Meet #OurEntrepreneurs. Introducing Amir Amraie a pharmacist and Chief Operating Officer at Crowd Funded Cures.
Tell us a bit about yourself
I am a UK registered Pharmacist currently practicing within the NHS in primary care; I am Chief Operations Officer of Crowd Funded Cures, where I am working on a solution to a pharmaceutical problem that has the potential to help and improve the health and life of a billion people. I am also a technical writer in health and science, and I also help venture capitalists and investors with technical due diligence in the fields of biotech, pharmaceutics, medicine, and the intersection where technology meets with health biology and the integration and procurement of care. I am a well-researched follower of new technology developments and the use cases for advancing healthcare. I follow and partake in the Web 3.0 and de-sci space which I find exciting and emerging.
Name: Amir Amraie NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Cohort 6
Occupation: NHS Primary Care Pharmacist
I am also a former clinical PCN Pharmacist; former Superintendent Pharmacist and pharmacy manager at a GP hybrid-pharmacy, and community pharmacist. Formerly too was programme lead and judge of the Beanstalks start-up programme at GIANT health, where I spearheaded the development and growth of an international startup programme for around 300 health and biotech startups and have been an adviser to a number of health and technology companies.
Why did you apply to the programme and what are you looking forward to?
I learned of the programme from within my professional network, I applied to join a great tribe and help establish Crowd Funded Cures with the NHS.
I’m looking forward to every aspect of the programme including the opportunities to network and learn from industry experts and peers.
Tell us about your innovation
Our mission at Crowd Funded Cures is to leverage pay-for-success (PFS) financing backed by healthcare payers such as the NHS to create a business model for repurposing low-cost generic medicines to treat new diseases. This could save the NHS and other healthcare payers billions of pounds using a financial arbitrage opportunity because it is possible to start Phase 2 and 3 RCTs immediately: it is therefore approximately 100x cheaper and 10x faster to repurpose generic drugs vs developing new patented drugs.
Crowd Funded Cures is a social enterprise to incentivise the repurposing of generic pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals for new indications. It is the brainchild of my partner Savva Kerdemelidis who created it out of his law thesis in 2013 driven by his personal story. I have been collaborating with Savva since 2018.
What motivates you?
My vision, at its core, is to help and impact and improve the health and life of a billion people. I believe I can do this with Crowd Funded Cures.
What ambitions do you have for the next year?
I have several goals for this year. Joining the NHS CEP has been among them.
In addition, Crowd Funded Cures are aiming to establish preliminary discussions with key persons at National Institute of Clinical Excellence of the UK (NICE) to obtain feedback regarding the PFS model.
We are also; engaging a consulting firm to conduct PFS feasibility study in joint venture with Open-Source Pharma Foundation; launching a marketing & outreach campaign to raise awareness of problem and PFS solution and obtain support from key stakeholders.
We are looking to develop partnerships with key stakeholders including CROs, NGOs, policymaker experts, and consultants as well as pharmacoeconomists to validate our novel financial model for generic repurposing.
We are looking to raise £500k for a seed round. We are also looking to conduct a pilot in drug repurposing for outcome improvement in mental health, and another for a chronic condition, for example, Crohns disease, and to conduct a pilot on a rare disease.
We are also fundraising $1million to launch our initial pilot PFS contract with VitaDAO to fund the phase 2 / 3 clinical trial repurposing of off-patent rapamycin dosing combined with exercise to demonstrate efficacy in functional improvements to sarcopenia in the elderly. This is the Dr Brad Stanfield trial. More information on the proposal follow the snapshot link
Why do you think innovation is important in healthcare?
Innovation creates better ways of doing existing things in healthcare. Something it even creates completely new ways of doing things that ultimately transform healthcare.
How can we find out more?
For more information, please visit our blog: https://crowdfundedcures.org/blog/ and connect with me on LinkedIn and twitter – thank you.
TRANSFORMING HEALTHCARE THROUGH INNOVATION
