Doctors, researchers, and health professionals around the globe continue to find innovative ways to treat, if not cure, cancer. Being one of the leading causes of death in the world, many medical professionals and patients alike continue to try and find viable solutions to deal with cancer and come up with strategies to understand the disease. At 4baseCare, the aim is to provide people with ground-breaking technology and research. By using techniques of genomics and digital health, it goes beyond being a simple telemedicine platform to cater to cancer patients and caregivers the support they need.
4baseCare is essentially a group of dedicated people who strive to use their experience working in pharma drug discovery and healthcare, with cutting-edge technology like Genomics to gain insights and hope in fighting cancer. “We believe that we now have the right tools and technology to give us a fighting chance against a disease like cancer. We want to build a company that leverages these concepts, technology, and advancement in science to introduce solutions that can give better treatment options to patients and help save or extend their life,” says Mr. Hitesh Goswami, CEO & Co-founder of 4baseCare.
Providing a unique service
Being a service that caters to oncological solutions, 4baseCare isn’t like any other. With advanced Genomics and Next-gen digital health technology, users and patients have the care they need to smoothen the ride through their cancer journey. Three years later, 4baseCare has made personalized treatment an exciting reality. The company has launched series of cancer gene panel tests to help doctors customize treatment for each patient based on their genetic makeup and comprehensive molecular profiling of the patient’s tumor sample.
In January 2019, 4baseCare developed and launched its first comprehensive cancer gene panel test (TARGET Focus) that was designed to profile genomic aberrations in 352 genes. Being the first gene panel of its kind in India, this test essentially identifies immunotherapy markets like tumor mutational burden (TMB), a biomarker of response to immunotherapy, and Microsatellite Instability predictive Biomarker for Cancer Immunotherapy through Next-generation sequencing that allows biotechnologists to come up with innovative solutions. Since then, the company has created three more tests under their TARGET portfolio, called TARGET Core, IO and Absolute. To scale up, 4baseCare has partnered with multiple hospitals and research centers, namely AIIMS, ACTREC-TMC, Fortis, St John’s Research Institute, and Shankara Hospital to develop their first population-specific cancer gene panel called, Target Indiegene.
With the advantage of digital health technology, 4baseCare also came up with their second solution called OncoBudddy, a first-of-its-kind unique digital platform that provides 360-degree holistic support to cancer patients. “Right from connecting patients to experts and other patients to get any query answered to getting access to highly curated videos, blogs, and articles on cancer care and helping them digitize and manage their medical records to allow them to easily consult with the doctors through virtual consultation, OncoBuddy supports patients through their every need in their cancer journey,” Mr. Hitesh elaborates.
Exemplary Leadership
Mr. Hitesh stops at nothing to achieve what he set his mind to. Talking about some of the milestones he reached, he shares his most significant one where he decided to drop out of his MBA program at the University of San Diego in 2011, return to India and establish his first startup Bionivid Technology. “From a company perspective, being the 1st Indian company from Asia-Pacific to be selected for the Illumina Accelerator program in 2019 has been the most significant milestone,” he says.
As the world moves towards precision medicine, 4baseCare wants to build a research-focused system that leverages technology and advancement in science to create solutions that can provide better treatment options to cancer patients. Being the only company that combines technological advances in both genomics and digital health, the company was incepted as the first Asian healthcare organization backed by Illumina (the Global Genomics leader) through their Illumina Accelerator program.
The world is moving towards precision medicine, but research is still far from individualized treatments. I wanted to build a research-focused company that leverages technology and advancement in science to create solutions that can give better treatment options for patients who are battling cancer. Thus, 4baseCare was incepted as the first Asian healthcare organization backed by Illumina (the Global Genomics leader) through their Illumina Accelerator program. “As a company, we believe that if technology is not affordable, it has no value. Our gene panels used for guiding the treatment of cancer patients are one of the most affordable panels available globally, some at almost 1/4th the cost for cancer gene tests in a similar segment,” says Mr. Hitesh.
Teamwork leads to success
A tagline like, “Together, We Beat Cancer” says a lot when talking about the core team at 4baseCare. With experts from different fields, Mr, Hitesh feels very fortunate to have a group of people who believe in the vision of the company and work towards a unified purpose. “Every team member understands that their actions directly or indirectly impacting a patient’s life. The work we are doing every day through our research and our clinical operations gives us an opportunity to impact people’s lives in ways we can never imagine. A report provided by us might help the patient to get on a treatment which might add years to the life of the patient and allows a family to spend more time together,” he shares.
In this regard, 4baseCare is equipped with three labs in Bangalore that drive genomics research and development efforts, including the Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre (BBC) and Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB). In addition to these, they also have a commercial partnership with Wipro and have a state-of-the-art Genomics Access lab at Wipro in Bangalore. The support they receive from Wipro and from state and center-funded Bio-Incubators allows 4baseCare access to cutting-edge technology and human resources that help manage R&D and operational costs and transfer the benefits directly to the patients.
With an aim to improve clinical outcomes and increase the quality of life for cancer patients, 4baseCare continues to conduct research on viable and cost-effective solutions for cancer patients around the world. “Our goal is to leverage technology to build solutions that are affordable and accessible to patients. In short, we want to beat the crap out of cancer!” says Mr. Hitesh.