Vana Healthcare
Aug 19, 2026 · The Vana Healthcare Team

Why We're Starting With Multiple Myeloma

Picking a beachhead condition is one of the highest-leverage decisions we make, and it's tempting to pick based on instinct — a condition that feels important, or one with a big, sympathetic patient population. We wanted a sharper filter than that.

What actually matters for our model

Our product is a daily check-in companion, which means it only works well for conditions people live with for years, not months. And our business model depends on pharma partners actively funding data collection right now, not someday. So we looked for conditions where three things are all true at once: a population that's genuinely hard to reach any other way, real current pharma dollars already in motion, and a slow enough disease course that a "check in daily, for years" product actually fits.

What we found

Mature drug classes don't need this — once a drug's post-marketing commitments are fulfilled, the funding dries up. Melanoma checkpoint inhibitors, approved back in 2011–2014, have only 2 active Phase 4 studies running today. That wave is closed.

Multiple myeloma is different. The newest wave of treatments — bispecific antibodies and CAR-T therapies approved between 2021 and 2024 — has 19 active Phase 4 (post-marketing) studies running right now, sponsored directly by companies like Regeneron and Johnson & Johnson. That's a live, currently-open funding window, not a historical one.

And multiple myeloma has a natural precursor population — MGUS and smoldering myeloma — that patients live with under active monitoring for years before, if ever, progressing to disease requiring treatment. That's precisely the kind of long, chronic relationship our product is built for.

What we ruled out, and why

Trial counts: ClinicalTrials.gov, live search, August 2026.

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