The Platform That Gives Your Loved Ones Access To The Latest Innovative Treatments
Every year, millions of patients are told that they have exhausted conventional treatment options. With statistics showing the disturbing increase of cancer cases, it is unfortunately becoming common to have a loved one – relative or friend – suffering from the disease. There were an estimated 14.1 million cancer cases around the world in 2012. This number is expected to increase to 24 million by 2035 (WCRF). Having a loved one battling a disease such as cancer is a special kind of hell that only people who have experienced can really understand. It was exactly such people that created myTommorrows – a global platform, started in the Netherlands, that facilitates the contact between patients and innovative bio-tech companies.
MyTomorrows helps patients with terminal illnesses, such as cancer and motor neurone disease, who have exhausted conventional treatment options, to gain faster access to innovative drugs that have shown promising results during clinical trials, but are not officially registered yet.
In the 1960s it took 3 years for a drug to be approved. Now it takes almost 15 years. At the end of the 1980s AIDS patients did everything they could to find a solution. They obtained prohibited drugs from Mexico and broke into pharmaceutical companies. This personal experimentation and the social pressure created as a result accelerated the development of the AIDS inhibiting drugs prescribed today. Unfortunately, the illegal drug trade, with all of the risks that it involves, is still thriving in other areas of the healthcare market. We want to give patients who have reached the end of conventional treatment routes, and their doctors, legal new options. For more or better quality tomorrows. — Sjaak Vink, co-founder and CEO myTomorrows
MyTomorrows wants to help seriously ill patients that don’t have any treatment options left. The platform currently provides Fast Track treatments for several types of cancer and depression. A Fast Track Treatment offers early access to and up-to-date information about promising medicines that are not yet authorized, but have at least successfully finished phase I of a clinical trial. At that stage the medicine’s safety has been tested and there are promising efficacy indications. In order to take part in the treatment, patients need the support of their doctor who can request more detailed information, such as anonymized real life treatment data from other patients who started a Fast Track Treatment. Once the patient and the doctor have agreed on the treatment, myTommorrows coordinates the necessary request with the regulatory authorities and makes sure the medicine is made available to the hospital or the hospital pharmacy.
The founders of myTomorrows believe that everyone should be able to choose earlier access to a promising medicine that might better his or her situation. Even though there are no guarantees about the efficacy of the selected treatments, it is the freedom of choice that the creators want to give back to those who have been told they have no more choice left.
Learn more about the platform here.
