^{Citizen Health CEO and Co-founder Farid Vij, and Citizen Health Chief Business Officer and Co-founder Nasha Fitter.}

^{Citizen Health}

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When Nasha Fitter’s daughter was diagnosed with the rare genetic disorder FOXG1 syndrome in 2017, she entered a healthcare maze with almost no map. Like thousands of families dealing with rare diseases, she found herself navigating fragmented information, inconsistent medical guidance, and a lack of structured support systems.

In many cases, she said, the only available “help network” was informal online communities where answers were uncertain and often unverified. That experience exposed a systemic gap in rare disease care—one that has now become the foundation for a fast-growing health tech company.

Fitter, a technology entrepreneur, later partnered with fellow founder Farid Vij to build Citizen Health, a platform designed to combine artificial intelligence, patient data, and community networks into a single support ecosystem for rare disease families. Launched in 2023, the company has already raised more than $44 million from investors including 8VC, Headline, Transformation Capital, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

At the core of the platform is what the founders describe as an “AI advocate”—an intelligent system designed specifically for rare disease patients. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, this system is trained on structured patient data, medical records, and condition-specific insights. It can help families schedule specialist appointments, manage insurance appeals, track symptoms, identify relevant clinical trials, and flag potential issues in medical records that might otherwise go unnoticed.

For families dealing with rare conditions, the time burden is extraordinary. According to Vij, caregivers spend an average of 53 hours per week on medical-related responsibilities beyond standard parenting duties. This includes researching conditions, coordinating care across multiple specialists, managing insurance disputes, and continuously searching for treatment options that may not yet exist.

The goal of Citizen Health is to reduce that burden while simultaneously improving clinical outcomes. By aggregating anonymized patient data across thousands of cases, the platform allows families and clinicians to learn from shared experiences that would otherwise remain isolated.

Today, the platform includes more than 8,000 patients across over 350 rare diseases. Its network also extends into the pharmaceutical ecosystem, with more than 16 drug developers and life sciences companies using its data insights to support research and development. The company reports that nearly 98% of patients choose to opt in to data sharing, which is then used—under consent frameworks—to accelerate treatment discovery.

One of the most significant impacts of this model is its influence on drug development timelines. Citizen Health estimates that its structured patient data has helped reduce certain research and development cycles by 30% to 50%, particularly in areas where traditional clinical data is limited or difficult to collect.

The company’s approach sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and healthcare infrastructure. While AI tools are increasingly used in medicine for diagnostics, imaging, and administrative automation, rare disease care presents a unique challenge. In many cases, there are too few documented patients for conventional machine learning models to generate reliable insights. This is where Citizen Health’s community-driven dataset becomes critical.

By combining patient-reported outcomes, genetic information, and clinical records, the platform builds what the founders describe as one of the largest structured rare disease datasets of its kind. This dataset is not only used to support families in real time but also to inform researchers and pharmaceutical companies working on new therapies.

The system also plays a growing role in regulatory and clinical validation processes. In one example cited by Fitter, patient data collected through the platform helped support regulatory discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In that case, natural history data from patients was used as part of a control framework, helping the organization bypass certain traditional trial structures and significantly reduce development costs—estimated at around $80 million in savings.

Beyond efficiency, the platform is also reshaping how families experience care. For many users, the AI advocate acts as a continuous support layer, helping them interpret medical records, identify relevant specialists, and connect with others facing similar conditions. This network effect is particularly valuable in rare disease communities, where patients are often geographically isolated and medical expertise is limited.

Fitter, who also serves as Chief Business Officer at Citizen Health, continues to use the platform personally in managing her daughter’s care. She describes it as a “game changer” for decision-making, especially in situations where medical guidance is unclear or inconsistent across providers.

The company’s broader mission extends beyond individual patient support. By building a scalable data infrastructure, Citizen Health aims to accelerate the development of treatments for rare diseases, many of which currently have no approved therapies. The founders argue that connecting patient experiences directly to research pipelines can shorten the time it takes for promising treatments to reach clinical use.

Investor interest in the sector reflects a broader trend in healthcare technology, where AI-driven platforms are increasingly seen as critical infrastructure rather than experimental tools. With rare diseases affecting an estimated 300 million people globally, the market for better diagnostic and care coordination systems is both large and underserved.

As Citizen Health continues to expand, its model represents a shift in how healthcare systems may evolve—moving from fragmented, reactive care toward continuous, data-informed support networks powered by artificial intelligence.

In this emerging model, AI is not replacing doctors or caregivers. Instead, it is acting as a bridge—connecting fragmented information, reducing administrative burden, and giving families something that has historically been missing in rare disease care: a coordinated, intelligent advocate.

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