The healthcare technology company RDMD was founded by Onno Faber, who has himself been diagnosed with a rare disorder. RDMD, which describes itself as “dedicated to accelerating research” with a focus on rare diseases, has just announced that it has managed to raise $3 million in funding. You can read more about this in the source press release here, at Business Wire.
How RDMD Was Founded
Onno Faber created RDMD following his own experiences with neurofibromatosis type 2, a rare disease that typically leads to benign tumour growth along nerves associated with hearing and balance. He wanted to use his previous experience developing technology products to bring insight to rare disease, by using patient data with analytics platforms. Since then, RDMD has worked towards better rare disease research and to support patients to manage their conditions.
$3 Million Funding
RDMD has recently announced that it has received $3 million in seed funding from companies including Lux Capital and Village Global, amongst others. In the source press release, RDMD says that it plans to use this financing to expand their work and tailor their approach so that can be useful across many rare conditions. This includes working to develop the company’s platform further, hiring more people for the company’s leadership team to support organisational growth, and collaborating with others to advance research and development programs.
RDMD’s Work
RDMD is using a technology platform to create models of specific diseases, based on medical records, that can then be analysed more easily. This may help researchers, since most patient data is kept in medical notes and other reports, and it is difficult to analyse. RDMD collaborates with doctors to choose biomarkers and other data measures, which can then be collected and used in analyses.
Currently, RDMD, together with researchers from the National Cancer Institute, is working to track pain levels in patients who have neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). NF1 is a genetic disorder that causes tumour growth along the nerves. The tumours are usually benign but may cause a range of associated symptoms. In addition to the collaborative work with the National Cancer Institute, RDMD is also partnering with the Children’s Tumour Foundation to analyse medical records from patients with all types of neurofibromatosis.
In addition to these collaborations, RDMD has worked on an application that is designed to give patients access to their own complete medical records, including on-going updates to the records. Using this, patients can easily access their data and decide whether to contribute it to research.
