Cancer progression is different for every patient, and many of them make the journey lonely. Athelo Health co-founder Jessica Thurmond said the information comes primarily from physicians, but much of a patient’s experience takes place outside the clinical setting. The startup is developing a software tool that will accompany patients at every step of their cancer journey.
“It’s fantastic that some of the models focus on the clinical aspects, and we’re grateful for them,” Thurmond said. “But we approach this with a patient-first perspective.”
For Thurmond, the effort is personal. Her mother died of inflammatory breast cancer in 1999. Along the way, Thurmond said her mother’s lack of information and resources about her illness affected her patient journey. Thurmond said she was motivated to develop a tool that could help patients like her mother.
Athelo is one of the startups recently showcased in the Pitch Perfect competition MedCity INVEST Conference in Chicago. The company was named a co-winner in the Pharma Technology category. Jeff Weness, head of digital opportunity and business intelligence at Otsuka Pharmaceutical Companies and one of the judges in the category, found Athelo’s model to be a compelling one for patient care.
“I’m so impressed with Jessica and her commitment to helping all women navigate the many unknowns of cancer care,” Venes said. “Athelo’s virtual model should improve accessibility and reduce costs.”
Thurmond and her co-founder Monica Schmiede met while working at a contract research agency. There, they found no shortage of tools for remote patient monitoring. The problem, Thurmond said, is that the tools only cover about 8 percent of people who participate in clinical trials. But even so, these tools are geared towards the pharmaceutical industry and clinicians. Thurmond and Schmiede discussed the idea of a company that could provide patient-oriented tools. Last year, they launched Athelo to focus on helping women with breast and gynecological cancers.
The benefit of starting a startup during a pandemic highlights where and how technology can help patients in new ways. Telehealth has seen wider adoption as people avoid in-person visits. This trend also highlights the need to address healthcare workforce challenges. Thurmond noted that the industry faces a shortage of oncologists, making it more difficult for institutions to meet patient demand. Technology can help.
Athelo’s technology is a mobile app that patients can interact with throughout the day. The software is an information source that provides reviewed and summarized scientific articles for non-specialized readers. Athelo also connects wearable consumer devices, such as smartwatches, to collect biometric data. Measurements of heart rate, temperature, and sleep are collected to form a baseline form on which progress can be measured. For example, if a patient has trouble sleeping or has a headache, the app can recommend how to manage those problems.
Athelo technology not only provides personal advice, but is also designed to help patients feel connected to clinicians and other patients. Users were placed in peer-to-peer communities, matching pods of 5 to 10 women based on characteristics such as religion and stage of diagnosis. The chat rooms of these pods provide a way for women to form a support network.
From a clinician’s perspective, Thurmond said, there is sometimes a communication gap between oncologists and primary care physicians. The information gathered from Athelo can provide these physicians with a common point of reference to understand a patient’s condition. It can also help patients better understand what is normal and what is an emergency. Thurmond gave an example of a patient experiencing side effects. The Athelo app can tell patients if symptoms require more urgent immediate attention. In this way, the technology could help avoid unnecessary emergency room visits, Thurmond said.
Athelo was initially bootstrapped by Thurmon and Schmiede and later raised some pre-seed funding. Thurmond said the company plans to raise $5 million in seed financing in the third quarter of this year. In the short term, Athelo is gearing up to launch the app in the coming months. It will be soft-started in about 200 patients. The group will help provide feedback to fine-tune the product and make sure everything is in good working order, Thurmond said.Patients wishing to participate in the soft start can Athelo website.
While the app is patient-centric, Schmiede said the startup has learned from other healthcare apps that trying to generate revenue from patients or insurance companies will be a challenge. Athelo will never cost patients anything, Schmiede said. The company is in talks with pharmaceutical companies that will be Athelo customers to pay for the app to improve patient education about its treatments. Pharmaceutical companies will pay a monthly fee based on the number of users.
While Athelo started treating breast and gynecological cancers, Thurmond said the company could expand into other cancer types in the future. As the company grows, she said it will remain cancer-focused. Many of the patient-focused tools currently available are indication-agnostic, Thurmond said. The cancer specificity of Athelo’s product makes it compelling.
“This is new to the field of oncology. It’s a model that works effectively in other therapeutic indications,” Thurmond said. “The pandemic has been a big reason people see it as a turning point, and there are concrete things we can do.”
Photos by Flickr users grassland through Creative Commons license
