GRYT Health
We had the chance to sit down with Dave Fuehrer, CEO and Co-Founder of GRYT Health, to talk about what GRYT is, what they are up to, and where they are headed. GRYT has been in the news quite often lately, and it is great to see our members doing great things in the bio/med community as well as for the bio/med community. Learn more about GRYT here. This is what Dave had to say:
Tell us about your organization and your current initiatives:
- I remember vividly filing our Articles of Incorporation on February 2, 2016 from our spare bedroom, which doubled as my office. As Groundhog Day is fast approaching again… I’m sorry Bill Murray, but no two days have been the same since
- Today, our team runs the GRYT Health Cancer Community platform. It is a patient empowerment free app that has been used nearly 1,000,000 times across 100 countries by people affected by cancer and can be downloaded anywhere from the AppStore and Google Play
- GRYT Health is working with six of the top 10 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, helping patients and caregivers: learn about new treatment, testing, and care options, participate in patient experience research to improve understanding of their real-world experience, attend educational, informational and inspirational programs to make decisions based on their personal values and lifestyles, make connections with others who are going through similar experiences and support others when they need to find some GRYT
What role does your organization play in the bio/med industry? What sets you apart?
- We believe information is an undeniable right. Our mission is to help people affected by cancer achieve personal triumph by providing the information and human connections that enable them to make decisions based on their personal values and lifestyles. And we never share any of our users’ information without their explicit permission.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the bio/med industry today?
- There are revolutionary new cancer treatments available to patients now that will change the treatment of cancer forever. Just a few examples include:
- Seattle Genetics recent FDA approval of Adcetris to treat advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma in newly diagnosed patients, is the first new treatment in over 40 years.
- Bristol-Myers Squibb received FDA approval for Opdivo® (nivolumab) as the First New Medication in Nearly 20 Years for Certain Patients with Previously Treated Small Cell Lung Cancer
- However, one of the biggest challenges is that once FDA approval occurs, it can years for the medical teams to learn about these treatment options and begin educating their patients about them.
- As I said earlier, we believe information is an undeniable right. No patient should go unaware of the options that ARE available for the treatment and care of them and their diagnosis.
- Our strategy is to improve the way healthcare consumers learn about and interact with brands whose values align with theirs; not just in managing disease, but in living their lives. In addition to connecting people affected by cancer to others like them, our platform connects patients to clinical trials, education on FDA-approved therapies and is able to generate real-world data through patient-reported outcomes and market research that helps researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and providers accelerate the discovery of new, more effective products and services with patient experience data.
What is in the upcoming pipeline for your organization? Where is your focus?
- We recently announced our strategic partnership with Omnicom to Increase Collaboration and Innovation between the Cancer Community and Industry! (Link here)
- We’ll be announcing several new partnerships between GRYT Health and leading healthcare organizations during Q1 2019!
- What I’m most proud of, is that the GRYT community promotes a culture of inclusion and equality, where everyone is respected for the experience they bring, where authenticity and openness is revered and where our collective voice and choice matter