San Diego startup helps cancer patients keep their hair during treatment

San Diego startup helps cancer patients keep their hair during treatment Mike Freeman

For Kate Dilligan, helping chemotherapy patients keep their hair is not about beauty. It’s about privacy.

A cancer survivor and Stanford MBA, Dilligan is the founder and chief executive of San Diego’s Cooler Heads. The 11-employee startup provides portable scalp-cooling technology that prevents hair loss during cancer treatments.

“It is about controlling the narrative around who knows that you are sick,” said Dilligan. “Because if you think about it, if all your hair falls out, everybody knows. It is just a constant reminder that you are going through this.”

Cooler Heads’ business model aims to make scalp cooling more affordable than in the past, where treatment could cost patients $6,000 or more out of pocket.

The company introduced its FDA-cleared scalp cooling device, called Amma, in 2022. About 20 cancer centers have adopted the technology, said Dilligan. Health care supplier McKesson inked a deal to distribute Amma to its oncology customers.

Cooler Heads makes “scalp cooling more affordable and accessible for patients,” said Dr. Stanley Marks, head of the University of Pittsburgh’s Hillman Cancer Center, in a statement. “We are excited to be able to offer Amma to our patients.”

In April, Cooler Heads raised an additional $8 million from investors including Crescent Ridge Partners, Aloft VC, NuFund, Robin Hood Ventures, HIP, Teal Ventures, and Gaingels. The company will use the money to continue proving out the market. That brings the total raises since it was founded in 2018 to more than $9 million.

Scalp cooling is not new. It works by reducing the damage that chemotherapy causes to hair follicles. Lowering temperatures constricts blood flow, thus reducing the amount of medication that enters hair cells. The process typically occurs about 30 minutes before and up to two hours after chemotherapy.

Scalp cooling got a boost last year when Medicare authorized reimbursement of up to $1,850 for the treatment, though most private insurers have yet to offer coverage, said Dilligan.

“In terms of this being accepted by the medical community, it very much is because 1 in 12 chemotherapy patients refuse chemo because they don’t want to lose their hair,” she said. “This is well established in medical literature. People just say no.”

Dilligan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016 and used a form of scalp cooling to keep her hair during chemotherapy treatment.

It worked, and Dilligan is now cancer free. But the process was cumbersome and cost her $8,000.

Under Cooler Heads’ business model, the portable system brings more flexibility to cancer clinic workflows. The cooling device, which is designed to last five years, could pay for itself in less than a year with insurance reimbursement — depending on usage.

There are competitors, including some with portable systems. Scalp Cooling is roughly an $800 million market with about 400,000 patients a year as potential users, said Dilligan.

There are other side effects of cancer treatment, however, that the company aims to help address in the future, which is a much larger market.

“Our long-term goal is to build evidence-based products, content and services that cancer patients need to manage the side effects of treatment,” she said.