Award winning Hexham based business helping to solve a shared problem for patients with rare forms of cancer

The search for potentially lifesaving clinical trials available to patients following a cancer diagnosis can be hard to navigate, but RareCan, the Hexham based health tech company, winners of Rural StartUp of the Year at the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber StartUp Awards 2023, have developed and launched a new mobile application to take the stress and confusion out of finding out what the available options are, what could be suitable and how to get involved.

The RareCan app, in simple terms, is a database of people sharing their own medical diagnosis which in turn is reviewed by the RareCan team. The newest development within the app enables the patient to receive information of any relevant clinical trials and invites them to participate in the collation of bio-resources.

Piers Kotting, RareCan Chief Executive Officer explains, “The people we want to help have probably never been through anything like this before in their lives. It’s big and it’s scary and often, they don’t know what to do or where to turn. There is a lot more support available for cancer patients nowadays, which can make life easier, but if their diagnosis is not under one of the ‘big four’ cancer types then regular treatments may not be suitable. We want to be the bridge for these patients to be able to access clinical trials so that they can be a part of the solution for their own type of rare cancer.

We are helping to solve a shared problem, and over the last two years we have been testing the mechanism to initially identify – and then predict - the intersection of a patients’ disease progression and research pathways and projects. We are working to prove the principle of our systems, and the grant money we received from the Rural Design Centre Innovation Project has allowed the facilitation of this step forward.”

The Rural Design Centre Innovation Project (RDCIP) is part-funded by the North of Tyne Combined Authority and part-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The project is aimed at providing support to North of Tyne based businesses to encourage the launch of new products or services in rural areas and by rurally based businesses.

Liz Gray, Senior Innovation Manager for the RDCIP adds, “Working with RareCan has been so interesting and rewarding. The work they are doing to provide this new service within their app will have such an impact on its users, as they will be using it during an especially traumatic time in their lives. The app will help people take control of their diagnosis and empower them to make decisions because they will potentially have more options available to them which can only be a good thing.”

Despite only having launched in 2020, the RareCan team have plans for international expansion and aim to be helping patients across three countries by mid-2024.

More information on RareCan and their work can be found at - https://rarecan.com/