There are certainly plenty of places on the Internet where consumers can go to find health information. But a Seattle startup company called Navigating Cancer wants to become the destination for those people dealing with cancer. The startup -- which is launching today -- allows individuals to read about the disease, discuss their ailments with others, organize their personal health records, track medicines/treatments and more.

"What it really is is a Web site to empower cancer patients to navigate their best care," said CEO Gena Cook, the former vice president of sales and marketing for pharmaceutical distributor McKesson. Cook -- along with neuro-oncologist Paul Zeltzer and former Google manager Eva Ho -- founded the company in 2008.

"There are a lot of companies that are trying to help patients organize their health information in a very broad way, and what we have built is an application that is very specific to cancer," said Cook. "So, when a patient comes on and they say they have breast cancer and they are going to record their surgery, the actual surgeries for breast cancer pop up ... It is a very smart application that helps patients become organized but it is very, very specific to cancer which doesn't exist in the marketplace today."

But it did at one time.

Longtime followers of the Seattle tech community may recall a service called CancerFacts.com, which was founded in 1998 by entrepreneur Max Lyon and others.

The site, according to a Puget Sound Business Journal profile at the time, developed a patent-pending software to provide subscribers with information about treatment options, risk tolerance and side effects for various cancers. The company raised a $6 million venture round from Arch Venture Partners and Cardinal Health Partners in 1999, and eventually morphed into NexCura. (The service still operates to this day, though NexCura was sold to Thomson Reuters in 2005).

Cook was familiar with CancerFacts, but she described them as a "Web 1.0" company that focused on putting cancer content on the Internet. Another player that emerged in the Seattle area during the dot-com boom was OnHealth Network, but it was sold to WebMD in 2000.

Cook

In the case of Navigating Cancer, Cook said that they want to help people find the most relevant information quickly. "There is a lot of content on the Internet today for cancer patients, but the issue with it is there are all of these disparate sources of information," said Cook, adding that patients can quickly become overwhelmed with search results.

"We are not a content company. We are really a tools and resources company to help them better manage and navigate their care," she said.

That's also an arena where Microsoft and Google are operating with their online health initiatives, though Cook called them "macro applications" that allow some general record keeping.

"If you had cancer, it would be very hard to manage your cancer diagnosis on those platforms today," she said.

Navigating Cancer plans to make money through advertising -- specifically online sponsorships. Over time, it also plans to integrate with electronic medical record systems and there could be a charge for that service.

Up until mid-2008, Cook had been commuting from Seattle to McKesson's operations in San Francisco and Nashville. Now, the new startup is firmly rooted in Seattle.

Navigating Cancer employs about a dozen people. It has raised a little more than $1 million from Rustic Canyon Partners and others. It is currently seeking its series A financing round.

"I think it is a good time. There's going to be a lot of changes in health care," she said. "And although there's a lot of consumerism in health, our approach is a little bit different from these companies that are thinking about it at a macro level."