InterviewRevolutionising healthcare through patient centric innovation

We are a health-tech company based in Delft that helps patients with chronic and rare diseases find new treatments fast. In many cases the treatment they have isn’t really effective, and they are not aware of other options, and therefore often just accept the situation. However there are a lot of new treatments everyday that have the potential to drastically improve patients’ quality of life. Of course, patients rely on their doctors to inform them of new advancement, however doctors have so many patients they understandably don’t have  time to read every paper that gets published. We have this online platform that patients and their doctors can become a member of. They can input their diagnosis and other health data as well. You then create a profile that represents you. We use that data to match it to every new medication or treatment that’s available for your condition. When you become a member you enter a digital waiting room and once a treatment is available you get notified and your care team also gets notified so you can take the next steps in getting access. 

My experience as a refugee is central to why I have created this platform. Together with my parents as refugees we had to travel from country to country so many times. And besides all the other challenges that come along with that, one thing that was especially difficult for my mom, who is a patient with a chronic disease, was not having access to her own health data. That meant that she wasn’t able to show that she was already diagnosed with a certain disease so that she could get access to medication in new places. That lack of access to her own health information was life threatening to her. She had to be re-diagnosed every time. So when I started studying computer science at TU Delft I asked myself “How come we don't have a social media platform for our health data. We have all our information online, but somehow not our health data?” It would be amazing if we were in control of it and when we travel it would be accessible to us. So as a second year student that was a passion, and a dream I worked towards building. 

When I came up with this idea, I knew I didn’t have all the expertise, so I started joining forces with good friends who are now co founders and team members of OASYS NOW. Our long term mission is about building a platform where people world wide would be able to contribute and partner up. This is one of those fields where an innovation by itself isn’t enough; it requires collaboration. We want to be that platform that’s neutral ground where people can collaborate together, and help the patients. We are, at the end of the day, patient centric. We are not built around a hospital or company, it’s the patients data and they decide who they want to share it with. Enabling the patient and empowering the patient to decide who they want to go to. 

We are data compliant within all of Europe. But every new country we enter needs to be open to collaboration. In NL we have already collaborated with different entities like Erasmus UMC and RadboudUMC. We make it easy for them since it’s plug and play, and we are excited to expand to even more partners. 

Last year at SLUSH I met so many incredible founders and saw great products. So I had the idea last year that I would want to launch at SLUSH 2023. In the past year we’ve done a lot of pivots, as a startup you are constantly learning and changing. It became clear to us that this was going to be a European solution for now, so SLUSH’s Europe centric approach was ideal. RVO has been really helpful in helping us prepare. 

We made it into the SLUSH 100, but not the top 20 so we weren’t able to announce on the big stage. So we ended up announcing at the NL lounge, and there were so many people already there, so there was still quite an audience. 

I had already informed a few people that we were gonna meet there so many of them also showed up from the launch moment. Investors, founders and ecosystem partners. It was great for them to see us on the stage launching. We were able to then talk to journalists and investors. 

We showed people that we stick to our plans and make them happen. We met with Prince Constantijn van Organje and we talked to him about our product. He was excited about our launch, and he introduced us to top shot investors. Normally getting such a conversation is extremely difficult, but to get Prince Constantijn van Oranje excited and get him pitching for you was such a big win. 

Before our official launch, we already had some pilot users, but we have grown since launching. We now have over 200 users and 300 people on the waiting list. 

For me, I had no business background. Neither from my upbringing or from studies. So how do you go from a computer science nerd to actually making a product out of it and having a business model? For me it started with attending incubator programs. They educate you and give you great resources. But attending workshops and conferences as well as competitions taught me so much. You have to fill out all these forms and explain what you want to do. It gets you thinking about sides of your business that you haven’t considered before. If you get picked for these competitions you get critiqued by a jury and all of those are very valuable insights. It might feel like they're shooting your idea down but actually they are trying to help you. It’s such a great resource for young founders. And then learning by failing, and learning in practice. I am still learning today. 

It has been 2 successful years and it would be great to be at SLUSH again next year. But what I've learned recently is that what we do as a company, as a startup is part of a story. We are writing different chapters. So we are going to focus on telling our story, and in doing so, gaining new partnerships with entities who want to be part of the next chapter of OASYS NOW.