Star DJ and house music pioneer, Sasha, to play gig to help his dad speed up rare cancer research
By RareCan Team on 4th July 2022
On Saturday 2nd July Sasha, will be taking a break from his current world tour to play a sell-out gig at the Gazelle Hotel in Anglesey, in aid of a cause close to his heart. His dad, Steve Coe, who has supported him throughout his career and been one of his greatest champions, was diagnosed with a rare cancer last year. Having previously raised funds for UNICEF by organising fundraising gigs with some of the world’s biggest DJs, Steve is now turning his talents to raising awareness and funding for a UK health tech start up, RareCan.
‘RareCan is a really interesting example of how commercial enterprise can be used to tackle thorny problems. It is a business with a massively important social purpose at its heart, and that’s why I’m doing everything I can to help it grow.’
Steve Coe
Over 500,000 people in the UK are living with a rare cancer like Steve. Sadly, because these cancers are rare, less research has been conducted to understand them, there tend to be fewer treatment options and, as a result, survival rates for those affected are worse. The 19 most common cancers account for about three quarters of all cancer cases globally, while the 180 different types of rare cancers cause the other quarter. Yet despite the hundreds of thousands of people affected by rare cancers, those diagnosed are 50% more likely to die within five years than people with a common cancer.
RareCan was founded to change this. It is a direct-to-patient clinical trial recruitment platform bringing the power of patients and data together to accelerate rare cancer research. By making the UK a better place to do rare cancer research, RareCan aims to speed up discovery of new treatments and improve the chances of people diagnosed with rare cancers.
‘We believe people with rare cancers should have the same opportunities for treatment and expect the same chances of surviving as people with common cancers.’
Piers Kotting, RareCan co-founder and CEO
This resonates strongly with Steve and Sasha, having experienced what it is like to have a rarer form of cancer first hand. By playing the sunset gig on the stunning north coast of Wales, Sasha and Steve hope to raise awareness of RareCan and its crowdfunding campaign so that the company can grow more quickly and help speed up research into rare cancers.
RareCan’s crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube has received lots of interest, but more funding is needed to grow its team and increase the number of people with rare cancers signing up.
