Cure51 Secures Funding to Unlock Cancer Survivor Insights

Cure51, founded by Nicolas Wolikow and Simon Istolainen, is pioneering a new approach to cancer treatment by focusing on survivors.

The folks behind Cure51 had a better plan than glumly compiling statistics on cancer fatalities to foretell treatment results. They chose to flip the model on its head. As an alternative, the business compiles information on cancer patients who have survived for a long time to decipher the disease. The seed funding round, which Sofinnova Partners of Paris led, totaled €15 million. Olivier Pomel, co-founder and chief executive officer of Datadog, Hitachi Ventures GmbH, Life Extension Ventures, Xavier Niel, and others participated in this funding round.

With this funding, the business will collect data from a “cohort” of cancer patients to determine why some people with serious cancers manage to stay alive for so long.

Nicolas Wolikow and Simon Istolainen established Cure51 in March 2022. Both had prior experience working at five prestigious cancer facilities, including the Vall d’Hebronin in Barcelona and the Gustave Roussy Institute in Paris.

In an interview, Wolikow informed me that while many cancer databases are licensed, they do not cover survivors, do not offer multi-omics granularity (single cell and spatial), and do not include ethnic diversity.

“Simple databases with clinical data and sparse genomic data” are what he calls the offerings of firms like Iqvia, Market Scan (IBM), and Flat Iron (Roche). ” As he put it, “multi-omics levels are required for drug discovery” regarding molecular databases.

“Looking for mechanisms of exceptional survival’ is not a new concept, but Cure51 has taken this to a whole new level in terms of the scale of the endeavor, plus leveraging the latest in analytical techniques,” observed Simon Turner, Partner at Sofinnova Partners, in a statement.

In recent years, the tech industry has become more focused on cancer.

Alphabet recently disclosed several projects to implement AI models in healthcare. One is a collaboration to enhance cancer and disease screenings in India, while the other is a platform that Fitbit customers can use to obtain insights from their gadgets.