Cooler Heads Signs Distribution Agreement with McKesson
SAN DIEGO , April 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cooler Heads, a health tech company that has developed an FDA-cleared, portable patient-administered scalp cooling device to help cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy keep their hair, reports accelerated sales growth during its first year on the market. The company's rapid expansion is driven by intense patient and cancer center demand and Medicare's approval of reimbursement for scalp cooling.
Highlighting the portability of Amma so patients can get up and out of the infusion chair during scalp cooling treatment.
A recent Amma user before starting chemotherapy.
The same Amma user 3 weeks following twelve weeks of chemotherapy.
How patients use Amma during chemotherapy at the infusion center.
More than 20 cancer centers have adopted Amma, Cooler Heads' patented scalp cooling platform, since it became commercially available in late summer, 2022. In addition, Cooler Heads and leading healthcare company McKesson (Medical Surgical) have entered into an agreement to distribute Amma for McKesson's oncology customers. McKesson is kicking off the relationship by featuring Cooler Heads in a quarterly campaign within its oncology division.
To what does Cooler Heads CEO Kate Dilligan attribute her company's meteoric sales growth? Patient demand. "Patients are savvy," Dilligan explains, "and they are choosing providers that are treating them as a whole person and not just the disease. Side effect management is a huge component of that and a discriminator for patients." As shown in a landmark 2014 study, hair loss is the most traumatic side effect associated with chemotherapy, with 1 of 12 breast cancer patients actually refusing chemo due to fear of hair loss. "Keeping your hair is critical to a cancer patient's mental health, your sense of self, and your recovery process" says Dilligan, herself a breast cancer survivor who spent $8,000 out of pocket to keep her hair during chemo using a legacy system.
Until Amma, scalp cooling systems have been out of reach for most cancer patients. Legacy systems are expensive for patients and challenging to use, and their workflows are disruptive to cancer center operations. Cooler Heads' portable, affordable, and patient-administered tech-enabled solution solves these problems, and it empowers infusion centers to turn scalp cooling into a low-touch profit center. Patients and cancer centers are taking note.
Dr. Stanley Marks, Chairman at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center praises Cooler Heads for "making scalp cooling more affordable and accessible for patients," noting, "we are excited to be able to offer Amma to our patients." Nicole Centers, executive director of Wellstar Health System's oncology service line, echoes Dr. Marks' sentiments, noting Wellstar had considered adopting a scalp cooling solution and moved forward with Cooler Heads because Amma was an "affordable solution" for patients and Amma's "new technology made it easy for us to adopt."
Dr. Deborah Lindquist of Northern Arizona Medical Group extolled Amma's ease of use, noting her first patient to use Amma "had no hair loss [and] found it extremely easy to use. In addition, it was simple enough that she could use her time doing other things related to her work while having chemotherapy."
Ryan Denney, Chief Commercial Officer of Cooler Heads notes, "Cancer patients don't want to lose their hair, and with Amma, they don't have to. We're seeing incredible pull from smart infusion centers who know they need to offer this service if they want to stay competitive. Our goal is to make it easy for all cancer centers to offer Amma as their scalp cooling solution."
Cooler Heads was founded by Kate Dilligan in 2018, and the company recently closed an $8 million round of funding from leading venture capital funds including Crescent Ridge Partners, Aloft VC, NuFund, Robin Hood Ventures, HIP, Teal Ventures, and Gaingels.
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