Let this quote from Varun Gupta, partner at Caffeinated Capital sink in for a minute:
“A projected 1.9 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and current clinical diagnostics based on genetic testing will help less than 10% of patients find the most effective treatment for their cancer.”
Chances are, you know someone personally who has gone through, or is currently dealing with cancer. Fortunately, some of the brightest minds are hard at work on this problem.
Caffeinated Capital, along with Khosla Ventures, Cota Capital, Kickstart, Forward VC, OATV, Y Combinator, and other angel investors are ready to fund the fight, and they've shown it with their participation in a $7.2 million dollar seed round for the cutting edge cancer fighting machine, Known Medicine.
Known Medicine, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is "creating the world’s largest purpose-built 3-D cell culture data set to predict the best drug for every cancer patient and create the best drug for every cancer." (knownmed.com)
While the details of this science are complex, the idea is simple: Known Medicine uses 3D organoid models to recreate a patient's tumor. Then, using machine learning, high content images, and technological data, they're able to understand which cells are responding to a particular treatment and why.
A lot of oncology has been trial and error to see which meds a cancer will respond to, and with Known Medicine, patients can skip that step and get the medicine that will work for their specific circumstance.
“Known Medicine is transforming the way oncologists match patients to the right treatments by rapidly and accurately finding the best treatment for specific tumors," said Varun Gupta in a recent press release. "In less than a year, the company has already begun to demonstrate the efficacy and scalability of their technology platform for both clinical and biopharmaceutical use cases.”
