A custom-built social platform enables collaborations between pharma researchers to repurpose medical research
Cures Within Reach CureAccelerator
Here’s how Mightybytes helped a local healthcare startup improve access to treatment alternatives for people with rare diseases.
We had never undertaken an IT development project of this magnitude. We knew we were going to need a lot of education, hand holding, and other support. Over the year-long project we received that support over and over, many times through in-person meetings. When we interviewed IT firms, we felt that Mightybytes was as passionate about creating CureAccelerator™ as we were. We believed that passion would help us overcome the challenges we knew were ahead, and we were right.
— Dr. Bruce E. Bloom | President and Chief Science Officer | Cures Within Reach
Key
Points
6
Platform Matches
The initial goal of five researcher-clinician matches was surpassed in just a few months.
8%
People Affected
Eight percent of the world’s population has a disease for which there is no effective therapy.
12
Stakeholder Interviews
In-depth interviews were completed by twelve CWR researchers.
1
Year
From concept to completion, the total timeline for this project was one year.
Cures Within Reach (CWR), the philanthropic leader in healthcare repurposing research, sought to build a collaborative web portal where researchers, clinicians, and funders could author shared, peer-reviewed documents to develop low-cost treatment alternatives for patients with rare diseases.
We started discovery this project with multiple roadmapping workshops. This helped us define target audiences and translate researchers’ existing offline workflows to an online equivalent with the ability to handle a scalable expansion of capacity.
Additionally, we provided design, content, user experience, data modeling and back-end programming services delivered through multiple two-week sprints.
Prototyping &
Development
Prototyping features before full build-outs offered numerous benefits.
- Working Prototype: To test features with users as quickly as possible, we developed working prototypes, which enabled us to gather early feedback.
- User Polling: As new features became available, we polled users to ensure usability and prioritize enhancements.
- Laravel: This complex portal was built with Laravel as the foundation, which served as a flexible foundation for incorporating user feedback over time.
CWR’s initial goal was to foster five researcher-clinician matches by the end of their first year. During beta launch, the platform facilitated six matches — with another seven months to go.
Long-Term
Support
Mightybytes supported CWR’s Cure Accelerator product, adding new features and making software updates until the organization was able to take ownership. We’re excited to see where this philanthropic software startup heads next.
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