Astellas C3 Prize Update: Finalists Pitch to Judges at Stanford Medicine X

This past April, Astellas Oncology launched the C³ Prize, a challenge aimed at inspiring novel, non-treatment and non-medicine based ideas to change cancer care. The judges included Mark Reisenauer, SVP of the Oncology Business Unit for Astellas Pharma US; Robert Herjavec, IT Entrepreneur, Founder & CEO of the Herjavec Group and star of ABC’s “Shark Tank”; Chris Coburn, Vice President of Innovation at Partners HealthCare and host of the World Medical Innovation Forum; and Michael Seres, who is ePatient-in-Residence and Executive Board Member for Stanford Medicine X. Five finalists pitched at the conference:

• Mark Harrison of Melbourne, Australia works with the Australian Prostate Cancer Research. He developed PROSTMATE™, one of the world’s first interactive online systems designed to meet the needs of men with prostate cancer.
• Diane Jooris, originally from Belgium, presented  OnComfort, a health-tech company that uses virtual reality systems and hypnosis to help patients self-manage for anxiety and pain.
• Vancouver resident Kevin Linn is employed as a Senior Policy Analyst for cancer at First Nations Health Authority. His innovation combines a web-based application with social media sharing to help patients get to treatment and thereby improve adherence to cancer treatment plans.
• Eric Luellen of Boston is the founder of Bioinformatix’s Rx&You, a cloud-based artificial intelligence platform designed to address four distinct problems impacting clinical outcomes today: medication non-adherence, coordination of care, drug-drug interactions, and patient education.
• Larry Pederson of Seattle, Washington is the founder of the Litebook Company Ltd, Canadian-based organization that invented a portable light therapy device called The Litebook® for people suffering with seasonal affective disorder.

Judge Mark Reisenauer is particularly proud of the Astellas C³ Prize. “Patients working with physicians is both an art and a science,” he said of the challenge. “There is a balance of hope with the balance of reality, and it’s so hard to do.”

A veteran oncology commercial leader, Reisenauer is responsible for all U.S. commercial activities supporting marketed products and Astellas Pharma’s oncology co-promotion partners. He experienced caregiving first-hand with his father whom he recently lost to cancer.

“With what recently happened with my father, and the journey as a caregiver, as close to the disease as I am, it showed me I was not as prepared as I thought,” he explained of his experience. “Going through all of those things gave me an appreciation for the difficulty, not just for the patient, the one stakeholder we did not spend enough time on was the caregiver. We really didn’t address that.”

Reisenauer believes that there are many caregiver needs that could addressed with technology enabled solutions–from coordinating meals and transportation to coordinating scheduling with oncologists.

“Where are the tools if you are a caregiver?” asked Reisenauer. “I’m fortunate because I am in the industry. When it comes to resources, I know where to go, but when I lived it I had a new appreciation for resources that I wish existed.”

Reisenauer said that when Astellas first built their team, they wondered what they could do beyond their therapies to help cancer patients to help them focus on living.

“We asked ‘Are there big initiatives where we can address this need?’ And that’s how the C³ Prize was launched. It was a great idea, and includes the simplicity of the best ideas coming from those who live with it. It totally exceeded my expectations of what I thought was possible.”

The grand prize winner of the C³ Prize will be announced in October at the 2016 ESMO Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.