Pfizer Breast Cancer Innovation Program

We support Pfizer in finding innovative solutions that improve the wellbeing of women with metastatic breast cancer. 

In Italy there are over 37,000 women who live daily with metastatic breast cancer, a chronic disease that can be treated, but not cured.

With these women and their daily needs in mind, pharmaceutical company Pfizer started collaborating with us to establish the ​Breast Cancer Innovation Program, ​a project that combines digital culture, tech innovation and startup scouting with the goal of identifying and adopting innovative solutions to improve the patients' quality of lives.

After an initial phase of research with interviews to oncologists, a survey was conducted among 250 patients by two associations, Incontra Donna and Europa Donna. Then, a series of macro areas were identified and discussed during an online workshop with the Pfizer team, some patient associations and doctors.

Three briefs emerged from this virtual meeting:

• education​, especially related to the communication between patients and doctors;
• workflow simplification,​ to better manage the flow of information and activities for both doctors and patients;
• patient support​, such as extra-therapeutic services to improve the patients' wellbeing and improve assistance and the management of visits and check-ups.

The call for startups was active until August 31, 2020. The selected ones will have the opportunity to present their projects to the Pfizer team during an Innovation Event in November. The best ones could start collaborating with the company.

We also scouted our network of 4.5 million global startups, that we have built in over 15 years of activities.