Gitika Srivastava is  the founder CEO of Navya Network. Gitika started her first company during her undergraduate days and sold her first company right after graduating from Harvard. She later went on do her MBA at MIT. A life incident motivated her to start Navya Network, a social enterprise that  assists in bringing clarity to the complexity of evaluating treatment alternatives. She talks about her life journey and the wonderful product she has created. She is also partner at KAHM. 

After the acquisition of Skyris, I continued for two additional years as the CEO of Skyris at the acquiring company’s headquarters in Los Angeles, but my heart was in Boston.  I traveled back and forth between Boston and LA, and kept in touch with my start-up world.   I was toying with the idea of a career in venture capital, and realized I lacked the formal training at consulting and banking firms that is often helpful to complement the operational start-up experience one needs to work in venture capital.  I also realized that there are things one can learn in business school, contrary to the popular belief that business school is only for networking.  I joined MIT Sloan for its focus on entrepreneurship and hard science.  I was surprised that I learned so much about strategy and marketing, with MIT’s approach to do so with numbers and hard data.  Finally, I wanted to dive into healthcare, and I knew nothing about that industry.  The MBA and healthcare related management courses helped me.  On some level, I have convinced myself that the MBA has helped round off my rough edges as an entrepreneur. 

I was a computer scientist, far away from everything clinical.  My first company was in distributed networking.   When my closest kin was diagnosed with cancer, life changed.  My family learned about healthcare systems, decision making, and outcomes.  I am proud of the way my dearest relative conquered, and made complex decisions.  I realized that my family was somewhat privileged.  We understood science, numbers, statistics; we could read about research and access clinical trial results through our friends in medicine.  We could reach our very privileged resources in Boston and India to connect with the top oncologists.  I can never forget the quick learning from day one of diagnosis to day three of knowing the next steps, on a conference call with three top cancer centers (DFCI, Tata Memorial Centre, and Apollo India).  And how ultimately the patient weighed in all information, advise, considerations to arrive at a decision of which treatment protocol and why (one was percentage points better in the age group).  Thus, the founding of Navya.  

Navya was born so patients are empowered to participate in their decision making.  Navya was born so decision making is not complex or confusing but empowering and clarifying.  Navya was born so there is equitable healthcare for all, no matter the level of education, financial privileges, connectivity with networks of experts, or simply the geographical location on a map.  Navya was born so all of this is quick, affordable, and scalable and every patient who needs it, has it.  Software systems and data could make this possible.

My partner in crime, was my college friend from Harvard, and now Stanford and UCLA trained Dr. Naresh Ramarajan.  He taught me the importance of evidence and how to use that in decision making.  Together, we started to help friends and friends of friends navigate the difficult times of a cancer diagnosis, by systematically, yet manually, looking up evidence, consulting experts, talking to patients about their considerations (an older patient may prefer less toxic therapies in lieu of prolonging life by a few years, whereas a younger mother of two may want to brave the chemotherapy to see her daughter graduate from college; these are true stories), and finally helping them make some clear decisions on their treatment planning.  Soon, the manual process had to be automated, we had to build and scale, and show joint patient-physician decision can be done more systematically, cheaply, quickly, and exhaustively, by a system that is built on the very same sources of information that experts use in their decision making.

Navya was built, and proven in clinical trials, to be able to make similar decisions as expert oncologists to do so.  Now, it runs as a service to empower cancer patients by relying on evidence and experience of the system as well as the expertise of global expert oncologists at centers such as Tata Memorial Centre.  

There are multiple decision points in the treatment of cancer and the process of decision making is repeated several times over at each of these decision points. No two seemingly similar cancers or cancer patients are the same, and treatment decisions need to factor in medical evidence, expertise, and patient’s preference.  Often, there are two or more possible options and expertise is necessary to consider every factor such as other existing health conditions of the patient or side effects from previous treatment or simply the preference of the patient in preferring one type of surgery over the other. 

Such nuanced decision making is often present at expert cancer centers or large cancer centers that have the experience of treating a very large number of cancer cases.  Navya was born so such nuanced decision making is available to every patient.  

The Navya Expert System, is an evidence, guidelines, and experience based system. (An evidence based system derives its decisions from published high quality clinical trials; a guideline based system relies on globally accepted clinical practice; an experience based system also takes into account expert opinions and outcomes of similar patients around the world.) Treatment decisions output from the patented Navya Expert System are uniquely applicable to a given patient taking into account their specific demographic and cancer characteristics, any coexisting illnesses and side effects of therapies, and factors in patient’s preferences. 

The Navya Expert System is used to provide an expert opinion service in collaboration with world renowned experts, who further refine or select Navya’s evidence and experience based treatment options, to provide a single consensus opinion. Thus, a thorough and individualized treatment opinion is provided to a cancer patient, based on exhaustive information sources.

Currently, the Navya service helps cancer patients receive treatment recommendations from cancer experts at Tata Memorial Centre, which is Asia’s largest leading tertiary care expert cancer center. . 

The process of getting an opinion through Navya is simple – just three steps: 

The more the merrier.  Every system with a goal to play a role in healthcare is important. 

Watson is doing its bit in building a system that can digest volumes of unstructured text like publications, doctors’ notes, nurses’ notes, and find meaning through natural communication.  Watson’s core strength is in the use of natural language processing to parse encyclopedia-like unstructured text, derive relational and semantic meaning from words, and query and receive responses in spoken English. This can be remarkable in the process of research, which requires reading through volumes of text.  

Navya focuses on high quality curated data, structured for the purpose of expert decision making.  Nuances of treatments, morbidities, and side effects, and predictive computing, are purposefully layered on.  As a result, our data based system is concordant with tumor board and expert decision in two large international settings – Tata Memorial Centre in India and UCLA-Olive View Medical Centre in the US.  Ultimately, Navya layers on expert opinions and patient preferences to provide an ‘actionable therapy’ to a patient. 

When patients are diagnosed with cancer, likely by their primary care physician or a local oncologist, patients or their families should register at navyanetwork.com, upload their medical reports, submit their decision questions or considerations and information that factor into their personal decision making criteria, and let Navya help provide them with a report that considers high quality evidence and global expertise and their patient preference considerations, and provide a simple to read report that can help the patient and their families know that the next best course of action is.  This can be clarifying, empowering, and lessen some of the anxiety of a new cancer diagnosis.  Be it a new cancer diagnosis or at any decision point in the treatment of cancer, even at the conclusion of a treatment, if you have any question on what to do, please reach out to Navya, and let data and true experts help you make that decision and bring clarity. When information and expertise can reduce anxiety, access it.  There is no inconvenience of travel or complexity of being able to comprehend information.  Go online to a reliable source of information that you can understand and act on.   

Healthcare non-profits can direct their patients to Navya, and spread the message that every cancer patient should only rely on evidence based expert opinion to determine the next best step in the management of cancer.  Healthcare non-profits, especially those with a global reach, and those that work in rural areas and with underprivileged patients, can help bring Navya to these patients.  These patients would not ordinarily have access to cancer experts.  Bridging information disparity and leveling the economic gap in healthcare so that every cancer patient is empowered, no matter his or her affordability or accessibility for expert opinions, is only possible by collaborating with those who are on the ground working with these patients.  Helping patients receive online expert opinions is the first step in standardizing cancer care across borders and demographics. 

Empower yourself with information, reliable information, and ask questions.  Understand that with information and expertise, a lot of what can go right, will go right.  Rest is in the hands of God.    Consult the same information resources that an expert would consult, which are based on raw clinical trial data, international guidelines, learning from the experience of treating thousands of patients at reputed cancer centers.  Be involved and be your own champion or the champion of your loved one with cancer.  You cannot outsource decision making, and only you know your own preferences/considerations in being able to undertake a treatment that can maximize your outcome.  Knowledge and decision making is more than half the battle; win it.  

With a lot of support from my husband, a trusted daycare, and the ability to work from home with a nanny who looks after my three year old, I am able to manage a lot of my work commitments.  It is all a big bundle of intertwined joys.  There is very little separation between my career and my personal life.  I am personally motivated to empower every single cancer patient with the evidence based expertise so that they have the best chance at maximizing their outcomes.  My family supports me in this mission, and is party to it.  With Navya, I work with people I know, many friends and family work with me; I travel to places like India I otherwise would love to travel to anyway; and with the added joy of working from home with my three year old running around brings me a lot of satisfaction.  It is a lot of hard work and very little sleep, but manageable and joyful to work with friends, have flexibility for the family, and get to know my daughter.