CanScan

I spoke briefly with an RN (Rollie Rockett) who manages a variety of patients, including cancer patients. He was excited about the idea for the business and supported the model of an outsourced service. Currently, lab samples for the hospital are sent across the state to be tested, with results returning for many tests within the first 6-24 hours. He wasn’t familiar with pathologists methodologies or how long it takes to diagnose cancer. An obvious but important insight from the discussion is that the nurse has limited visibility into the cancer diagnostic process nor has decision-making ability for what tests to run and where to send them. Nurses seem to not be within the target customer group.

Rollie did think there was value in a less invasive means to diagnosing cancer (e.g., blood sample vs. tissue sample of gland) and monitoring progression. He thought it might save time and money, in addition to creating a lighter burden on the patient.

Rollie had planned to link me up with one of his colleagues that is a nurse focused in care for cancer patients who might be able to provide greater insight into the process of diagnosing and managing a metastatic cancer patient.

A couple of key questions around the value proposition generated from but not answered by the interview are:

• Is it a good assumption that following cancer treatment, there is living and dead cells floating in the blood and that having info about living cells only would be valuable?
• Is there value in having information about cancer growth rates? Would growth rates in vitro be different than growth rates in vivo? If so, is it still valuable?
• Is it unpleasant to take tumor samples from patients? How invasive are current methods and would a blood-based CTC count / characterization add value and be less invasive for the patient?