The MediFind Story

Dennis Howie

1967—2015

After my brother was diagnosed with a semi-rare cancer, we spent hundreds of hours doing internet research and using every connection we had to find the best care possible. But we just kept losing time.

Despite all our efforts, it took us over three months to find a surgeon who really knew this specific cancer, and over a year to find out about a relatively novel treatment option. Yet even with those setbacks, we were comforted knowing that his ongoing treatment was being managed by a leading "expert" at one of the world's best medical centers. Except it wasn't.

After two years battling this cancer, my brother was in the hospital when he was told by his doctor, the local "expert," to "go home, make sure your affairs are in order; there is nothing more we can do for you." We always knew his condition was terminal, but you're never really prepared to hear those words. It just so happened that the father-in-law of a friend was a true world-leading expert in this specific cancer and, he told us that there in fact was something more we could do. The new doctor contacted the original local "expert" who originally treated my brother to modify his treatment plan. My brother recovered, and lived an additional two years.

MediFind exists in honor of my brother and his family, with the hope of helping the millions of people living around the world with serious, chronic, and rare illnesses find better care faster.

Fast forward two years. My brother and I are having brunch, and he tells me he is "running out of options." He asked if I had any ideas. I really didn't think I could help, but I decided to use my training in big data and advanced analytics to see what I could do. And what I found was shocking. I was able to find out about another treatment that had been around for a while and should have been given as first-line treatment. And I found another world-class expert living only 90 miles away who was studying an experimental approach to his condition. Sadly, he passed shortly after our brunch, before he was able to try another treatment.

There's no way to know how many more years my brother could have lived, but I know and am truly convinced that if we had known about other treatments and leading doctors sooner that he could have lived longer. We all know that delayed diagnoses are a big problem in healthcare, but what is less obvious is the amount of incorrect treatment that occurs once diagnosed. And, given the rate of new research, even doctors struggle to keep up with all the advances for any given condition.

We have spent years developing tools to find and process every bit of medical information available, on a global scale, so we can empower all patients to take control of their own healthcare decisions and improve their length and quality of life. World-changing discoveries are happening, and with persistence, rigorous research and dedication to science we aim to bring them to patients around the globe, because when it comes to your health, nothing is more valuable than time.