CobiCure’s Mission: Overcoming Barriers to Deliver Effective Treatments to Children

By Michele Cleary

We live in a time of awe-inspiring medical advances, with new hope emerging every day for patients with heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune disorders. Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, biologics can relieve the symptoms of inflammatory diseases, and high-tech joint replacements are completed using minimally invasive techniques unheard of only a decade ago.

These advances have a lot in common. They have been born of technological, scientific, and biomedical developments; they have widespread uses among millions of patients; and they are well funded by industries that stand to profit from their use. And – almost exclusively – they are for adults.

Why have our youngest, most vulnerable patients not benefited much from advances like these? In one sense the answer is good news: 21^st-century children are remarkably healthy and safe, and very few of them need advanced drugs or devices. The bad news is that seriously ill children often have inferior or no options. When a market has millions of potential customers, profit-driven companies are motivated to innovate. But for pediatric patients, because their numbers are small, there is limited potential for economic return on investment.

Tell that to a parent whose child is suffering.

“The healthcare industry lacks the financial motivation to prioritize the needs of critically ill children.”

It’s a fact of economics: When medical advances are driven by for-profit companies, development optimizes for the largest possible market. Our most precious resource for the future – our children – fall by the wayside. The healthcare industry, economically speaking, was not built to support sick kids, which is why we need a different approach if we want better outcomes for children who are suffering.

At CobiCure, we believe that through collaboration, we can solve what the market has not. Research and development are expensive, but they are critical for getting new devices and therapeutics to market – even to a small market. We bring innovators in biotech, pharmaceutical, and biomedical engineering together with philanthropists and investors willing to forgo profit in the name of progress for children.

Through education, collaboration, and innovation, we know we can make a difference. When an “orphan drug” – shelved because the market for it was too small – gets back into the lab where researchers can explore its promise in children, we know we are taking steps toward cures. When the tiniest imaginable stent saves a newborn’s life, we know our mission can make a world of difference for a child’s future.

The mission to deliver optimal treatments to patients who are typically overlooked by for-profit companies is why I chose to help build and launch CobiCure, and it’s what drives me and our team every day. Through our collaborative model, we aim to develop and deliver real solutions to the smallest, most vulnerable populations.  

Our team knows the challenges, we see the barriers, and we understand the frustrations of both the families whose children are affected and their doctors. We also see the future. We know the benefits of collaboration, of bringing together like-minded people who share our passion. And we are certain that we can reimagine the future for overlooked patients – together.

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