Citizen Health, a company that helps patients oversee rare and complex health conditions, announced it raised $14.5 million in seed funding.

Transformation Capital led the round with participation from Wavemaker 360 and prominent angel investors. 

The funding was bolstered by a strategic program investment and partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

WHAT IT DOES

Citizen Health helps patients with rare diseases address challenges by creating a knowledge base that captures clinical data, genetic information, imaging and patient-reported outcomes.

A repository allows patients to acquire answers based on other people's experiences and aids researchers in speeding up drug development by providing instant access to vital information with the aim of reducing the time to develop new therapies by years. 

"People come up against seemingly insurmountable challenges when they are diagnosed with a specific condition where a wealth of comparative data isn't readily available." Farid Vij, cofounder of Citizen Health, told MobiHealthNews in an email.  

"By leveraging the power of community, data and AI, we are innovating solutions that enable patients with ready access to all their own data to understand the full picture of their health. Through this, the future as we see it is where any patient, at any stage, of any condition, has immediate access to exceptional guidance on the best personalized actions to take at that point in time."

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Other organizations involved in this space include TeleRare Health, which offers virtual care appointments for individuals with rare diseases, focusing on diagnosis, disease assessment and ongoing care.

The National Organization for Rare Diseases (NORD) helps patients navigate their condition by providing disease-specific information and resources. 

The Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network offers a wide range of information, resources and services for patients, families and patient advocacy groups.

Pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and Novartis support online services that help people share information about their rare disease experiences.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there are almost 10,000 rare diseases affecting 30 million Americans. Rare diseases carry a U.S. economic burden of nearly $1 trillion annually.