ONC to advance cancer-related data standards; and open source resources to guide in the advancement of digital innovation to improve equity and reduce financial toxicity in cancer care and research.
