Empowered Patient Podcast: Recent Episodes
Karen Jagoda
Empowered Patient Podcast with Karen Jagoda is a window into the latest innovations in digital health, the changing dynamic between doctors and patients, and the emergence of precision medicine. The show covers such topics as aging in place, innovative uses for wearables and sensors, advances in clinical research, applied genetics, drug development, and challenges for connected health entrepreneurs.
Vin Singh, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Bullfrog AI, is applying proprietary AI technology to drug development, with a focus on drug target discovery and phase three clinical trials. The company's platform is derived from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and is designed to pinpoint drug targets, identify the root causes of disease, and match patients to appropriate treatments based on genetic profiles. Bullfrog AI aims to reduce clinical trial timelines, improve success rates, identify more accurate biomarkers, and improve patient outcomes.
Vin explains, "We are in the AI innovator category, and we're applying our proprietary platform to the challenges that exist in the world of drug development for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Primarily our focus is on the first and the last stage of that process. So the first stage is what you call drug target discovery. So when you take a medication, it targets something in your body. So we're trying to identify novel targets that we believe are the root cause of certain diseases. And then we are also focused on the final stage, which is phase three clinical trials. That's where we have our experience. And that's obviously a very critical and pivotal point in the process and the final stage of a long 10- to 15-year, one- to two-billion-dollar drug development process."
"You need to have the right tool for a certain problem and then data, and they go together. I think on the data side, getting access to rich, deep data sets is critical. And fortunately, the cost to generate that type of data has come down pretty significantly over the past, say, 10 years. So now, for example, we have a project where we have brain data, and it's the type of data where you can really make discoveries and insights and so forth. And so that's a really critical part of this process. The other part is: what tool do you have, and what problem are you trying to solve? Our technology is unique. I'd say most companies use technology that comes from NVIDIA and AWS. So they're all kind of using the same tools from the same toolbox."
"Our technology comes from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, which is a world-renowned institution. We have IP around our platform, and we've continued to innovate over the years. It definitely has unique capabilities, and it is specifically designed for the types of problems that exist in drug development."
#BullFrogAI $BFRG, #AI, #AIinBiotech, #MachineLearning, #DrugDevelopment #AIinHealthcare #PrecisionMedicine #Neuropsychiatry #Oncology #DigitalHealth #ClinicalTrials #Biomarkers #bfLEAP
bullfrogai.com
Listen to the podcast here
Vin Singh, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Bullfrog AI, is applying proprietary AI technology to drug development, with a focus on drug target discovery and phase three clinical trials. The company's platform is derived from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and is designed to pinpoint drug targets, identify the root causes of disease, and match patients to appropriate treatments based on genetic profiles. Bullfrog AI aims to reduce clinical trial timelines, improve success rates, identify more accurate biomarkers, and improve patient outcomes.
Vin explains, "We are in the AI innovator category, and we're applying our proprietary platform to the challenges that exist in the world of drug development for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Primarily our focus is on the first and the last stage of that process. So the first stage is what you call drug target discovery. So when you take a medication, it targets something in your body. So we're trying to identify novel targets that we believe are the root cause of certain diseases. And then we are also focused on the final stage, which is phase three clinical trials. That's where we have our experience. And that's obviously a very critical and pivotal point in the process and the final stage of a long 10- to 15-year, one- to two-billion-dollar drug development process."
"You need to have the right tool for a certain problem and then data, and they go together. I think on the data side, getting access to rich, deep data sets is critical. And fortunately, the cost to generate that type of data has come down pretty significantly over the past, say, 10 years. So now, for example, we have a project where we have brain data, and it's the type of data where you can really make discoveries and insights and so forth. And so that's a really critical part of this process. The other part is: what tool do you have, and what problem are you trying to solve? Our technology is unique. I'd say most companies use technology that comes from NVIDIA and AWS. So they're all kind of using the same tools from the same toolbox."
"Our technology comes from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, which is a world-renowned institution. We have IP around our platform, and we've continued to innovate over the years. It definitely has unique capabilities, and it is specifically designed for the types of problems that exist in drug development."
#BullFrogAI $BFRG, #AI, #AIinBiotech, #MachineLearning, #DrugDevelopment #AIinHealthcare #PrecisionMedicine #Neuropsychiatry #Oncology #DigitalHealth #ClinicalTrials #Biomarkers #bfLEAP
bullfrogai.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Greg Carroll, emergency physician and Co-Founder and CEO of ClinNEXUS, a data-first healthcare company addressing social drivers of health in underserved communities by breaking down data silos. Integrating clinical information with social, behavioral, and environmental factors and using AI to augment human care coordinators enables them to identify patient needs proactively and provide personalized support. The model emphasizes building trust through in-person engagement while leveraging digital tools to enhance the care manager's ability to process complex data and deliver real-time insights.
Greg explains, "We're a data-first company that is focused on improving healthcare outcomes for underserved communities. That's pretty broad. But if you think about traditional healthcare, especially in the United States, if you look at 20% of patients or individuals driving about 80% of costs in healthcare. And traditional healthcare has not been able to really put a dent in this over time. And really the reason is that traditional healthcare has not addressed the true drivers of people's health, especially in underserved communities."
"Traditional healthcare has not done a good job of addressing those non-clinical issues, and it's done an even worse job of orchestrating and ensuring that across all those dimensions, we're addressing people's health. And so, in terms of the mission, it's about breaking down the silos in people's care and in the data available to those who support them. Making sure we're looking at all dimensions of people's health and helping them navigate to live happier, healthier lives, especially for communities facing many of the challenges I've mentioned."
#ClinNEXUS #HealthcareInnovation #PopulationHealth #SocialDriversOfHealth #CareCoordination #AIinHealthcare #Medicaid #ValueBasedCare
clinexus.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Greg Carroll, emergency physician and Co-Founder and CEO of ClinNEXUS, a data-first healthcare company addressing social drivers of health in underserved communities by breaking down data silos. Integrating clinical information with social, behavioral, and environmental factors and using AI to augment human care coordinators enables them to identify patient needs proactively and provide personalized support. The model emphasizes building trust through in-person engagement while leveraging digital tools to enhance the care manager's ability to process complex data and deliver real-time insights.
Greg explains, "We're a data-first company that is focused on improving healthcare outcomes for underserved communities. That's pretty broad. But if you think about traditional healthcare, especially in the United States, if you look at 20% of patients or individuals driving about 80% of costs in healthcare. And traditional healthcare has not been able to really put a dent in this over time. And really the reason is that traditional healthcare has not addressed the true drivers of people's health, especially in underserved communities."
"Traditional healthcare has not done a good job of addressing those non-clinical issues, and it's done an even worse job of orchestrating and ensuring that across all those dimensions, we're addressing people's health. And so, in terms of the mission, it's about breaking down the silos in people's care and in the data available to those who support them. Making sure we're looking at all dimensions of people's health and helping them navigate to live happier, healthier lives, especially for communities facing many of the challenges I've mentioned."
#ClinNEXUS #HealthcareInnovation #PopulationHealth #SocialDriversOfHealth #CareCoordination #AIinHealthcare #Medicaid #ValueBasedCare
clinexus.com
Download the transcript here
Susan Wood, CEO of VIDA, develops AI-driven imaging-based biomarkers that quantitatively measure biological processes and disease states using imaging modalities such as CT, MRI, PET, and ultrasound. Unlike traditional visual image analysis, VIDA's technology extracts approximately 25,000 measurements per imaging timepoint, enabling detection of therapeutic responses at the sub-millimeter level. This convergence of advanced scanner technology, high-quality imaging data, and AI-powered analysis represents a significant new frontier in precision medicine and drug development.
Susan explains, "I'll start with what VIDA brings in. Our background has been the development and validation of AI-driven imaging-based biomarkers. I'll start by defining a biomarker, specifically an imaging-based biomarker. It's a quantitative measurement derived from an imaging modality. An imaging modality can be a CT scan, an MRI, a PET scan, or an ultrasound, and the measurement reflects a biological process, a disease state, or a response to therapy. VIDA's formation was focused on the production and validation of those imaging-based biomarkers and on incorporating them into provider-based clinical workflows as well as clinical trial or drug development workflows."
"I would say that in general, traditionally radiology has relied on radiologic images, those imaging modalities have been read visually. And if you read an image visually, there's just a fraction of information that you can get from those images versus reading them with these AI-generated processes. So there's less than 1% of that image you'll be able to understand the extent and the complexity of the measurements that image can offer. We read, or we combine that visual reading with a highly quantitative process. So for each imaging time point, we'll measure 25,000 measurements per imaging time point. Obviously that's well beyond what a human eye could do just from an efficiency standpoint, but certainly from a precision standpoint, they wouldn't be able to measure that level of precision in the imaging by an eyeball alone."
#VIDA #AI #DigitalBiomarkers #MedicalImaging #Radiology #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #RespiratoryCare
vidalung.ai
Listen to the podcast here
Susan Wood, CEO of VIDA, develops AI-driven imaging-based biomarkers that quantitatively measure biological processes and disease states using imaging modalities such as CT, MRI, PET, and ultrasound. Unlike traditional visual image analysis, VIDA's technology extracts approximately 25,000 measurements per imaging timepoint, enabling detection of therapeutic responses at the sub-millimeter level. This convergence of advanced scanner technology, high-quality imaging data, and AI-powered analysis represents a significant new frontier in precision medicine and drug development.
Susan explains, "I'll start with what VIDA brings in. Our background has been the development and validation of AI-driven imaging-based biomarkers. I'll start by defining a biomarker, specifically an imaging-based biomarker. It's a quantitative measurement derived from an imaging modality. An imaging modality can be a CT scan, an MRI, a PET scan, or an ultrasound, and the measurement reflects a biological process, a disease state, or a response to therapy. VIDA's formation was focused on the production and validation of those imaging-based biomarkers and on incorporating them into provider-based clinical workflows as well as clinical trial or drug development workflows."
"I would say that in general, traditionally radiology has relied on radiologic images, those imaging modalities have been read visually. And if you read an image visually, there's just a fraction of information that you can get from those images versus reading them with these AI-generated processes. So there's less than 1% of that image you'll be able to understand the extent and the complexity of the measurements that image can offer. We read, or we combine that visual reading with a highly quantitative process. So for each imaging time point, we'll measure 25,000 measurements per imaging time point. Obviously that's well beyond what a human eye could do just from an efficiency standpoint, but certainly from a precision standpoint, they wouldn't be able to measure that level of precision in the imaging by an eyeball alone."
#VIDA #AI #DigitalBiomarkers #MedicalImaging #Radiology #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #RespiratoryCare
vidalung.ai
Download the transcript here
Luis Voloch, Co-Founder and CEO of Jimini Health, focuses on mental health through the Sage platform, which provides continuous AI support for patients while keeping clinicians informed and in control. The approach addresses the problem of patients turning to general-purpose AI for behavioral health support by offering a HIPAA-compliant, purpose-built alternative with proper safeguards and clinician supervision. The platform improves patient adherence to therapy and provides valuable information about progress between appointments, which is particularly important in mental health care where outcomes are non-linear and diagnostic precision is limited.
Luis explains, "Right now, the AI healthcare environment is, I'd say, largely split when it comes to clinical AI between largely clinician-facing and back-office capabilities. So things like AI scribes and RCM tools and clinician coaching tools and products like that on one hand, with on the other hand, things that are primarily for patients. You may see things on the app store that are like AI therapists or products that are standalone for patients. And where Jimini stands is really as unifying both of these, where the core thesis for the company is that the right way to help patients and to build helpful clinical AI products is by integrating with the clinician as well, where the clinician has the ability to oversee what the AI is doing and to guide what the AI is doing."
"The company's belief is that we need to build purpose-built AIs for mental health that are HIPAA-compliant and safe, with all the right guardrails. And most importantly, where clinicians are in the loop and where the clinicians can oversee and guide what the AI is doing."
"We primarily work with large behavioral health provider organizations interested in improving the quality of care they deliver. One specific big opportunity we bring is bridging the time between sessions so that patients have additional support. The core of the product is what we call Sage. Sage is an app that engages with patients in various ways, with the guidance of the clinician, so that Sage knows what is happening in the therapy sessions or whatever other appointments the patient is having. It is then able to follow the clinical priorities of the clinician when the clinician is not there, and Sage supports these patients on a daily basis."
#JiminiHealth #MentalHealth #DigitalHealth #BehavioralHealth #AIinHealthcare #PatientEngagement #CareAdherence #Telehealth #HealthTech #AI #MentalHealth #PatientSafety
jiminihealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Luis Voloch, Co-Founder and CEO of Jimini Health, focuses on mental health through the Sage platform, which provides continuous AI support for patients while keeping clinicians informed and in control. The approach addresses the problem of patients turning to general-purpose AI for behavioral health support by offering a HIPAA-compliant, purpose-built alternative with proper safeguards and clinician supervision. The platform improves patient adherence to therapy and provides valuable information about progress between appointments, which is particularly important in mental health care where outcomes are non-linear and diagnostic precision is limited.
Luis explains, "Right now, the AI healthcare environment is, I'd say, largely split when it comes to clinical AI between largely clinician-facing and back-office capabilities. So things like AI scribes and RCM tools and clinician coaching tools and products like that on one hand, with on the other hand, things that are primarily for patients. You may see things on the app store that are like AI therapists or products that are standalone for patients. And where Jimini stands is really as unifying both of these, where the core thesis for the company is that the right way to help patients and to build helpful clinical AI products is by integrating with the clinician as well, where the clinician has the ability to oversee what the AI is doing and to guide what the AI is doing."
"The company's belief is that we need to build purpose-built AIs for mental health that are HIPAA-compliant and safe, with all the right guardrails. And most importantly, where clinicians are in the loop and where the clinicians can oversee and guide what the AI is doing."
"We primarily work with large behavioral health provider organizations interested in improving the quality of care they deliver. One specific big opportunity we bring is bridging the time between sessions so that patients have additional support. The core of the product is what we call Sage. Sage is an app that engages with patients in various ways, with the guidance of the clinician, so that Sage knows what is happening in the therapy sessions or whatever other appointments the patient is having. It is then able to follow the clinical priorities of the clinician when the clinician is not there, and Sage supports these patients on a daily basis."
#JiminiHealth #MentalHealth #DigitalHealth #BehavioralHealth #AIinHealthcare #PatientEngagement #CareAdherence #Telehealth #HealthTech #AI #MentalHealth #PatientSafety
jiminihealth.com
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Lew Bender, Founder and CEO of Intensity Therapeutics, has developed a novel approach to treating solid tumors through direct intratumoral injection of existing chemotherapy drugs. The company uses a proprietary formulation containing a special molecule that makes water-based drugs soluble in fatty tissue, allowing cisplatin and vinblastine to penetrate tumor cells effectively. Beyond direct killing of cancer cells, the approach triggers an immunological response that trains the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells throughout the body, including metastatic tumors that were not directly injected.
Lew explains, "We're injecting directly into the tumors, and we have identified a formulation that allows for water-based drugs to become soluble in fat and water. Effectively, a tumor is fat and water. And while it has been tried before to inject water into fat, I helped to develop a chemistry that allows for water-based products to be absorbed by fatty tissue like tumors."
"We are injecting our formulation, which is a special molecule called SHAO, that makes things soluble in fat and water, and two very well-known potent anti-cancer agents, cisplatin and vinblastine, that are able to kill cancers when they get into the cancer cells. So we dose based on the size of the tumor, check into the tumors, and the tumors in an immunological way. So what does that mean? It means that as the tumor cells die, they create chemicals that allow for the influx and recognition of the immune cells that this is not a good entity to be in the body."
"We are killing the cancer with the drug, but at the same time training the immune system on the tumors so that the immune system can recognize the cancer as not self and attack the cancer in a more precise way."
#IntensityTherapeutics $INTS #CancerResearch #Oncology #Biotech #CancerCare #ClinicalTrials #BreastCancer #TargetedOncology #IntratumoralInjection #OncologyInnovation #ImmunoOncology #IntratumoralTherapy #SolidTumors #TNBC #Sarcoma #HealthcareProfessionals
intensitytherapeutics.com
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Lew Bender, Founder and CEO of Intensity Therapeutics, has developed a novel approach to treating solid tumors through direct intratumoral injection of existing chemotherapy drugs. The company uses a proprietary formulation containing a special molecule that makes water-based drugs soluble in fatty tissue, allowing cisplatin and vinblastine to penetrate tumor cells effectively. Beyond direct killing of cancer cells, the approach triggers an immunological response that trains the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells throughout the body, including metastatic tumors that were not directly injected.
Lew explains, "We're injecting directly into the tumors, and we have identified a formulation that allows for water-based drugs to become soluble in fat and water. Effectively, a tumor is fat and water. And while it has been tried before to inject water into fat, I helped to develop a chemistry that allows for water-based products to be absorbed by fatty tissue like tumors."
"We are injecting our formulation, which is a special molecule called SHAO, that makes things soluble in fat and water, and two very well-known potent anti-cancer agents, cisplatin and vinblastine, that are able to kill cancers when they get into the cancer cells. So we dose based on the size of the tumor, check into the tumors, and the tumors in an immunological way. So what does that mean? It means that as the tumor cells die, they create chemicals that allow for the influx and recognition of the immune cells that this is not a good entity to be in the body."
"We are killing the cancer with the drug, but at the same time training the immune system on the tumors so that the immune system can recognize the cancer as not self and attack the cancer in a more precise way."
#IntensityTherapeutics $INTS #CancerResearch #Oncology #Biotech #CancerCare #ClinicalTrials #BreastCancer #TargetedOncology #IntratumoralInjection #OncologyInnovation #ImmunoOncology #IntratumoralTherapy #SolidTumors #TNBC #Sarcoma #HealthcareProfessionals
intensitytherapeutics.com
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Dr. Erin Palm, medical lead at Infinitus, specializes in agentic AI for healthcare, leveraging voice technology to facilitate actions and execute tasks on behalf of providers, payers, and patients to coordinate administrative functions and patient-facing applications. These agents can handle appointment booking, medication inquiries, and emergency triage within an environment with rigorous quality controls and guardrails to mitigate AI errors. The platform supports seven languages, adapts communication to technical levels, and integrates with patient systems to maintain clinical consistency and regulatory compliance.
Erin explains, "We focus on agentic communications for healthcare, which means building AI agents that can have conversations and execute on tasks on behalf of patients, pharmaceutical manufacturers, providers, and health plans. And our thesis in all this is that the care exists. It's the coordination layer that sometimes falls short and fails patients, and Infinitus makes sure that that care arrives."
"It's a reality that we're holding AI to a different standard than we hold humans performing the same tasks. That said, I actually see it as an opportunity to improve quality across the board. And I think it's reasonable to hold AI to a higher standard. And we measure those things closely using continuous evaluations of agent performance even before we put them into production. And then once they're live with patients, we continue to closely monitor their performance."
"We have benchmarks that show improved performance on tasks versus human agents doing some of those same tasks, such as appointment booking. That said, we know that generative AI DRs make mistakes and it predicts things that don't end up being true. And we call those hallucinations. In the clinical world, we like to call them confabulations. It tends to be more clinically correct."
#Infinitus #AIinHealthcare #VoiceAI #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #PriorAuth #PatientAccess #HealthcareInnovation #AgenticAI #PatientSafety #HealthcareAutomation
infinitus.ai
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Dr. Erin Palm, medical lead at Infinitus, specializes in agentic AI for healthcare, leveraging voice technology to facilitate actions and execute tasks on behalf of providers, payers, and patients to coordinate administrative functions and patient-facing applications. These agents can handle appointment booking, medication inquiries, and emergency triage within an environment with rigorous quality controls and guardrails to mitigate AI errors. The platform supports seven languages, adapts communication to technical levels, and integrates with patient systems to maintain clinical consistency and regulatory compliance.
Erin explains, "We focus on agentic communications for healthcare, which means building AI agents that can have conversations and execute on tasks on behalf of patients, pharmaceutical manufacturers, providers, and health plans. And our thesis in all this is that the care exists. It's the coordination layer that sometimes falls short and fails patients, and Infinitus makes sure that that care arrives."
"It's a reality that we're holding AI to a different standard than we hold humans performing the same tasks. That said, I actually see it as an opportunity to improve quality across the board. And I think it's reasonable to hold AI to a higher standard. And we measure those things closely using continuous evaluations of agent performance even before we put them into production. And then once they're live with patients, we continue to closely monitor their performance."
"We have benchmarks that show improved performance on tasks versus human agents doing some of those same tasks, such as appointment booking. That said, we know that generative AI DRs make mistakes and it predicts things that don't end up being true. And we call those hallucinations. In the clinical world, we like to call them confabulations. It tends to be more clinically correct."
#Infinitus #AIinHealthcare #VoiceAI #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #PriorAuth #PatientAccess #HealthcareInnovation #AgenticAI #PatientSafety #HealthcareAutomation
infinitus.ai
Download the transcript here
Jimmy Chang, Chairman and CEO of TaiMed Biologics, is approaching critical unmet needs in HIV care, particularly for aging patients with comorbidities who face risks from drug-drug interactions with multiple medications. The company is advancing the next-generation antibodies designed for bimonthly injections and an alternative to daily oral medications, while minimizing enzymatic metabolism and associated drug interactions. While successful treatments for HIV have shifted the focus from survival to quality of life and managing a chronic condition, new challenges have emerged to ensure patient convenience and adherence.
Jimmy explains, "TaiMed is a biotech company based in Taiwan. Our focus is to develop innovative product for the HIV. And actually, over the years we have developed the first CD4-directed antibody for HIV treatment, and the product was approved in the US. And today we are currently focusing on developing the CD4-targeting antibody in a combination for long-acting HIV treatment."
"So in today's world, HIV therapies, HIV patients, or the people living with HIV, the field is HIV as a chronic disease. The patient can live longer and healthier just like everybody else. However, it requires dedication and commitment to medication because there's no cure today. HIV, the virus keeps mutating. So if the disease is not under control, this could be problematic, and basically one day the patient may run into a situation where most of the drugs do not work for the patient."
"So in the earlier days, the innovations or the medications were mainly trying to have the virus under control, with the focus of the medications. And so nowadays, because people living with HIV actually have a very good health condition, just like typical individuals live longer and healthier. So this comorbidity, or we call it the polypharmacy drug-drug interaction, is really the challenge that the physicians or patients have to face every day. And with our innovations, we believe we have the opportunity to offer another innovative medication to specifically address those challenges."
#TaiMed #HIVCare #LongActingTherapies #AntibodyTherapeutics #CD4 #Polypharmacy #InfectiousDiseases #TaiMedBiologics #EmpoweredPatient #HealthcareInnovation
taimedbiologics.com
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Jimmy Chang, Chairman and CEO of TaiMed Biologics, is approaching critical unmet needs in HIV care, particularly for aging patients with comorbidities who face risks from drug-drug interactions with multiple medications. The company is advancing the next-generation antibodies designed for bimonthly injections and an alternative to daily oral medications, while minimizing enzymatic metabolism and associated drug interactions. While successful treatments for HIV have shifted the focus from survival to quality of life and managing a chronic condition, new challenges have emerged to ensure patient convenience and adherence.
Jimmy explains, "TaiMed is a biotech company based in Taiwan. Our focus is to develop innovative product for the HIV. And actually, over the years we have developed the first CD4-directed antibody for HIV treatment, and the product was approved in the US. And today we are currently focusing on developing the CD4-targeting antibody in a combination for long-acting HIV treatment."
"So in today's world, HIV therapies, HIV patients, or the people living with HIV, the field is HIV as a chronic disease. The patient can live longer and healthier just like everybody else. However, it requires dedication and commitment to medication because there's no cure today. HIV, the virus keeps mutating. So if the disease is not under control, this could be problematic, and basically one day the patient may run into a situation where most of the drugs do not work for the patient."
"So in the earlier days, the innovations or the medications were mainly trying to have the virus under control, with the focus of the medications. And so nowadays, because people living with HIV actually have a very good health condition, just like typical individuals live longer and healthier. So this comorbidity, or we call it the polypharmacy drug-drug interaction, is really the challenge that the physicians or patients have to face every day. And with our innovations, we believe we have the opportunity to offer another innovative medication to specifically address those challenges."
#TaiMed #HIVCare #LongActingTherapies #AntibodyTherapeutics #CD4 #Polypharmacy #InfectiousDiseases #TaiMedBiologics #EmpoweredPatient #HealthcareInnovation
taimedbiologics.com
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Dr. Katherine Hockman, Director of the Division of Hospital Medicine at NYU Langone Health, and Dilshad Marolia, System Director of Hospitals and Regulatory and Policy Management at NYU Langone Health, are co-leaders of the Patient Experience Book Club for the hospital employees. Operating since 2012, the program has grown from six books to 12 books per year, with sessions offered in-person and virtually to reach across the entire health system and, in addition, hosts pop-up sessions with visiting authors. The club helps break down departmental silos within the hospital, fostering connections among employees by creating a safe space for intellectual and emotional engagement while helping to combat workplace burnout.
Katherine explains, "So my feeling is the Patient Experience Book Club is so much more than just a club where we read books and talk about them. It's really become a community of individuals who get together and share their experience in caring for some of our sickest patients. And it's also become a great venue for the faculty and staff to get to know each other a lot better and to share some of their vulnerabilities. And Dilshad and I, we've really taken it in many, many different directions. So we started off just reading six books a year, and now we're doing 12 books a year and two sessions a month, one in person and one on video for people who are in all parts of our system who can't make it in person."
Dilshad elaborates, "But now also as a community of 53,000 people in our own health system and part of the wider community of New York City and New York State even, how do we view our communities and ourselves, and what books are transforming us, and what are we taking away from each experience? And the level of intellectual engagement is one thing, but there's a high, high level of emotional engagement that I think is rare to find in the workplace to create these safe spaces where you have a vehicle, and I'll use that word, through which you can have a discussion about a very pointed topic beyond, say, an academic journal."
#NYULangone #Bookclub #PatientExperience #HumanityinHealthcare #HealthcareLeadership #EmpathyInHealthcare #BurnoutPrevention #HospitalCulture #MedicalHumanities
nyulangonehealth.org
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Dr. Katherine Hockman, Director of the Division of Hospital Medicine at NYU Langone Health, and Dilshad Marolia, System Director of Hospitals and Regulatory and Policy Management at NYU Langone Health, are co-leaders of the Patient Experience Book Club for the hospital employees. Operating since 2012, the program has grown from six books to 12 books per year, with sessions offered in-person and virtually to reach across the entire health system and, in addition, hosts pop-up sessions with visiting authors. The club helps break down departmental silos within the hospital, fostering connections among employees by creating a safe space for intellectual and emotional engagement while helping to combat workplace burnout.
Katherine explains, "So my feeling is the Patient Experience Book Club is so much more than just a club where we read books and talk about them. It's really become a community of individuals who get together and share their experience in caring for some of our sickest patients. And it's also become a great venue for the faculty and staff to get to know each other a lot better and to share some of their vulnerabilities. And Dilshad and I, we've really taken it in many, many different directions. So we started off just reading six books a year, and now we're doing 12 books a year and two sessions a month, one in person and one on video for people who are in all parts of our system who can't make it in person."
Dilshad elaborates, "But now also as a community of 53,000 people in our own health system and part of the wider community of New York City and New York State even, how do we view our communities and ourselves, and what books are transforming us, and what are we taking away from each experience? And the level of intellectual engagement is one thing, but there's a high, high level of emotional engagement that I think is rare to find in the workplace to create these safe spaces where you have a vehicle, and I'll use that word, through which you can have a discussion about a very pointed topic beyond, say, an academic journal."
#NYULangone #Bookclub #PatientExperience #HumanityinHealthcare #HealthcareLeadership #EmpathyInHealthcare #BurnoutPrevention #HospitalCulture #MedicalHumanities
nyulangonehealth.org
Download the transcript here
David Schummers, CEO of Apella, uses ambient AI technology, primarily audio- and video-based computer vision, to collect accurate operational data in real time to improve hospital management. With a key emphasis on operating room scheduling and resource management, this solution replaces manually entered data, which is often inaccurate and entered into the system late. The Apella platform helps hospitals optimize existing OR capacity and efficiency, reduces errors and documentation burden on nurses, provides accurate live operational information, and delivers economic benefits.
David explains, "Apella is focused on using modern technologies to improve the operations of the hospital. If you consider the contribution of hospital operations to our overall healthcare spending, it's about a third of every dollar spent in healthcare is spent on running hospitals, which is a pretty significant contribution. And depending where you were, unfortunately, a lot of that expense is wasted."
"So Apella has built a system for ambient detection that is able to improve the throughput of hospitals and improve the efficiency of hospitals. So that's what we're focused on. The product that we're working on right now is focused on the operating room, which is the largest revenue and expense driver of those health systems that we just talked about."
"So operating rooms are scheduled and managed using data that is entered into the electronic health record. And so the electronic health record was designed to capture all of the patient records and make them available and interoperable. It really wasn't designed as an operational system. As a result, the captured data is limited in several ways. The first way is that it is not always accurate because it's manually entered. What we've found is that about 5% of manually entered data points relate to the scheduling of surgeries and other procedures."
#Apella #HealthcareInnovation #OperatingRoom #AmbientAI #Perioperative #HospitalOperations #Nursing #DigitalHealth #EmpoweredPatient #AmbientAI #ORManagement #OREfficiency #PatientAccess #NursingStaffingCrisis #HealthcareAI #PerioperativeCare #SurgicalInnovation #OROptimization #PatientOutcomes #EmpoweredPatient #NursingStaffingCrisis #HealthcareAI
Apella.io
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Nate Stasko, CEO of Vast Therapeutics, is developing a novel nitric oxide-releasing therapy to treat chronic respiratory diseases, particularly fibrosis bronchiectasis, which is frequently misdiagnosed as asthma or COPD. Their lead drug candidate is a dual-mechanism therapy that is delivered to the lungs via a nebulizer to target both infection and inflammation with the potential to eradicate pathogens rather than just suppressing them. This approach, in early trials, is showing excellent tolerability and eliminates the need for chronic antibiotic use, which carries the risks of toxicity and contributes to antibiotic resistance.
Nate explains, "At Vast Therapeutics, our main idea and goal as a company is to come up with better solutions for the 500 million people worldwide who suffer from chronic respiratory disease. And there is a new disease getting a lot of attention that we're targeting with our lead program called bronchiectasis, and it's often been misdiagnosed as asthma or COPD. And now over a million patients in the US are being diagnosed with bronchiectasis. And the whole campaign is to teach physicians and the whole medical community to suspect this disease over some of these other misdiagnosed diseases."
"Traditionally, patients have been managed with either antibiotics to calm down the infection, but you know the problems of chronic antibiotic use- the liver toxicity, kidney toxicity, and hearing loss associated with long-term antibiotic use are just bad for these patients. Not to mention we have the global problem of antibiotic resistance. And so giving a 52-week course of therapy of antibiotics is less than ideal. And then recently, just last year, there's some hope for these patients where there was a new drug approved called brensocatib, which was the first drug ever approved for bronchiectasis by the FDA. And so now it targets the inflammation."
"Having the ability to target two mechanisms of action would be the best therapy. And that's actually what Vast is developing. We're using the body's own ability to make and produce nitric oxide, which is a miracle molecule. And we're delivering nitric oxide back to these patients to target both the infection and inflammation at the same time and improve the overall standard of care for these patients."
#VastTherapeutics #Bronchiectasis #Pulmonology #NitricOxide #RespiratoryMedicine #AntimicrobialResistance #ALX1#ChronicLungDisease #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalTrials
vasttherapeutics.com
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Nate Stasko, CEO of Vast Therapeutics, is developing a novel nitric oxide-releasing therapy to treat chronic respiratory diseases, particularly fibrosis bronchiectasis, which is frequently misdiagnosed as asthma or COPD. Their lead drug candidate is a dual-mechanism therapy that is delivered to the lungs via a nebulizer to target both infection and inflammation with the potential to eradicate pathogens rather than just suppressing them. This approach, in early trials, is showing excellent tolerability and eliminates the need for chronic antibiotic use, which carries the risks of toxicity and contributes to antibiotic resistance.
Nate explains, "At Vast Therapeutics, our main idea and goal as a company is to come up with better solutions for the 500 million people worldwide who suffer from chronic respiratory disease. And there is a new disease getting a lot of attention that we're targeting with our lead program called bronchiectasis, and it's often been misdiagnosed as asthma or COPD. And now over a million patients in the US are being diagnosed with bronchiectasis. And the whole campaign is to teach physicians and the whole medical community to suspect this disease over some of these other misdiagnosed diseases."
"Traditionally, patients have been managed with either antibiotics to calm down the infection, but you know the problems of chronic antibiotic use- the liver toxicity, kidney toxicity, and hearing loss associated with long-term antibiotic use are just bad for these patients. Not to mention we have the global problem of antibiotic resistance. And so giving a 52-week course of therapy of antibiotics is less than ideal. And then recently, just last year, there's some hope for these patients where there was a new drug approved called brensocatib, which was the first drug ever approved for bronchiectasis by the FDA. And so now it targets the inflammation."
"Having the ability to target two mechanisms of action would be the best therapy. And that's actually what Vast is developing. We're using the body's own ability to make and produce nitric oxide, which is a miracle molecule. And we're delivering nitric oxide back to these patients to target both the infection and inflammation at the same time and improve the overall standard of care for these patients."
#VastTherapeutics #Bronchiectasis #Pulmonology #NitricOxide #RespiratoryMedicine #AntimicrobialResistance #ALX1#ChronicLungDisease #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalTrials
vasttherapeutics.com
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Dr. Scott Walter is Director of Technology Transfer and Transition for the 59th Medical Wing of the Defense Health Agency located in San Antonio, Texas. The development of freeze-dried blood is a ground-breaking technology aimed at enabling medics to administer lifesaving blood transfusions at the point of injury. Scott highlights the logistical challenges of current blood products such as short shelf life, blood matching, and the need for cold storage, which this new technology would overcome. One of his current missions is to launch a prize competition to accelerate research, development, and commercialization of this technology, shifting the financial risk from the government to industry and expanding the uses of this product to dramatically improve survival rates and reduce long-term complications.
Scott explains, "Donated blood is very perishable lasting only about six weeks from the date of collection, and it must be maintained just above freezing until it's needed. And then it has to be warmed to body temperature before it can be infused. That makes it really difficult to impossible for medics to carry blood products with them when they're treating patients in remote austere locations like battlefields, for example."
"Well, the key is that freeze-drying enables the donated blood components to be collected, stored, and stockpiled for years after collection. The freeze-dried blood products can be carried by EMS units and medics. Then, once reconstituted, it can be given anywhere without the need for refrigeration."
#TraumaCare #EmergencyMedicine #PrehospitalCare #CriticalCare #TransfusionMedicine #MilitaryMedicine #Innovation #FreezeDriedBlood #PatientOutcomes #GlobalHealth
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this podcast transcript are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Defense Health Agency, Department of War, nor the U.S. Government.
Find out more about the prize competition
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Dr. Scott Walter is Director of Technology Transfer and Transition for the 59th Medical Wing of the Defense Health Agency located in San Antonio, Texas. The development of freeze-dried blood is a ground-breaking technology aimed at enabling medics to administer lifesaving blood transfusions at the point of injury. Scott highlights the logistical challenges of current blood products such as short shelf life, blood matching, and the need for cold storage, which this new technology would overcome. One of his current missions is to launch a prize competition to accelerate research, development, and commercialization of this technology, shifting the financial risk from the government to industry and expanding the uses of this product to dramatically improve survival rates and reduce long-term complications.
Scott explains, "Donated blood is very perishable lasting only about six weeks from the date of collection, and it must be maintained just above freezing until it's needed. And then it has to be warmed to body temperature before it can be infused. That makes it really difficult to impossible for medics to carry blood products with them when they're treating patients in remote austere locations like battlefields, for example."
"Well, the key is that freeze-drying enables the donated blood components to be collected, stored, and stockpiled for years after collection. The freeze-dried blood products can be carried by EMS units and medics. Then, once reconstituted, it can be given anywhere without the need for refrigeration."
#TraumaCare #EmergencyMedicine #PrehospitalCare #CriticalCare #TransfusionMedicine #MilitaryMedicine #Innovation #FreezeDriedBlood #PatientOutcomes #GlobalHealth
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this podcast transcript are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Defense Health Agency, Department of War, nor the U.S. Government.
Find out more about the competition
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Dr. Panicos Shangaris is from King's College London, where he is a senior clinical lecturer and consultant in maternal and fetal medicine. He discusses the treatment options for sickle cell disease, an inherited blood condition, and his work on the Pericles project, which aims to treat it before birth. In-utero gene therapy offers a third option for parents of an affected fetus alongside postnatal treatment or pregnancy termination. Panicos emphasizes key advantages of fetal therapy within the first 16 weeks of gestation, the need to address ethical concerns, and ensuring the safety of both the mother and fetus during the procedure.
Panicos explains, "So sickle cell disease is an inherited condition that affects the blood and the molecule in the red cell, which is basically the red blood cell that carries oxygen. So what happens is the red cell has a biconcave shape, and for people who have sickle cell disease, that biconcave shape is lost, and the erythrocyte red cells are sickle-shaped. So because of that, the sickle-shaped red cells have difficulty going through small capillaries and small vessels. They can cause strokes, they can cause pain because they block the blood flow to the small capillaries."
"Yes, so the cause is because of an abnormal gene, which basically makes the hemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen around the different organs and around the body, instead of there being a problem in the genetic code, if I can put it like that. And that's why the erythrocyte, the red cells, have an abnormal shape. Very well-known what's causing it: a genetic problem."
"So Pericles stands for prenatal therapy for Sickle Cell Disease. And what we are trying to achieve is to offer a third option to people who might carry a fetus affected by sickle cell disease. At the moment, the two options are stopping the pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, or having an affected fetus and an unaffected baby and sick postnatal care. So our aim is to offer a third option, which is correcting the disease inside the womb so that the parents have a healthy baby. So correct the gene while the baby is inside the womb. And this is the main aim of the project."
#KingsCollegeLondon #KCLResearch #GeneTherapy #PrenatalCare #Hematology #Genomics #EmpoweredPatient #PERICLES #SickleCellDisease #SickleCellAwareness #PreconceptionCare #BeforePregnancy #PregnancyPlanning #CarrierScreening #GeneticCounselling #ReproductiveChoices #PrenatalDiagnosis #PrenatalTherapy #InUteroTherapy #GeneEditing #StemCellTherapy #FetalMedicine #MaternalFetalMedicine #HighRiskPregnancy #IVFJourney #PGTM #PatientVoice #PatientEmpowerment #SharedDecisionMaking #HealthEquity #PrecisionMedicine #PersonalisedMedicine #FutureOfMedicine
kcl.ac.uk
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Dr. Panicos Shangaris is from King's College London, where he is a senior clinical lecturer and consultant in maternal and fetal medicine. He discusses the treatment options for sickle cell disease, an inherited blood condition, and his work on the Pericles project, which aims to treat it before birth. In-utero gene therapy offers a third option for parents of an affected fetus alongside postnatal treatment or pregnancy termination. Panicos emphasizes key advantages of fetal therapy within the first 16 weeks of gestation, the need to address ethical concerns, and ensuring the safety of both the mother and fetus during the procedure.
Panicos explains, "So sickle cell disease is an inherited condition that affects the blood and the molecule in the red cell, which is basically the red blood cell that carries oxygen. So what happens is the red cell has a biconcave shape, and for people who have sickle cell disease, that biconcave shape is lost, and the erythrocyte red cells are sickle-shaped. So because of that, the sickle-shaped red cells have difficulty going through small capillaries and small vessels. They can cause strokes, they can cause pain because they block the blood flow to the small capillaries."
"Yes, so the cause is because of an abnormal gene, which basically makes the hemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen around the different organs and around the body, instead of there being a problem in the genetic code, if I can put it like that. And that's why the erythrocyte, the red cells, have an abnormal shape. Very well-known what's causing it: a genetic problem."
"So Pericles stands for prenatal therapy for Sickle Cell Disease. And what we are trying to achieve is to offer a third option to people who might carry a fetus affected by sickle cell disease. At the moment, the two options are stopping the pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, or having an affected fetus and an unaffected baby and sick postnatal care. So our aim is to offer a third option, which is correcting the disease inside the womb so that the parents have a healthy baby. So correct the gene while the baby is inside the womb. And this is the main aim of the project."
#KingsCollegeLondon #KCLResearch #GeneTherapy #PrenatalCare #Hematology #Genomics #EmpoweredPatient #PERICLES #SickleCellDisease #SickleCellAwareness #PreconceptionCare #BeforePregnancy #PregnancyPlanning #CarrierScreening #GeneticCounselling #ReproductiveChoices #PrenatalDiagnosis #PrenatalTherapy #InUteroTherapy #GeneEditing #StemCellTherapy #FetalMedicine #MaternalFetalMedicine #HighRiskPregnancy #IVFJourney #PGTM #PatientVoice #PatientEmpowerment #SharedDecisionMaking #HealthEquity #PrecisionMedicine #PersonalisedMedicine #FutureOfMedicine
kcl.ac.uk
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Mark Larkin, Founder and CEO of Vitaccess, leverages real-world patient data captured through mobile devices and wearables, combined with EMRs, claims data, and registries, to generate insights beyond the scope of traditional clinical trials. The company maintains proprietary disease registries, notably in myasthenia gravis, enabling researchers to compare treatment efficacy, side effects, and patient adherence to therapies in their daily lives. By linking diverse data sources and identifying comorbidities, the platform informs drug development, regulatory decisions, and the personalization of treatment matching.
Mark explains, "Our mission is about patient-centric, science-driven research. That's how we do real-world research. We think that's a powerful way to combine scientific rigor with putting the patient at the heart of what we do. People are probably familiar with the idea that real-world data and real-world evidence are complementary to clinical trials. They don't have the same levels of scrutiny or the same designs, but nonetheless, if we do it properly, we should make it as rigorous as possible so the data can be used by many different audiences. Putting the patient at the heart of our designs means we can be in the best position to quantify the patient experience. That's really what we do, perhaps in the simplest terms."
"Well, I'd say that real-world data is a very broad church. There's lots of different types of data. Where I think you are referring to is data generated directly from patients, the patient-reported data. And I'll come back to that in a second, but it also includes a wide range of other data types and sources. So it could be electronic medical records. In the United States, very commonly it's claims data. There are registries."
#Vitaccess #RealWorldEvidence #PatientCentricity #ClinicalTrials #DigitalHealth #PatientReportedOutcomes #Wearables #RareDisease #HealthData #PatientInsights #RWE #HEOR #MyastheniaGravis #CIDP
vitaccess.com
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Mark Larkin, Founder and CEO of Vitaccess, leverages real-world patient data captured through mobile devices and wearables, combined with EMRs, claims data, and registries, to generate insights beyond the scope of traditional clinical trials. The company maintains proprietary disease registries, notably in myasthenia gravis, enabling researchers to compare treatment efficacy, side effects, and patient adherence to therapies in their daily lives. By linking diverse data sources and identifying comorbidities, the platform informs drug development, regulatory decisions, and the personalization of treatment matching.
Mark explains, "Our mission is about patient-centric, science-driven research. That's how we do real-world research. We think that's a powerful way to combine scientific rigor with putting the patient at the heart of what we do. People are probably familiar with the idea that real-world data and real-world evidence are complementary to clinical trials. They don't have the same levels of scrutiny or the same designs, but nonetheless, if we do it properly, we should make it as rigorous as possible so the data can be used by many different audiences. Putting the patient at the heart of our designs means we can be in the best position to quantify the patient experience. That's really what we do, perhaps in the simplest terms."
"Well, I'd say that real-world data is a very broad church. There's lots of different types of data. Where I think you are referring to is data generated directly from patients, the patient-reported data. And I'll come back to that in a second, but it also includes a wide range of other data types and sources. So it could be electronic medical records. In the United States, very commonly it's claims data. There are registries."
#Vitaccess #RealWorldEvidence #PatientCentricity #ClinicalTrials #DigitalHealth #PatientReportedOutcomes #Wearables #RareDisease #HealthData #PatientInsights #RWE #HEOR #MyastheniaGravis #CIDP
vitaccess.com
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Nadav Cornberg, CEO of Eve Security, highlights the need for real-time security for agentic AI in healthcare environments to enforce policies and map agentic activities within an organization. There are unique risks posed by AI, such as ambiguity from natural language commands, the potential for unintended or malicious actions, and the amplified impact of a single AI error compared to human error. Nadav points out that many hospitals are likely unaware of the extent to which agentic AI is already active in their systems, and of why conducting risk assessments and policy reviews should be a priority.
Nadav explains, "Eve Security provides two main services. One is our runtime security solution, which allows us to enforce policies when you connect any type of AI agent to a critical data source or system. The other solution that we provide is our AIDR, where we give you a full topology of what agentic activities are running in your organization. We do that by connecting to security systems like an EDR, NextGen Firewall, or your SIM."
"Just like we'll see a manager in the employee environment, in the physical world, that's why we have managers as well to guide employees on the work they want to do. How that works is we sit either on top of existing gateways or proxies, and that's how you will connect those agents to critical systems, or we connect to hooks."
"At the end of the day, the reality of how we're communicating and engaging with agents brings that new necessity. Existing security tools do not deal well with natural language. In addition to not dealing well with natural language, they're not doing well with trying to understand the true intent behind an action, and it's more built on static parameters. And that's the real gap that introducing AI agents into environments has brought. The risks are ambiguity and the unpredictable, non-deterministic behavior."
#EveSecurity #AgenticAISecurity #SecurityatRuntime #AISecurity #HealthcareAI #PatientSafety #HospitalSecurity #AgenticAI #CyberSecurity #HealthIT #DataProtection
Eve.security
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Nadav Cornberg, CEO of Eve Security, highlights the need for real-time security for agentic AI in healthcare environments to enforce policies and map agentic activities within an organization. There are unique risks posed by AI, such as ambiguity from natural language commands, the potential for unintended or malicious actions, and the amplified impact of a single AI error compared to human error. Nadav points out that many hospitals are likely unaware of the extent to which agentic AI is already active in their systems, and of why conducting risk assessments and policy reviews should be a priority.
Nadav explains, "Eve Security provides two main services. One is our runtime security solution, which allows us to enforce policies when you connect any type of AI agent to a critical data source or system. The other solution that we provide is our AIDR, where we give you a full topology of what agentic activities are running in your organization. We do that by connecting to security systems like an EDR, NextGen Firewall, or your SIM."
"Just like we'll see a manager in the employee environment, in the physical world, that's why we have managers as well to guide employees on the work they want to do. How that works is we sit either on top of existing gateways or proxies, and that's how you will connect those agents to critical systems, or we connect to hooks."
"At the end of the day, the reality of how we're communicating and engaging with agents brings that new necessity. Existing security tools do not deal well with natural language. In addition to not dealing well with natural language, they're not doing well with trying to understand the true intent behind an action, and it's more built on static parameters. And that's the real gap that introducing AI agents into environments has brought. The risks are ambiguity and the unpredictable, non-deterministic behavior."
#EveSecurity #AgenticAISecurity #SecurityatRuntime #AISecurity #HealthcareAI #PatientSafety #HospitalSecurity #AgenticAI #CyberSecurity #HealthIT #DataProtection
Eve.security
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Michalis Papadakis, CEO and Co-Founder of Brainomix, is developing AI technology to automate the analysis of brain scans of stroke patients, addressing the critical clinical gap where a majority of patients who should receive treatment are not being identified. The platform identifies stroke location, blocked vessels, and at-risk brain tissue on CT scans, enabling faster diagnosis and treatment decisions by a broader range of front-line clinicians who may lack stroke care expertise. In a large-scale evaluation, Brainomix demonstrated that it can save an hour in reaching treatment decisions and dramatically increase the number of patients who achieve full recovery.
Michalis explains, "Brainomix started quite a few years ago now, and, as you noted, I'm one of the founders. And back then, I was the scientific director of the preclinical stroke lab at the University of Oxford here in the UK, doing research in stroke. And together with the other founders, what made us establish Brainomix and create Brainomix as a spinoff from the university was starting with the clinical unmet need.
"As we were all experts in stroke, we knew that stroke is a devastating disease. It ages the brain by 3.6 years every hour a patient remains untreated. And although we have lifesaving treatments, up to 80% of patients who should be treated are missing out. And when we created Brainomix, we knew that imaging, which means the interpretation of the brain scan of patients who have strokes, is a barrier that is leading directly to this big number of patients missing out on being selected for treatment."
"The idea was that if we used the AI and automated the analysis of the brain scans of those patients, we could help frontline clinicians with diagnosis and treatment decisions. So, since we started, we have been developing a technology that aims to increase the uptake of existing treatments in clinical care, but we are also working with pharma companies and biotech companies that are developing new treatments to increase the success of the trials."
#Brainomix #Brainomix360Stroke #StrokeCare #AcuteStroke #StrokeTreatment #Neurology #MedicalImaging #ImagingAI #AIinHealthcare #DigitialHealth #HealthcareInnovation #Neuroradiology #PatientOutcomes #Thrombectomy #DigitalHealth #ClinicalDecisionSupport
brainomix.com
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Michalis Papadakis, CEO and Co-Founder of Brainomix, is developing AI technology to automate the analysis of brain scans of stroke patients, addressing the critical clinical gap where a majority of patients who should receive treatment are not being identified. The platform identifies stroke location, blocked vessels, and at-risk brain tissue on CT scans, enabling faster diagnosis and treatment decisions by a broader range of front-line clinicians who may lack stroke care expertise. In a large-scale evaluation, Brainomix demonstrated that it can save an hour in reaching treatment decisions and dramatically increase the number of patients who achieve full recovery.
Michalis explains, "Brainomix started quite a few years ago now, and, as you noted, I'm one of the founders. And back then, I was the scientific director of the preclinical stroke lab at the University of Oxford here in the UK, doing research in stroke. And together with the other founders, what made us establish Brainomix and create Brainomix as a spinoff from the university was starting with the clinical unmet need.
"As we were all experts in stroke, we knew that stroke is a devastating disease. It ages the brain by 3.6 years every hour a patient remains untreated. And although we have lifesaving treatments, up to 80% of patients who should be treated are missing out. And when we created Brainomix, we knew that imaging, which means the interpretation of the brain scan of patients who have strokes, is a barrier that is leading directly to this big number of patients missing out on being selected for treatment."
"The idea was that if we used the AI and automated the analysis of the brain scans of those patients, we could help frontline clinicians with diagnosis and treatment decisions. So, since we started, we have been developing a technology that aims to increase the uptake of existing treatments in clinical care, but we are also working with pharma companies and biotech companies that are developing new treatments to increase the success of the trials."
#Brainomix #Brainomix360Stroke #StrokeCare #AcuteStroke #StrokeTreatment #Neurology #MedicalImaging #ImagingAI #AIinHealthcare #DigitialHealth #HealthcareInnovation #Neuroradiology #PatientOutcomes #Thrombectomy #DigitalHealth #ClinicalDecisionSupport
brainomix.com
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Dr. Ryan Beal, Founder and CEO of Dyve Biosciences, has developed a transdermal delivery approach that uses the skin to deliver agents into circulation, where they selectively neutralize the acidic tumor microenvironment. By correcting acidity, the immune system is reactivated to better recognize and attack cancer cells, as acidity serves as a natural immune checkpoint that allows tumors to evade immune surveillance. Unlike previous oral delivery approaches that cause gastrointestinal side effects, this non-invasive lotion-based technology delivers the same pharmaceutical safety and efficacy.
Ryan explains, "What led me there is that tumor acidity has driven cancer biology for decades. The science has settled. What was missing was a way to actually fix it in patients and do it safely, broadly, and at scale. And that's what Dyve built. In 2026, the goal is to bring it into humans with trials at Moffitt Cancer Center."
"The core at Dyve was developing the delivery system. It could bring molecules through the skin. And one of the approaches that we got quite excited about early on was delivering buffering agents through the skin. The natural application was in oncology and going after the acidity of the tumor microenvironment."
"So it's a topical. In many ways it will look and feel like a lotion, and it's applied to the skin but delivered systemically. So we're essentially turning the skin into a delivery portal for these drugs. And that's important, especially important in the case of tumor acidity. Because we and others have shown that while in animals you can deliver these therapies orally, it's a big delivery challenge for humans to take these agents orally. So you needed another way to circumvent those problems, and the skin gave us a really convenient path to do that."
#DyveBiosciences #MoffittCancerCenter #CancerResearch #Oncology #CancerTreatment #Immunotherapy #PrecisionMedicine #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials #TumorMicroenvironment #TransdermalDelivery #Biotechnology #OncologyInnovation #TransdermalTherapy #DrugDelivery #CancerCare #HealthcareInnovation
DyveBio.com
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Dr. Ryan Beal, Founder and CEO of Dyve Biosciences, has developed a transdermal delivery approach that uses the skin to deliver agents into circulation, where they selectively neutralize the acidic tumor microenvironment. By correcting acidity, the immune system is reactivated to better recognize and attack cancer cells, as acidity serves as a natural immune checkpoint that allows tumors to evade immune surveillance. Unlike previous oral delivery approaches that cause gastrointestinal side effects, this non-invasive lotion-based technology delivers the same pharmaceutical safety and efficacy.
Ryan explains, "What led me there is that tumor acidity has driven cancer biology for decades. The science has settled. What was missing was a way to actually fix it in patients and do it safely, broadly, and at scale. And that's what Dyve built. In 2026, the goal is to bring it into humans with trials at Moffitt Cancer Center."
"The core at Dyve was developing the delivery system. It could bring molecules through the skin. And one of the approaches that we got quite excited about early on was delivering buffering agents through the skin. The natural application was in oncology and going after the acidity of the tumor microenvironment."
"So it's a topical. In many ways it will look and feel like a lotion, and it's applied to the skin but delivered systemically. So we're essentially turning the skin into a delivery portal for these drugs. And that's important, especially important in the case of tumor acidity. Because we and others have shown that while in animals you can deliver these therapies orally, it's a big delivery challenge for humans to take these agents orally. So you needed another way to circumvent those problems, and the skin gave us a really convenient path to do that."
#DyveBiosciences #MoffittCancerCenter #CancerResearch #Oncology #CancerTreatment #Immunotherapy #PrecisionMedicine #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials #TumorMicroenvironment #TransdermalDelivery #Biotechnology #OncologyInnovation #TransdermalTherapy #DrugDelivery #CancerCare #HealthcareInnovation
DyveBio.com
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Joe Hickey is the Vice President of Provider Markets at Verato, which is a healthcare-focused identity management company. Identity fragmentation has been treated as a technical afterthought rather than a strategic infrastructure priority, resulting in denied claims, poor patient experience, and unreliable analytics. The Verato master data management approach uses AI to handle name variations, incomplete data, and complex matching to identify errors before they cascade throughout the enterprise. By addressing issues early, healthcare organizations can improve patient satisfaction, strengthen provider directories and referral management, and save money and increase revenue.
Joe explains, "A big part of my role is to help executive teams think about identity not as a technical afterthought, but really more as a strategic infrastructure. When identity works the right way, everything downstream, like clinical care and digital engagement, analytics, and all-important AI, all of that works better. And that's becoming increasingly important as healthcare organizations invest more in digital engagement, analytics, interoperability, etc. And if that identity layer is wrong, everything built on top of it really becomes less reliable."
"So Verato's been around for over a decade. We're purpose-built for healthcare, and at our core, we solve identity. We unify and manage patient, consumer, and provider identities. We do that across multiple systems so that organizations can operate from a single trusted identity layer and foundation."
#Verarto #IdentityIntelligence #PatientIdentity #ProviderIdentity #IdentityInfrastructure #MasterDataManagement #MDM #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #PatientExperience #CustomerExperience #HealthcareInnovation #TrustedIdentity #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #AIinHealthcare #PatientEngagement #DataQuality
Verato.com
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Joe Hickey is the Vice President of Provider Markets at Verato, which is a healthcare-focused identity management company. Identity fragmentation has been treated as a technical afterthought rather than a strategic infrastructure priority, resulting in denied claims, poor patient experience, and unreliable analytics. The Verato master data management approach uses AI to handle name variations, incomplete data, and complex matching to identify errors before they cascade throughout the enterprise. By addressing issues early, healthcare organizations can improve patient satisfaction, strengthen provider directories and referral management, and save money and increase revenue.
Joe explains, "A big part of my role is to help executive teams think about identity not as a technical afterthought, but really more as a strategic infrastructure. When identity works the right way, everything downstream, like clinical care and digital engagement, analytics, and all-important AI, all of that works better. And that's becoming increasingly important as healthcare organizations invest more in digital engagement, analytics, interoperability, etc. And if that identity layer is wrong, everything built on top of it really becomes less reliable."
"So Verato's been around for over a decade. We're purpose-built for healthcare, and at our core, we solve identity. We unify and manage patient, consumer, and provider identities. We do that across multiple systems so that organizations can operate from a single trusted identity layer and foundation."
#Verarto #IdentityIntelligence #PatientIdentity #ProviderIdentity #IdentityInfrastructure #MasterDataManagement #MDM #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #PatientExperience #CustomerExperience #HealthcareInnovation #TrustedIdentity #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #AIinHealthcare #PatientEngagement #DataQuality
Verato.com
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Mark Saxton, CEO of Baird Medical, highlights their microwave ablation technology, which is being used to address a significant treatment gap for benign thyroid nodules. This minimally invasive approach is an alternative to radiofrequency ablation, accommodates patients with pacemakers or other cardiac devices, and provides faster recovery. Unlike surgery, microwave ablation preserves thyroid function, eliminating the need for ongoing hormone replacement therapy
Mark explains, "It's very interesting that we're focused on thyroid tumors because they're an extremely prevalent issue. Most of those tumors are benign, and for many of those patients, active surveillance, or what we call watchful waiting, is appropriate. But a portion of those may need more than that. Their nodules are growing, they're becoming symptomatic either cosmetically or they're compressing on their throat, and that becomes extremely bothersome for them."
"A minimally invasive option, like a microwave, may be more appropriate for those patients than a surgery would be. The bottom line is there's still a huge gap between diagnosis and treatment, and that's an exciting problem for us to want to solve."
"So surgery is extremely safe and very appropriate in many patients, but there is a scar, it's a surgery, you're under general anesthetic. The other thing that surgery does is if we do a thyroidectomy, we may be destroying the thyroid's ability, obviously, then to provide the hormones, T3 and T4, that regulate some of our metabolism. So with the microwave, we just destroy the nodule. We don't impact thyroid function in that way, so patients don't need that hormone replacement. So that's another great reason to move forward with something more minimally invasive."
#BairdMedical #MicrowaveAblation #ThyroidMWA #MWA #ThyroidCare #ThyroidNodules #MinimallyInvasive #InterventionalEndocrinology #Endocrinology #PatientCare #MedicalDevices
BairdMed.com
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Mark Saxton, CEO of Baird Medical, highlights their microwave ablation technology, which is being used to address a significant treatment gap for benign thyroid nodules. This minimally invasive approach is an alternative to radiofrequency ablation, accommodates patients with pacemakers or other cardiac devices, and provides faster recovery. Unlike surgery, microwave ablation preserves thyroid function, eliminating the need for ongoing hormone replacement therapy
Mark explains, "It's very interesting that we're focused on thyroid tumors because they're an extremely prevalent issue. Most of those tumors are benign, and for many of those patients, active surveillance, or what we call watchful waiting, is appropriate. But a portion of those may need more than that. Their nodules are growing, they're becoming symptomatic either cosmetically or they're compressing on their throat, and that becomes extremely bothersome for them."
"A minimally invasive option, like a microwave, may be more appropriate for those patients than a surgery would be. The bottom line is there's still a huge gap between diagnosis and treatment, and that's an exciting problem for us to want to solve."
"So surgery is extremely safe and very appropriate in many patients, but there is a scar, it's a surgery, you're under general anesthetic. The other thing that surgery does is if we do a thyroidectomy, we may be destroying the thyroid's ability, obviously, then to provide the hormones, T3 and T4, that regulate some of our metabolism. So with the microwave, we just destroy the nodule. We don't impact thyroid function in that way, so patients don't need that hormone replacement. So that's another great reason to move forward with something more minimally invasive."
#BairdMedical #MicrowaveAblation #ThyroidMWA #MWA #ThyroidCare #ThyroidNodules #MinimallyInvasive #InterventionalEndocrinology #Endocrinology #PatientCare #MedicalDevices
BairdMed.com
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Aaron Timm, CEO of Openwater, is driving the shift from single-purpose, room-sized equipment to multi-purpose, portable, light-weight medical devices designed on an open-source platform. Some tools use infrared light to measure blood flow in real time for applications such as stroke detection. Another device uses focused ultrasound to modulate tissue in the brain for treating neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric conditions. The platform is designed so that a single hardware device can run multiple applications, allowing researchers to adapt and develop applications specific to their work, bringing innovation into the marketplace similar to the smartphone app environment.
Aaron explains, "So we have two primary devices. One uses infrared light to measure blood flow and blood volume in real time. So that one is being used, for example, to measure blood flow to the brain to help determine whether someone is having a stroke. At the University of Pennsylvania, there was a study done using that device, where our device outperformed the existing stroke scales. The other device that we have is a focused ultrasound device. And what that device does is it uses sound waves or focused ultrasound to target and modulate tissue in the brain and elsewhere in the body. That's being used in research today for all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric diseases. And there's just a lot going on in the world of focused ultrasound, including using our devices."
"So this focused ultrasound device and the science behind it eliminates the need for drugs or surgery and just uses focused ultrasounds to modulate or stimulate things within the brain, for example. It's used for everything from depression, anxiety, Alzheimer's disease, and addiction. Many different indications are being addressed in research using these kinds of devices, including ours."
#OpenwaterHealth #MedTech, #NonInvasiveCare, #PortableHealthcare, #PatientAccess, #HealthcareInnovation #FocusedUltrasound #LIFU #Hemodynamics #Openwater #OpenLIFU #OpenMotion #DigitalHealth #Neurotechnology #StrokeCare #AIinHealthcare #OpenSourceMedicine #ClinicalResearch #WearableMedicalDevices #HealthcareInnovation
openwater.health
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Aaron Timm, CEO of Openwater, is driving the shift from single-purpose, room-sized equipment to multi-purpose, portable, light-weight medical devices designed on an open-source platform. Some tools use infrared light to measure blood flow in real time for applications such as stroke detection. Another device uses focused ultrasound to modulate tissue in the brain for treating neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric conditions. The platform is designed so that a single hardware device can run multiple applications, allowing researchers to adapt and develop applications specific to their work, bringing innovation into the marketplace similar to the smartphone app environment.
Aaron explains, "So we have two primary devices. One uses infrared light to measure blood flow and blood volume in real time. So that one is being used, for example, to measure blood flow to the brain to help determine whether someone is having a stroke. At the University of Pennsylvania, there was a study done using that device, where our device outperformed the existing stroke scales. The other device that we have is a focused ultrasound device. And what that device does is it uses sound waves or focused ultrasound to target and modulate tissue in the brain and elsewhere in the body. That's being used in research today for all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric diseases. And there's just a lot going on in the world of focused ultrasound, including using our devices."
"So this focused ultrasound device and the science behind it eliminates the need for drugs or surgery and just uses focused ultrasounds to modulate or stimulate things within the brain, for example. It's used for everything from depression, anxiety, Alzheimer's disease, and addiction. Many different indications are being addressed in research using these kinds of devices, including ours."
#OpenwaterHealth #MedTech, #NonInvasiveCare, #PortableHealthcare, #PatientAccess, #HealthcareInnovation #FocusedUltrasound #LIFU #Hemodynamics #Openwater #OpenLIFU #OpenMotion #DigitalHealth #Neurotechnology #StrokeCare #AIinHealthcare #OpenSourceMedicine #ClinicalResearch #WearableMedicalDevices #HealthcareInnovation
openwater.health
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Jack Silberstein, CEO of Deck Bio, is developing next-generation T cell engagers designed to activate the patient's immune system to shrink tumors. These T cell engagers are bispecific molecules that alert immune cells to recognize targets on cancer cells and kill them by binding to both the cancer cells and the T cells. While earlier T cell engagers have succeeded in treating blood cancers, Deck Bio focuses on solid tumors where previous approaches have failed. Their lead molecule demonstrates strong potency and high safety, showing a response in patients with treatment resistance across lung, gastric, esophageal, liver, and head and neck cancers.
Jack explains, "At Deck Bio, we're focused on next-generation cancer immunotherapies called T cell engagers and are working to engage a patient's immune response to shrink tumors, extend patients' lifespan, and deliver durable benefits in treating cancer. For T cell engagers, there's been a lot of excitement recently because, in 2022, we had the first-ever T cell engager approved for solid tumors. We're looking to build on these learnings, expand the reach of T cell engagers, and drive greater durable benefit."
"As you mentioned, these T cell engagers have been around for a while. With liquid tumors, there's a little bit of an easier problem to solve because, in terms of the cancer cells there, you're able to deplete them, and if you have any type of healthy tissue recognition of cells in your blood, that's not that terrible of a toxicity."
"But in solid tumors, there's been a lot of failures in the field where people have tried to develop something against a solid tumor target that they thought was cancer-specific. Then, because of expression on other healthy tissues throughout the body, there were these dose-limiting toxicities. And just to level set in terms of what a T cell engager is, and help explain that, it's a bispecific molecule. What it most typically looks like is what people think of as an antibody, with that classical Y shape."
#DeckBio #TCellEngagers #Immunotherapy #Solidtumors #TumorHeterogeneity #ImmunoOncology #TCellEngagers #SolidTumors #CancerImmunotherapy #OncologyInnovation #MultiTargetTherapy #HemOnc
deck.bio
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Jack Silberstein, CEO of Deck Bio, is developing next-generation T cell engagers designed to activate the patient's immune system to shrink tumors. These T cell engagers are bispecific molecules that alert immune cells to recognize targets on cancer cells and kill them by binding to both the cancer cells and the T cells. While earlier T cell engagers have succeeded in treating blood cancers, Deck Bio focuses on solid tumors where previous approaches have failed. Their lead molecule demonstrates strong potency and high safety, showing a response in patients with treatment resistance across lung, gastric, esophageal, liver, and head and neck cancers.
Jack explains, "At Deck Bio, we're focused on next-generation cancer immunotherapies called T cell engagers and are working to engage a patient's immune response to shrink tumors, extend patients' lifespan, and deliver durable benefits in treating cancer. For T cell engagers, there's been a lot of excitement recently because, in 2022, we had the first-ever T cell engager approved for solid tumors. We're looking to build on these learnings, expand the reach of T cell engagers, and drive greater durable benefit."
"As you mentioned, these T cell engagers have been around for a while. With liquid tumors, there's a little bit of an easier problem to solve because, in terms of the cancer cells there, you're able to deplete them, and if you have any type of healthy tissue recognition of cells in your blood, that's not that terrible of a toxicity."
"But in solid tumors, there's been a lot of failures in the field where people have tried to develop something against a solid tumor target that they thought was cancer-specific. Then, because of expression on other healthy tissues throughout the body, there were these dose-limiting toxicities. And just to level set in terms of what a T cell engager is, and help explain that, it's a bispecific molecule. What it most typically looks like is what people think of as an antibody, with that classical Y shape."
#DeckBio #TCellEngagers #Immunotherapy #Solidtumors #TumorHeterogeneity #ImmunoOncology #TCellEngagers #SolidTumors #CancerImmunotherapy #OncologyInnovation #MultiTargetTherapy #HemOnc
deck.bio
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Professor Linda Macomber, a healthcare tech consultant at Renaissance Health, highlights the transformative potential of AI and digital health solutions, as well as the shift from siloed, symptom-focused care to holistic, personalized medicine. AI applications in healthcare have moved from deterministic expert systems to generative AI models that use genomic and longitudinal data from wearables for continuous monitoring and preventive care. Linda emphasizes that successful AI implementation requires viewing technology as a strategic investment rather than an expense, with a focus on actions that improve patient outcomes and clinicians' quality of life.
Linda explains, "Well, I've certainly been involved in all areas of the healthcare ecosystem over the past 40 years. For the past 16 years, I have been a professor at National University, starting the Master of Science and Health Informatics program. The 30 years prior to that, working in different areas of software design and development in the early days with SAIC and the Department of Defense, then Kaiser Permanente, University of California systems, and then some work with community health centers as well. I'm a life fellow in HIMSS, which is only a few people who have been around long enough to have that designation. But started my career as an ICU nurse and still hold on to the clinical informatics side, look at it from the lens of a healthcare professional, as well as the tech, educator, and startup perspective. Most recently, I have been working with a number of different startups."
"Well, certainly when it comes to the opportunities with AI in particular, things are moving so fast and looking at lots of different priorities and opportunities. When it comes to incremental change, it is always a little easier, but I think that opportunities are much bigger now for much more significant advancement of the care delivery system. Bringing care to people instead of people always having to travel to facilities for care, using digital systems in new ways to empower all of us, informing choice, and being much more proactive and personalized."
#LindaMacomber #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #HealthInformatics #AIinHealthcare #ClinicalInformatics #Genomics #Wearables #PopulationHealth #Interoperability #MedicalEducation
National University
Renaissance.Health
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Professor Linda Macomber, a healthcare tech consultant at Renaissance Health, highlights the transformative potential of AI and digital health solutions, as well as the shift from siloed, symptom-focused care to holistic, personalized medicine. AI applications in healthcare have moved from deterministic expert systems to generative AI models that use genomic and longitudinal data from wearables for continuous monitoring and preventive care. Linda emphasizes that successful AI implementation requires viewing technology as a strategic investment rather than an expense, with a focus on actions that improve patient outcomes and clinicians' quality of life.
Linda explains, "Well, I've certainly been involved in all areas of the healthcare ecosystem over the past 40 years. For the past 16 years, I have been a professor at National University, starting the Master of Science and Health Informatics program. The 30 years prior to that, working in different areas of software design and development in the early days with SAIC and the Department of Defense, then Kaiser Permanente, University of California systems, and then some work with community health centers as well. I'm a life fellow in HIMSS, which is only a few people who have been around long enough to have that designation. But started my career as an ICU nurse and still hold on to the clinical informatics side, look at it from the lens of a healthcare professional, as well as the tech, educator, and startup perspective. Most recently, I have been working with a number of different startups."
"Well, certainly when it comes to the opportunities with AI in particular, things are moving so fast and looking at lots of different priorities and opportunities. When it comes to incremental change, it is always a little easier, but I think that opportunities are much bigger now for much more significant advancement of the care delivery system. Bringing care to people instead of people always having to travel to facilities for care, using digital systems in new ways to empower all of us, informing choice, and being much more proactive and personalized."
#LindaMacomber #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #HealthInformatics #AIinHealthcare #ClinicalInformatics #Genomics #Wearables #PopulationHealth #Interoperability #MedicalEducation
Renaissance.Health
National University
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Alec Ford, CEO of Karius, has developed an innovative approach to diagnosing infections in immunocompromised patients, using DNA sequencing of blood samples to identify over 1,300 causes of infection within 24 hours. Traditional diagnostic methods rely on hypothesis-driven testing and the cultivation of organisms. At the same time, the Karius approach enables faster, more targeted antibiotic treatment, reduces unnecessary broad-spectrum antibiotics, and can identify infections that may not be included in the initial diagnosis. Time to proper treatment is essential for vulnerable populations, including cancer patients, HIV-positive individuals, organ transplant recipients, and those undergoing autoimmune therapies.
Alec explains, "These are patients going through cancer treatment, patients with HIV, people going through solid organ transplantation, or people being treated assertively with autoimmune therapies for autoimmune disorders, where it may compromise their immune system. That really vulnerable patient is our exclusive focus as a company."
"So, a patient gets admitted to the hospital for an infection. They take a sample of that patient's blood. And what we can do is diagnose over 1,300 causes of infection by sequencing the patient's blood for viruses, parasites, bacteria, and fungi that could threaten the success of their cancer treatment or solid organ transplant. There's never been a test in the history of infectious disease that can test for any DNA-based organism, and we do so. We can return a result 24 hours after we receive the sample."
#Karius #InfectiousDisease #Diagnostics #Metagenomics #MedTech #KariusSpectrum #KariusFocus #NextGenSequencing #ImmunocompromisedCare #Oncology #TransplantMedicine #AntimicrobialStewardship #Genomics #MolecularDiagnostics #KariusTest #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation
Kariusdx.com
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Alec Ford, CEO of Karius, has developed an innovative approach to diagnosing infections in immunocompromised patients, using DNA sequencing of blood samples to identify over 1,300 causes of infection within 24 hours. Traditional diagnostic methods rely on hypothesis-driven testing and the cultivation of organisms. At the same time, the Karius approach enables faster, more targeted antibiotic treatment, reduces unnecessary broad-spectrum antibiotics, and can identify infections that may not be included in the initial diagnosis. Time to proper treatment is essential for vulnerable populations, including cancer patients, HIV-positive individuals, organ transplant recipients, and those undergoing autoimmune therapies.
Alec explains, "These are patients going through cancer treatment, patients with HIV, people going through solid organ transplantation, or people being treated assertively with autoimmune therapies for autoimmune disorders, where it may compromise their immune system. That really vulnerable patient is our exclusive focus as a company."
"So, a patient gets admitted to the hospital for an infection. They take a sample of that patient's blood. And what we can do is diagnose over 1,300 causes of infection by sequencing the patient's blood for viruses, parasites, bacteria, and fungi that could threaten the success of their cancer treatment or solid organ transplant. There's never been a test in the history of infectious disease that can test for any DNA-based organism, and we do so. We can return a result 24 hours after we receive the sample."
#Karius #InfectiousDisease #Diagnostics #Metagenomics #MedTech #KariusSpectrum #KariusFocus #NextGenSequencing #ImmunocompromisedCare #Oncology #TransplantMedicine #AntimicrobialStewardship #Genomics #MolecularDiagnostics #KariusTest #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation
Kariusdx.com
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Lisa Gurry, Chief Business Officer at GeneDx, is transforming the diagnosis of rare diseases in children by providing comprehensive genetic testing. Using exome and genome sequencing, they deliver rapid, accurate results that enable early intervention and access to therapies. Through partnerships and a network of genetic counselors, GeneDx connects patients with specialists and clinical trials to ensure equal access for children and has established a comprehensive database that supports clinical care and drug development and helps identify previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed conditions.
Lisa explains, "The average diagnostic odyssey, or the time it takes to get a diagnosis, is tragically far too long for most families. It can take five years or more to get that diagnosis. And it's typically because the system tends to wait and see to provide the genetic tests that could give a diagnosis very quickly. At GeneDX, we've focused on exome and genome testing, which enables us to have a very comprehensive view across variants of potential diagnoses. And so that's our recommendation: any family that is experiencing a developmental delay has concerns with epilepsy, autism, or any number of genetic potential conditions. The beautiful part about a genetic test is that it can give you the answer you need to know what action to take."
"It's remarkable how much science and technology have evolved. So we did our first exome test in 2011, and since then we've sequenced over one million exomes and genomes. So, a tremendous amount of progress has been made in the number of children that we've diagnosed. That's possible because science and technology have advanced, the cost of the test has dramatically reduced, and our ability to deliver that at scale is something that we've been investing in for the last 25 years."
#GeneDx #RareDisease #Genomics #Pediatrics #PrecisionMedicine #GeneticTesting #Epilepsy #GeneTherapy #RealWorldData #Biopharma #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation
genedx.com
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Lisa Gurry, Chief Business Officer at GeneDx, is transforming the diagnosis of rare diseases in children by providing comprehensive genetic testing. Using exome and genome sequencing, they deliver rapid, accurate results that enable early intervention and access to therapies. Through partnerships and a network of genetic counselors, GeneDx connects patients with specialists and clinical trials to ensure equal access for children and has established a comprehensive database that supports clinical care and drug development and helps identify previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed conditions.
Lisa explains, "The average diagnostic odyssey, or the time it takes to get a diagnosis, is tragically far too long for most families. It can take five years or more to get that diagnosis. And it's typically because the system tends to wait and see to provide the genetic tests that could give a diagnosis very quickly. At GeneDX, we've focused on exome and genome testing, which enables us to have a very comprehensive view across variants of potential diagnoses. And so that's our recommendation: any family that is experiencing a developmental delay has concerns with epilepsy, autism, or any number of genetic potential conditions. The beautiful part about a genetic test is that it can give you the answer you need to know what action to take."
"It's remarkable how much science and technology have evolved. So we did our first exome test in 2011, and since then we've sequenced over one million exomes and genomes. So, a tremendous amount of progress has been made in the number of children that we've diagnosed. That's possible because science and technology have advanced, the cost of the test has dramatically reduced, and our ability to deliver that at scale is something that we've been investing in for the last 25 years."
#GeneDx #RareDisease #Genomics #Pediatrics #PrecisionMedicine #GeneticTesting #Epilepsy #GeneTherapy #RealWorldData #Biopharma #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation
genedx.com
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Kelvin Cooper, CEO of Lakewood-Amedex Biotherapeutics, has developed a novel class of antimicrobials that operate by disrupting bacterial and fungal cell membranes, rapidly killing the microorganisms. Traditional antimicrobials work by inhibiting bacterial growth, but bacteria have evolved resistance mechanisms against all drug classes, with multidrug-resistant strains becoming increasingly common. The company is focused on treating infected diabetic foot ulcers with a topical gel formulation that locally delivers a high drug concentration while minimizing systemic side effects.
Kelvin explains, "You can go back all the way to the discovery of penicillin a century ago, and there was tremendous excitement around that. And then through the 40s, when they figured out how to deep tank ferment the antibacterials, the beta lactams, as it was then, again, there was no real indication that resistance was going to be that big of a problem."
"What we have done at Lakewood-Amedex Biotherapeutics is we've discovered a completely new class of antimicrobials, and it's probably good to give some context of how most antimicrobials work. Typically, what they do is they will stop the bacteria from dividing and growing, and that prevents the bacteria from causing an infection. Now the bacteria and fungi have figured out ways to mutate around that. So they have a different way of building cell walls, for example. And that has become the big problem. Our class of agents hits a completely different type of mechanism. We believe that what happens, and we have good scientific data to show this, is that this class of agents attacks the membrane of bacteria and fungi. It disrupts the membrane, which allows the contents of whatever microbe it is to spill out, and it immediately kills the bacteria extremely rapidly."
#LakewoodAmedex #AntimicrobialResistance #AMR #InfectiousDiseases #Antibiotics #Antimicrobials #DiabeticFoot #DiabeticFootUlcer #HealthcareInnovation #DiabeticCare #Biotech #PublicHealth #MedicalBreakthrough $LABT
lakewoodamedex.com
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Kelvin Cooper, CEO of Lakewood-Amedex Biotherapeutics, has developed a novel class of antimicrobials that operate by disrupting bacterial and fungal cell membranes, rapidly killing the microorganisms. Traditional antimicrobials work by inhibiting bacterial growth, but bacteria have evolved resistance mechanisms against all drug classes, with multidrug-resistant strains becoming increasingly common. The company is focused on treating infected diabetic foot ulcers with a topical gel formulation that locally delivers a high drug concentration while minimizing systemic side effects.
Kelvin explains, "You can go back all the way to the discovery of penicillin a century ago, and there was tremendous excitement around that. And then through the 40s, when they figured out how to deep tank ferment the antibacterials, the beta lactams, as it was then, again, there was no real indication that resistance was going to be that big of a problem."
"What we have done at Lakewood-Amedex Biotherapeutics is we've discovered a completely new class of antimicrobials, and it's probably good to give some context of how most antimicrobials work. Typically, what they do is they will stop the bacteria from dividing and growing, and that prevents the bacteria from causing an infection. Now the bacteria and fungi have figured out ways to mutate around that. So they have a different way of building cell walls, for example. And that has become the big problem. Our class of agents hits a completely different type of mechanism. We believe that what happens, and we have good scientific data to show this, is that this class of agents attacks the membrane of bacteria and fungi. It disrupts the membrane, which allows the contents of whatever microbe it is to spill out, and it immediately kills the bacteria extremely rapidly."
#LakewoodAmedex #AntimicrobialResistance #AMR #InfectiousDiseases #Antibiotics #Antimicrobials #DiabeticFoot #DiabeticFootUlcer #HealthcareInnovation #DiabeticCare #Biotech #PublicHealth #MedicalBreakthrough $LABT
lakewoodamedex.com
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Harith Rajagopalan, Co-Founder and CEO of Fractyl Health, is developing innovative therapies that target the root causes of obesity and metabolic diseases to achieve durable, long-lasting patient outcomes. Their drug is designed to address post-GLP-1 rebound weight gain by treating the underlying gut damage. Unlike GLP-1 medications that manage symptoms through appetite suppression, the aim is to modify the disease driving the obesity and change the paradigm from a symptomatic treatment to one of disease modification.
Harith explains, "Our focus at Fractyl is all about how to achieve durable results for patients, long-lasting benefits. And the way in which we try to do so is by targeting root causes of obesity and metabolic disease and developing innovative therapies, targeting those root causes that offer the potential for long-lasting benefit for patients."
"I think that GLP-1s have been transformative, as you say, but they have in many ways created an altogether new problem called post-GLP-1 rebound. What we are seeing in the United States right now is that there are a million people a month who are stopping a GLP-1. The more effective GLP-1 was for them in weight and metabolic control, the more rapidly they rebounded to whatever their weight and metabolic control were prior to treatment."
"Whereas what we are doing is with our lead asset, Revita, we are targeting a root cause of obesity in the gut, a region of the gut that becomes damaged by chronic lifetime exposure to high-fat, high-sugar diets that we think is actually driving the obesity in the first place. And so if you can fix the underlying obesity, then we think that you can prevent the rebound that inevitably occurs upon the discontinuation of the medicine."
#FractylHealth #Revita #Rejuva #PopulationHealth #ObesityMedicine #Endocrinology #MetabolicHealth #GLP1 #Gastroenterology #DiabetesCare #GeneTherapy
fractyl.com
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Harith Rajagopalan, Co-Founder and CEO of Fractyl Health, is developing innovative therapies that target the root causes of obesity and metabolic diseases to achieve durable, long-lasting patient outcomes. Their drug is designed to address post-GLP-1 rebound weight gain by treating the underlying gut damage. Unlike GLP-1 medications that manage symptoms through appetite suppression, the aim is to modify the disease driving the obesity and change the paradigm from a symptomatic treatment to one of disease modification.
Harith explains, "Our focus at Fractyl is all about how to achieve durable results for patients, long-lasting benefits. And the way in which we try to do so is by targeting root causes of obesity and metabolic disease and developing innovative therapies, targeting those root causes that offer the potential for long-lasting benefit for patients."
"I think that GLP-1s have been transformative, as you say, but they have in many ways created an altogether new problem called post-GLP-1 rebound. What we are seeing in the United States right now is that there are a million people a month who are stopping a GLP-1. The more effective GLP-1 was for them in weight and metabolic control, the more rapidly they rebounded to whatever their weight and metabolic control were prior to treatment."
"Whereas what we are doing is with our lead asset, Revita, we are targeting a root cause of obesity in the gut, a region of the gut that becomes damaged by chronic lifetime exposure to high-fat, high-sugar diets that we think is actually driving the obesity in the first place. And so if you can fix the underlying obesity, then we think that you can prevent the rebound that inevitably occurs upon the discontinuation of the medicine."
#FractylHealth #Revita #Rejuva #PopulationHealth #ObesityMedicine #Endocrinology #MetabolicHealth #GLP1 #Gastroenterology #DiabetesCare #GeneTherapy
fractyl.com
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Lior Shaltiel, CEO of NurExone, is addressing the unmet needs of those with spinal cord injuries, as current therapies only treat symptoms and do not regenerate damaged nerves from accidents or disease. The NurExone technology aims to stimulate nerve growth by targeting a protein that inhibits cell proliferation. Using exosomes, which are secreted by cells, to deliver the drug in a localized manner is possible because of the ability of the exosomes to home in on damaged tissues and cross the blood-brain barrier.
Lior explains, "At the moment, the medicine can only treat it by treating the symptoms. There are a few attempts to try to regenerate the nerves that are broken and to have the reconnection of the spinal cord injury or any damage in the central nervous system. And this is a huge challenge for medicine, so far not solved. And when we solve it, we prepare to answer and give hope to so many patients, not only in spinal cord injury, but also in other injuries, such as traumatic brain injury, optic nerve, and ophthalmology. So many nerves that we have so far not been able to restore the function after the damage."
"So traumatic, meaning we are talking about injury, the acute phase of a disease or illness. In most cases, let's say, spinal cord injury is due to injury, car accidents, or sports accidents. But, for example, ophthalmology, glaucoma, which is a chronic disease, can also cause damage to the optic nerve that cannot be restored. So it can be due to another illness, as a side effect of the illness, or due to injury."
"So we discussed the RNA. This is one part of the technology here. Second, the technology of using our natural transmitter in our body, which is how cells communicate with each other, is called exosomes. Exosomes are tiny vesicles secreted from cells with tiny envelopes that a healthy tissue sends to a damaged tissue, a cell that is affected, or a cell that doesn't feel good. And when we understand this mechanism, we can use those exosomes as a drug delivery system."
#NurExone #Exosomes #SpinalCordInjury #NeuroRegeneration #PTEN #siRNA #DrugDelivery #Neurology #RegenerativeMedicine #Nanomedicine
nurexone.com
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Lior Shaltiel, CEO of NurExone, is addressing the unmet needs of those with spinal cord injuries, as current therapies only treat symptoms and do not regenerate damaged nerves from accidents or disease. The NurExone technology aims to stimulate nerve growth by targeting a protein that inhibits cell proliferation. Using exosomes, which are secreted by cells, to deliver the drug in a localized manner is possible because of the ability of the exosomes to home in on damaged tissues and cross the blood-brain barrier.
Lior explains, "At the moment, the medicine can only treat it by treating the symptoms. There are a few attempts to try to regenerate the nerves that are broken and to have the reconnection of the spinal cord injury or any damage in the central nervous system. And this is a huge challenge for medicine, so far not solved. And when we solve it, we prepare to answer and give hope to so many patients, not only in spinal cord injury, but also in other injuries, such as traumatic brain injury, optic nerve, and ophthalmology. So many nerves that we have so far not been able to restore the function after the damage."
"So traumatic, meaning we are talking about injury, the acute phase of a disease or illness. In most cases, let's say, spinal cord injury is due to injury, car accidents, or sports accidents. But, for example, ophthalmology, glaucoma, which is a chronic disease, can also cause damage to the optic nerve that cannot be restored. So it can be due to another illness, as a side effect of the illness, or due to injury."
"So we discussed the RNA. This is one part of the technology here. Second, the technology of using our natural transmitter in our body, which is how cells communicate with each other, is called exosomes. Exosomes are tiny vesicles secreted from cells with tiny envelopes that a healthy tissue sends to a damaged tissue, a cell that is affected, or a cell that doesn't feel good. And when we understand this mechanism, we can use those exosomes as a drug delivery system."
#NurExone #Exosomes #SpinalCordInjury #NeuroRegeneration #PTEN #siRNA #DrugDelivery #Neurology #RegenerativeMedicine #Nanomedicine
nurexone.com
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Peter Swimm, Founder of Toilville, is a conversational AI pioneer, and he describes the transformation in healthcare resulting from the use of AI and large language models to address clinician burnout and improve patient outcomes. He emphasizes that technology should adapt to practitioners' workflows rather than forcing practitioners to change their behavior. Human oversight is essential to ensure accuracy and transparency, and Peter advocates for a culture shift where time saved through the use of AI is reinvested in higher-quality patient care and clinician satisfaction.
Peter explains, "I think a lot of people think of their problems as a unique snowflake in the world. I think if we boil the ocean down to its elements, it is an understanding of the system of its inhabitants. And so we do a lot of work with small businesses and clients who typically have worked for big companies, and they've chafed at all the rules and the boundaries and the problems. They leave the big company and want to run their own show, but they lose that infrastructure."
"A lot of times, they turn to tools like AI and automation, or they buy software products that don't entirely fit their thinking. And so we help them negotiate that pattern where the technology molds to what the presentation layer is and how you want to treat things and handle your data. And you don't change away from what your competitive advantage is, which is being a unique and talented person who runs the show the way they see best."
"So I think the challenge is, don't let your FOMO be FAFO. Just because everyone's telling you to do AI and you don't really understand it and you don't see the positive outcomes, don't assume it's like a lack of training on your part."
#SPELWork #Toilville #OptInPodcast #ResonantDiversification #AIGovernance #ResponsibleAI #ConsentFirst #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #HealthIT #ClinicalAI #HealthcareAI #PatientAdvocacy #ClinicianBurnout #HealthEquity #SDOH #AIAccountability #AIEthics #AISafety #ConsentFirst #DataSovereignty #HumanInTheLoop #HealthcareInnovation#DigitalHealth #PhysicianBurnout #HealthIT #ConversationalAI #PatientCare
toilville.com
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Peter Swimm, Founder of Toilville, is a conversational AI pioneer, and he describes the transformation in healthcare resulting from the use of AI and large language models to address clinician burnout and improve patient outcomes. He emphasizes that technology should adapt to practitioners' workflows rather than forcing practitioners to change their behavior. Human oversight is essential to ensure accuracy and transparency, and Peter advocates for a culture shift where time saved through the use of AI is reinvested in higher-quality patient care and clinician satisfaction.
Peter explains, "I think a lot of people think of their problems as a unique snowflake in the world. I think if we boil the ocean down to its elements, it is an understanding of the system of its inhabitants. And so we do a lot of work with small businesses and clients who typically have worked for big companies, and they've chafed at all the rules and the boundaries and the problems. They leave the big company and want to run their own show, but they lose that infrastructure."
"A lot of times, they turn to tools like AI and automation, or they buy software products that don't entirely fit their thinking. And so we help them negotiate that pattern where the technology molds to what the presentation layer is and how you want to treat things and handle your data. And you don't change away from what your competitive advantage is, which is being a unique and talented person who runs the show the way they see best."
"So I think the challenge is, don't let your FOMO be FAFO. Just because everyone's telling you to do AI and you don't really understand it and you don't see the positive outcomes, don't assume it's like a lack of training on your part."
#SPELWork #Toilville #OptInPodcast #ResonantDiversification #AIGovernance #ResponsibleAI #ConsentFirst #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #HealthIT #ClinicalAI #HealthcareAI #PatientAdvocacy #ClinicianBurnout #HealthEquity #SDOH #AIAccountability #AIEthics #AISafety #ConsentFirst #DataSovereignty #HumanInTheLoop #HealthcareInnovation#DigitalHealth #PhysicianBurnout #HealthIT #ConversationalAI #PatientCare
toilville.com
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Richard Garr, CEO and General Counsel of Curative Biotechnology, discusses the company's work in repurposing the diabetes drug metformin into an eye drop for degenerative eye diseases. The goal of the therapy is retinal preservation, aiming to slow or stop disease progression by acting at the cellular level in the back of the eye to protect it from damage, offering a non-invasive alternative to current treatments. Using a repurposed drug allows the company to build on well-documented safety data and reduces the size, cost and duration of clinical trials.
Richard explains, "We are currently focused on repurposing the drug metformin, which is an FDA-approved drug that diabetics take. And as it turns out, we have reformulated it into an eye drop. This is licensed from the National Eye Institute. We have worldwide exclusive rights. The first patent in that estate was allowed about two months ago in Canada. We would expect it to be issued this summer. It's being prosecuted around the world."
"We believe that it is a platform drug and that we'll be able to treat a wide range of degenerative eye diseases. It's repurposed because it is an approved FDA drug. It's been taken for decades orally by literally tens of millions of patients, mostly with type two diabetes. And really, the importance of that is that we know it's a safe systemically. So, everything you could want to know about the metformin systemically is known. What we have to show in our clinical trials is that it's safe in the eye and that it does, in fact, do what we suspect it does to treat degenerative eye disease."
#CurativeBiotech #Ophthalmology #Retina #Neuroprotection #DryAMD #EyeCare #DrugRepurposing #Metformin #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalResearch #CurativeBiotech
CurativeBiotech.com
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Richard Garr, CEO and General Counsel of Curative Biotechnology, discusses the company's work in repurposing the diabetes drug metformin into an eye drop for degenerative eye diseases. The goal of the therapy is retinal preservation, aiming to slow or stop disease progression by acting at the cellular level in the back of the eye to protect it from damage, offering a non-invasive alternative to current treatments. Using a repurposed drug allows the company to build on well-documented safety data and reduces the size, cost and duration of clinical trials.
Richard explains, "We are currently focused on repurposing the drug metformin, which is an FDA-approved drug that diabetics take. And as it turns out, we have reformulated it into an eye drop. This is licensed from the National Eye Institute. We have worldwide exclusive rights. The first patent in that estate was allowed about two months ago in Canada. We would expect it to be issued this summer. It's being prosecuted around the world."
"We believe that it is a platform drug and that we'll be able to treat a wide range of degenerative eye diseases. It's repurposed because it is an approved FDA drug. It's been taken for decades orally by literally tens of millions of patients, mostly with type two diabetes. And really, the importance of that is that we know it's a safe systemically. So, everything you could want to know about the metformin systemically is known. What we have to show in our clinical trials is that it's safe in the eye and that it does, in fact, do what we suspect it does to treat degenerative eye disease."
#CurativeBiotech #Ophthalmology #Retina #Neuroprotection #DryAMD #EyeCare #DrugRepurposing #Metformin #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalResearch #CurativeBiotech
CurativeBiotech.com
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Zach Henderson, CEO at MindMaze Therapeutics, has designed a precision neurotherapeutic solution designed to offer a scalable, engaging and immersive platform for patients recovering from strokes or managing Parkinson's disease. The solution is deployed across the entire care continuum from hospital to the patient's home, providing high-intensity therapy during the neuroplastic window. The emphasis is on augmenting therapists' care by equipping them with tools to encourage therapy adherence and with data to deliver precise, personalized care.
Zach explains, "So at a very high level, there are millions and millions of people across the neurology spectrum who need this type of neuro rehabilitation, neurotherapeutic solutions, either with a therapist or without, but there are only so many therapists to go around. So there's a massive supply-demand imbalance that frankly cannot be, despite the efforts of the great therapists out there, it can never be filled without resorting to technology. And that's the exact gap that we're trying to fill in the marketplace."
"So MindMaze Therapeutics has a suite of solutions that are deployed across the whole continuum of care. So from acute care to the hospital to inpatient rehabilitation facilities, IRFs, to long-term acute care, to skilled nursing facilities, to outpatient, and all the way even patients taking the technology home. And then in that way, we're meeting the patient wherever they may happen to be. We're supporting the health system around the world. And importantly, we're giving therapy in this important neuroelastic window, which, in some studies, is the first 90 days following, say, a stroke, and in other studies, it goes all the way up to six months. And we're helping the health systems around the world scale their ability to treat even more patients at a very high and even improved rate."
#MindMaze #ParkinsonsDisease #DigitalHealth #Neuroplasticity #PrecisionMedicine #Physiatry #Neurology #PhysicalTherapy #OccupationalTherapy #RehabInnovation #HealthTech
MindMazeTherapeutics.com
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Zach Henderson, CEO at MindMaze Therapeutics, has designed a precision neurotherapeutic solution designed to offer a scalable, engaging and immersive platform for patients recovering from strokes or managing Parkinson's disease. The solution is deployed across the entire care continuum from hospital to the patient's home, providing high-intensity therapy during the neuroplastic window. The emphasis is on augmenting therapists' care by equipping them with tools to encourage therapy adherence and with data to deliver precise, personalized care.
Zach explains, "So at a very high level, there are millions and millions of people across the neurology spectrum who need this type of neuro rehabilitation, neurotherapeutic solutions, either with a therapist or without, but there are only so many therapists to go around. So there's a massive supply-demand imbalance that frankly cannot be, despite the efforts of the great therapists out there, it can never be filled without resorting to technology. And that's the exact gap that we're trying to fill in the marketplace."
"So MindMaze Therapeutics has a suite of solutions that are deployed across the whole continuum of care. So from acute care to the hospital to inpatient rehabilitation facilities, IRFs, to long-term acute care, to skilled nursing facilities, to outpatient, and all the way even patients taking the technology home. And then in that way, we're meeting the patient wherever they may happen to be. We're supporting the health system around the world. And importantly, we're giving therapy in this important neuroelastic window, which, in some studies, is the first 90 days following, say, a stroke, and in other studies, it goes all the way up to six months. And we're helping the health systems around the world scale their ability to treat even more patients at a very high and even improved rate."
#MindMaze #ParkinsonsDisease #DigitalHealth #Neuroplasticity #PrecisionMedicine #Physiatry #Neurology #PhysicalTherapy #OccupationalTherapy #RehabInnovation #HealthTech
MindMazeTherapeutics.com
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Daniele De Mari, Founder and CEO of Neurogram, points out the significant problem of non-standardized data formats in EEG (electroencephalography), compared to the universal standard used in radiology. Neurogram has developed a hardware-agnostic, cloud-based solution that standardizes EEG data from various manufacturers, integrates with EMRs, significantly improves clinical workflows, and is accessible from any computer. With improved data security and the ability to analyze large datasets, this platform can support advances in biomarker development for neurological conditions and stimulate more clinical research and collaboration.
Daniele explains, "So the problem is not 100% on medical exams. It happens exclusively on EEG, and that makes it worse, because it doesn't happen everywhere, it's actually worse for EEG scans. So, knowing a parallel between EEG scans and radiology, every data point in radiology is DICON. So DICON is a universal file format that is standardized. I can send you a DICON over email or to your phone, WhatsApp, and you can open it on your phone. That's how universal it is. That's how open the file type is. It's compatible with EMRs. And so that's awesome. And that's one of the reasons why radiology grows so much. And EEG, it's an electroencephalogram. We have, I would say, 15 different brands around the world. In Brazil, we have seven. In the US, we have top like four or five companies, and they all export data in a different file format. So brand A has its own format, brand B has its own format, brand C, and so forth."
"So we managed to be compatible with most of the brands out there, most of the EEG brands out there. We have a solution that is 100% agnostic and 100% in the cloud, which means we can read from multiple EEG devices out there. If you record in brand A, and I'm not going to say the brands in the podcast, but if you require data from brand A, brand B, brand C, all of it gets standardized into one unified system. So the physician no longer has to log into multiple devices in multiple systems, and it's all in one place. As I said, it's 100% in the cloud, so they can access from a Mac computer, which is now impossible to read EEGs from a Mac computer. Now you can do this. It's compliant. It's HIPAA compliant. We're moving towards the FDA approval process right now for the system, although we're actually selling in Brazil."
#Neurogram #EEG #HealthcareIT #ClinicalNeurophysiology #DigitalHealth #HealthDataStandardization #EMRIntegration #MedicalAI #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation
neurogram.com
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Daniele De Mari, Founder and CEO of Neurogram, points out the significant problem of non-standardized data formats in EEG (electroencephalography), compared to the universal standard used in radiology. Neurogram has developed a hardware-agnostic, cloud-based solution that standardizes EEG data from various manufacturers, integrates with EMRs, significantly improves clinical workflows, and is accessible from any computer. With improved data security and the ability to analyze large datasets, this platform can support advances in biomarker development for neurological conditions and stimulate more clinical research and collaboration.
Daniele explains, "So the problem is not 100% on medical exams. It happens exclusively on EEG, and that makes it worse, because it doesn't happen everywhere, it's actually worse for EEG scans. So, knowing a parallel between EEG scans and radiology, every data point in radiology is DICON. So DICON is a universal file format that is standardized. I can send you a DICON over email or to your phone, WhatsApp, and you can open it on your phone. That's how universal it is. That's how open the file type is. It's compatible with EMRs. And so that's awesome. And that's one of the reasons why radiology grows so much. And EEG, it's an electroencephalogram. We have, I would say, 15 different brands around the world. In Brazil, we have seven. In the US, we have top like four or five companies, and they all export data in a different file format. So brand A has its own format, brand B has its own format, brand C, and so forth."
"So we managed to be compatible with most of the brands out there, most of the EEG brands out there. We have a solution that is 100% agnostic and 100% in the cloud, which means we can read from multiple EEG devices out there. If you record in brand A, and I'm not going to say the brands in the podcast, but if you require data from brand A, brand B, brand C, all of it gets standardized into one unified system. So the physician no longer has to log into multiple devices in multiple systems, and it's all in one place. As I said, it's 100% in the cloud, so they can access from a Mac computer, which is now impossible to read EEGs from a Mac computer. Now you can do this. It's compliant. It's HIPAA compliant. We're moving towards the FDA approval process right now for the system, although we're actually selling in Brazil."
#Neurogram #EEG #HealthcareIT #ClinicalNeurophysiology #DigitalHealth #HealthDataStandardization #EMRIntegration #MedicalAI #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation
neurogram.com
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Dan O'Toole, Founder and CEO of Arrive AI, is bringing asynchronous autonomous delivery systems to healthcare environments, enabling robots and drones to make deliveries without the recipient needing to be present. The goal is to automate logistical tasks to solve major inefficiencies in hospitals, freeing skilled workers from moving samples and supplies, which in turn improves the quality of care and reduces clinician burnout. The system is presented as a way to make processes better, faster, fresher, cheaper, greener, and safer by eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring sample integrity through features such as temperature control and a security chain of custody.
Dan explains, "I love that you started out with the term asynchronous. Nobody ever even knows what that is. So I applaud you. Thank you. That is the key to autonomy. Without it, you're not unlocking the full value of autonomy. So basically here at Arrive AI what we are doing is we're building the next network and platform to support and scale all kinds of autonomous delivery, whether it's robots, drones, unmanned vehicles, and still supporting conventional delivery, UPS, US Postal Service, and others. So we're excited about that."
"But right now, anytime autonomous delivery happens, two things have to happen. You have to be there to meet the mode of delivery, and it has to be there to meet you. When you have an Arrive Point™ in that ecosystem, you've unlocked all the value of autonomous delivery because now the robot can beat you there. It can drop off the item that you're expecting at your Arrive Point and go on to its next mission without being held up."
#ArriveAI #AutonomousDelivery #HealthcareInnovation #HospitalRobotics #FutureOfHealthcare #DroneDelivery #HospitalOperations #ClinicalWorkflow #DigitalHealth #PatientSafety #LabMedicine #HealthcareLogistics #AIinHealthcare
arriveai.com
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Dan O'Toole, Founder and CEO of Arrive AI, is bringing asynchronous autonomous delivery systems to healthcare environments, enabling robots and drones to make deliveries without the recipient needing to be present. The goal is to automate logistical tasks to solve major inefficiencies in hospitals, freeing skilled workers from moving samples and supplies, which in turn improves the quality of care and reduces clinician burnout. The system is presented as a way to make processes better, faster, fresher, cheaper, greener, and safer by eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring sample integrity through features such as temperature control and a security chain of custody.
Dan explains, "I love that you started out with the term asynchronous. Nobody ever even knows what that is. So I applaud you. Thank you. That is the key to autonomy. Without it, you're not unlocking the full value of autonomy. So basically here at Arrive AI what we are doing is we're building the next network and platform to support and scale all kinds of autonomous delivery, whether it's robots, drones, unmanned vehicles, and still supporting conventional delivery, UPS, US Postal Service, and others. So we're excited about that."
"But right now, anytime autonomous delivery happens, two things have to happen. You have to be there to meet the mode of delivery, and it has to be there to meet you. When you have an Arrive Point™ in that ecosystem, you've unlocked all the value of autonomous delivery because now the robot can beat you there. It can drop off the item that you're expecting at your Arrive Point and go on to its next mission without being held up."
#ArriveAI #AutonomousDelivery #HealthcareInnovation #HospitalRobotics #FutureOfHealthcare #DroneDelivery #HospitalOperations #ClinicalWorkflow #DigitalHealth #PatientSafety #LabMedicine #HealthcareLogistics #AIinHealthcare
arriveai.com
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Dr. Matthew Goldberg, Senior Vice President for Medical at Castle Biosciences, discusses the uncertainty clinicians face when determining treatments for skin cancer due to the limitations of traditional pathology reports. Castle's gene expression profile tests were developed to improve the accuracy of risk stratification for patients with cutaneous melanoma and high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. These tests provide prognostic information by analyzing the tumor's RNA, offering more granular and accurate risk assessment and informing about the intensity of follow-up and long-term risk management strategies.
Matthew explains, "So this is an important topic for dermatologists who are really on the front lines of skin cancer diagnosis and management for patients who are confronting skin cancer today. I'm a board-certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist by training. And to me, I think that the core uncertainty is centered around some of the known limitations around the prognostic accuracy of pathology. That's kind of worth unpacking here, but I think what it comes down to is that dermatologists are involved in identifying concerning skin lesions, identifying and, through biopsy, taking a skin sample, and finding skin cancers."
"Dermatopathologists are the collaborative colleagues who interpret the skin biopsy samples and return the pathological diagnoses to the dermatologist. For the treating clinician, the key task is to understand the implications of the types of skin cancers identified in this process to determine the most appropriate, risk-aligned downstream management for patients with these skin cancers."
"So Castle Biosciences has developed a range of tests that are really focused on impactful skin cancers that are some of the biggest challenges for dermatologists and the patients that we serve in the clinic, specifically around cutaneous melanoma with the DecisionDx-Melanoma gene expression profile test and also high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas with the DecisionDx-SCC test."
#CastleBiosciences #SkinCancer #CancerCare #HealthcareInnovation #Dermatology #MolecularDiagnostics #PrecisionMedicine #RiskStratification #ClinicalDecisionMaking #DigitalPathology #Oncology #Melanoma #SquamousCellCarcinoma #GeneExpression #SharedDecisionMaking
castlebiosciences.com
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Dr. Matthew Goldberg, Senior Vice President for Medical at Castle Biosciences, discusses the uncertainty clinicians face when determining treatments for skin cancer due to the limitations of traditional pathology reports. Castle's gene expression profile tests were developed to improve the accuracy of risk stratification for patients with cutaneous melanoma and high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. These tests provide prognostic information by analyzing the tumor's RNA, offering more granular and accurate risk assessment and informing about the intensity of follow-up and long-term risk management strategies.
Matthew explains, "So this is an important topic for dermatologists who are really on the front lines of skin cancer diagnosis and management for patients who are confronting skin cancer today. I'm a board-certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist by training. And to me, I think that the core uncertainty is centered around some of the known limitations around the prognostic accuracy of pathology. That's kind of worth unpacking here, but I think what it comes down to is that dermatologists are involved in identifying concerning skin lesions, identifying and, through biopsy, taking a skin sample, and finding skin cancers."
"Dermatopathologists are the collaborative colleagues who interpret the skin biopsy samples and return the pathological diagnoses to the dermatologist. For the treating clinician, the key task is to understand the implications of the types of skin cancers identified in this process to determine the most appropriate, risk-aligned downstream management for patients with these skin cancers."
"So Castle Biosciences has developed a range of tests that are really focused on impactful skin cancers that are some of the biggest challenges for dermatologists and the patients that we serve in the clinic, specifically around cutaneous melanoma with the DecisionDx-Melanoma gene expression profile test and also high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas with the DecisionDx-SCC test."
#CastleBiosciences #SkinCancer #CancerCare #HealthcareInnovation #Dermatology #MolecularDiagnostics #PrecisionMedicine #RiskStratification #ClinicalDecisionMaking #DigitalPathology #Oncology #Melanoma #SquamousCellCarcinoma #GeneExpression #SharedDecisionMaking
castlebiosciences.com
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Sten Sörensen, CEO of Cereno Scientific, discusses work on epigenetic modulation to treat the rare disease Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, a progressive and fatal condition for which current treatments primarily manage symptoms. Core pathological processes of PAH include inflammation, fibrosis, and the growth of muscle cells in the pulmonary artery. Cereno's approach aims to be disease-modifying by targeting these conditions with HDAC inhibitors to regulate the production of essential proteins, potentially preventing or reversing disease.
Sten explains, "We are working with something called epigenetic modulation. You know what DNA is, the map for our body and the protein production in our cells, that's the map. But the map needs guidance to produce essential proteins that are important for the body's function. The regulation of the production of essential proteins from the DNA map is regulated by epigenetic modulators. So sometimes that regulation can go wrong, and then it needs to be adjusted. And we are working with molecules with a mode of action that has epigenetic modulation. And these molecules are called, in this case, HDAC inhibitors."
"Well, the rare disease pulmonary arterial hypertension has a number of characteristics that propel the disease forward, and for the patient, that is very detrimental. And as we know, pulmonary arterial hypertension mostly affects women, and in the end, the disease is that you actually pass away. So you die normally of right heart failure, and the survival time is approximately seven to seven and a half years from diagnosis. So it's a very severe, rare disease, and current therapies are more directed to relieve symptoms than actually act to slow down, halt, or even reverse this detrimental progression of the disease."
#CerenoScientific #RareDisease #PAH #PulmonaryArterialHypertension #PulmonaryHypertension #PatientCentricity #ClinicalDevelopment #Biotech #CardiovascularResearch #RightHeartFailure #RareDiseaseAwareness #PHawareness #HDAC #HDACinhibitor #Epigenetics #Cardiology #Pulmonology #CS1 #DiseaseModification #ClinicalTrials
cerenoscientific.com
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Sten Sörensen, CEO of Cereno Scientific, discusses work on epigenetic modulation to treat the rare disease Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, a progressive and fatal condition for which current treatments primarily manage symptoms. Core pathological processes of PAH include inflammation, fibrosis, and the growth of muscle cells in the pulmonary artery. Cereno's approach aims to be disease-modifying by targeting these conditions with HDAC inhibitors to regulate the production of essential proteins, potentially preventing or reversing disease.
Sten explains, "We are working with something called epigenetic modulation. You know what DNA is, the map for our body and the protein production in our cells, that's the map. But the map needs guidance to produce essential proteins that are important for the body's function. The regulation of the production of essential proteins from the DNA map is regulated by epigenetic modulators. So sometimes that regulation can go wrong, and then it needs to be adjusted. And we are working with molecules with a mode of action that has epigenetic modulation. And these molecules are called, in this case, HDAC inhibitors."
"Well, the rare disease pulmonary arterial hypertension has a number of characteristics that propel the disease forward, and for the patient, that is very detrimental. And as we know, pulmonary arterial hypertension mostly affects women, and in the end, the disease is that you actually pass away. So you die normally of right heart failure, and the survival time is approximately seven to seven and a half years from diagnosis. So it's a very severe, rare disease, and current therapies are more directed to relieve symptoms than actually act to slow down, halt, or even reverse this detrimental progression of the disease."
#CerenoScientific #RareDisease #PAH #PulmonaryArterialHypertension #PulmonaryHypertension #PatientCentricity #ClinicalDevelopment #Biotech #CardiovascularResearch #RightHeartFailure #RareDiseaseAwareness #PHawareness #HDAC #HDACinhibitor #Epigenetics #Cardiology #Pulmonology #CS1 #DiseaseModification #ClinicalTrials
cerenoscientific.com
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Joseph Pandolfino, Founder and CEO of Cabbacis, is focused on reducing harm caused by smoking cigarettes by developing cigarettes made from a blend of low-nicotine tobacco and hemp. This approach is intended to help smokers reduce their nicotine dependence and increase the success rate of those who are looking to quit smoking. Their products are targeted to established smokers by providing the taste and sensory experience of a traditional cigarette while providing significantly less nicotine and a path to less harmful non-combustible products.
Joseph explains, "So our products in development are called iBlend. We'll stick with the cigarette right now. So iBlend is predominantly very low-nicotine tobacco, and you add hemp to the product. Hemp became legal at the federal level in 2018 for farmers. So every iBlend is the merger of very low-nicotine tobacco and hemp, which really creates the taste and sensory characteristics of a cigarette that just has very little nicotine tobacco."
"As I mentioned, currently nicotine is reduced by about 95%. They give you a little bit of nicotine but not enough to really sustain addiction. So the result is that people smoke less cigarettes and it has greatly increased their quit attempts. And while they reduce their nicotine exposure and dependence, if they choose to switch to a non-combustible, we consider that a win as far as we're concerned."
#Cabbacis $CABI #EmpoweredPatient #HarmReduction #TobaccoHarmReduction #SmokingCessation #QuitSmoking #iBlend #FDA #PublicHealth #TobaccoControl #PublicHealth #Healthcare
cabbacis.com
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Joseph Pandolfino, Founder and CEO of Cabbacis, is focused on reducing harm caused by smoking cigarettes by developing cigarettes made from a blend of low-nicotine tobacco and hemp. This approach is intended to help smokers reduce their nicotine dependence and increase the success rate of those who are looking to quit smoking. Their products are targeted to established smokers by providing the taste and sensory experience of a traditional cigarette while providing significantly less nicotine and a path to less harmful non-combustible products.
Joseph explains, "So our products in development are called iBlend. We'll stick with the cigarette right now. So iBlend is predominantly very low-nicotine tobacco, and you add hemp to the product. Hemp became legal at the federal level in 2018 for farmers. So every iBlend is the merger of very low-nicotine tobacco and hemp, which really creates the taste and sensory characteristics of a cigarette that just has very little nicotine tobacco."
"As I mentioned, currently nicotine is reduced by about 95%. They give you a little bit of nicotine but not enough to really sustain addiction. So the result is that people smoke less cigarettes and it has greatly increased their quit attempts. And while they reduce their nicotine exposure and dependence, if they choose to switch to a non-combustible, we consider that a win as far as we're concerned."
#Cabbacis $CABI #EmpoweredPatient #HarmReduction #TobaccoHarmReduction #SmokingCessation #QuitSmoking #iBlend #FDA #PublicHealth #TobaccoControl #PublicHealth #Healthcare
cabbacis.com
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Brian Robertson, Founder and CEO of VisiQuate, describes the relationship between payers and providers, noting that payers have the advantage due to unified data and lower complexity than providers face. He emphasizes that providers could level the playing field by unifying their data and leveraging AI to predict and prevent claim denials and solve systemic problems. The ultimate goal of using data and AI in the revenue cycle should be patient-centered, ensuring that the technology leads to more accurate billing and better outcomes for patients, providers, and payers.
Brian explains, "I would say in general, and I think a lot of us in the industry know this, the payer or the health plan has the edge, partly because they have fewer jobs to be done every day. They manage a financial risk engine for the most part. And if you consider that the other side of that is the provider who has to have all the upfront labor, all of the upfront dollars, they have to think about every permutation of care and patient satisfaction and physician satisfaction. So good care benefits for patients. So there are a thousand jobs to be done on the provider side, and I'll just say fewer jobs to be done on the health plan side. And the health plan side controls the money."
"I think in today's world of AI, he who has the more unified data has the edge. And I think there's little debate that the payer right now has the edge because they have a unified dataset and are a financial risk engine. So, I think the opportunity is for providers to use the power of data now to begin to bring a little bit more balance to that question. And they've got a hard job ahead of them, for sure."
"So our core value proposition is really centered on data unification. We're getting into many case accounts, transactions, charges, claim files, remittance files, and third-party data sets from providers who sometimes are on one system of record. Often, they're on many systems of record. So we have to get all of that fragmented data, normalize, cleanse, unify, and curate that data for action."
#VisiQuate #HealthcareFinance #RevenueCycleManagement #AIinHealthcare #DataUnification #DeniedClaims #HealthIT #PayerProvider #PatientExperience
VisiQuate.com
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Brian Robertson, Founder and CEO of VisiQuate, describes the relationship between payers and providers, noting that payers have the advantage due to unified data and lower complexity than providers face. He emphasizes that providers could level the playing field by unifying their data and leveraging AI to predict and prevent claim denials and solve systemic problems. The ultimate goal of using data and AI in the revenue cycle should be patient-centered, ensuring that the technology leads to more accurate billing and better outcomes for patients, providers, and payers.
Brian explains, "I would say in general, and I think a lot of us in the industry know this, the payer or the health plan has the edge, partly because they have fewer jobs to be done every day. They manage a financial risk engine for the most part. And if you consider that the other side of that is the provider who has to have all the upfront labor, all of the upfront dollars, they have to think about every permutation of care and patient satisfaction and physician satisfaction. So good care benefits for patients. So there are a thousand jobs to be done on the provider side, and I'll just say fewer jobs to be done on the health plan side. And the health plan side controls the money."
"I think in today's world of AI, he who has the more unified data has the edge. And I think there's little debate that the payer right now has the edge because they have a unified dataset and are a financial risk engine. So, I think the opportunity is for providers to use the power of data now to begin to bring a little bit more balance to that question. And they've got a hard job ahead of them, for sure."
"So our core value proposition is really centered on data unification. We're getting into many case accounts, transactions, charges, claim files, remittance files, and third-party data sets from providers who sometimes are on one system of record. Often, they're on many systems of record. So we have to get all of that fragmented data, normalize, cleanse, unify, and curate that data for action."
#VisiQuate #HealthcareFinance #RevenueCycleManagement #AIinHealthcare #DataUnification #DeniedClaims #HealthIT #PayerProvider #PatientExperience
VisiQuate.com
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Debra Berenson is Chair of the Fundraising Committee at the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research and author of two books- I Have WHAT and You Have WHAT, based on her personal experience and the expertise of her husband, Dr. Jim Berenson, a myeloma expert. Multiple myeloma and related bone cancers are increasingly common, and her books are designed to help patients and caregivers understand the diagnosis and treatment options. Debra emphasizes that treatments have advanced significantly, leading to much longer, higher-quality lives for patients and transforming these diseases into chronic, manageable conditions.
Debra explains, "I thought, "If I had this disease, what would I do?" And I used to be a reporter, so that's how I told my husband I wanted to write these books - like interviews. I wanted to interview different patients with these diseases. I wanted to get the real stories out there of what it was really like having one of these diseases - the good, bad, and the ugly of dealing with all of them, and what helped these patients and what didn't help them."
"I also thought it would be cathartic for the patient who could share their journey, and also helpful for the new patient. That's the first part of the book - interviews with the different patients who have the four different diseases that Jim treats. The second part of the book is made up of the medical professionals who treat these diseases. I interviewed Jim about myeloma and its related diseases and asked him to weigh in with his medical opinions in a general sense. So complications do arise as we discussed earlier. I interviewed a cardiologist targeting amyloidosis, and there's a periodontist talking about osteonecrosis of the jaw, which means part of the jaw dies. And so you have to have a special periodontist who knows how to replace a tooth or take a tooth out. Dental health is so important. So, that's the second part of the book. And I learned so much going out with these medical professionals who treat the complications."
#IMBCR #MultipleMyeloma #MGUS #Waldenstroms #Amyloidosis #Hematology #Oncology #BerensonCancerCenter #sBCMA #ClinicalResearch #PatientCare #LiveBetterLiveLonger
IMBCR.org
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Debra Berenson is Chair of the Fundraising Committee at the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research and author of two books- I Have WHAT and You Have WHAT, based on her personal experience and the expertise of her husband, Dr. Jim Berenson, a myeloma expert. Multiple myeloma and related bone cancers are increasingly common, and her books are designed to help patients and caregivers understand the diagnosis and treatment options. Debra emphasizes that treatments have advanced significantly, leading to much longer, higher-quality lives for patients and transforming these diseases into chronic, manageable conditions.
Debra explains, "I thought, "If I had this disease, what would I do?" And I used to be a reporter, so that's how I told my husband I wanted to write these books - like interviews. I wanted to interview different patients with these diseases. I wanted to get the real stories out there of what it was really like having one of these diseases - the good, bad, and the ugly of dealing with all of them, and what helped these patients and what didn't help them."
"I also thought it would be cathartic for the patient who could share their journey, and also helpful for the new patient. That's the first part of the book - interviews with the different patients who have the four different diseases that Jim treats. The second part of the book is made up of the medical professionals who treat these diseases. I interviewed Jim about myeloma and its related diseases and asked him to weigh in with his medical opinions in a general sense. So complications do arise as we discussed earlier. I interviewed a cardiologist targeting amyloidosis, and there's a periodontist talking about osteonecrosis of the jaw, which means part of the jaw dies. And so you have to have a special periodontist who knows how to replace a tooth or take a tooth out. Dental health is so important. So, that's the second part of the book. And I learned so much going out with these medical professionals who treat the complications."
#IMBCR #MultipleMyeloma #MGUS #Waldenstroms #Amyloidosis #Hematology #Oncology #BerensonCancerCenter #sBCMA #ClinicalResearch #PatientCare #LiveBetterLiveLonger
IMBCR.org
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Anthony Tardi, head of ultrasound and radiology CT at Samsung HME America, is developing non-invasive, portable tools such as quantitative ultrasound to enable earlier detection of diseases that can be reversed if caught early. AI is being used to automate tedious, clerical tasks in imaging, allowing clinicians to focus more on the patient and clinical assessment. Improving gateway imaging, such as ultrasound and X-rays, is seen as a way to benefit the entire healthcare system by potentially reducing the need for more expensive scans.
Anthony explains, "We're developing technologies that use ultrasound to have a non-invasive tool that reduces the ionizing radiation and is able to quickly identify different levels of hepatic steatosis using quantitative ultrasound. So we're developing tools that, instead of getting a patient needing to have a biopsy or maybe another modality that may be more expensive or not accessible, such as MRI, we're able to develop tools using ultrasound to be able to acquire that information. So that would just be one example."
"So technology continues to evolve. I would say in the case of this particular technology, it's a combination of automation being implemented. We have access to some of the best hardware and semiconductor innovation, and we integrate those into the ultrasound systems. That gives us a little more power and automation, enabling us to access new levels of information beyond the traditional norm, I would say, in imaging."
#SamsungHMEAmerica #SamsungHealthcare #MedicalImaging #HealthcareInnovation #ImagingInnovation #PatientCare #MedicalEquipment #UltrasoundInnovation #HealthTech #Ultrasound #Radiology #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth
usa.samsunghealthcare.com
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Anthony Tardi, head of ultrasound and radiology CT at Samsung HME America, is developing non-invasive, portable tools such as quantitative ultrasound to enable earlier detection of diseases that can be reversed if caught early. AI is being used to automate tedious, clerical tasks in imaging, allowing clinicians to focus more on the patient and clinical assessment. Improving gateway imaging, such as ultrasound and X-rays, is seen as a way to benefit the entire healthcare system by potentially reducing the need for more expensive scans.
Anthony explains, "We're developing technologies that use ultrasound to have a non-invasive tool that reduces the ionizing radiation and is able to quickly identify different levels of hepatic steatosis using quantitative ultrasound. So we're developing tools that, instead of getting a patient needing to have a biopsy or maybe another modality that may be more expensive or not accessible, such as MRI, we're able to develop tools using ultrasound to be able to acquire that information. So that would just be one example."
"So technology continues to evolve. I would say in the case of this particular technology, it's a combination of automation being implemented. We have access to some of the best hardware and semiconductor innovation, and we integrate those into the ultrasound systems. That gives us a little more power and automation, enabling us to access new levels of information beyond the traditional norm, I would say, in imaging."
#SamsungHMEAmerica #SamsungHealthcare #MedicalImaging #HealthcareInnovation #ImagingInnovation #PatientCare #MedicalEquipment #UltrasoundInnovation #HealthTech #Ultrasound #Radiology #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth
usa.samsunghealthcare.com
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Dr. Heather Bassett, Chief Medical Officer at Xsolis, is using AI to reduce friction between healthcare providers and payers in the utilization management and mid-revenue cycle space. Their Care Level Score is a data-driven metric derived from patient data to reduce manual processes, denials, and administrative costs for both hospitals and insurance companies. The system enables automated approvals for clear-cut cases, reduces repetitive administrative work, and reduces delays in patient diagnoses and treatment initiation.
Heather explains, "We're an AI company at heart. We work with acute care hospitals across the US. We live in what's called the utilization management and mid-revenue cycle space, which, to put that in layman's terms, is we make sure that hospitals get paid appropriately for the care they provide their patients."
"We recognized fairly quickly that there was just a tremendous amount of complexity in manual processes and saw an opportunity to layer in automation and AI to help decrease a lot of the friction, get rid of the manual processes. And then a larger opportunity we saw was to ease much of the friction between hospitals and providers and payers. And that's really where we've helped our clients solve that problem and move the needle forward."
"Unfortunately, there is an increase in the number of denials, and that requires a lot of rework and submission on the hospital side. And also, when you look at what's happening, when the hospital is submitting information to get authorization for that inpatient hospital-level of care, they're doing a manual review and sending information to the payer. Well, there's a UR, utilization review, nurse on the payer side who is doing exactly the same thing, and a good percentage of the time they're coming to the same conclusion."
#Xsolis #HealthcareAI #UtilizationManagement #RevenueCycle #PriorAuth #PayerProvider #ClinicalAI #HealthIT
xsolis.com
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Dr. Heather Bassett, Chief Medical Officer at Xsolis, is using AI to reduce friction between healthcare providers and payers in the utilization management and mid-revenue cycle space. Their Care Level Score is a data-driven metric derived from patient data to reduce manual processes, denials, and administrative costs for both hospitals and insurance companies. The system enables automated approvals for clear-cut cases, reduces repetitive administrative work, and reduces delays in patient diagnoses and treatment initiation.
Heather explains, "We're an AI company at heart. We work with acute care hospitals across the US. We live in what's called the utilization management and mid-revenue cycle space, which, to put that in layman's terms, is we make sure that hospitals get paid appropriately for the care they provide their patients."
"We recognized fairly quickly that there was just a tremendous amount of complexity in manual processes and saw an opportunity to layer in automation and AI to help decrease a lot of the friction, get rid of the manual processes. And then a larger opportunity we saw was to ease much of the friction between hospitals and providers and payers. And that's really where we've helped our clients solve that problem and move the needle forward."
"Unfortunately, there is an increase in the number of denials, and that requires a lot of rework and submission on the hospital side. And also, when you look at what's happening, when the hospital is submitting information to get authorization for that inpatient hospital-level of care, they're doing a manual review and sending information to the payer. Well, there's a UR, utilization review, nurse on the payer side who is doing exactly the same thing, and a good percentage of the time they're coming to the same conclusion."
#Xsolis #HealthcareAI #UtilizationManagement #RevenueCycle #PriorAuth #PayerProvider #ClinicalAI #HealthIT
xsolis.com
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Dr. Houda Hachad, Vice President of Clinical Operations at Aranscia, highlights the importance of regular medication reviews in an age of growing polypharmacy and advancements in the use of pharmacogenomics to identify potential risks. The key goal is to use the minimal effective dose of a medication and determine which drugs are most effective for treating identified conditions without causing unintended side effects. Adopting a preemptive pharmacogenomic testing approach for patients taking more than 5 drugs is noted as a way to reduce hospital readmissions, emergency room visits, and adverse drug events.
Houda explains, "So polypharmacy is becoming more and more common. I think the data shows that up to 40% of adults now take a lot of medications. And polypharmacy is typically defined as the regular use of five medications or more. But in some settings, we're seeing what we call excessive polypharmacy, which is using nine or more."
"So there are multiple patient cohorts, as you can imagine, that take these medications, definitely patients in hospital settings, older patients, patients that suffer from behavioral health issues, and any chronic conditions, patients with diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are going to be your typical polypharmacy patients. So our tools, which span genetic testing, medication reviews, and the use of various patient information to provide precision care, allow us to simplify and help doctors mitigate the risks associated with polypharmacy."
"Each time you add a medication to a patient, you're increasing the risk of having these adverse drug events. We have tools that can reduce the risk of polypharmacy, including pharmacogenomics."
#Aranscia #Polypharmacy, #DrugGeneInteractions #dpydTesting #MedicationSafety #Pharmacogenomics
aranscia.com
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Dr. Houda Hachad, Vice President of Clinical Operations at Aranscia, highlights the importance of regular medication reviews in an age of growing polypharmacy and advancements in the use of pharmacogenomics to identify potential risks. The key goal is to use the minimal effective dose of a medication and determine which drugs are most effective for treating identified conditions without causing unintended side effects. Adopting a preemptive pharmacogenomic testing approach for patients taking more than 5 drugs is noted as a way to reduce hospital readmissions, emergency room visits, and adverse drug events.
Houda explains, "So polypharmacy is becoming more and more common. I think the data shows that up to 40% of adults now take a lot of medications. And polypharmacy is typically defined as the regular use of five medications or more. But in some settings, we're seeing what we call excessive polypharmacy, which is using nine or more."
"So there are multiple patient cohorts, as you can imagine, that take these medications, definitely patients in hospital settings, older patients, patients that suffer from behavioral health issues, and any chronic conditions, patients with diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are going to be your typical polypharmacy patients. So our tools, which span genetic testing, medication reviews, and the use of various patient information to provide precision care, allow us to simplify and help doctors mitigate the risks associated with polypharmacy."
"Each time you add a medication to a patient, you're increasing the risk of having these adverse drug events. We have tools that can reduce the risk of polypharmacy, including pharmacogenomics."
#Aranscia #Polypharmacy, #DrugGeneInteractions #dpydTesting #MedicationSafety #Pharmacogenomics
aranscia.com
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Selena Freisens, Head of Global Medical Affairs at Merz Therapeutics, is focused on increasing access to tools to support neurological health. They have developed a digital app iFlexo, which is designed to provide at-home physiotherapy for stroke survivors. The app has been tested in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in partnership with the World Stroke Organization and is designed to operate offline as well, to serve users in rural areas with limited internet connectivity.
Selena explains, "Our company is family-owned and in its fifth generation, so we have a rather long-term legacy, and the newer part is Merz Therapeutics, and our focus in Merz Therapeutics is on neuroscience. So we practically cover the number of movement disorders such as Spasms, Dystonias. We also have a focus on Parkinson's and Multiple Sclerosis."
"We continuously work on building this awareness and knowledge. One example is Parkinson's disease. And when I started working with Parkinson's disease, most of the patients would have off episodes, which are exacerbations of their symptoms, but many of these off episodes are underdiagnosed, and they're not really treated optimally. So it's really a lot of attention is needed to educate not only HCPs and, of course, some other stakeholders, but particularly patients."
"So the time also matters for stroke survivors. So it's very important that they start as soon as possible all the therapies, but also the physiotherapy at the same time. What this digital tool does is give two options. One is education on the one side, and on the other hand, a guided exercise that will enable people and stroke survivors to exercise at home. And with that, obviously, the personalized goals have been worked out together with the experts and HCPs so that they can achieve those goals faster, while working from home."
#MerzTherapeutics #StrokeRehab #DigitalHealth #NeuroRehab #AccessToHealth #WorldStrokeOrganization #Physiotherapy #HealthEquity #TeleRehab #HCPs #Africafirst #AccesstoHealth #EquitableAccess #PostStrokeRehabilitation #PatientDrivenInnovation
Merztherapeutics.com
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Selena Freisens, Head of Global Medical Affairs at Merz Therapeutics, is focused on increasing access to tools to support neurological health. They have developed a digital app iFlexo, which is designed to provide at-home physiotherapy for stroke survivors. The app has been tested in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in partnership with the World Stroke Organization and is designed to operate offline as well, to serve users in rural areas with limited internet connectivity.
Selena explains, "Our company is family-owned and in its fifth generation, so we have a rather long-term legacy, and the newer part is Merz Therapeutics, and our focus in Merz Therapeutics is on neuroscience. So we practically cover the number of movement disorders such as Spasms, Dystonias. We also have a focus on Parkinson's and Multiple Sclerosis."
"We continuously work on building this awareness and knowledge. One example is Parkinson's disease. And when I started working with Parkinson's disease, most of the patients would have off episodes, which are exacerbations of their symptoms, but many of these off episodes are underdiagnosed, and they're not really treated optimally. So it's really a lot of attention is needed to educate not only HCPs and, of course, some other stakeholders, but particularly patients."
"So the time also matters for stroke survivors. So it's very important that they start as soon as possible all the therapies, but also the physiotherapy at the same time. What this digital tool does is give two options. One is education on the one side, and on the other hand, a guided exercise that will enable people and stroke survivors to exercise at home. And with that, obviously, the personalized goals have been worked out together with the experts and HCPs so that they can achieve those goals faster, while working from home."
#MerzTherapeutics #StrokeRehab #DigitalHealth #NeuroRehab #AccessToHealth #WorldStrokeOrganization #Physiotherapy #HealthEquity #TeleRehab #HCPs #Africafirst #AccesstoHealth #EquitableAccess #PostStrokeRehabilitation #PatientDrivenInnovation
Merztherapeutics.com
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Cara Altimus, the CEO of BD², and Emily Baxi, the Program Director of BD²'s Integrated Network, are focused on integrating research and clinical care to improve outcomes for people with bipolar disorder. They emphasize the gaps in diagnostics and effective treatments and the need to collect comprehensive biological and clinical data to enable a precision medicine approach. Their Integrated Network is a longitudinal, large-scale study that complements their investments in new therapeutics, moving away from a trial-and-error approach to effective interventions for individuals.
Cara explains, "When we think about the mission of BD², it's that we're bringing innovators and patients and the world together to drive new discovery, new understanding, and improved outcomes for people with bipolar disorder so that all people with bipolar disorder can thrive. And that thrive piece is critical to what we do. We're not just thinking about how we will change symptom outcomes, but we are thinking about how we engage across the whole life and all of the components of life, with science at the forefront of what we do."
Emily elaborates, "I think it's important to acknowledge here that the tools and the technologies that we have today are quite different from even those that we had 20, 15 years ago, and they've really set the stage for how we can bring research and clinical care together. So we didn't have electronic health records in the past. We didn't have the ability to understand both from a phenotype level, meaning, can we understand the biology? Can we understand the clinical trajectory, the course of somebody's illness?"
"We just didn't have the same tools to really bring clarity and understanding to that. So one of the reasons we're so excited about the Integrated Network is that it represents a framework where we're bringing those components together so that research and clinical care are really sitting side by side. So, in practice, that looks like a longitudinal cohort study."
#BipolarDiscoveries #BipolarDisorder #MentalHealthResearch #PrecisionPsychiatry #LearningHealthSystem #IntegratedCare #Psychiatry #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalResearch #DataDrivenCare #PopulationHealth
bipolardiscoveries.org
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Cara Altimus, the CEO of BD², and Emily Baxi, the Program Director of BD²'s Integrated Network, are focused on integrating research and clinical care to improve outcomes for people with bipolar disorder. They emphasize the gaps in diagnostics and effective treatments and the need to collect comprehensive biological and clinical data to enable a precision medicine approach. Their Integrated Network is a longitudinal, large-scale study that complements their investments in new therapeutics, moving away from a trial-and-error approach to effective interventions for individuals.
Cara explains, "When we think about the mission of BD², it's that we're bringing innovators and patients and the world together to drive new discovery, new understanding, and improved outcomes for people with bipolar disorder so that all people with bipolar disorder can thrive. And that thrive piece is critical to what we do. We're not just thinking about how we will change symptom outcomes, but we are thinking about how we engage across the whole life and all of the components of life, with science at the forefront of what we do."
Emily elaborates, "I think it's important to acknowledge here that the tools and the technologies that we have today are quite different from even those that we had 20, 15 years ago, and they've really set the stage for how we can bring research and clinical care together. So we didn't have electronic health records in the past. We didn't have the ability to understand both from a phenotype level, meaning, can we understand the biology? Can we understand the clinical trajectory, the course of somebody's illness?"
"We just didn't have the same tools to really bring clarity and understanding to that. So one of the reasons we're so excited about the Integrated Network is that it represents a framework where we're bringing those components together so that research and clinical care are really sitting side by side. So, in practice, that looks like a longitudinal cohort study."
#BipolarDiscoveries #BipolarDisorder #MentalHealthResearch #PrecisionPsychiatry #LearningHealthSystem #IntegratedCare #Psychiatry #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalResearch #DataDrivenCare #PopulationHealth
bipolardiscoveries.org
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Sundar Subramanian, CEO of Zyter, points out that the primary issue in healthcare is not a lack of AI intelligence but a failure in AI execution. He advocates for a vertical AI integration approach that solves entire domain-specific workflows rather than horizontal or point solutions that automate existing, often inefficient processes. To ensure safe and effective use of AI, implement guardrails that promote transparency and augment clinicians by reducing friction, helping reduce errors, and building trust.
Sundar explains, "You see a lot of AI companies around, but when you look at healthcare, especially the problem we have in healthcare, it is actually not an AI intelligence problem. What we have is an AI execution problem. The models are really growing fast and can do all kinds of tasks, but if you look at healthcare and the overall healthcare economy, trillions of dollars are still spent on lots of manual processes because doing things at scale and executing things at scale is not easy. And so Zyter is a company that's trying to solve that problem, which is really how do you coordinate and execute workflows end-to-end safely, transparently, and with humans trusting it and still in control. And so that's what we intend to do and are doing at Zyter."
"So what we mean by that is that problems get solved at the domain level. And when you solve problems at the domain level, it's not a single decision problem. You can embed horizontal tools to enable convenience and do things slightly better than they are today by embedding point solutions, and lots of platforms can help do that. But when you solve for a domain workflow end-to-end, you need a lot of domain intelligence. You need to understand how the regulatory context works. You need to understand how policies and the governance of those policies need to be done. So it's not a single decision problem. And to do that, you need to orchestrate across lots of tools and data that span many domains to solve for outcomes like healthcare access, total cost of care, or quality."
#ZyterAI #AIinHealthcare #HealthIT #ClinicalWorkflow #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #CareDelivery #HealthSystems #Payers #ValueBasedCare
Zyter.ai
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Sundar Subramanian, CEO of Zyter, points out that the primary issue in healthcare is not a lack of AI intelligence but a failure in AI execution. He advocates for a vertical AI integration approach that solves entire domain-specific workflows rather than horizontal or point solutions that automate existing, often inefficient processes. To ensure safe and effective use of AI, implement guardrails that promote transparency and augment clinicians by reducing friction, helping reduce errors, and building trust.
Sundar explains, "You see a lot of AI companies around, but when you look at healthcare, especially the problem we have in healthcare, it is actually not an AI intelligence problem. What we have is an AI execution problem. The models are really growing fast and can do all kinds of tasks, but if you look at healthcare and the overall healthcare economy, trillions of dollars are still spent on lots of manual processes because doing things at scale and executing things at scale is not easy. And so Zyter is a company that's trying to solve that problem, which is really how do you coordinate and execute workflows end-to-end safely, transparently, and with humans trusting it and still in control. And so that's what we intend to do and are doing at Zyter."
"So what we mean by that is that problems get solved at the domain level. And when you solve problems at the domain level, it's not a single decision problem. You can embed horizontal tools to enable convenience and do things slightly better than they are today by embedding point solutions, and lots of platforms can help do that. But when you solve for a domain workflow end-to-end, you need a lot of domain intelligence. You need to understand how the regulatory context works. You need to understand how policies and the governance of those policies need to be done. So it's not a single decision problem. And to do that, you need to orchestrate across lots of tools and data that span many domains to solve for outcomes like healthcare access, total cost of care, or quality."
#ZyterAI #AIinHealthcare #HealthIT #ClinicalWorkflow #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #CareDelivery #HealthSystems #Payers #ValueBasedCare
Zyter.ai
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Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, Director of the Integrative Medicine Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He's also co-lead author of a study on whether biofield therapy can impact pancreatic cancer. The study demonstrated that biofield therapy could decrease cancer cell proliferation, disrupt mitochondrial function, and reduce metastasis in both cell cultures and animal models, with results comparable to chemotherapy without the side effects. He highlights the challenges to the wider acceptance of this therapy, given the lack of understanding of its mechanism of action and awareness about this growing area of integrative medicine.
Lorenzo explains, "So biofield therapies fall into this category of, let's call them treatment modalities in the field of integrative medicine. So integrative medicine can be things like acupuncture, massage, yoga, meditation, nutrition counseling, exercise, things that you could say fall outside of the conventional traditional medical treatments that are within hospital systems. Now, integrative medicine as a whole and integrative oncology in particular have had a huge uptake in hospital systems because of the evidence base in those areas that I just described. The one area that probably remains the most controversial is this area of biofield therapies or often known as energy medicine. I don't actually really like using the term energy medicine because that implies that we know it has something to do with energy, and we're actually not sure exactly what the mechanism is of these therapies. And so what are these? So many of the listeners will have heard of things like Reiki, healing touch, or therapeutic touch."
"External Qigong falls into this category. These are modalities where a practitioner has been trained to be able to work with their own consciousness or their own intention, potentially the biofield of their body. And it is not controversial to know that we as human beings are energetic beings, and we actually do emit biophotons by the nature of being human. But the controversial part is that they are doing that towards a target, whether that be a human being, or, in our case, cells or animals in a laboratory. And we, in particular, worked with a biofield therapy called the Bengston Cycling Method."
#MDAnderson #IntegrativeOncology #BiofieldTherapy #PancreaticCancer #Metastasis #FOXM1 #Mitochondria #PreclinicalResearch #EnergyMedicine #OncologyResearch.
Biofield Therapy
Anticancer Living: Transform Your Life and Health with the Mix of Six
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Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, Director of the Integrative Medicine Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He's also co-lead author of a study on whether biofield therapy can impact pancreatic cancer. The study demonstrated that biofield therapy could decrease cancer cell proliferation, disrupt mitochondrial function, and reduce metastasis in both cell cultures and animal models, with results comparable to chemotherapy without the side effects. He highlights the challenges to the wider acceptance of this therapy, given the lack of understanding of its mechanism of action and awareness about this growing area of integrative medicine.
Lorenzo explains, "So biofield therapies fall into this category of, let's call them treatment modalities in the field of integrative medicine. So integrative medicine can be things like acupuncture, massage, yoga, meditation, nutrition counseling, exercise, things that you could say fall outside of the conventional traditional medical treatments that are within hospital systems. Now, integrative medicine as a whole and integrative oncology in particular have had a huge uptake in hospital systems because of the evidence base in those areas that I just described. The one area that probably remains the most controversial is this area of biofield therapies or often known as energy medicine. I don't actually really like using the term energy medicine because that implies that we know it has something to do with energy, and we're actually not sure exactly what the mechanism is of these therapies. And so what are these? So many of the listeners will have heard of things like Reiki, healing touch, or therapeutic touch."
"External Qigong falls into this category. These are modalities where a practitioner has been trained to be able to work with their own consciousness or their own intention, potentially the biofield of their body. And it is not controversial to know that we as human beings are energetic beings, and we actually do emit biophotons by the nature of being human. But the controversial part is that they are doing that towards a target, whether that be a human being, or, in our case, cells or animals in a laboratory. And we, in particular, worked with a biofield therapy called the Bengston Cycling Method."
#MDAnderson #IntegrativeOncology #BiofieldTherapy #PancreaticCancer #Metastasis #FOXM1 #Mitochondria #PreclinicalResearch #EnergyMedicine #OncologyResearch.
Biofield Therapy
Anticancer Living: Transform Your Life and Health with the Mix of Six
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Geoff Rhyne, Co-Founder and CEO of IDefine, discusses the mission to advance research into Kleefstra syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, and to find a treatment where there is currently none. This organization of parents of children with KS is advocating for broader genetic sequencing to identify KS patients and differentiate the condition from other possible diagnoses, such as autism. Their research strategy is to first build the necessary infrastructure, including real-world data, model systems, and clinical guidelines, to de-risk the process for researchers and directly fund drug development.
Geoff explains, "We're dedicated to advancing research, building community, and driving progress for Kleefstra syndrome. And the inspiration behind it is that a bunch of parents had impacted children. And, namely, for me, my daughter Ella received her diagnosis on February 26th, 2019. You asked a rare disease parent. Their diagnosis day and odds are they'll be able to rattle off pretty quickly because it is life-altering and changing. And once we looked around the landscape of Kleefstra syndrome and what was being done, we identified a need. And so a group of other parents and I came together and founded the organization in 2020."
"KS is one of these rare genetic disorders, and it affects brain development and basically every aspect of a child's life. And it could encompass developmental delays, feature delays, seizures, kidney issues, and cascading other conditions. So what happens with KS is that when you get the diagnosis, folks have often gone on a diagnostic odyssey. It's very rare that folks are being identified early on. And so we're part of that cohort that believes there are many more patients out there with KS, but the diagnostic odyssey is a real challenge. And so we typically will see kids receiving their diagnosis from three years to we've had someone diagnosed at 40 before, which is just a crazy experience as you can imagine."
#IDefine #KleefstraSyndrome #EHMT1 #RareDisease #RareDiseaseResearch #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders #GeneticDisorders #PatientAdvocacy #CaregiverSupport #FamilyLedResearch #RareDiseaseCommunity #PrecisionMedicine #Genomics #MedicalResearch #ClinicalResearch #TranslationalResearch #DiagnosticJourney #PatientSupport #ResearchFunding #InclusiveCare #PatientVoices #RareDiseaseAwareness
IDefine.org
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Geoff Rhyne, Co-Founder and CEO of IDefine, discusses the mission to advance research into Kleefstra syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, and to find a treatment where there is currently none. This organization of parents of children with KS is advocating for broader genetic sequencing to identify KS patients and differentiate the condition from other possible diagnoses, such as autism. Their research strategy is to first build the necessary infrastructure, including real-world data, model systems, and clinical guidelines, to de-risk the process for researchers and directly fund drug development.
Geoff explains, "We're dedicated to advancing research, building community, and driving progress for Kleefstra syndrome. And the inspiration behind it is that a bunch of parents had impacted children. And, namely, for me, my daughter Ella received her diagnosis on February 26th, 2019. You asked a rare disease parent. Their diagnosis day and odds are they'll be able to rattle off pretty quickly because it is life-altering and changing. And once we looked around the landscape of Kleefstra syndrome and what was being done, we identified a need. And so a group of other parents and I came together and founded the organization in 2020."
"KS is one of these rare genetic disorders, and it affects brain development and basically every aspect of a child's life. And it could encompass developmental delays, feature delays, seizures, kidney issues, and cascading other conditions. So what happens with KS is that when you get the diagnosis, folks have often gone on a diagnostic odyssey. It's very rare that folks are being identified early on. And so we're part of that cohort that believes there are many more patients out there with KS, but the diagnostic odyssey is a real challenge. And so we typically will see kids receiving their diagnosis from three years to we've had someone diagnosed at 40 before, which is just a crazy experience as you can imagine."
#IDefine #KleefstraSyndrome #EHMT1 #RareDisease #RareDiseaseResearch #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders #GeneticDisorders #PatientAdvocacy #CaregiverSupport #FamilyLedResearch #RareDiseaseCommunity #PrecisionMedicine #Genomics #MedicalResearch #ClinicalResearch #TranslationalResearch #DiagnosticJourney #PatientSupport #ResearchFunding #InclusiveCare #PatientVoices #RareDiseaseAwareness
IDefine.org
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Philippe Pouletty, M.D., CEO of Truffle Capital and Founder of Carvolix, describes the evolution of heart valve replacement and the significance of AI-guided robotics in expanding access to transcatheter procedures. The company's biomimetic mitral valve and AI software that guides valve placement using a mini robot are making these procedures safer and easier for less experienced cardiologists to perform. The technology is also being adapted to treat brain strokes by enabling a larger pool of cardiologists to quickly perform necessary interventions.
Philippe explains, "At Truffle Capital, are what we like to call ourselves Business Builders, which is to say we're not just going to start small companies, we are going to try and build world leaders to revolutionize medicine. For Carvolix, this means interventional cardiology as well as the treatment of brain strokes. As you know, replacing heart valves is a major medical need. We have four heart valves that open and close 50 to 100 times per minute, which can get calcified and dysfunctional with time and need replacement. So 40 years ago, you would go to a skilled surgeon who would say, "Okay, I'm going to open your chest. I'm going to stop your heart, and I'm going to sew a new valve."
"But recently we decided to lead the new revolution, which is a small robot based on artificial intelligence, that could autonomously, under the clinical supervision of a cardiologist, replace a valve. We think that this new revolution is going to allow many more patients to benefit from aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valve replacement, even in smaller cardiac centers and among younger cardiologists. A similar revolution happened in the cockpit of Boeing and Airbus planes when the autopilot, the GPS systems, and satellite systems brought autonomy to planes."
#Carvolix #CardiacNews #PatientCare #HealthTech #Cardio #AIinHealthcare #InterventionalCardiology #StrokeCare #MedTechInnovation #RoboticsInMedicine #TAVI #Thrombectomy #DigitalHealth
Carvolix.eu
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Philippe Pouletty, M.D., CEO of Truffle Capital and Founder of Carvolix, describes the evolution of heart valve replacement and the significance of AI-guided robotics in expanding access to transcatheter procedures. The company's biomimetic mitral valve and AI software that guides valve placement using a mini robot are making these procedures safer and easier for less experienced cardiologists to perform. The technology is also being adapted to treat brain strokes by enabling a larger pool of cardiologists to quickly perform necessary interventions.
Philippe explains, "At Truffle Capital, are what we like to call ourselves Business Builders, which is to say we're not just going to start small companies, we are going to try and build world leaders to revolutionize medicine. For Carvolix, this means interventional cardiology as well as the treatment of brain strokes. As you know, replacing heart valves is a major medical need. We have four heart valves that open and close 50 to 100 times per minute, which can get calcified and dysfunctional with time and need replacement. So 40 years ago, you would go to a skilled surgeon who would say, "Okay, I'm going to open your chest. I'm going to stop your heart, and I'm going to sew a new valve."
"But recently we decided to lead the new revolution, which is a small robot based on artificial intelligence, that could autonomously, under the clinical supervision of a cardiologist, replace a valve. We think that this new revolution is going to allow many more patients to benefit from aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valve replacement, even in smaller cardiac centers and among younger cardiologists. A similar revolution happened in the cockpit of Boeing and Airbus planes when the autopilot, the GPS systems, and satellite systems brought autonomy to planes."
#Carvolix #CardiacNews #PatientCare #HealthTech #Cardio #AIinHealthcare #InterventionalCardiology #StrokeCare #MedTechInnovation #RoboticsInMedicine #TAVI #Thrombectomy #DigitalHealth
Carvolix.eu
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Colin Lawlor, CEO of Sleep ai, is focused on exploring sleep intelligence and sleep as a vital sign of health. The Sleep ai platform measures sleep longitudinally using data from consumer wearables and smartphones, with an emphasis on night-to-night variability, which is not captured in a single-night sleep lab. Poor sleep and variation in sleep patterns have been identified as highly predictive indicators of over 130 chronic diseases and have an impact on mental well-being and the effectiveness of medical treatments.
Colin explains, "What we're doing is we're measuring sleep longitudinally, over the long term, and we're measuring it from whatever device the consumer has. For some consumers or patients, it may be wearable, and there are many, many different wearables, or for others, it's simply from their phone. We have the ability to collect high-quality sleep data from everyone every day. And that's really important because when we get into this, we'll talk about why longitudinal measurement is really helpful in dealing with sleep challenges themselves, but also in seeing sleep as a window into literally everything to do with our health."
"There are several factors going on here. The first one is that globally, four billion people wake up tired almost every day. We do not have, and we will never have, a sufficient number of sleep labs to send all of them for a one-night study. And if we collect data for only one night, we're only getting one picture of how that person is sleeping. But as we all know, life gets in the way. We may have had a stressful day, or we may have had an argument with our significant other. We may be suffering from a cold."
"Whatever it is, all of these multiple factors influence sleep. So if we over-rely on one data point to understand what's going on, it's just not sufficient. So what we are finding is that, actually, the variance night to night is probably the most useful and insightful thing we can see. Because when we look at the variance across many nights, we have a much more accurate picture of what's happening with the person's sleep, and that's highly predictive of many, many other conditions, issues, and challenges."
#SleepAI #DigitalHealth #SleepAsAVitalSign #ChronicDisease #PopulationHealth #AIinHealthcare #Wearables #LongitudinalData #SleepHealth, #SleepScience
sleep.ai
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Colin Lawlor, CEO of Sleep ai, is focused on exploring sleep intelligence and sleep as a vital sign of health. The Sleep ai platform measures sleep longitudinally using data from consumer wearables and smartphones, with an emphasis on night-to-night variability, which is not captured in a single-night sleep lab. Poor sleep and variation in sleep patterns have been identified as highly predictive indicators of over 130 chronic diseases and have an impact on mental well-being and the effectiveness of medical treatments.
Colin explains, "What we're doing is we're measuring sleep longitudinally, over the long term, and we're measuring it from whatever device the consumer has. For some consumers or patients, it may be wearable, and there are many, many different wearables, or for others, it's simply from their phone. We have the ability to collect high-quality sleep data from everyone every day. And that's really important because when we get into this, we'll talk about why longitudinal measurement is really helpful in dealing with sleep challenges themselves, but also in seeing sleep as a window into literally everything to do with our health."
"There are several factors going on here. The first one is that globally, four billion people wake up tired almost every day. We do not have, and we will never have, a sufficient number of sleep labs to send all of them for a one-night study. And if we collect data for only one night, we're only getting one picture of how that person is sleeping. But as we all know, life gets in the way. We may have had a stressful day, or we may have had an argument with our significant other. We may be suffering from a cold."
"Whatever it is, all of these multiple factors influence sleep. So if we over-rely on one data point to understand what's going on, it's just not sufficient. So what we are finding is that, actually, the variance night to night is probably the most useful and insightful thing we can see. Because when we look at the variance across many nights, we have a much more accurate picture of what's happening with the person's sleep, and that's highly predictive of many, many other conditions, issues, and challenges."
#SleepAI #DigitalHealth #SleepAsAVitalSign #ChronicDisease #PopulationHealth #AIinHealthcare #Wearables #LongitudinalData #SleepHealth, #SleepScience
sleep.ai
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Zach Wood, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Artera, and Meg Jackson, Director of IT for Beauregard Health Systems, join to discuss patient engagement in a rural healthcare setting that previously relied on minimal patient communication, relying on phone calls. The introduction of two-way texting has increased patient engagement, streamlined appointment scheduling, and improved medication adherence. In communities with fewer landlines and limited broadband and computers, this secure texting solution is easy to use and available on patients' mobile devices for convenient access and an effective way to supplement in person care.
Zach explains, "Artera works with a very broad set of provider organizations, ranging from specialty clinics to health systems to even federal agencies. We have about a thousand customers that we serve and have organizations like Beauregard that partner with us very closely in rural environments."
Meg elaborates, "We may have had some phone calls going out to patients before Artera, but no text reminder. So this was a brand new world for us. We wanted to bring more to the text message, to the patient on their personal devices. We live in a rural area, so maybe broadband is less accessible in our area. So we were trying to bring something to their devices for the patient."
"Well, everyone today has a cell phone. Not everyone has a computer. A lot of people don't even have home phones anymore. So we wanted to get that as a text message to the patient, where they could just respond to it. The beauty of Artera, which first drew me to Artera, was the two-way communication. The patient can initiate the conversation without ever having been a patient here before. They can text the main number of our facility and start a conversation, and we can even have different rules set up on the Artera side, where it could trigger a certain conversation based on the patient's keywords. So that really empowers us to make it more customizable for our patient communication."
#Artera #BeauregardHealthSystem #DrFirst #EmpoweredPatient #MedicationAdherence #HealthEquity #RuralHealth #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #RuralHealth #PatientExperience #HealthIT #SecureMessaging
Artera.io
Beauregard.org
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Zach Wood, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Artera, and Meg Jackson, Director of IT for Beauregard Health Systems, join to discuss patient engagement in a rural healthcare setting that previously relied on minimal patient communication, relying on phone calls. The introduction of two-way texting has increased patient engagement, streamlined appointment scheduling, and improved medication adherence. In communities with fewer landlines and limited broadband and computers, this secure texting solution is easy to use and available on patients' mobile devices for convenient access and an effective way to supplement in person care.
Zach explains, "Artera works with a very broad set of provider organizations, ranging from specialty clinics to health systems to even federal agencies. We have about a thousand customers that we serve and have organizations like Beauregard that partner with us very closely in rural environments."
Meg elaborates, "We may have had some phone calls going out to patients before Artera, but no text reminder. So this was a brand new world for us. We wanted to bring more to the text message, to the patient on their personal devices. We live in a rural area, so maybe broadband is less accessible in our area. So we were trying to bring something to their devices for the patient."
"Well, everyone today has a cell phone. Not everyone has a computer. A lot of people don't even have home phones anymore. So we wanted to get that as a text message to the patient, where they could just respond to it. The beauty of Artera, which first drew me to Artera, was the two-way communication. The patient can initiate the conversation without ever having been a patient here before. They can text the main number of our facility and start a conversation, and we can even have different rules set up on the Artera side, where it could trigger a certain conversation based on the patient's keywords. So that really empowers us to make it more customizable for our patient communication."
#Artera #BeauregardHealthSystem #DrFirst #EmpoweredPatient #MedicationAdherence #HealthEquity #RuralHealth #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #RuralHealth #PatientExperience #HealthIT #SecureMessaging
Artera.io
Beauregard.org
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John D'Alesandro, a healthcare operations guru, Amplefi stresses that generally, healthcare operations do not suffer from a lack of staff or technology but from a failure to properly define goals and understand healthcare as a complex system. The reliance on outdated processes and the misapplication of technology has led to the introduction of AI into the environment without first addressing foundational system flaws. He advocates for a simpler, common-sense approach rather than platitudes about patient safety, ensuring that AI models are not trained on inaccurate data from broken systems or undocumented workarounds.
John asks, "What is healthcare? Well, healthcare is a ton of things. What is the patient experience? Well, depends on the patient. So when we use these generic terms, they tend to cloud the performance of the system. So I think the first place we need to start is to say something like, " What's an ER experience that we're proud of?" If it's four hours, then it's four hours. But if it's longer or shorter than that, we need targets and reference models to know what we're doing, because we're adding a lot of things and a lot of complexity. We're not really realizing that those are systems. Those systems, when they produce friction, get hit on the frontline. The front lines have to deal with vague, unclear expectations."
"Patient experience isn't smiling. It's delivering your care in a reliable way. People get frustrated because they sit around waiting and wondering what the heck's going on. So I think just spending a little bit of time defining everything in your hospital, because every hospital's different."
#Amplefi #DigitalHealth #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #ConnectedHealth #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareOperations #WorkflowDesign#OperationalExcellence #HealthcareSystems #FixTheProcess #BeforeCareBreaks #StructureMatters #ProcessOverTools #StopScalingChaos #HealthcareOperations #HospitalWorkflow #ClinicianBurnout #HealthSystems #AIinHealthcare #Telehealth #CareCoordination
amplefi.com
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John D'Alesandro, a healthcare operations guru, Amplefi stresses that generally, healthcare operations do not suffer from a lack of staff or technology but from a failure to properly define goals and understand healthcare as a complex system. The reliance on outdated processes and the misapplication of technology has led to the introduction of AI into the environment without first addressing foundational system flaws. He advocates for a simpler, common-sense approach rather than platitudes about patient safety, ensuring that AI models are not trained on inaccurate data from broken systems or undocumented workarounds.
John asks, "What is healthcare? Well, healthcare is a ton of things. What is the patient experience? Well, depends on the patient. So when we use these generic terms, they tend to cloud the performance of the system. So I think the first place we need to start is to say something like, " What's an ER experience that we're proud of?" If it's four hours, then it's four hours. But if it's longer or shorter than that, we need targets and reference models to know what we're doing, because we're adding a lot of things and a lot of complexity. We're not really realizing that those are systems. Those systems, when they produce friction, get hit on the frontline. The front lines have to deal with vague, unclear expectations."
"Patient experience isn't smiling. It's delivering your care in a reliable way. People get frustrated because they sit around waiting and wondering what the heck's going on. So I think just spending a little bit of time defining everything in your hospital, because every hospital's different."
#Amplefi #DigitalHealth #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #ConnectedHealth #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareOperations #WorkflowDesign#OperationalExcellence #HealthcareSystems #FixTheProcess #BeforeCareBreaks #StructureMatters #ProcessOverTools #StopScalingChaos #HealthcareOperations #HospitalWorkflow #ClinicianBurnout #HealthSystems #AIinHealthcare #Telehealth #CareCoordination
amplefi.com
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Ilana Golant, Founder and CEO of the Food Allergy Fund, discusses the increasing prevalence and complexity of food allergies in people of all ages and the lack of research, funding, and diagnostics in this field. The Food Allergy Fund is taking a multifaceted approach to address these challenges, including funding microbiome research, exploring drug repurposing, and leveraging AI to develop better diagnostic tools. The goal is to find a cure for food allergies to prevent life-threatening anaphylaxis and drive research into the connection between food allergies and gut and immune health.
Ilana explains, "We launched a microbiome research collective recently because we really think the microbiome is the common denominator for many diseases. I mean, food allergy really no longer exists in isolation. It used to be 20 years ago, you would say someone had a peanut allergy. That patient doesn't really exist anymore. It is estimated that 40% of patients who have food allergies also have asthma, which is a significant comorbidity, but their other diseases overlap with Crohn's, juvenile diabetes, and atopic dermatitis, among others."
"We really think of food allergy as the canary in the coal mine for lifelong gut and immune health, and what the microbiome dysregulation could mean not only for food allergy, but for broader gut health. And so as part of our Microbiome Collective, we're right now funding studies at six different research institutions across the country to try to figure out what this gut dysbiosis means for food allergy and much more."
#FoodAllergyFund #FoodAllergyResearch #FoodAllergyAwareness #Biotech #Immunology #PatientAdvocacy #HealthcareInnovation #FoodAllergy #Microbiome #AIinHealthcare #DrugRepurposing #AllergyResearch #Anaphylaxis #PrecisionMedicine #EmpoweredPatient
foodallergyfund.org
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Ilana Golant, Founder and CEO of the Food Allergy Fund, discusses the increasing prevalence and complexity of food allergies in people of all ages and the lack of research, funding, and diagnostics in this field. The Food Allergy Fund is taking a multifaceted approach to address these challenges, including funding microbiome research, exploring drug repurposing, and leveraging AI to develop better diagnostic tools. The goal is to find a cure for food allergies to prevent life-threatening anaphylaxis and drive research into the connection between food allergies and gut and immune health.
Ilana explains, "We launched a microbiome research collective recently because we really think the microbiome is the common denominator for many diseases. I mean, food allergy really no longer exists in isolation. It used to be 20 years ago, you would say someone had a peanut allergy. That patient doesn't really exist anymore. It is estimated that 40% of patients who have food allergies also have asthma, which is a significant comorbidity, but their other diseases overlap with Crohn's, juvenile diabetes, and atopic dermatitis, among others."
"We really think of food allergy as the canary in the coal mine for lifelong gut and immune health, and what the microbiome dysregulation could mean not only for food allergy, but for broader gut health. And so as part of our Microbiome Collective, we're right now funding studies at six different research institutions across the country to try to figure out what this gut dysbiosis means for food allergy and much more."
#FoodAllergyFund #FoodAllergyResearch #FoodAllergyAwareness #Biotech #Immunology #PatientAdvocacy #HealthcareInnovation #FoodAllergy #Microbiome #AIinHealthcare #DrugRepurposing #AllergyResearch #Anaphylaxis #PrecisionMedicine #EmpoweredPatient
foodallergyfund.org
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Talia Cohen Solal, CEO and Co-Founder of NeuroKaire, is focused on improving patient outcomes of those with depression by predicting the most effective antidepressant for each individual. The NeuroKaire platform personalizes psychiatric treatment by creating neurons from a patient's blood sample to model their brain and test drug responses, pointing the way to an effective treatment, avoiding prolonged trial-and-error. This is a significant advancement over existing pharmacogenomic tests, which primarily provide information on drug metabolism rather than drug efficacy. This technology is also being applied to other conditions like ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and epilepsy.
Talia explains, "At NeuroKaire, we are dedicated to improving patient outcomes in psychiatry and neurology. To do that, we've developed a platform to predict which antidepressant is best for each patient and are expanding out to other disease indications to achieve that mission."
"Basically, around 2006, Yamanaka and his colleagues discovered that you could take any cell in the body and turn it back into a stem cell. And that changed everything for the field. So what we can do now is we can take a blood sample, turn it back into a stem cell, and then turn it into whatever cell type we'd like. And our mission is to help people with brain disorders and psychiatric disorders. And so we turn those stem cells into neurons. And now we have a model of the patient's brain. Now we have neurons from the patient's brain and a little ecosystem mimicking a patient's brain. And there we can actually see what's going wrong in the connectivity, what's changed in those patients, and what drugs are going to have the best outcome to reverse those changes."
#NeuroKaire #PrecisionPsychiatry #MentalHealth #Antidepressants #BrightKaire #PersonalizedMedicine #PGx #Neuroscience #HealthcareInnovation
neurokaire.com
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Talia Cohen Solal, CEO and Co-Founder of NeuroKaire, is focused on improving patient outcomes of those with depression by predicting the most effective antidepressant for each individual. The NeuroKaire platform personalizes psychiatric treatment by creating neurons from a patient's blood sample to model their brain and test drug responses, pointing the way to an effective treatment, avoiding prolonged trial-and-error. This is a significant advancement over existing pharmacogenomic tests, which primarily provide information on drug metabolism rather than drug efficacy. This technology is also being applied to other conditions like ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and epilepsy.
Talia explains, "At NeuroKaire, we are dedicated to improving patient outcomes in psychiatry and neurology. To do that, we've developed a platform to predict which antidepressant is best for each patient and are expanding out to other disease indications to achieve that mission."
"Basically, around 2006, Yamanaka and his colleagues discovered that you could take any cell in the body and turn it back into a stem cell. And that changed everything for the field. So what we can do now is we can take a blood sample, turn it back into a stem cell, and then turn it into whatever cell type we'd like. And our mission is to help people with brain disorders and psychiatric disorders. And so we turn those stem cells into neurons. And now we have a model of the patient's brain. Now we have neurons from the patient's brain and a little ecosystem mimicking a patient's brain. And there we can actually see what's going wrong in the connectivity, what's changed in those patients, and what drugs are going to have the best outcome to reverse those changes."
#NeuroKaire #PrecisionPsychiatry #MentalHealth #Antidepressants #BrightKaire #PersonalizedMedicine #PGx #Neuroscience #HealthcareInnovation
neurokaire.com
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Todd Van Meter, CEO of Accuity, highlights the evolution of the revenue cycle from simple billing and coding to include data analytics to reduce friction and prevent revenue leakage. Accuity specializes in reviewing inpatient accounts before billing, using a combination of AI and physicians to ensure claims are compliant and accurate. Getting the clinical analysis and coding correct initially significantly reduces costly, time-consuming clinical denials.
Todd explains, Revenue cycle is a term that's really become more relevant here, in the last maybe decade plus. Years ago, it used to be called billing and coding and a whole different bunch of terms. And really, it's this whole idea of how, when a patient's going through their care event, how are you tracking them from when they access care all the way through documenting their care to coding the care they received and then getting a bill out to an insurance company or to a patient to get reimbursed for the care they received. And so the transformation has been going on for a long time."
"The cost has been pretty well identified over the years. From a cost perspective, the goal is to perform all of this work as cost-effectively as possible, and faster is better for patients and for hospitals in terms of processing accounts, cash flow, and other financial metrics. So I think what I've seen happening for health systems is that the data is allowing for better visibility, back to your cost point, into where there are opportunities to take out friction, to do things better, faster, cheaper, to process accounts. And to take care of patients better, and communicate better to both patients and insurance companies, and internally, just from a tracking perspective, and to make sure, to your other point, that there's really not any leakage all along the way."
#Accuity #Healthcare #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM #Hospitals #InpatientCare #MedicalAI #HumanintheLoop
accuityhealthcare.com
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Todd Van Meter, CEO of Accuity, highlights the evolution of the revenue cycle from simple billing and coding to include data analytics to reduce friction and prevent revenue leakage. Accuity specializes in reviewing inpatient accounts before billing, using a combination of AI and physicians to ensure claims are compliant and accurate. Getting the clinical analysis and coding correct initially significantly reduces costly, time-consuming clinical denials.
Todd explains, Revenue cycle is a term that's really become more relevant here, in the last maybe decade plus. Years ago, it used to be called billing and coding and a whole different bunch of terms. And really, it's this whole idea of how, when a patient's going through their care event, how are you tracking them from when they access care all the way through documenting their care to coding the care they received and then getting a bill out to an insurance company or to a patient to get reimbursed for the care they received. And so the transformation has been going on for a long time."
"The cost has been pretty well identified over the years. From a cost perspective, the goal is to perform all of this work as cost-effectively as possible, and faster is better for patients and for hospitals in terms of processing accounts, cash flow, and other financial metrics. So I think what I've seen happening for health systems is that the data is allowing for better visibility, back to your cost point, into where there are opportunities to take out friction, to do things better, faster, cheaper, to process accounts. And to take care of patients better, and communicate better to both patients and insurance companies, and internally, just from a tracking perspective, and to make sure, to your other point, that there's really not any leakage all along the way."
#Accuity #Healthcare #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM #Hospitals #InpatientCare #MedicalAI #HumanintheLoop
accuityhealthcare.com
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Ewa and Doug Tweedy, and Dr. Nancy M. Young, the Lillian Wells Professor of Pediatric Otolaryngology at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, come together to discuss bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Nancy served as the principal investigator for a clinical trial examining the use of MED-EL's cochlear implants in young children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Ewa and Doug's daughter, Ella, was born deaf in both ears and enrolled in the trial at seven months. The procedure and device have demonstrated safety and efficacy in supporting the development of listening and spoken language skills, with some surprising results. The Tweedy family emphasizes the importance of therapy and parental engagement in achieving positive outcomes, noting that Ella is excelling in a mainstream school.
Nancy explains, "Bilateral sensorineural hearing loss is permanent hearing loss. It arises from the inner ear. So we're not talking about temporary hearing loss from, say, fluid in the ear after a routine ear infection. So it usually arises from the inner ear, sometimes from the nerve of hearing. And it's often present at birth in certain children, but it can also have a later onset after birth."
Ewa elaborates, "So, at the hospital right after her birth, we had someone come in to perform the newborn hearing screening, and we had two of those done one day after the next, and she did not pass either one of those. So they tried to tell us it might possibly be the fluid in the ears. So we just remained hopeful. But then, after a couple of weeks, we got her retested, again, and she did not pass. And then we went in for what Dr. Young referred to as the ADR so that diagnostic testing could be done for children. And there we found out that she did have the bilateral, so both sides, profound sensorineural hearing loss. We were told she was completely deaf."
Doug continues, "I've had some passing information about it previously. I definitely was not an expert, definitely had not done the level of investigation and reading that I've done at this point. It was at least a familiarity to me. I do have a technologist background, so technology is something that has always been an interest to me, and cochlear implants are definitely a very unique technology."
#MEDEL #CochlearImplants #Pediatrics #Audiology #ENT #EarlyIntervention #HearingHealth #SensorineuralHearingLoss #NeonatalCare #ChildDevelopment
MEDEL.com
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Ewa and Doug Tweedy, and Dr. Nancy M. Young, the Lillian Wells Professor of Pediatric Otolaryngology at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, come together to discuss bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Nancy served as the principal investigator for a clinical trial examining the use of MED-EL's cochlear implants in young children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Ewa and Doug's daughter, Ella, was born deaf in both ears and enrolled in the trial at seven months. The procedure and device have demonstrated safety and efficacy in supporting the development of listening and spoken language skills, with some surprising results. The Tweedy family emphasizes the importance of therapy and parental engagement in achieving positive outcomes, noting that Ella is excelling in a mainstream school.
Nancy explains, "Bilateral sensorineural hearing loss is permanent hearing loss. It arises from the inner ear. So we're not talking about temporary hearing loss from, say, fluid in the ear after a routine ear infection. So it usually arises from the inner ear, sometimes from the nerve of hearing. And it's often present at birth in certain children, but it can also have a later onset after birth."
Ewa elaborates, "So, at the hospital right after her birth, we had someone come in to perform the newborn hearing screening, and we had two of those done one day after the next, and she did not pass either one of those. So they tried to tell us it might possibly be the fluid in the ears. So we just remained hopeful. But then, after a couple of weeks, we got her retested, again, and she did not pass. And then we went in for what Dr. Young referred to as the ADR so that diagnostic testing could be done for children. And there we found out that she did have the bilateral, so both sides, profound sensorineural hearing loss. We were told she was completely deaf."
Doug continues, "I've had some passing information about it previously. I definitely was not an expert, definitely had not done the level of investigation and reading that I've done at this point. It was at least a familiarity to me. I do have a technologist background, so technology is something that has always been an interest to me, and cochlear implants are definitely a very unique technology."
#MEDEL #CochlearImplants #Pediatrics #Audiology #ENT #EarlyIntervention #HearingHealth #SensorineuralHearingLoss #NeonatalCare #ChildDevelopment
MEDEL.com
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Dr. Julie Chen, Chief Medical Officer at Radence, outlines the use of genomic precision medicine and advanced biomarkers and imaging technology for early detection and diagnosis of disease, with a focus on extending the health span, not just the lifespan, of their clients. This comprehensive membership-based model aggregates members' health data to create a 360° view of their health risks. AI is a critical tool for identifying trends in longitudinal data, enabling more accurate and personalized health monitoring for both those who are healthy and those recovering from an existing condition.
Julie explains, "Our model is a membership-based model primarily because a lot of the leading-edge technology is not insurance-covered. And so we're able to then utilize what is necessary for the diagnosis and the management, and actionable steps for the members, without having to worry about what insurance will or will not cover."
"Our members come through, and we actually aggregate all of their outside medical records and data because we want to see what their baseline health has been up to the point that they join us as a member. And then at that point, we actually get from the cellular level all the way up to the organ level and functionality level, we start to aggregate information about their genomics, so the blueprint of who they are health-wise."
"The key focus here is really looking at the concept that longevity is a larger picture phrase that has been in this industry, used across the board for a lot of different things. That could encompass biohacking, to true evidence-based genomic precision medicine, to just trends of what people are using. So I think it's really important for your listeners to understand that longevity is theoretically in the category of what we're doing in that space, but the very important point is to really look at the space, as there are a lot of things on the market now."
#Radence #GenomicMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #EarlyDetection #HealthSpan #Longevity #AIinHealthcare #PreventiveCare
Radence.com
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Dr. Julie Chen, Chief Medical Officer at Radence, outlines the use of genomic precision medicine and advanced biomarkers and imaging technology for early detection and diagnosis of disease, with a focus on extending the health span, not just the lifespan, of their clients. This comprehensive membership-based model aggregates members' health data to create a 360° view of their health risks. AI is a critical tool for identifying trends in longitudinal data, enabling more accurate and personalized health monitoring for both those who are healthy and those recovering from an existing condition.
Julie explains, "Our model is a membership-based model primarily because a lot of the leading-edge technology is not insurance-covered. And so we're able to then utilize what is necessary for the diagnosis and the management, and actionable steps for the members, without having to worry about what insurance will or will not cover."
"Our members come through, and we actually aggregate all of their outside medical records and data because we want to see what their baseline health has been up to the point that they join us as a member. And then at that point, we actually get from the cellular level all the way up to the organ level and functionality level, we start to aggregate information about their genomics, so the blueprint of who they are health-wise."
"The key focus here is really looking at the concept that longevity is a larger picture phrase that has been in this industry, used across the board for a lot of different things. That could encompass biohacking, to true evidence-based genomic precision medicine, to just trends of what people are using. So I think it's really important for your listeners to understand that longevity is theoretically in the category of what we're doing in that space, but the very important point is to really look at the space, as there are a lot of things on the market now."
#Radence #GenomicMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #EarlyDetection #HealthSpan #Longevity #AIinHealthcare #PreventiveCare
Radence.com
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Rick Focke, Director of Product and Market Development for Johnson Controls, focuses on AI's role in modernizing healthcare security and helping hospitals shift from reactive to proactive security. AI is improving staff efficiency, reducing nuisance alarms, detecting unauthorized wandering, and transforming cameras into multifaceted sensors for tasks such as fall detection and asset tracking, all without constant human monitoring. Of particular concern is the rise in workplace violence, and these cameras can detect aggressive behavior before incidents escalate.
Rick explains, "Hospitals are a unique use case where they are in a very public space. So how do you secure a public space? You have to really weigh the security versus public areas and then keep the really sensitive areas safe and secure. And even though it might be mainly public spaces, keep a vigilant watch on those spaces. And we're using now a lot of AI to help in that task to really react quickly, to be proactive when things do go awry."
"The most unmet needs, I would say, would be being more proactive in the workplace violence area. It is really increasing from all the studies I've been reading. We need to do a better job of heading off in the pass. And that's where AI is really helping. With AI, you can train the system to detect bad behaviors or aggressive behaviors in patients, contractors, or anyone. When that happens, the system can alert the operators. They can send out different kinds of alerts based on how important it is, which really helps create a safer environment. We also have a lot of wearables that have person-down alerts when something happens that can reinforce that whole response when something is going awry."
#JohnsonContols #HealthcareSecurity #HospitalSafety #AIinHealthcare #ClinicalSafety #WorkplaceViolencePrevention #PPECompliance #InfectionControl #SmartHospital #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #OperationalExcellence
johnsoncontrols.com
Listen to the podcast here
Rick Focke, Director of Product and Market Development for Johnson Controls, focuses on AI's role in modernizing healthcare security and helping hospitals shift from reactive to proactive security. AI is improving staff efficiency, reducing nuisance alarms, detecting unauthorized wandering, and transforming cameras into multifaceted sensors for tasks such as fall detection and asset tracking, all without constant human monitoring. Of particular concern is the rise in workplace violence, and these cameras can detect aggressive behavior before incidents escalate.
Rick explains, "Hospitals are a unique use case where they are in a very public space. So how do you secure a public space? You have to really weigh the security versus public areas and then keep the really sensitive areas safe and secure. And even though it might be mainly public spaces, keep a vigilant watch on those spaces. And we're using now a lot of AI to help in that task to really react quickly, to be proactive when things do go awry."
"The most unmet needs, I would say, would be being more proactive in the workplace violence area. It is really increasing from all the studies I've been reading. We need to do a better job of heading off in the pass. And that's where AI is really helping. With AI, you can train the system to detect bad behaviors or aggressive behaviors in patients, contractors, or anyone. When that happens, the system can alert the operators. They can send out different kinds of alerts based on how important it is, which really helps create a safer environment. We also have a lot of wearables that have person-down alerts when something happens that can reinforce that whole response when something is going awry."
#JohnsonContols #HealthcareSecurity #HospitalSafety #AIinHealthcare #ClinicalSafety #WorkplaceViolencePrevention #PPECompliance #InfectionControl #SmartHospital #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #OperationalExcellence
johnsoncontrols.com
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Dr. Yana Aznavour, CEO and Founder of Endometrics, discusses the significant diagnostic delay women face with endometriosis due to non-specific symptoms and the current reliance on invasive surgery for a definitive diagnosis. The company has developed a non-invasive at-home diagnostic test that uses menstrual blood to analyze a five-gene biomarker signature with high accuracy. This objective, molecular-based test shortens the time to the correct treatment and changes the dynamic of the patient-doctor conversation.
Yana explains, "We are developing non-invasive diagnostic tests, and we are primarily addressing the huge diagnostic delay that our patients, women, face, unfortunately. This happens because there are tons of non-specific symptoms and inconclusive imaging findings, and women face unnecessary appointments and procedures before reaching the point of definitive diagnosis. We are working rigorously towards bringing non-invasive, highly reliable diagnostic tests to help women get clarity and answers behind their symptoms way earlier in the journey."
"Menstrual pain and pain in general that women try to express and define at physician's appointments, it's being dismissed because they try to explain that, but in many cases, they cannot find exactly where it hurts, especially in endometriosis. Due to this, unfortunately, at the primary care level and the non-OB/GYN level, they're being dismissed and repeatedly misdiagnosed for years. The key reason is the non-specific symptoms because symptoms like pelvic pain and pain with urination overlap with the list of diagnoses. Currently, the definitive diagnosis for endometriosis is achieved through surgery. Nobody would do surgery after the first appointment. So, endometriosis becomes a diagnosis of exclusion, unfortunately, and it takes years before patients receive the final diagnosis."
#Endometrics #Endometriosis, #WomensHealth, #Biomarkers, #Diagnostics, #FemTech #Gynecology #PrecisionMedicine
endometrics.us
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Dr. Yana Aznavour, CEO and Founder of Endometrics, discusses the significant diagnostic delay women face with endometriosis due to non-specific symptoms and the current reliance on invasive surgery for a definitive diagnosis. The company has developed a non-invasive at-home diagnostic test that uses menstrual blood to analyze a five-gene biomarker signature with high accuracy. This objective, molecular-based test shortens the time to the correct treatment and changes the dynamic of the patient-doctor conversation.
Yana explains, "We are developing non-invasive diagnostic tests, and we are primarily addressing the huge diagnostic delay that our patients, women, face, unfortunately. This happens because there are tons of non-specific symptoms and inconclusive imaging findings, and women face unnecessary appointments and procedures before reaching the point of definitive diagnosis. We are working rigorously towards bringing non-invasive, highly reliable diagnostic tests to help women get clarity and answers behind their symptoms way earlier in the journey."
"Menstrual pain and pain in general that women try to express and define at physician's appointments, it's being dismissed because they try to explain that, but in many cases, they cannot find exactly where it hurts, especially in endometriosis. Due to this, unfortunately, at the primary care level and the non-OB/GYN level, they're being dismissed and repeatedly misdiagnosed for years. The key reason is the non-specific symptoms because symptoms like pelvic pain and pain with urination overlap with the list of diagnoses. Currently, the definitive diagnosis for endometriosis is achieved through surgery. Nobody would do surgery after the first appointment. So, endometriosis becomes a diagnosis of exclusion, unfortunately, and it takes years before patients receive the final diagnosis."
#Endometrics #Endometriosis, #WomensHealth, #Biomarkers, #Diagnostics, #FemTech #Gynecology #PrecisionMedicine
endometrics.us
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Thomas Ruggia, CEO and President of Theialife, delves into pediatric progressive myopia, a severe form of nearsightedness caused by the elongation of the eye in children, which can lead to significant long-term health issues. The development of their novel oral therapy is designed to address the underlying physiology of the eye by strengthening the sclera to halt its elongation, unlike other treatments that only manage visual acuity. This oral therapy is available in capsules that can be opened and sprinkled on food, making it patient-friendly and child-compliant, avoiding the need for often hard-to-administer eye drops.
Thomas explains, "Myopia is known as nearsightedness, and I think everybody is familiar with folks who wear spectacles for nearsightedness, or contact lenses, or have had LASIK surgery. But pediatric progressive myopia is a subset of myopia that is particularly difficult."
"The pediatric progressive myopia is a disease that's a bit different than just standard nearsightedness. Someone who might be minus two myopic can easily correct their vision with glasses. In this type of condition, generally, parents have a child who is having some difficulty seeing, and the next year, the child has extreme difficulty seeing. And then every year following, things get worse and worse. They end up at the optometrist or ophthalmologist for extensive recalculating their prescription, new glasses for those years of maybe between six and 16 years old."
"We're actually talking about a disorder that continues for the life of the patient that leads to significant challenges between the ages of, let's say, 40 and 80, where this elongated eye, which is what the condition really is, leads to challenges in retina detachment, maculopathy, early cataracts, and other conditions that are unique to the myopia patients."
"So we have a number of medical devices and pharmaceutical interventions that are being studied today, all of which have an effect on the visual acuity a patient might experience, but none of them affect the underlying structural changes in the eye during that time period. And our ND10 from Theialife has the potential to do so."
#Theialife #MyopiaAwareness #PediatricMyopia #PediatricOphthalmology #VisionHealth #ND10 #AdenosineReceptors #7Methylxanthine #MyopiaManagement #Ophthalmology #Optometry #ChildEyeHealth #ScleralStrengthening #OphthalmicInnovation #EyeCare
Theialife.com
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Thomas Ruggia, CEO and President of Theialife, delves into pediatric progressive myopia, a severe form of nearsightedness caused by the elongation of the eye in children, which can lead to significant long-term health issues. The development of their novel oral therapy is designed to address the underlying physiology of the eye by strengthening the sclera to halt its elongation, unlike other treatments that only manage visual acuity. This oral therapy is available in capsules that can be opened and sprinkled on food, making it patient-friendly and child-compliant, avoiding the need for often hard-to-administer eye drops.
Thomas explains, "Myopia is known as nearsightedness, and I think everybody is familiar with folks who wear spectacles for nearsightedness, or contact lenses, or have had LASIK surgery. But pediatric progressive myopia is a subset of myopia that is particularly difficult."
"The pediatric progressive myopia is a disease that's a bit different than just standard nearsightedness. Someone who might be minus two myopic can easily correct their vision with glasses. In this type of condition, generally, parents have a child who is having some difficulty seeing, and the next year, the child has extreme difficulty seeing. And then every year following, things get worse and worse. They end up at the optometrist or ophthalmologist for extensive recalculating their prescription, new glasses for those years of maybe between six and 16 years old."
"We're actually talking about a disorder that continues for the life of the patient that leads to significant challenges between the ages of, let's say, 40 and 80, where this elongated eye, which is what the condition really is, leads to challenges in retina detachment, maculopathy, early cataracts, and other conditions that are unique to the myopia patients."
"So we have a number of medical devices and pharmaceutical interventions that are being studied today, all of which have an effect on the visual acuity a patient might experience, but none of them affect the underlying structural changes in the eye during that time period. And our ND10 from Theialife has the potential to do so."
#Theialife #MyopiaAwareness #PediatricMyopia #PediatricOphthalmology #VisionHealth #ND10 #AdenosineReceptors #7Methylxanthine #MyopiaManagement #Ophthalmology #Optometry #ChildEyeHealth #ScleralStrengthening #OphthalmicInnovation #EyeCare
Theialife.com
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Stephanie Broussard, Director of Social Work at Thyme Care, describes a model of interdisciplinary social support for cancer patients to increase access to medical services and address social, emotional, and financial challenges. Integrated services target family dynamics, social determinants of health, and building trust to drive better patient outcomes. As cancer increasingly becomes a chronic condition, there is a growing need to support the management of long-term physical and emotional effects and use technology to increase efficiency and support the Thyme Care human-focused approach.
Stephanie explains, "Thyme Care is really designed to try to integrate and increase access for those navigating cancers. So we believe that in order to serve people really well, you don't take things away, you actually add things. If we can increase access and increase the ability for patients to navigate the health system, then we're able to better navigate their utilization. So we try to increase access through access to an interdisciplinary team. We have nurse practitioners, nurses, even oncologists and primary care physicians on our team, social workers, and lay people who help us make sure that patients can get what they need at the right time. And so it's really about giving patients access to the right services at the right time to improve their outcomes."
"We think about how their cancer impacts every facet of their life. And so, we often talk a lot about the financial toxicity of cancer, but social issues that were affecting folks don't just stop because cancer happened. Oftentimes, it even exacerbates those things. So think about family dynamics, think about social determinants of health, like the cost of medications and access, but also all the other things that can be impacted by cancer."
#ThymeCare #ValueBasedCare #SocialWorkMonth #OncologySocialWork #MentalHealthMatters #CaregiverSupport #PatientExperience #HealthEquity #OncologyCare #ValueBasedCare #CareCoordination #SocialDeterminantsOfHealth #SDoH #CancerSurvivorship #Caregivers #NurseNavigation #PalliativeCare
thymecare.com
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Stephanie Broussard, Director of Social Work at Thyme Care, describes a model of interdisciplinary social support for cancer patients to increase access to medical services and address social, emotional, and financial challenges. Integrated services target family dynamics, social determinants of health, and building trust to drive better patient outcomes. As cancer increasingly becomes a chronic condition, there is a growing need to support the management of long-term physical and emotional effects and use technology to increase efficiency and support the Thyme Care human-focused approach.
Stephanie explains, "Thyme Care is really designed to try to integrate and increase access for those navigating cancers. So we believe that in order to serve people really well, you don't take things away, you actually add things. If we can increase access and increase the ability for patients to navigate the health system, then we're able to better navigate their utilization. So we try to increase access through access to an interdisciplinary team. We have nurse practitioners, nurses, even oncologists and primary care physicians on our team, social workers, and lay people who help us make sure that patients can get what they need at the right time. And so it's really about giving patients access to the right services at the right time to improve their outcomes."
"We think about how their cancer impacts every facet of their life. And so, we often talk a lot about the financial toxicity of cancer, but social issues that were affecting folks don't just stop because cancer happened. Oftentimes, it even exacerbates those things. So think about family dynamics, think about social determinants of health, like the cost of medications and access, but also all the other things that can be impacted by cancer."
#ThymeCare #ValueBasedCare #SocialWorkMonth #OncologySocialWork #MentalHealthMatters #CaregiverSupport #PatientExperience #HealthEquity #OncologyCare #ValueBasedCare #CareCoordination #SocialDeterminantsOfHealth #SDoH #CancerSurvivorship #Caregivers #NurseNavigation #PalliativeCare
thymecare.com
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Dr. Stephanie Lahr, Chief Medical Officer at uPerform, highlights the critical need for new ways to conduct health IT education. Traditional one-time training sessions for large groups are no longer sufficient for the constantly evolving healthcare technologies. Self-paced and personalized training is the way to meet users at their individual skill levels, freeing up training teams to provide targeted support and build organizational competencies, including how to effectively use AI.
Stephanie explains, "This idea, which we are seeing evolve rapidly, is that as we integrate technology into healthcare delivery, people need to understand how to use it, which requires ongoing training, support, and communication."
"It's really a way to think about doing just-in-time, as-needed, self-driven education based on the user for whatever needs might arise with the technology they're using in care delivery. Often, that starts with systems like the EHR and ERP, but it goes far beyond that. And we're seeing that more and more as different kinds of technologies find their way into healthcare delivery to support the care providers in what they're trying to do."
"Traditionally, we had this idea that we rolled out technology, and you did some training, which usually involved a classroom, a quick video tutorial, or maybe an online course or something along those lines. And it was sort of a one-and-done: you learned it, you went, you moved on, and you used it. And I think what we're now seeing is that the systems themselves are changing constantly."
#uPerform #AI #JustInTimeTraining #WorkflowEducation #HealthIT #EHR #ClinicalInformatics #DigitalHealth #ClinicianExperience #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalEducation #AIinHealthcare
uperform.com
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Dr. Stephanie Lahr, Chief Medical Officer at uPerform, highlights the critical need for new ways to conduct health IT education. Traditional one-time training sessions for large groups are no longer sufficient for the constantly evolving healthcare technologies. Self-paced and personalized training is the way to meet users at their individual skill levels, freeing up training teams to provide targeted support and build organizational competencies, including how to effectively use AI.
Stephanie explains, "This idea, which we are seeing evolve rapidly, is that as we integrate technology into healthcare delivery, people need to understand how to use it, which requires ongoing training, support, and communication."
"It's really a way to think about doing just-in-time, as-needed, self-driven education based on the user for whatever needs might arise with the technology they're using in care delivery. Often, that starts with systems like the EHR and ERP, but it goes far beyond that. And we're seeing that more and more as different kinds of technologies find their way into healthcare delivery to support the care providers in what they're trying to do."
"Traditionally, we had this idea that we rolled out technology, and you did some training, which usually involved a classroom, a quick video tutorial, or maybe an online course or something along those lines. And it was sort of a one-and-done: you learned it, you went, you moved on, and you used it. And I think what we're now seeing is that the systems themselves are changing constantly."
#uPerform #AI #JustInTimeTraining #WorkflowEducation #HealthIT #EHR #ClinicalInformatics #DigitalHealth #ClinicianExperience #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalEducation #AIinHealthcare
uperform.com
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Dr. Ravi Kapur, Co-Founder and CEO of AutoIVF, describes the current state of IVF as an expensive artisanal process with limited access due to structural constraints and a shortage of highly skilled embryologists. Bringing automation to the environment increases lab throughput and lowers costs, enabling a decentralized model where eggs are collected at an OB/GYN office. This data-driven technology can recover viable eggs that may have been discarded in the past, potentially improving success rates, greatly expanding access, and standardizing best practices across clinics.
Ravi explains, "Our mission is to expand access to fertility care by transforming IVF into a scalable, automated, and standardized platform. So the big picture goal here is to democratize IVF, enable affordable access to all patients who can benefit from IVF."
"Some of the big problems in IVF today are limited access and long wait times. This is in a demand-limited market. It's a supply-limited market, structurally constrained. Automation is going to enable increasing lab throughput. Automation will enable more cycles for the lab or embryologist, and automation enables uniquely meaningful, low-cost expansion into underserved regions."
"It's a very artisanal process. It requires a small pool of very highly skilled radiologists, and it takes years of training to get to that level of scale. What we aim to do is automate best practices into technology, which then drives standardized systems. And IVF is expensive. It's one of the key barriers to entry. It's $15,000 to $25,000 per cycle in the US and often requires multiple cycles to a live birth."
#AutoIVF #Fertility #HealthcareInnovation #IVF #Automation #ReproductiveHealth #FertilityCare #DigitalHealth #MedTech #AutomationInHealthcare #ReproductiveMedicine #AccessToCare
AutoIVF.com
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Dr. Ravi Kapur, Co-Founder and CEO of AutoIVF, describes the current state of IVF as an expensive artisanal process with limited access due to structural constraints and a shortage of highly skilled embryologists. Bringing automation to the environment increases lab throughput and lowers costs, enabling a decentralized model where eggs are collected at an OB/GYN office. This data-driven technology can recover viable eggs that may have been discarded in the past, potentially improving success rates, greatly expanding access, and standardizing best practices across clinics.
Ravi explains, "Our mission is to expand access to fertility care by transforming IVF into a scalable, automated, and standardized platform. So the big picture goal here is to democratize IVF, enable affordable access to all patients who can benefit from IVF."
"Some of the big problems in IVF today are limited access and long wait times. This is in a demand-limited market. It's a supply-limited market, structurally constrained. Automation is going to enable increasing lab throughput. Automation will enable more cycles for the lab or embryologist, and automation enables uniquely meaningful, low-cost expansion into underserved regions."
"It's a very artisanal process. It requires a small pool of very highly skilled radiologists, and it takes years of training to get to that level of scale. What we aim to do is automate best practices into technology, which then drives standardized systems. And IVF is expensive. It's one of the key barriers to entry. It's $15,000 to $25,000 per cycle in the US and often requires multiple cycles to a live birth."
#AutoIVF #Fertility #HealthcareInnovation #IVF #Automation #ReproductiveHealth #FertilityCare #DigitalHealth #MedTech #AutomationInHealthcare #ReproductiveMedicine #AccessToCare
AutoIVF.com
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Greg Miller, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Carta Healthcare, is focused on the multi-billion-dollar problem of manual clinical data abstraction in health systems, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and error-prone. The Carta hybrid intelligence solution combines AI with human expertise to surface and validate information, delivering dramatic ROI for clients through lower costs and higher data quality. Clinician adoption grows significantly once they have experienced the AI finding information they would have missed, ultimately making them more effective at their jobs.
Greg explains, "Health systems in the US, specifically, spend between $10 and $15 billion a year on manually abstracting data. And what are they abstracting data for?
"There are lots of different downstream use cases, but the most common reason is to populate clinical registries. And clinical registries are super important because they're used for accreditation of clinical programs. It's for revenue, it's for compliance and regulatory requirements. But the biggest use of registry data is to drive quality and process improvement initiatives."
"Unfortunately, today, every hospital has an abstraction function that is highly decentralized, and they have highly skilled labor, mostly nurses, who manually come through the electronic health record and other systems to find nuggets of information to answer questions in some registry system. And so it's very time-consuming, labor-intensive, and, because it involves humans, both expensive and prone to error."
#CartaHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HybridIntelligence #ClinicalAI #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #LifeSciences #HealthData #AIgovernance #ResponsibleAI #ClinicalInnovation #HealthcareLeadership #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalData #QualityImprovement #PatientSafety #DataAbstraction #HybridIntelligence
carta.healthcare
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Greg Miller, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Carta Healthcare, is focused on the multi-billion-dollar problem of manual clinical data abstraction in health systems, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and error-prone. The Carta hybrid intelligence solution combines AI with human expertise to surface and validate information, delivering dramatic ROI for clients through lower costs and higher data quality. Clinician adoption grows significantly once they have experienced the AI finding information they would have missed, ultimately making them more effective at their jobs.
Greg explains, "Health systems in the US, specifically, spend between $10 and $15 billion a year on manually abstracting data. And what are they abstracting data for?
"There are lots of different downstream use cases, but the most common reason is to populate clinical registries. And clinical registries are super important because they're used for accreditation of clinical programs. It's for revenue, it's for compliance and regulatory requirements. But the biggest use of registry data is to drive quality and process improvement initiatives."
"Unfortunately, today, every hospital has an abstraction function that is highly decentralized, and they have highly skilled labor, mostly nurses, who manually come through the electronic health record and other systems to find nuggets of information to answer questions in some registry system. And so it's very time-consuming, labor-intensive, and, because it involves humans, both expensive and prone to error."
#CartaHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HybridIntelligence #ClinicalAI #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #LifeSciences #HealthData #AIgovernance #ResponsibleAI #ClinicalInnovation #HealthcareLeadership #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalData #QualityImprovement #PatientSafety #DataAbstraction #HybridIntelligence
carta.healthcare
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Joe Kiani is Executive Chairman at Willow Laboratories and Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. He makes the point that the vast majority of medical harm is avoidable through the implementation of evidence-based healthcare best practices. Technology, particularly AI and remote monitoring of data from medical devices, is crucial for creating predictive models that can alert clinicians to problems and identify root causes of medical errors. The goal is to unite all healthcare stakeholders to work collaboratively toward zero preventable deaths.
Joe explains, "In the US, we lose about 200,000 people a year, and about 15 times that rate is the serious harm caused by medical errors. Worldwide, we think the number is close to three million. And the reason we call it preventable is that the vast majority could be eliminated if evidence-based practices were put in place. As you can imagine, people make mistakes, and there are a lot of medical errors that may not be preventable because there is an evidence-based practice in place to avoid them. But when it comes to things like hospital-acquired infection, VTE, sepsis, failure to rescue, CLATSI, there are known evidence-based practices that, if possible, put them in place, we might get to zero, and if not zero, we'd be pretty close to zero."
"Well, honestly, all patients are at risk. If you want to focus on those most at risk, we've got to miss the ones that really go wrong. If we can imagine someone going in for a simple procedure, even a cosmetic one, like a hip replacement, and the procedure goes really well."
"But while there's a catheter inside the artery, someone could walk in and, without cleaning their hands, touch the patient, the bacteria could enter the bloodstream and cause a serious infection. So really, you've got to create a culture of safety where you look for ways to mitigate people's mistakes, and those are what we call evidence-based practices. There are about 20 of them, starting with cultural patient safety, on the Patient Safety Movement Foundation website that people can freely download and implement, and therefore not get into these problems."
#PatientSafetyMovementFoundation #PatientSafetyMovement #PatientSafety #HealthcareQuality #ZeroHarm #EvidenceBasedPractice #AIinHealthcare #ClinicalSafety #HospitalLeadership #MedTech #CultureOfSafety #PreventableHarm #FailureToRescue #Sepsis #VTE #PatientExperience #ClinicianBurnout
willowlabs.ai
psmf.org
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Joe Kiani is Executive Chairman at Willow Laboratories and Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. He makes the point that the vast majority of medical harm is avoidable through the implementation of evidence-based healthcare best practices. Technology, particularly AI and remote monitoring of data from medical devices, is crucial for creating predictive models that can alert clinicians to problems and identify root causes of medical errors. The goal is to unite all healthcare stakeholders to work collaboratively toward zero preventable deaths.
Joe explains, "In the US, we lose about 200,000 people a year, and about 15 times that rate is the serious harm caused by medical errors. Worldwide, we think the number is close to three million. And the reason we call it preventable is that the vast majority could be eliminated if evidence-based practices were put in place. As you can imagine, people make mistakes, and there are a lot of medical errors that may not be preventable because there is an evidence-based practice in place to avoid them. But when it comes to things like hospital-acquired infection, VTE, sepsis, failure to rescue, CLATSI, there are known evidence-based practices that, if possible, put them in place, we might get to zero, and if not zero, we'd be pretty close to zero."
"Well, honestly, all patients are at risk. If you want to focus on those most at risk, we've got to miss the ones that really go wrong. If we can imagine someone going in for a simple procedure, even a cosmetic one, like a hip replacement, and the procedure goes really well."
"But while there's a catheter inside the artery, someone could walk in and, without cleaning their hands, touch the patient, the bacteria could enter the bloodstream and cause a serious infection. So really, you've got to create a culture of safety where you look for ways to mitigate people's mistakes, and those are what we call evidence-based practices. There are about 20 of them, starting with cultural patient safety, on the Patient Safety Movement Foundation website that people can freely download and implement, and therefore not get into these problems."
#PatientSafetyMovementFoundation #PatientSafetyMovement #PatientSafety #HealthcareQuality #ZeroHarm #EvidenceBasedPractice #AIinHealthcare #ClinicalSafety #HospitalLeadership #MedTech #CultureOfSafety #PreventableHarm #FailureToRescue #Sepsis #VTE #PatientExperience #ClinicianBurnout
willowlabs.ai
psmf.org
Download the transcript here
Sam Yeruva is Founder and CEO of PyCube, a company that provides software solutions to US hospitals to digitize workflows and improve operational efficiency. He points out that many hospital processes still rely on paper, which hinders the collection of data necessary for operational intelligence and forecasting. The key to success is breaking down data silos across departments to better track assets, samples, and pharmaceuticals, improving patient care, reducing clinician burnout, and driving cost savings.
Sam explains, "PyCube is a software solutions company serving US health systems across the Continental States. We provide solutions with digitized workflows around operational efficiency of the hospitals because there are a lot of things that happen in the hospitals. A lot of things move, a lot of patients move, a lot of samples move, assets move. There are many moving parts in service environments, such as hospitals, which are well-equipped to care for patients. We help them to digitize those workflows and be more efficient. They're hearing hospitals actually running on thin margins. We assist the hospitals to utilize technology, to be more efficient, cut down the cost, improve revenue, and do what they're supposed to do normally, which they do really well, and take care of the patients. So that's where we try to assist hospitals in adopting technology, especially AI, as it is growing these days as well."
"Operational intelligence is a term coined to mean being smarter or doing things more smartly. You'll see when you go to a hospital, most of the things are still written on pen and paper. You don't get intelligence when you don't know where things are, and you don't know where data is not flowing. So we digitize those workflows so that, first of all, you use the right tools for digitizing the workflows. And then once you have that, we will instill some intelligence into the operation as well."
#PyCube #HealthcareInnovation #HospitalOperations #DigitalHealth #WorkflowAutomation #AIinHealthcare #OperationalIntelligence #PatientSafety #NurseWorkflow #InventoryManagement #HealthIT
pycube.com
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Sam Yeruva is Founder and CEO of PyCube, a company that provides software solutions to US hospitals to digitize workflows and improve operational efficiency. He points out that many hospital processes still rely on paper, which hinders the collection of data necessary for operational intelligence and forecasting. The key to success is breaking down data silos across departments to better track assets, samples, and pharmaceuticals, improving patient care, reducing clinician burnout, and driving cost savings.
Sam explains, "PyCube is a software solutions company serving US health systems across the Continental States. We provide solutions with digitized workflows around operational efficiency of the hospitals because there are a lot of things that happen in the hospitals. A lot of things move, a lot of patients move, a lot of samples move, assets move. There are many moving parts in service environments, such as hospitals, which are well-equipped to care for patients. We help them to digitize those workflows and be more efficient. They're hearing hospitals actually running on thin margins. We assist the hospitals to utilize technology, to be more efficient, cut down the cost, improve revenue, and do what they're supposed to do normally, which they do really well, and take care of the patients. So that's where we try to assist hospitals in adopting technology, especially AI, as it is growing these days as well."
"Operational intelligence is a term coined to mean being smarter or doing things more smartly. You'll see when you go to a hospital, most of the things are still written on pen and paper. You don't get intelligence when you don't know where things are, and you don't know where data is not flowing. So we digitize those workflows so that, first of all, you use the right tools for digitizing the workflows. And then once you have that, we will instill some intelligence into the operation as well."
#PyCube #HealthcareInnovation #HospitalOperations #DigitalHealth #WorkflowAutomation #AIinHealthcare #OperationalIntelligence #PatientSafety #NurseWorkflow #InventoryManagement #HealthIT
pycube.com
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Professor Mark Kendall, Founder and CEO of WearOptimo, is a pioneer in micro-wearable technology and highlights the limitations of current wearables that capture only basic signals. The WearOptimo platform uses a skin patch with painless microelectrodes to measure a range of biomarkers in the interstitial fluid just beneath the skin surface. The company's first product is a continuous hydration monitor designed to address the widespread and under-recognized health problems caused by dehydration due to lifestyle, disease, and working conditions.
Mark explains, "We are all familiar with wearables. They're everywhere these days. And when we think about wearables, we're thinking about really basic signals, like an Apple Watch, an Oura ring, or a Whoop. And they're useful for really basic things. But the challenge is that there are all manner of really important health signals out there that today's wearables, like those, are just unable to reach. So, what we're looking to tackle with our technology, our powerful platform, the micro-wearable platform, is gaining access to those key signals that today's wearables are unable to reach and really opening up genuine healthcare."
"It feels just like a sticker, as I said, but the important piece is something that's microscopic. It's microelectrodes. It's an embodiment of a field called microneedles, and I'm a founder of that field. And those microelectrodes just pierce this tough outer dead layer of skin, called the stratum corneum, and reach this location just below the skin's surface. And in that location is a rich reservoir of signals. And we measure those with bio-impedance sweeps. We pull out electrical signals from the body, and use our bespoke, novel AI model to read those signals and give us distinct health outcomes."
#WearOptimo #MicroWearable #WearableTech #HealthMonitoring #HydrationHealth # #MedTech #MicroneedleTechnology #PrecisionHealth #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #Wearables #Microneedles #HydrationMonitoring #Biomarkers #PatientSafety #PerioperativeCare #OccupationalHealth #MilitaryMedicine #AIinHealthcare #EdgeComputing #PreventiveCare
wearoptimo.com
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Professor Mark Kendall, Founder and CEO of WearOptimo, is a pioneer in micro-wearable technology and highlights the limitations of current wearables that capture only basic signals. The WearOptimo platform uses a skin patch with painless microelectrodes to measure a range of biomarkers in the interstitial fluid just beneath the skin surface. The company's first product is a continuous hydration monitor designed to address the widespread and under-recognized health problems caused by dehydration due to lifestyle, disease, and working conditions.
Mark explains, "We are all familiar with wearables. They're everywhere these days. And when we think about wearables, we're thinking about really basic signals, like an Apple Watch, an Oura ring, or a Whoop. And they're useful for really basic things. But the challenge is that there are all manner of really important health signals out there that today's wearables, like those, are just unable to reach. So, what we're looking to tackle with our technology, our powerful platform, the micro-wearable platform, is gaining access to those key signals that today's wearables are unable to reach and really opening up genuine healthcare."
"It feels just like a sticker, as I said, but the important piece is something that's microscopic. It's microelectrodes. It's an embodiment of a field called microneedles, and I'm a founder of that field. And those microelectrodes just pierce this tough outer dead layer of skin, called the stratum corneum, and reach this location just below the skin's surface. And in that location is a rich reservoir of signals. And we measure those with bio-impedance sweeps. We pull out electrical signals from the body, and use our bespoke, novel AI model to read those signals and give us distinct health outcomes."
#WearOptimo #MicroWearable #WearableTech #HealthMonitoring #HydrationHealth # #MedTech #MicroneedleTechnology #PrecisionHealth #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #Wearables #Microneedles #HydrationMonitoring #Biomarkers #PatientSafety #PerioperativeCare #OccupationalHealth #MilitaryMedicine #AIinHealthcare #EdgeComputing #PreventiveCare
wearoptimo.com
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Dr. Stella Vnook, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Kaida Biopharma, highlights the advantages for an early-stage biotech company to take a patient-centric perspective in drug development. She defines patient-centricity as focusing on whether a drug meaningfully improves a patient's life, which should influence decisions about trial design, endpoints, and side effects from the earliest stages. Kaida's work on a new treatment for ovarian cancer is designed to target tumor survival mechanisms and overcome treatment resistance, and has from the beginning taken into consideration the tolerability of treatments and the patient's quality of life.
Stella explains, "We're so used to thinking drug-centric, and it's true that in the early stages of development, it's all about the molecule and the mechanism of action, and it's exciting to see how it works. But we really need to be thinking patient-centric because we will make decisions differently from the start. So it's not just about whether this drug works and how, but whether it meaningfully changes a patient's life. I think that's what patient-centric is or should be, because that would impact trial design, endpoints, and how we view tolerability or combination therapy."
"For ovarian cancer, women today may receive a variety of treatments. Now, let's talk about this for a second. It's the cancer that's usually diagnosed very late. That means the patient's tumor has already gone into the lymph nodes, and it's what we call a stage three PO4. The patients after surgery receive a variety of drugs such as platinum therapies or PARP, but they still may relapse, and they may become resistant to the therapy. Now, that initial therapy has probably had significant toxicity. Because they've become resistant to the therapy they received, now they have limited options. So fortunately, there are drugs that potentially could be eligible for FRA positive. There's been a lot of news about ELAHERE, which is great, but it's only 25% of the population, and many patients may never qualify for this treatment. So that's where Kaida comes in, because we're focusing on 80% of the population."
"Actually, the name Kaida is a dragon that eats its own tail. So that talks about the mechanism of action we've discussed: resistance. What we do is when the treatment has been given, it supports cell survival and actually eliminates the tumor's ability to replicate, which is called proliferation, causing it to destroy itself, which is called apoptosis. So in essence, the tumor disrupts itself because we're cutting off its support system."
#Kaida #OvarianCancer #PatientCentric #OncologyInnovation #ProlactinReceptor #DrugDevelopment #AIinHealthcare #RealWorldEvidence #TolerabilityMatters #KaidaBiopharma #CancerCare
Kaida-biopharma.com
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Dr. Stella Vnook, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Kaida Biopharma, highlights the advantages for an early-stage biotech company to take a patient-centric perspective in drug development. She defines patient-centricity as focusing on whether a drug meaningfully improves a patient's life, which should influence decisions about trial design, endpoints, and side effects from the earliest stages. Kaida's work on a new treatment for ovarian cancer is designed to target tumor survival mechanisms and overcome treatment resistance, and has from the beginning taken into consideration the tolerability of treatments and the patient's quality of life.
Stella explains, "We're so used to thinking drug-centric, and it's true that in the early stages of development, it's all about the molecule and the mechanism of action, and it's exciting to see how it works. But we really need to be thinking patient-centric because we will make decisions differently from the start. So it's not just about whether this drug works and how, but whether it meaningfully changes a patient's life. I think that's what patient-centric is or should be, because that would impact trial design, endpoints, and how we view tolerability or combination therapy."
"For ovarian cancer, women today may receive a variety of treatments. Now, let's talk about this for a second. It's the cancer that's usually diagnosed very late. That means the patient's tumor has already gone into the lymph nodes, and it's what we call a stage three PO4. The patients after surgery receive a variety of drugs such as platinum therapies or PARP, but they still may relapse, and they may become resistant to the therapy. Now, that initial therapy has probably had significant toxicity. Because they've become resistant to the therapy they received, now they have limited options. So fortunately, there are drugs that potentially could be eligible for FRA positive. There's been a lot of news about ELAHERE, which is great, but it's only 25% of the population, and many patients may never qualify for this treatment. So that's where Kaida comes in, because we're focusing on 80% of the population."
"Actually, the name Kaida is a dragon that eats its own tail. So that talks about the mechanism of action we've discussed: resistance. What we do is when the treatment has been given, it supports cell survival and actually eliminates the tumor's ability to replicate, which is called proliferation, causing it to destroy itself, which is called apoptosis. So in essence, the tumor disrupts itself because we're cutting off its support system."
#Kaida #OvarianCancer #PatientCentric #OncologyInnovation #ProlactinReceptor #DrugDevelopment #AIinHealthcare #RealWorldEvidence #TolerabilityMatters #KaidaBiopharma #CancerCare
Kaida-biopharma.com
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Dr. Deb Dittberner, Chief Clinical Officer and Director of Population Health at Herself Health, focuses on providing value-based care for women aged 50 and older through a model that prioritizes cognition, bone health, behavioral health, and cardiac health. Conventional primary care for older women often overlooks the complexities of aging, which Herself Health addresses through longer visits, proactive screening, and patient education. Technology is being successfully integrated into the environment to provide virtual visits, support medication adherence, and improve access to care.
Deb explains, "We are focusing on women 50 +, specifically women 65-plus who are heading into that Medicare world and have more complex medical problems. We see a real need to focus on that group, where we can create team-based care and deliver population health, value-based care for those patients, with a greater focus on keeping them well. And lowering healthcare costs and doctor visits by focusing on wellness rather than fee-for-service or on illness and problems."
"I think that as we age, it becomes more complicated. And I think advanced primary care takes that into consideration. We do longer visits for these patients. We focus on keeping them well. And what we're trying to do is look at the whole picture. Aging people have more hypertension, more diabetes, more chronic medical conditions, and taking the time to help with all of those conditions together and look at the whole picture is what we're trying to do."
#HerselfHealth #PrimaryCare #WomensHealth #ValueBasedCare #Geriatrics #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCenteredCare #MedicareAge #ClinicalLeadership #HealthEquity #AdvancedPrimaryCare #HealthTech #PopulationHealth
herself-health.com
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Dr. Deb Dittberner, Chief Clinical Officer and Director of Population Health at Herself Health, focuses on providing value-based care for women aged 50 and older through a model that prioritizes cognition, bone health, behavioral health, and cardiac health. Conventional primary care for older women often overlooks the complexities of aging, which Herself Health addresses through longer visits, proactive screening, and patient education. Technology is being successfully integrated into the environment to provide virtual visits, support medication adherence, and improve access to care.
Deb explains, "We are focusing on women 50 +, specifically women 65-plus who are heading into that Medicare world and have more complex medical problems. We see a real need to focus on that group, where we can create team-based care and deliver population health, value-based care for those patients, with a greater focus on keeping them well. And lowering healthcare costs and doctor visits by focusing on wellness rather than fee-for-service or on illness and problems."
"I think that as we age, it becomes more complicated. And I think advanced primary care takes that into consideration. We do longer visits for these patients. We focus on keeping them well. And what we're trying to do is look at the whole picture. Aging people have more hypertension, more diabetes, more chronic medical conditions, and taking the time to help with all of those conditions together and look at the whole picture is what we're trying to do."
#HerselfHealth #PrimaryCare #WomensHealth #ValueBasedCare #Geriatrics #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCenteredCare #MedicareAge #ClinicalLeadership #HealthEquity #AdvancedPrimaryCare #HealthTech #PopulationHealth
herself-health.com
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Matt Blosl, CEO of DexCare, has a core mission to help large health systems use AI responsibly to attract patients and work with them to get appropriate care. While AI's data-processing capabilities are transformative, its use in clinical recommendations remains in its early stages, constrained by fragmented data and the limited availability of validated diagnoses. Matt advises healthcare leaders to adopt a problem-first approach to AI implementation and to use technology to drive significant change rather than just incremental improvements to existing workflows.
Matt explains, "Artificial intelligence is interesting. We're still in what I consider to be the Gold Rush phase of a new technology. Certainly one as disruptive as this. So I think a lot of our clients are still trying to figure out what it means. From my perspective, you said it very well. Google or the internet was kind of our first foray into providing patients more access before they even seek care or before they go in to receive care. And what I see right now is that the AI platforms are kind of the next level of that. The richness of the information is greater. And so patients are coming in more informed, and they can feel comfortable making decisions even more than they could with Google. That's clear in terms of how it's impacting the patients. I think the health systems are still trying to get their arms wrapped around what the appropriate use of AI across the enterprise is."
"Now, when it comes to making treatment recommendations, I still think we're in the early stages. There are still many hallucinations. The data sources we're pulling from are still fragmented. Data hygiene and some of that data are not always accurate. So I think there's going to have to be a lot of evolution in how we manage the data and improve interoperability, so that all of the data can start to talk to one another, and we can really have a complete picture before these platforms can really impact care."
#DexCare #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth #HealthSystems #ClinicalAI #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAccess #DigitalFrontDoor #CareOrchestration #HealthIT #Interoperability #DataQuality #PrecisionMedicine #PersonalizedCare #ClinicianExperience #HealthcareLeadership #DigitalTransformation #HealthTech #HospitalOperations #CallCenterAutomation #EmergencyMedicine
dexcare.com
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Matt Blosl, CEO of DexCare, has a core mission to help large health systems use AI responsibly to attract patients and work with them to get appropriate care. While AI's data-processing capabilities are transformative, its use in clinical recommendations remains in its early stages, constrained by fragmented data and the limited availability of validated diagnoses. Matt advises healthcare leaders to adopt a problem-first approach to AI implementation and to use technology to drive significant change rather than just incremental improvements to existing workflows.
Matt explains, "Artificial intelligence is interesting. We're still in what I consider to be the Gold Rush phase of a new technology. Certainly one as disruptive as this. So I think a lot of our clients are still trying to figure out what it means. From my perspective, you said it very well. Google or the internet was kind of our first foray into providing patients more access before they even seek care or before they go in to receive care. And what I see right now is that the AI platforms are kind of the next level of that. The richness of the information is greater. And so patients are coming in more informed, and they can feel comfortable making decisions even more than they could with Google. That's clear in terms of how it's impacting the patients. I think the health systems are still trying to get their arms wrapped around what the appropriate use of AI across the enterprise is."
"Now, when it comes to making treatment recommendations, I still think we're in the early stages. There are still many hallucinations. The data sources we're pulling from are still fragmented. Data hygiene and some of that data are not always accurate. So I think there's going to have to be a lot of evolution in how we manage the data and improve interoperability, so that all of the data can start to talk to one another, and we can really have a complete picture before these platforms can really impact care."
#DexCare #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth #HealthSystems #ClinicalAI #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAccess #DigitalFrontDoor #CareOrchestration #HealthIT #Interoperability #DataQuality #PrecisionMedicine #PersonalizedCare #ClinicianExperience #HealthcareLeadership #DigitalTransformation #HealthTech #HospitalOperations #CallCenterAutomation #EmergencyMedicine
dexcare.com
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Dr. Mayank Gandhi, CEO of NEOK Bio, discusses the company's work on bispecific antibody drug conjugates and the limitations of conventional ADCs, which target a single antigen. Using a bispecific antibody to target two unique antigens on a tumor can address the shortcomings of earlier approaches by improving delivery of the toxic payload, overcoming tumor heterogeneity, and reducing off-target toxicity. NEOK has drugs in development for prostate cancer, and lung, head, neck, and gastrointestinal tumors. The trend for ADCs is toward multi-specific and multi-payload drugs, though Mayank warns it is not a simple task to go from one to many in designing these drug conjugates.
Mayank explains, "There have been a lot of advancements in the last couple of decades, and especially the last few years, in various modalities in the treatment of hematological cancers, as well as to a certain degree in solid tumors. However, for many, many solid tumors, there's still a high unmet need given the still significant outcome, poor outcomes that patients experience, particularly with patients having metastatic disease across a variety of solid tumors. Now, if you look at specific modality like ADC or antibody drug conjugates, which is where NEOK Bio is, there's been a renaissance, if you will, with this modality in the last five to six years, particularly after the approval of a drug called Enhertu, which targets HER2 mutation. Now, many ADCs have been approved with different payloads. And so definitely that's made a dent in a variety of tumors, particularly in hematological cancers and select solid tumors as well."
"Conventional ADCs thus far target one antigen or one target on a tumor. So it's an antibody-based approach. The antibody is typically pursuing one specific antigen that's usually an antigen that's expressed on tumors selectively versus normal tissue or normal cells. And then you have a linker and a payload, usually a toxic payload that's conjugated via a linker to the antibody. So that's an antibody drug conjugate construct."
"Thus far, all the ADCs approved have been targeting only one antigen with a couple of different payloads. And so our bispecific approach is targeting two different antigens. If we use a bispecific antibody that targets two unique antigens on the tumor, we have more than one place that a potential antibody can bind and deliver the toxic payload. And then we have made some very significant improvements or changes in the antibody itself."
#NEOKBio #DrugDevelopment #Innovation #AntibodyDrugConjugates #ADC #Oncology #Biotech#Oncology #SolidTumors #BispecificADC #CancerResearch #TranslationalResearch #MedicalOncology #HematologyOncology #ClinicalTrials #Biotech #Pharma #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionOncology #TumorMicroenvironment #TargetedTherapy
NEOKBio.com
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Dr. Mayank Gandhi, CEO of NEOK Bio, discusses the company's work on bispecific antibody drug conjugates and the limitations of conventional ADCs, which target a single antigen. Using a bispecific antibody to target two unique antigens on a tumor can address the shortcomings of earlier approaches by improving delivery of the toxic payload, overcoming tumor heterogeneity, and reducing off-target toxicity. NEOK has drugs in development for prostate cancer, and lung, head, neck, and gastrointestinal tumors. The trend for ADCs is toward multi-specific and multi-payload drugs, though Mayank warns it is not a simple task to go from one to many in designing these drug conjugates.
Mayank explains, "There have been a lot of advancements in the last couple of decades, and especially the last few years, in various modalities in the treatment of hematological cancers, as well as to a certain degree in solid tumors. However, for many, many solid tumors, there's still a high unmet need given the still significant outcome, poor outcomes that patients experience, particularly with patients having metastatic disease across a variety of solid tumors. Now, if you look at specific modality like ADC or antibody drug conjugates, which is where NEOK Bio is, there's been a renaissance, if you will, with this modality in the last five to six years, particularly after the approval of a drug called Enhertu, which targets HER2 mutation. Now, many ADCs have been approved with different payloads. And so definitely that's made a dent in a variety of tumors, particularly in hematological cancers and select solid tumors as well."
"Conventional ADCs thus far target one antigen or one target on a tumor. So it's an antibody-based approach. The antibody is typically pursuing one specific antigen that's usually an antigen that's expressed on tumors selectively versus normal tissue or normal cells. And then you have a linker and a payload, usually a toxic payload that's conjugated via a linker to the antibody. So that's an antibody drug conjugate construct."
"Thus far, all the ADCs approved have been targeting only one antigen with a couple of different payloads. And so our bispecific approach is targeting two different antigens. If we use a bispecific antibody that targets two unique antigens on the tumor, we have more than one place that a potential antibody can bind and deliver the toxic payload. And then we have made some very significant improvements or changes in the antibody itself."
#NEOKBio #DrugDevelopment #Innovation #AntibodyDrugConjugates #ADC #Oncology #Biotech#Oncology #SolidTumors #BispecificADC #CancerResearch #TranslationalResearch #MedicalOncology #HematologyOncology #ClinicalTrials #Biotech #Pharma #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionOncology #TumorMicroenvironment #TargetedTherapy
NEOKBio.com
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Louis Blankemeier, CEO and Co-Founder of Cognita, describes the significant gap between the number of radiologists and the rising volume and types of medical imaging that need to be reviewed. The Cognita generative visual language model is an advancement over earlier radiology AI applications that were designed to flag single findings. This integrated approach emulates a radiologist by analyzing complex images and generating full draft radiology reports, demonstrating reduced time per case, increased detection of critical findings, and decreased cognitive burden on radiologists.
Louis explains, "Radiologists look at a number of different imaging types. So there are X-rays, and these are basically 2D images or 2D projections of the inside of the body. So you see all the organs superimposed on each other in a 2D image. And the radiologists have to take this 2D image and create almost a 3D representation in their head to understand what's going on in the body. They also read CT scans, which use X-ray radiation but take multiple images from different angles of the body. And then you basically reconstruct a 3D video that shows you what the inside of a body looks like. And then there are also MRI scans, which use magnetism to create a video of the inside of the body. And CT and MRI are 3D imaging modalities. So they're both kind of like videos. And you have an ultrasound, which uses sound waves, and you have a long tail of different imaging types. But radiologist spend most of their time looking at X-rays, CT scans, and MRI images."
"A vision language model is a model that has eyes, so it can actually look at images, and then the language part describes how we are generating text in the output. And we can actually add one more descriptor to vision language. We can add the term generative. So we're actually generating text in the output of our model. We're generating the radiology report. And this is in contrast to most models out there today that are discriminative. There are these classifier models that are saying, " Is there a disease present or not? And the output is binary. It's zero one. It's not a text report in the output."
#Cognita #AIinRadiology #GenerativeAI #VisionLanguageModels #RadiologyWorkflow #DiagnosticImaging #MedicalAI #HealthcareInnovation #RadiologistSupport #ClinicalDecisionSupport #PatientSafety #BurnoutReduction #FDA #BreakthroughDevice #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
Cognita.ai
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Louis Blankemeier, CEO and Co-Founder of Cognita, describes the significant gap between the number of radiologists and the rising volume and types of medical imaging that need to be reviewed. The Cognita generative visual language model is an advancement over earlier radiology AI applications that were designed to flag single findings. This integrated approach emulates a radiologist by analyzing complex images and generating full draft radiology reports, demonstrating reduced time per case, increased detection of critical findings, and decreased cognitive burden on radiologists.
Louis explains, "Radiologists look at a number of different imaging types. So there are X-rays, and these are basically 2D images or 2D projections of the inside of the body. So you see all the organs superimposed on each other in a 2D image. And the radiologists have to take this 2D image and create almost a 3D representation in their head to understand what's going on in the body. They also read CT scans, which use X-ray radiation but take multiple images from different angles of the body. And then you basically reconstruct a 3D video that shows you what the inside of a body looks like. And then there are also MRI scans, which use magnetism to create a video of the inside of the body. And CT and MRI are 3D imaging modalities. So they're both kind of like videos. And you have an ultrasound, which uses sound waves, and you have a long tail of different imaging types. But radiologist spend most of their time looking at X-rays, CT scans, and MRI images."
"A vision language model is a model that has eyes, so it can actually look at images, and then the language part describes how we are generating text in the output. And we can actually add one more descriptor to vision language. We can add the term generative. So we're actually generating text in the output of our model. We're generating the radiology report. And this is in contrast to most models out there today that are discriminative. There are these classifier models that are saying, " Is there a disease present or not? And the output is binary. It's zero one. It's not a text report in the output."
#Cognita #AIinRadiology #GenerativeAI #VisionLanguageModels #RadiologyWorkflow #DiagnosticImaging #MedicalAI #HealthcareInnovation #RadiologistSupport #ClinicalDecisionSupport #PatientSafety #BurnoutReduction #FDA #BreakthroughDevice #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
Cognita.ai
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Dr. Ashok Gupta, CEO and Founder of Theranow, highlights the growing demand for physical therapy and the challenges patients face in accessing care. The Theranow telehealth solution uses technologies such as computer vision and AI to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of virtual care and to measure and document progress to support the clinician's work with the patient. Virtual physical therapy is demonstrating outcomes equal to in-person care and showing higher patient engagement and compliance, driven by the convenience of scheduling and remote monitoring tools.
Ashok explains, "Physical therapy is growing with experiential growth. Means you would look at the data. It's approximately 6% to 7% a year growth going long. On top of that, not only are there requirements, but this is also like a demand-and-supply situation. If you'll just look at the other side of the data, the demand side of it, where every day, like recently, I read, it was like 10,000 people are crossing the Medicare eligibility. So every single Medicare-eligible person means there's more demand for physical therapy and rehab services."
"The physical therapists specialize in different settings or different styles of treatments. So I would say virtual care can address almost 80% of all diagnoses and 100% of all patients at any time during the injury or recovery period of rehabilitation. So we do have multiple programs. We have an ortho program for virtual care. We have a neuro program for virtual care. And then we have a pelvic health or women's health program for virtual care. So we're taking one step at a time and adding different programs. The next would be the pediatrics, and then we'll be adding that as well, slowly. So we're trying to bring in experts from each field and then make sure that our program is very tailored to the patient's needs. And then obviously it's not a traditional, conventional physical therapy that you can do."
#Theranow HybridCare #PatientExperience #HealthcareAI #DigitalHealth #ClinicianWorkflow #PhysicalTherapy #Telehealth #DigitalHealth #RehabInnovation #VirtualCare #AIinHealthcare #RemotePatientMonitoring #ValueBasedCare #HealthSystems #Medicare #HealthTech #PatientEngagement #ClinicianExperience #MusculoskeletalCare
Theranow.com
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Dr. Ashok Gupta, CEO and Founder of Theranow, highlights the growing demand for physical therapy and the challenges patients face in accessing care. The Theranow telehealth solution uses technologies such as computer vision and AI to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of virtual care and to measure and document progress to support the clinician's work with the patient. Virtual physical therapy is demonstrating outcomes equal to in-person care and showing higher patient engagement and compliance, driven by the convenience of scheduling and remote monitoring tools.
Ashok explains, "Physical therapy is growing with experiential growth. Means you would look at the data. It's approximately 6% to 7% a year growth going long. On top of that, not only are there requirements, but this is also like a demand-and-supply situation. If you'll just look at the other side of the data, the demand side of it, where every day, like recently, I read, it was like 10,000 people are crossing the Medicare eligibility. So every single Medicare-eligible person means there's more demand for physical therapy and rehab services."
"The physical therapists specialize in different settings or different styles of treatments. So I would say virtual care can address almost 80% of all diagnoses and 100% of all patients at any time during the injury or recovery period of rehabilitation. So we do have multiple programs. We have an ortho program for virtual care. We have a neuro program for virtual care. And then we have a pelvic health or women's health program for virtual care. So we're taking one step at a time and adding different programs. The next would be the pediatrics, and then we'll be adding that as well, slowly. So we're trying to bring in experts from each field and then make sure that our program is very tailored to the patient's needs. And then obviously it's not a traditional, conventional physical therapy that you can do."
#Theranow HybridCare #PatientExperience #HealthcareAI #DigitalHealth #ClinicianWorkflow #PhysicalTherapy #Telehealth #DigitalHealth #RehabInnovation #VirtualCare #AIinHealthcare #RemotePatientMonitoring #ValueBasedCare #HealthSystems #Medicare #HealthTech #PatientEngagement #ClinicianExperience #MusculoskeletalCare
Theranow.com
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Dr. Javier Szwarcberg, CEO of Spruce Biosciences, is developing drugs for rare diseases with a primary focus on Sanfilippo Syndrome Type B, a devastating genetic neurodegenerative disease affecting children. The source of this condition is a lack of an enzyme, which results in a buildup of a toxic substance in the brain. The company's drug is an enzyme replacement therapy administered directly to the brain to bypass the blood-brain barrier, and clinical trial data is showing a strong effect on the toxic substrate in the brain and a meaningful benefit on cognition.
Javier explains, "It's a devastating, profoundly affecting disease whereby children are typically born normally and born asymptomatic. And over time, they develop an accumulation of a toxic substrate throughout the body, but primarily the brain. And because of that, it eventually results in a fairly young age, usually between two and a half and I would say three and a half, in symptoms starting. That toxic substance builds in throughout the brain and starts affecting initially learning behavior. Sleep patterns are very much affected, whereby children don't sleep at night and sleep during the day, and they're very hyperactive. And sometimes the diagnosis is confused, and there's no clarity as to what is going on with the child, early in the onset of the disease."
"Yes, it's a genetic disease that's inherited. There's a missing enzyme responsible for the metabolism of this toxic substrate, which I talked about, called heparan sulfate. So when heparan sulfate builds up in the brain, it causes inflammation and neurotoxicity, ultimately resulting in neurodegeneration. Think about it as a disease that is very similar to what you end up seeing with Alzheimer's, whereby the toxic substrate in Alzheimer's is between neurons and outside of the actual cell. In this case, in this disease, the toxic substance, which is different than the one that accumulates in Alzheimer's but builds within the neural cells. Yes, so that's very well-known and very well-characterized."
#SpruceBio #SanfilippoSyndrome #MPSIIIB #CureSanfilippo #RareDiseases #EnzymeReplacementTherapy #LysosomalStorageDisorders #BiopharmaceuticalInnovation #ClinicalTrials #RareDiseaseResearch #HealthcareInnovation #PrecisionMedicine
sprucebio.com
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Dr. Javier Szwarcberg, CEO of Spruce Biosciences, is developing drugs for rare diseases with a primary focus on Sanfilippo Syndrome Type B, a devastating genetic neurodegenerative disease affecting children. The source of this condition is a lack of an enzyme, which results in a buildup of a toxic substance in the brain. The company's drug is an enzyme replacement therapy administered directly to the brain to bypass the blood-brain barrier, and clinical trial data is showing a strong effect on the toxic substrate in the brain and a meaningful benefit on cognition.
Javier explains, "It's a devastating, profoundly affecting disease whereby children are typically born normally and born asymptomatic. And over time, they develop an accumulation of a toxic substrate throughout the body, but primarily the brain. And because of that, it eventually results in a fairly young age, usually between two and a half and I would say three and a half, in symptoms starting. That toxic substance builds in throughout the brain and starts affecting initially learning behavior. Sleep patterns are very much affected, whereby children don't sleep at night and sleep during the day, and they're very hyperactive. And sometimes the diagnosis is confused, and there's no clarity as to what is going on with the child, early in the onset of the disease."
"Yes, it's a genetic disease that's inherited. There's a missing enzyme responsible for the metabolism of this toxic substrate, which I talked about, called heparan sulfate. So when heparan sulfate builds up in the brain, it causes inflammation and neurotoxicity, ultimately resulting in neurodegeneration. Think about it as a disease that is very similar to what you end up seeing with Alzheimer's, whereby the toxic substrate in Alzheimer's is between neurons and outside of the actual cell. In this case, in this disease, the toxic substance, which is different than the one that accumulates in Alzheimer's but builds within the neural cells. Yes, so that's very well-known and very well-characterized."
#SpruceBio #SanfilippoSyndrome #MPSIIIB #CureSanfilippo #RareDiseases #EnzymeReplacementTherapy #LysosomalStorageDisorders #BiopharmaceuticalInnovation #ClinicalTrials #RareDiseaseResearch #HealthcareInnovation #PrecisionMedicine
sprucebio.com
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Zach Shultz, Senior Director of Product Policy and Solutions at EnableComp, describes the challenges of revenue cycle management in healthcare with a focus on the strategic importance of full-time equivalent (FTE) allocation. Hospitals could improve their bottom line by outsourcing complex, low-reimbursement claims, such as those from the VA so that in-house staff can focus on higher-value commercial claims. Despite the emergence of AI as a significant factor in automating the review process, human intervention is irreplaceable for quality assurance, managing escalations, and resolving complex claims.
Zach explains, "I think that, especially serving the post- COVID landscape that we exist in today, staffing has become a kind of delicate thing. If you think about the rate posts or during the post-pandemic period, it was really hard to staff revenue cycle offices or staff business in general. Now, you kind of fast-forward to 2026, and maybe it's not as difficult as it was, but I think hospitals and businesses want to make sure they're very precise and strategic in how they utilize resources."
"Obviously, keeping overhead at a manageable level is really important to growth and success. So I think it's an invariable value that should always be discussed, particularly when it gets into the complex claims space, as we do. The work comps, the VAs, and claim types like that may take or require a little bit more manual intervention. It's super important to determine whether it's worth taking on these things myself or if outsourcing them is justified so I can focus on things that maybe have a slightly higher yield."
#EnableComp #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM #HealthTech #FTEEfficiency #ComplexClaims #RCMTechnology #HealthcareRCM #RevenueCycle #HealthcareFinance #StaffingStrategy #HealthcareOperations #AIinHealthcare #WorkforceOptimization #HealthcareLeadership #PatientFinancialServices
enablecomp.com
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Zach Shultz, Senior Director of Product Policy and Solutions at EnableComp, describes the challenges of revenue cycle management in healthcare with a focus on the strategic importance of full-time equivalent (FTE) allocation. Hospitals could improve their bottom line by outsourcing complex, low-reimbursement claims, such as those from the VA so that in-house staff can focus on higher-value commercial claims. Despite the emergence of AI as a significant factor in automating the review process, human intervention is irreplaceable for quality assurance, managing escalations, and resolving complex claims.
Zach explains, "I think that, especially serving the post- COVID landscape that we exist in today, staffing has become a kind of delicate thing. If you think about the rate posts or during the post-pandemic period, it was really hard to staff revenue cycle offices or staff business in general. Now, you kind of fast-forward to 2026, and maybe it's not as difficult as it was, but I think hospitals and businesses want to make sure they're very precise and strategic in how they utilize resources."
"Obviously, keeping overhead at a manageable level is really important to growth and success. So I think it's an invariable value that should always be discussed, particularly when it gets into the complex claims space, as we do. The work comps, the VAs, and claim types like that may take or require a little bit more manual intervention. It's super important to determine whether it's worth taking on these things myself or if outsourcing them is justified so I can focus on things that maybe have a slightly higher yield."
#EnableComp #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM #HealthTech #FTEEfficiency #ComplexClaims #RCMTechnology #HealthcareRCM #RevenueCycle #HealthcareFinance #StaffingStrategy #HealthcareOperations #AIinHealthcare #WorkforceOptimization #HealthcareLeadership #PatientFinancialServices
enablecomp.com
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Lon Hecht, CEO of Care2U, has designed an innovative model of providing in-home high-acuity care as an alternative to emergency room visits or hospitalizations. The process includes sending a clinician to the home within 2-4 hours, with extensive mobile medical equipment, and physician support via telehealth. Benefits include better patient recovery outcomes, significant cost savings for patients and payers, and prevention of costly hospital readmissions.
Lon explains, "My company, Care2U, and I are bringing high acuity care into the home. So think of it as kind of a replacement for ER-level care or hospitalization. When you think of home care, that's typically skilled or unskilled care. So it could be someone coming in to help you with daily living needs, or it could be some kind of skilled nursing. What we do is very different. We're sending a clinician into the home. Typically, within two to four hours, they bring in a physician via concurrent telehealth and treat true high-acuity needs. Once again, things that you would typically see in the ER in the hospital. So that's how it's different. And what's great about it is it really allows you to stay in your home, be around your loved ones, which is fantastic. And the cost is a fraction of what you would pay for ER or hospital-based care."
"There's a lot of data out there that shows people heal better at home. When you're in a hospital, there are all kinds of things going on. You're around plenty of infection. You're up all night. It's very chaotic for folks. Being able to be at home with their loved ones, pets, and others, and move freely throughout the home, really makes a difference in their recovery. So, it's been published as being incredibly positive for the care of patients."
#Care2U #HospitalAtHome #ERAtHome #CareAtHome #HealingAtHome #EmpoweredPatient #DigitalHealth #Telehealth #VirtualCare #HealthTech #ValueBasedCare #PopulationHealth #AgingInPlace #ManagedCare #ValueBasedCare #Readmissions #Caregivers #OlderAdults #Geriatric #Elderly#HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #PatientExperience #HealthcareDelivery #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareCosts #PatientOutcomes
care2U.com
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Lon Hecht, CEO of Care2U, has designed an innovative model of providing in-home high-acuity care as an alternative to emergency room visits or hospitalizations. The process includes sending a clinician to the home within 2-4 hours, with extensive mobile medical equipment, and physician support via telehealth. Benefits include better patient recovery outcomes, significant cost savings for patients and payers, and prevention of costly hospital readmissions.
Lon explains, "My company, Care2U, and I are bringing high acuity care into the home. So think of it as kind of a replacement for ER-level care or hospitalization. When you think of home care, that's typically skilled or unskilled care. So it could be someone coming in to help you with daily living needs, or it could be some kind of skilled nursing. What we do is very different. We're sending a clinician into the home. Typically, within two to four hours, they bring in a physician via concurrent telehealth and treat true high-acuity needs. Once again, things that you would typically see in the ER in the hospital. So that's how it's different. And what's great about it is it really allows you to stay in your home, be around your loved ones, which is fantastic. And the cost is a fraction of what you would pay for ER or hospital-based care."
"There's a lot of data out there that shows people heal better at home. When you're in a hospital, there are all kinds of things going on. You're around plenty of infection. You're up all night. It's very chaotic for folks. Being able to be at home with their loved ones, pets, and others, and move freely throughout the home, really makes a difference in their recovery. So, it's been published as being incredibly positive for the care of patients."
#Care2U #HospitalAtHome #ERAtHome #CareAtHome #HealingAtHome #EmpoweredPatient #DigitalHealth #Telehealth #VirtualCare #HealthTech #ValueBasedCare #PopulationHealth #AgingInPlace #ManagedCare #ValueBasedCare #Readmissions #Caregivers #OlderAdults #Geriatric #Elderly#HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #PatientExperience #HealthcareDelivery #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareCosts #PatientOutcomes
care2U.com
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Patty Hayward, General Manager of healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, describes how a hybrid model of humans and AI is reshaping healthcare contact centers. Patient access and revenue cycle management are the primary, interconnected challenges for these centers, and modern large-language AI is being used to handle complex scheduling logic. Data analytics helps identify patterns in patient inquiries, predict demand peaks, and move care from reactive to proactive. The expectation is that AI agents will guide patients, becoming a normal and accepted part of healthcare.
Patty explains, "I think that the challenge has always been in healthcare that it's difficult to automate things in comparison to other industries. If you call retail, it's very hard to get a human. You're constantly dealing with bots or being deflected to digital front doors versus in healthcare, as much as organizations have tried to push people to the digital apps and MyCharts and different things like that, it's been difficult. And there are good reasons, and there are bad reasons for that."
"When you think about scheduling, scheduling really drives your revenue cycle because if people don't come to your organization, you can't bill them for things, you can't bill their insurance. And so your organization has problems with the revenue cycles. That's why I say they're inextricably linked, and it's very important to solve the access problem in order to solve the revenue cycle problem."
"So, making sure that you match that patient with the right provider, making sure that you have the right requirements around insurance authorization and things like that. And then, of course, letting the patient understand what their burden will be as far as the charges go for that appointment is all part of the dance, so to speak. And that really requires a large language model that can consume and understand that information. You're right, the decision trees weren't going to work as far as an AI piece goes."
#Talkdesk #AgenticAI #AIAgents #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Automation #CustomerServiceAutomation #ValuebasedCare #VBC #PatientExperience #MemberExperience #CustomerExperience #Providers #Payers #HealthcareAI #PatientExperience #HealthTech #ContactCenters #AIInHealthcare #DigitalTransformation #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAccess #RevenueOptimization #HealthcareLeadership
talkdesk.com
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Patty Hayward, General Manager of healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, describes how a hybrid model of humans and AI is reshaping healthcare contact centers. Patient access and revenue cycle management are the primary, interconnected challenges for these centers, and modern large-language AI is being used to handle complex scheduling logic. Data analytics helps identify patterns in patient inquiries, predict demand peaks, and move care from reactive to proactive. The expectation is that AI agents will guide patients, becoming a normal and accepted part of healthcare.
Patty explains, "I think that the challenge has always been in healthcare that it's difficult to automate things in comparison to other industries. If you call retail, it's very hard to get a human. You're constantly dealing with bots or being deflected to digital front doors versus in healthcare, as much as organizations have tried to push people to the digital apps and MyCharts and different things like that, it's been difficult. And there are good reasons, and there are bad reasons for that."
"When you think about scheduling, scheduling really drives your revenue cycle because if people don't come to your organization, you can't bill them for things, you can't bill their insurance. And so your organization has problems with the revenue cycles. That's why I say they're inextricably linked, and it's very important to solve the access problem in order to solve the revenue cycle problem."
"So, making sure that you match that patient with the right provider, making sure that you have the right requirements around insurance authorization and things like that. And then, of course, letting the patient understand what their burden will be as far as the charges go for that appointment is all part of the dance, so to speak. And that really requires a large language model that can consume and understand that information. You're right, the decision trees weren't going to work as far as an AI piece goes."
#Talkdesk #AgenticAI #AIAgents #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Automation #CustomerServiceAutomation #ValuebasedCare #VBC #PatientExperience #MemberExperience #CustomerExperience #Providers #Payers #HealthcareAI #PatientExperience #HealthTech #ContactCenters #AIInHealthcare #DigitalTransformation #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAccess #RevenueOptimization #HealthcareLeadership
talkdesk.com
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Scott Xiao, Co-Founder and CEO of Luminopia, is developing a novel, FDA -cleared VR-based treatment for neurovisual disorders with a primary focus on amblyopia, lazy eye, in children aged 4- 12 years old. This approach uses popular TV shows to create an engaging, effective therapy that trains the eyes to work together and is designed as a replacement for traditional eye patching. Clinical data indicate that the vision improvements from this therapy are durable and that the VR approach is well-received by children and their parents.
Scott explains, "We are pioneering a new class of treatments using virtual reality to treat various neurovisual disorders. So these are conditions where patients have vision loss that's driven by deficiencies in the brain, in the visual cortex. We're starting with amblyopia, which is often known as lazy eye. It's the number one cause of vision loss in children around the world. And it's an area of significant unmet need. There hasn't been much in the way of new treatments for decades. Typically, patients will go through glasses followed by eye patches, which is exactly what it sounds like. You take a patch, and you stick it on your stronger eye for multiple hours a day. And that's a really challenging treatment for a lot of kids and families. So we saw an opportunity to use technology to create something better, something that would be more engaging and more effective."
"We've developed a VR-based approach that takes popular TV shows like SpongeBob and Sesame Street and turns them into a treatment by modifying how the images are shown to each eye. And this technology has been extensively validated at this point in multiple clinical trials. It was cleared by the FDA, and it's now commercially available. So over the past year, we've really been making strides on the commercial front, increasing awareness for the product among physicians and patients, and securing insurance coverage for the product."
#Luminopia #Amblyopia #PediatricOphthalmology #VirtualReality #DigitalTherapeutics #LazyEye #VisionTherapy #Optometry #PediatricCare #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalTechnology
luminopia.com
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Scott Xiao, Co-Founder and CEO of Luminopia, is developing a novel, FDA -cleared VR-based treatment for neurovisual disorders with a primary focus on amblyopia, lazy eye, in children aged 4- 12 years old. This approach uses popular TV shows to create an engaging, effective therapy that trains the eyes to work together and is designed as a replacement for traditional eye patching. Clinical data indicate that the vision improvements from this therapy are durable and that the VR approach is well-received by children and their parents.
Scott explains, "We are pioneering a new class of treatments using virtual reality to treat various neurovisual disorders. So these are conditions where patients have vision loss that's driven by deficiencies in the brain, in the visual cortex. We're starting with amblyopia, which is often known as lazy eye. It's the number one cause of vision loss in children around the world. And it's an area of significant unmet need. There hasn't been much in the way of new treatments for decades. Typically, patients will go through glasses followed by eye patches, which is exactly what it sounds like. You take a patch, and you stick it on your stronger eye for multiple hours a day. And that's a really challenging treatment for a lot of kids and families. So we saw an opportunity to use technology to create something better, something that would be more engaging and more effective."
"We've developed a VR-based approach that takes popular TV shows like SpongeBob and Sesame Street and turns them into a treatment by modifying how the images are shown to each eye. And this technology has been extensively validated at this point in multiple clinical trials. It was cleared by the FDA, and it's now commercially available. So over the past year, we've really been making strides on the commercial front, increasing awareness for the product among physicians and patients, and securing insurance coverage for the product."
#Luminopia #Amblyopia #PediatricOphthalmology #VirtualReality #DigitalTherapeutics #LazyEye #VisionTherapy #Optometry #PediatricCare #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalTechnology
luminopia.com
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Joseph Kleiman, President of Buzz Health, is working to improve price transparency and affordability of prescription drugs. He states that providing price transparency as early as possible in the prescription process is critical for prescribers, patients, and health plans to make better, more cost-effective decisions. To achieve true transparency, all parties in the ecosystem must cooperate and share data, moving beyond pricing visibility to fully integrate systems and use real-time information to improve patient adherence and lower costs.
Joseph explains, "Buzz Health really focuses on improving the process behind the scenes, developing technologies that sit within the prescription ecosystem, creating opportunities to improve price transparency, early adoption, and integrated benefits for members."
"We work with everybody from pharmacies to PBMs to payers to employer groups. Anybody we believe has an opportunity that, with technology and early adoption of price transparency and adherence, could benefit them and the members they serve."
"What's interesting is that, like most things, the earlier you have information, the easier it is to make actionable change, things with long-term impact. So if you have price transparency and you have it early on, a prescriber can make more informed decisions. A patient, rather than showing up at a pharmacy counter, can make decisions earlier on. So again, it's kind of like the earlier you have anything in making a decision, the easier it is for you to make a really actionable change all the way up through a PBM or health plan. If they see gaps in coverage and they have that information, they can make changes early on as well."
#BuzzHealth #PrescriptionDrugs #Pharmacies #HealthcareIT #PriceTransparency #PrescriptionAffordability #PharmacyTech #MedicationAccess #HealthcareTransparency #PrescriptionPricing #PatientCare #HealthTech #PharmacyBenefits #HealthcareInnovation #PatientOutcomes #MedicalTechnology
buzzhealth.com
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Joseph Kleiman, President of Buzz Health, is working to improve price transparency and affordability of prescription drugs. He states that providing price transparency as early as possible in the prescription process is critical for prescribers, patients, and health plans to make better, more cost-effective decisions. To achieve true transparency, all parties in the ecosystem must cooperate and share data, moving beyond pricing visibility to fully integrate systems and use real-time information to improve patient adherence and lower costs.
Joseph explains, "Buzz Health really focuses on improving the process behind the scenes, developing technologies that sit within the prescription ecosystem, creating opportunities to improve price transparency, early adoption, and integrated benefits for members."
"We work with everybody from pharmacies to PBMs to payers to employer groups. Anybody we believe has an opportunity that, with technology and early adoption of price transparency and adherence, could benefit them and the members they serve."
"What's interesting is that, like most things, the earlier you have information, the easier it is to make actionable change, things with long-term impact. So if you have price transparency and you have it early on, a prescriber can make more informed decisions. A patient, rather than showing up at a pharmacy counter, can make decisions earlier on. So again, it's kind of like the earlier you have anything in making a decision, the easier it is for you to make a really actionable change all the way up through a PBM or health plan. If they see gaps in coverage and they have that information, they can make changes early on as well."
#BuzzHealth #PrescriptionDrugs #Pharmacies #HealthcareIT #PriceTransparency #PrescriptionAffordability #PharmacyTech #MedicationAccess #HealthcareTransparency #PrescriptionPricing #PatientCare #HealthTech #PharmacyBenefits #HealthcareInnovation #PatientOutcomes #MedicalTechnology
buzzhealth.com
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Dr. Bill Kerr, Co-Founder and CEO of Avalon Healthcare Solutions, highlights the critical role of advanced precision diagnostics and how these tools are driving true precision medicine, where therapies are targeted to specific genetic mutations. There have been significant innovations, such as less invasive liquid biopsies and the application of AI to interpret medical images and complex lab results, which provide faster analysis and make it easier to monitor disease over time. The future of diagnostics includes more routine tests and imaging to enable earlier interventions and more effective treatments by overcoming the logistical and physical challenges of traditional tissue biopsies in cancer care.
Bill explains, "At Avalon, we believe that if you don't get the diagnosis right, the rest of healthcare is wasted, and time is wasted on getting a patient better. So our number one focus is getting the science of diagnostics deployed into the healthcare ecosystem. I think a lot of people know that there's been a lot of innovation in lab testing, as well as in advanced diagnostic imaging. And historically, it takes 17 to 20 years to get new science evenly adopted, and we want to accelerate that process. So that's really our focus. We say sciences are True North, and our goal is to get that science deployed into the healthcare system."
"I think, unfortunately, we used the phrase precision medicine too early. When it was really precision diagnostics, and I'll separate the two out. For over a decade, we've been able to measure, let's say for instance, in cancer, what mutations might be in the cancer cells, but we didn't have any new therapies to offer. So while the phrase precision medicine was used, all we did was identify the mutations, build up an understanding of the disease, but offer the same cancer therapy. Now we actually have therapies that target some of those specific mutations."
"We truly have reached the era of precision medicine. But I think getting people to understand that now it's not just measuring the mutation, it's measuring the mutation and selecting the chemotherapy based on that. That's the new reality, and that's what we're trying to get people to understand. And that's why I think undertesting still happens, because people aren't maybe aware that now there are therapeutic decisions you can make off those results."
#Avalonhcs #PrecisionMedicine #Diagnostics #HealthcareInnovation #LiquidBiopsy #Healthtech #DiagnosticIntelligence #AIinHealthcare #PersonalizedMedicine #Oncology #HealthcareProfessionals #MedicalTechnology #PatientCare
avalonhcs.com
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Dr. Bill Kerr, Co-Founder and CEO of Avalon Healthcare Solutions, highlights the critical role of advanced precision diagnostics and how these tools are driving true precision medicine, where therapies are targeted to specific genetic mutations. There have been significant innovations, such as less invasive liquid biopsies and the application of AI to interpret medical images and complex lab results, which provide faster analysis and make it easier to monitor disease over time. The future of diagnostics includes more routine tests and imaging to enable earlier interventions and more effective treatments by overcoming the logistical and physical challenges of traditional tissue biopsies in cancer care.
Bill explains, "At Avalon, we believe that if you don't get the diagnosis right, the rest of healthcare is wasted, and time is wasted on getting a patient better. So our number one focus is getting the science of diagnostics deployed into the healthcare ecosystem. I think a lot of people know that there's been a lot of innovation in lab testing, as well as in advanced diagnostic imaging. And historically, it takes 17 to 20 years to get new science evenly adopted, and we want to accelerate that process. So that's really our focus. We say sciences are True North, and our goal is to get that science deployed into the healthcare system."
"I think, unfortunately, we used the phrase precision medicine too early. When it was really precision diagnostics, and I'll separate the two out. For over a decade, we've been able to measure, let's say for instance, in cancer, what mutations might be in the cancer cells, but we didn't have any new therapies to offer. So while the phrase precision medicine was used, all we did was identify the mutations, build up an understanding of the disease, but offer the same cancer therapy. Now we actually have therapies that target some of those specific mutations."
"We truly have reached the era of precision medicine. But I think getting people to understand that now it's not just measuring the mutation, it's measuring the mutation and selecting the chemotherapy based on that. That's the new reality, and that's what we're trying to get people to understand. And that's why I think undertesting still happens, because people aren't maybe aware that now there are therapeutic decisions you can make off those results."
#Avalonhcs #PrecisionMedicine #Diagnostics #HealthcareInnovation #LiquidBiopsy #Healthtech #DiagnosticIntelligence #AIinHealthcare #PersonalizedMedicine #Oncology #HealthcareProfessionals #MedicalTechnology #PatientCare
avalonhcs.com
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Zack Tisch, Partner of Portfolio Services, and Molly Kalinowski, Vice President of Managed Services at Pivot Point Consulting, describe how the role of IT in healthcare has evolved from a reactive, support function to a central strategic component of business. As AI becomes more important, healthcare systems are navigating a challenging environment and recognizing the need for managed services partners to handle day-to-day operations so they can better focus on big-picture goals and priorities. Zack and Molly emphasize the need to drive incremental changes to streamline provider data capture and clinical documentation, which could lead to broader changes in workflows and patient outcomes.
Zack explains, "A lot of what we're doing today is really helping health systems of all shapes and sizes navigate this challenging environment. Whether it's financial pressures, dealing with cybersecurity and risk, or having to implement new technologies every day. Whether it's AI or technologies in the cloud, and really helping them navigate this new normal of healthcare, putting together five- to 10-year strategic roadmaps and plans."
Molly elaborates, "I would say there's a shift in that many organizations are very heavy on the strategic priorities, with AI being one of those. So we're seeing more of our clients needing to support those projects and long-term initiatives. And then they need a partner like a managed services group to really support the day-to-day breaks and fixes, and maintenance types of activities so that they can focus on those AI strategic initiatives."
#PivotPointConsulting #Healthcare #PatientExperience #ManagedServices #TalentSolutions #AI #CompanyCulture #WorkerBurnout #WorkforceTransformation #CostPressures #AIGovernance #HealthcareIT #AIinHealthcare #DigitalTransformation #HealthTech #ManagedServices #ClinicalWorkflow #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare
pivotpointconsulting.com
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Zack Tisch, Partner of Portfolio Services, and Molly Kalinowski, Vice President of Managed Services at Pivot Point Consulting, describe how the role of IT in healthcare has evolved from a reactive, support function to a central strategic component of business. As AI becomes more important, healthcare systems are navigating a challenging environment and recognizing the need for managed services partners to handle day-to-day operations so they can better focus on big-picture goals and priorities. Zack and Molly emphasize the need to drive incremental changes to streamline provider data capture and clinical documentation, which could lead to broader changes in workflows and patient outcomes.
Zack explains, "A lot of what we're doing today is really helping health systems of all shapes and sizes navigate this challenging environment. Whether it's financial pressures, dealing with cybersecurity and risk, or having to implement new technologies every day. Whether it's AI or technologies in the cloud, and really helping them navigate this new normal of healthcare, putting together five- to 10-year strategic roadmaps and plans."
Molly elaborates, "I would say there's a shift in that many organizations are very heavy on the strategic priorities, with AI being one of those. So we're seeing more of our clients needing to support those projects and long-term initiatives. And then they need a partner like a managed services group to really support the day-to-day breaks and fixes, and maintenance types of activities so that they can focus on those AI strategic initiatives."
#PivotPointConsulting #Healthcare #PatientExperience #ManagedServices #TalentSolutions #AI #CompanyCulture #WorkerBurnout #WorkforceTransformation #CostPressures #AIGovernance #HealthcareIT #AIinHealthcare #DigitalTransformation #HealthTech #ManagedServices #ClinicalWorkflow #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare
pivotpointconsulting.com
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Dr. Patricia Hayes is the Chief Medical Officer of Imagine Pediatrics, which has developed a hybrid care model for children with special needs. Imagine Pediatrics provides 24/7 virtual and in-home care, which integrates medical, behavioral, social, and pharmacy services to support families and existing providers and help prevent unnecessary emergency room visits. The organization uses technology and predictive models to identify at-risk children and proactively target interventions to increase the number of safe days at home for children with complex conditions.
Patricia explains, "Imagine Pediatrics is a 24/7, 365 virtual and in- home care for children and youth with special health care needs and medical complexity. We offer integrated medical, behavioral, and social services, inclusive of also pharmacy services, social services, as I mentioned, behavioral health therapy. It's just really an amazing form of wraparound care supporting these kids and supporting the providers that care for them outside of Imagine Pediatrics as well."
"We are in multiple states, and we can provide those services in the states where we're practicing from border to border. So because we're virtual first, we're able to see kids in rural areas, urban areas, wherever they may be, and offer in-home services to them as well when they may have any sort of difficulty, either need additional services that we can't provide virtually, or they may have difficulty going to an emergency room or difficulty seeing their primary care pediatrician or their specialist. We could offer that support in home as well."
"It's a very wide spectrum. We have anywhere from children who have extreme medical complexity, who may be dependent on equipment, who may have a tracheostomy, be ventilated, have a G-tube, all the way to children who may just have severe asthma or be seen and utilize the hospital quite a bit for their asthma. See a wide range of behavioral health conditions as well, anywhere from severe depression to bipolar or anxiety, and early schizophrenia. And so it's an extremely wide range of really our care that we provide."
#ImaginePediatrics #pediatrics #PediatricHealthcare #ComplexCare #ValueBasedCare #VBC #PediatricCare #HealthcareInnovation #VirtualHealth #SpecialNeeds #ChildHealth #HealthTech #PatientCare #MedicalHome #HealthcareAccess #PediatricMedicine #TeleHealth #IntegratedCare
Imaginepediatrics.org
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Dr. Patricia Hayes is the Chief Medical Officer of Imagine Pediatrics, which has developed a hybrid care model for children with special needs. Imagine Pediatrics provides 24/7 virtual and in-home care, which integrates medical, behavioral, social, and pharmacy services to support families and existing providers and help prevent unnecessary emergency room visits. The organization uses technology and predictive models to identify at-risk children and proactively target interventions to increase the number of safe days at home for children with complex conditions.
Patricia explains, "Imagine Pediatrics is a 24/7, 365 virtual and in- home care for children and youth with special health care needs and medical complexity. We offer integrated medical, behavioral, and social services, inclusive of also pharmacy services, social services, as I mentioned, behavioral health therapy. It's just really an amazing form of wraparound care supporting these kids and supporting the providers that care for them outside of Imagine Pediatrics as well."
"We are in multiple states, and we can provide those services in the states where we're practicing from border to border. So because we're virtual first, we're able to see kids in rural areas, urban areas, wherever they may be, and offer in-home services to them as well when they may have any sort of difficulty, either need additional services that we can't provide virtually, or they may have difficulty going to an emergency room or difficulty seeing their primary care pediatrician or their specialist. We could offer that support in home as well."
"It's a very wide spectrum. We have anywhere from children who have extreme medical complexity, who may be dependent on equipment, who may have a tracheostomy, be ventilated, have a G-tube, all the way to children who may just have severe asthma or be seen and utilize the hospital quite a bit for their asthma. See a wide range of behavioral health conditions as well, anywhere from severe depression to bipolar or anxiety, and early schizophrenia. And so it's an extremely wide range of really our care that we provide."
#ImaginePediatrics #pediatrics #PediatricHealthcare #ComplexCare #ValueBasedCare #VBC #PediatricCare #HealthcareInnovation #VirtualHealth #SpecialNeeds #ChildHealth #HealthTech #PatientCare #MedicalHome #HealthcareAccess #PediatricMedicine #TeleHealth #IntegratedCare
Imaginepediatrics.org
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Shashi Shankar, CEO of Novellia, focuses on enabling patients with serious medical conditions to consolidate their medical history into a single record using a free app. The business model provides anonymized real-world data to pharmaceutical companies for research, clinical trial recruitment, and the acceleration of new therapy development. Artificial intelligence is used to help patients make sense of their fragmented medical records, identify clinical trials, and better understand drug safety profiles and therapeutic effectiveness.
Shashi explains, "In a nutshell, what we do is we help folks living with serious and complex medical conditions find access to and then collect all of their medical records going back 20 plus years across different physicians, sites of care, labs, and insurance into one always continuously updated record that then helps them manage and navigate their course of care."
"I actually spent months of my career working at Genentech and Roche, working on a number of different cancer therapeutics, and it was an amazing opportunity, and you get to meet so many different patient communities. But one of the most difficult parts, I think, for anybody who's working on developing new medications and new therapies, is that you need to really understand the communities that you hope to serve one day. And unfortunately, a lot of data that exists right now doesn't actually capture the true patient journey. And it's not very representative of the communities that are dealing with and trying to navigate all of these different conditions."
"The benefit of being able to share this data with researchers in a way that's anonymous and de- identified, so patient data is always totally secure and always held private by Novellia. The benefit of this is that researchers are able to finally understand the full journey of patients and think through how their therapies can actually help those who are trying to navigate their care."
#Novellia#HealthcareInnovation #PatientEmpowerment #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #MedicalRecords #AIinHealthcare #PatientCenteredCare #HealthcareData #ClinicalTrials #Oncology #PharmaceuticalResearch #HealthIT
Novellia.com
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Shashi Shankar, CEO of Novellia, focuses on enabling patients with serious medical conditions to consolidate their medical history into a single record using a free app. The business model provides anonymized real-world data to pharmaceutical companies for research, clinical trial recruitment, and the acceleration of new therapy development. Artificial intelligence is used to help patients make sense of their fragmented medical records, identify clinical trials, and better understand drug safety profiles and therapeutic effectiveness.
Shashi explains, "In a nutshell, what we do is we help folks living with serious and complex medical conditions find access to and then collect all of their medical records going back 20 plus years across different physicians, sites of care, labs, and insurance into one always continuously updated record that then helps them manage and navigate their course of care."
"I actually spent months of my career working at Genentech and Roche, working on a number of different cancer therapeutics, and it was an amazing opportunity, and you get to meet so many different patient communities. But one of the most difficult parts, I think, for anybody who's working on developing new medications and new therapies, is that you need to really understand the communities that you hope to serve one day. And unfortunately, a lot of data that exists right now doesn't actually capture the true patient journey. And it's not very representative of the communities that are dealing with and trying to navigate all of these different conditions."
"The benefit of being able to share this data with researchers in a way that's anonymous and de- identified, so patient data is always totally secure and always held private by Novellia. The benefit of this is that researchers are able to finally understand the full journey of patients and think through how their therapies can actually help those who are trying to navigate their care."
#Novellia#HealthcareInnovation #PatientEmpowerment #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #MedicalRecords #AIinHealthcare #PatientCenteredCare #HealthcareData #ClinicalTrials #Oncology #PharmaceuticalResearch #HealthIT
Novellia.com
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Dr. Gabriel Brooks is Chief Medical Officer at Solid Biosciences, a precision molecular genetic medicines company focused on rare cardiovascular and neuromuscular diseases, including Friedreich's ataxia. Currently, there are very limited treatments for this rare, progressive neurologic disease caused by a genetic deficiency. Solid Biosciences' novel gene therapy uses dual-route administration to deliver directly to the heart and brain and to replace the missing frataxin gene, which is critical for energy production.
Dr. Brooks explains, "Our flagship program is our DMD program, where we have two clinical trials, a first-in-human INSPIRE study, and a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled phase three trial for the SGT-003 DMD medicine. And for Friedreich's ataxia, we have the SGT-212 program, which uses a novel dual route of administration to target not only the cardiomyopathy, but also uses direct injection into the dentate nucleus. We're trying to address the central pathophysiology of the ataxia that patients live with every day."
"So Friedrich's ataxia is a rare and devastating neurologic disease that afflicts around 5,000 patients in the United States and much more actually in Europe. There is a genetic predisposition. And Friedrich's ataxia is really a disease where the patients experience difficulty in moving, what's called ataxia, which you could think of as poor coordination, where when they try to move, their brain is sending a signal to their muscles, let's say to grab that cup of coffee or climb the stairs."
"In fact, there are specific neurologic tests in terms of looking at nerve conduction and other things that can make the formal diagnosis. And certainly, we can get there with genetic testing. And what you're picking up on is absolutely something that's important with rare disease, is that oftentimes there's a lag between when a patient first manifests symptoms and when they ultimately have the diagnosis. In Friedrich's ataxia, like other genetic diseases, it is horrible. And so, for patients who do make the diagnosis of Friedreich's ataxia, there is often what we call cascade screening, where we look for the disease gene in relatives. Oftentimes, it's then that siblings are identified, and eventually they start manifesting the disease as well."
#SolidBiosciences #GeneTherapy #GeneTherapyResearch #RareDiseases #FriedreichsAtaxia #PrecisionMedicine #Neurology #Cardiology #ClinicalTrials #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareInnovation #SolidBiosciences
solidbio.com
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Dr. Gabriel Brooks is Chief Medical Officer at Solid Biosciences, a precision molecular genetic medicines company focused on rare cardiovascular and neuromuscular diseases, including Friedreich's ataxia. Currently, there are very limited treatments for this rare, progressive neurologic disease caused by a genetic deficiency. Solid Biosciences' novel gene therapy uses dual-route administration to deliver directly to the heart and brain and to replace the missing frataxin gene, which is critical for energy production.
Dr. Brooks explains, "Our flagship program is our DMD program, where we have two clinical trials, a first-in-human INSPIRE study, and a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled phase three trial for the SGT-003 DMD medicine. And for Friedreich's ataxia, we have the SGT-212 program, which uses a novel dual route of administration to target not only the cardiomyopathy, but also uses direct injection into the dentate nucleus. We're trying to address the central pathophysiology of the ataxia that patients live with every day."
"So Friedrich's ataxia is a rare and devastating neurologic disease that afflicts around 5,000 patients in the United States and much more actually in Europe. There is a genetic predisposition. And Friedrich's ataxia is really a disease where the patients experience difficulty in moving, what's called ataxia, which you could think of as poor coordination, where when they try to move, their brain is sending a signal to their muscles, let's say to grab that cup of coffee or climb the stairs."
"In fact, there are specific neurologic tests in terms of looking at nerve conduction and other things that can make the formal diagnosis. And certainly, we can get there with genetic testing. And what you're picking up on is absolutely something that's important with rare disease, is that oftentimes there's a lag between when a patient first manifests symptoms and when they ultimately have the diagnosis. In Friedrich's ataxia, like other genetic diseases, it is horrible. And so, for patients who do make the diagnosis of Friedreich's ataxia, there is often what we call cascade screening, where we look for the disease gene in relatives. Oftentimes, it's then that siblings are identified, and eventually they start manifesting the disease as well."
#SolidBiosciences #GeneTherapy #GeneTherapyResearch #RareDiseases #FriedreichsAtaxia #PrecisionMedicine #Neurology #Cardiology #ClinicalTrials #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareInnovation #SolidBiosciences
solidbio.com
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Dr. Payam Zamani, Founder and CEO of MY DR NOW, is directly solving the challenge of access to healthcare by creating a hybrid model that includes convenient walk-in clinics with extended hours, house calls, and virtual visits. This approach is consistent with modern on-demand expectations and attracting patients in dense urban areas as well as rural communities. Patient acquisition is driven by word-of-mouth and relationships with payers and hospital systems, to improve outcomes and reduce hospital readmissions. The model is also attractive to physicians by minimizing administrative tasks and flexible scheduling, leading to less burnout and higher retention.
Payam explains, "The big issue with healthcare, as we've seen it and that MY DR NOW has taken on, one of the most challenging issues of healthcare is accessibility. For far too long, there's been this discrepancy between what we believe and what we know as healthcare practitioners to be important versus reality, versus what actually happens. We have a tendency to focus on all the right things and give patients all the right instructions and directions, as far as focusing on prevention, cancer screenings, and annual wellness visits. And we tell them to manage their chronic conditions because it's important, and to take their medications. But in reality, what ends up happening is that patients have to take time off work just to be able to see their healthcare provider. They have to wait weeks or, in many instances, months in advance just to be able to get in to see someone."
"What MY DR NOW really set out to solve is how to deliver healthcare services in a manner that's more consistent with our daily lives, with what our expectations are. In a manner that makes more sense for working people, for working families, for moms and kids and for parents, and in a way that delivers better outcomes. And that's MY DR NOW in a nutshell."
"Well, along those same lines of accessibility and convenience, what we set out to do was first of all, build an omnichannel network. And what that means is having multiple modalities by which you can obtain healthcare services. So there are clinics, and we like to make sure that those clinics are ubiquitous, and we can expand on that here in a little bit. But we have clinics that are open seven days a week. They're open early and late, on weekends and holidays. They're open when you expect them and need them to be open. But more importantly, you can not only schedule an appointment for those clinics, but also walk in whenever you want. And just as importantly, you can walk in for anything you go to your family medicine office for. So it's not an urgent care where you're only going in for acute and episodic issues."
#MYDRNOW #HealthcareInnovation #PrimaryCare #PatientCentered #HealthcareAccessibility #DigitalHealth #ValueBasedCare #HealthTech #PhysicianWellbeing #HealthcareDelivery #MedicalInnovation #AccessToCare #HealthcareInnovation #OmnichannelCare #HealthcareTransformation
mydrnow.com
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Dr. Payam Zamani, Founder and CEO of MY DR NOW, is directly solving the challenge of access to healthcare by creating a hybrid model that includes convenient walk-in clinics with extended hours, house calls, and virtual visits. This approach is consistent with modern on-demand expectations and attracting patients in dense urban areas as well as rural communities. Patient acquisition is driven by word-of-mouth and relationships with payers and hospital systems, to improve outcomes and reduce hospital readmissions. The model is also attractive to physicians by minimizing administrative tasks and flexible scheduling, leading to less burnout and higher retention.
Payam explains, "The big issue with healthcare, as we've seen it and that MY DR NOW has taken on, one of the most challenging issues of healthcare is accessibility. For far too long, there's been this discrepancy between what we believe and what we know as healthcare practitioners to be important versus reality, versus what actually happens. We have a tendency to focus on all the right things and give patients all the right instructions and directions, as far as focusing on prevention, cancer screenings, and annual wellness visits. And we tell them to manage their chronic conditions because it's important, and to take their medications. But in reality, what ends up happening is that patients have to take time off work just to be able to see their healthcare provider. They have to wait weeks or, in many instances, months in advance just to be able to get in to see someone."
"What MY DR NOW really set out to solve is how to deliver healthcare services in a manner that's more consistent with our daily lives, with what our expectations are. In a manner that makes more sense for working people, for working families, for moms and kids and for parents, and in a way that delivers better outcomes. And that's MY DR NOW in a nutshell."
"Well, along those same lines of accessibility and convenience, what we set out to do was first of all, build an omnichannel network. And what that means is having multiple modalities by which you can obtain healthcare services. So there are clinics, and we like to make sure that those clinics are ubiquitous, and we can expand on that here in a little bit. But we have clinics that are open seven days a week. They're open early and late, on weekends and holidays. They're open when you expect them and need them to be open. But more importantly, you can not only schedule an appointment for those clinics, but also walk in whenever you want. And just as importantly, you can walk in for anything you go to your family medicine office for. So it's not an urgent care where you're only going in for acute and episodic issues."
#MYDRNOW #HealthcareInnovation #PrimaryCare #PatientCentered #HealthcareAccessibility #DigitalHealth #ValueBasedCare #HealthTech #PhysicianWellbeing #HealthcareDelivery #MedicalInnovation #AccessToCare #HealthcareInnovation #OmnichannelCare #HealthcareTransformation
mydrnow.com
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Tom Kim, Chief Medical Officer at Sound Long-Term Care Management, discusses the role of accountable care organizations, ACOs, in improving healthcare for the long-term care population. The unique complexities and challenges of these patients include multiple medical conditions, frequent hospitalizations, and fragmented care. By using predictive analytics, telemedicine, and value-based care principles to deliver more coordinated care, patients are avoiding hospitalizations, receiving higher-quality care, and experiencing reduced costs.
Tom explains, "So, in essence, an accountable care organization (ACO) is a group of healthcare providers that come together with a commitment to Medicare to improve the quality of care for the Medicare beneficiaries they serve and to decrease the cost of care for that population. And it's a way to really better coordinate care for those residents or for those Medicare beneficiaries to really receive the best outcome possible."
"Yes, so in the fee-for-service world, there is a lot of focus, at least from a provider standpoint, on volume. So you're really focused on seeing as many patients as you can. In a value-based care model, we're really moving away from the volume model toward one focused more on quality. So, instead of being rewarded for high volume, you're being rewarded as a provider for the quality of care you provide. And not only is this beneficial to the provider, but it's also beneficial to the patients. So, there's having more time with their provider, receiving better care, and hopefully avoiding unnecessary or avoidable care. And so it's really a win across the board, from both a provider and a patient standpoint."
"Our patient population tends to be more complex with more medical problems. They tend to be hospitalized more often. They tend to rely on others to make healthcare decisions and closer to the end of life. And so, care is really different from those who are still living at home and in the community. And on top of that, in terms of the long-term care space, and why it's so challenging is that you just kind of mentioned it a little bit, is that the population is aging."
#SLTCM #ACO #AccountableCareOrganizations #AccountableCare #LongTermCare #ValueBasedCare #HealthcareInnovation #Telemedicine #SeniorCare #HealthcareLeadership #PatientCare #HealthTech #Medicare
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Tom Kim, Chief Medical Officer at Sound Long-Term Care Management, discusses the role of accountable care organizations, ACOs, in improving healthcare for the long-term care population. The unique complexities and challenges of these patients include multiple medical conditions, frequent hospitalizations, and fragmented care. By using predictive analytics, telemedicine, and value-based care principles to deliver more coordinated care, patients are avoiding hospitalizations, receiving higher-quality care, and experiencing reduced costs.
Tom explains, "So, in essence, an accountable care organization (ACO) is a group of healthcare providers that come together with a commitment to Medicare to improve the quality of care for the Medicare beneficiaries they serve and to decrease the cost of care for that population. And it's a way to really better coordinate care for those residents or for those Medicare beneficiaries to really receive the best outcome possible."
"Yes, so in the fee-for-service world, there is a lot of focus, at least from a provider standpoint, on volume. So you're really focused on seeing as many patients as you can. In a value-based care model, we're really moving away from the volume model toward one focused more on quality. So, instead of being rewarded for high volume, you're being rewarded as a provider for the quality of care you provide. And not only is this beneficial to the provider, but it's also beneficial to the patients. So, there's having more time with their provider, receiving better care, and hopefully avoiding unnecessary or avoidable care. And so it's really a win across the board, from both a provider and a patient standpoint."
"Our patient population tends to be more complex with more medical problems. They tend to be hospitalized more often. They tend to rely on others to make healthcare decisions and closer to the end of life. And so, care is really different from those who are still living at home and in the community. And on top of that, in terms of the long-term care space, and why it's so challenging is that you just kind of mentioned it a little bit, is that the population is aging."
#SLTCM #ACO #AccountableCareOrganizations #AccountableCare #LongTermCare #ValueBasedCare #HealthcareInnovation #Telemedicine #SeniorCare #HealthcareLeadership #PatientCare #HealthTech #Medicare
sltcm.soundphysicians.com
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Lisa Israelovitch, Co-Founder and CEO of AssistIQ, is addressing the challenges in healthcare supply chain management caused by a lack of accurate data on supplies used across the care facility, which leads to operational inefficiencies and financial losses. The previous methods of tracking have often been manual and unreliable, involving product stickers, barcode readers, and manual data entry. Using computer vision and AI to automatically see, track, and document every product used is improving data accuracy, saving clinicians' time, enabling inventory tracking and product expiration management, and delivering significant financial benefits.
Lisa explains, "What really took us from building this inside one hospital to a market solution was spending time across dozens of systems in the US and Canadian landscape. And we found that three things were predominantly happening. Either there was a lot of manual entry searching and typing into the electronic health record system, such as Epic, or others. Often, barcode scanners worked only a portion of the time when the product was in the hospital's ERP system, but they often weren't. And so the barcode scanners only worked for a portion of the time. And then, honestly, the thing we saw a bunch of was nurses with product stickers on their sleeves, and they would basically post those stickers on paper. And so it was really a combination of waste to try to get to that documentation."
"So everything from implants to staplers to glue and things are typically hundreds to thousands of dollars. And just the accuracy was simply not there. In most hospital operating rooms, it's a huge revenue center in US hospitals, but for all markets, it's a huge cost center in terms of just the supply chain in general across the system, which is the largest cost category that the health team has after wages from their labor. And the OR, it's often the leading cost factor. So the supplies can be pretty expensive, as you said."
"The key became really figuring out how we could automate that work so that the clinicians, the nurses, the technicians were truly focused on the patient. Focused on assisting the physician for the case and making sure that they weren't having to do any of this extra sort of administrative work. Ultimately, it is their responsibility to document what gets used, but it has to be much more automated to get to that level of data accuracy and quality."
#AssistIQ #HealthcareAI #ClinicalSupplyIntelligence #HealthTech #HospitalOperations#SurgicalIntelligence #SupplyChainInnovation #HealthcareSupplyChain #HealthTech #PatientSafety #DigitalTransformation #HealthcareInnovation #AI #ComputerVision #OperatingRoom #HealthcareLeadership #QualityImprovement #CostReduction
AssistIQ.ai
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Lisa Israelovitch, Co-Founder and CEO of AssistIQ, is addressing the challenges in healthcare supply chain management caused by a lack of accurate data on supplies used across the care facility, which leads to operational inefficiencies and financial losses. The previous methods of tracking have often been manual and unreliable, involving product stickers, barcode readers, and manual data entry. Using computer vision and AI to automatically see, track, and document every product used is improving data accuracy, saving clinicians' time, enabling inventory tracking and product expiration management, and delivering significant financial benefits.
Lisa explains, "What really took us from building this inside one hospital to a market solution was spending time across dozens of systems in the US and Canadian landscape. And we found that three things were predominantly happening. Either there was a lot of manual entry searching and typing into the electronic health record system, such as Epic, or others. Often, barcode scanners worked only a portion of the time when the product was in the hospital's ERP system, but they often weren't. And so the barcode scanners only worked for a portion of the time. And then, honestly, the thing we saw a bunch of was nurses with product stickers on their sleeves, and they would basically post those stickers on paper. And so it was really a combination of waste to try to get to that documentation."
"So everything from implants to staplers to glue and things are typically hundreds to thousands of dollars. And just the accuracy was simply not there. In most hospital operating rooms, it's a huge revenue center in US hospitals, but for all markets, it's a huge cost center in terms of just the supply chain in general across the system, which is the largest cost category that the health team has after wages from their labor. And the OR, it's often the leading cost factor. So the supplies can be pretty expensive, as you said."
"The key became really figuring out how we could automate that work so that the clinicians, the nurses, the technicians were truly focused on the patient. Focused on assisting the physician for the case and making sure that they weren't having to do any of this extra sort of administrative work. Ultimately, it is their responsibility to document what gets used, but it has to be much more automated to get to that level of data accuracy and quality."
#AssistIQ #HealthcareAI #ClinicalSupplyIntelligence #HealthTech #HospitalOperations#SurgicalIntelligence #SupplyChainInnovation #HealthcareSupplyChain #HealthTech #PatientSafety #DigitalTransformation #HealthcareInnovation #AI #ComputerVision #OperatingRoom #HealthcareLeadership #QualityImprovement #CostReduction
AssistIQ.ai
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Ronen Eckhouse, Co-Founder and CEO of Rapid Medical, identifies the limitations of current stroke treatments, which are primarily effective for large vessel occlusions. The Rapid Medical TIGERTRIEVER device is designed to safely and effectively treat strokes and remove clots in smaller vessels deeper in the brain. The unique adjustability of the device allows physicians to control the size and force during a procedure, allowing for precise and safer clot removal in complex anatomies.
Ronen explains, "So the quicker or the less time there is between the stroke and the ability to open the occlusions and resupply the brain with oxygen, the better. There are two types of treatments. One is a drug called TPA. It's a clot buster, and that can be administered up to four and a half hours. And then there's what's called thrombectomy, which is basically using a catheter to get to the clot and then removing the clot with a catheter or stent, kind of in mechanical terms. But today, that's only applicable to what's for the bigger arteries in the brain, what's called large vessel occlusions. And these account for about 15% or 20% of the population. So there are good solutions, but they are limited in when they can be used."
"That's exactly where we come in. The reason it's difficult to treat these kinds of smaller vessels in the brain, or what we call the medium-vessel occlusion, is that the deeper you go into the brain, on the one hand, the complexity of the procedure increases. So the vessels are a little bit more fragile. There are more turns and tortuosity. So getting to the clot is a little bit harder, and pulling it out as well."
"At the same time, the benefit is a little bit smaller. So now we're not saving half of the brain. Maybe we're saving 30% of the brain, which is still very significant, but the benefit is a little bit smaller. So the risk-benefit ratio, which is critical and everything we do in medicine, changes when you're going deeper into the brain. And as a result, you need new tools."
#RapidMedical #DMVO #MeVO #Stroke #StrokeCare #Neurology #MedTech #DISTALS #Neurovascular #MedicalDevices #HealthcareInnovation #Thrombectomy #PatientCare #MedicalTechnology #StrokeAwareness #HealthcareProfessionals
rapid-medical.com
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Ronen Eckhouse, Co-Founder and CEO of Rapid Medical, identifies the limitations of current stroke treatments, which are primarily effective for large vessel occlusions. The Rapid Medical TIGERTRIEVER device is designed to safely and effectively treat strokes and remove clots in smaller vessels deeper in the brain. The unique adjustability of the device allows physicians to control the size and force during a procedure, allowing for precise and safer clot removal in complex anatomies.
Ronen explains, "So the quicker or the less time there is between the stroke and the ability to open the occlusions and resupply the brain with oxygen, the better. There are two types of treatments. One is a drug called TPA. It's a clot buster, and that can be administered up to four and a half hours. And then there's what's called thrombectomy, which is basically using a catheter to get to the clot and then removing the clot with a catheter or stent, kind of in mechanical terms. But today, that's only applicable to what's for the bigger arteries in the brain, what's called large vessel occlusions. And these account for about 15% or 20% of the population. So there are good solutions, but they are limited in when they can be used."
"That's exactly where we come in. The reason it's difficult to treat these kinds of smaller vessels in the brain, or what we call the medium-vessel occlusion, is that the deeper you go into the brain, on the one hand, the complexity of the procedure increases. So the vessels are a little bit more fragile. There are more turns and tortuosity. So getting to the clot is a little bit harder, and pulling it out as well."
"At the same time, the benefit is a little bit smaller. So now we're not saving half of the brain. Maybe we're saving 30% of the brain, which is still very significant, but the benefit is a little bit smaller. So the risk-benefit ratio, which is critical and everything we do in medicine, changes when you're going deeper into the brain. And as a result, you need new tools."
#RapidMedical #DMVO #MeVO #Stroke #StrokeCare #Neurology #MedTech #DISTALS #Neurovascular #MedicalDevices #HealthcareInnovation #Thrombectomy #PatientCare #MedicalTechnology #StrokeAwareness #HealthcareProfessionals
rapid-medical.com
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Robert Schickel, Chief Executive Officer at NUAgo Therapeutics, is developing a cancer therapy using short RNAs to target and disrupt interconnected survival genes in cancer cells. The therapy has been shown to be non-toxic to healthy cells, which have high levels of microRNAs, whereas cancer cells downregulate microRNAs to become metastatic. This is a systems-biology therapeutic approach that targets the entire survival network of a cell, making it independent of specific mutations or pathways and potentially applicable to the vast majority of solid tumors.
Robert explains, "NUAgo is a technology company. We are developing what we define as short RNAs, and these are going to be cancer therapies that really target the survival system of a cancer. This survival system keeps the cancer alive. And instead of going after single components, pathways, or mutations as targeted therapies do, we're using short RNAs to reduce the expression of multiple essential survival genes. And when you get enough of these genes disrupted, the cancer cells can no longer maintain the system that keeps them alive. And at that point, the cell will activate a death response that eliminates the cancer cell by activating several cell death pathways simultaneously. So this is really a unique area in science, and we're developing this. It's a new modality. You see a lot of promise of this in the solid tumor patients."
"The platform that we're building has the potential to go across solid tumor markets. The recent IP that we're filing is for the 11 largest tumor markets from breast and lung, kidney, liver, and all the way down to the smaller, more lethal cancers in pancreas, ovarian, and other small cancers as well. So right now we think we can apply this to about 85% or 90% of the market."
"What we're doing is we take a step back. We're in fundamental biology. So this mechanism really goes back almost a billion years. I mean, fungi have the same mechanism. And so when we go after what are called survival genes, and they are essential for the survival of a cell, they deal with all kinds of cellular functions."
#NUAgoTherapeutics #CancerResearch #Oncology #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #RNATherapeutics #SystemsBiology #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareBreakthrough #CancerTreatment #SurvivalGenes #BiopharmaDevelopment
NUAgotherapeutics.com
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Dr. Babak Saboury, Chief Scientific and Innovation Officer and Physician Founder of United Theranostics, discusses the emergence of nuclear oncology as the fourth pillar of cancer care. United Theranostics is combining advanced molecular imaging and radiopharmaceutical therapies to identify a cancer cell's unique fingerprint and then delivering targeted radiation, reducing side effects by sparing healthy cells. Molecular imaging can serve as a unifying map for guiding a collaborative, multimodal approach to treating a range of cancers.
Babak explains, "I can just very quickly tell you that there are four pillars of treating cancer. Traditionally, when we approached cancer, we wanted to cut it out. That was surgical oncology. Whatever could not be cut out was treated by giving a medication. That was medical oncology. After a while, there was just a modality to the things that were difficult to cut out, but that was a localized hit from outside. That was the radiation oncology. And right now, we are at the beginning of a new horizon. You treat patients systemically, which means all the lesions everywhere. However, you are really there, a magical radiopharmaceutical that goes to find the cell and kills it by radiation. That's a nuclear oncology. So nuclear oncology is the fourth pillar of cancer care."
"So you can imagine that in the past we tried to attack cancer cells. We didn't know what shape they had, which proteins were expressed, or what their characteristics were. So we kind of went blindly and tried to attack them. Imagine that we have a way to find a fingerprint of those cells and go there first to find that fingerprint. And if the fingerprint exists, then go after those cells as a targeted attack. That is where molecular imaging and radiopharmaceutical therapy come into play. So molecular imaging profiles the cancer cells to see what their fingerprint is and whether a certain fingerprint exists. Radiopharmaceutical therapy uses this information to target just those cells and not other cells. And that is the principle of Theranostics, which is a combination of diagnostics and therapeutics, finding and then destroying in a very precise manner."
#UnitedTheranostics #NuclearOncology #PrecisionMedicine #Radiopharmaceuticals #CancerCare #MolecularImaging #Theranostics #OncologyInnovation #PatientCare #HealthcareInnovation #CancerTreatment
Unitedtheranostics.com
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Dr. Babak Saboury, Chief Scientific and Innovation Officer and Physician Founder of United Theranostics, discusses the emergence of nuclear oncology as the fourth pillar of cancer care. United Theranostics is combining advanced molecular imaging and radiopharmaceutical therapies to identify a cancer cell's unique fingerprint and then delivering targeted radiation, reducing side effects by sparing healthy cells. Molecular imaging can serve as a unifying map for guiding a collaborative, multimodal approach to treating a range of cancers.
Babak explains, "I can just very quickly tell you that there are four pillars of treating cancer. Traditionally, when we approached cancer, we wanted to cut it out. That was surgical oncology. Whatever could not be cut out was treated by giving a medication. That was medical oncology. After a while, there was just a modality to the things that were difficult to cut out, but that was a localized hit from outside. That was the radiation oncology. And right now, we are at the beginning of a new horizon. You treat patients systemically, which means all the lesions everywhere. However, you are really there, a magical radiopharmaceutical that goes to find the cell and kills it by radiation. That's a nuclear oncology. So nuclear oncology is the fourth pillar of cancer care."
"So you can imagine that in the past we tried to attack cancer cells. We didn't know what shape they had, which proteins were expressed, or what their characteristics were. So we kind of went blindly and tried to attack them. Imagine that we have a way to find a fingerprint of those cells and go there first to find that fingerprint. And if the fingerprint exists, then go after those cells as a targeted attack. That is where molecular imaging and radiopharmaceutical therapy come into play. So molecular imaging profiles the cancer cells to see what their fingerprint is and whether a certain fingerprint exists. Radiopharmaceutical therapy uses this information to target just those cells and not other cells. And that is the principle of Theranostics, which is a combination of diagnostics and therapeutics, finding and then destroying in a very precise manner."
#UnitedTheranostics #NuclearOncology #PrecisionMedicine #Radiopharmaceuticals #CancerCare #MolecularImaging #Theranostics #OncologyInnovation #PatientCare #HealthcareInnovation #CancerTreatment
Unitedtheranostics.com
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Shaun Bagai, CEO of RenovoRx, has designed a drug-delivery platform to treat hard-to-reach chemo-resistant tumors such as pancreatic cancer by delivering chemotherapy directly to the tumor site. The RenovoCath device increases the drug concentration in the tumor while significantly reducing systemic toxicities and side effects. The technology is not intended to replace the traditional approach using systemic chemotherapy and radiation, but to achieve better results in tumors with low blood supply that prevent drugs from reaching their target in sufficient concentrations.
Shaun explains, "Generally, when we think about oncology therapies, it's really trying to balance the detriment to the patients with the toxicities and hopefully keep the tumor at bay or kill the tumor such that patients live longer. And unfortunately, we often forget about the patient and hyper-focus on the disease. And the challenge we've taken on is, can we take both into account and actually treat both the patient and the disease by limiting systemic toxicities and effects, and then trying to improve survival by keeping the tumors at bay."
"So, when we look at certain tumors in the body, like pancreatic tumors, for example, they don't have a high level of blood supply. Generally, when we think about tumors, we think of balls of blood vessels with tumor cells, and of tumors such as pancreatic tumors. They don't have large tumor feeder vessels that end in a tumor. And what this does is create a level of chemo resistance because the blood can't carry the chemotherapy forward. And what we've developed with TAMP is a mechanism where we push the drug across the wall of a blood vessel to saturate and bathe the tumor in chemotherapy, such that we get almost a hundredfold increase in tissue concentration compared to if you just gave it systemically throughout the entire body."
#RenovoRx #OncologyInnovation #DrugDelivery #CancerCare #MedicalDevices #PancreaticCancer #ClinicalTrials #PatientCare #Interventionalradiology #Oncology #MedicalTechnology #TAMP #Chemotherapy #CancerTreatment #HealthcareInnovatio#TargetedOncology #InnovativeCancerTherapies #PancreaticCancerAwareness #PrecisionOncology
RenovoRx.com
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Shaun Bagai, CEO of RenovoRx, has designed a drug-delivery platform to treat hard-to-reach chemo-resistant tumors such as pancreatic cancer by delivering chemotherapy directly to the tumor site. The RenovoCath device increases the drug concentration in the tumor while significantly reducing systemic toxicities and side effects. The technology is not intended to replace the traditional approach using systemic chemotherapy and radiation, but to achieve better results in tumors with low blood supply that prevent drugs from reaching their target in sufficient concentrations.
Shaun explains, "Generally, when we think about oncology therapies, it's really trying to balance the detriment to the patients with the toxicities and hopefully keep the tumor at bay or kill the tumor such that patients live longer. And unfortunately, we often forget about the patient and hyper-focus on the disease. And the challenge we've taken on is, can we take both into account and actually treat both the patient and the disease by limiting systemic toxicities and effects, and then trying to improve survival by keeping the tumors at bay."
"So, when we look at certain tumors in the body, like pancreatic tumors, for example, they don't have a high level of blood supply. Generally, when we think about tumors, we think of balls of blood vessels with tumor cells, and of tumors such as pancreatic tumors. They don't have large tumor feeder vessels that end in a tumor. And what this does is create a level of chemo resistance because the blood can't carry the chemotherapy forward. And what we've developed with TAMP is a mechanism where we push the drug across the wall of a blood vessel to saturate and bathe the tumor in chemotherapy, such that we get almost a hundredfold increase in tissue concentration compared to if you just gave it systemically throughout the entire body."
#RenovoRx #OncologyInnovation #DrugDelivery #CancerCare #MedicalDevices #PancreaticCancer #ClinicalTrials #PatientCare #Interventionalradiology #Oncology #MedicalTechnology #TAMP #Chemotherapy #CancerTreatment #HealthcareInnovatio#TargetedOncology #InnovativeCancerTherapies #PancreaticCancerAwareness #PrecisionOncology
RenovoRx.com
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Suzy Jackson, a digital health specialist focusing on Patient Tech, highlights the shift in the pharmaceutical industry from a provider-focused model to direct engagement with patients. Using AI to create a more consumer-like, personalized healthcare experience will benefit patients and inform researchers and providers about adherence to care and drug side effects. Patient Tech helps reach underserved populations and moves from providing information to a proactive environment, enabling action and more informed discussions with healthcare providers.
Suzy explains, "So everything for me in the Patient Tech space is anything that helps a patient find care, navigate care options, or indeed stay on care, including anything to do with lifestyle interventions and preventative care as well. So I think the category is expanding very, very rapidly, and I'm excited to see what will go on in the next few years."
"Well, I think it's pretty safe to say that this is a new venture for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. I think traditionally, a lot of time has been spent on ACP education and thinking about how we make HCPs aware of all the choices and therapeutic interventions that are available for their patients. But in the last couple of years, we've really seen a shift, and I think that's caused by a multitude of different factors I'm sure we can speak about, but there's really been a shift to standing on the frontline with patients for pharma and making sure that they're providing patients with care that otherwise patients are going to find in other spaces."
#PatientTech #DigitalHealth #AI #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCenteredCare #HealthEquity #PharmaTech #HealthTech #PatientExperience #WomenInHealth #HealthInnovation #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareLeadership #FutureOfHealth #Lifesciences #PharmaDTP
suzy-jackson.com
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Suzy Jackson, a digital health specialist focusing on Patient Tech, highlights the shift in the pharmaceutical industry from a provider-focused model to direct engagement with patients. Using AI to create a more consumer-like, personalized healthcare experience will benefit patients and inform researchers and providers about adherence to care and drug side effects. Patient Tech helps reach underserved populations and moves from providing information to a proactive environment, enabling action and more informed discussions with healthcare providers.
Suzy explains, "So everything for me in the Patient Tech space is anything that helps a patient find care, navigate care options, or indeed stay on care, including anything to do with lifestyle interventions and preventative care as well. So I think the category is expanding very, very rapidly, and I'm excited to see what will go on in the next few years."
"Well, I think it's pretty safe to say that this is a new venture for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. I think traditionally, a lot of time has been spent on ACP education and thinking about how we make HCPs aware of all the choices and therapeutic interventions that are available for their patients. But in the last couple of years, we've really seen a shift, and I think that's caused by a multitude of different factors I'm sure we can speak about, but there's really been a shift to standing on the frontline with patients for pharma and making sure that they're providing patients with care that otherwise patients are going to find in other spaces."
#PatientTech #DigitalHealth #AI #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCenteredCare #HealthEquity #PharmaTech #HealthTech #PatientExperience #WomenInHealth #HealthInnovation #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareLeadership #FutureOfHealth #Lifesciences #PharmaDTP
suzy-jackson.com
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Dr. Robert Rifkin, medical oncologist and hematologist at the University of Colorado in Steamboat Springs. He was also a clinical investigator in the trial that led to the approval of BLENREP, a multiple myeloma drug from GSK. Multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer, and while the prognosis has dramatically improved, BLENREP is a novel treatment for patients whose disease has relapsed after other therapies. It is the first drug antibody conjugate approved for relapsed multiple myeloma, targeting the BCMA antigen, which is present on nearly all myeloma cells.
Robert explains, "This is a condition that is really what I would call a disease of the Medicare population. So the median age of diagnosis is often early 60s, but occasionally you do see the younger patients with more aggressive disease. It's thought that African Americans who contract myeloma also may have a more virulent form of the disease."
"Right now we live in a great day and age where we have a tremendous number of good treatments, both upfront, which we really won't be discussing today. And then in patients that have unfortunately relapsed and failed other lines of therapy, that's where the exciting new drug BLENREP comes into play. It's going to have a very specific slot in the myeloma armamentarium."
"So BLENREP is unique in that it targets something on the myeloma cells called the BCMA target or B-cell maturation antigen target. That's expressed in 98% of patients with myeloma. So it provides a really great target to shoot at, if you will. Right now, we really have sort of three main classes of therapy to go after it: CAR T-cells and bispecific antibodies that your audience will likely be familiar with. This one is unique in that it's the first drug antibody conjugate approved to treat myeloma. So it's not a cellular therapy, but instead it's a molecule that has the BCMA that binds to the myeloma cells, and then it unloads a payload to kill the myeloma cells. So that's nice. You don't have to go to a huge center with experience in cellular therapies. It can be done readily in the community."
#MultipleMyeloma #Oncology #BLENREP #BloodCancer #Belamaf #CancerResearch #Hematology #ClinicalTrials #PrecisionMedicine #CancerTreatment #MedicalAdvancement
blenrephcp.com
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Dr. Robert Rifkin, medical oncologist and hematologist at the University of Colorado in Steamboat Springs. He was also a clinical investigator in the trial that led to the approval of BLENREP, a multiple myeloma drug from GSK. Multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer, and while the prognosis has dramatically improved, BLENREP is a novel treatment for patients whose disease has relapsed after other therapies. It is the first drug antibody conjugate approved for relapsed multiple myeloma, targeting the BCMA antigen, which is present on nearly all myeloma cells.
Robert explains, "This is a condition that is really what I would call a disease of the Medicare population. So the median age of diagnosis is often early 60s, but occasionally you do see the younger patients with more aggressive disease. It's thought that African Americans who contract myeloma also may have a more virulent form of the disease."
"Right now we live in a great day and age where we have a tremendous number of good treatments, both upfront, which we really won't be discussing today. And then in patients that have unfortunately relapsed and failed other lines of therapy, that's where the exciting new drug BLENREP comes into play. It's going to have a very specific slot in the myeloma armamentarium."
"So BLENREP is unique in that it targets something on the myeloma cells called the BCMA target or B-cell maturation antigen target. That's expressed in 98% of patients with myeloma. So it provides a really great target to shoot at, if you will. Right now, we really have sort of three main classes of therapy to go after it: CAR T-cells and bispecific antibodies that your audience will likely be familiar with. This one is unique in that it's the first drug antibody conjugate approved to treat myeloma. So it's not a cellular therapy, but instead it's a molecule that has the BCMA that binds to the myeloma cells, and then it unloads a payload to kill the myeloma cells. So that's nice. You don't have to go to a huge center with experience in cellular therapies. It can be done readily in the community."
#MultipleMyeloma #Oncology #BLENREP #BloodCancer #Belamaf #CancerResearch #Hematology #ClinicalTrials #PrecisionMedicine #CancerTreatment #MedicalAdvancement
blenrephcp.com
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Haresh Patel, Founder of Diagnostic MD AI, discusses the transformative potential of AI in healthcare diagnostics, particularly for patients with chronic or complex issues. Based on his own struggle to get an accurate diagnosis of an autoimmune condition, Haresh has developed a patient-centric platform where individuals can build their complete health story, integrating modern and functional medicine with a more holistic approach, which AI analyzes to help doctors connect disparate symptoms, ask the right questions, identify patterns, and reach the correct diagnosis faster while reducing human bias. Haresh talks about his own journey in his book The Ghost in My Body, where he emphasizes the need to identify the root cause of disease and to understand the patient narrative over time.
Haresh explains, "Sometimes that story has to come together in different ways because sometimes the patient doesn't want to share it or doesn't remember. But if we can get the whole story, then we're going to have a much better chance. AI is going to open up the world of possibilities. And I immediately went into high gear because that's exactly what I did with the prior company that I sold to State Street Bank. It was a FinTech platform, but we had FinTech investors put together all of their fragmented data, create a visualization so they could actually see patterns."
"In the medical world, we're a machine too, but the difference is we had a symptom, which is a scenario. And so I all of a sudden thought, wow, I can solve this problem with AI, and if I can help solve one person's problem, my 12 years of suffering while I was building this company will all be worth it. So that's kind of a quick overview about how this all came together. Had I not had any of the experiences of my medical journey or my own journey in the FinTech world, and how I connected the dots, maybe this idea might not have sparked with me. Maybe somebody else would've gotten that spark."
#EmpoweredPatient #HealthcareInnovation #AutoimmuneAwareness #PatientAdvocacy #HealthTech #ChronicIllnessJourney #MedicalMystery #PatientEmpowerment #TechForGood#HolisticHealth#AIDiagnostics #DigitalHealth #PatientCare #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareAI #IntegrativeMedicine #HealthTechnology #MedicalDiagnostics
Hareshpatel.ai
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Haresh Patel, Founder of Diagnostic MD AI, discusses the transformative potential of AI in healthcare diagnostics, particularly for patients with chronic or complex issues. Based on his own struggle to get an accurate diagnosis of an autoimmune condition, Haresh has developed a patient-centric platform where individuals can build their complete health story, integrating modern and functional medicine with a more holistic approach, which AI analyzes to help doctors connect disparate symptoms, ask the right questions, identify patterns, and reach the correct diagnosis faster while reducing human bias. Haresh talks about his own journey in his book The Ghost in My Body, where he emphasizes the need to identify the root cause of disease and to understand the patient narrative over time.
Haresh explains, "Sometimes that story has to come together in different ways because sometimes the patient doesn't want to share it or doesn't remember. But if we can get the whole story, then we're going to have a much better chance. AI is going to open up the world of possibilities. And I immediately went into high gear because that's exactly what I did with the prior company that I sold to State Street Bank. It was a FinTech platform, but we had FinTech investors put together all of their fragmented data, create a visualization so they could actually see patterns."
"In the medical world, we're a machine too, but the difference is we had a symptom, which is a scenario. And so I all of a sudden thought, wow, I can solve this problem with AI, and if I can help solve one person's problem, my 12 years of suffering while I was building this company will all be worth it. So that's kind of a quick overview about how this all came together. Had I not had any of the experiences of my medical journey or my own journey in the FinTech world, and how I connected the dots, maybe this idea might not have sparked with me. Maybe somebody else would've gotten that spark."
#EmpoweredPatient #HealthcareInnovation #AutoimmuneAwareness #PatientAdvocacy #HealthTech #ChronicIllnessJourney #MedicalMystery #PatientEmpowerment #TechForGood#HolisticHealth#AIDiagnostics #DigitalHealth #PatientCare #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareAI #IntegrativeMedicine #HealthTechnology #MedicalDiagnostics
Hareshpatel.ai
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Ben Scharfe, Executive VP of AI at Altera Digital Health, addresses the evolving regulatory landscape for AI in healthcare, emphasizing AI developers' primary responsibility to ensure transparency so clinicians can understand and verify AI-generated outputs. AI is positioned to be a supportive tool for providers, not as an autonomous decision-maker, with emerging regulations beginning to codify the human-in-the-loop requirement. Ben warns of setting higher standards for AI than physicians and automation complacency, in which clinicians might over-rely on AI.
Ben explains, "Altera provides electronic health records predominantly as well as interoperability solutions for hospitals, health systems, and ambulatory systems. We predominantly serve the US, but we're also present in Canada, in Europe, and in the Asia Pacific region. So we have a global presence, but we do a lot of our work in the US."
"I think the regulatory landscape around the division of responsibilities is really something that is evolving. And so last year, at one point, there was a proposed federal moratorium on state-level legislation, with little, I would say, federal regulation to counterbalance."
"Maybe fortunately, it didn't pass, but since then, there's been a patchwork of state regulation. So I'd say the responsibilities are not entirely defined because they vary by state, and some of those regulations are somewhat contradictory. But recently, the FDA did put out some new guidance and essentially where the responsibility lies for builders. I'd say the primary responsibility is around transparency and enabling clinicians and care providers to understand the reasoning behind any output from an AI system. To be able to review the citations, the evidence used, and the data points the AI may have ingested or consulted in creating some sort of output, so the provider can still have ownership of the care. And essentially, I'd say the core theme there is not having AI that is really acting autonomously on a patient, but rather AI that supports providers who know what they're doing and are licensed."
#AlteraDigitalHealth #HealthcareAI #ClinicalAI #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #AIRegulation #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalTechnology #AIInMedicine #HealthcareLeadership
Alterahealth.com
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Ben Scharfe, Executive VP of AI at Altera Digital Health, addresses the evolving regulatory landscape for AI in healthcare, emphasizing AI developers' primary responsibility to ensure transparency so clinicians can understand and verify AI-generated outputs. AI is positioned to be a supportive tool for providers, not as an autonomous decision-maker, with emerging regulations beginning to codify the human-in-the-loop requirement. Ben warns of setting higher standards for AI than physicians and automation complacency, in which clinicians might over-rely on AI.
Ben explains, "Altera provides electronic health records predominantly as well as interoperability solutions for hospitals, health systems, and ambulatory systems. We predominantly serve the US, but we're also present in Canada, in Europe, and in the Asia Pacific region. So we have a global presence, but we do a lot of our work in the US."
"I think the regulatory landscape around the division of responsibilities is really something that is evolving. And so last year, at one point, there was a proposed federal moratorium on state-level legislation, with little, I would say, federal regulation to counterbalance."
"Maybe fortunately, it didn't pass, but since then, there's been a patchwork of state regulation. So I'd say the responsibilities are not entirely defined because they vary by state, and some of those regulations are somewhat contradictory. But recently, the FDA did put out some new guidance and essentially where the responsibility lies for builders. I'd say the primary responsibility is around transparency and enabling clinicians and care providers to understand the reasoning behind any output from an AI system. To be able to review the citations, the evidence used, and the data points the AI may have ingested or consulted in creating some sort of output, so the provider can still have ownership of the care. And essentially, I'd say the core theme there is not having AI that is really acting autonomously on a patient, but rather AI that supports providers who know what they're doing and are licensed."
#AlteraDigitalHealth #HealthcareAI #ClinicalAI #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #AIRegulation #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalTechnology #AIInMedicine #HealthcareLeadership
Alterahealth.com
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Dr. John Birkmeyer, President of the medical group at Sound Physicians, defines value-based care as an evolution from older managed care models, with closer alignment of incentives for quality of care and cost-effectiveness. Working within the hospital environment, this approach emphasizes standardizing patient-centered care and communication across multiple hospital departments, reducing redundant tests and improving patient outcomes. The use of AI is one way to reduce the administrative burden on physicians, freeing up more time for patient care, a departure from earlier technologies that added to clinicians' workload.
John explains, "Sound Physicians is a multi-specialty medical group. It's distinguished in a couple of ways from a lot of the physician groups that your listeners and patients are used to. Number one, it focuses exclusively on specialties that are practiced inside the hospital. So in that context, we work in anesthesia, in the ICU, in hospital medicine, and in the emergency department. And we're different to the extent that we're a very large group. So we're in our 25th year of operations, but we currently run over 400 practices in about the same number of hospitals across most of the states of the US. So in that context, we've learned a lot about what care looks like in different parts of the United States, what things are similar, what things are different, and most importantly, what things work."
"Some of the most important strategies for succeeding with value-based care are things that are very aligned with ensuring not just high quality, but high empathy care to patients. And most importantly, making sure that clinical decisions physicians make in partnership with their patients account for not just scientific evidence but also the values and preferences of patients and their families. More often than not, there's no single right answer for what that patient needs in terms of tests or procedures or other types of care that occur in the hospital. And many of them involve trade-offs between quality of life and length of life, how patients feel about being in the hospital and for how long, how they feel about risk, and what they want to do when they're ultimately discharged from the hospital."
#SoundPhysicians #ValueBasedCare #HospitalMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthTech #MedicalGroup #QualityImprovement #HealthcareleaderShip #PhysicianLife #HospitalAdministration
soundphysicians.com
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Dr. John Birkmeyer, President of the medical group at Sound Physicians, defines value-based care as an evolution from older managed care models, with closer alignment of incentives for quality of care and cost-effectiveness. Working within the hospital environment, this approach emphasizes standardizing patient-centered care and communication across multiple hospital departments, reducing redundant tests and improving patient outcomes. The use of AI is one way to reduce the administrative burden on physicians, freeing up more time for patient care, a departure from earlier technologies that added to clinicians' workload.
John explains, "Sound Physicians is a multi-specialty medical group. It's distinguished in a couple of ways from a lot of the physician groups that your listeners and patients are used to. Number one, it focuses exclusively on specialties that are practiced inside the hospital. So in that context, we work in anesthesia, in the ICU, in hospital medicine, and in the emergency department. And we're different to the extent that we're a very large group. So we're in our 25th year of operations, but we currently run over 400 practices in about the same number of hospitals across most of the states of the US. So in that context, we've learned a lot about what care looks like in different parts of the United States, what things are similar, what things are different, and most importantly, what things work."
"Some of the most important strategies for succeeding with value-based care are things that are very aligned with ensuring not just high quality, but high empathy care to patients. And most importantly, making sure that clinical decisions physicians make in partnership with their patients account for not just scientific evidence but also the values and preferences of patients and their families. More often than not, there's no single right answer for what that patient needs in terms of tests or procedures or other types of care that occur in the hospital. And many of them involve trade-offs between quality of life and length of life, how patients feel about being in the hospital and for how long, how they feel about risk, and what they want to do when they're ultimately discharged from the hospital."
#SoundPhysicians #ValueBasedCare #HospitalMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthTech #MedicalGroup #QualityImprovement #HealthcareleaderShip #PhysicianLife #HospitalAdministration
soundphysicians.com
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Dr. Jim Berenson, Founder of the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research and the Berenson Cancer Center, describes the Institute's work, which includes maintaining a large biobank of patient samples that support both its own research and that being conducted by external groups. This biobank is being used to develop new blood markers for faster disease diagnosis, to assess treatment efficacy, and to support drug development for multiple myeloma and other cancers. Real-time monitoring of patient symptoms with a mobile app is capturing critical, often-missed patient data and providing evidence of clinical trial success.
Jim explains, "Myeloma is a bone marrow-based cancer of a type of white cell called a plasma cell. These cells normally make a type of protein antibody that helps us fend off infections. And what happens in myeloma is that one of these types of cells goes rogue and takes over the bone marrow. As a result, these patients make lots and lots of only one type of antibody, and that protein becomes our tumor marker. They can get into trouble with their kidneys, their blood counts, their bones, and their immune system because they can become very compromised both by the disease and the treatment. Therefore, patients can develop frequent infections."
"It's diagnosed mainly through blood work, bone marrow examination, and radiologic tests. The latter used to be X-rays, but today it is MRI, CT, or PET scans. The bone marrow test usually demonstrates too many plasma cells that are clonal, meaning they are all of one type. So, usually, the bone marrow plasma cells make up only one-half percent. Myeloma patients have no less than 10% and up to 99% plasma cells, and they are all of one type. They all make one antibody because normally one plasma cell makes one antibody, but this is a clone that's grown a lot in the bone marrow. So, because the bone marrow directly releases proteins into the blood, there's a lot of the myeloma cell-produced antibody in the blood and/or the urine of these patients."
"We now have nearly 60,000 bone marrow and blood specimens collected over the last 25 years from our patients, and we collect them in a way that's very systematic. So we obtain blood weekly in the first month, and bone marrow when they undergo the procedure. And then after the first month, the blood is drawn and obtained for research and for the Biobank about every month. And this is a huge resource for not only our own research, which has uncovered two new blood biomarkers through the use of these samples. And we are also able to use the Biobank as a resource for other research groups and companies, whether biotech, pharma, or in vitro diagnostics, to see if they can find a new marker. So we send them a sample, and they can use it for their work."
#IMBCR #MultipleMyeloma #HematologyOncology #PrecisionMedicine #PatientMonitoring #DigitalHealth #CancerResearch #Biomarkers #PersonalizedTreatment #QualityOfLife #MedicalInnovation
IMBCR.org
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Dr. Jim Berenson, Founder of the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research and the Berenson Cancer Center, describes the Institute's work, which includes maintaining a large biobank of patient samples that support both its own research and that being conducted by external groups. This biobank is being used to develop new blood markers for faster disease diagnosis, to assess treatment efficacy, and to support drug development for multiple myeloma and other cancers. Real-time monitoring of patient symptoms with a mobile app is capturing critical, often-missed patient data and providing evidence of clinical trial success.
Jim explains, "Myeloma is a bone marrow-based cancer of a type of white cell called a plasma cell. These cells normally make a type of protein antibody that helps us fend off infections. And what happens in myeloma is that one of these types of cells goes rogue and takes over the bone marrow. As a result, these patients make lots and lots of only one type of antibody, and that protein becomes our tumor marker. They can get into trouble with their kidneys, their blood counts, their bones, and their immune system because they can become very compromised both by the disease and the treatment. Therefore, patients can develop frequent infections."
"It's diagnosed mainly through blood work, bone marrow examination, and radiologic tests. The latter used to be X-rays, but today it is MRI, CT, or PET scans. The bone marrow test usually demonstrates too many plasma cells that are clonal, meaning they are all of one type. So, usually, the bone marrow plasma cells make up only one-half percent. Myeloma patients have no less than 10% and up to 99% plasma cells, and they are all of one type. They all make one antibody because normally one plasma cell makes one antibody, but this is a clone that's grown a lot in the bone marrow. So, because the bone marrow directly releases proteins into the blood, there's a lot of the myeloma cell-produced antibody in the blood and/or the urine of these patients."
"We now have nearly 60,000 bone marrow and blood specimens collected over the last 25 years from our patients, and we collect them in a way that's very systematic. So we obtain blood weekly in the first month, and bone marrow when they undergo the procedure. And then after the first month, the blood is drawn and obtained for research and for the Biobank about every month. And this is a huge resource for not only our own research, which has uncovered two new blood biomarkers through the use of these samples. And we are also able to use the Biobank as a resource for other research groups and companies, whether biotech, pharma, or in vitro diagnostics, to see if they can find a new marker. So we send them a sample, and they can use it for their work."
#IMBCR #MultipleMyeloma #HematologyOncology #PrecisionMedicine #PatientMonitoring #DigitalHealth #CancerResearch #Biomarkers #PersonalizedTreatment #QualityOfLife #MedicalInnovation
IMBCR.org
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Tom Looby, CEO of Conavi, is focused on developing hybrid intravascular imaging technology that combines two established modalities into a single imaging catheter to provide a comprehensive view of the coronary arteries. This eliminates blind spots when using either intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) or optical coherence tomography (OCT) alone and is driving a shift away from relying solely on traditional angiography toward the use of advanced intravascular imaging to guide coronary procedures. Using AI to analyze dual-stream co-registered data allows interventional cardiologists to more accurately assess lesions, determine the appropriate stent size, and ensure proper placement, thereby reducing cardiac death and blood clots around stents.
Tim explains, "So our technology is an imaging catheter. We're unique in that we combine two imaging modalities that are already well established in the market. But because each of them has blind spots, by combining them into a single catheter, we remove those blind spots, and we think we produce the best imaging catheter to help guide coronary interventions."
"It is well known that these strengths and weaknesses occur in both ultrasound and optical imaging. But to set the stage, this is a trend happening in the marketplace. There are four million angioplasty stenting procedures performed each year, and most of them rely solely on traditional angiography. Most of your audience probably knows that angiography is an X-ray that uses a contrast agent, so you're seeing the vasculature around the heart through a secondary image. The detailed view inside the blood vessels is limited when using only angiography, which has restricted the types of procedures doctors have been able to perform over time. Recognizing that intravascular ultrasound, sometimes called IVUS, and separately, OCT—short for optical coherence tomography—were developed independently to examine inside the blood vessel."
#Conavi #CardiovascularImaging #InterventionalCardiology #MedicalDevice #HeartHealth #Innovation #IVUS #OCT #AIinHealthcare #CardiacIntervention #HealthTech #Medtech #Cardiology #HybridImaging
Conavi.com
Listen to the podcast here
Tom Looby, CEO of Conavi, is focused on developing hybrid intravascular imaging technology that combines two established modalities into a single imaging catheter to provide a comprehensive view of the coronary arteries. This eliminates blind spots when using either intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) or optical coherence tomography (OCT) alone and is driving a shift away from relying solely on traditional angiography toward the use of advanced intravascular imaging to guide coronary procedures. Using AI to analyze dual-stream co-registered data allows interventional cardiologists to more accurately assess lesions, determine the appropriate stent size, and ensure proper placement, thereby reducing cardiac death and blood clots around stents.
Tim explains, "So our technology is an imaging catheter. We're unique in that we combine two imaging modalities that are already well established in the market. But because each of them has blind spots, by combining them into a single catheter, we remove those blind spots, and we think we produce the best imaging catheter to help guide coronary interventions."
"It is well known that these strengths and weaknesses occur in both ultrasound and optical imaging. But to set the stage, this is a trend happening in the marketplace. There are four million angioplasty stenting procedures performed each year, and most of them rely solely on traditional angiography. Most of your audience probably knows that angiography is an X-ray that uses a contrast agent, so you're seeing the vasculature around the heart through a secondary image. The detailed view inside the blood vessels is limited when using only angiography, which has restricted the types of procedures doctors have been able to perform over time. Recognizing that intravascular ultrasound, sometimes called IVUS, and separately, OCT—short for optical coherence tomography—were developed independently to examine inside the blood vessel."
#Conavi #CardiovascularImaging #InterventionalCardiology #MedicalDevice #HeartHealth #Innovation #IVUS #OCT #AIinHealthcare #CardiacIntervention #HealthTech #Medtech #Cardiology #HybridImaging
Conavi.com
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Theresa Lyons, CEO and Founder of Navigating AWEtism, is providing parents with current, accurate information about autism to help them focus on manageable issues for their child. She strongly cautions about information about autism from social media, which is often over-generalized and incorrect. Autism spectrum disorder presents a wide range of behaviors from mild communication difficulties to complex challenges requiring lifelong care, and Theresa advocates for an individual approach, including lab testing, before choosing a treatment plan.
Theresa explains, "What we strive to do is educate parents on the cutting-edge information of autism so that they can make the best decisions for their kids. All too often, parents and I, including myself, are autism parents. We get information that is 20 to 30 years old. So it's really important to make decisions for your child's future based on quality information."
"So autism is a spectrum, and we can talk about one end of the spectrum. A child might be speaking, but they might have difficulty having a back-and-forth conversation. They might be very limited in what they're talking about. Let's say maybe they have a huge interest in trains, and you can talk to this child about trains, but then if you try to have a conversation about the weather, your sneakers, or the beach, something you like to do, then that's where conversation doesn't happen at all. Kids on that end of the spectrum can dress themselves, and they can feed themselves. And when they get older, they will go across the street and potentially drive a car. So that's one end of the spectrum. And then on the other end is more profound autism. And those are kids who might not ever dress themselves or might not have the ability to cut their food ever."
#NavigatingAWEtism #AWEtism #Autism #AutismSpectrum #Pediatrics #Healthcare #EvidenceBasedMedicine #Neurodevelopment #FamilyCenteredCare #HealthcareProviders #Misinformation #QualityCare
AWEtism.net
Listen to the podcast here
Theresa Lyons, CEO and Founder of Navigating AWEtism, is providing parents with current, accurate information about autism to help them focus on manageable issues for their child. She strongly cautions about information about autism from social media, which is often over-generalized and incorrect. Autism spectrum disorder presents a wide range of behaviors from mild communication difficulties to complex challenges requiring lifelong care, and Theresa advocates for an individual approach, including lab testing, before choosing a treatment plan.
Theresa explains, "What we strive to do is educate parents on the cutting-edge information of autism so that they can make the best decisions for their kids. All too often, parents and I, including myself, are autism parents. We get information that is 20 to 30 years old. So it's really important to make decisions for your child's future based on quality information."
"So autism is a spectrum, and we can talk about one end of the spectrum. A child might be speaking, but they might have difficulty having a back-and-forth conversation. They might be very limited in what they're talking about. Let's say maybe they have a huge interest in trains, and you can talk to this child about trains, but then if you try to have a conversation about the weather, your sneakers, or the beach, something you like to do, then that's where conversation doesn't happen at all. Kids on that end of the spectrum can dress themselves, and they can feed themselves. And when they get older, they will go across the street and potentially drive a car. So that's one end of the spectrum. And then on the other end is more profound autism. And those are kids who might not ever dress themselves or might not have the ability to cut their food ever."
#NavigatingAWEtism #AWEtism #Autism #AutismSpectrum #Pediatrics #Healthcare #EvidenceBasedMedicine #Neurodevelopment #FamilyCenteredCare #HealthcareProviders #Misinformation #QualityCare
AWEtism.net
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Lori Runion, a director at Resultant, identifies inadequate scheduling and related staffing unpredictability as a central cause of clinician burnout. Healthcare organizations traditionally rely on historical averages for scheduling, often resulting in a mismatch between patient demand and clinician capacity. Breaking down data silos and using analytics and AI to create predictive staffing models can help forecast demand, anticipate seasonal spikes, and enable proactive staffing to reduce clinician burnout.
Lori explains, " From my perspective, burnout is driven at the operational level. To say it most simply, I think that burnout is driven by unpredictability, specifically, what I want to talk a little bit about, predictive staffing. And so, when we think about staffing, the unpredictability and misalignment between patient demand and staffing capacity are really what's driving it. So I don't think it's a lack of resilience. I don't think it's necessarily that there are gaps in care, but there are constant coverage gaps and volatility in the workload. And so I think it's ultimately driven by that mismatch when patient demand and clinician capacity are misaligned. I think that healthcare is traditionally staffed based on historical averages rather than dynamic demand or patterns, and that's what creates the unpredictable shifts and last-minute schedule changes that lead to overextension and exhaustion, which drive burnout."
"So, for example, you think about your EHR, which includes your demand, your patient medical record, and you have a scheduling system that shows available capacity, and you may have claims data that shows utilization patterns or other things. So when they are only looking at one system, they have some blind spots. And so I think that if they're looking at connected systems and pulling all that data together to identify patterns and really see the full picture, that's where they can align patient demand with staffing capacity."
#Resultant #HealthcareBurnout #PatientSafety #HealthcareLeadership #PredictiveAnalytics #HealthcareData #WorkforceOptimization#ClinicianBurnout #HealthcareAnalytics #PredictiveStaffing #HealthcareIT #DataDriven #PatientCare #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare #WorkforceOptimization #HealthcareInnovation
resultant.com
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Lori Runion, a director at Resultant, identifies inadequate scheduling and related staffing unpredictability as a central cause of clinician burnout. Healthcare organizations traditionally rely on historical averages for scheduling, often resulting in a mismatch between patient demand and clinician capacity. Breaking down data silos and using analytics and AI to create predictive staffing models can help forecast demand, anticipate seasonal spikes, and enable proactive staffing to reduce clinician burnout.
Lori explains, " From my perspective, burnout is driven at the operational level. To say it most simply, I think that burnout is driven by unpredictability, specifically, what I want to talk a little bit about, predictive staffing. And so, when we think about staffing, the unpredictability and misalignment between patient demand and staffing capacity are really what's driving it. So I don't think it's a lack of resilience. I don't think it's necessarily that there are gaps in care, but there are constant coverage gaps and volatility in the workload. And so I think it's ultimately driven by that mismatch when patient demand and clinician capacity are misaligned. I think that healthcare is traditionally staffed based on historical averages rather than dynamic demand or patterns, and that's what creates the unpredictable shifts and last-minute schedule changes that lead to overextension and exhaustion, which drive burnout."
"So, for example, you think about your EHR, which includes your demand, your patient medical record, and you have a scheduling system that shows available capacity, and you may have claims data that shows utilization patterns or other things. So when they are only looking at one system, they have some blind spots. And so I think that if they're looking at connected systems and pulling all that data together to identify patterns and really see the full picture, that's where they can align patient demand with staffing capacity."
#Resultant #HealthcareBurnout #PatientSafety #HealthcareLeadership #PredictiveAnalytics #HealthcareData #WorkforceOptimization#ClinicianBurnout #HealthcareAnalytics #PredictiveStaffing #HealthcareIT #DataDriven #PatientCare #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare #WorkforceOptimization #HealthcareInnovation
resultant.com
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Bill Heller, Chief Operating Officer at CHG Healthcare, is focused on the significant and growing demand for physicians across numerous specialties and on providing a flexible solution for healthcare facilities to maintain services with temporary physician staffing. Rural healthcare facilities are especially dependent on temporary staffing to overcome challenges in attracting and keeping permanent medical professionals. Physicians at all career stages are drawn to locum tenens work, and it has evolved from a niche practice to a mainstream strategy for healthcare facilities and physicians.
Bill explains, "CHG Healthcare is a physician workforce solutions company, which means our primary business is physician staffing. So we're the largest physician staffing company in the country. We staff primarily on a part-time temporary basis, but we also do perm and a whole bunch of other stuff. We also do allied staffing, so we have a big staffing arm."
"In addition to that, we have an advisory services arm where we advise clients on how to run more effective client solutions through a ton of different advisory opportunities. We also have a tech solutions arm, and so that's what makes up our workforce solutions. On the primary business, our locum tenant business, which is our temporary physician business, we connect healthcare providers with hospitals, clinics, and communities across the country where there are significant gaps in healthcare delivery, and we help them fill those gaps."
#CHGHealthcare #HealthcareStaffing #LocumTenens #PhysicianJobs #HealthcareWorkforce #RuralHealthcare #MedicalStaffing #HealthcareSolutions #PhysicianRecruitment #HealthcareCareers
CHGhealthcare.com
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Bill Heller, Chief Operating Officer at CHG Healthcare, is focused on the significant and growing demand for physicians across numerous specialties and on providing a flexible solution for healthcare facilities to maintain services with temporary physician staffing. Rural healthcare facilities are especially dependent on temporary staffing to overcome challenges in attracting and keeping permanent medical professionals. Physicians at all career stages are drawn to locum tenens work, and it has evolved from a niche practice to a mainstream strategy for healthcare facilities and physicians.
Bill explains, "CHG Healthcare is a physician workforce solutions company, which means our primary business is physician staffing. So we're the largest physician staffing company in the country. We staff primarily on a part-time temporary basis, but we also do perm and a whole bunch of other stuff. We also do allied staffing, so we have a big staffing arm."
"In addition to that, we have an advisory services arm where we advise clients on how to run more effective client solutions through a ton of different advisory opportunities. We also have a tech solutions arm, and so that's what makes up our workforce solutions. On the primary business, our locum tenant business, which is our temporary physician business, we connect healthcare providers with hospitals, clinics, and communities across the country where there are significant gaps in healthcare delivery, and we help them fill those gaps."
#CHGHealthcare #HealthcareStaffing #LocumTenens #PhysicianJobs #HealthcareWorkforce #RuralHealthcare #MedicalStaffing #HealthcareSolutions #PhysicianRecruitment #HealthcareCareers
CHGhealthcare.com
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Jean-Philippe Vert, the Co-Founder and CEO of Bioptimus, is building a foundational AI model for biology to solve the problem of siloed biomedical research. Key goals are to bridge the translational gaps between drug discovery and development, and between clinical research and real-world patient outcomes, and to redesign clinical trials for greater efficiency and improved results. Creating digital twins of patients is a way to simulate treatment outcomes and create synthetic control arms for clinical trials, ultimately lowering the risk and cost of drug development and enabling the creation of new medicines for a broader range of conditions, including rare diseases.
Jean-Philippe explains, "So at its core, what we try to build at Bioptimus is the foundational AI infrastructure for biology. The problem we're trying to solve is that biology is complex and operates across different scales, from genes and proteins to cells, organs, patients, etc. And historically, lots of research, lots of biological, biomedical research has been very siloed, has been focusing on specific aspects of biology, like studying only genes or studying only cells. What we are building at Bioptimus is an AI-intelligent system that can see across all these layers, all of these cases, to get a holistic picture of biology. And it's not only a scientific endeavor, but the reason why it's hard to make a drug today, why so many diseases remain untreated, is that the siloed nature of biomedical research has created difficulties in how we move from research in discovery, like understanding a disease, to making a treatment for the patients."
"So we have indeed a model called H-Optimus, which is a foundation model for one type of modality, which is one thing you see in an image. It's for histopathology slides. This is when someone has, for example, a cancer, you take a biopsy and then typically a pathologist looks at the biopsy under the microscope to characterize the disease, to see if there are cancer cells, to see the shape, to see the organization, and so to pose a diagnostic and suggest a treatment. We have trained an AI system that helps pathologists be better because our systems have been trained by looking at billions of such images, and so have a very detailed understanding of the subtle variations that can be observed in images."
#Bioptimus #ArtificialIntelligence #DrugDiscovery #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #FoundationModels #BiologyAI #ClinicalTrials #CancerResearch #RareDiseases #DigitalHealth #Innovation
bioptimus.com
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Jean-Philippe Vert, the Co-Founder and CEO of Bioptimus, is building a foundational AI model for biology to solve the problem of siloed biomedical research. Key goals are to bridge the translational gaps between drug discovery and development, and between clinical research and real-world patient outcomes, and to redesign clinical trials for greater efficiency and improved results. Creating digital twins of patients is a way to simulate treatment outcomes and create synthetic control arms for clinical trials, ultimately lowering the risk and cost of drug development and enabling the creation of new medicines for a broader range of conditions, including rare diseases.
Jean-Philippe explains, "So at its core, what we try to build at Bioptimus is the foundational AI infrastructure for biology. The problem we're trying to solve is that biology is complex and operates across different scales, from genes and proteins to cells, organs, patients, etc. And historically, lots of research, lots of biological, biomedical research has been very siloed, has been focusing on specific aspects of biology, like studying only genes or studying only cells. What we are building at Bioptimus is an AI-intelligent system that can see across all these layers, all of these cases, to get a holistic picture of biology. And it's not only a scientific endeavor, but the reason why it's hard to make a drug today, why so many diseases remain untreated, is that the siloed nature of biomedical research has created difficulties in how we move from research in discovery, like understanding a disease, to making a treatment for the patients."
"So we have indeed a model called H-Optimus, which is a foundation model for one type of modality, which is one thing you see in an image. It's for histopathology slides. This is when someone has, for example, a cancer, you take a biopsy and then typically a pathologist looks at the biopsy under the microscope to characterize the disease, to see if there are cancer cells, to see the shape, to see the organization, and so to pose a diagnostic and suggest a treatment. We have trained an AI system that helps pathologists be better because our systems have been trained by looking at billions of such images, and so have a very detailed understanding of the subtle variations that can be observed in images."
#Bioptimus #ArtificialIntelligence #DrugDiscovery #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #FoundationModels #BiologyAI #ClinicalTrials #CancerResearch #RareDiseases #DigitalHealth #Innovation
bioptimus.com
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David Stamler, CEO of Alterity Therapeutics, is developing a drug to treat multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare and rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disease that often presents as Parkinson's disease but is distinct and more aggressive. There is no single genetic cause or specific biomarker, making accurate diagnosis a significant challenge. The lead drug is a novel small molecule designed to manage excess reactive iron in the brain, which drives the disease, and may be effective for other neurodegenerative diseases involving iron dysregulation.
David explains, "Multiple system atrophy is a rare disease, and that's part of the reason people may not know so much about it. It is a neurodegenerative disease, and as the name implies, there are multiple regions of the brain that are affected, hence the term multiple systems that are governed by those regions of the brain. And as the disease progresses, some of these regions degenerate, and you get abnormal function in various areas."
"Now, we like to characterize the disease as a Parkinsonian disorder, which means early on, it can look like Parkinson's disease. And that's kind of a good descriptor to help people understand what it might look like, but it's distinct from Parkinson's disease, and it progresses a lot faster, a lot more rapidly. So it's a disease that people don't know about, probably because no one famous has been diagnosed with MSA, although I'm sure various famous people have probably had the disease and maybe didn't know it."
#AlterityTherapeutics #MultipleSystemAtrophy #MSAAwareness #NeurodegenerativeDisease #Biotech #Phase3 #Neurology #MSA #ClinicalTrials #AlterityTherapeutics #ATH434 #Biotech #RareDisease #Neurodegeneration #DrugDevelopment #MedicalBreakthrough #IronChaperone
Alteritytx.com
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David Stamler, CEO of Alterity Therapeutics, is developing a drug to treat multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare and rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disease that often presents as Parkinson's disease but is distinct and more aggressive. There is no single genetic cause or specific biomarker, making accurate diagnosis a significant challenge. The lead drug is a novel small molecule designed to manage excess reactive iron in the brain, which drives the disease, and may be effective for other neurodegenerative diseases involving iron dysregulation.
David explains, "Multiple system atrophy is a rare disease, and that's part of the reason people may not know so much about it. It is a neurodegenerative disease, and as the name implies, there are multiple regions of the brain that are affected, hence the term multiple systems that are governed by those regions of the brain. And as the disease progresses, some of these regions degenerate, and you get abnormal function in various areas."
"Now, we like to characterize the disease as a Parkinsonian disorder, which means early on, it can look like Parkinson's disease. And that's kind of a good descriptor to help people understand what it might look like, but it's distinct from Parkinson's disease, and it progresses a lot faster, a lot more rapidly. So it's a disease that people don't know about, probably because no one famous has been diagnosed with MSA, although I'm sure various famous people have probably had the disease and maybe didn't know it."
#AlterityTherapeutics #MultipleSystemAtrophy #MSAAwareness #NeurodegenerativeDisease #Biotech #Phase3 #Neurology #MSA #ClinicalTrials #AlterityTherapeutics #ATH434 #Biotech #RareDisease #Neurodegeneration #DrugDevelopment #MedicalBreakthrough #IronChaperone
Alteritytx.com
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Greg Mayes, President and CEO of Reunion Neuroscience, and Dr. Manish Agrawal, the Co-Founder and CEO of Sunstone Therapies, shine a light on adjustment disorder, a disproportionate emotional or behavioral reaction to a significant life stressor such as a cancer diagnosis. This under-recognized condition lacks FDA-approved treatments and is often managed with SSRIs or talk therapy. The REKINDLE study evaluated the use of a psilocybin analog drug in development for treating adjustment disorder and has shown positive results by integrating emotional treatment into the standard of care for serious illnesses.
Greg explains, "In fact, there are no approved investigational assets that had been approved by the FDA for adjustment disorder. But it was an area of exploration that the FDA encouraged us to move into in light of people's disproportionate and really unfortunate reactions in terms of a depressive or anxiolytic reaction to cancer diagnosis or other major medical illness like Parkinson's disease, MS, ALS, or pulmonary fibrosis."
Manish elaborates, "Well, usually you have to have had some stress-related event. For example, it could be things like divorce or job loss. But here, specifically, this study is targeting an illness, and the ones that Greg had just listed out, the neurologic conditions, as well as the cancer diagnosis. And then usually it leads to symptoms, intense feelings of sadness or anxiety or hopelessness. You can have a depressed mood with its subtypes with depressed mood. Some people have more anxiety. And so both a stressor and the symptoms that present are associated directly with that. So, for example, for the study, the symptoms of sadness need to be tied to the illness, such as cancer or MS."
#ReunionNeuroscience #SunstoneTherapies #AdjustmentDisorder #MentalHealth #REKINDLEStudy #Psychedelics #PsychedelicMedicine #CancerCare #MentalHealth #ClinicalTrials #Psilocybin #Oncology #PatientCare #MedicalInnovation #Neuroscience
reunionneuro.com
sunstonetherapies.com
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Greg Mayes, President and CEO of Reunion Neuroscience, and Dr. Manish Agrawal, the Co-Founder and CEO of Sunstone Therapies, shine a light on adjustment disorder, a disproportionate emotional or behavioral reaction to a significant life stressor such as a cancer diagnosis. This under-recognized condition lacks FDA-approved treatments and is often managed with SSRIs or talk therapy. The REKINDLE study evaluated the use of a psilocybin analog drug in development for treating adjustment disorder and has shown positive results by integrating emotional treatment into the standard of care for serious illnesses.
Greg explains, "In fact, there are no approved investigational assets that had been approved by the FDA for adjustment disorder. But it was an area of exploration that the FDA encouraged us to move into in light of people's disproportionate and really unfortunate reactions in terms of a depressive or anxiolytic reaction to cancer diagnosis or other major medical illness like Parkinson's disease, MS, ALS, or pulmonary fibrosis."
Manish elaborates, "Well, usually you have to have had some stress-related event. For example, it could be things like divorce or job loss. But here, specifically, this study is targeting an illness, and the ones that Greg had just listed out, the neurologic conditions, as well as the cancer diagnosis. And then usually it leads to symptoms, intense feelings of sadness or anxiety or hopelessness. You can have a depressed mood with its subtypes with depressed mood. Some people have more anxiety. And so both a stressor and the symptoms that present are associated directly with that. So, for example, for the study, the symptoms of sadness need to be tied to the illness, such as cancer or MS."
#ReunionNeuroscience #SunstoneTherapies #AdjustmentDisorder #MentalHealth #REKINDLEStudy #Psychedelics #PsychedelicMedicine #CancerCare #MentalHealth #ClinicalTrials #Psilocybin #Oncology #PatientCare #MedicalInnovation #Neuroscience
reunionneuro.com
sunstonetherapies.com
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Russ Nix, Consulting Associate Director, and Dr. Stacey McCoy, Pharmacy Clinical Program Manager for the Clinical Surveillance and Compliance business at Wolters Kluwer Health, highlight the problem of drug diversion in healthcare environments and the shared responsibility to prevent this breach. AI-enabled software is becoming crucial in detecting suspicious patterns, the types of individuals most likely to steal drugs, and gaps in the supply chain from ordering to delivering drugs to the patient. While opioids are the most commonly diverted drugs, motivated by substance abuse and addiction, other medications, including non-controlled substances, insulin, and high-cost cancer drugs, are also at risk. Effective prevention programs focus on a culture in which staff feel safe reporting concerns and seeking help.
Russ explains, "Drug diversion is basically when you're in a healthcare system where the medications in that facility are not going to their intended destination. And that's typically what we see most of, a deliberate taking of those medications, whether it was a substance abuse issue or your healthcare practitioners or staff outside of the facility, are taking those medications and basically denying your patients that medication. And it is a pretty significant issue since the opioid crisis, again in the early 2000s or late 1990s."
Stacey elaborates, "So ideally, we want to be in a position where we're able to utilize software applications or a mixture of software applications to have oversight of what's being ordered, what's coming in, and what's going on inside our pharmacies, what's inside the machines on each hospital floor. Just imagine you have such a varied audience. Every single hospital floor has 15 or so nurses working. Those nurses need to grab medications from machines, like a vending machine. So the pharmacist is responsible for making sure that's taking place properly."
"Then that same team or person was also responsible for making sure that what's removed from the machines truly makes it to the patients in a safe and sound manner. So there are a number of breakpoints within the process that someone has to oversee. Ideally, we'd like to make sure that drug diversion prevention takes place using the most up-to-date software applications that are AI-enabled, and that we have multidisciplinary governance on these teams."
#WoltersKluwerHealh #AISurveillance #DrugDiversionPrevention #Sentri7DrugDiverison #PatientSafety #DrugDiversion #HealthcareSecurity #OpioidCrisis #PharmacySafety #HealthcareCompliance #PatientCare #MedicationSafety #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare
wolterskluwer.com
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Russ Nix, Consulting Associate Director, and Dr. Stacey McCoy, Pharmacy Clinical Program Manager for the Clinical Surveillance and Compliance business at Wolters Kluwer Health, highlight the problem of drug diversion in healthcare environments and the shared responsibility to prevent this breach. AI-enabled software is becoming crucial in detecting suspicious patterns, the types of individuals most likely to steal drugs, and gaps in the supply chain from ordering to delivering drugs to the patient. While opioids are the most commonly diverted drugs, motivated by substance abuse and addiction, other medications, including non-controlled substances, insulin, and high-cost cancer drugs, are also at risk. Effective prevention programs focus on a culture in which staff feel safe reporting concerns and seeking help.
Russ explains, "Drug diversion is basically when you're in a healthcare system where the medications in that facility are not going to their intended destination. And that's typically what we see most of, a deliberate taking of those medications, whether it was a substance abuse issue or your healthcare practitioners or staff outside of the facility, are taking those medications and basically denying your patients that medication. And it is a pretty significant issue since the opioid crisis, again in the early 2000s or late 1990s."
Stacey elaborates, "So ideally, we want to be in a position where we're able to utilize software applications or a mixture of software applications to have oversight of what's being ordered, what's coming in, and what's going on inside our pharmacies, what's inside the machines on each hospital floor. Just imagine you have such a varied audience. Every single hospital floor has 15 or so nurses working. Those nurses need to grab medications from machines, like a vending machine. So the pharmacist is responsible for making sure that's taking place properly."
"Then that same team or person was also responsible for making sure that what's removed from the machines truly makes it to the patients in a safe and sound manner. So there are a number of breakpoints within the process that someone has to oversee. Ideally, we'd like to make sure that drug diversion prevention takes place using the most up-to-date software applications that are AI-enabled, and that we have multidisciplinary governance on these teams."
#WoltersKluwerHealh #AISurveillance #DrugDiversionPrevention #Sentri7DrugDiverison #PatientSafety #DrugDiversion #HealthcareSecurity #OpioidCrisis #PharmacySafety #HealthcareCompliance #PatientCare #MedicationSafety #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare
wolterskluwer.com
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Meghan Gutierrez, CEO of the Lymphoma Research Foundation, and Jennifer Branstetter, the Executive Director, North America Corporate Affairs at BeOne Medicines, join me to discuss the growing use of AI in patient care with a specific focus on individuals with lymphoma and other blood cancers. Emphasis is on the necessity of a collaborative, patient-centric approach to developing AI tools, bringing together patient advocacy organizations, healthcare professionals, and pharma partners to provide accurate information to patients. The goal is to serve a diverse population by providing personalized, accessible information to help patients have more meaningful discussions with their healthcare providers, not to replace the clinician's role.
Jen explains, "We know that tens of millions of people are using AI tools in general, like ChatGPT, for health questions, including patients with blood cancers like chronic lymphocytic leukemia or CLL, they're all turning to the different AI tools that are out there. And from our perspective, we see this continuous growth of use, we want to make sure that the right healthcare information is getting fed into those AI resources and tools so that patients are getting the most accurate information possible."
Meg elaborates, "Many patients are using these AI tools to make sense of everything from their PET scans to their blood results, to some of the treatment language they receive in their clinician's or doctor's office. And one of the things that I heard recently from a cancer patient who had uploaded his scans and some test results into an AI platform. And he called me incredibly concerned. He was very concerned about his prognosis and the limited treatment options that he believed were available to him."
"So when I pressed further, I found out that this AI platform was the only source of information that he had. So I became concerned when I recognized that the information he received was antiquated. So the treatment results and some of the information he was working from in this incredibly anxious and anxiety-provoking moment were 10 years old. And so in this case, antiquated information was as dangerous as inaccurate information. And both of these remain top concerns at the Lymphoma Research Foundation. And I think across our sector, as we see more and more patients using these tools and platforms to help educate them about their disease and their treatment options."
#LymphomaResearchFoundation #LRF #BeOneMedicines #LymphomaAwareness #AIinHealthcare #PatientAdvocacy #BloodCancer #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEmpowerment #PrecisionMedicine #CLL #HealthTech #CancerCare
lymphoma.org
BeOneMedicines.com
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Meghan Gutierrez, CEO of the Lymphoma Research Foundation, and Jennifer Branstetter, the Executive Director, North America Corporate Affairs at BeOne Medicines, join me to discuss the growing use of AI in patient care with a specific focus on individuals with lymphoma and other blood cancers. Emphasis is on the necessity of a collaborative, patient-centric approach to developing AI tools, bringing together patient advocacy organizations, healthcare professionals, and pharma partners to provide accurate information to patients. The goal is to serve a diverse population by providing personalized, accessible information to help patients have more meaningful discussions with their healthcare providers, not to replace the clinician's role.
Jen explains, "We know that tens of millions of people are using AI tools in general, like ChatGPT, for health questions, including patients with blood cancers like chronic lymphocytic leukemia or CLL, they're all turning to the different AI tools that are out there. And from our perspective, we see this continuous growth of use, we want to make sure that the right healthcare information is getting fed into those AI resources and tools so that patients are getting the most accurate information possible."
Meg elaborates, "Many patients are using these AI tools to make sense of everything from their PET scans to their blood results, to some of the treatment language they receive in their clinician's or doctor's office. And one of the things that I heard recently from a cancer patient who had uploaded his scans and some test results into an AI platform. And he called me incredibly concerned. He was very concerned about his prognosis and the limited treatment options that he believed were available to him."
"So when I pressed further, I found out that this AI platform was the only source of information that he had. So I became concerned when I recognized that the information he received was antiquated. So the treatment results and some of the information he was working from in this incredibly anxious and anxiety-provoking moment were 10 years old. And so in this case, antiquated information was as dangerous as inaccurate information. And both of these remain top concerns at the Lymphoma Research Foundation. And I think across our sector, as we see more and more patients using these tools and platforms to help educate them about their disease and their treatment options."
#LymphomaResearchFoundation #LRF #BeOneMedicines #LymphomaAwareness #AIinHealthcare #PatientAdvocacy #BloodCancer #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEmpowerment #PrecisionMedicine #CLL #HealthTech #CancerCare
lymphoma.org
BeOneMedicines.com
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Dr. Mike McCullar, CEO of RegCell, is developing a novel cell therapy to treat autoimmune diseases that specifically addresses the loss of tolerance, in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own tissues. This approach contrasts with current treatments, which broadly suppress the immune system and may cause side effects. The key goals of the therapy are to achieve long-term disease control and restore the immune system's natural balance. The company's manufacturing process is designed to simplify cell therapies, making them more affordable and accessible to a broader population of autoimmune patients.
Mike explains, "The real driver of immunity, we believe, is what's called loss of tolerance, which is a system in our bodies that protects us from bad immune cells that attack our tissues. So that's a fundamental limitation in biology, and there really is not a curated treatment at this point. So our view has really been to try to restore the natural balance of our immune system by regulatory T cells, which are an indispensable non-redundant cell type to maintain tolerance against our autoimmune disorders. So we think the current treatments really don't address these challenges. They are broadly suppressing the immune system, and they don't offer curative potential."
"We've been using the same kinds of drugs for the immune disease for about three to five years, and they will broadly suppress the immune system. They are really unable to distinguish between a good immune cell and a bad immune cell. And I think that's the fundamental limitation of how these drugs work. They could be very affected, but they do really broadly suppress the immune system in an indiscriminate way."
#RegCell #AutoimmuneHepatitis #Biotechnology #MedicalResearch#AutoimmuneDiseases #CellTherapy #PrecisionMedicine #Immunology #Biotech #RegulatoryTCells #Innovation #HealthcareTechnology #ClinicalTrials
regcellbio.com
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Dr. Mike McCullar, CEO of RegCell, is developing a novel cell therapy to treat autoimmune diseases that specifically addresses the loss of tolerance, in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own tissues. This approach contrasts with current treatments, which broadly suppress the immune system and may cause side effects. The key goals of the therapy are to achieve long-term disease control and restore the immune system's natural balance. The company's manufacturing process is designed to simplify cell therapies, making them more affordable and accessible to a broader population of autoimmune patients.
Mike explains, "The real driver of immunity, we believe, is what's called loss of tolerance, which is a system in our bodies that protects us from bad immune cells that attack our tissues. So that's a fundamental limitation in biology, and there really is not a curated treatment at this point. So our view has really been to try to restore the natural balance of our immune system by regulatory T cells, which are an indispensable non-redundant cell type to maintain tolerance against our autoimmune disorders. So we think the current treatments really don't address these challenges. They are broadly suppressing the immune system, and they don't offer curative potential."
"We've been using the same kinds of drugs for the immune disease for about three to five years, and they will broadly suppress the immune system. They are really unable to distinguish between a good immune cell and a bad immune cell. And I think that's the fundamental limitation of how these drugs work. They could be very affected, but they do really broadly suppress the immune system in an indiscriminate way."
#RegCell #AutoimmuneHepatitis #Biotechnology #MedicalResearch#AutoimmuneDiseases #CellTherapy #PrecisionMedicine #Immunology #Biotech #RegulatoryTCells #Innovation #HealthcareTechnology #ClinicalTrials
regcellbio.com
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Amy Mendoza, Chief Marketing Officer at Alphaeon Patient Financing, highlights the advantages of working with a finance company that provides options for treatments in cosmetic, dental, vision, audiology, and veterinary care. This is an approach for patients who might delay or forgo treatment and preventive care due to cost, including those with average credit or who need subprime options. Working with providers, Alphaeon helps grow their practices and improve patient experience and outcomes.
Amy explains, "I think the most charming and attractive part of Altheon in healthcare is that it is opening access and providing solutions for patient financing. This includes access to treatments that providers can offer in healthcare markets, including cosmetic, dental, vision, audiology, and now veterinary care."
"Financing is access. And so it's not that patients lack a desire for care, they're lacking affordable pathways. And so, being able to deliver and present the right financing solutions opened the door to preventive care before something becomes urgent and to completing full treatment plans instead of piecemeal care. And then maybe more especially impactful for middle-income patients and families and patients without robust insurance benefits. So when patients can say yes to care earlier, outcomes improve, and that's clinically and financially."
"The setup is pretty straightforward, and the reality is the fees and terms are much more friendly, giving them the opportunity to open up a revolving access or line of credit that they can apply to taking care of their pet within the family, or maybe dental or vision, and support a handful of members within the immediate family."
#Alphaeon #PatientFinancing #HealthcareFinancing #PatientAccess #HealthTech #MedicalFinancing #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthcareLeadership #DigitalHealth #FinTech #Healthcare
goalphaeon.com
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Amy Mendoza, Chief Marketing Officer at Alphaeon Patient Financing, highlights the advantages of working with a finance company that provides options for treatments in cosmetic, dental, vision, audiology, and veterinary care. This is an approach for patients who might delay or forgo treatment and preventive care due to cost, including those with average credit or who need subprime options. Working with providers, Alphaeon helps grow their practices and improve patient experience and outcomes.
Amy explains, "I think the most charming and attractive part of Altheon in healthcare is that it is opening access and providing solutions for patient financing. This includes access to treatments that providers can offer in healthcare markets, including cosmetic, dental, vision, audiology, and now veterinary care."
"Financing is access. And so it's not that patients lack a desire for care, they're lacking affordable pathways. And so, being able to deliver and present the right financing solutions opened the door to preventive care before something becomes urgent and to completing full treatment plans instead of piecemeal care. And then maybe more especially impactful for middle-income patients and families and patients without robust insurance benefits. So when patients can say yes to care earlier, outcomes improve, and that's clinically and financially."
"The setup is pretty straightforward, and the reality is the fees and terms are much more friendly, giving them the opportunity to open up a revolving access or line of credit that they can apply to taking care of their pet within the family, or maybe dental or vision, and support a handful of members within the immediate family."
#Alphaeon #PatientFinancing #HealthcareFinancing #PatientAccess #HealthTech #MedicalFinancing #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthcareLeadership #DigitalHealth #FinTech #Healthcare
goalphaeon.com
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Dane Stevens, Founder, CEO, and Director at Optimi Health, a Canadian company that manufactures MDMA and naturally derived psilocybin from mushrooms for use in therapy for PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. These psychedelic-based mental health treatments are being used in the regulated market in Australia and in Special Access programs in Canada, and showing real-world evidence of a positive impact. Dane emphasizes the importance of a clinical setting for the administration of psychedelic medicines and integration with traditional therapy.
Dane explains, "We exist to support the responsible use of psychedelic medicines within regulated healthcare systems. We are a manufacturer of both MDMA and psilocybin, and our company exports those products to the only truly regulated market in the world right now, which is Australia. There, our MDMA is being prescribed for PTSD, and our psilocybin, naturally derived psilocybin extract, is being prescribed for treatment-resistant depression. And so we're not your classic drug developer. We're on a mission to be in the clinic and inpatient today, and that's where we are."
"Right now, they're still scheduled substances, but in Canada specifically, you have what's called the Special Access Program, where if you're suffering from end-of-life distress or PTSD in a very serious way or treatment-resistant depression, you can apply directly to the health minister for an exemption to access psychedelics. But they are still scheduled and restricted."
"If you're looking at just the Australian model in Australia, they rescheduled specifically MDMA for the use in PTSD treatment. Specifically, around psilocybin, it's only to be used for treatment-resistant depression. And so, when we, as a company, actually export directly from Canada to Australia, the permits say it's only to be used within that framework. So it's not a take-home medicine, it's all done within the guidance of your healthcare professional at the clinic."
#OptimiHealth #PsychedelicMedicine #MentalHealth #PTSD #Depression #Innovation #Healthcare #Australia #TreatmentResistantDepression #Psilocybin #MDMA #PsilocybinTherapy #MDMATherapy #MentalHealthInnovation #FDAApproval #HealthPolicy #CanadaHealth #ClinicalResearch #RealWorldEvidence
optimihealth.ca
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Dane Stevens, Founder, CEO, and Director at Optimi Health, a Canadian company that manufactures MDMA and naturally derived psilocybin from mushrooms for use in therapy for PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. These psychedelic-based mental health treatments are being used in the regulated market in Australia and in Special Access programs in Canada, and showing real-world evidence of a positive impact. Dane emphasizes the importance of a clinical setting for the administration of psychedelic medicines and integration with traditional therapy.
Dane explains, "We exist to support the responsible use of psychedelic medicines within regulated healthcare systems. We are a manufacturer of both MDMA and psilocybin, and our company exports those products to the only truly regulated market in the world right now, which is Australia. There, our MDMA is being prescribed for PTSD, and our psilocybin, naturally derived psilocybin extract, is being prescribed for treatment-resistant depression. And so we're not your classic drug developer. We're on a mission to be in the clinic and inpatient today, and that's where we are."
"Right now, they're still scheduled substances, but in Canada specifically, you have what's called the Special Access Program, where if you're suffering from end-of-life distress or PTSD in a very serious way or treatment-resistant depression, you can apply directly to the health minister for an exemption to access psychedelics. But they are still scheduled and restricted."
"If you're looking at just the Australian model in Australia, they rescheduled specifically MDMA for the use in PTSD treatment. Specifically, around psilocybin, it's only to be used for treatment-resistant depression. And so, when we, as a company, actually export directly from Canada to Australia, the permits say it's only to be used within that framework. So it's not a take-home medicine, it's all done within the guidance of your healthcare professional at the clinic."
#OptimiHealth #PsychedelicMedicine #MentalHealth #PTSD #Depression #Innovation #Healthcare #Australia #TreatmentResistantDepression #Psilocybin #MDMA #PsilocybinTherapy #MDMATherapy #MentalHealthInnovation #FDAApproval #HealthPolicy #CanadaHealth #ClinicalResearch #RealWorldEvidence
optimihealth.ca
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Renzo Luzzatti, Founder and CEO of US-Rx Care, discusses the role and practice of the Pharmacy Benefits Managers and the advantages of working with a company that uses a fiduciary model. Inherent conflicts of interest in the traditional PBM model, such as manufacturer rebates and requirements to use PBM-owned pharmacies, drive up prescription drug costs. US-Rx Care eliminates these conflicts by charging a flat administrative fee, with its sole incentive to lower drug costs for the plan and its members.
Renxo explains, "We've been around since 2007. We do have about 5 million lives under management, both self-funded employers, which is the bulk of our business. Then we also tap into Medicare health plans and have some programs and offerings that we assist there to lower costs and improve the quality of care. Our approach is unique in that we've taken a fiduciary stance from day one. We can talk about that in a little bit. It is a legal term. It's defined under ERISA, which governs health plans. They have a fiduciary duty to the plan, the members, and the management of the plan assets. And the industry as a whole has shied away from any fiduciary obligation whatsoever, in part because it's rife with conflicts of interest, and you cannot have conflicts of interest as a fiduciary."
"That is really at the core of all of the issues and complaints that we're hearing about PBMs - they're driving up the cost of prescriptions rather than having the intended effect, which is to reduce the cost of prescriptions. And I would say in the last four or five years, employers have really started to ask the right questions because they're becoming more and more educated."
"For folks like us, we're growing like crazy because the industry finally gets that. The deal that they were getting through their traditional model is not so good. The other thing is when we move to a fiduciary model, savings are typically in the realm of 30% to 50% in the first year, and then we typically see additional savings in year two and three, and then after that, the goal and the intent, which we've been successful at, is to keep costs stable."
#USRxCare #PBM #PharmacyBenefits #EmployeeBenefits #HealthcareCosts #FiduciaryResponsibility #BenefitsConsulting #HealthcareTransparency #CostContainment #SelfFundedEmployers #HealthcareReform
usrxcare.com
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Renzo Luzzatti, Founder and CEO of US-Rx Care, discusses the role and practice of the Pharmacy Benefits Managers and the advantages of working with a company that uses a fiduciary model. Inherent conflicts of interest in the traditional PBM model, such as manufacturer rebates and requirements to use PBM-owned pharmacies, drive up prescription drug costs. US-Rx Care eliminates these conflicts by charging a flat administrative fee with its sole incentive to lower drug costs for the plan and its members.
Renxo explains, "We've been around since 2007. We do have about 5 million lives under management, both self-funded employers, which is the bulk of our business. Then we also tap into Medicare health plans and have some programs and offerings that we assist there to lower costs and improve the quality of care. Our approach is unique in that we've taken a fiduciary stance from day one. We can talk about that in a little bit. It is a legal term. It's defined under ERISA, which governs health plans. They have a fiduciary duty to the plan, the members, and the management of the plan assets. And the industry as a whole has shied away from any fiduciary obligation whatsoever, in part because it's rife with conflicts of interest, and you cannot have conflicts of interest as a fiduciary."
"That is really at the core of all of the issues and complaints that we're hearing about PBMs - they're driving up the cost of prescriptions rather than having the intended effect, which is to reduce the cost of prescriptions. And I would say in the last four or five years, employers have really started to ask the right questions because they're becoming more and more educated."
"For folks like us, we're growing like crazy because the industry finally gets that. The deal that they were getting through their traditional model is not so good. The other thing is when we move to a fiduciary model, savings are typically in the realm of 30% to 50% in the first year, and then we typically see additional savings in year two and three, and then after that, the goal and the intent, which we've been successful at, is to keep costs stable."
#USRxCare #PBM #PharmacyBenefits #EmployeeBenefits #HealthcareCosts #FiduciaryResponsibility #BenefitsConsulting #HealthcareTransparency #CostContainment #SelfFundedEmployers #HealthcareReform
usrxcare.com
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Kory Daniels, Chief Security and Trust Officer at LevelBlue, discusses the multifaceted cybersecurity challenges in the healthcare industry and the risks posed by legacy systems not designed for secure internet connectivity. Artificial intelligence is being used successfully to defend against cyber attacks, while threat actors are using AI without ethical constraints to launch sophisticated attacks. Managing cybersecurity includes using digital twins to model vulnerabilities and to develop strategies for identity and access management for human and non-human identities, such as robots and AI agents.
Kory explains, "We must recognize that we're not starting from a clean slate - we have a lot of decades-old systems operating both within the physical footprint of the healthcare and hospital facility and in record retention and data management. Many organizations are looking at how to get ahead in identifying what needs to happen to embrace new technology and much of the innovation. At the same time, being conscious and cognizant of opportunities to retrofit, taking what's there already today and making it internet-connected as an example, making it Internet of Things-connected so that devices that weren't purpose-built to communicate to the internet now can communicate to the internet, but it creates some risks and it poses some challenges."
"We highlighted that some of these legacy systems or initial systems that have been in the organization for years, some 10 years or more, were not necessarily purpose-built or designed at the time of manufacturing, nor with the software needed for those tools to operate with current speed, expectations, and requirements. Healthcare entities are engaging both patients and supporting care doctors and patient care professionals in 2026 and beyond."
#LevelBlue #HealthcareCybersecurity #DigitalTransformation #AIinHealthcare #LegacySystems #PatientSafety #CyberThreats #HealthTech #DataSecurity #MedicalDevices #DigitalHealth #HealthcareIT #CyberDefense #HealthcareInnovation #RiskManagement #ComplianceMatters
LevelBlue.com
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Kory Daniels, Chief Security and Trust Officer at LevelBlue, discusses the multifaceted cybersecurity challenges in the healthcare industry and the risks posed by legacy systems not designed for secure internet connectivity. Artificial intelligence is being used successfully to defend against cyber attacks, while threat actors are using AI without ethical constraints to launch sophisticated attacks. Managing cybersecurity includes using digital twins to model vulnerabilities and to develop strategies for identity and access management for human and non-human identities, such as robots and AI agents.
Kory explains, "We must recognize that we're not starting from a clean slate - we have a lot of decades-old systems operating both within the physical footprint of the healthcare and hospital facility and in record retention and data management. Many organizations are looking at how to get ahead in identifying what needs to happen to embrace new technology and much of the innovation. At the same time, being conscious and cognizant of opportunities to retrofit, taking what's there already today and making it internet-connected as an example, making it Internet of Things-connected so that devices that weren't purpose-built to communicate to the internet now can communicate to the internet, but it creates some risks and it poses some challenges."
"We highlighted that some of these legacy systems or initial systems that have been in the organization for years, some 10 years or more, were not necessarily purpose-built or designed at the time of manufacturing, nor with the software needed for those tools to operate with current speed, expectations, and requirements. Healthcare entities are engaging both patients and supporting care doctors and patient care professionals in 2026 and beyond."
#LevelBlue #HealthcareCybersecurity #DigitalTransformation #AIinHealthcare #LegacySystems #PatientSafety #CyberThreats #HealthTech #DataSecurity #MedicalDevices #DigitalHealth #HealthcareIT #CyberDefense #HealthcareInnovation #RiskManagement #ComplianceMatters
LevelBlue.com
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Chase Idleman, Chief Executive Officer of Arlow, is leveraging emerging AgeTech and the longevity economy to develop solutions for an aging population, their families, and caregivers. With a human-centered approach to the entire aging process, Arlow uses AI to create a system for action for adults over 65 and their support networks. The main goal is to make tasks like care coordination, document management, medication adherence, and detecting changes in behavior and physical abilities easier.
Chase explains, "AgeTech is more around the people in the population. So if you look at aging, it is not one point in time, but is truly a continuum and impacts so many people. It's not just the person who's aging, but also the family members and the entire circle of care around them. So, AgeTech is that kind of emerging field, which is how I try to differentiate it. Again, it's not product-centric, but it is really human-centric over a continuum of time."
"What we felt was the biggest opportunity was not only creating a solution for older adults, but creating a solution for the circle of care, the people every single day who are helping those older adults. And in parallel, we really started to lean in on this employer front with the workforce. So in the workforce environment, it's pretty interesting, 25% of FMLA is for caregiving. And right now, there's not a ton of solutions that can support them. So those workers are essentially the circle of care."
#Arlow #AgeTech #AI #Healthcare #Aging #Innovation #DigitalHealth #Longevity #Caregiving #HealthTech #SeniorCare #FamilyCaregivers #CaregiverBurnout #OlderAdults #EmployeeBenefits #EmployeeAssistantPrograms
Arlow.ai
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Chase Idleman, Chief Executive Officer of Arlow, is leveraging emerging AgeTech and the longevity economy to develop solutions for an aging population, their families, and caregivers. With a human-centered approach to the entire aging process, Arlow uses AI to create a system for action for adults over 65 and their support networks. The main goal is to make tasks like care coordination, document management, medication adherence, and detecting changes in behavior and physical abilities easier.
Chase explains, "AgeTech is more around the people in the population. So if you look at aging, it is not one point in time, but is truly a continuum and impacts so many people. It's not just the person who's aging, but also the family members and the entire circle of care around them. So, AgeTech is that kind of emerging field, which is how I try to differentiate it. Again, it's not product-centric, but it is really human-centric over a continuum of time."
"What we felt was the biggest opportunity was not only creating a solution for older adults, but creating a solution for the circle of care, the people every single day who are helping those older adults. And in parallel, we really started to lean in on this employer front with the workforce. So in the workforce environment, it's pretty interesting, 25% of FMLA is for caregiving. And right now, there's not a ton of solutions that can support them. So those workers are essentially the circle of care."
#Arlow #AgeTech #AI #Healthcare #Aging #Innovation #DigitalHealth #Longevity #Caregiving #HealthTech #SeniorCare #FamilyCaregivers #CaregiverBurnout #OlderAdults #EmployeeBenefits #EmployeeAssistantPrograms
Arlow.ai
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Dr. Ivan Horak, Founder and CEO of Tikva Allocell, is focused on next-generation allogeneic cell therapies using modified T-cells from healthy donors to make these therapies more scalable, accessible, and affordable. Using virus-specific T-cells, this approach is showing effectiveness against solid tumors, which are difficult for traditional CAR-T therapies to treat. The primary target is an antigen found particularly in Epstein-Barr virus-associated malignancies and is showing potential for treating autoimmune diseases as well as cancer.
Ivan explains, "Cell therapy has a long history. We started with many scientists, but probably the godfather of the technology, Zelig Eshhar, who's not with us anymore. He passed away last year. The idea behind that was to use patient cells and modify them and use them as a fighter against the cancer. But over time, we realized over the last two decades that it's very useful, very successful in the treatment of hematologic malignancies, but it's very expensive and labor-intensive. The question was how to enhance this technology and bring it to more patients in a friendly and affordable way."
"The second generation are therapies where we are using healthy people's cells, primarily T-cells, but can be NK cells, can be gamma-delta T-cells. And these cells are being modified, and they are infused into a patient. The advantage of this technology is that patients are identified, and the provider can request the cell from different biotechnology companies, which can be available within the next few days, because from one healthy donor, you can make multiple doses for patients."
#TikvaAllocell #CellTherapy #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #Biotechnology #Biotech #Innovation #ClinicalTrials #AllogeneicTherapy #Allogeneic #SolidTumors #NextGenTherapy #PrecisionMedicine #CellTherapy #CART #Oncology #ImmuneOncology #CellandGeneTherapy
tikvaallocell.com
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Dr. Ivan Horak, Founder and CEO of Tikva Allocell, is focused on next-generation allogeneic cell therapies using modified T-cells from healthy donors to make these therapies more scalable, accessible, and affordable. Using virus-specific T-cells, this approach is showing effectiveness against solid tumors, which are difficult for traditional CAR-T therapies to treat. The primary target is an antigen found particularly in Epstein-Barr virus-associated malignancies and is showing potential for treating autoimmune diseases as well as cancer.
Ivan explains, "Cell therapy has a long history. We started with many scientists, but probably the godfather of the technology, Zelig Eshhar, who's not with us anymore. He passed away last year. The idea behind that was to use patient cells and modify them and use them as a fighter against the cancer. But over time, we realized over the last two decades that it's very useful, very successful in the treatment of hematologic malignancies, but it's very expensive and labor-intensive. The question was how to enhance this technology and bring it to more patients in a friendly and affordable way."
"The second generation are therapies where we are using healthy people's cells, primarily T-cells, but can be NK cells, can be gamma-delta T-cells. And these cells are being modified, and they are infused into a patient. The advantage of this technology is that patients are identified, and the provider can request the cell from different biotechnology companies, which can be available within the next few days, because from one healthy donor, you can make multiple doses for patients."
#TikvaAllocell #CellTherapy #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #Biotechnology #Biotech #Innovation #ClinicalTrials #AllogeneicTherapy #Allogeneic #SolidTumors #NextGenTherapy #PrecisionMedicine #CellTherapy #CART #Oncology #ImmuneOncology #CellandGeneTherapy
tikvaallocell.com
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Tyrone Lam, is Chief Business Development Officer at GATC Health, a company that has developed a predictive AI model to derisk and accelerate drug discovery and development. A significant partnership with Lloyd's of London to use this technology to underwrite insurance for clinical trials enables the insurer to base financing decisions on objective reports that predict a drug's safety and efficacy with high accuracy. There is potential for this technology to become a standard for biotech investment, reducing reliance on animal testing and enabling more efficient development of drugs for smaller patient populations.
Tyrone explains, "GATC Health is a technology company that is de-risking and accelerating the drug discovery and drug development process. So at a higher level, our mission is to take as much of the financial and scientific risk out of the drug discovery business as possible, which would enable better, safer, and more available drugs to be available for humans."
"Our overall platform is called Operon that has literally hundreds of AI models built in that basically do three things. One is that we're able to discover and validate in silico the targets in the body associated with a particular disease. And then the second piece of our platform broadly is the ability to generate novel compounds to treat those diseases. And then we created off of Operon an independent validation that would run in silico, like an AI-generated clinical trial to understand how those novel drugs would perform against those targets in human physiology."
"That third part of the platform is where we created a product called Derisq, and that is an independent, objective report that we can run on other people's drugs, biotech pharma's drug candidates, to give them a very rapid indication of how that drug's going to perform in a human clinical trial."
#GATCHealth #DrugDiscovery #AIinHealthcare #PharmaInnovation #ClinicalTrials #HealthTech #MedicalAI #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #FutureOfMedicine #DrugDevelopment #AIplatform #DueDiligence #DeriskingBiotech #Derisq #CapitalEfficiency #RiskIntelligence #BiotechInvesting
GATCHealth.com
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Tyrone Lam, is Chief Business Development Officer at GATC Health, a company that has developed a predictive AI model to derisk and accelerate drug discovery and development. A significant partnership with Lloyd's of London to use this technology to underwrite insurance for clinical trials enables the insurer to base financing decisions on objective reports that predict a drug's safety and efficacy with high accuracy. There is potential for this technology to become a standard for biotech investment, reducing reliance on animal testing and enabling more efficient development of drugs for smaller patient populations.
Tyrone explains, "GATC Health is a technology company that is de-risking and accelerating the drug discovery and drug development process. So at a higher level, our mission is to take as much of the financial and scientific risk out of the drug discovery business as possible, which would enable better, safer, and more available drugs to be available for humans."
"Our overall platform is called Operon that has literally hundreds of AI models built in that basically do three things. One is that we're able to discover and validate in silico the targets in the body associated with a particular disease. And then the second piece of our platform broadly is the ability to generate novel compounds to treat those diseases. And then we created off of Operon an independent validation that would run in silico, like an AI-generated clinical trial to understand how those novel drugs would perform against those targets in human physiology."
"That third part of the platform is where we created a product called Derisq, and that is an independent, objective report that we can run on other people's drugs, biotech pharma's drug candidates, to give them a very rapid indication of how that drug's going to perform in a human clinical trial."
#GATCHealth #DrugDiscovery #AIinHealthcare #PharmaInnovation #ClinicalTrials #HealthTech #MedicalAI #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #FutureOfMedicine #DrugDevelopment #AIplatform #DueDiligence #DeriskingBiotech #Derisq #CapitalEfficiency #RiskIntelligence #BiotechInvesting
GATCHealth.com
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Kristin Ashcraft, Co-Founder and CEO of OncoRx Insights, is determined to bring current information to community-based oncologists to help them identify precision therapies for their patients. The AI platform is designed to augment the oncologist's expertise by analyzing molecular diagnostics, pathology reports, and patient history to identify appropriate FDA-approved drugs and possible clinical trials. The aim is to democratize access to advanced treatment information, bringing the capabilities of academic medical centers to the community setting.
Kristin explains, "Our goal is to increase the lifespan of cancer patients by enabling community oncologists to more efficiently identify precision therapies for their patients. We do this through a unique, comprehensive analysis of the molecular diagnostics, patient history, and pathology reports. The reason that we are here is that it can be summed up really well in a study that was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, in which they found that only 36% of eligible lung cancer patients receive precision medicine therapies. And so OncoRX Insights is focused on bringing greater access to precision medicine for cancer patients."
"Cancer results from genetic mutations from external or inherited causes, and it presents in over a hundred different forms. So as you pointed out, understanding the best possible treatment really is a challenge. But using the molecular diagnostic report and additional information like pathology reports, patient history, understanding those details can really help drive the most targeted treatment to have the best chance of the best outcomes for those patients."
#OncoRxInsights #PrecisionMedicine #CancerCare #AIInHealthcare #Oncology #CommunityOncology #HealthTech #MedTech #CancerTreatment #DigitalHealth #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #CancerResearch #HealthcareInnovation #RealWorldData
OncoRxInsights.com
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Kristin Ashcraft, Co-Founder and CEO of OncoRx Insights, is determined to bring current information to community-based oncologists to help them identify precision therapies for their patients. The AI platform is designed to augment the oncologist's expertise by analyzing molecular diagnostics, pathology reports, and patient history to identify appropriate FDA-approved drugs and possible clinical trials. The aim is to democratize access to advanced treatment information, bringing the capabilities of academic medical centers to the community setting.
Kristin explains, "Our goal is to increase the lifespan of cancer patients by enabling community oncologists to more efficiently identify precision therapies for their patients. We do this through a unique, comprehensive analysis of the molecular diagnostics, patient history, and pathology reports. The reason that we are here is that it can be summed up really well in a study that was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, in which they found that only 36% of eligible lung cancer patients receive precision medicine therapies. And so OncoRX Insights is focused on bringing greater access to precision medicine for cancer patients."
"Cancer results from genetic mutations from external or inherited causes, and it presents in over a hundred different forms. So as you pointed out, understanding the best possible treatment really is a challenge. But using the molecular diagnostic report and additional information like pathology reports, patient history, understanding those details can really help drive the most targeted treatment to have the best chance of the best outcomes for those patients."
#OncoRxInsights #PrecisionMedicine #CancerCare #AIInHealthcare #Oncology #CommunityOncology #HealthTech #MedTech #CancerTreatment #DigitalHealth #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #CancerResearch #HealthcareInnovation #RealWorldData
OncoRxInsights.com
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Ian Crosbie, CEO of Sequana Medical, identifies the incidence of liver cirrhosis and the complication of liver ascites, which causes significant fluid buildup in the belly that severely impacts a patient's quality of life. Standard treatment requires repeated hospital visits to drain the fluid. The alfapump developed by Sequana is a fully implanted device that continuously drains ascites into the bladder for natural excretion, eliminating the need for drainage procedures.
Ian explains, "Liver ascites is a complication of liver cirrhosis, a serious condition where the liver becomes badly scarred. As a result, the fluid accumulates in the belly, often five to ten liters of fluid. And as you can imagine, this causes huge swelling of the belly and major clinical problems, and obviously dramatically impacts the quality of life of these patients. Problems can include instability and falling. You can imagine with all that weight out front. The swelling of the belly causes difficulty eating, breathing, sleeping, and functioning."
"So we're in an era of AI and targeted cancer therapies, CAR-T, and things like that. But the standard of care for these patients is to let them build up five to ten liters of fluid in their bellies, then bring them into hospital, stick a big needle in them, drain them over the course of five to seven hours, send them away, and then the moment they leave hospital, they start to reaccumulate that fluid again, and the process starts all over. That is a procedure known as paracentesis. Not only is it, as you can imagine, a painful, burdensome, and traumatic procedure, but in the days leading up to the procedure, the days and weeks as the fluid starts to accumulate, all those impacts on quality of life and clinical complications occur. And so that is why we developed alfapump to stop the buildup of fluid in the belly and to stop all of those problems and to stop those regular visits to the hospital."
#SequanaMedical #MedicalDevices #LiverDisease #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #MedTech #Alfapump #DigitalHealth #ChronicDisease #QualityOfLife #HealthTech #MedicalBreakthrough
sequanamedical.com
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Ian Crosbie, CEO of Sequana Medical, identifies the incidence of liver cirrhosis and the complication of liver ascites, which causes significant fluid buildup in the belly that severely impacts a patient's quality of life. Standard treatment requires repeated hospital visits to drain the fluid. The alfapump developed by Sequana is a fully implanted device that continuously drains ascites into the bladder for natural excretion, eliminating the need for drainage procedures.
Ian explains, "Liver ascites is a complication of liver cirrhosis, a serious condition where the liver becomes badly scarred. As a result, the fluid accumulates in the belly, often five to ten liters of fluid. And as you can imagine, this causes huge swelling of the belly and major clinical problems, and obviously dramatically impacts the quality of life of these patients. Problems can include instability and falling. You can imagine with all that weight out front. The swelling of the belly causes difficulty eating, breathing, sleeping, and functioning."
"So we're in an era of AI and targeted cancer therapies, CAR-T, and things like that. But the standard of care for these patients is to let them build up five to ten liters of fluid in their bellies, then bring them into hospital, stick a big needle in them, drain them over the course of five to seven hours, send them away, and then the moment they leave hospital, they start to reaccumulate that fluid again, and the process starts all over. That is a procedure known as paracentesis. Not only is it, as you can imagine, a painful, burdensome, and traumatic procedure, but in the days leading up to the procedure, the days and weeks as the fluid starts to accumulate, all those impacts on quality of life and clinical complications occur. And so that is why we developed alfapump to stop the buildup of fluid in the belly and to stop all of those problems and to stop those regular visits to the hospital."
#SequanaMedical #MedicalDevices #LiverDisease #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #MedTech #Alfapump #DigitalHealth #ChronicDisease #QualityOfLife #HealthTech #MedicalBreakthrough
sequanamedical.com
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Andria Parks, Head of Commercial Operations at First Ascent Biomedical, highlights the value of using a biopsy to grow cancer cells in a lab to determine which drugs are most likely to be effective against a specific cancer. This functional medicine approach combines lab data, genomic data, and AI to produce a report that identifies which drugs might work and which are unlikely to be effective for that individual patient. This perspective is particularly effective for rare cancers, which often lack established treatment guidelines.
Andria explains, "First Ascent Biomedical is a functional precision medicine company. And what that means is we've put together three very unique and advanced technologies to produce something very specific, and I'll explain what that means. What we do is we take a fresh biopsy from a patient, and we will grow those cells in our lab in a medium very similar to the human body. We will test or validate more than 150 drugs and drug combinations on those cells to see what works on those cells and what kills them. We will combine that with a patient's genomic information using our advanced AI. And then a report is produced that stack ranks the drugs that work, but most importantly, the drugs that don't work for that patient's cancer. And when a physician sees that report, they know exactly what to start with before initiating treatment. So everything we do is outside the body."
"If you are testing 150 drugs and combinations on your unique cancer cells, you will be able to know what works and doesn't ahead of time. Usually, most patients who don't follow this approach go through a standard-of-care protocol. And what that means is these protocols or ways of treating patients are based on hundreds of thousands of patients that may look like you and me, but are not you and me. So it's based on evidence of many, many, many patients with a similar type of profile. But the uniqueness of getting a drug to work for your specific cancers is based on your unique cells. So that's what makes a big difference. You may see 20% - 40% that works, but without knowing if they were tested on your cancer cells, and that's what makes a big difference with what functional precision medicine in oncology delivers."
#FirstAscentBiomedical #PrecisionMedicine #CancerResearch #Oncology #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthTech #RareCancer #Innovation #FunctionalMedicine #AI #Biotech #PatientCare
firstascentbiomedical.com
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Andria Parks, Head of Commercial Operations at First Ascent Biomedical, highlights the value of using a biopsy to grow cancer cells in a lab to determine which drugs are most likely to be effective against a specific cancer. This functional medicine approach combines lab data, genomic data, and AI to produce a report that identifies which drugs might work and which are unlikely to be effective for that individual patient. This perspective is particularly effective for rare cancers, which often lack established treatment guidelines.
Andria explains, "First Ascent Biomedical is a functional precision medicine company. And what that means is we've put together three very unique and advanced technologies to produce something very specific, and I'll explain what that means. What we do is we take a fresh biopsy from a patient, and we will grow those cells in our lab in a medium very similar to the human body. We will test or validate more than 150 drugs and drug combinations on those cells to see what works on those cells and what kills them. We will combine that with a patient's genomic information using our advanced AI. And then a report is produced that stack ranks the drugs that work, but most importantly, the drugs that don't work for that patient's cancer. And when a physician sees that report, they know exactly what to start with before initiating treatment. So everything we do is outside the body."
"If you are testing 150 drugs and combinations on your unique cancer cells, you will be able to know what works and doesn't ahead of time. Usually, most patients who don't follow this approach go through a standard-of-care protocol. And what that means is these protocols or ways of treating patients are based on hundreds of thousands of patients that may look like you and me, but are not you and me. So it's based on evidence of many, many, many patients with a similar type of profile. But the uniqueness of getting a drug to work for your specific cancers is based on your unique cells. So that's what makes a big difference. You may see 20% - 40% that works, but without knowing if they were tested on your cancer cells, and that's what makes a big difference with what functional precision medicine in oncology delivers."
#FirstAscentBiomedical #PrecisionMedicine #CancerResearch #Oncology #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthTech #RareCancer #Innovation #FunctionalMedicine #AI #Biotech #PatientCare
firstascentbiomedical.com
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Dr. Steven St. Peter, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vie Ventures, discusses his firm's unique hybrid model that combines venture capital with disease philanthropy to accelerate the development of new therapies for autoimmune diseases. While philanthropies have excelled at funding basic research, a gap exists in translating those findings into FDA-approved drugs. Steven points out that the autoimmune field is entering a golden age, driven by insights from immuno-oncology and by AI's potential to analyze data across autoimmune diseases.
Steven explains, "I've been doing venture capital for the last 30 years. I'm also a physician, but I'm very interested in how venture capital is helping bring new therapies to patients, and that's really the core of what venture capital does. So I've been doing that and am comfortable with that for a long time, as well as my co-founders. About five years ago, I joined an effort working with the disease philanthropy to help create a hybrid model. And I thought that was very interesting because these disease philanthropies are really the voice of the patient. So to the extent that you can bring disease, philanthropy, and venture capital to mix, I just think that's an incredible model, and that really is what Vie Ventures is all about."
"The large disease-focused philanthropies have done a phenomenal job in funding basic science research coming out of academics and helping really define, well, what is autoimmune disease and what are the biological systems and why does that matter? And in fact, just taking the case of type 1 diabetes until the 1980s, we didn't even know that that was an autoimmune disease. And in an autoimmune disease, it's the body's immune system attacking a tissue that it shouldn't. And the consequence is that it manifests as a sort of disease. So a lot of the research foundation spent a good amount of time teasing out all that basic science, and that led to insights that then allow us to create new therapies to actually change the course of these diseases. And so as you roll the clock forward to where we are in 2026, that biology has been defined."
"So what Vie Ventures does is it really allows a way for these disease foundations to reach into the translation of that fundamental discovery research to actually fund drugs that are going into patients to hopefully result in an FDA approval. And that just hasn't been done in the past because the science hadn't been defined yet, but now we're at this very exciting time, and that's the next frontier."
#VieVentures #AutoimmuneDisease #VentureCapital #CARTTherapy #Immunology #PatientAdvocacy #Biotech #HealthcareInnovation #Type1Diabetes #MultipleSclerosis #Lupus #EmpoweredPatient #HealthcarePodcast #MedicalResearch #PatientCentricity #DiseasePhilanthropy #AutoimmuneDisorders #ImmuneOncology #VentureImpact
vieventures.com
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Dr. Steven St. Peter, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vie Ventures, discusses his firm's unique hybrid model that combines venture capital with disease philanthropy to accelerate the development of new therapies for autoimmune diseases. While philanthropies have excelled at funding basic research, a gap exists in translating those findings into FDA-approved drugs. Steven points out that the autoimmune field is entering a golden age, driven by insights from immuno-oncology and by AI's potential to analyze data across autoimmune diseases.
Steven explains, "I've been doing venture capital for the last 30 years. I'm also a physician, but I'm very interested in how venture capital is helping bring new therapies to patients, and that's really the core of what venture capital does. So I've been doing that and am comfortable with that for a long time, as well as my co-founders. About five years ago, I joined an effort working with the disease philanthropy to help create a hybrid model. And I thought that was very interesting because these disease philanthropies are really the voice of the patient. So to the extent that you can bring disease, philanthropy, and venture capital to mix, I just think that's an incredible model, and that really is what Vie Ventures is all about."
"The large disease-focused philanthropies have done a phenomenal job in funding basic science research coming out of academics and helping really define, well, what is autoimmune disease and what are the biological systems and why does that matter? And in fact, just taking the case of type 1 diabetes until the 1980s, we didn't even know that that was an autoimmune disease. And in an autoimmune disease, it's the body's immune system attacking a tissue that it shouldn't. And the consequence is that it manifests as a sort of disease. So a lot of the research foundation spent a good amount of time teasing out all that basic science, and that led to insights that then allow us to create new therapies to actually change the course of these diseases. And so as you roll the clock forward to where we are in 2026, that biology has been defined."
"So what Vie Ventures does is it really allows a way for these disease foundations to reach into the translation of that fundamental discovery research to actually fund drugs that are going into patients to hopefully result in an FDA approval. And that just hasn't been done in the past because the science hadn't been defined yet, but now we're at this very exciting time, and that's the next frontier."
#VieVentures #AutoimmuneDisease #VentureCapital #CARTTherapy #Immunology #PatientAdvocacy #Biotech #HealthcareInnovation #Type1Diabetes #MultipleSclerosis #Lupus #EmpoweredPatient #HealthcarePodcast #MedicalResearch #PatientCentricity #DiseasePhilanthropy #AutoimmuneDisorders #ImmuneOncology #VentureImpact
vieventures.com
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Ed Ahn, CEO of MEDIPOST, is developing next-generation stem cell therapies for inflammation-driven degenerative diseases with a primary focus on knee osteoarthritis. Using umbilical cord-derived stem cells, which have higher proliferation capacity than adult-derived stem cells, allows MEDIPOST to scale cell manufacturing and provide broader access to care. The company's lead program, Cartistem, has been approved in Korea for over 10 years, and new funding will accelerate US clinical trials.
Ed explains, "We are focused on treating inflammation-driven degenerative diseases. So all these diseases that you commonly associate with the aging process. Those are some of the things that we're very interested in slowing the progression of."
"We're actually going back to the source for neonatal stem cells from the cord blood. One of the primary advantages of going for a neonatal source of stem cells versus an adult source is that these are the most naive stem cells that one can obtain. And what I mean by naive is that they've been in a protected environment in the mother's womb. They have not been exposed to a lot of the different antigens that adults have been exposed to. So they're very immune-privileged compared to adult stem cells."
"I think this idea or the concern about cost can be applied to all sorts of regenerative medicines, whether or not they're gene therapies or cell therapies, they're amongst the most expensive therapies to manufacture for a company, primarily because we're building a process around an inherently biological process.
One of the advantages we have at MEDIPOST is that this product has been approved in Korea for over 10 years. So we have a tremendous amount of manufacturing experience and know-how from our parent company in Korea that we're able to apply to our manufacturing process in North America. And that really advances and matures our program far beyond other people in the field."
#MEDIPOST #CARTISTEM #StemCellTherapy #KneeOsteoarthritis #RegenerativeMedicine #Innovation #Healthcare #Biotech #ClinicalTrials #JointHealth #AntiAging #MedicalBreakthrough #BiotechInnovation
medipost.com
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Ed Ahn, CEO of MEDIPOST, is developing next-generation stem cell therapies for inflammation-driven degenerative diseases with a primary focus on knee osteoarthritis. Using umbilical cord-derived stem cells, which have higher proliferation capacity than adult-derived stem cells, allows MEDIPOST to scale cell manufacturing and provide broader access to care. The company's lead program, Cartistem, has been approved in Korea for over 10 years, and new funding will accelerate US clinical trials.
Ed explains, "We are focused on treating inflammation-driven degenerative diseases. So all these diseases that you commonly associate with the aging process. Those are some of the things that we're very interested in slowing the progression of."
"We're actually going back to the source for neonatal stem cells from the cord blood. One of the primary advantages of going for a neonatal source of stem cells versus an adult source is that these are the most naive stem cells that one can obtain. And what I mean by naive is that they've been in a protected environment in the mother's womb. They have not been exposed to a lot of the different antigens that adults have been exposed to. So they're very immune-privileged compared to adult stem cells."
"I think this idea or the concern about cost can be applied to all sorts of regenerative medicines, whether or not they're gene therapies or cell therapies, they're amongst the most expensive therapies to manufacture for a company, primarily because we're building a process around an inherently biological process.
One of the advantages we have at MEDIPOST is that this product has been approved in Korea for over 10 years. So we have a tremendous amount of manufacturing experience and know-how from our parent company in Korea that we're able to apply to our manufacturing process in North America. And that really advances and matures our program far beyond other people in the field."
#MEDIPOST #CARTISTEM #StemCellTherapy #KneeOsteoarthritis #RegenerativeMedicine #Innovation #Healthcare #Biotech #ClinicalTrials #JointHealth #AntiAging #MedicalBreakthrough #BiotechInnovation
medipost.com
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Yael Elish, Founder of StuffThatWorks, was part of the Waze founding team that brought crowdsourcing to maps and traffic. She is now bringing her insights into the power of the crowd to build a patient-generated real-world database to support patients and medical research, accelerating drug development, and improving the efficiency of clinical trials. Their OpenStuff platform is an AI-powered search tool that makes patient experience data accessible to patients, doctors, and researchers, and validates the patient experience.
Yael explains, "As background, I was part of the Waze founding team, and this is where I got acquainted firsthand with the power of crowdsourcing. Waze does crowdsourcing of traffic and the building of maps. And this is where people are joining based on a common vision that if everyone shares information in an organized form. If there's a platform that can collect all the data in a structured format, it can deliver everything in a way that's much more useful and solves a very big problem that otherwise couldn't be solved."
"So the idea here is people have a ton of experience, especially when we're talking about a chronic condition someone has been living with for years and years and years. They've tried many things. Some went out and researched the information that everyone else has. How they experienced the condition, what they tried, what worked, what didn't work, what are the aggravating factors, what are the comorbidities? All this information that people have, if collected in an organized form as data at scale, can be transformed into very powerful data that doesn't exist today. That's the premise behind StuffThatWorks. And the way it works is that anyone can join their condition community. So if you have a chronic condition, you will search for your condition, you will join your condition, and you will share information that becomes data, consistent data across everyone who joins the platform. And today, with AI, it's really transformative. It's amazing, unique data that doesn't exist anywhere else."
#StuffThatWorks #OpenStuff #HealthTech #PatientEmpowerment #AIHealthcare #CrowdsourcingHealth #DigitalHealth #ChronicDisease #HealthcareInnovation #PatientData #ClinicalTrials #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthAI #MedicalResearch #PatientVoice #HealthcareTransformation #RealWorldEvidence
stuffthatworks.health
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Yael Elish, Founder of StuffThatWorks, was part of the Waze founding team that brought crowdsourcing to maps and traffic. She is now bringing her insights into the power of the crowd to build a patient-generated real-world database to support patients and medical research, accelerating drug development, and improving the efficiency of clinical trials. Their OpenStuff platform is an AI-powered search tool that makes patient experience data accessible to patients, doctors, and researchers, and validates the patient experience.
Yael explains, "As background, I was part of the Waze founding team, and this is where I got acquainted firsthand with the power of crowdsourcing. Waze does crowdsourcing of traffic and the building of maps. And this is where people are joining based on a common vision that if everyone shares information in an organized form. If there's a platform that can collect all the data in a structured format, it can deliver everything in a way that's much more useful and solves a very big problem that otherwise couldn't be solved."
"So the idea here is people have a ton of experience, especially when we're talking about a chronic condition someone has been living with for years and years and years. They've tried many things. Some went out and researched the information that everyone else has. How they experienced the condition, what they tried, what worked, what didn't work, what are the aggravating factors, what are the comorbidities? All this information that people have, if collected in an organized form as data at scale, can be transformed into very powerful data that doesn't exist today. That's the premise behind StuffThatWorks. And the way it works is that anyone can join their condition community. So if you have a chronic condition, you will search for your condition, you will join your condition, and you will share information that becomes data, consistent data across everyone who joins the platform. And today, with AI, it's really transformative. It's amazing, unique data that doesn't exist anywhere else."
#StuffThatWorks #OpenStuff #HealthTech #PatientEmpowerment #AIHealthcare #CrowdsourcingHealth #DigitalHealth #ChronicDisease #HealthcareInnovation #PatientData #ClinicalTrials #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthAI #MedicalResearch #PatientVoice #HealthcareTransformation #RealWorldEvidence
stuffthatworks.health
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Jesse Lipson, Founder and CEO of Levitate, focuses on using AI to help providers enhance patient-provider communication and develop and maintain personal, authentic connections with patients. Patient expectations are changing due to AI, and patients now expect more responsive, personalized messaging from doctors. This service-as-software can support busy providers in developing and executing a communication strategy at scale to build their practices and strengthen relationships with patients.
Jesse explains, "My vision was to help what I call relationship-based businesses. I would consider many types of healthcare practices to fall into that category, and to do a better job of keeping in touch with their patients in a more personal, authentic way at scale. And so I think the challenge is we all know the value of the simple things like remembering kids' names, pets' names, spouse names, hobbies, and reaching out and keeping in touch in a thoughtful way on a regular basis. But it's very hard to do that at scale, and things kind of slip through the cracks."
"When it comes to patient care itself, you want to be that person who, when you do get to spend a little bit of time with a patient, you are remembering things about them more on a human level rather than just in and out on the clinical level. Both because that provides a good patient experience, and I think that's what a lot of providers are motivated to do when they get into the field. But that context can also be helpful in providing a high level of care, in knowing and remembering things, and in deepening that personal relationship. So that was our goal: not to use AI as an automated replacement for that communication between providers and patients, but to use it to help them do a better job of that personal, authentic communication."
#Levitate #PatientEmpowerment #PatientExperience #PatientCenteredCare #HealthTech #HealthcareTechnology #RelationshipMarketing #PersonalizationAtScale #AIinHealthcare #CustomerExperience #ServiceAsSoftware #HealthTech #PatientCommunication #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PatientEngagement #HIPAA #PatientCare
Levitate.ai
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Jesse Lipson, Founder and CEO of Levitate, focuses on using AI to help providers enhance patient-provider communication and develop and maintain personal, authentic connections with patients. Patient expectations are changing due to AI, and patients now expect more responsive, personalized messaging from doctors. This service-as-software can support busy providers in developing and executing a communication strategy at scale to build their practices and strengthen relationships with patients.
Jesse explains, "My vision was to help what I call relationship-based businesses. I would consider many types of healthcare practices to fall into that category, and to do a better job of keeping in touch with their patients in a more personal, authentic way at scale. And so I think the challenge is we all know the value of the simple things like remembering kids' names, pets' names, spouse names, hobbies, and reaching out and keeping in touch in a thoughtful way on a regular basis. But it's very hard to do that at scale, and things kind of slip through the cracks."
"When it comes to patient care itself, you want to be that person who, when you do get to spend a little bit of time with a patient, you are remembering things about them more on a human level rather than just in and out on the clinical level. Both because that provides a good patient experience, and I think that's what a lot of providers are motivated to do when they get into the field. But that context can also be helpful in providing a high level of care, in knowing and remembering things, and in deepening that personal relationship. So that was our goal: not to use AI as an automated replacement for that communication between providers and patients, but to use it to help them do a better job of that personal, authentic communication."
#Levitate #PatientEmpowerment #PatientExperience #PatientCenteredCare #HealthTech #HealthcareTechnology #RelationshipMarketing #PersonalizationAtScale #AIinHealthcare #CustomerExperience #ServiceAsSoftware #HealthTech #PatientCommunication #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PatientEngagement #HIPAA #PatientCare
Levitate.ai
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Dr. Justin Schrager, Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Vital, aims to address poor communication in acute care settings such as hospitals and urgent care centers. Vital's software platform provides patients with real-time, understandable information on their own devices via a secure website. This AI-powered system is designed to provide updates on lab results and educational content, and to augment clinical care without adding to the workload of doctors and nurses.
Justin explains, "We make software for the hospital, urgent care, and inpatient settings. The problem is that communication suffers when you get busier. So the busier you are, the less communication happens. It's a bit of a catch-22. And it's sort of treated as an expendable action when things are really critical. I'm an ER doctor. I understand that. And so we're trying to solve that problem by essentially communicating to patients, keeping them up to date, and helping the clinical staff out when they frankly don't have a lot of time to share a lot of the kinds of information that we're able to show patients."
"Access is at such a deficit right now that the vast majority of the healthcare we provide in the hospital and the ER specifically is for patients who are wide awake, thinking clearly, have family members there with them, and they just have an urgency. Sore throat, can't swallow, broken arm, things that aren't necessarily life-threatening or even limb-threatening, but they're urgent, and they need to be dealt with in a timely fashion. And so I think that's really where our software plays best."
#Vitalio #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEngagement #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #PatientExperience #HealthcareCommunication #MedicalAI #HospitalTechnology #PatientCare #PatientSafety
vital.io
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Dr. Justin Schrager, Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Vital, aims to address poor communication in acute care settings such as hospitals and urgent care centers. Vital's software platform provides patients with real-time, understandable information on their own devices via a secure website. This AI-powered system is designed to provide updates on lab results and educational content, and to augment clinical care without adding to the workload of doctors and nurses.
Justin explains, "We make software for the hospital, urgent care, and inpatient settings. The problem is that communication suffers when you get busier. So the busier you are, the less communication happens. It's a bit of a catch-22. And it's sort of treated as an expendable action when things are really critical. I'm an ER doctor. I understand that. And so we're trying to solve that problem by essentially communicating to patients, keeping them up to date, and helping the clinical staff out when they frankly don't have a lot of time to share a lot of the kinds of information that we're able to show patients."
"Access is at such a deficit right now that the vast majority of the healthcare we provide in the hospital and the ER specifically is for patients who are wide awake, thinking clearly, have family members there with them, and they just have an urgency. Sore throat, can't swallow, broken arm, things that aren't necessarily life-threatening or even limb-threatening, but they're urgent, and they need to be dealt with in a timely fashion. And so I think that's really where our software plays best."
#Vitalio #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEngagement #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #PatientExperience #HealthcareCommunication #MedicalAI #HospitalTechnology #PatientCare #PatientSafety
vital.io
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Dr. Charlotte McKee, Chief Medical Officer at Sionna, describes the nature of cystic fibrosis (CF, a genetic disease caused by a mutation in the single CFTR gene. While current CFTR modulator therapies do not address the most common mutation, Sionna's novel oral medicine is designed to target the previously undruggable NBDI domain of the CFTR protein. This new therapy aims to lead to better lung function and prevent the accumulation of permanent damage to other organs like the pancreas, gut, and liver.
Charlotte explains, "Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease. The gene was actually discovered in 1989 for cystic fibrosis. It's considered a rare disease, but it's a relatively large rare disease. And one of those rare diseases that is potentially fatal, as you mentioned, it's thought of as a lung disease. And most patients, if their life is shortened, it's typically because of lung disease, because the lungs can be very severely affected. But the protein is caused by a genetic mutation in a gene called CFTR, and the protein is made from that gene. The CFTR protein is present on every epithelial cell of the body."
"Sionna is focused on a novel target in the CFTR protein. So you may know that, actually, there are approved medicines that have been developed over the last couple of decades that improve the function of the CFTR protein. And they've really advanced the clinical field, and there have been tremendous advances for people with CF. But this protein, this CFTR protein that goes wrong in CF, is a big, complicated, multi-part channel."
"Another unusual thing about CF is that there's one mutation that's so common around the world, and the part of CFTR that goes most wrong with F508del. This mutation is in a part of CFTR that was previously considered undruggable. It's that part that is called NBD1, and Sionna has been working for over a decade and a half of research, actually starting with Genzyme and then continuing through the company, Sanofi, has actually figured out how to develop potential medicines against this part of the CFTR protein that goes most wrong. And so we are working on these, they're called modulators, CFTR modulators, or we are working on NBD1-focused potential medicines that can directly bind to and stabilize this specific part of the CFTR protein."
#Sionna #CysticFibrosis #NBD1Stabilizers #CFTRModulators #RareDisease #Biotechnology #MedicalInnovation #PrecisionMedicine #GeneticDisease #PulmonaryHealth
sionnatx.com
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Dr. Charlotte McKee, Chief Medical Officer at Sionna, describes the nature of cystic fibrosis (CF, a genetic disease caused by a mutation in the single CFTR gene. While current CFTR modulator therapies do not address the most common mutation, Sionna's novel oral medicine is designed to target the previously undruggable NBDI domain of the CFTR protein. This new therapy aims to lead to better lung function and prevent the accumulation of permanent damage to other organs like the pancreas, gut, and liver.
Charlotte explains, "Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease. The gene was actually discovered in 1989 for cystic fibrosis. It's considered a rare disease, but it's a relatively large rare disease. And one of those rare diseases that is potentially fatal, as you mentioned, it's thought of as a lung disease. And most patients, if their life is shortened, it's typically because of lung disease, because the lungs can be very severely affected. But the protein is caused by a genetic mutation in a gene called CFTR, and the protein is made from that gene. The CFTR protein is present on every epithelial cell of the body."
"Sionna is focused on a novel target in the CFTR protein. So you may know that, actually, there are approved medicines that have been developed over the last couple of decades that improve the function of the CFTR protein. And they've really advanced the clinical field, and there have been tremendous advances for people with CF. But this protein, this CFTR protein that goes wrong in CF, is a big, complicated, multi-part channel."
"Another unusual thing about CF is that there's one mutation that's so common around the world, and the part of CFTR that goes most wrong with F508del. This mutation is in a part of CFTR that was previously considered undruggable. It's that part that is called NBD1, and Sionna has been working for over a decade and a half of research, actually starting with Genzyme and then continuing through the company, Sanofi, has actually figured out how to develop potential medicines against this part of the CFTR protein that goes most wrong. And so we are working on these, they're called modulators, CFTR modulators, or we are working on NBD1-focused potential medicines that can directly bind to and stabilize this specific part of the CFTR protein."
#Sionna #CysticFibrosis #NBD1Stabilizers #CFTRModulators #RareDisease #Biotechnology #MedicalInnovation #PrecisionMedicine #GeneticDisease #PulmonaryHealth
sionnatx.com
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Mark Bertagnolli, Chief Operating Officer at ViroMissile, has developed a modified vaccinia virus that can be delivered intravenously to seek out and destroy solid tumors throughout the body and is not dependent on a specific genetic driver of a cancer. The virus has been engineered to be resistant to the body's complement system, allowing it to survive in the bloodstream longer to infect the tumor. This action also turns the tumor microenvironment from cold to hot, signaling the immune system to attack the tumor and potentially working in combination with other treatments like PD-1 inhibitors to make them more effective.
Mark explains, "ViroMissile has a modified vaccinia virus, and viruses tend to like to infect tumor cells. So the trick has been how to harness this. And we're on our third generation of virus, and we have a virus that you can inject intravenously that searches for tumors throughout the body, infects them, the body clears the rest of the virus, and the virus embeds itself in the tumors, replicates, spreads, activates the immune system, and destroys the tumors."
"So, the vaccinia virus itself, nobody knows really where it came from, but it ended up being the foundation of the smallpox vaccine, and we get the word vaccine from the vaccinia virus. Our founder was the first to sequence the genome of the vaccinia virus over 30 years ago. For the last 20 years, he's been working on it as an oncolytic agent. And in this particular case, within vaccinia, there are different strains. And he was able to isolate a very specific, never before isolated strain of virus that is resistant to complement attack, and also replicates very quickly in infected cells. So it has two embedded features within it, naturally, that we're able to capitalize on."
#ViroMissile #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #OncolyticVirus #Biotechnology #MedicalInnovation #CancerTreatment #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #CancerCare #VacciniaVirus
viromissile.com
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Mark Bertagnolli, Chief Operating Officer at ViroMissile, has developed a modified vaccinia virus that can be delivered intravenously to seek out and destroy solid tumors throughout the body and is not dependent on a specific genetic driver of a cancer. The virus has been engineered to be resistant to the body's complement system, allowing it to survive in the bloodstream longer to infect the tumor. This action also turns the tumor microenvironment from cold to hot, signaling the immune system to attack the tumor and potentially working in combination with other treatments like PD-1 inhibitors to make them more effective.
Mark explains, "ViroMissile has a modified vaccinia virus, and viruses tend to like to infect tumor cells. So the trick has been how to harness this. And we're on our third generation of virus, and we have a virus that you can inject intravenously that searches for tumors throughout the body, infects them, the body clears the rest of the virus, and the virus embeds itself in the tumors, replicates, spreads, activates the immune system, and destroys the tumors."
"So, the vaccinia virus itself, nobody knows really where it came from, but it ended up being the foundation of the smallpox vaccine, and we get the word vaccine from the vaccinia virus. Our founder was the first to sequence the genome of the vaccinia virus over 30 years ago. For the last 20 years, he's been working on it as an oncolytic agent. And in this particular case, within vaccinia, there are different strains. And he was able to isolate a very specific, never before isolated strain of virus that is resistant to complement attack, and also replicates very quickly in infected cells. So it has two embedded features within it, naturally, that we're able to capitalize on."
#ViroMissile #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #OncolyticVirus #Biotechnology #MedicalInnovation #CancerTreatment #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #CancerCare #VacciniaVirus
viromissile.com
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Dr. Ronald Lane, Founder of HOPE-Neuron Therapeutx, is developing an approach to treating ALS by rebalancing the body's immune system, which becomes dysfunctional in neurodegenerative diseases. The mechanism involves treating a patient's blood outside the body to activate the immune system and then infusing it back into the patient. The theory is that traditional drugs often fail because they target static genetic mutations and symptoms, while the source of the disease lies in the ongoing immune imbalance.
Ronald explains, "Well, in a broad sense, the goal of HOPE Neuron is based on the fact that our challenge here is to bring hope. And we use a neuronal basis to do that. We're not about drugs. There are no chemicals involved. We don't go that direction. But basically, it cuts across. We deal with memory, we deal with dementia and Alzheimer's, but our target initially is ALS."
"As I mentioned a moment ago, we're not doing drugs, we're not using chemicals. So what are you doing? Well, we're using the cell's immune system, and the problem with disease is that the immune system gets out of balance. When it's out of balance, you become ill. It can be in many different diseases. And there are certain indicators, and we know what to look for and what compounds the body generates."
#HOPENeuron #ALS #Neurology #ImmuneTherapy #MedicalInnovation #ALSResearch #Biotechnology #NeurodegenerativeDisease #MedicalBreakthrough #ClinicalTrials #Healthcare #Innovation #Neurodegeneration #Neuroplasticity #MedicalDevices #Immunotherapy #NeuroscienceInnovation #FutureOfMedicine #NonPharmaTherapies
hopeneuron.com
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Dr. Ronald Lane, Founder of HOPE-Neuron Therapeutx, is developing an approach to treating ALS by rebalancing the body's immune system, which becomes dysfunctional in neurodegenerative diseases. The mechanism involves treating a patient's blood outside the body to activate the immune system and then infusing it back into the patient. The theory is that traditional drugs often fail because they target static genetic mutations and symptoms, while the source of the disease lies in the ongoing immune imbalance.
Ronald explains, "Well, in a broad sense, the goal of HOPE Neuron is based on the fact that our challenge here is to bring hope. And we use a neuronal basis to do that. We're not about drugs. There are no chemicals involved. We don't go that direction. But basically, it cuts across. We deal with memory, we deal with dementia and Alzheimer's, but our target initially is ALS."
"As I mentioned a moment ago, we're not doing drugs, we're not using chemicals. So what are you doing? Well, we're using the cell's immune system, and the problem with disease is that the immune system gets out of balance. When it's out of balance, you become ill. It can be in many different diseases. And there are certain indicators, and we know what to look for and what compounds the body generates."
#HOPENeuron #ALS #Neurology #ImmuneTherapy #MedicalInnovation #ALSResearch #Biotechnology #NeurodegenerativeDisease #MedicalBreakthrough #ClinicalTrials #Healthcare #Innovation #Neurodegeneration #Neuroplasticity #MedicalDevices #Immunotherapy #NeuroscienceInnovation #FutureOfMedicine #NonPharmaTherapies
hopeneuron.com
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Dr. Galia Schwarz, CEO and Co-Founder of C8 Health, has developed a platform that addresses the gap between hospital best practices and their implementation across all departments. This approach consolidates medical knowledge from numerous disconnected systems and uses AI to proactively deliver relevant information to a clinician. C8 Health does not create best practices; it ensures that a hospital's vetted standards are communicated consistently to provide optimal patient care.
Galia explains, "Hospitals are struggling to implement their best practices effectively, or in other words, control the quality and cost of care delivery. And let me explain this. There is tons of medical knowledge out there, and now with AI coming into our lives, there is even more. And hospitals create this knowledge through clinical trials, or they license this knowledge through platforms like Open Evidence or UpToDate. And every hospital takes these global best practices and turns them into local best practices, things like protocols, guidelines, procedures, and educational content. Any type of knowledge whose purpose is to ensure that standards of care are met. But I haven't met one hospital that knows how to take these best practices and turn them into actual practice, and this is what we allow them to do."
"So first of all, on a conceptual level, our platform consolidates fragmented knowledge across departments or sites into a single source and uses AI to surface the right guidance at the right moment based on the clinician's role, schedule, and patient context. So, for example, we can create an experience where we say, "Hi, Dr. X. Tomorrow you are scheduled for OR number eight. You have these four procedures. At 8:00 AM, you have a CABG procedure. These are the best practices of your hospital for this procedure. This is what changed since the last time you did this procedure. These are the people who are going to be with you in the OR."
#C8Health #HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #MedicalInnovation #PatientSafety #DigitalHealth #HealthcareTransformation #MedicalErrors #BestPractices #ClinicalExcellence #HealthcareAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #OpenAI
C8health.com
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Dr. Galia Schwarz, CEO and Co-Founder of C8 Health, has developed a platform that addresses the gap between hospital best practices and their implementation across all departments. This approach consolidates medical knowledge from numerous disconnected systems and uses AI to proactively deliver relevant information to a clinician. C8 Health does not create best practices; it ensures that a hospital's vetted standards are communicated consistently to provide optimal patient care.
Galia explains, "Hospitals are struggling to implement their best practices effectively, or in other words, control the quality and cost of care delivery. And let me explain this. There is tons of medical knowledge out there, and now with AI coming into our lives, there is even more. And hospitals create this knowledge through clinical trials, or they license this knowledge through platforms like Open Evidence or UpToDate. And every hospital takes these global best practices and turns them into local best practices, things like protocols, guidelines, procedures, and educational content. Any type of knowledge whose purpose is to ensure that standards of care are met. But I haven't met one hospital that knows how to take these best practices and turn them into actual practice, and this is what we allow them to do."
"So first of all, on a conceptual level, our platform consolidates fragmented knowledge across departments or sites into a single source and uses AI to surface the right guidance at the right moment based on the clinician's role, schedule, and patient context. So, for example, we can create an experience where we say, "Hi, Dr. X. Tomorrow you are scheduled for OR number eight. You have these four procedures. At 8:00 AM, you have a CABG procedure. These are the best practices of your hospital for this procedure. This is what changed since the last time you did this procedure. These are the people who are going to be with you in the OR."
#C8Health #HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #MedicalInnovation #PatientSafety #DigitalHealth #HealthcareTransformation #MedicalErrors #BestPractices #ClinicalExcellence #HealthcareAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #OpenAI
C8health.com
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David Klein, a longtime healthcare innovator and Founder and CEO of Click Therapeutics, is a pioneer in the field of prescription digital therapeutics, PDT, which are defined as software as medicine. Click has received FDA authorization for an app to treat depression and migraine and had a successful pivotal trial for an app treating negative symptoms of schizophrenia. These digital therapeutics are designed to fill significant gaps in current care and there are opportunities to combine software with drugs and biometric data from wearables to determine personalized treatment plans.
David explains, "Click's approach towards digital therapeutics is, I would say, probably the most rigorous from a clinical evidence perspective in the industry. So we really take a drug-like clinical approach to these programs where we discover and then validate these programs in multiple randomized control trials, all culminating usually in a pivotal trial. And on top of that, you'll often see in some other areas of the world or even in this country, to some degree, folks might say randomized control trial, but they're really using standard of care as the control or wait list control, and so on and so forth. We actually test our interventions against sham active control, so against other apps that control for time on task, expectation of benefit, and so on and so forth."
"Just a few months ago, we announced with Behringer Ingelheim, our partner in schizophrenia, that we hit our primary endpoint in our pivotal trial for our app that's designed to be a treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia. So, the holy grail, in serious mental illness altogether, but certainly in schizophrenia, is trying to mitigate negative symptoms of schizophrenia. This is such a huge patient issue and frankly an economic issue that none of the drugs have been successful at actually hitting it. So that's a unique one because we showed that an app can actually effectively and safely treat a disease that even a drug can't."
#ClickTherapeutics #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #FDA #MedicalDevices #SoftwareAsMedicine #HealthTech #Innovation #Migraine #Depression #Schizophrenia #PrescriptionApps #PDT #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation
clicktherapeutics.com
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David Klein, a longtime healthcare innovator and Founder and CEO of Click Therapeutics, is a pioneer in the field of prescription digital therapeutics, PDT, which are defined as software as medicine. Click has received FDA authorization for an app to treat depression and migraine and had a successful pivotal trial for an app treating negative symptoms of schizophrenia. These digital therapeutics are designed to fill significant gaps in current care and there are opportunities to combine software with drugs and biometric data from wearables to determine personalized treatment plans.
David explains, "Click's approach towards digital therapeutics is, I would say, probably the most rigorous from a clinical evidence perspective in the industry. So we really take a drug-like clinical approach to these programs where we discover and then validate these programs in multiple randomized control trials, all culminating usually in a pivotal trial. And on top of that, you'll often see in some other areas of the world or even in this country, to some degree, folks might say randomized control trial, but they're really using standard of care as the control or wait list control, and so on and so forth. We actually test our interventions against sham active control, so against other apps that control for time on task, expectation of benefit, and so on and so forth."
"Just a few months ago, we announced with Behringer Ingelheim, our partner in schizophrenia, that we hit our primary endpoint in our pivotal trial for our app that's designed to be a treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia. So, the holy grail, in serious mental illness altogether, but certainly in schizophrenia, is trying to mitigate negative symptoms of schizophrenia. This is such a huge patient issue and frankly an economic issue that none of the drugs have been successful at actually hitting it. So that's a unique one because we showed that an app can actually effectively and safely treat a disease that even a drug can't."
#ClickTherapeutics #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #FDA #MedicalDevices #SoftwareAsMedicine #HealthTech #Innovation #Migraine #Depression #Schizophrenia #PrescriptionApps #PDT #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation
clicktherapeutics.com
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Tony Baldassarre, President and CEO of UniDoc Health, has a mission to provide accessible healthcare through remote technology and a Health Cube that can be deployed in a wide range of settings. This approach integrates into existing EMR/EHR platforms and includes a healthcare professional who works with the patient in the Cube to interact with medical devices and consult remotely with a doctor. There have been successful deployments in Ukraine, Italy, and Alaska, showing a significant reduction in emergency room visits and demonstrating capabilities for specialized care and management of chronic conditions.
Tony explains, "With the UniDoc solution, what we do is not just enable a conversation between a doctor and patient - it is not just a phone or video call. We actually provide real diagnostic medical devices for doctors to conduct a comprehensive medical visit remotely, just as if the patient were in their office. The important thing is that number one, we only use real medical devices. These are medical devices that are approved by Health Canada, the FDA, and the European Union. They are the exact same medical devices that you find at a doctor's office or a hospital. So the doctors are actually conducting the visit, and the data that they're receiving is exactly the same as it would be if they were together in the office."
"So, simply what happens first and foremost is that the patient, either through the browser, the UniDoc website, or through our app, chooses a doctor, be it male, female, different races, languages, etc. Once they have the appointment confirmed by the doctor, the patient just shows up at the Health Cube at the time that they requested the appointment, and they walk in. Once inside the Cube, there's a chair and a nurse, I'll call them a nurse for generality. There's a nurse on site, and the doctor is the only person who is remote. At that point, the nurse connects the doctor to the visit, and the medical visit starts."
"We have two Cubes in Ukraine right now, actually in Kyiv and at the border of Romania and Ukraine. That's been set up there since April of this year. We've already seen over 3000 patients, and a lot of it is actually being used by people in the town and for chronic diseases. On top of that, by law in Ukraine, we had to place these Cubes by the hospitals. That's a requirement. And the hospital is actually seeing a 35% decline in people going to the emergency room."
#UniDocHealth #HealthTech #RemoteHealthcare #MedicalInnovation #Telehealth #HealthcareAccess #Telemedicine #MedicalDevices #HealthEquity #DigitalHealth #RuralHealthcare #HealthcareInnovation
UniDocHealth.com
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Tony Baldassarre, President and CEO of UniDoc Health, has a mission to provide accessible healthcare through remote technology and a Health Cube that can be deployed in a wide range of settings. This approach integrates into existing EMR/EHR platforms and includes a healthcare professional who works with the patient in the Cube to interact with medical devices and consult remotely with a doctor. There have been successful deployments in Ukraine, Italy, and Alaska, showing a significant reduction in emergency room visits and demonstrating capabilities for specialized care and management of chronic conditions.
Tony explains, "With the UniDoc solution, what we do is not just enable a conversation between a doctor and patient - it is not just a phone or video call. We actually provide real diagnostic medical devices for doctors to conduct a comprehensive medical visit remotely, just as if the patient were in their office. The important thing is that number one, we only use real medical devices. These are medical devices that are approved by Health Canada, the FDA, and the European Union. They are the exact same medical devices that you find at a doctor's office or a hospital. So the doctors are actually conducting the visit, and the data that they're receiving is exactly the same as it would be if they were together in the office."
"So, simply what happens first and foremost is that the patient, either through the browser, the UniDoc website, or through our app, chooses a doctor, be it male, female, different races, languages, etc. Once they have the appointment confirmed by the doctor, the patient just shows up at the Health Cube at the time that they requested the appointment, and they walk in. Once inside the Cube, there's a chair and a nurse, I'll call them a nurse for generality. There's a nurse on site, and the doctor is the only person who is remote. At that point, the nurse connects the doctor to the visit, and the medical visit starts."
"We have two Cubes in Ukraine right now, actually in Kyiv and at the border of Romania and Ukraine. That's been set up there since April of this year. We've already seen over 3000 patients, and a lot of it is actually being used by people in the town and for chronic diseases. On top of that, by law in Ukraine, we had to place these Cubes by the hospitals. That's a requirement. And the hospital is actually seeing a 35% decline in people going to the emergency room."
#UniDocHealth #HealthTech #RemoteHealthcare #MedicalInnovation #Telehealth #HealthcareAccess #Telemedicine #MedicalDevices #HealthEquity #DigitalHealth #RuralHealthcare #HealthcareInnovation
UniDocHealth.com
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Dr. Jennifer Perusini, CEO and Founder of Neurovation Labs, is developing a precision medicine platform to create targeted therapeutics and diagnostic tools that treat specific brain regions to address central nervous system diseases. For the treatment of PTSD, the approach focuses on the overactive amygdala due to dysregulated glutamate signaling. This objective, brain-based approach of treating a discrete part of the brain rather than the whole brain moves mental health treatment beyond the current one-size-fits-all approach, reducing side effects and improving outcomes.
Jennifer explains, "What we are doing is really taking an objective, precision approach to treating mental health disorders, something like an oncology model. So what we really care about is that mental health disorders and psychiatric disorders are rooted in brain dysfunction, yes, but critically that dysfunction occurs in very discreet brain regions and circuits, not necessarily uniformly across the entire brain. So we have really developed a platform designed to identify compounds with dual potential. Precision therapeutics that act on specific brain regions, as well as diagnostic imaging agents that can reveal receptor-level dysfunction and circuit activity in the brain. And so our lead asset and main indication right now is for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder."
"I think that academics like to focus on this research in very specific brain regions, but that therapeutic angle really hasn't caught up yet. And so, really more specifically, what we're doing is focusing on a very particular signal, an excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate, which is a key regulator of neural activity and cell firing. And so there are many disorders, including PTSD, that are affected by dysregulated glutamate signaling. However, the glutamate drugs that are on the market today really bind to the whole brain. So that's just something that hasn't caught up yet, and that's what we're trying to do."
#NeurovationLabs #PrecisionMedicine #PTSD #Neuroscience #MentalHealthInnovation #Biomarkers #DrugDiscovery #Glutamate #BrainHealth #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
NeurovationLabs.com
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Dr. Jennifer Perusini, CEO and Founder of Neurovation Labs, is developing a precision medicine platform to create targeted therapeutics and diagnostic tools that treat specific brain regions to address central nervous system diseases. For the treatment of PTSD, the approach focuses on the overactive amygdala due to dysregulated glutamate signaling. This objective, brain-based approach of treating a discrete part of the brain rather than the whole brain moves mental health treatment beyond the current one-size-fits-all approach, reducing side effects and improving outcomes.
Jennifer explains, "What we are doing is really taking an objective, precision approach to treating mental health disorders, something like an oncology model. So what we really care about is that mental health disorders and psychiatric disorders are rooted in brain dysfunction, yes, but critically that dysfunction occurs in very discreet brain regions and circuits, not necessarily uniformly across the entire brain. So we have really developed a platform designed to identify compounds with dual potential. Precision therapeutics that act on specific brain regions, as well as diagnostic imaging agents that can reveal receptor-level dysfunction and circuit activity in the brain. And so our lead asset and main indication right now is for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder."
"I think that academics like to focus on this research in very specific brain regions, but that therapeutic angle really hasn't caught up yet. And so, really more specifically, what we're doing is focusing on a very particular signal, an excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate, which is a key regulator of neural activity and cell firing. And so there are many disorders, including PTSD, that are affected by dysregulated glutamate signaling. However, the glutamate drugs that are on the market today really bind to the whole brain. So that's just something that hasn't caught up yet, and that's what we're trying to do."
#NeurovationLabs #PrecisionMedicine #PTSD #Neuroscience #MentalHealthInnovation #Biomarkers #DrugDiscovery #Glutamate #BrainHealth #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
NeurovationLabs.com
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Dr. Paul Testa, Chief Health Informatics Officer who helped create the About Me Initiative at NYU Langone Health, and Dr. Katherine Hochman, Director of Hospital Medicine at NYU Langone Health, who envisioned the initiative, discuss the benefits of encouraging patients to provide non-medical information. The goal is to help care teams see patients as whole people beyond their diagnoses and to give patients an opportunity to share interests, hobbies, and fun facts that can help build trust and meaningful human connections. This About Me Initiative is being expanded from inpatient care to outpatient settings, such as infusion centers.
Paul explains, "The About Me section in our EHR Epic is something that NYU Langone developed with the inspiration of Dr. Hochman, and it's essentially a dedicated discreet space in the medical record to allow patients to declare themselves, allowing them to give them a space that is transparent to all the users of the electronic health record, which are many and vast in their rules. So let them articulate something beyond their disease process or their health. So often, we reduce records to pneumonia, a broken hip, or an infection. The patient is so much more than that, and patients want to share that with us. We know that from practicing for years, Kathy and I both know that the way you connect with patients is through a narrative. Our currency is narrative. This is a location where either a patient or, if they choose to defer, can have one of their nurses or care team members provide a small sample of who they are outside of the care environment."
Katherine elaborates, "So I'm a hospitalist. Every Tuesday, I come into 16 to 18 new patients. And at NYU Langone, our length of stay keeps getting shorter and shorter, which is fantastic for patients because we want to get them in and out of the hospital as quickly and as safely as possible. But by definition, if patients stay shorter and shorter, we don't have as much time to connect. So the About Me Initiative really kicks off that connection that Paul was talking about a second ago. So long ago, and this is how it started, I would tell my teams, slow down to speed up, get to know who this patient is before getting into the heart failure, the pneumonia, the COPD, and really try to establish a little bit of a connection and build trust."
#NYULangone #PatientVoices #PatientCare #HealthcareInnovation #PatientExperience #HealthIT #EHR #EpicEHR #HumanConnection #HealthcareTransformation #PatientCentered #MedicalTechnology #DigitalHealth #EmpathyInMedicine
nyulangone.org
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Dr. Paul Testa, Chief Health Informatics Officer who helped create the About Me Initiative at NYU Langone Health, and Dr. Katherine Hochman, Director of Hospital Medicine at NYU Langone Health, who envisioned the initiative, discuss the benefits of encouraging patients to provide non-medical information. The goal is to help care teams see patients as whole people beyond their diagnoses and to give patients an opportunity to share interests, hobbies, and fun facts that can help build trust and meaningful human connections. This About Me Initiative is being expanded from inpatient care to outpatient settings, such as infusion centers.
Paul explains, "The About Me section in our EHR Epic is something that NYU Langone developed with the inspiration of Dr. Hochman, and it's essentially a dedicated discreet space in the medical record to allow patients to declare themselves, allowing them to give them a space that is transparent to all the users of the electronic health record, which are many and vast in their rules. So let them articulate something beyond their disease process or their health. So often, we reduce records to pneumonia, a broken hip, or an infection. The patient is so much more than that, and patients want to share that with us. We know that from practicing for years, Kathy and I both know that the way you connect with patients is through a narrative. Our currency is narrative. This is a location where either a patient or, if they choose to defer, can have one of their nurses or care team members provide a small sample of who they are outside of the care environment."
Katherine elaborates, "So I'm a hospitalist. Every Tuesday, I come into 16 to 18 new patients. And at NYU Langone, our length of stay keeps getting shorter and shorter, which is fantastic for patients because we want to get them in and out of the hospital as quickly and as safely as possible. But by definition, if patients stay shorter and shorter, we don't have as much time to connect. So the About Me Initiative really kicks off that connection that Paul was talking about a second ago. So long ago, and this is how it started, I would tell my teams, slow down to speed up, get to know who this patient is before getting into the heart failure, the pneumonia, the COPD, and really try to establish a little bit of a connection and build trust."
#NYULangone #PatientVoices #PatientCare #HealthcareInnovation #PatientExperience #HealthIT #EHR #EpicEHR #HumanConnection #HealthcareTransformation #PatientCentered #MedicalTechnology #DigitalHealth #EmpathyInMedicine
nyulangone.org
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Dr. David Kirk, Chief Medical Officer at Regard, discusses the role and benefits of real-time clinical AI to help clinicians navigate patient charts and find critical information to prevent medication management errors and misdiagnoses. The Regard platform can also generate proactive documentation, allowing physicians to complete their documentation more accurately and efficiently, reducing note-bloat and the need for after-hours charting. One key goal of using AI is to free physicians to spend more time on the art of medicine, directly working with patients.
David explains, "So, Regard with real-time clinical artificial intelligence software, is helping clinicians propose the right diagnosis and information while they're working in the chart. Our mission is to make patient care as clear as possible. At the same time, we make sure that the doctors are getting the support they need so they can better support the patient. The charts of patients are getting bigger and bigger every year because more and more data is going into the charts. And as that happens, the really important thing that we as physicians need to find is diluted."
"Some research even suggests that maybe doctors are going to see 3% of the data that comes in in the chart when a patient comes into the hospital. As the physician, I'm trying to understand a patient's clinical story with only having access to three pages. Our goal is for artificial intelligence to find important information in that deep sea of data so the treatment team can make better decisions. Maybe you can correct the documentation. What that means is the physician is doing all the work in their natural workflow. We're not having to do prep work during downtime at home, and we're not trying to wrap up notes at night. We need the documentation to be done proactively in a way that is as accurate as possible for the patient at the time of care."
#Regard #HealthcareAI #DigitalHealth #MedicalTechnology #PatientCare #HealthTech #AIinMedicine #ClinicalDocumentation #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalAI #PhysicianSupport
Regard.com
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Dr. David Kirk, Chief Medical Officer at Regard, discusses the role and benefits of real-time clinical AI to help clinicians navigate patient charts and find critical information to prevent medication management errors and misdiagnoses. The Regard platform can also generate proactive documentation, allowing physicians to complete their documentation more accurately and efficiently, reducing note-bloat and the need for after-hours charting. One key goal of using AI is to free physicians to spend more time on the art of medicine, directly working with patients.
David explains, "So, Regard with real-time clinical artificial intelligence software, is helping clinicians propose the right diagnosis and information while they're working in the chart. Our mission is to make patient care as clear as possible. At the same time, we make sure that the doctors are getting the support they need so they can better support the patient. The charts of patients are getting bigger and bigger every year because more and more data is going into the charts. And as that happens, the really important thing that we as physicians need to find is diluted."
"Some research even suggests that maybe doctors are going to see 3% of the data that comes in in the chart when a patient comes into the hospital. As the physician, I'm trying to understand a patient's clinical story with only having access to three pages. Our goal is for artificial intelligence to find important information in that deep sea of data so the treatment team can make better decisions. Maybe you can correct the documentation. What that means is the physician is doing all the work in their natural workflow. We're not having to do prep work during downtime at home, and we're not trying to wrap up notes at night. We need the documentation to be done proactively in a way that is as accurate as possible for the patient at the time of care."
#Regard #HealthcareAI #DigitalHealth #MedicalTechnology #PatientCare #HealthTech #AIinMedicine #ClinicalDocumentation #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalAI #PhysicianSupport
Regard.com
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Daniel Hart, CEO of Sentact, describes the need to integrate technology, analytics, and services for hospitals and health systems to improve patient safety, patient outcomes, and regulatory readiness. One of Sentact's key goals is to help organizations gain insights from data to allow them to move from a reactive posture using lagging indicators to a proactive environment supported by AI and real-time data to generate early warning signals. Successful implementation of these insights also reduces operational costs and potentially eases clinician burnout.
Daniel explains, "Sentact is a healthcare technology, services, and analytics company. Three core pillars of our business are across tech analytics and services. We serve the hospital and health system market primarily, although we do have all types of healthcare organizations in our customer base. But as an example, a representative example, we service 60% of the top 20 health systems in the market with our solutions. And we are focused on patient safety, quality, experience, and regulatory readiness or compliance. That's the corner of healthcare in which we play."
"We offer a range of services through the combination of several companies over the last 12 to 18 months. And we're really excited about the integrated platform that we have compiled. And that platform extends from the credentialing function at a hospital to comprehensive rounding to support safety experience and compliance initiatives. It also includes clinical analytics to help manage provider performance and patient safety, to provide the necessary protections of safety information, and promote continuous learning."
#Sentact #HealthcareQuality #HealthcareTechnology #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #PatientExperience #PatientOutcomes #HealthcareAnalytics #ClinicalOperations #RegulatoryCompliance #HealthSystemManagement #RiskManagement #QualityOutcomes
Sentact.com
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Daniel Hart, CEO of Sentact, describes the need to integrate technology, analytics, and services for hospitals and health systems to improve patient safety, patient outcomes, and regulatory readiness. One of Sentact's key goals is to help organizations gain insights from data to allow them to move from a reactive posture using lagging indicators to a proactive environment supported by AI and real-time data to generate early warning signals. Successful implementation of these insights also reduces operational costs and potentially eases clinician burnout.
Daniel explains, "Sentact is a healthcare technology, services, and analytics company. Three core pillars of our business are across tech analytics and services. We serve the hospital and health system market primarily, although we do have all types of healthcare organizations in our customer base. But as an example, a representative example, we service 60% of the top 20 health systems in the market with our solutions. And we are focused on patient safety, quality, experience, and regulatory readiness or compliance. That's the corner of healthcare in which we play."
"We offer a range of services through the combination of several companies over the last 12 to 18 months. And we're really excited about the integrated platform that we have compiled. And that platform extends from the credentialing function at a hospital to comprehensive rounding to support safety experience and compliance initiatives. It also includes clinical analytics to help manage provider performance and patient safety, to provide the necessary protections of safety information, and promote continuous learning."
#Sentact #HealthcareQuality #HealthcareTechnology #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #PatientExperience #PatientOutcomes #HealthcareAnalytics #ClinicalOperations #RegulatoryCompliance #HealthSystemManagement #RiskManagement #QualityOutcomes
Sentact.com
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Matt Holland is Chief Operating Officer at Healio, a company that has been producing high-quality, vetted information for healthcare professionals for over 100 years. The company has focused on personalization of data as it has evolved from print to digital to AI-driven access to on-demand information. Healio AI is also transforming continuing medical education from a static activity to a dynamic, personalized experience based on real-time information gaps.
Matt explains, "We're a little bit unique in this space. We're family-owned and privately held, and have been for over a hundred years. So there are a lot of companies in this market right now that are not. So for decades, the focus has really been on developing and delivering quality information to healthcare professionals through all sorts of different channels. Obviously, prior to the internet, it started with good publications and journals. We also have a series of live meetings and conferences, but the primary focus really is the Healio AI, which we launched and evolved, and have been evolving, I should say, for the past 13 years or so."
"We just announced the Physician Advisory Board the other day. We just announced that physicians can get credit for CME and CV credits for their searches. And the reason why I mention that is physicians are no longer looking to necessarily read a full article or go into a deep dive on a particular topic. They're looking for an answer to a question they may have either prior to the point of care, during the point of care, or after. And we all know that their time is precious, and obviously, the issue of burnout is pretty pervasive. So, our goal is really to help make their lives simpler and improve the quality of their practice and the delivery of the care that they provide."
"We are a publishing news organization, and every day we develop 50-60 pieces of content from the FDA or from conferences or new studies that were released, and that's going into our model every 24 hours. So, there's sort of a deep dive substantive piece with the peer-reviewed and the journal content. There's a recency component to it with our news that goes into it, which makes the Healio AI a little bit different and we think unique, and I think balances and then hopefully more accurately and quickly addresses the questions that healthcare professionals have."
#Healio #HealioAI #DigitalHealth #HealthcareAI #GenAI #MedicalTechnology #HealthcareProfessionals #CME #PointOfCare #MedicalInformation #HealthTech #PhysicianBurnout #ContinuingEducation #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalJournalism #AIinHealthcare
Healio.com
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Matt Holland is Chief Operating Officer at Healio, a company that has been producing high-quality, vetted information for healthcare professionals for over 100 years. The company has focused on personalization of data as it has evolved from print to digital to AI-driven access to on-demand information. Healio AI is also transforming continuing medical education from a static activity to a dynamic, personalized experience based on real-time information gaps.
Matt explains, "We're a little bit unique in this space. We're family-owned and privately held, and have been for over a hundred years. So there are a lot of companies in this market right now that are not. So for decades, the focus has really been on developing and delivering quality information to healthcare professionals through all sorts of different channels. Obviously, prior to the internet, it started with good publications and journals. We also have a series of live meetings and conferences, but the primary focus really is the Healio AI, which we launched and evolved, and have been evolving, I should say, for the past 13 years or so."
"We just announced the Physician Advisory Board the other day. We just announced that physicians can get credit for CME and CV credits for their searches. And the reason why I mention that is physicians are no longer looking to necessarily read a full article or go into a deep dive on a particular topic. They're looking for an answer to a question they may have either prior to the point of care, during the point of care, or after. And we all know that their time is precious, and obviously, the issue of burnout is pretty pervasive. So, our goal is really to help make their lives simpler and improve the quality of their practice and the delivery of the care that they provide."
"We are a publishing news organization, and every day we develop 50-60 pieces of content from the FDA or from conferences or new studies that were released, and that's going into our model every 24 hours. So, there's sort of a deep dive substantive piece with the peer-reviewed and the journal content. There's a recency component to it with our news that goes into it, which makes the Healio AI a little bit different and we think unique, and I think balances and then hopefully more accurately and quickly addresses the questions that healthcare professionals have."
#Healio #HealioAI #DigitalHealth #HealthcareAI #GenAI #MedicalTechnology #HealthcareProfessionals #CME #PointOfCare #MedicalInformation #HealthTech #PhysicianBurnout #ContinuingEducation #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalJournalism #AIinHealthcare
Healio.com
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Ryan Clarke, Co-Founder and CTO of Syntax Bio, is focused on solving manufacturing challenges in producing stem cell-derived therapies, specifically the process of stem cell differentiation. The Cellgorithm platform was designed to make differentiation an engineering problem by using a modified form of CRISPR to turn genes on and off in a specific, controlled sequence, reducing processing time from months to days and resulting in cost savings. One goal is to use AI and machine learning to build models capable of predicting optimal gene regulation sequences accelerating the discovery of new differentiation protocols and treatments for degenerative diseases.
Ryan explains, "The key problem that we are focused on applies to stem cell-derived cell therapies. And so, just for a little bit of context setting, we use induced pluripotent stem cells or IPS cells. And about 20 years ago, when these were first derived, everybody was very excited because this is the platform where you could then have an infinite supply of stem cells to then make any tissue-specific cell type at will, theoretically. Fast forward 20 years, and there are finally some cell therapies in phase three clinical trials, but none are approved yet. And that just tells you that the development cycle for this modality is actually slower than the other modalities, like biologics or small molecules. And the problem is manufacturing in particular, or how do you convert the stem cell into the target tissue cell type for the process of stem cell differentiation? And so we are solely focused on making stem cell differentiation an engineering problem rather than a kind of dark art."
"We have a program for type one diabetes that is making pancreatic beta cells from IPS cells. And we have also done some work in the musculoskeletal system. So these other cell types we focus on are more demonstrations of the platform technology, but we are interested in possibly co-developing those with other pharmaceutical partners, and that's the musculoskeletal cells of the hematopoietic system. And we've done some work on retinal cells as well, but we endeavor to make many other cell types. And our goal is to partner with the therapeutic experts in the area to develop these."
#SyntaxBio #CellTherapy #CRISPR #StemCells #Biotech #RegenerativeMedicine #Diabetes #Manufacturing #Innovation #GeneTherapy #LifeSciences #Bioengineering #SyntheticBiology #CellProgramming
syntax-bio.com
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Ryan Clarke, Co-Founder and CTO of Syntax Bio, is focused on solving manufacturing challenges in producing stem cell-derived therapies, specifically the process of stem cell differentiation. The Cellgorithm platform was designed to make differentiation an engineering problem by using a modified form of CRISPR to turn genes on and off in a specific, controlled sequence, reducing processing time from months to days and resulting in cost savings. One goal is to use AI and machine learning to build models capable of predicting optimal gene regulation sequences accelerating the discovery of new differentiation protocols and treatments for degenerative diseases.
Ryan explains, "The key problem that we are focused on applies to stem cell-derived cell therapies. And so, just for a little bit of context setting, we use induced pluripotent stem cells or IPS cells. And about 20 years ago, when these were first derived, everybody was very excited because this is the platform where you could then have an infinite supply of stem cells to then make any tissue-specific cell type at will, theoretically. Fast forward 20 years, and there are finally some cell therapies in phase three clinical trials, but none are approved yet. And that just tells you that the development cycle for this modality is actually slower than the other modalities, like biologics or small molecules. And the problem is manufacturing in particular, or how do you convert the stem cell into the target tissue cell type for the process of stem cell differentiation? And so we are solely focused on making stem cell differentiation an engineering problem rather than a kind of dark art."
"We have a program for type one diabetes that is making pancreatic beta cells from IPS cells. And we have also done some work in the musculoskeletal system. So these other cell types we focus on are more demonstrations of the platform technology, but we are interested in possibly co-developing those with other pharmaceutical partners, and that's the musculoskeletal cells of the hematopoietic system. And we've done some work on retinal cells as well, but we endeavor to make many other cell types. And our goal is to partner with the therapeutic experts in the area to develop these."
#SyntaxBio #CellTherapy #CRISPR #StemCells #Biotech #RegenerativeMedicine #Diabetes #Manufacturing #Innovation #GeneTherapy #LifeSciences #Bioengineering #SyntheticBiology #CellProgramming
syntax-bio.com
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Dr. Daniel Sodickson is Chief Medical Scientist at Function Health and author of the new book, The Future of Seeing: How Imaging Is Changing Our World. Building on the drive to improve medical imaging, AI and neural networks are now reshaping image interpretation and how and what data are collected. This approach produces high-quality results with minimal additional data and is inspiring innovative scanning techniques and equipment design. The future of medical imaging is the everywhere scanner, enhancing a single-shot session with a large hospital machine with continuous health monitoring through wearables and devices integrated into everyday life.
Daniel explains, "One of the things that imaging can do is peel away all of the obscuring layers of skin or skull or whatever else there is, without having to make a single cut, and show us the inner workings, show us inner space, what's inside. I think that means being able to detect tumors early enough that they can be cured, to guide surgeries, to try to understand what normal anatomy is, and exactly when it turns abnormal. So I think the ability to see what was once invisible has become so much a part of medicine that it's almost hard to imagine it without it."
"There are many analogies between inner space and outer space, and between the tools we have built as humans over the millennia to inspect them. I guess what I'd say, though, is that somehow the inspection of inner space, that sort of medical imaging for understanding our health, is a little bit more intimate. It causes us to ask very personal questions like, " Am I okay? Are my kids okay? Am I normal? What is normal? I think when we look at other types of imaging, imaging the world around us, imaging the cosmos a great distance from us, there are also existential questions, but it's really more, where do I fit in the big picture? So I think in some ways medical imaging picks up where, say, astronomical imaging leaves off and leaves us wondering who we are and how we're built."
#DanielSodickson #FutureofSeeing #FunctionHealth #AIHealthcare #MedicalImaging #HealthTech #FunctionHealth #DigitalHealth #MRI #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEmpowerment #FutureOfMedicine #HealthcareAccessibility
functionhealth.com
The Future of Seeing: How Imaging Is Changing Our World
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Dr. Daniel Sodickson is Chief Medical Scientist at Function Health and author of the new book, The Future of Seeing: How Imaging Is Changing Our World. Building on the drive to improve medical imaging, AI and neural networks are now reshaping image interpretation and how and what data are collected. This approach produces high-quality results with minimal additional data and is inspiring innovative scanning techniques and equipment design. The future of medical imaging is the everywhere scanner, enhancing a single-shot session with a large hospital machine with continuous health monitoring through wearables and devices integrated into everyday life.
Daniel explains, "One of the things that imaging can do is peel away all of the obscuring layers of skin or skull or whatever else there is, without having to make a single cut, and show us the inner workings, show us inner space, what's inside. I think that means being able to detect tumors early enough that they can be cured, to guide surgeries, to try to understand what normal anatomy is, and exactly when it turns abnormal. So I think the ability to see what was once invisible has become so much a part of medicine that it's almost hard to imagine it without it."
"There are many analogies between inner space and outer space, and between the tools we have built as humans over the millennia to inspect them. I guess what I'd say, though, is that somehow the inspection of inner space, that sort of medical imaging for understanding our health, is a little bit more intimate. It causes us to ask very personal questions like, " Am I okay? Are my kids okay? Am I normal? What is normal? I think when we look at other types of imaging, imaging the world around us, imaging the cosmos a great distance from us, there are also existential questions, but it's really more, where do I fit in the big picture? So I think in some ways medical imaging picks up where, say, astronomical imaging leaves off and leaves us wondering who we are and how we're built."
#DanielSodickson #FutureofSeeing #FunctionHealth #AIHealthcare #MedicalImaging #HealthTech #FunctionHealth #DigitalHealth #MRI #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEmpowerment #FutureOfMedicine #HealthcareAccessibility
functionhealth.com
The Future of Seeing: How Imaging Is Changing Our World
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Dr. Howard Federoff, Scientific Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer, and Executive Vice President of Corporate Medicine and Science at Kenai Therapeutics, is developing a cell therapy for Parkinson's disease that involves transplanting IPSCs into the brain to replace lost dopamine neurons. The goal is not to cure the underlying cause of the disease, but to restore motor function and reverse the disease's progression. Initial clinical focus was on patients with moderate to moderate-severe idiopathic Parkinson's, showing efficacy and safety, leading to expanding the study to include earlier-stage and familial forms of the disease.
Howard explains, "Kenai was formed about three and a half years ago, and the intention is to develop a cellular product, which means that what is manufactured will be eligible in the right patient groups who have a diagnosis of Parkinson's to be placed into the brain. And consequent to its placement, the cells will then form new circuits, dopamine circuits that are lost owing to the disease diagnosis that will have occurred years earlier."
"The induced pluripotent stem cell approach is one we favor for several reasons. The nature of what then becomes the IPSC, as we like to call it, starts with a normal human volunteer whose medical history is very detailed and does not contain any familial personal history of neurodegeneration. That cell then undergoes a process called reprogramming. And in our case, it's done with a slightly different approach than many others. And the reprogramming effectively creates a cell that is pluripotent, meaning it can become any cell of the body. That's when it is designated as an induced pluripotent stem cell."
#KenaiTherapeutics #ParkinsonsDisease #CellTherapy #StemCells #Neuroscience #MedicalInnovation #ClinicalTrials #RegenerativeMedicine #Biotechnology #BioTech #AdvancedBiologics #NeurologicalDisorders #Neurology #DrugDevelopment
KenaiTx.com
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Dr. Howard Federoff, Scientific Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer, and Executive Vice President of Corporate Medicine and Science at Kenai Therapeutics, is developing a cell therapy for Parkinson's disease that involves transplanting IPSCs into the brain to replace lost dopamine neurons. The goal is not to cure the underlying cause of the disease, but to restore motor function and reverse the disease's progression. Initial clinical focus was on patients with moderate to moderate-severe idiopathic Parkinson's, showing efficacy and safety, leading to expanding the study to include earlier-stage and familial forms of the disease.
Howard explains, "Kenai was formed about three and a half years ago, and the intention is to develop a cellular product, which means that what is manufactured will be eligible in the right patient groups who have a diagnosis of Parkinson's to be placed into the brain. And consequent to its placement, the cells will then form new circuits, dopamine circuits that are lost owing to the disease diagnosis that will have occurred years earlier."
"The induced pluripotent stem cell approach is one we favor for several reasons. The nature of what then becomes the IPSC, as we like to call it, starts with a normal human volunteer whose medical history is very detailed and does not contain any familial personal history of neurodegeneration. That cell then undergoes a process called reprogramming. And in our case, it's done with a slightly different approach than many others. And the reprogramming effectively creates a cell that is pluripotent, meaning it can become any cell of the body. That's when it is designated as an induced pluripotent stem cell."
#KenaiTherapeutics #ParkinsonsDisease #CellTherapy #StemCells #Neuroscience #MedicalInnovation #ClinicalTrials #RegenerativeMedicine #Biotechnology #BioTech #AdvancedBiologics #NeurologicalDisorders #Neurology #DrugDevelopment
KenaiTx.com
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Brent Ness, CEO and President of Aclarion, highlights the challenges of diagnosing and treating chronic lower back pain, a leading driver of healthcare costs and opioid addiction. Traditional MRI and CT imaging do not reveal the biochemical source of pain within spinal discs, leading to misdiagnosis and unsuccessful treatment. The Aclarion technology uses MR spectroscopy to measure pain-causing biomarkers and, through a cloud-based, AI-powered SaaS model, analyzes the raw data and sends the physician a report within minutes.
Brent explains, "The diagnosis and accurate treatment planning of back pain are incredibly complex. And when you think about pain management physicians, rehab, all the way up to spine surgery identifying the source of pain accurately leads to better treatment and then obviously better outcomes.There are 266 million people around the world who suffer from chronic low back pain. So I'm not talking about the kind that you had a rough weekend skiing, golfing, or hiking, and you're a little sore. I'm talking about the kind that keeps people from participating in a meaningful life. "
"When you think about the joints and the sources of blood flow, the nerves that are all around your spinal cord, the vertebral columns, and there's just a lot of moving parts and a lot of really, let's just call it high-value real estate that can actually be the source of pain. And really, our superpower is to help physicians see the invisible. Meaning that normally when you go to the doctor, and they do a workup on you, they'll use an MRI or a CT scanner. And those modalities are really good at pinpointing anatomical issues that might be causing pain. What we do is we use MR spectroscopy, not to make a picture of your back, but rather to measure the biomarker content inside the discs that are invisible on a normal MRI. And as it turns out, what's inside your disc can actually be the source of pain."
#ACON #CLARITYtrial #lowbackpain #spinesurgery #MRSpectroscopy #Biomarkers #AugmentedIntelligence #innovation #ChronicPain #BackPain #MedicalTechnology #AI #HealthcareInnovation #SpineCare #MRI #PainManagement #DigitalHealth #Diagnostics #HealthTech #PatientCare
aclarion.com
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Brent Ness, CEO and President of Aclarion, highlights the challenges of diagnosing and treating chronic lower back pain, a leading driver of healthcare costs and opioid addiction. Traditional MRI and CT imaging do not reveal the biochemical source of pain within spinal discs, leading to misdiagnosis and unsuccessful treatment. The Aclarion technology uses MR spectroscopy to measure pain-causing biomarkers and, through a cloud-based, AI-powered SaaS model, analyzes the raw data and sends the physician a report within minutes.
Brent explains, "The diagnosis and accurate treatment planning of back pain are incredibly complex. And when you think about pain management physicians, rehab, all the way up to spine surgery identifying the source of pain accurately leads to better treatment and then obviously better outcomes.There are 266 million people around the world who suffer from chronic low back pain. So I'm not talking about the kind that you had a rough weekend skiing, golfing, or hiking, and you're a little sore. I'm talking about the kind that keeps people from participating in a meaningful life. "
"When you think about the joints and the sources of blood flow, the nerves that are all around your spinal cord, the vertebral columns, and there's just a lot of moving parts and a lot of really, let's just call it high-value real estate that can actually be the source of pain. And really, our superpower is to help physicians see the invisible. Meaning that normally when you go to the doctor, and they do a workup on you, they'll use an MRI or a CT scanner. And those modalities are really good at pinpointing anatomical issues that might be causing pain. What we do is we use MR spectroscopy, not to make a picture of your back, but rather to measure the biomarker content inside the discs that are invisible on a normal MRI. And as it turns out, what's inside your disc can actually be the source of pain."
#ACON #CLARITYtrial #lowbackpain #spinesurgery #MRSpectroscopy #Biomarkers #AugmentedIntelligence #innovation #ChronicPain #BackPain #MedicalTechnology #AI #HealthcareInnovation #SpineCare #MRI #PainManagement #DigitalHealth #Diagnostics #HealthTech #PatientCare
aclarion.com
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Dr. Alanna Morris-Simon, Senior Medical Director for US Medical Affairs at Bayer, describes the symptoms and diagnostics used to classify heart failure and the key at-risk populations for this condition. The rapidly evolving landscape of heart failure treatments now includes the Bayer drug KERENDIA, a non-steroidal MRA approved to reduce cardiovascular death and heart failure in adults with an ejection fraction of 40% or more. This drug is part of an emerging trend to treat multiple related conditions simultaneously and could prevent the onset of heart failure and treat established heart failure.
Alanna explains, "At a basic level, heart failure is a clinical syndrome, and that's important. I'm actually a heart failure cardiologist as well. And so this is important because patients have to have signs and symptoms. And those signs and symptoms really result from the heart being unable to either fill with blood properly or squeeze that blood out in a way that meets the body's demands. Either way, patients experience the same symptoms, and those include symptoms like swelling and weight gain, shortness of breath, either at rest or with activity, fatigue, abdominal swelling and bloating, loss of appetite, as well as other symptoms."
"If a doctor or a clinician suspects a diagnosis of heart failure, 99.99% of the time, they'll start by ordering an echocardiogram or a heart ultrasound. Of course, the guidelines tell us to get a chest X-ray, get labs, those sorts of things. But really, we make the diagnosis for the most part based on the results of an echocardiogram because that echocardiogram allows us to visualize how the heart is pumping. It allows us to classify the type of heart failure so that if we see that the squeeze of the heart is impaired, we call that heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. And that's when the ejection fraction or EF is 40% or less. If the EF is in the 41 to 49% range, we classify that as heart failure with mildly reduced ejection fraction. And if patients have an ejection fraction of 50% or greater, we call that heart failure with preserved ejection fraction or HFpEF."
"And we were excited that the FDA actually granted a priority review for KERENDIA because this really only occurs when the FDA recognizes that a treatment can fill a significant unmet need for a disease or a population of patients. And lo and behold, in July of 2025, finerenone was approved by the FDA under the trade name KERENDIA to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, hospitalization for heart failure, and urgent heart failure visits in adults with an ejection fraction of 40% or more."
#Bayer #Finerenone #Pharma #HeartFailure #HFpEF #HFmrEF #MRA #UnmetNeed #Cardiology #KERENDIA #FDA #CardiovascularHealth #MedicalBreakthrough #PatientCare #Innovation
Bayer.com
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Dr. Alanna Morris-Simon, Senior Medical Director for US Medical Affairs at Bayer, describes the symptoms and diagnostics used to classify heart failure and the key at-risk populations for this condition. The rapidly evolving landscape of heart failure treatments now includes the Bayer drug KERENDIA, a non-steroidal MRA approved to reduce cardiovascular death and heart failure in adults with an ejection fraction of 40% or more. This drug is part of an emerging trend to treat multiple related conditions simultaneously and could prevent the onset of heart failure and treat established heart failure.
Alanna explains, "At a basic level, heart failure is a clinical syndrome, and that's important. I'm actually a heart failure cardiologist as well. And so this is important because patients have to have signs and symptoms. And those signs and symptoms really result from the heart being unable to either fill with blood properly or squeeze that blood out in a way that meets the body's demands. Either way, patients experience the same symptoms, and those include symptoms like swelling and weight gain, shortness of breath, either at rest or with activity, fatigue, abdominal swelling and bloating, loss of appetite, as well as other symptoms."
"If a doctor or a clinician suspects a diagnosis of heart failure, 99.99% of the time, they'll start by ordering an echocardiogram or a heart ultrasound. Of course, the guidelines tell us to get a chest X-ray, get labs, those sorts of things. But really, we make the diagnosis for the most part based on the results of an echocardiogram because that echocardiogram allows us to visualize how the heart is pumping. It allows us to classify the type of heart failure so that if we see that the squeeze of the heart is impaired, we call that heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. And that's when the ejection fraction or EF is 40% or less. If the EF is in the 41 to 49% range, we classify that as heart failure with mildly reduced ejection fraction. And if patients have an ejection fraction of 50% or greater, we call that heart failure with preserved ejection fraction or HFpEF."
"And we were excited that the FDA actually granted a priority review for KERENDIA because this really only occurs when the FDA recognizes that a treatment can fill a significant unmet need for a disease or a population of patients. And lo and behold, in July of 2025, finerenone was approved by the FDA under the trade name KERENDIA to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, hospitalization for heart failure, and urgent heart failure visits in adults with an ejection fraction of 40% or more."
#Bayer #Finerenone #Pharma #HeartFailure #HFpEF #HFmrEF #MRA #UnmetNeed #Cardiology #KERENDIA #FDA #CardiovascularHealth #MedicalBreakthrough #PatientCare #Innovation
Bayer.com
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Steve Brown, Founder and CEO and Lisa Booth, Vice President of Operations of CureWise, are both cancer survivors, which led them to develop an AI-powered tumor board platform to advance cancer diagnoses and treatment. This approach to precision medicine provides patients with the opportunity to better understand their specific condition, educating them about possible courses of action that may be more appropriate than the standard of care. The platform also helps patients find relevant clinical trials and manage the side effects of their treatments.
Steve explains, "So the mission really is to harness AI to advance cancer care. And ultimately, for that reason, anybody who's touched by cancer is hopeful that we will be making more progress toward cures for cancer. And we believe that that's going to happen through precision medicine, which really means recognition that everybody's cancer is unique. And at some point, we're going to treat cancer that way because we're going to know enough about how it all works. We're going to be able to individualize care. So our mission is to advance that cause."
Lisa elaborates, "When Steve and I started working together, one of the things I said was that I needed a way as a patient to be able to access different perspectives of a radiologist, an interventional radiologist, a pathologist, a geneticist, an oncologist, etc. And I can get that in Seattle, but most of the people I work with can't, meaning the patients and my friends in the cancer community don't have access to that because they don't exist in their communities."
#CancerCare #AI #PrecisionMedicine #PatientEmpowerment #HealthTech #CancerSurvivors #DigitalHealth #Oncology #TumorBoard #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAdvocacy #PatientLedInnovation #CancerAndAI #TumorBoardTech #AIForPatients #SteveBrownAI #LisaBoothSurvivor #MedicalAutonomy #HealthTechWithHeart #NOfOneMedicine
curewise.com
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Steve Brown, Founder and CEO and Lisa Booth, Vice President of Operations of CureWise, are both cancer survivors, which led them to develop an AI-powered tumor board platform to advance cancer diagnoses and treatment. This approach to precision medicine provides patients with the opportunity to better understand their specific condition, educating them about possible courses of action that may be more appropriate than the standard of care. The platform also helps patients find relevant clinical trials and manage the side effects of their treatments.
Steve explains, "So the mission really is to harness AI to advance cancer care. And ultimately, for that reason, anybody who's touched by cancer is hopeful that we will be making more progress toward cures for cancer. And we believe that that's going to happen through precision medicine, which really means recognition that everybody's cancer is unique. And at some point, we're going to treat cancer that way because we're going to know enough about how it all works. We're going to be able to individualize care. So our mission is to advance that cause."
Lisa elaborates, "When Steve and I started working together, one of the things I said was that I needed a way as a patient to be able to access different perspectives of a radiologist, an interventional radiologist, a pathologist, a geneticist, an oncologist, etc. And I can get that in Seattle, but most of the people I work with can't, meaning the patients and my friends in the cancer community don't have access to that because they don't exist in their communities."
#CancerCare #AI #PrecisionMedicine #PatientEmpowerment #HealthTech #CancerSurvivors #DigitalHealth #Oncology #TumorBoard #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAdvocacy #PatientLedInnovation #CancerAndAI #TumorBoardTech #AIForPatients #SteveBrownAI #LisaBoothSurvivor #MedicalAutonomy #HealthTechWithHeart #NOfOneMedicine
curewise.com
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Nayla Chaijale, Medical Strategy Lead for Rare Syndromes at UCB, describes Dravet syndrome, a rare, medication-resistant epileptic encephalopathy that involves seizures and significant co-morbidities like cognitive and developmental delays. Their approved drug FINTEPLA has a unique mechanism of action that modulates pathways in the brain and has demonstrated a significant reduction in the frequency of convulsive seizures in those with this condition. Nayla notes that the good news is that most patients with Dravet syndrome have a mutation in the SCN1A gene, a critical biomarker that enables accurate diagnosis.
Nayla explains, "So, Dravet syndrome is a rare condition in epilepsy, and what we call it is neurodevelopmental and epileptic encephalopathy. I'm just going to call it DEEs, to say that it's a rare epileptic syndrome. Even though it's very rare, it's also very burdensome for the patients and their families. So, people living with these conditions start having the symptoms at a very early age, between two and 15 months of life. And it usually appears after a fever or a high temperature. And the symptoms are seizures that usually are long, prolonged seizures. It's not just about the seizures, it's also the other symptoms, such as potential cognitive delays and other developmental delays, problems with sleep, problems with behavior over time."
"The good news about Dravet syndrome is that there is a very well-established biomarker. So, there is a genetic test for it, for the gene code that is called SCN1A. And also, in science, we love to have acronyms, but really, it's related to a specific type of receptors or proteins that are in charge of neuronal transmission and communication, like in the neurons. And these are called sodium channel neurotransmitters. And there is a mutation of that gene that is very characteristic, around 90% of these patients will have that mutation of the gene. So, having that biomarker will give a very good indication to the healthcare provider that the person living with the conditions may have Dravet syndrome."
#UCB #DravetSyndrome #RareEpilepsy #FINTEPLA #Neuroscience #RareDiseases #EpilepsyAwareness #MedicalInnovation #PatientCare #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders #ClinicalTrials #RareDiseases
ucb.com
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Nayla Chaijale, Medical Strategy Lead for Rare Syndromes at UCB, describes Dravet syndrome, a rare, medication-resistant epileptic encephalopathy that involves seizures and significant co-morbidities like cognitive and developmental delays. Their approved drug FINTEPLA has a unique mechanism of action that modulates pathways in the brain and has demonstrated a significant reduction in the frequency of convulsive seizures in those with this condition. Nayla notes that the good news is that most patients with Dravet syndrome have a mutation in the SCN1A gene, a critical biomarker that enables accurate diagnosis.
Nayla explains, "So, Dravet syndrome is a rare condition in epilepsy, and what we call it is neurodevelopmental and epileptic encephalopathy. I'm just going to call it DEEs, to say that it's a rare epileptic syndrome. Even though it's very rare, it's also very burdensome for the patients and their families. So, people living with these conditions start having the symptoms at a very early age, between two and 15 months of life. And it usually appears after a fever or a high temperature. And the symptoms are seizures that usually are long, prolonged seizures. It's not just about the seizures, it's also the other symptoms, such as potential cognitive delays and other developmental delays, problems with sleep, problems with behavior over time."
"The good news about Dravet syndrome is that there is a very well-established biomarker. So, there is a genetic test for it, for the gene code that is called SCN1A. And also, in science, we love to have acronyms, but really, it's related to a specific type of receptors or proteins that are in charge of neuronal transmission and communication, like in the neurons. And these are called sodium channel neurotransmitters. And there is a mutation of that gene that is very characteristic, around 90% of these patients will have that mutation of the gene. So, having that biomarker will give a very good indication to the healthcare provider that the person living with the conditions may have Dravet syndrome."
#UCB #DravetSyndrome #RareEpilepsy #FINTEPLA #Neuroscience #RareDiseases #EpilepsyAwareness #MedicalInnovation #PatientCare #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders #ClinicalTrials #RareDiseases
ucb.com
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Vanessa Lemarié, Chief Operations Officer at myTomorrows, which is a platform for connecting patients, physicians, and clinical trial sponsors using a Trial Search AI tool designed to improve the accuracy of matching patients with suitable trials. The technology aims to speed up trial recruitment, increase diversity by reaching underserved populations, and ultimately shorten the drug development timeline. There is a particular focus on patients with no treatment options or who have not responded to current therapies.
Vanessa explains, "We are all about patients. First and foremost, we want to help patients know their options. Patients who turn to us either have no treatment options for their conditions or have exhausted the treatment options. They are looking for alternatives and insights into whether we can help them find, for example, a clinical trial. Physicians who treat those patients turn to us."
"And last but not least, we work with biopharma companies that plan and conduct clinical trials and that sponsor expanded access programs. And those are our clients. So we connect all of those stakeholders. In addition, we work very closely with representative groups of patients and patient advocacy groups to make sure that we are known and to make sure that we understand what specific patient groups might need from companies like ours. So we kind of connect the dots, I guess, and an otherwise somewhat siloed system sometimes, and consider ourselves a platform player. Think of us a little bit like, let's say, booking.com for clinical trials."
#myTomorrows #ClinicalTrials #HealthTech #PatientAccess #RareDiseases #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #Innovation #AI #PatientEmpowerment #Biotechnology #Pharma #MedicalResearch #HealthcareEquity #Technology
mytomorrows.com
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Vanessa Lemarié, Chief Operations Officer at myTomorrows, which is a platform for connecting patients, physicians, and clinical trial sponsors using a Trial Search AI tool designed to improve the accuracy of matching patients with suitable trials. The technology aims to speed up trial recruitment, increase diversity by reaching underserved populations, and ultimately shorten the drug development timeline. There is a particular focus on patients with no treatment options or who have not responded to current therapies.
Vanessa explains, "We are all about patients. First and foremost, we want to help patients know their options. Patients who turn to us either have no treatment options for their conditions or have exhausted the treatment options. They are looking for alternatives and insights into whether we can help them find, for example, a clinical trial. Physicians who treat those patients turn to us."
"And last but not least, we work with biopharma companies that plan and conduct clinical trials and that sponsor expanded access programs. And those are our clients. So we connect all of those stakeholders. In addition, we work very closely with representative groups of patients and patient advocacy groups to make sure that we are known and to make sure that we understand what specific patient groups might need from companies like ours. So we kind of connect the dots, I guess, and an otherwise somewhat siloed system sometimes, and consider ourselves a platform player. Think of us a little bit like, let's say, booking.com for clinical trials."
#myTomorrows #ClinicalTrials #HealthTech #PatientAccess #RareDiseases #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #Innovation #AI #PatientEmpowerment #Biotechnology #Pharma #MedicalResearch #HealthcareEquity #Technology
mytomorrows.com
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Paul Pruitt, Chief Growth Officer at SHARx, which is a company that partners with employers to provide access to drugs not covered by insurance, such as specialty medications. The SHARx model acts as a complementary service to existing Pharmacy Benefit Managers and allows employers to opt out of covering the most expensive drugs. Paul's personal experience managing his sons' rare condition and navigating the administrative burden and frustration of the insurance system gives him deep insights into the factors driving up the cost of medications.
Paul explains, "When we started SHARx eight years ago, the really highest cost biologics and what we call specialty medications were about 35% of the dollars that were being spent within a pharmacy program. And this year, we rarely see it under 50%. So it's really become a huge issue that we're noticing and realizing why many employers have to make the jump to do something different."
"The highest cost medications are 1% to 5% of how a plan is used on the pharmacy side, but it's 90% of the dollars. So we've seen a lot of employers say, "Hey, we really care about our employees. We want to offer great benefits, but if we can't stay in business or offer a plan at all, then what good is that?" So what changes can we make? And that's where they come to us and say, "Hey, we can't participate. We may not be able to cover these medications this way going forward, but because we care about our folks, we want them to have access more affordably." That's why they partner with SHARx so that we can deliver that type of service to their people after they've made that determination of what they can and cannot cover any longer."
#SHARx #PrescriptionDrugs #HealthcareCosts #PatientAdvocacy #HealthcareTransparency #PBMReform #SpecialtyPharmacy #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCentric #DrugPricing #HealthcareCrisis #RareDiseases
SHARxplan.com
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Paul Pruitt, Chief Growth Officer at SHARx, which is a company that partners with employers to provide access to drugs not covered by insurance, such as specialty medications. The SHARx model acts as a complementary service to existing Pharmacy Benefit Managers and allows employers to opt out of covering the most expensive drugs. Paul's personal experience managing his sons' rare condition and navigating the administrative burden and frustration of the insurance system gives him deep insights into the factors driving up the cost of medications.
Paul explains, "When we started SHARx eight years ago, the really highest cost biologics and what we call specialty medications were about 35% of the dollars that were being spent within a pharmacy program. And this year, we rarely see it under 50%. So it's really become a huge issue that we're noticing and realizing why many employers have to make the jump to do something different."
"The highest cost medications are 1% to 5% of how a plan is used on the pharmacy side, but it's 90% of the dollars. So we've seen a lot of employers say, "Hey, we really care about our employees. We want to offer great benefits, but if we can't stay in business or offer a plan at all, then what good is that?" So what changes can we make? And that's where they come to us and say, "Hey, we can't participate. We may not be able to cover these medications this way going forward, but because we care about our folks, we want them to have access more affordably." That's why they partner with SHARx so that we can deliver that type of service to their people after they've made that determination of what they can and cannot cover any longer."
#SHARx #PrescriptionDrugs #HealthcareCosts #PatientAdvocacy #HealthcareTransparency #PBMReform #SpecialtyPharmacy #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCentric #DrugPricing #HealthcareCrisis #RareDiseases
SHARxplan.com
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Dr. Marc Hedrick, President and CEO of Plus Therapeutics Inc., has expanded their focus from glioblastoma to leptomeningeal metastasis, a central nervous system cancer that is a growing challenge due to increased survival rates from primary cancers. Their highly sensitive, advanced diagnostic test, CNSide, can detect cancer cells in cerebrospinal fluid, addressing the shortcomings of imaging and outdated standard-of-care practices. Using AI and advanced data analytics, their lead drug candidate is uniquely suited for treating CNS cancers because its safety at high doses enables the precise delivery of radiation.
Marc explains, "Since we last talked and we discussed primarily the use of radiotherapeutics for the treatment of glioblastoma. We've expanded that pretty significantly into a disease called leptomeningeal metastasis. And I think we may have touched on that briefly, at least conceptually, a few years ago. But now it's really real. We've just completed a phase one trial, and we're expanding that with the goal of getting the drug approved, perhaps sooner than with glioblastoma, by focusing on leptomeningeal cancer, for which there's nothing approved. And maybe it would be a good idea to back up and explain a little bit about what that is, because there's an epidemic of it that's not commonly understood."
"So the central nervous system is a protected organ in the body. Now, I mean the brain and the spinal cord. And it's that way for a reason to keep bad things out. Things like infections, tumors, or certain chemical toxins. And that includes drugs. Only about 2% of all drugs get into the central nervous system, which is a problem from a therapeutic perspective. But there's an epidemic in terms of metastases to the brain and spinal cord. Let's call those the CNS collectively. And that's because many common tumors like breast cancer, lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, and melanoma are better controlled locally with drugs that don't have to worry about getting into the central nervous system. They just need to get into those specific organs and tissues and then exert control over the tumor where it occurred."
$PSTV #LM #CNS #Cancer #LeptomeningealMetastases #CNSide #BrainCancer #Oncology #Radiotherapeutics #MedicalInnovation #CancerResearch #Biotechnology #PatientCare #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation #CancerTreatment #Neuroscience #MedTech
plustherapeutics.com
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Dr. Marc Hedrick, President and CEO of Plus Therapeutics Inc., has expanded their focus from glioblastoma to leptomeningeal metastasis, a central nervous system cancer that is a growing challenge due to increased survival rates from primary cancers. Their highly sensitive, advanced diagnostic test, CNSide, can detect cancer cells in cerebrospinal fluid, addressing the shortcomings of imaging and outdated standard-of-care practices. Using AI and advanced data analytics, their lead drug candidate is uniquely suited for treating CNS cancers because its safety at high doses enables the precise delivery of radiation.
Marc explains, "Since we last talked and we discussed primarily the use of radiotherapeutics for the treatment of glioblastoma. We've expanded that pretty significantly into a disease called leptomeningeal metastasis. And I think we may have touched on that briefly, at least conceptually, a few years ago. But now it's really real. We've just completed a phase one trial, and we're expanding that with the goal of getting the drug approved, perhaps sooner than with glioblastoma, by focusing on leptomeningeal cancer, for which there's nothing approved. And maybe it would be a good idea to back up and explain a little bit about what that is, because there's an epidemic of it that's not commonly understood."
"So the central nervous system is a protected organ in the body. Now, I mean the brain and the spinal cord. And it's that way for a reason to keep bad things out. Things like infections, tumors, or certain chemical toxins. And that includes drugs. Only about 2% of all drugs get into the central nervous system, which is a problem from a therapeutic perspective. But there's an epidemic in terms of metastases to the brain and spinal cord. Let's call those the CNS collectively. And that's because many common tumors like breast cancer, lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, and melanoma are better controlled locally with drugs that don't have to worry about getting into the central nervous system. They just need to get into those specific organs and tissues and then exert control over the tumor where it occurred."
$PSTV #LM #CNS #Cancer #LeptomeningealMetastases #CNSide #BrainCancer #Oncology #Radiotherapeutics #MedicalInnovation #CancerResearch #Biotechnology #PatientCare #ClinicalTrials #HealthcareInnovation #CancerTreatment #Neuroscience #MedTech
plustherapeutics.com
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Kristy Yoskey, VP and Market Leader at PointClickCare, sees the evolution of demands of those living in senior living facilities from expecting basic housing to a desire for lifestyle choices, health services, and engagement in meaningful activities. On the facilities side, there is a shift from reactive to proactive care, where technology is used to monitor residents, identify behavioral changes, support clinical decision-making, and intervene early to prevent adverse events. In addition, the complexity of resident care is increasing, blurring the line between hospitality and healthcare and requiring greater care coordination and real-time updates for providers and family members.
Kristy explains, "We've seen a real shift within senior living, and this is sort of a passion of mine. Residents in senior living are not just looking for hospitality, a place to go, and a roof over their heads anymore. They want lifestyle. They want health, they want purpose in life, they want independence. So we've seen real shifts in acuity levels, which means complexity, care needs are shifting. And we're seeing families sort of wanting more transparency, real-time updates. COVID really shifted a lot of things post-2020, and senior living did not necessarily get past that."
"So they want to know that their loved one's not only safe, but they're also thriving, and they're receiving care. Residents want to know that someone's going to help coordinate their care and not just put them in an apartment and leave them alone. They're moving in for something that they need, some sort of help or something that is beyond what they can do in a community-type home. So the last thing I'll say here is that hospitality and healthcare have really become blurred in senior living since COVID. It's been a hot topic. We're seeing a lot more clinical services onsite and a lot more coordinated care happening. So the teams, the tools, all of that happening onsite within assisted independent memory care are now a necessity."
#PointClickCare ##SeniorLiving #HealthTech #AI #DigitalHealth #ElderCare #ResidentWellness #HealthcareInnovation #ProactiveCare #SeniorCare #PointClickCare #WellnessCoordination #HealthcareTransformation #AgingInPlace #ClinicalTechnology
pointclickcare.com
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Kristy Yoskey, VP and Market Leader at PointClickCare, sees the evolution of demands of those living in senior living facilities from expecting basic housing to a desire for lifestyle choices, health services, and engagement in meaningful activities. On the facilities side, there is a shift from reactive to proactive care, where technology is used to monitor residents, identify behavioral changes, support clinical decision-making, and intervene early to prevent adverse events. In addition, the complexity of resident care is increasing, blurring the line between hospitality and healthcare and requiring greater care coordination and real-time updates for providers and family members.
Kristy explains, "We've seen a real shift within senior living, and this is sort of a passion of mine. Residents in senior living are not just looking for hospitality, a place to go, and a roof over their heads anymore. They want lifestyle. They want health, they want purpose in life, they want independence. So we've seen real shifts in acuity levels, which means complexity, care needs are shifting. And we're seeing families sort of wanting more transparency, real-time updates. COVID really shifted a lot of things post-2020, and senior living did not necessarily get past that."
"So they want to know that their loved one's not only safe, but they're also thriving, and they're receiving care. Residents want to know that someone's going to help coordinate their care and not just put them in an apartment and leave them alone. They're moving in for something that they need, some sort of help or something that is beyond what they can do in a community-type home. So the last thing I'll say here is that hospitality and healthcare have really become blurred in senior living since COVID. It's been a hot topic. We're seeing a lot more clinical services onsite and a lot more coordinated care happening. So the teams, the tools, all of that happening onsite within assisted independent memory care are now a necessity."
#PointClickCare ##SeniorLiving #HealthTech #AI #DigitalHealth #ElderCare #ResidentWellness #HealthcareInnovation #ProactiveCare #SeniorCare #PointClickCare #WellnessCoordination #HealthcareTransformation #AgingInPlace #ClinicalTechnology
pointclickcare.com
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Sarah Smith, Qualitative Specialist and Global Behavioral Science Strategy Lead at Oracle Life Sciences, is focused on the critical role of behavioral science in improving recruitment and retention in clinical trials. Oracle Life Sciences is working to address historical underrepresentation in clinical trials by combining behavioral insights with integrated technologies to identify at-risk populations and understand barriers to participation. Using nudges to encourage trial participation, conducting decentralized trials, and applying AI to reshape patient engagement are strong tools for building trust and improving accessibility.
Sarah explains, "Behavioral science is about understanding behavior. It draws from a number of disciplines like psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics. But what it tells us is that people aren't rational. They don't always do the things that we expect them to do. So if we want to engage people, if we want to engage them properly, if we want to ensure that all the things we do are equitable and have an equal playing field, then we need to really understand why people do the things they do and to try and help us make sense of that in a way that encompasses everybody."
"We see treatment and technology advancing, but there are many communities that aren't part of that still, that are underrepresented. Factors like gender, ethnicity, culture, conditions that carry a stigma, socioeconomic issues, and geographic limitations - all of these things can limit the opportunity, ability, and willingness of individuals to participate in clinical trials. And that means the impact of those trials is less generalizable because those people are not represented. They're just simply not there. So the treatment that is aimed at these people is not measured in those groups. Oracle is working to address this by combining a deeper understanding of behavior with integrated technology to try to close this gap in representation to give more inclusive patient-centered care that unifies clinical, behavioral, and safety data across settings. To give a more holistic view, to give more coordinated care, to identify risks earlier, to identify patients that perhaps just need a bit more attention - a more personalized engagement."
#OracleLifeSciences #lifesciences #ClinicalResearch #PatientCentricity #PatientEngagement #ClinicalTrials #Healthliteracy #BehavioralScience #HealthEquity #AI #Healthcare #Diversity #Inclusion #MedicalResearch #Innovation
Oracle.com/life-sciences
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Sarah Smith, Qualitative Specialist and Global Behavioral Science Strategy Lead at Oracle Life Sciences, is focused on the critical role of behavioral science in improving recruitment and retention in clinical trials. Oracle Life Sciences is working to address historical underrepresentation in clinical trials by combining behavioral insights with integrated technologies to identify at-risk populations and understand barriers to participation. Using nudges to encourage trial participation, conducting decentralized trials, and applying AI to reshape patient engagement are strong tools for building trust and improving accessibility.
Sarah explains, "Behavioral science is about understanding behavior. It draws from a number of disciplines like psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics. But what it tells us is that people aren't rational. They don't always do the things that we expect them to do. So if we want to engage people, if we want to engage them properly, if we want to ensure that all the things we do are equitable and have an equal playing field, then we need to really understand why people do the things they do and to try and help us make sense of that in a way that encompasses everybody."
"We see treatment and technology advancing, but there are many communities that aren't part of that still, that are underrepresented. Factors like gender, ethnicity, culture, conditions that carry a stigma, socioeconomic issues, and geographic limitations - all of these things can limit the opportunity, ability, and willingness of individuals to participate in clinical trials. And that means the impact of those trials is less generalizable because those people are not represented. They're just simply not there. So the treatment that is aimed at these people is not measured in those groups. Oracle is working to address this by combining a deeper understanding of behavior with integrated technology to try to close this gap in representation to give more inclusive patient-centered care that unifies clinical, behavioral, and safety data across settings. To give a more holistic view, to give more coordinated care, to identify risks earlier, to identify patients that perhaps just need a bit more attention - a more personalized engagement."
#OracleLifeSciences #lifesciences #ClinicalResearch #PatientCentricity #PatientEngagement #ClinicalTrials #Healthliteracy #BehavioralScience #HealthEquity #AI #Healthcare #Diversity #Inclusion #MedicalResearch #Innovation
Oracle.com/life-sciences
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Dr. Josh Eloge, Associate Director for the Woman's Board Treatment Research Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Rush University Medical Center, and Founder of Connected Neuroscience has a focus on treatment-resistant depression which is defined as depression that is not relieved by at least two first-line medications. Research has identified that TRD is associated with hyperactivity in a specific brain region, shifting attention from a chemical view of depression to a neurobiological one. Research on deep-brain stimulation and implantable technology is demonstrating neuromodulation and reductions in hyperactivity.
Josh explains, "So depression, kind of a low mood, is something that is universally experienced, right? It's part of the human condition to a certain extent. However, when a low mood persists for most of the time and is accompanied by problems with being able to enjoy things, disruptions in sleep, appetite, or even thoughts about life not being worth living, one might be experiencing something called a major depressive episode, part of a major depressive disorder. And this is a specific psychiatric disorder that requires attention. Frankly, there are poor outcomes associated with this. About one in five Americans will experience a major depressive episode at some time in their life, so it's a little bit more common than people might think, and there are some effective treatments. So in my work, both seeing patients and in the research that I do here at Rush, we're looking at major depressive episode and trying to think how can we best treat this disorder to get people back to being able to enjoy things that they like to do, being with their family, have meaningful work, these sorts of things."
"However, the research also shows that about a third of patients who try these different medications don't ultimately get the response that we are hoping for. And this has been termed treatment-resistant depression - when you try at least two of these first-line medications, but the symptoms are still present, and this is where a lot of the research that we've been working on in this specific population has been focused on."
#ConnectedNeuroscience #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #DeepBrainStimulation #TreatmentResistantDepression #MedicalResearch #Innovation #RushUniversity #BrainHealth #ClinicalTrials #Psychiatry #NeuroModulation #DBS #TRANSCENDstudy #TRD
connectedneuroscience.com
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Dr. Josh Eloge, Associate Director for the Woman's Board Treatment Research Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Rush University Medical Center, and Founder of Connected Neuroscience has a focus on treatment-resistant depression which is defined as depression that is not relieved by at least two first-line medications. Research has identified that TRD is associated with hyperactivity in a specific brain region, shifting attention from a chemical view of depression to a neurobiological one. Research on deep-brain stimulation and implantable technology is demonstrating neuromodulation and reductions in hyperactivity.
Josh explains, "So depression, kind of a low mood, is something that is universally experienced, right? It's part of the human condition to a certain extent. However, when a low mood persists for most of the time and is accompanied by problems with being able to enjoy things, disruptions in sleep, appetite, or even thoughts about life not being worth living, one might be experiencing something called a major depressive episode, part of a major depressive disorder. And this is a specific psychiatric disorder that requires attention. Frankly, there are poor outcomes associated with this. About one in five Americans will experience a major depressive episode at some time in their life, so it's a little bit more common than people might think, and there are some effective treatments. So in my work, both seeing patients and in the research that I do here at Rush, we're looking at major depressive episode and trying to think how can we best treat this disorder to get people back to being able to enjoy things that they like to do, being with their family, have meaningful work, these sorts of things."
"However, the research also shows that about a third of patients who try these different medications don't ultimately get the response that we are hoping for. And this has been termed treatment-resistant depression - when you try at least two of these first-line medications, but the symptoms are still present, and this is where a lot of the research that we've been working on in this specific population has been focused on."
#ConnectedNeuroscience #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #DeepBrainStimulation #TreatmentResistantDepression #MedicalResearch #Innovation #RushUniversity #BrainHealth #ClinicalTrials #Psychiatry #NeuroModulation #DBS #TRANSCENDstudy #TRD
connectedneuroscience.com
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Dr. Eugene Manley, biomedical scientist turned social impact leader and Founder and CEO of the STEMM & Cancer Health Equity Foundation, is focused on increasing STEMM workforce diversity and improving outcomes for underserved cancer patients. He highlights the lack of diversity in foundational lung cancer research and the need to expand the number of cell lines being included to develop more effective therapies. Eugene also raises concerns about barriers to clinical trial participation and the need to engage local community partners and AI to raise awareness and improve accessibility.
Eugene explains, "The SCHEQ Foundation, which is a short name for STEMM and Cancer Health Equity, is tasked with working to increase STEMM workforce diversity and improve outcomes for underserved patients navigating the cancer care continuum. This is done broadly through trying to increase STEMM access and exposure, mentorship and training programs to help students navigate career transitions, and providing information and resources to underserved patients to help them navigate and access the care they're entitled to."
"There are many paths into the medical field now. If you're trying to do particularly applied research or do things that directly impact patient outcomes, then yes, you might want to go more of a technical path. But as we mentioned, AI is the new thing on the block. It's a lot of looking at trends, variances, and differences in data, and then you can use that to predict how things may act or behave. However, the downside of this is that the data is often based on one population, one race, or ethnicity, which makes it harder to broadly generalize these results. So that's a lot of the challenges that we're seeing right now."
#SCHEQ #HealthEquity #STEMM #CancerResearch #DiversityInScience #BiomedicalResearch #ClinicalTrials #LungCancer #HealthDisparities #MedicalInnovation #SocialImpact #HealthcareAccess #PrecisionMedicine
scheq.org
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Dr. Eugene Manley, biomedical scientist turned social impact leader and Founder and CEO of the STEMM & Cancer Health Equity Foundation, is focused on increasing STEMM workforce diversity and improving outcomes for underserved cancer patients. He highlights the lack of diversity in foundational lung cancer research and the need to expand the number of cell lines being included to develop more effective therapies. Eugene also raises concerns about barriers to clinical trial participation and the need to engage local community partners and AI to raise awareness and improve accessibility.
Eugene explains, "The SCHEQ Foundation, which is a short name for STEMM and Cancer Health Equity, is tasked with working to increase STEMM workforce diversity and improve outcomes for underserved patients navigating the cancer care continuum. This is done broadly through trying to increase STEMM access and exposure, mentorship and training programs to help students navigate career transitions, and providing information and resources to underserved patients to help them navigate and access the care they're entitled to."
"There are many paths into the medical field now. If you're trying to do particularly applied research or do things that directly impact patient outcomes, then yes, you might want to go more of a technical path. But as we mentioned, AI is the new thing on the block. It's a lot of looking at trends, variances, and differences in data, and then you can use that to predict how things may act or behave. However, the downside of this is that the data is often based on one population, one race, or ethnicity, which makes it harder to broadly generalize these results. So that's a lot of the challenges that we're seeing right now."
#SCHEQ #HealthEquity #STEMM #CancerResearch #DiversityInScience #BiomedicalResearch #ClinicalTrials #LungCancer #HealthDisparities #MedicalInnovation #SocialImpact #HealthcareAccess #PrecisionMedicine
scheq.org
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Ro Wickramasinghe, Vice President and Head of Global Business at Pi Health, identifies fundamental problems plaguing clinical trials, including operational inefficiencies and limited access to trials. Pi Health is addressing these challenges by developing an integrated software platform for clinical trial sponsors, sites, and patients and partnering with community-based cancer treatment centers worldwide. The company has built a hospital in India to serve as a living laboratory to test and refine its model to democratize access and increase the ethnic diversity of trial participants.
Ro explains, "I think the challenge has always been, from a pharma-biotech perspective, is to find patients, but, from the other perspective, its patients participating in trials and being able to find clinical trials. So a lot of stats get bandied around, but despite many eligible patients, the percentage of eligible patients who actually end up in a clinical trial is really small. It's like 5% to 8%, so not a huge amount. I think that's kind of one problem."
"So we have it in chicken and egg scenario where we as a company develop clinical trial software, but when ultimately the vision for us is for that to really become the standard of care and really make trials more efficient for the clinicians that treat the patients and run the trials for these pharma companies and biotech companies that develop the drugs and sponsor the study."
"But having said that, I think to run lots of studies, what we decided to do was to build our own cancer hospital in India. And the beauty of that is that it is fully vertically integrated at the point of care. So the data gets captured on those patients in FICS, which is the software we've developed and then we can run trials. We have run trials for pharma and biotech at that site using our software. So it was, I guess, one of the quicker ways to test the software in a real-world environment and also getting lots of data on FICS and how it can benefit patients from the point of care to being on trials."
#PiHealth #ClinicalTrials #HealthTech #CancerResearch #Innovation #DigitalHealth #PharmaTech #PatientAccess #MedTech #Healthcare #ClinicalResearch #GlobalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #India
Pihealth.ai
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Ro Wickramasinghe, Vice President and Head of Global Business at Pi Health, identifies fundamental problems plaguing clinical trials, including operational inefficiencies and limited access to trials. Pi Health is addressing these challenges by developing an integrated software platform for clinical trial sponsors, sites, and patients and partnering with community-based cancer treatment centers worldwide. The company has built a hospital in India to serve as a living laboratory to test and refine its model to democratize access and increase the ethnic diversity of trial participants.
Ro explains, "I think the challenge has always been, from a pharma-biotech perspective, is to find patients, but, from the other perspective, its patients participating in trials and being able to find clinical trials. So a lot of stats get bandied around, but despite many eligible patients, the percentage of eligible patients who actually end up in a clinical trial is really small. It's like 5% to 8%, so not a huge amount. I think that's kind of one problem."
"So we have it in chicken and egg scenario where we as a company develop clinical trial software, but when ultimately the vision for us is for that to really become the standard of care and really make trials more efficient for the clinicians that treat the patients and run the trials for these pharma companies and biotech companies that develop the drugs and sponsor the study."
"But having said that, I think to run lots of studies, what we decided to do was to build our own cancer hospital in India. And the beauty of that is that it is fully vertically integrated at the point of care. So the data gets captured on those patients in FICS, which is the software we've developed and then we can run trials. We have run trials for pharma and biotech at that site using our software. So it was, I guess, one of the quicker ways to test the software in a real-world environment and also getting lots of data on FICS and how it can benefit patients from the point of care to being on trials."
#PiHealth #ClinicalTrials #HealthTech #CancerResearch #Innovation #DigitalHealth #PharmaTech #PatientAccess #MedTech #Healthcare #ClinicalResearch #GlobalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #India
Pihealth.ai
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Paul Goode, President and CEO of Glucotrack, discusses the evolution and future of continuous glucose and continuous blood glucose monitoring for people with diabetes, as well as opportunities for implantable CMG monitors. In addition to convenience and comfort, the Glucotrack implantable CGM monitor is designed to be more accurate and measure blood glucose. This approach eliminates the lag time associated with wearable CGMs that measure interstitial fluid, enabling faster, more effective treatment decisions.
Paul explains, "When you look at the market penetration of CGM in the US, even for those who are covered with insurance, because it is a standard of care in a large portion of patients with diabetes, it's still only a little over 50%. And when you try to understand why, it's because the technology works well, it's pretty accurate, and it helps patients. Market research shows that it's a collection of various reasons."
"When we realized that a large majority of the problems with use of current CGMs, whether people are using them, or people don't want to use them, a lot of these, let's call them hassle factors or discomfort factors, were because it was a wearable product. So we said, well, let's go inside the body, and that resolves almost all of those types of problems."
"Then we said, well, if we're in the body, we can also measure the glucose that's in the blood, actually measure blood glucose. Most folks don't realize that many do, but many don't, that CGM, the wearable CGMs, measure the interstitial fluid and not the actual blood glucose. And typically that's not a problem. There is a time lag between blood glucose and interstitial fluid, with interstitial fluid lagging behind anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. But that's usually only a problem during rapid rates of change, for example, when one is eating, exercising, or sick. "
#Glucotrack #DiabetesTech #MedicalDevices #ContinuousGlucoseMonitoring #HealthcareInnovation #DiabetesManagement #ImplantableTech #BloodGlucose #CGM #MedTech #DiabetesCare #HealthTech
glucotrack.com
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Paul Goode, President and CEO of Glucotrack, discusses the evolution and future of continuous glucose and continuous blood glucose monitoring for people with diabetes, as well as opportunities for implantable CMG monitors. In addition to convenience and comfort, the Glucotrack implantable CGM monitor is designed to be more accurate and measure blood glucose. This approach eliminates the lag time associated with wearable CGMs that measure interstitial fluid, enabling faster, more effective treatment decisions.
Paul explains, "When you look at the market penetration of CGM in the US, even for those who are covered with insurance, because it is a standard of care in a large portion of patients with diabetes, it's still only a little over 50%. And when you try to understand why, it's because the technology works well, it's pretty accurate, and it helps patients. Market research shows that it's a collection of various reasons."
"When we realized that a large majority of the problems with use of current CGMs, whether people are using them, or people don't want to use them, a lot of these, let's call them hassle factors or discomfort factors, were because it was a wearable product. So we said, well, let's go inside the body, and that resolves almost all of those types of problems."
"Then we said, well, if we're in the body, we can also measure the glucose that's in the blood, actually measure blood glucose. Most folks don't realize that many do, but many don't, that CGM, the wearable CGMs, measure the interstitial fluid and not the actual blood glucose. And typically that's not a problem. There is a time lag between blood glucose and interstitial fluid, with interstitial fluid lagging behind anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. But that's usually only a problem during rapid rates of change, for example, when one is eating, exercising, or sick. "
#Glucotrack #DiabetesTech #MedicalDevices #ContinuousGlucoseMonitoring #HealthcareInnovation #DiabetesManagement #ImplantableTech #BloodGlucose #CGM #MedTech #DiabetesCare #HealthTech
glucotrack.com
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Ben Backus, Chief Science Officer, and James Blaha, CEO and Founder of Vivid Vision, discuss their work addressing binocular dysfunctions and improving visual field testing. Their innovative visual test uses a consumer-grade VR headset to deliver a gamified, less stressful, more engaging experience for patients, encouraging longer, more frequent testing. This approach also improves dataset precision and overcomes barriers in clinical trials for new therapeutics for diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, potentially accelerating the development of vision-saving treatments.
Ben explains, "Vivid Vision addresses two conditions. One of them is binocular dysfunctions, which include conditions like amblyopia, strabismus, and convergence insufficiency. And the other one that we're really focusing strongly on now is visual field testing, which is especially important to use for monitoring people who have glaucoma. It also gets used for screening tests for glaucoma, and it's an especially important part of getting new therapeutics approved for any medication that is going to try to preserve your sight. That includes macular degeneration, a particular flavor of macular degeneration, degeneration called geographic atrophy, inherited retinal diseases, diabetic retinopathy, and stroke. It's the visual field test that we are putting the majority of our effort into, but we still also treat binocular dysfunction."
James elaborates, "I originally got started, I guess, because I grew up with some binocular vision disorders. I had a lazy eye and a crossed eye, also known as strabismus and amblyopia. And I had kind of the traditional experience as a kid where I was not cooperative with the treatments, wearing my eye patch, and doing eye exercises, and that sort of thing. And I wasn't successfully treated as a kid. About 60% of the time, that's the case in the US, where kids are not successfully treated for conditions. Then, when I was older, in my mid-twenties, I got interested in this topic through a TED talk by a neuroscientist, Sue Barry. That ultimately caused me to make the first prototypes, and I was able to gain 3D vision depth perception from some of those first prototypes. And that's ultimately what caused us to start the company."
#VividVision #VRHealthcare #EyeHealth #MedicalTechnology #DigitalHealth #VisionTesting #Innovation #Glaucoma #MacularDegeneration #Amblyopia #HealthTech #VirtualReality #PatientCare #EarlyDetection #ClinicalTrials
seevividly.com
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Ben Backus, Chief Science Officer, and James Blaha, CEO and Founder of Vivid Vision, discuss their work addressing binocular dysfunctions and improving visual field testing. Their innovative visual test uses a consumer-grade VR headset to deliver a gamified, less stressful, more engaging experience for patients, encouraging longer, more frequent testing. This approach also improves dataset precision and overcomes barriers in clinical trials for new therapeutics for diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, potentially accelerating the development of vision-saving treatments.
Ben explains, "Vivid Vision addresses two conditions. One of them is binocular dysfunctions, which include conditions like amblyopia, strabismus, and convergence insufficiency. And the other one that we're really focusing strongly on now is visual field testing, which is especially important to use for monitoring people who have glaucoma. It also gets used for screening tests for glaucoma, and it's an especially important part of getting new therapeutics approved for any medication that is going to try to preserve your sight. That includes macular degeneration, a particular flavor of macular degeneration, degeneration called geographic atrophy, inherited retinal diseases, diabetic retinopathy, and stroke. It's the visual field test that we are putting the majority of our effort into, but we still also treat binocular dysfunction."
James elaborates, "I originally got started, I guess, because I grew up with some binocular vision disorders. I had a lazy eye and a crossed eye, also known as strabismus and amblyopia. And I had kind of the traditional experience as a kid where I was not cooperative with the treatments, wearing my eye patch, and doing eye exercises, and that sort of thing. And I wasn't successfully treated as a kid. About 60% of the time, that's the case in the US, where kids are not successfully treated for conditions. Then, when I was older, in my mid-twenties, I got interested in this topic through a TED talk by a neuroscientist, Sue Barry. That ultimately caused me to make the first prototypes, and I was able to gain 3D vision depth perception from some of those first prototypes. And that's ultimately what caused us to start the company."
#VividVision #VRHealthcare #EyeHealth #MedicalTechnology #DigitalHealth #VisionTesting #Innovation #Glaucoma #MacularDegeneration #Amblyopia #HealthTech #VirtualReality #PatientCare #EarlyDetection #ClinicalTrials
seevividly.com
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Erez Druk, CEO of Freed, was motivated to bring technology to the healthcare environment based on his wife's experience as a family medicine doctor. Freed was founded to alleviate the provider's administrative burdens by leveraging AI to streamline pre-visit preparation, billing, and EHR maintenance. The focus is on small and rural private practices, giving them tools to save time, reduce costs, and maintain their independence.
Erez explains, "So the need that I identified, together with my wife Gabi, was that clinicians need more time in their lives. They want to spend less time on this admin work and more time again with their patients and families. And that was it, thinking about how we can use these new technologies and feel better products that really take care of that, help clinicians be happier and freer, hence the name Freed. Yes, super proud now to be supporting more than 25,000 clinicians who will use Freed to do a lot of this work for them. So that's how the need was identified for years of watching the pain, let's say."
"But my background is, so I studied mathematics and computer science back in Israel. So I'm originally from Israel. In the Technion, we like to think of Technion as the MIT of Israel. So I studied there as an undergrad, and then I moved to the Bay Area to work for Facebook as an engineer. I was very lucky to start on the same day on the same team with this guy named Andrey, who, 10 years later, after lots of convincing, is my co-founder and CTO. So he is the real technical brain behind what we're doing here. So I worked as an engineer and tech lead at Facebook, and then I started working in my first startup called UrbanLeap."
"And with EHR integration- I'm going a bit into the weeds here- but EHR integration is a big problem in healthcare that is mostly unsolved. So, we built an agent, which we call "EHR Push," that goes into the EHR and, like a human, finds the right fields, navigates to the right places, and puts the note and everything in the EHR for the clinician. And it's working amazingly. It saves clinicians a lot of time. And that's another example of how we apply this agentic AI to solve more and more complex problems for the clinician, keep it simple, and just save as much time as we can for clinicians."
#FreedAI #AIscribes #HealthcareAI #ClinicianBurnout #HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #MedicalDocumentation #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PhysicianWellness #HealthcareEfficiency #MedTech
GetFreed.AI
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Erez Druk, CEO of Freed, was motivated to bring technology to the healthcare environment based on his wife's experience as a family medicine doctor. Freed was founded to alleviate the provider's administrative burdens by leveraging AI to streamline pre-visit preparation, billing, and EHR maintenance. The focus is on small and rural private practices, giving them tools to save time, reduce costs, and maintain their independence.
Erez explains, "So the need that I identified, together with my wife Gabi, was that clinicians need more time in their lives. They want to spend less time on this admin work and more time again with their patients and families. And that was it, thinking about how we can use these new technologies and feel better products that really take care of that, help clinicians be happier and freer, hence the name Freed. Yes, super proud now to be supporting more than 25,000 clinicians who will use Freed to do a lot of this work for them. So that's how the need was identified for years of watching the pain, let's say."
"But my background is, so I studied mathematics and computer science back in Israel. So I'm originally from Israel. In the Technion, we like to think of Technion as the MIT of Israel. So I studied there as an undergrad, and then I moved to the Bay Area to work for Facebook as an engineer. I was very lucky to start on the same day on the same team with this guy named Andrey, who, 10 years later, after lots of convincing, is my co-founder and CTO. So he is the real technical brain behind what we're doing here. So I worked as an engineer and tech lead at Facebook, and then I started working in my first startup called UrbanLeap."
"And with EHR integration- I'm going a bit into the weeds here- but EHR integration is a big problem in healthcare that is mostly unsolved. So, we built an agent, which we call "EHR Push," that goes into the EHR and, like a human, finds the right fields, navigates to the right places, and puts the note and everything in the EHR for the clinician. And it's working amazingly. It saves clinicians a lot of time. And that's another example of how we apply this agentic AI to solve more and more complex problems for the clinician, keep it simple, and just save as much time as we can for clinicians."
#FreedAI #AIscribes #HealthcareAI #ClinicianBurnout #HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #MedicalDocumentation #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PhysicianWellness #HealthcareEfficiency #MedTech
GetFreed.AI
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Mary Kelly Jagim, principal consultant at CenTrak, describes the role and benefits of real-time location services (RTLS) and how indoor GPS can improve facility management, patient safety, and staff morale. The use of RTLS in the development of smart hospitals helps mitigate staff burnout by reducing time-wasting tasks, such as searching for equipment, and by providing safety features like badge access and tracking. This technology is also being used to enhance the human touch in the clinical setting by providing more accurate, real-time patient location information and updates to clinical staff and family members.
Mary explains, "So, let's say we're talking about a medium to large hospital with lots of people in the building, lots of equipment in the building, lots of things that they might be able to leverage real-time location systems for. And so those organizations are generally looking for a formal deal. They want to be able to keep track of equipment, and they want to provide a safe environment with a security solution for their staff. They might also want to look at safety around hand hygiene, so they're seeking a solution to make sure staff are washing their hands. We also might be looking at medication and other safety measures through environmental monitoring that we can provide. And then, in addition to that, they might be looking at getting into integration with their electronic health record and be able to incorporate patient flow."
"RTLS-enabled patient flow ensures they can always see the actual location of their patients. Traditionally, they're used for seeing the assigned room, but that might not actually be where the patient is at that point in time. So, we can offer things like that, and that can be a real patient experience satisfier. And then you can also help with electronic health record integration, we can help them to capture major milestone pieces. "
#HealthTech #SmartHospitals #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #RTLS #RealTimeLocationSystems #AIinHealthcare #PatientExperience #HealthcareEfficiency #MedicalTechnology #DigitalHealth #AI #Burnout #Safety #StaffDuress #PatientCare
CenTrak.com
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Mary Kelly Jagim, principal consultant at CenTrak, describes the role and benefits of real-time location services (RTLS) and how indoor GPS can improve facility management, patient safety, and staff morale. The use of RTLS in the development of smart hospitals helps mitigate staff burnout by reducing time-wasting tasks, such as searching for equipment, and by providing safety features like badge access and tracking. This technology is also being used to enhance the human touch in the clinical setting by providing more accurate, real-time patient location information and updates to clinical staff and family members.
Mary explains, "So, let's say we're talking about a medium to large hospital with lots of people in the building, lots of equipment in the building, lots of things that they might be able to leverage real-time location systems for. And so those organizations are generally looking for a formal deal. They want to be able to keep track of equipment, and they want to provide a safe environment with a security solution for their staff. They might also want to look at safety around hand hygiene, so they're seeking a solution to make sure staff are washing their hands. We also might be looking at medication and other safety measures through environmental monitoring that we can provide. And then, in addition to that, they might be looking at getting into integration with their electronic health record and be able to incorporate patient flow."
"RTLS-enabled patient flow ensures they can always see the actual location of their patients. Traditionally, they're used for seeing the assigned room, but that might not actually be where the patient is at that point in time. So, we can offer things like that, and that can be a real patient experience satisfier. And then you can also help with electronic health record integration, we can help them to capture major milestone pieces. "
#HealthTech #SmartHospitals #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #RTLS #RealTimeLocationSystems #AIinHealthcare #PatientExperience #HealthcareEfficiency #MedicalTechnology #DigitalHealth #AI #Burnout #Safety #StaffDuress #PatientCare
CenTrak.com
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Todd Harris, CEO and Co-Founder of Tyra Biosciences, is focused on developing a selective inhibitor for FGFR3, a protein implicated in bladder cancer and childhood dwarfism. The company has developed the SNAP discovery platform to accelerate structure-based drug design targeting this specific protein, while avoiding effects on related proteins to minimize significant side effects. Their lead drug candidate has the potential to become a primary well-tolerated oral monotherapy, shifting the treatment paradigm for cancer patients to prevent recurrence and for children to allow for more typical bone growth.
Todd explains, "We are taking a novel step to a set of conditions, genetic conditions in FGFR3 biology that have long been known, that others have attempted to address, but where the underlying chemistry hasn't had the necessary selectivity to really be able to make progress. FGFR3 biology is implicated both in bladder cancer and in kids with dwarfism and short stature conditions. And there have long been chemical matter drugs that can inhibit FGFR3, but also inhibit close family members, including FGFR1 and 2. These close family members, the nature of the close family members, make it very challenging to make a drug that is a drug candidate that selectively inhibits FGFR3 while sparing FGFR1, 2, and 4."
"And it was a challenge we took on because we felt like we could meaningfully improve the outcomes for patients by doing so. FGFR3 has important biology in bone and cancer, but FGFR1 and 2 have important biology as well and can lead to side effects when inhibited at the same time as FGFR3. So our attempt to make a selective inhibitor is really an effort to minimize off-target tolerability effects, things that can affect, like pain in your nails, blistering of hands and feet, and elevated phosphate levels when taking the pan FGFR drugs. And then just focus on a drug that can inhibit FGFR3, avoid that type of toxicity, and be able to more meaningfully impact these genetic conditions."
#TyraBio #TyraBiosciences #PrecisionMedicine #BladderCancer #RareDiseases #Achondroplasia #Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #FGFR3 #Innovation #ClinicalTrials #Oncology #PediatricMedicine #StructureBasedDrugDesign
tyra.bio
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Todd Harris, CEO and Co-Founder of Tyra Biosciences, is focused on developing a selective inhibitor for FGFR3, a protein implicated in bladder cancer and childhood dwarfism. The company has developed the SNAP discovery platform to accelerate structure-based drug design targeting this specific protein, while avoiding effects on related proteins to minimize significant side effects. Their lead drug candidate has the potential to become a primary well-tolerated oral monotherapy, shifting the treatment paradigm for cancer patients to prevent recurrence and for children to allow for more typical bone growth.
Todd explains, "We are taking a novel step to a set of conditions, genetic conditions in FGFR3 biology that have long been known, that others have attempted to address, but where the underlying chemistry hasn't had the necessary selectivity to really be able to make progress. FGFR3 biology is implicated both in bladder cancer and in kids with dwarfism and short stature conditions. And there have long been chemical matter drugs that can inhibit FGFR3, but also inhibit close family members, including FGFR1 and 2. These close family members, the nature of the close family members, make it very challenging to make a drug that is a drug candidate that selectively inhibits FGFR3 while sparing FGFR1, 2, and 4."
"And it was a challenge we took on because we felt like we could meaningfully improve the outcomes for patients by doing so. FGFR3 has important biology in bone and cancer, but FGFR1 and 2 have important biology as well and can lead to side effects when inhibited at the same time as FGFR3. So our attempt to make a selective inhibitor is really an effort to minimize off-target tolerability effects, things that can affect, like pain in your nails, blistering of hands and feet, and elevated phosphate levels when taking the pan FGFR drugs. And then just focus on a drug that can inhibit FGFR3, avoid that type of toxicity, and be able to more meaningfully impact these genetic conditions."
#TyraBio #TyraBiosciences #PrecisionMedicine #BladderCancer #RareDiseases #Achondroplasia #Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #FGFR3 #Innovation #ClinicalTrials #Oncology #PediatricMedicine #StructureBasedDrugDesign
tyra.bio
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Peyton Fry, Founder and owner of Glass Raven, discusses the complexities of patient access to healthcare and how healthcare systems often fall into the trap of measuring efficiency in ways that are financially beneficial for providers but are detrimental to patient care. Glass Raven helps organizations define key metrics of good patient access and the implementation of technology and AI to address the defined problems. This data-driven approach focuses on the populations most likely to benefit from improved patient access to care and informs a tailored, context-aware strategy for each healthcare system.
Peyton explains, "Glass Raven focuses on providing services in patient access spaces and operations for healthcare systems. We typically work with medium to large healthcare systems and help them really get a feel and eyes on their own operations and what patient access means to them. Oftentimes, that starts with just defining what patient access is for a given space and then looking into call centers, referrals, and capacity to make sure that patients who want to be scheduled can be scheduled and that healthcare systems can control costs and gather the revenue from that."
"I think patient access has been around for a long time. I think it probably falls under a lot of different umbrellas, which is part of the problem. If I started my career, I found that there just weren't many experts who focused on patient access as a discipline. I think that's because your patient access strategies will change depending on your payer mix. It'll change depending on your size and your capabilities as a system. So I think it's really hard to find the blueprint that someone else has used and move it from system to system. It's almost like you have to reinvent the wheel."
#GlassRaven #HealthcareAccess #PatientExperience #HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareOperations #DataAnalytics #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthSystems #DigitalHealth
GlassRaven.Health
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Peyton Fry, Founder and owner of Glass Raven, discusses the complexities of patient access to healthcare and how healthcare systems often fall into the trap of measuring efficiency in ways that are financially beneficial for providers but are detrimental to patient care. Glass Raven helps organizations define key metrics of good patient access and the implementation of technology and AI to address the defined problems. This data-driven approach focuses on the populations most likely to benefit from improved patient access to care and informs a tailored, context-aware strategy for each healthcare system.
Peyton explains, "Glass Raven focuses on providing services in patient access spaces and operations for healthcare systems. We typically work with medium to large healthcare systems and help them really get a feel and eyes on their own operations and what patient access means to them. Oftentimes, that starts with just defining what patient access is for a given space and then looking into call centers, referrals, and capacity to make sure that patients who want to be scheduled can be scheduled and that healthcare systems can control costs and gather the revenue from that."
"I think patient access has been around for a long time. I think it probably falls under a lot of different umbrellas, which is part of the problem. If I started my career, I found that there just weren't many experts who focused on patient access as a discipline. I think that's because your patient access strategies will change depending on your payer mix. It'll change depending on your size and your capabilities as a system. So I think it's really hard to find the blueprint that someone else has used and move it from system to system. It's almost like you have to reinvent the wheel."
#GlassRaven #HealthcareAccess #PatientExperience #HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareOperations #DataAnalytics #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthSystems #DigitalHealth
GlassRaven.Health
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Dr. Tien Lee, Founder and CEO of Aardvark Therapeutics, draws a clear distinction between appetite and hunger and the implications for treating metabolic conditions and managing weight. The Aardvark lead drug candidate, an oral bitter taste receptor agonist designed to activate the gut-brain connection to turn off hunger, is showing effectiveness in treating Prader-Willi Syndrome and general obesity. There are also signs that this drug could be effective for those using GLP-1s to avoid nausea and prevent rebound weight gain experienced after discontinuing GLP-1 drugs.
Tien explains, "That difference between hunger and appetite is the central thesis for our entire company, and your brain actually regulates how much you should eat. And it's driven by both appetite and hunger. So appetites like the carrot, and hunger is like the stick. Appetite is what you feel when you really enjoy a certain food, like ice cream or cake. And the appeal and the deliciousness of that food is a reward that your brain chases. Hunger is the feeling that you get when you have fasted for a prolonged period of time, and it really bothers you, and you feel real discomfort from not eating. And then at that point, food quality matters less, and you just want to escape that negative sensation. And we believe a lot of the current drugs are good at reducing appetite, but they don't so much address hunger like what our approach is pursuing."
"In obesity, there's probably a combination of both appetite and hunger at play. And they're both important. In fact, your body has both appetite and hunger that are regulated. And when we eat food, our gut releases a number of gut hormones that help tamp down and give us satiety for both appetite and hunger. However, there are certain conditions where hunger is the predominant issue. And with the disease that is our lead indication is a condition called Prader-Willi syndrome. It's a rare genetic disorder that affects about one out of 15,000 live births. And patients with this condition have this unabated, unrelenting hunger that they feel that really starts to manifest when they're about four or seven years old. And then characteristically, patients will even feel compelled to eat garbage to the point of stomach rupture if unregulated with their food access. So it's a very debilitating condition with a lot of suffering for the patients and their families."
"There are actually quite a number of new revelations in the scientific literature, and there's a greater appreciation of gut-brain signaling. So there are actually as many neurons in your gut as there are in your spinal cord, almost as many neurons as in the cat brain. And there's a greater appreciation of a two-way communication between your brain and the gut. So the vagus nerve is the largest nerve in your body, and there's actually a two-way communication between the gut and the brain. About 80% to 90% of the signal is actually from the gut to the brain. And even the drugs that people know currently, the Ozempic and the Zepbound drugs, are working through this gut path hormone. But naturally, a lot of the signals actually come from the gut to the brain through this vagus nerve conduction."
#AardvarkTherapeutics #Hunger #Appetite #PraderWilliSyndrome #PWS #Hyperphagia #RareDiseases #BiotechInnovation #ObesityTreatment #GutBrainAxis #TasteReceptors #ClinicalTrials #Therapeutics #MetabolicHealth #PharmaceuticalInnovation
aardvarktherapeutics.com
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Dr. Tien Lee, Founder and CEO of Aardvark Therapeutics, draws a clear distinction between appetite and hunger and the implications for treating metabolic conditions and managing weight. The Aardvark lead drug candidate, an oral bitter taste receptor agonist designed to activate the gut-brain connection to turn off hunger, is showing effectiveness in treating Prader-Willi Syndrome and general obesity. There are also signs that this drug could be effective for those using GLP-1s to avoid nausea and prevent rebound weight gain experienced after discontinuing GLP-1 drugs.
Tien explains, "That difference between hunger and appetite is the central thesis for our entire company, and your brain actually regulates how much you should eat. And it's driven by both appetite and hunger. So appetites like the carrot, and hunger is like the stick. Appetite is what you feel when you really enjoy a certain food, like ice cream or cake. And the appeal and the deliciousness of that food is a reward that your brain chases. Hunger is the feeling that you get when you have fasted for a prolonged period of time, and it really bothers you, and you feel real discomfort from not eating. And then at that point, food quality matters less, and you just want to escape that negative sensation. And we believe a lot of the current drugs are good at reducing appetite, but they don't so much address hunger like what our approach is pursuing."
"In obesity, there's probably a combination of both appetite and hunger at play. And they're both important. In fact, your body has both appetite and hunger that are regulated. And when we eat food, our gut releases a number of gut hormones that help tamp down and give us satiety for both appetite and hunger. However, there are certain conditions where hunger is the predominant issue. And with the disease that is our lead indication is a condition called Prader-Willi syndrome. It's a rare genetic disorder that affects about one out of 15,000 live births. And patients with this condition have this unabated, unrelenting hunger that they feel that really starts to manifest when they're about four or seven years old. And then characteristically, patients will even feel compelled to eat garbage to the point of stomach rupture if unregulated with their food access. So it's a very debilitating condition with a lot of suffering for the patients and their families."
"There are actually quite a number of new revelations in the scientific literature, and there's a greater appreciation of gut-brain signaling. So there are actually as many neurons in your gut as there are in your spinal cord, almost as many neurons as in the cat brain. And there's a greater appreciation of a two-way communication between your brain and the gut. So the vagus nerve is the largest nerve in your body, and there's actually a two-way communication between the gut and the brain. About 80% to 90% of the signal is actually from the gut to the brain. And even the drugs that people know currently, the Ozempic and the Zepbound drugs, are working through this gut path hormone. But naturally, a lot of the signals actually come from the gut to the brain through this vagus nerve conduction."
#AardvarkTherapeutics #Hunger #Appetite #PraderWilliSyndrome #PWS #Hyperphagia #RareDiseases #BiotechInnovation #ObesityTreatment #GutBrainAxis #TasteReceptors #ClinicalTrials #Therapeutics #MetabolicHealth #PharmaceuticalInnovation
aardvarktherapeutics.com
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Lawrence Blatt, Chairman, President, and CEO of Aligos Therapeutics, describes the current gaps in treating the hepatitis B virus and how the disease can potentially lead to end-stage liver disease and liver cancer. Current therapies were initially developed for HIV and can suppress the virus but not eliminate or prevent the disease. The lead Aligos drug candidate blocks all steps of viral replication and prevents the virus from integrating into infected liver cells, where it can activate cancer-causing genes.
Lawrence explains, "Hepatitis B virus is actually the most prevalent chronic viral infection in the world that makes patients very ill, and they can actually die from this disease. There's almost 250 million, a little bit more than 250 million people infected with Hepatitis B. And it really affects people in all walks of life across many different demographic groups. So there's not a typical HPV patient out there."
"So HBV needs to be treated for life, currently very similar to HIV, and actually HBV and HIV share common features. And early on in the HIV epidemic, patients who were treated with a class of drug called nucleoside analogs, who were also coinfected with HBV, we saw responses to those drugs. So the drugs that worked in HIV, called nucleoside or nucleotide analogs that were purposely built for HIV, worked against HBV, and they worked to a certain degree. They can suppress the virus, but they can't eliminate the virus, and they can't completely suppress all the components of the viral lifecycle that end up causing disease."
"So we're not going to affect the damage that's there initially, but we're blocking that damage from occurring. Now, one thing that's really interesting is that our livers are regenerative organs. So the liver is constantly replacing itself with new healthy hepatocytes or cells that make up the liver. And so if you could block the ongoing disease processes, the liver will have time to heal itself and eventually reverse the scarring. And that's really the only organ in our body that can regenerate. If you get scarring on your lungs or any other part of your body, that is for life. But in the liver, if you block the disease processes, you can reverse that scarring. So it's a very important and unique finding."
#AligosTherapeutics #HepatitisB #Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #LiverHealth #ClinicalTrials #MedicalBreakthrough #PatientCare #Virology #PharmaceuticalInnovation #Vaccines
Aligos.com
Listen to the podcast here
Lawrence Blatt, Chairman, President, and CEO of Aligos Therapeutics, describes the current gaps in treating the hepatitis B virus and how the disease can potentially lead to end-stage liver disease and liver cancer. Current therapies were initially developed for HIV and can suppress the virus but not eliminate or prevent the disease. The lead Aligos drug candidate blocks all steps of viral replication and prevents the virus from integrating into infected liver cells, where it can activate cancer-causing genes.
Lawrence explains, "Hepatitis B virus is actually the most prevalent chronic viral infection in the world that makes patients very ill, and they can actually die from this disease. There's almost 250 million, a little bit more than 250 million people infected with Hepatitis B. And it really affects people in all walks of life across many different demographic groups. So there's not a typical HPV patient out there."
"So HBV needs to be treated for life, currently very similar to HIV, and actually HBV and HIV share common features. And early on in the HIV epidemic, patients who were treated with a class of drug called nucleoside analogs, who were also coinfected with HBV, we saw responses to those drugs. So the drugs that worked in HIV, called nucleoside or nucleotide analogs that were purposely built for HIV, worked against HBV, and they worked to a certain degree. They can suppress the virus, but they can't eliminate the virus, and they can't completely suppress all the components of the viral lifecycle that end up causing disease."
"So we're not going to affect the damage that's there initially, but we're blocking that damage from occurring. Now, one thing that's really interesting is that our livers are regenerative organs. So the liver is constantly replacing itself with new healthy hepatocytes or cells that make up the liver. And so if you could block the ongoing disease processes, the liver will have time to heal itself and eventually reverse the scarring. And that's really the only organ in our body that can regenerate. If you get scarring on your lungs or any other part of your body, that is for life. But in the liver, if you block the disease processes, you can reverse that scarring. So it's a very important and unique finding."
#AligosTherapeutics #HepatitisB #Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #LiverHealth #ClinicalTrials #MedicalBreakthrough #PatientCare #Virology #PharmaceuticalInnovation #Vaccines
Aligos.com
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This roundtable on the role of AI in the biotech sector features Frank Yocca, Senior VP and Chief Scientific Officer at BioXcel Therapeutics, Joanne Taylor, Senior VP for Research at Gain Therapeutics, and Martin Brenner, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at iBio. The conversation covers the historical adoption of AI in biotech, its current use in drug discovery, and future possibilities. AI is not a new phenomenon in biotech and has evolved from data processing to sophisticated models that can screen vast amounts of data. There is a critical need for high-quality, structured data to train effective AI models, and these experts caution about the hype surrounding AI-generated discoveries and emphasize the need for real-world biological and human testing.
Frank explains, "We are all about AI right from the get-go. We sort of inherited that from the parent company, BioXcel, which is now BioXcel, LLC. The company started by deploying data science on big biomedical and other datasets. Much of the data was unstructured and required significant curation, which at first was largely manual. Later, we began deploying more natural language processing and knowledge graphs to predict whether drugs that initially failed but were safe could be repurposed for other indications. More recently, the latest evolution has really been to use large language models and more agentic workflows to generate hypotheses and insights."
Joanne explains, "So Gain has had for many years, I think 10 years also, a virtual drug discovery platform where we've been able to screen millions of compounds virtually to discover allosteric binding molecules. But about three or so years ago, we made the change from screening millions of compounds to screening, now we're up to the capability of screening trillions of compounds."
"We can screen in days, whereas it would take you months and maybe a year to do high-throughput screening. But in terms of having introduced AI into this system, it means that we can do things better because obviously, if you can screen trillions of compounds, you're screening more of the possibilities, you are going to be making better drugs. At least that's the hypothesis than if you are screening fewer compounds. So it's the fact that this is a fast tool set that makes you able to do things that you wouldn't have been otherwise able to do, but it doesn't necessarily make the process itself that much faster because you are doing much more."
Martin elaborates, "So we had the good fortune to start from scratch. We're a very small company. We have made from the get-go the decision that our scientists would be bilingual. They're not only data and AI scientists, but they're also biologists. That makes it a lot easier to translate between the two disciplines. We literally started, or Rubrik Therapeutics started, on the hypothesis that would be a model of structure prediction for proteins. So the company was clearly ahead of its time, and we started by making molecules that set up better than existing ones. And that's, I think, a very low hurdle that a lot of people are doing right now. And you hear sometimes this overreaching argument: we make AI drugs. First of all, tomorrow medicines take 10,000 steps, and enabling three of them is not making an AI drug, but making better molecules. This was the first important step."
#BioXcel #GainTherapeutics #iBio #AI #ClinicalAI #ArtificialIntelligence #Biotechnology #DrugDiscovery #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #BiopharmaAI #ClinicalTrials #RareDisease #Neuroscience #PrecisionMedicine #HealthTech #BiotechLeadership #AIinHealthcare #DrugDevelopment #MedicalInnovation
bioxceltherapeutics.com
gaintherapeutics.com
ibioinc.com
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This roundtable on the role of AI in the biotech sector features Frank Yocca, Senior VP and Chief Scientific Officer at BioXcel Therapeutics, Joanne Taylor, Senior VP for Research at Gain Therapeutics, and Martin Brenner, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at iBio. The conversation covers the historical adoption of AI in biotech, its current use in drug discovery, and future possibilities. AI is not a new phenomenon in biotech and has evolved from data processing to sophisticated models that can screen vast amounts of data. There is a critical need for high-quality, structured data to train effective AI models, and these experts caution about the hype surrounding AI-generated discoveries and emphasize the need for real-world biological and human testing.
Frank explains, "We are all about AI right from the get-go. We sort of inherited that from the parent company, BioXcel, which is now BioXcel, LLC. The company started by deploying data science on big biomedical and other datasets. Much of the data was unstructured and required significant curation, which at first was largely manual. Later, we began deploying more natural language processing and knowledge graphs to predict whether drugs that initially failed but were safe could be repurposed for other indications. More recently, the latest evolution has really been to use large language models and more agentic workflows to generate hypotheses and insights."
Joanne explains, "So Gain has had for many years, I think 10 years also, a virtual drug discovery platform where we've been able to screen millions of compounds virtually to discover allosteric binding molecules. But about three or so years ago, we made the change from screening millions of compounds to screening, now we're up to the capability of screening trillions of compounds."
"We can screen in days, whereas it would take you months and maybe a year to do high-throughput screening. But in terms of having introduced AI into this system, it means that we can do things better because obviously, if you can screen trillions of compounds, you're screening more of the possibilities, you are going to be making better drugs. At least that's the hypothesis than if you are screening fewer compounds. So it's the fact that this is a fast tool set that makes you able to do things that you wouldn't have been otherwise able to do, but it doesn't necessarily make the process itself that much faster because you are doing much more."
Martin elaborates, "So we had the good fortune to start from scratch. We're a very small company. We have made from the get-go the decision that our scientists would be bilingual. They're not only data and AI scientists, but they're also biologists. That makes it a lot easier to translate between the two disciplines. We literally started, or Rubrik Therapeutics started, on the hypothesis that would be a model of structure prediction for proteins. So the company was clearly ahead of its time, and we started by making molecules that set up better than existing ones. And that's, I think, a very low hurdle that a lot of people are doing right now. And you hear sometimes this overreaching argument, we make AI drugs. First of all, tomorrow medicines take 10,000 steps, and enabling three of them is not making an AI drug, but making better molecules. This was the first important step."
#BioXcel #GainTherapeutics #iBio #AI #ClinicalAI #ArtificialIntelligence #Biotechnology #DrugDiscovery #PersonalizedMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #BiopharmaAI #ClinicalTrials #RareDisease #Neuroscience #PrecisionMedicine #HealthTech #BiotechLeadership #AIinHealthcare #DrugDevelopment #MedicalInnovation
bioxceltherapeutics.com
gaintherapeutics.com
ibioinc.com
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David Dodd, CEO of GeoVax, highlights the need for next-generation vaccines, specifically multi-antigen and T cell-focused technologies, to provide better protection for immunocompromised populations. Their pipeline includes a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, an Mpox/Smallpox vaccine, and a gene therapy for solid tumors. A priority for GeoVax is to develop new manufacturing processes to significantly accelerate vaccine production, increase yield, and reduce costs.
David explains, "Multi-antigen vaccines become critically important, especially for populations for whom the existing approach in vaccines, meaning single-antigen vaccines or antibody-focused or antibody-only vaccines, is inadequate. And to clarify that, there are approximately 40 million adults in the United States, about 10 times that number worldwide, who suffer from various medical conditions, such as blood cancers. They may have renal disease, diabetes, or be HIV positive. They may also have weakened immune systems, they could have multiple sclerosis or lupus. So there are a host of medical conditions that the result is they inhibit or they deplete an individual's immune system from mounting an adequate antibody response. And keep in mind, the antibody system is that first line of defense when an infectious threat occurs. And that's sort of like the frontline soldiers. They throw up a protective guard to respond to that."
"That means for those individuals, what we need to do is also address this, as we develop vaccines, and some technologies allow you to do this. The majority of vaccine platforms do not, unfortunately. And that is to also induce a very strong cellular immunity or T cells. And this becomes critically important because T cells are what clear a virus from the body. It's also what drives what is known as memory, and also gives breadth or robustness of protection. So it becomes critically important that if one has the opportunity because of their technology or the platform they're utilizing to enlist and engage both the antibody as well as the cellular side, then one can generally develop a much more robust protective immune response that will reduce the risk of severe infection, hospitalization, and the risk of death against certain infections."
#GeoVax #Biotech #Vaccines #PublicHealth #Healthcare #COVID19 #LifeSciences #Biotechnology #Mpox #GlobalHealth
geovax.com
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David Dodd, CEO of GeoVax, highlights the need for next-generation vaccines, specifically multi-antigen and T cell-focused technologies, to provide better protection for immunocompromised populations. Their pipeline includes a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, an Mpox/Smallpox vaccine, and a gene therapy for solid tumors. A priority for GeoVax is to develop new manufacturing processes to significantly accelerate vaccine production, increase yield, and reduce costs.
David explains, "Multi-antigen vaccines become critically important, especially for populations for whom the existing approach in vaccines, meaning single-antigen vaccines or antibody-focused or antibody-only vaccines, is inadequate. And to clarify that, there are approximately 40 million adults in the United States, about 10 times that number worldwide, who suffer from various medical conditions, such as blood cancers. They may have renal disease, diabetes, or be HIV positive. They may also have weakened immune systems, they could have multiple sclerosis or lupus. So there are a host of medical conditions that the result is they inhibit or they deplete an individual's immune system from mounting an adequate antibody response. And keep in mind, the antibody system is that first line of defense when an infectious threat occurs. And that's sort of like the frontline soldiers. They throw up a protective guard to respond to that."
"That means for those individuals, what we need to do is also address this, as we develop vaccines, and some technologies allow you to do this. The majority of vaccine platforms do not, unfortunately. And that is to also induce a very strong cellular immunity or T cells. And this becomes critically important because T cells are what clear a virus from the body. It's also what drives what is known as memory, and also gives breadth or robustness of protection. So it becomes critically important that if one has the opportunity because of their technology or the platform they're utilizing to enlist and engage both the antibody as well as the cellular side, then one can generally develop a much more robust protective immune response that will reduce the risk of severe infection, hospitalization, and the risk of death against certain infections."
#GeoVax #Biotech #Vaccines #PublicHealth #Healthcare #COVID19 #LifeSciences #Biotechnology #Mpox #GlobalHealth
geovax.com
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Rick Davis, patient advocate and Founder of AnCan, is building and operating virtual peer-to-peer support groups to allow patients to connect with others who have direct experience with their condition. These groups can provide accurate information, foster connections among participants, and serve as a check on medical misinformation. With the growing acceptance of virtual meetings, this approach overcomes geographic, physical, and psychosocial barriers that might otherwise prevent participants from attending on-site meetings.
Rick explains, "The mission is to make each person and each patient a better advocate for themselves. That's really what we try to do, and we do that through empowering patients with peer knowledge. We introduce patients to other peers who have been through what these people are facing right now, not only patients, but also their care partners, and through their experience, we hope that these patients and care partners will become more expert in managing their own situation."
"In 2007, when I was first diagnosed with stage three cancer, I attended a physical meeting, and I realized that so many people cannot attend physical meetings because one, they may have a geographical disability, they may have a physical disability, or they may have a psychosocial disability. If we only allow people to exchange views when they're physically in front of each other, it's very limiting. And so I started to look and see what existed in terms of virtual communication. And back in the day, there was very, very little. And that was the motivation that got me started."
"People come into a group, and they hear things that they just wouldn't hear otherwise. And that's why it's so valuable. It's so incredibly valuable. I mean, we had a group last night where a guy came in facing a situation, and by total coincidence, there was somebody from his own city in there who knew the docs that he'd been dealing with, understood the frustration he'd been going through, had been through it himself, and shared his experience. Well, you can't buy that."
#AnCan #AnCanSupport #VirtualSupport #CancerSupport #PeerSupport #PatientAdvocay #DigitalHealth
ancan.org
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Rick Davis, patient advocate and Founder of AnCan, is building and operating virtual peer-to-peer support groups to allow patients to connect with others who have direct experience with their condition. These groups can provide accurate information, foster connections among participants, and serve as a check on medical misinformation. With the growing acceptance of virtual meetings, this approach overcomes geographic, physical, and psychosocial barriers that might otherwise prevent participants from attending on-site meetings.
Rick explains, "The mission is to make each person and each patient a better advocate for themselves. That's really what we try to do, and we do that through empowering patients with peer knowledge. We introduce patients to other peers who have been through what these people are facing right now, not only patients, but also their care partners, and through their experience, we hope that these patients and care partners will become more expert in managing their own situation."
"In 2007, when I was first diagnosed with stage three cancer, I attended a physical meeting, and I realized that so many people cannot attend physical meetings because one, they may have a geographical disability, they may have a physical disability, or they may have a psychosocial disability. If we only allow people to exchange views when they're physically in front of each other, it's very limiting. And so I started to look and see what existed in terms of virtual communication. And back in the day, there was very, very little. And that was the motivation that got me started."
"People come into a group, and they hear things that they just wouldn't hear otherwise. And that's why it's so valuable. It's so incredibly valuable. I mean, we had a group last night where a guy came in facing a situation, and by total coincidence, there was somebody from his own city in there who knew the docs that he'd been dealing with, understood the frustration he'd been going through, had been through it himself, and shared his experience. Well, you can't buy that."
#AnCan #AnCanSupport #VirtualSupport #CancerSupport #PeerSupport #PatientAdvocay #DigitalHealth
ancan.org
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Bob Farrell, CEO of mPulse, is using digital technology, data analytics and AI to improve the relationship between health plans and their members in order to improve health outcomes and operational efficiency. Bob introduces the concept of HXI, Health Experience and Insights, as a framework that unites data, intelligence, and personalized communication to provide tools to enage members at the best time and by the preferred methods with appropriate information at the right time. Analyzing claims data enables plans to identify high-risk patients, promote preventive care, and build health literacy.
Bob explains, "The mission of mPulse, and this has really been the mission of the company since its founding in 2015, is to improve the health outcomes of our customers' members and patients. So we're looking to close gaps in care. We're looking to increase literacy so that members and patients can understand their health plans. So providers can take charge of healthcare and improve those outcomes. And while we're doing that, we try to help our customers improve their operational efficiencies. Most of our customers are health plans and they range from small community plans to large nationals. The 60 largest plans are our customers. We have a wide array of customers and continue to expand on that base, both with new customers and by doing more with the customers that we have."
"Health plans are not known to be the early adopters of technology. So you're right. A lot of them are still transitioning from older ways of doing things. But in general, health plans have a huge trust issue with their members, and it has really resulted from a lack of engagement, a lack of positive experience. So we see a lot of health plans looking to embrace technology to improve the member experience, make sure that those members are getting outreach. Not just now and then, but during the whole course of their consumer health journey, so that they can be aware of what things they have available to them, so that they can easily adjudicate claims and easily find providers."
#mPulse #HXI #PersonalizedCare #HealthExperienceInsights #DigitalHealth
mPulse.com
Listen to the podcast here
Bob Farrell, CEO of mPulse, is using digital technology, data analytics and AI to improve the relationship between health plans and their members in order to improve health outcomes and operational efficiency. Bob introduces the concept of HXI, Health Experience and Insights, as a framework that unites data, intelligence, and personalized communication to provide tools to enage members at the best time and by the preferred methods with appropriate information at the right time. Analyzing claims data enables plans to identify high-risk patients, promote preventive care, and build health literacy.
Bob explains, "The mission of mPulse, and this has really been the mission of the company since its founding in 2015, is to improve the health outcomes of our customers' members and patients. So we're looking to close gaps in care. We're looking to increase literacy so that members and patients can understand their health plans. So providers can take charge of healthcare and improve those outcomes. And while we're doing that, we try to help our customers improve their operational efficiencies. Most of our customers are health plans and they range from small community plans to large nationals. The 60 largest plans are our customers. We have a wide array of customers and continue to expand on that base, both with new customers and by doing more with the customers that we have."
"Health plans are not known to be the early adopters of technology. So you're right. A lot of them are still transitioning from older ways of doing things. But in general, health plans have a huge trust issue with their members, and it has really resulted from a lack of engagement, a lack of positive experience. So we see a lot of health plans looking to embrace technology to improve the member experience, make sure that those members are getting outreach. Not just now and then, but during the whole course of their consumer health journey, so that they can be aware of what things they have available to them, so that they can easily adjudicate claims and easily find providers."
#mPulse #HXI #PersonalizedCare #HealthExperienceInsights #DigitalHealth
mPulse.com
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Rick Pierce, Co-Founder and CEO of Decoy Therapeutics. is using AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and is developing broad-acting antivirals using peptide conjugates that target a shared invasion mechanism of hundreds of viruses. The company is using small language models and a high-speed peptide synthesizer to dramatically reduce drug creation time. Rick predicts that the future of drug discovery will combine AI-driven design with advanced biological models, such as organoids, to better predict drug toxicity and efficacy.
Rick explains, "Decoy Therapeutics was founded years ago, during the COVID era. And what we've learned during that was that in order to develop drugs rapidly and scale up their manufacturing, we needed to use machine learning and AI. And the drugs that we're looking at developing today as a result of that are broad-acting antivirals that can be used against multiple viruses. So one drug can be used against multiple viruses like Flu, COVID, and RSV."
"So we chose antivirals as a space because viruses have what is called polypharmacology, and in plain layman's terms, what that means is that about 250 of these viruses share the same invasion machinery, meaning the way the virus enters the healthy cells is shared across all those viruses. It's slightly different in each of those viruses, but effectively for drug development, very similar."
"That allows us to use peptides, which are also alpha helices, to be able to design drugs with AI and machine learning that physically block the invasion machinery and thus basically the virus from binding to a healthy cell. Peptides are uniquely positioned as drugs for this set of viral targets. Again, it's a rich set of targets among 250 viruses across multiple viral families."
#DecoyTherapeutics #PeptideConjugates #BroadSpectrumAntiviral #AIinBiotech #NextGenMedicine
decoytx.com
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Rick Pierce, Co-Founder and CEO of Decoy Therapeutics. is using AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and is developing broad-acting antivirals using peptide conjugates that target a shared invasion mechanism of hundreds of viruses. The company is using small language models and a high-speed peptide synthesizer to dramatically reduce drug creation time. Rick predicts that the future of drug discovery will combine AI-driven design with advanced biological models, such as organoids, to better predict drug toxicity and efficacy.
Rick explains, "Decoy Therapeutics was founded years ago, during the COVID era. And what we've learned during that was that in order to develop drugs rapidly and scale up their manufacturing, we needed to use machine learning and AI. And the drugs that we're looking at developing today as a result of that are broad-acting antivirals that can be used against multiple viruses. So one drug can be used against multiple viruses like Flu, COVID, and RSV."
"So we chose antivirals as a space because viruses have what is called polypharmacology, and in plain layman's terms, what that means is that about 250 of these viruses share the same invasion machinery, meaning the way the virus enters the healthy cells is shared across all those viruses. It's slightly different in each of those viruses, but effectively for drug development, very similar."
"That allows us to use peptides, which are also alpha helices, to be able to design drugs with AI and machine learning that physically block the invasion machinery and thus basically the virus from binding to a healthy cell. Peptides are uniquely positioned as drugs for this set of viral targets. Again, it's a rich set of targets among 250 viruses across multiple viral families."
#DecoyTherapeutics #PeptideConjugates #BroadSpectrumAntiviral #AIinBiotech #NextGenMedicine
decoytx.com
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Dr. Kumar Dharmarajan, cardiologist and geriatrician and Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at World Class Health, is bringing concierge healthcare to employees of self-insured companies. The platform includes a global network of top-tier doctors and nurse navigators. Directly negotiating with providers reduces costs and reduces administrative and financial friction for patients seeking planned procedures. The model also reduces friction for physicians by providing them with complete patient records and ensuring prompt payment.
Kumar explains, "We are a global, medically led center of excellence platform. So, by that, we have top doctors and top hospitals around the world, including the United States and many other countries, and we help patients access that network. We have pre-negotiated rates via our nurse navigators. We really believe in the power of nurses to help patients make healthcare decisions that may be valuable and important to them. And those nurses will work with the patient before, during, and after their care episode, whether that physician they access is local, in their own communities, or somewhere else around the world. And right now, we are partnering with large self-insured companies around the world and offering our product, in addition to the network they have through their usual insurer."
"We are looking for employees of self-insured large companies. Our specific target has been largely knowledge workers, so these are employees in technology, financial services, and other knowledge industries. And the reason we feel that is one, our global network may be really appealing to them because many knowledge workers come from different parts of the world, Asia, Europe, Latin America, etc. And second, our nurses and our strong concierge model, which we built with experts from Stanford and Johns Hopkins International, have created a truly white-glove experience. So not only are they high-quality, highly qualified providers, top 1% doctors, hospitals around the world, but it's also a white glove service to help patients deal with all the administrative minutiae and challenges we all experience in healthcare. And we believe that's well powered and tailored to the knowledge industry."
#WorldClassHealth #SelfInsured #ConciergeCare #NurseNavigators #DigitalHealth
worldclasshealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Kumar Dharmarajan, cardiologist and geriatrician and Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at World Class Health, is bringing concierge healthcare to employees of self-insured companies. The platform includes a global network of top-tier doctors and nurse navigators. Directly negotiating with providers reduces costs and reduces administrative and financial friction for patients seeking planned procedures. The model also reduces friction for physicians by providing them with complete patient records and ensuring prompt payment.
Kumar explains, "We are a global, medically led center of excellence platform. So, by that, we have top doctors and top hospitals around the world, including the United States and many other countries, and we help patients access that network. We have pre-negotiated rates via our nurse navigators. We really believe in the power of nurses to help patients make healthcare decisions that may be valuable and important to them. And those nurses will work with the patient before, during, and after their care episode, whether that physician they access is local, in their own communities, or somewhere else around the world. And right now, we are partnering with large self-insured companies around the world and offering our product, in addition to the network they have through their usual insurer."
"We are looking for employees of self-insured large companies. Our specific target has been largely knowledge workers, so these are employees in technology, financial services, and other knowledge industries. And the reason we feel that is one, our global network may be really appealing to them because many knowledge workers come from different parts of the world, Asia, Europe, Latin America, etc. And second, our nurses and our strong concierge model, which we built with experts from Stanford and Johns Hopkins International, have created a truly white-glove experience. So not only are they high-quality, highly qualified providers, top 1% doctors, hospitals around the world, but it's also a white glove service to help patients deal with all the administrative minutiae and challenges we all experience in healthcare. And we believe that's well powered and tailored to the knowledge industry."
#WorldClassHealth #SelfInsured #ConciergeCare #NurseNavigators #DigitalHealth
worldclasshealth.com
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Brent Dial, Founder and CEO of Beek Health, has built a platform that addresses patient information fragmentation by aggregating data from patient portals and providing direct access to lab testing. Health literacy is key to preventing chronic diseases, and AI is being used to scale the delivery of personalized health information. Identifying relevant biomarkers and early warning signs supports proactive health management that can alter long-term health outcomes.
Brent explains, "Beek Health is re-imagining healthcare by finally putting the individual at the center of their health journey. While we talk about patient-centric or customer-centric or shared decision-making, it's not real in practice, and it's for good and for very clear reasons. There's information asymmetry, there's information overload, and then information is quite fragmented."
"Currently, we have three subscription tiers. The first option is the basic plan, which gives you platform access to synthesize and connect with multiple patient portals, as many as you have. The average individual has at least two patient portals, and it's estimated you'll see 17 different providers in your lifetime. So that's a lot of data spread out across different systems. So, one, you can sync. We have over 40,000 endpoints or provider locations where you can sync your patient portal information in one unified dashboard. All the dashboards look different."
"Second, you'll have access to labs anytime you need them. And so labs are woefully underutilized for health tracking: 70% of diagnoses are based on lab results, so you can access them anytime you need to. We partner with LabCorp, which has over 2,000 locations, and you'll receive your results within 48 hours. In addition, we're adding cost navigation, cost estimate tools, and some more fun features on our roadmap, but that just gives you basic access for a year for $99."
#BeekHealth #HealthInYourHands #OwnYourHealthData #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #PatientEmpowerment #HealthcareReimagined #ConnectedHealth #FutureOfHealth
beekhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Brent Dial, Founder and CEO of Beek Health, has built a platform that addresses patient information fragmentation by aggregating data from patient portals and providing direct access to lab testing. Health literacy is key to preventing chronic diseases, and AI is being used to scale the delivery of personalized health information. Identifying relevant biomarkers and early warning signs supports proactive health management that can alter long-term health outcomes.
Brent explains, "Beek Health is re-imagining healthcare by finally putting the individual at the center of their health journey. While we talk about patient-centric or customer-centric or shared decision-making, it's not real in practice, and it's for good and for very clear reasons. There's information asymmetry, there's information overload, and then information is quite fragmented."
"Currently, we have three subscription tiers. The first option is the basic plan, which gives you platform access to synthesize and connect with multiple patient portals, as many as you have. The average individual has at least two patient portals, and it's estimated you'll see 17 different providers in your lifetime. So that's a lot of data spread out across different systems. So, one, you can sync. We have over 40,000 endpoints or provider locations where you can sync your patient portal information in one unified dashboard. All the dashboards look different."
"Second, you'll have access to labs anytime you need them. And so labs are woefully underutilized for health tracking: 70% of diagnoses are based on lab results, so you can access them anytime you need to. We partner with LabCorp, which has over 2,000 locations, and you'll receive your results within 48 hours. In addition, we're adding cost navigation, cost estimate tools, and some more fun features on our roadmap, but that just gives you basic access for a year for $99."
#BeekHealth #HealthInYourHands #OwnYourHealthData #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #PatientEmpowerment #HealthcareReimagined #ConnectedHealth #FutureOfHealth
beekhealth.com
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Dr. Asher Eghbali, Co-Founder of Fuerte, has developed a platform to address the significant communication challenges between healthcare providers and pharmaceutical industry representatives. The goal is to streamline this relationship by replacing inefficient scheduling methods, and eliminate miscommunication and missed meetings to reduce frustrations and wasted time. The app is designed to combine professional networking with social media elements, including user profiles and notifications, to help build stronger, long-lasting professional relationships that benefit everyone involved.
Asher explains, "Within the life science companies and pharmaceutical reps, as we know, they're working very hard to commercialize medications and new drugs, new therapies that come out there that they want to get into patients' hands. But sometimes they have a very hard time scheduling and putting in time to go to the doctor's office. Traditionally, they conduct a lunch-and-learn session or a coffee consult, where they come on-site to a doctor's office or a hospital setting."
"Right now, to schedule that appointment, it's being done where the medical assistant or the office manager is writing down that individual's name on some kind of paper calendar, at most, maybe some kind of Google sheet, or a Google Meet account that they have within the office section. And that's the way that they're scheduling it. Healthcare reps are sometimes cold walking in, sometimes they're cold calling. They're putting in a lot of effort. They're working very hard to figure out how to get in and educate providers and their staff on new advancements."
"What Fuerte hopes to do with a streamlined communication platform is make it very easy for the providers to find the reps and the reps to find providers to keep in touch with each other, to search each other by disease state, by therapeutic drug, by medical advancement, and to have a shared calendar system that they can keep in constant communication and contact."
fuerteapp.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Asher Eghbali, Co-Founder of Fuerte, has developed a platform to address the significant communication challenges between healthcare providers and pharmaceutical industry representatives. The goal is to streamline this relationship by replacing inefficient scheduling methods, and eliminate miscommunication and missed meetings to reduce frustrations and wasted time. The app is designed to combine professional networking with social media elements, including user profiles and notifications, to help build stronger, long-lasting professional relationships that benefit everyone involved.
Asher explains, "Within the life science companies and pharmaceutical reps, as we know, they're working very hard to commercialize medications and new drugs, new therapies that come out there that they want to get into patients' hands. But sometimes they have a very hard time scheduling and putting in time to go to the doctor's office. Traditionally, they conduct a lunch-and-learn session or a coffee consult, where they come on-site to a doctor's office or a hospital setting."
"Right now, to schedule that appointment, it's being done where the medical assistant or the office manager is writing down that individual's name on some kind of paper calendar, at most, maybe some kind of Google sheet, or a Google Meet account that they have within the office section. And that's the way that they're scheduling it. Healthcare reps are sometimes cold walking in, sometimes they're cold calling. They're putting in a lot of effort. They're working very hard to figure out how to get in and educate providers and their staff on new advancements."
"What Fuerte hopes to do with a streamlined communication platform is make it very easy for the providers to find the reps and the reps to find providers to keep in touch with each other, to search each other by disease state, by therapeutic drug, by medical advancement, and to have a shared calendar system that they can keep in constant communication and contact."
fuerteapp.com
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Scott Pescatore, Executive VP of the Rare Diseases Business at Recordati, is focused on rare and ultra-orphan diseases with high unmet needs by acquiring promising compounds from other companies and advancing them through development and approval. An example is the company's drug Isturisa, acquired from Novartis, which is an FDA-approved effective treatment for patients with Cushing syndrome, a rare endocrine condition. Raising awareness of rare diseases among physicians, patients, and the general public is a priority for Recordati to improve diagnosis rates and clinical trial participation, and to encourage more research and funding in the rare disease space.
Scott explains, "We have two primary divisions at Recordati. One is our specialty primary care business, and the other is the rare disease business, which I have the honor and privilege to look after. And we have a very simple sort of work ethic or business mantra, if you will, and that's focused on the few. And we really dedicate ourselves to focusing on disease areas and patient groups and therapeutic areas that have a high unmet need and really low or limited options for patients. And really focusing on diseases and areas that are rare and considered ultra-orphan by the definitions in the US, where really there's a very small patient base. And that's where we began back in 2007, when the rare disease business was formed. And that's really what our focus has been since then. And we continue to focus on this segment of the market."
"So Isturisa is really a fantastic product. We acquired this product through a deal we did with Novartis Pharmaceuticals back in 2019, and this product has FDA approval for patients who have endogenous hypercortisolemia with Cushing syndrome. So it's quite a nasty disease, but it's a very efficacious product. The product is what's considered a cortisol inhibitor in the blocks in a particular enzyme to help normalize hypercortisolemia in patients with Cushing syndrome. And Cushing syndrome, for those who aren't familiar, is a rare endocrine condition that really has a significant impact on patients' quality of life, on the caregivers, on the families. And the indication I mentioned was supported by quite robust phase 3 trials."
#Recordati #RareDisease #FocusedontheFew #CushingSyndrome #IMCD #CastlemansDisease
recordati.com
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Scott Pescatore, Executive VP of the Rare Diseases Business at Recordati, is focused on rare and ultra-orphan diseases with high unmet needs by acquiring promising compounds from other companies and advancing them through development and approval. An example is the company's drug Isturisa, acquired from Novartis, which is an FDA-approved effective treatment for patients with Cushing syndrome, a rare endocrine condition. Raising awareness of rare diseases among physicians, patients, and the general public is a priority for Recordati to improve diagnosis rates and clinical trial participation, and to encourage more research and funding in the rare disease space.
Scott explains, "We have two primary divisions at Recordati. One is our specialty primary care business, and the other is the rare disease business, which I have the honor and privilege to look after. And we have a very simple sort of work ethic or business mantra, if you will, and that's focused on the few. And we really dedicate ourselves to focusing on disease areas and patient groups and therapeutic areas that have a high unmet need and really low or limited options for patients. And really focusing on diseases and areas that are rare and considered ultra-orphan by the definitions in the US, where really there's a very small patient base. And that's where we began back in 2007, when the rare disease business was formed. And that's really what our focus has been since then. And we continue to focus on this segment of the market."
"So Isturisa is really a fantastic product. We acquired this product through a deal we did with Novartis Pharmaceuticals back in 2019, and this product has FDA approval for patients who have endogenous hypercortisolemia with Cushing syndrome. So it's quite a nasty disease, but it's a very efficacious product. The product is what's considered a cortisol inhibitor in the blocks in a particular enzyme to help normalize hypercortisolemia in patients with Cushing syndrome. And Cushing syndrome, for those who aren't familiar, is a rare endocrine condition that really has a significant impact on patients' quality of life, on the caregivers, on the families. And the indication I mentioned was supported by quite robust phase 3 trials."
#Recordati #RareDisease #FocusedontheFew #CushingSyndrome #IMCD #CastlemansDisease
recordati.com
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Martin Burns, CEO of Bruin Biometrics, is focused on preventing pressure injuries, which are often not detected through visual and tactile assessments because damage starts invisibly under the skin. The Bruin scanner technology identifies pressure injuries by measuring sub-epidermal moisture, which can predict later tissue death, highlighting the condition that can be treated before it develops further. This handheld device is skin tone agnostic, addressing a significant health disparity and providing an objective number indicating the presence of excess fluid, allowing clinicians to act quickly.
Martin explains, "They are surprisingly common, and I emphasize surprisingly because pressure injuries are typically not talked about in the mainstream, but actually they affect about three to three and a half million patients a year in the US. And really shockingly, of those three to three and a half million, about 60,000 people die from them every year. So think about that as in the list of the top 10 leading causes of mortality in the United States, which is the surprising part. When you speak to friends and relatives, they've often heard of them potentially as bedsores, but nobody really has an appreciation of just how significant they are. How widespread or how deadly."
"The initial stages of it are imperceptible to any practitioner, but are actually measurable by objective technologies, and they don't become visibly manifest or physically manifest until much later. And what happens is they end up breaking the skin surface. As you can imagine, every time the skin is broken is an opening for infections and significant complications, which actually is the thing that ends up causing huge amounts of additional lengths of stay and costly treatments. And to the extent that those don't work, mortality."
"Thankfully, our scanner is one in which the mechanism it uses disregards skin tone entirely. In other words, skin color doesn't matter for the scanner. What we are measuring is an increase or a decrease in fluid at the specific site that we're measuring. And so it's skin tone agnostic, which is rather brilliant because dark skin tone patients die at a rate four times more than any other cohort, which is an absolute travesty and one in which it simply doesn't need to happen. And our scanner is a leading reason why it doesn't need to happen."
#BruinBiometrics #Prevention #PressureInjuries #HospitalSafety #PressureInjuryPrevention #PatientSafety #Hospitals
bruinbiometrics.com
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Martin Burns, CEO of Bruin Biometrics, is focused on preventing pressure injuries, which are often not detected through visual and tactile assessments because damage starts invisibly under the skin. The Bruin scanner technology identifies pressure injuries by measuring sub-epidermal moisture, which can predict later tissue death, highlighting the condition that can be treated before it develops further. This handheld device is skin tone agnostic, addressing a significant health disparity and providing an objective number indicating the presence of excess fluid, allowing clinicians to act quickly.
Martin explains, "They are surprisingly common, and I emphasize surprisingly because pressure injuries are typically not talked about in the mainstream, but actually they affect about three to three and a half million patients a year in the US. And really shockingly, of those three to three and a half million, about 60,000 people die from them every year. So think about that as in the list of the top 10 leading causes of mortality in the United States, which is the surprising part. When you speak to friends and relatives, they've often heard of them potentially as bedsores, but nobody really has an appreciation of just how significant they are. How widespread or how deadly."
"The initial stages of it are imperceptible to any practitioner, but are actually measurable by objective technologies, and they don't become visibly manifest or physically manifest until much later. And what happens is they end up breaking the skin surface. As you can imagine, every time the skin is broken is an opening for infections and significant complications, which actually is the thing that ends up causing huge amounts of additional lengths of stay and costly treatments. And to the extent that those don't work, mortality."
"Thankfully, our scanner is one in which the mechanism it uses disregards skin tone entirely. In other words, skin color doesn't matter for the scanner. What we are measuring is an increase or a decrease in fluid at the specific site that we're measuring. And so it's skin tone agnostic, which is rather brilliant because dark skin tone patients die at a rate four times more than any other cohort, which is an absolute travesty and one in which it simply doesn't need to happen. And our scanner is a leading reason why it doesn't need to happen."
#BruinBiometrics #Prevention #PressureInjuries #HospitalSafety #PressureInjuryPrevention #PatientSafety #Hospitals
bruinbiometrics.com
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Robert Jacks, President and CEO of Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, identifies that an elevated cortisol level is a newly recognized cause of treatment-resistant type 2 diabetes. A significant portion of patients with diabetes who do not respond to standard treatments, including GLP-1 agonists, have underlying high cortisol. Sparrow has developed a drug designed to lower cortisol levels inside cells, directly addressing the underlying driver of the disease, and to be used as a complement to existing treatments. This concept of targeting cortisol-driven resistance could be extended to other conditions, such as treatment-resistant hypertension.
Robert explains, "I feel as though Sparrow has come full circle, actually, with the mechanism of our drug. Originally, we have a drug that targets HSD-1. We can talk about what that is, but it's involved in intracellular cortisol regulation. This was a class of drugs that was originally developed targeting cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes. And the drugs had some moderate efficacy, but they weren't well differentiated in a broad population and largely were just discontinued for commercial reasons."
"Our company was founded a number of years ago based on the idea that these drugs had real potential but hadn't been used in the right patient population. And that being the patient population with the disease that we know is driven by excess cortisol toxicity, because that's aligned with the mechanism, as I was mentioning. So we generated some really interesting data in a rare disease called Endogenous Cushing syndrome. This is a very severe orphan disease with patients who have very severely elevated cortisol, showing in fact that yes, this mechanism does seem like it could have a very major impact in the right patient population."
"Simultaneously, another company published some data showing that actually there's a very large population of people with treatment-resistant type 2 diabetes, a very high level of medical need, and that their underlying disease actually is being driven by elevated levels of cortisol. And so when you bring together the data that we generated and what appears to be a large amount needed in a large population, it seems like we may have the perfect solution for that. So we've refocused our efforts on a broad population of treatment-resistant type 2 diabetes in patients whose disease is being impacted or driven by elevated cortisol levels."
#SparrowPharmaceuticals #Type2Diabetes #CardiometabolicDisease #CortisolRegulation #Cortisol #GLP1 #RareDisease
sparrowpharma.com
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Robert Jacks, President and CEO of Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, identifies that an elevated cortisol level is a newly recognized cause of treatment-resistant type 2 diabetes. A significant portion of patients with diabetes who do not respond to standard treatments, including GLP-1 agonists, have underlying high cortisol. Sparrow has developed a drug designed to lower cortisol levels inside cells, directly addressing the underlying driver of the disease, and to be used as a complement to existing treatments. This concept of targeting cortisol-driven resistance could be extended to other conditions, such as treatment-resistant hypertension.
Robert explains, "I feel as though Sparrow has come full circle, actually, with the mechanism of our drug. Originally, we have a drug that targets HSD-1. We can talk about what that is, but it's involved in intracellular cortisol regulation. This was a class of drugs that was originally developed targeting cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes. And the drugs had some moderate efficacy, but they weren't well differentiated in a broad population and largely were just discontinued for commercial reasons."
"Our company was founded a number of years ago based on the idea that these drugs had real potential but hadn't been used in the right patient population. And that being the patient population with the disease that we know is driven by excess cortisol toxicity, because that's aligned with the mechanism, as I was mentioning. So we generated some really interesting data in a rare disease called Endogenous Cushing syndrome. This is a very severe orphan disease with patients who have very severely elevated cortisol, showing in fact that yes, this mechanism does seem like it could have a very major impact in the right patient population."
"Simultaneously, another company published some data showing that actually there's a very large population of people with treatment-resistant type 2 diabetes, a very high level of medical need, and that their underlying disease actually is being driven by elevated levels of cortisol. And so when you bring together the data that we generated and what appears to be a large amount needed in a large population, it seems like we may have the perfect solution for that. So we've refocused our efforts on a broad population of treatment-resistant type 2 diabetes in patients whose disease is being impacted or driven by elevated cortisol levels."
#SparrowPharmaceuticals #Type2Diabetes #CardiometabolicDisease #CortisolRegulation #Cortisol #GLP1 #RareDisease
sparrowpharma.com
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Jesse Levey, CEO and Founder of Longevity Health, has a focus on extending the health span not just the lifespan of more people by providing access to tools and preventative health information. Lessons learned from expensive concierge medical services are being applied to a broader population, driving down health costs and democratizing longevity medicine. Using AI to build a scalable and personalized approach to wellness not just sick care, Longevity Health aims to make an AI doctor available around the globe.
Jesse explains, "Our mission is to help a billion people live to a hundred in good health. That's the vision. And the way that we get there is by building an AI doctor trains of ed on longevity medicine and distributed around the world. We have a three-phased business model. Phase one is to take the sort of hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year longevity concierge experience and deliver it for $10,000. So we've taken this really high-end experience that combines an executive physical with a longevity concierge physician and a team to help you implement the recommendations. And we've delivered that for $10,000. That's been around for about two years."
"Phase two takes that down to $1,000 with the help of AI. So it reduces the time spent by humans and the need to spend a lot of time with clinicians. And so it's a mix between clinician time and AI interactions. And then eventually, as the regulation allows and as the technology improves, we believe that we'll be able to deliver this experience for as low as $10 a month or $100 a year via an AI doctor. And so that's the future. That's what we're building towards."
#LongevityHealth #Longevity #HealthyAging #HealthSpan #FunctionalMedicine #HealthAI #Aging
longevityhealth.me
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Jesse Levey, CEO and Founder of Longevity Health, has a focus on extending the health span not just the lifespan of more people by providing access to tools and preventative health information. Lessons learned from expensive concierge medical services are being applied to a broader population, driving down health costs and democratizing longevity medicine. Using AI to build a scalable and personalized approach to wellness not just sick care, Longevity Health aims to make an AI doctor available around the globe.
Jesse explains, "Our mission is to help a billion people live to a hundred in good health. That's the vision. And the way that we get there is by building an AI doctor trains of ed on longevity medicine and distributed around the world. We have a three-phased business model. Phase one is to take the sort of hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year longevity concierge experience and deliver it for $10,000. So we've taken this really high-end experience that combines an executive physical with a longevity concierge physician and a team to help you implement the recommendations. And we've delivered that for $10,000. That's been around for about two years."
"Phase two takes that down to $1,000 with the help of AI. So it reduces the time spent by humans and the need to spend a lot of time with clinicians. And so it's a mix between clinician time and AI interactions. And then eventually, as the regulation allows and as the technology improves, we believe that we'll be able to deliver this experience for as low as $10 a month or $100 a year via an AI doctor. And so that's the future. That's what we're building towards."
#LongevityHealth #Longevity #HealthyAging #HealthSpan #FunctionalMedicine #HealthAI #Aging
longevityhealth.me
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Sean Cassidy, CEO and Co-Founder of Lucem Health, is applying AI to identify patients at high risk of undiagnosed conditions like cancer and diabetes. The goal is to facilitate earlier diagnosis and treatment by flagging patients that need screening based on the AI plaform's ability to analyze EHR data and demographics of diverse patient populations to ensure broad scalability. This technology was designed to integrate into existing clinical workflows for established screening procedures rather than making direct treatment recommendations.
Sean explains, "The origin of the company, the idea for the company, originated within Mayo Clinic in about 2020. Mayo Clinic has faced a challenge, and I think sometimes continues to face a challenge that a lot of researchers in AI have faced, which is how do you get promising AI in a clinical context from the so-called bench to the bedside? How do you get it from the lab into clinical practice? And what they realized was that while the data science and the AI part of it is really interesting, what was needed was scaffolding around the AI to facilitate integration with data and integration with workflows, a measurement and monitoring system, and so on and so forth."
"We are trying to facilitate, and you're going to see us begin to expand the aperture, if you like, or open the aperture of how we position the company. Because as we've gone on, we have realized that the opportunity here is to actually help healthcare provider organizations, health systems, and so on, create really high-impact care delivery programs that have at their core or feature at their core earlier diagnosis, accelerated treatment, earlier treatment and therefore better outcomes for patients and hopefully even saved lives. So that's the generic approach that we take."
#LucemHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HealthTech #EarlyDiseaseDetection
lucemhealth.com
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Sean Cassidy, CEO and Co-Founder of Lucem Health, is applying AI to identify patients at high risk of undiagnosed conditions like cancer and diabetes. The goal is to facilitate earlier diagnosis and treatment by flagging patients that need screening based on the AI plaform's ability to analyze EHR data and demographics of diverse patient populations to ensure broad scalability. This technology was designed to integrate into existing clinical workflows for established screening procedures rather than making direct treatment recommendations.
Sean explains, "The origin of the company, the idea for the company, originated within Mayo Clinic in about 2020. Mayo Clinic has faced a challenge, and I think sometimes continues to face a challenge that a lot of researchers in AI have faced, which is how do you get promising AI in a clinical context from the so-called bench to the bedside? How do you get it from the lab into clinical practice? And what they realized was that while the data science and the AI part of it is really interesting, what was needed was scaffolding around the AI to facilitate integration with data and integration with workflows, a measurement and monitoring system, and so on and so forth."
"We are trying to facilitate, and you're going to see us begin to expand the aperture, if you like, or open the aperture of how we position the company. Because as we've gone on, we have realized that the opportunity here is to actually help healthcare provider organizations, health systems, and so on, create really high-impact care delivery programs that have at their core or feature at their core earlier diagnosis, accelerated treatment, earlier treatment and therefore better outcomes for patients and hopefully even saved lives. So that's the generic approach that we take."
#LucemHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HealthTech #EarlyDiseaseDetection
lucemhealth.com
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Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and Founder of Biotricity, has designed a direct-to-consumer service to shift healthcare from a reactive to a preventive model by simplifying and accelerating access to remote cardiac screening. Applying AI to sift through patient data allows the cardiologist to focus on clinically relevant information and to identify sporadic, intermittent heart issues that are often difficult to detect using traditional heart screening techniques. Waqaas predicts an expansion of specialized solutions using AI and large datasets to support clinicians and patients in the drive to identify early signs of disease.
Waqaas explains, "The thing that we've been focused on is, as you know, heart issues. We've talked extensively about heart issues, which are the number one killer. And so what we've done now is we've collected this massive dataset, but we're trying to look at the nuances of those needles in a haystack. So it's not about the individuals who have arrhythmias to catch. It's about the ones who are very, very sporadic and intermittent, something that happens once every four months. Is there a way to predict that? Can we grab additional data from the patient about their environment, about their history, to get a more holistic view of the patient? "
"Often, with a massive amount of data in a set, you can get into prediction, but you need a more holistic view. Our focus has now been on now that we've captured 90% of the scenarios, the last 10% are incredibly complicated, and how do we leverage that? How do we use our data to basically get into those specialized nuances?"
#HeartSecure #hearthealth #preventative #heartdiease #healthyheart #selfcare #healthylifestyle #healthtestathome #HeartYourHeart #Biotricity #CareInnovation #HealthcareAI #Bioheart #Cardiology
biotricity.com
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Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and Founder of Biotricity, has designed a direct-to-consumer service to shift healthcare from a reactive to a preventive model by simplifying and accelerating access to remote cardiac screening. Applying AI to sift through patient data allows the cardiologist to focus on clinically relevant information and to identify sporadic, intermittent heart issues that are often difficult to detect using traditional heart screening techniques. Waqaas predicts an expansion of specialized solutions using AI and large datasets to support clinicians and patients in the drive to identify early signs of disease.
Waqaas explains, "The thing that we've been focused on is, as you know, heart issues. We've talked extensively about heart issues, which are the number one killer. And so what we've done now is we've collected this massive dataset, but we're trying to look at the nuances of those needles in a haystack. So it's not about the individuals who have arrhythmias to catch. It's about the ones who are very, very sporadic and intermittent, something that happens once every four months. Is there a way to predict that? Can we grab additional data from the patient about their environment, about their history, to get a more holistic view of the patient? "
"Often, with a massive amount of data in a set, you can get into prediction, but you need a more holistic view. Our focus has now been on now that we've captured 90% of the scenarios, the last 10% are incredibly complicated, and how do we leverage that? How do we use our data to basically get into those specialized nuances?"
#HeartSecure #hearthealth #preventative #heartdiease #healthyheart #selfcare #healthylifestyle #healthtestathome #HeartYourHeart #Biotricity #CareInnovation #HealthcareAI #Bioheart #Cardiology
biotricity.com
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Neil Klompas, President and CEO of Augurex, has a mission to improve the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases, with a primary focus on axial spondyloarthritis, a form of inflammatory back pain that is often misdiagnosed. The Augurex blood test SpineStat is designed to differentiate axSpA from mechanical back pain by identifying a specific biomarker present in axSpA. Currently, there is an average nine-year delay from the onset of symptoms to an accurate diagnosis of axSpA, causing irreversible spinal damage and years of using drugs and therapy with no benefit.
Neil explains, "I think we're all familiar with back pain. Some of the NIH data and WHO data out there show that almost 28% of adult Americans live with chronic back pain, back pain lasting more than three months. It can be a real journey to figure out what the drivers are, with some patients really never getting resolution, resulting in pain management and, in some cases, even opioid pain management. But if you dive deeper into that category of back pain, there are really two broad classifications we can think about. We can think about mechanical back pain, which is due to lifting, twisting, sports injury, or maybe a car accident. But then there's this whole other category, as you indicated, called inflammatory back pain, which really has its roots in autoimmune, where the body's immune system is actually attacking itself. "
"Well, this is when the body's immune system attacks its peripheral joints. In inflammatory back pain, or as you said, axial spondyloarthritis, it's an autoimmune condition where the body's immune system actually attacks the spine. This can lead to pain increasing over time, new bone growth, fusion of the spinal cord, and permanent stiffness and loss of mobility. It's progressive. It keeps getting worse, and because it's an autoimmune condition. Simply stretching or swearing to take up yoga or getting a new pair of runners or doing PT or massage, while it might help with some of the symptoms, it's not going to slow down or stop the disease. The challenge with axSpA, with axial spondyloarthritis, is that while it's not really that well known or talked about in the media, it's actually more than twice as prevalent as rheumatoid arthritis, a condition which many people have heard about."
#Augurex #AdvancedDiagnostics #AutoimmuneDiseases #axSpA #AxialSpondyloarthritis #BackPain
augurex.com
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Neil Klompas, President and CEO of Augurex, has a mission to improve the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases, with a primary focus on axial spondyloarthritis, a form of inflammatory back pain that is often misdiagnosed. The Augurex blood test SpineStat is designed to differentiate axSpA from mechanical back pain by identifying a specific biomarker present in axSpA. Currently, there is an average nine-year delay from the onset of symptoms to an accurate diagnosis of axSpA, causing irreversible spinal damage and years of using drugs and therapy with no benefit.
Neil explains, "I think we're all familiar with back pain. Some of the NIH data and WHO data out there show that almost 28% of adult Americans live with chronic back pain, back pain lasting more than three months. It can be a real journey to figure out what the drivers are, with some patients really never getting resolution, resulting in pain management and, in some cases, even opioid pain management. But if you dive deeper into that category of back pain, there are really two broad classifications we can think about. We can think about mechanical back pain, which is due to lifting, twisting, sports injury, or maybe a car accident. But then there's this whole other category, as you indicated, called inflammatory back pain, which really has its roots in autoimmune, where the body's immune system is actually attacking itself. "
"Well, this is when the body's immune system attacks its peripheral joints. In inflammatory back pain, or as you said, axial spondyloarthritis, it's an autoimmune condition where the body's immune system actually attacks the spine. This can lead to pain increasing over time, new bone growth, fusion of the spinal cord, and permanent stiffness and loss of mobility. It's progressive. It keeps getting worse, and because it's an autoimmune condition. Simply stretching or swearing to take up yoga or getting a new pair of runners or doing PT or massage, while it might help with some of the symptoms, it's not going to slow down or stop the disease. The challenge with axSpA, with axial spondyloarthritis, is that while it's not really that well known or talked about in the media, it's actually more than twice as prevalent as rheumatoid arthritis, a condition which many people have heard about."
#Augurex #AdvancedDiagnostics #AutoimmuneDiseases #axSpA #AxialSpondyloarthritis #BackPain
augurex.com
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Dr. Petri Bono, Chief Medical Officer at Faron Pharmaceuticals, describes the development of bexmarilimad, a novel first-in-class immunotherapy that, unlike existing checkpoint inhibitors targeting T cells, targets the Clever 1 receptor on macrophages. This treatment is designed to reprogram the tumor microenvironment by switching marcophages from suppressive to active, enabling the patient's immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. The primary disease target is higher-risk Myelodysplastic syndromes because the cancer cells in virtually all MDS patients express the Clever 1 target.
Petri explains, "We are developing a completely new type of treatment. Currently, cancer patients are treated with immunotherapies called checkpoint inhibitors that target immune checkpoints. But our approach is targeting completely different cells, not T cells, but rather macrophages. And that's why we are first in class with a novel mode of action. And that's why it's important that these macrophages are shown to, for example, contribute to treatment resistance in many tumors."
"Clever 1 actually is a receptor that was identified about 20 years ago. It found a certain macrophage as well as myeloid cells. And Clever 1 keeps the immune system in a tolerant and suppressive state. In cancer, for example, these Clever 1-positive macrophages essentially help the malignancy grow instead of helping to fight against it. And then our approach is that we want to block Clever 1 with our monoclonal antibody, bexmarilimab. So those macrophages switch the phenotype into an active antigen, preventing a pro-inflammatory state, and this reawakens immune surveillance. It allows T cells in the system to actually recognize the malignant cells themselves as dangerous and mount a proper antitumor response. So, a completely new mode of action by targeting Clever 1, we are not just adding another cytotoxic mechanism. We are removing the immune break and enabling the patient's own immune system to do the job that it was originally designed to do."
#FaronPharmaceuticals #BloodCancer #MDS #MyelodysplasticSyndrome #HR-MDS #CancerResearch #novelimmunotherapy #Bexmarilimab #Clever1
faron.com
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Dr. Petri Bono, Chief Medical Officer at Faron Pharmaceuticals, describes the development of bexmarilimad, a novel first-in-class immunotherapy that, unlike existing checkpoint inhibitors targeting T cells, targets the Clever 1 receptor on macrophages. This treatment is designed to reprogram the tumor microenvironment by switching marcophages from suppressive to active, enabling the patient's immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. The primary disease target is higher-risk Myelodysplastic syndromes because the cancer cells in virtually all MDS patients express the Clever 1 target.
Petri explains, "We are developing a completely new type of treatment. Currently, cancer patients are treated with immunotherapies called checkpoint inhibitors that target immune checkpoints. But our approach is targeting completely different cells, not T cells, but rather macrophages. And that's why we are first in class with a novel mode of action. And that's why it's important that these macrophages are shown to, for example, contribute to treatment resistance in many tumors."
"Clever 1 actually is a receptor that was identified about 20 years ago. It found a certain macrophage as well as myeloid cells. And Clever 1 keeps the immune system in a tolerant and suppressive state. In cancer, for example, these Clever 1-positive macrophages essentially help the malignancy grow instead of helping to fight against it. And then our approach is that we want to block Clever 1 with our monoclonal antibody, bexmarilimab. So those macrophages switch the phenotype into an active antigen, preventing a pro-inflammatory state, and this reawakens immune surveillance. It allows T cells in the system to actually recognize the malignant cells themselves as dangerous and mount a proper antitumor response. So, a completely new mode of action by targeting Clever 1, we are not just adding another cytotoxic mechanism. We are removing the immune break and enabling the patient's own immune system to do the job that it was originally designed to do."
#FaronPharmaceuticals #BloodCancer #MDS #MyelodysplasticSyndrome #HR-MDS #CancerResearch #novelimmunotherapy #Bexmarilimab #Clever1
faron.com
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Todd Doze, CEO of Janus Health, specializes in bringing AI to hospitals to connect the hospital revenue cycle management with the overall patient experience. Automating some manual RCM tasks, such as prior authorizations and referrals, has led to significant reductions in claim denials, faster processing times, fewer errors, and better compliance with recent legislation. Challenges remain to ensure the AI model's accuracy and to demonstrate clear ROI and a direct impact on the hospital's revenue.
Todd explains, "Today at Janus, we focus on helping providers improve their operational and financial efficiency. We work with about 250 acute care hospitals across the country, servicing some of the largest health systems in the nation by providing automations and AI-driven operational intelligence. This gives management insight into what their revenue cycle folks are doing to ensure they're taking the optimal paths to adjudicate claims and also automating as much of the laborious, tedious work that goes into treating patients in the most optimal manner."
"There are a lot of very manual pain points within the rev cycle experience. For example, many of us have been referred by our primary care physician to a specialty provider. A very common example is referring to an imaging center for an MRI or X-ray. And many times, to access an appointment with that specialty provider, the provider may need to submit a prior authorization request to the patient's insurance. And then there's also the communication loop process focused on the referral. And so there are many areas for error, and there are a lot of ways the patient experience can go south very quickly."
#JanusHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HealthTech #HealthcareOperations #RCM
janus-ai.com
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Todd Doze, CEO of Janus Health, specializes in bringing AI to hospitals to connect the hospital revenue cycle management with the overall patient experience. Automating some manual RCM tasks, such as prior authorizations and referrals, has led to significant reductions in claim denials, faster processing times, fewer errors, and better compliance with recent legislation. Challenges remain to ensure the AI model's accuracy and to demonstrate clear ROI and a direct impact on the hospital's revenue.
Todd explains, "Today at Janus, we focus on helping providers improve their operational and financial efficiency. We work with about 250 acute care hospitals across the country, servicing some of the largest health systems in the nation by providing automations and AI-driven operational intelligence. This gives management insight into what their revenue cycle folks are doing to ensure they're taking the optimal paths to adjudicate claims and also automating as much of the laborious, tedious work that goes into treating patients in the most optimal manner."
"There are a lot of very manual pain points within the rev cycle experience. For example, many of us have been referred by our primary care physician to a specialty provider. A very common example is referring to an imaging center for an MRI or X-ray. And many times, to access an appointment with that specialty provider, the provider may need to submit a prior authorization request to the patient's insurance. And then there's also the communication loop process focused on the referral. And so there are many areas for error, and there are a lot of ways the patient experience can go south very quickly."
#JanusHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HealthTech #HealthcareOperations #RCM
janus-ai.com
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Susan Grant, Chief Clinical Officer at symplr, reviews findings from their annual Compass Survey, which revealed the significant challenges hospitals face, driven by financial pressures, clinician burnout, and operational inefficiencies. Fragmented technology systems create significant administrative burdens, and there is growing recognition that unifying healthcare operations and strategically implementing AI are crucial to streamlining workflows. Clinicians' involvement in the design and implementation of new processes and procedures is essential to ensure that patients' real-world needs are properly addressed.
Susan explains, "The annual Compass Survey, is actually our fourth survey that we've done here at symplr, and the goal of the survey is to drive awareness around the need for and benefits of streamlining healthcare operations software. So it's a way to get feedback from our customers, clients, and leaders out in the healthcare world."
"I've been a Chief Nurse for the last 30 years in different health systems around the country, and we do tend to be a very reactive industry. However, I think it's built and intensified over the last few years because of issues we're seeing that have also intensified, including finances, workplace violence, clinician burnout, and cybersecurity. Those are some of the top issues our healthcare systems are dealing with. So I think that the reactivity of trying to really deal with those various issues has intensified and created this reactivity."
#symplr #CompassSurvey #HealthcareIT #HealthcareOperations #symplrOperationsPlatform #HealthcareAI
symplr.com
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Susan Grant, Chief Clinical Officer at symplr, reviews findings from their annual Compass Survey, which revealed the significant challenges hospitals face, driven by financial pressures, clinician burnout, and operational inefficiencies. Fragmented technology systems create significant administrative burdens, and there is growing recognition that unifying healthcare operations and strategically implementing AI are crucial to streamlining workflows. Clinicians' involvement in the design and implementation of new processes and procedures is essential to ensure that patients' real-world needs are properly addressed.
Susan explains, "The annual Compass Survey, is actually our fourth survey that we've done here at symplr, and the goal of the survey is to drive awareness around the need for and benefits of streamlining healthcare operations software. So it's a way to get feedback from our customers, clients, and leaders out in the healthcare world."
"I've been a Chief Nurse for the last 30 years in different health systems around the country, and we do tend to be a very reactive industry. However, I think it's built and intensified over the last few years because of issues we're seeing that have also intensified, including finances, workplace violence, clinician burnout, and cybersecurity. Those are some of the top issues our healthcare systems are dealing with. So I think that the reactivity of trying to really deal with those various issues has intensified and created this reactivity."
#symplr #CompassSurvey #HealthcareIT #HealthcareOperations #symplrOperationsPlatform #HealthcareAI
symplr.com
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Fawad Butt, Co-Founder and CEO of Penguin AI, is addressing the workflow challenges faced by healthcare payers and providers, particularly in prior authorizations and claims adjudications. These processes are inefficient and often yield inconsistent results because human reviewers interpret rules differently, and patients are denied care due to minor administrative errors. Penguin AI is bringing consistency and speed to adjudication, breaking down data silos and handling non-clinical administrative work, enabling agents to address patient-specific problems and ensure accuracy and safety.
Fawad explains, "When you look at the healthcare ecosystem, there are obviously the pharma side, the payer side, the provider side, and the PBN side. So there are lots of areas where opportunities exist. We think payers and providers are especially challenged, and I think the area where they struggle is in the administrative workflow. And these are things like prior authorization and risk adjustment, claims adjudication, and payment integrity on the payer side."
"There are things like scheduling and patient 360, or onboarding and referrals, as well as some risk adjustment for entities that are risk-bearing, and ultimately, all the functions around revenue cycle management for providers. I think the payers and providers have a tremendous amount of technology and resourcing support, but these functions have not really been what I would say reimagined in over a decade. And I think with AI, there is a real opportunity to come back and try to optimize."
#PenguinAI #HealthAI #HealthcareAdministration
penguinai.co
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Fawad Butt, Co-Founder and CEO of Penguin AI, is addressing the workflow challenges faced by healthcare payers and providers, particularly in prior authorizations and claims adjudications. These processes are inefficient and often yield inconsistent results because human reviewers interpret rules differently, and patients are denied care due to minor administrative errors. Penguin AI is bringing consistency and speed to adjudication, breaking down data silos and handling non-clinical administrative work, enabling agents to address patient-specific problems and ensure accuracy and safety.
Fawad explains, "When you look at the healthcare ecosystem, there are obviously the pharma side, the payer side, the provider side, and the PBN side. So there are lots of areas where opportunities exist. We think payers and providers are especially challenged, and I think the area where they struggle is in the administrative workflow. And these are things like prior authorization and risk adjustment, claims adjudication, and payment integrity on the payer side."
"There are things like scheduling and patient 360, or onboarding and referrals, as well as some risk adjustment for entities that are risk-bearing, and ultimately, all the functions around revenue cycle management for providers. I think the payers and providers have a tremendous amount of technology and resourcing support, but these functions have not really been what I would say reimagined in over a decade. And I think with AI, there is a real opportunity to come back and try to optimize."
#PenguinAI #HealthAI #HealthcareAdministration
penguinai.co
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Alexander Tsiaras, CEO and Founder of StoryMD, is addressing the critical problem of the fragmented health information landscape. The StoryMD platform unifies a patient's health history, including clinical records, wearable data, and personal diary entries, along with relevant data from a vast validated medical library of text and strong visualizations. This provides a coherent narrative about the patient that informs the patient, their healthcare providers, and caregivers, enabling more informed decisions and better outcomes.
Alexander explains, "So one of the huge problems that we have in healthcare is that when people go through a health journey, they have to cobble information together from so many disparate sources. You get a PDF here, you get a URL there, you get a screenshot somewhere else. And fundamentally, what happens is that you're trying to cobble the story of your journey together, and it's totally fragmented. You get fragmented medical records, you get fragmented information, and you share fragmented information with other sources. So really the story is constantly evolving, and you're trying to figure it out, and it's problematic."
"What we have now built is the largest coded medical library in the world, where we can take all of the information using HL7 codes. Now, HL7 is Health Level Seven International, which basically is the way that your medical records are coded. And we have mapped a piece of information using AI to your medical records. So when we see a lab report, we tell you a beautiful story about what your labs mean, and this way, we can actually keep longitudinal stories going, giving you insights into what's going on in your biomarkers."
#StoryMD #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #HealthAI #HealthJourney
storymd.com
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Alexander Tsiaras, CEO and Founder of StoryMD, is addressing the critical problem of the fragmented health information landscape. The StoryMD platform unifies a patient's health history, including clinical records, wearable data, and personal diary entries, along with relevant data from a vast validated medical library of text and strong visualizations. This provides a coherent narrative about the patient that informs the patient, their healthcare providers, and caregivers, enabling more informed decisions and better outcomes.
Alexander explains, "So one of the huge problems that we have in healthcare is that when people go through a health journey, they have to cobble information together from so many disparate sources. You get a PDF here, you get a URL there, you get a screenshot somewhere else. And fundamentally, what happens is that you're trying to cobble the story of your journey together, and it's totally fragmented. You get fragmented medical records, you get fragmented information, and you share fragmented information with other sources. So really the story is constantly evolving, and you're trying to figure it out, and it's problematic."
"What we have now built is the largest coded medical library in the world, where we can take all of the information using HL7 codes. Now, HL7 is Health Level Seven International, which basically is the way that your medical records are coded. And we have mapped a piece of information using AI to your medical records. So when we see a lab report, we tell you a beautiful story about what your labs mean, and this way, we can actually keep longitudinal stories going, giving you insights into what's going on in your biomarkers."
#StoryMD #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #HealthAI #HealthJourney
storymd.com
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Seth Cohen, President of Cedar, is addressing the affordability of health care by shifting the emphasis from billing functionality to patient financial navigation by using technology to connect patients to underutilized financial resources. The Cedar Cover platform is designed to identify and enroll eligible uninsured or underinsured patients into Medicaid, ACA, available pharmaceutical copay subsidies, and untapped Health Savings Accounts, which can be used retrospectively to cover previous medical and ongoing bills, benefiting the patient and providers. An AI agent handles patient service calls to help patients navigate the challenges of connecting to these resources and identifying new coverage options in these uncertain times.
Seth explains, "Cedar is the largest independent solution focused entirely on the patient financial experience in healthcare. As you probably know, in the revenue cycle space, there are lots of vendors out there selling solutions up and down the revenue cycle, mostly with an emphasis on insurance reimbursement. We are the only one that we're aware of that is really driving at scale a better patient experience, so fully focused there. And so what that means is we are the entity responsible for sending bills to patients and helping those patients navigate their financial obligations to large hospitals, health systems, and large physician groups."
"But that word advocacy, I think, is very relevant now because what we've discovered and a huge, huge shift over the last decade is that most patients cannot afford the bills they're receiving. We're really in an affordability crisis. And so it's less about sending a bill with good billing functionality. It's more about helping the patient navigate how to manage that bill. And so there is a lot of advocacy in that."
#Cedar #FinancialSupport #MedicalBills
cedar.com
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Seth Cohen, President of Cedar, is addressing the affordability of health care by shifting the emphasis from billing functionality to patient financial navigation by using technology to connect patients to underutilized financial resources. The Cedar Cover platform is designed to identify and enroll eligible uninsured or underinsured patients into Medicaid, ACA, available pharmaceutical copay subsidies, and untapped Health Savings Accounts, which can be used retrospectively to cover previous medical and ongoing bills, benefiting the patient and providers. An AI agent handles patient service calls to help patients navigate the challenges of connecting to these resources and identifying new coverage options in these uncertain times.
Seth explains, "Cedar is the largest independent solution focused entirely on the patient financial experience in healthcare. As you probably know, in the revenue cycle space, there are lots of vendors out there selling solutions up and down the revenue cycle, mostly with an emphasis on insurance reimbursement. We are the only one that we're aware of that is really driving at scale a better patient experience, so fully focused there. And so what that means is we are the entity responsible for sending bills to patients and helping those patients navigate their financial obligations to large hospitals, health systems, and large physician groups."
"But that word advocacy, I think, is very relevant now because what we've discovered and a huge, huge shift over the last decade is that most patients cannot afford the bills they're receiving. We're really in an affordability crisis. And so it's less about sending a bill with good billing functionality. It's more about helping the patient navigate how to manage that bill. And so there is a lot of advocacy in that."
#Cedar #FinancialSupport #MedicalBills
cedar.com
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Jim Foote, Co-Founder and CEO of First Ascent Biomedical, is changing the standard of care for cancer treatment from 'try and hope' to 'test and treat'. The First Ascent platform combines functional drug testing of fresh biopsies, genomic sequencing, and an AI engine to assess a large panel of drugs and identify the most likely to be effective. Clinical data show a high correlation between how cancer cells respond in the lab test and how patients respond to the same drug, and is seen as a treatment guide for refractory cancer patients to identify novel drug combinations.
Jim explains, "Fundamentally speaking, if we look at everybody on this planet from a DNA and RNA perspective, there are 8 billion people, and each one of us is different from the others due to our DNA and RNA. So if we acknowledge that biologically we're all different, then the problem that we're trying to solve is if we're all different, why are we treating each patient with the same standard of care? A process that has existed for a hundred years, and again, they've made substantial advancements, but functional precision medicine is really an opportunity to move away from a standard that's based on the laws of averages and really treat people based on an individual level, developed by results that come from their individual biology."
"In oncology, these practices and standards have been developed over decades. And in some situations, some of these cancer protocols haven't been updated in decades. There had been continual advancements in things like immunotherapy. What I'll say is that in oncology, they're always looking for the silver bullet. It's in the genome, it's in a biomarker, it's in immuno-oncology, it's in an organoid, it's in all of those types of things. So they have always tried to find that silver bullet. Fundamentally, what we do in First Ascent is that we believe that we have enough bullets, per se. We have enough drugs, per se. We're just not using them in the right ways. "
#FirstAscentBiomedical #Cancer #Oncology
firstascentbiomedical.com
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Jim Foote, Co-Founder and CEO of First Ascent Biomedical, is changing the standard of care for cancer treatment from 'try and hope' to 'test and treat'. The First Ascent platform combines functional drug testing of fresh biopsies, genomic sequencing, and an AI engine to assess a large panel of drugs and identify the most likely to be effective. Clinical data show a high correlation between how cancer cells respond in the lab test and how patients respond to the same drug, and is seen as a treatment guide for refractory cancer patients to identify novel drug combinations.
Jim explains, "Fundamentally speaking, if we look at everybody on this planet from a DNA and RNA perspective, there are 8 billion people, and each one of us is different from the others due to our DNA and RNA. So if we acknowledge that biologically we're all different, then the problem that we're trying to solve is if we're all different, why are we treating each patient with the same standard of care? A process that has existed for a hundred years, and again, they've made substantial advancements, but functional precision medicine is really an opportunity to move away from a standard that's based on the laws of averages and really treat people based on an individual level, developed by results that come from their individual biology."
"In oncology, these practices and standards have been developed over decades. And in some situations, some of these cancer protocols haven't been updated in decades. There had been continual advancements in things like immunotherapy. What I'll say is that in oncology, they're always looking for the silver bullet. It's in the genome, it's in a biomarker, it's in immuno-oncology, it's in an organoid, it's in all of those types of things. So they have always tried to find that silver bullet. Fundamentally, what we do in First Ascent is that we believe that we have enough bullets, per se. We have enough drugs, per se. We're just not using them in the right ways. "
#FirstAscentBiomedical #Cancer #Oncology
firstascentbiomedical.com
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Deb Nevins, Director of Product Strategy at POCN, emphasizes the expanding role and importance of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Associates in the American healthcare system. These professionals have evolved from being an extension of the physician to becoming autonomous clinicians who handle a wide range of patient care, including diagnosing, prescribing, and creating treatment plans for a significant portion of the patient population. In many cases, NPs and PAs are filling care gaps in rural and underserved areas and applying a more holistic approach to healthcare in an increasingly virtual healthcare environment.
Deb explains, "POCN is an organization that has been around for over 10 years now. It started really with the mission to support nurse practitioners and physician associates and help them practice at the top of their license. And we do that multiple ways, but specifically we like to say it's a learn, earn, care, and connect model. So we provide educational insights to them. We allow them to connect with each other on our platforms, and we also bring them forward to pharmaceutical companies to help them better understand the role that they play in patient care today."
"Well, it's really interesting because both nurse practitioners and physician associates have really stepped up their responsibilities and roles since the timeframe when COVID started, where there was such a backlog. So they used to be thought of as more physician extenders or as mid-levels, but we can no longer say that. So nurse practitioners, physicians, and associates will handle everything with patient care from the initial intake, counseling, diagnosing, creating the treatment plan, prescribing medications, doing the follow-up, and ensuring that they're managing during side effects or anything like that that might happen. They support the patient with access challenges as they try to get their medications. So they basically do almost everything that a physician, an MD or a DO would do, except that they're not doing surgery or they're not doing super complex cases, but they have autonomy."
#ElevatingCare #VoicesInCare #PatientsFirstCare #POCN #WomenInHealthcare #VisibilityMatters #HealthcareLeadership #AmplifyNPs #AmplifyPAs
pocn.com
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Deb Nevins, Director of Product Strategy at POCN, emphasizes the expanding role and importance of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Associates in the American healthcare system. These professionals have evolved from being an extension of the physician to becoming autonomous clinicians who handle a wide range of patient care, including diagnosing, prescribing, and creating treatment plans for a significant portion of the patient population. In many cases, NPs and PAs are filling care gaps in rural and underserved areas and applying a more holistic approach to healthcare in an increasingly virtual healthcare environment.
Deb explains, "POCN is an organization that has been around for over 10 years now. It started really with the mission to support nurse practitioners and physician associates and help them practice at the top of their license. And we do that multiple ways, but specifically we like to say it's a learn, earn, care, and connect model. So we provide educational insights to them. We allow them to connect with each other on our platforms, and we also bring them forward to pharmaceutical companies to help them better understand the role that they play in patient care today."
"Well, it's really interesting because both nurse practitioners and physician associates have really stepped up their responsibilities and roles since the timeframe when COVID started, where there was such a backlog. So they used to be thought of as more physician extenders or as mid-levels, but we can no longer say that. So nurse practitioners, physicians, and associates will handle everything with patient care from the initial intake, counseling, diagnosing, creating the treatment plan, prescribing medications, doing the follow-up, and ensuring that they're managing during side effects or anything like that that might happen. They support the patient with access challenges as they try to get their medications. So they basically do almost everything that a physician, an MD or a DO would do, except that they're not doing surgery or they're not doing super complex cases, but they have autonomy."
#ElevatingCare #VoicesInCare #PatientsFirstCare #POCN #WomenInHealthcare #VisibilityMatters #HealthcareLeadership #AmplifyNPs #AmplifyPAs
pocn.com
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Jill Eubank, Division President of Professional Talent Solutions at Randstad USA, shares key findings from the Randstad Work Monitor Pulse Survey on the current landscape in the medical and healthcare industry. Noted is the significant shift from prioritizing remote work to job security, alignment with leadership values, and how AI is being used to improve job efficiency. In an environment facing a scarcity of qualified employees, retention drivers include pay increases that keep pace with inflation, flexible scheduling, and strong manager support.
Jill explains, "We're the largest staffing and workforce solution provider in the country and really in the world. We offer recruiting, staffing, HR services, whether it's on a temporary contingent basis or even all the way up to executive search and permanent placement. In healthcare specifically, our co consultants specialize in recruiting for those essential roles in the healthcare industry. Think medical, dental, and pharmaceutical sectors. We have a large, extensive network of not only clients in healthcare, but also candidates and a pool of talent in the market."
"I think during COVID, we saw, especially in the healthcare industry, people wanting to find a way to work remotely for a lot of various reasons. What you're finding is that it's now shifting to employability versus working remotely. And in order to stay in a role for, let's say, five years or more, what we're finding is healthcare workers are saying that the top three retention drivers are an annual pay increase that keeps up with inflation or above inflation, followed by manager support, which was something we hadn't seen as frequently in the healthcare space. And then obviously, something that has evolved over the last couple of years is alignment with leadership values. A lot of very interesting key takeaways, but things you're starting to see evolve with the market and what's happening just with the workforce in general."
#RandstadUSA #TalentStrategy #WorkforceInsights #FutureofWork #HealthcareJobs #TalenRetention #WorkplaceTrends #HealthcareLeadership #EmployeeWellbeing #FutureofWork
randstadusa.com
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Jill Eubank, Division President of Professional Talent Solutions at Randstad USA, shares key findings from the Randstad Work Monitor Pulse Survey on the current landscape in the medical and healthcare industry. Noted is the significant shift from prioritizing remote work to job security, alignment with leadership values, and how AI is being used to improve job efficiency. In an environment facing a scarcity of qualified employees, retention drivers include pay increases that keep pace with inflation, flexible scheduling, and strong manager support.
Jill explains, "We're the largest staffing and workforce solution provider in the country and really in the world. We offer recruiting, staffing, HR services, whether it's on a temporary contingent basis or even all the way up to executive search and permanent placement. In healthcare specifically, our co consultants specialize in recruiting for those essential roles in the healthcare industry. Think medical, dental, and pharmaceutical sectors. We have a large, extensive network of not only clients in healthcare, but also candidates and a pool of talent in the market."
"I think during COVID, we saw, especially in the healthcare industry, people wanting to find a way to work remotely for a lot of various reasons. What you're finding is that it's now shifting to employability versus working remotely. And in order to stay in a role for, let's say, five years or more, what we're finding is healthcare workers are saying that the top three retention drivers are an annual pay increase that keeps up with inflation or above inflation, followed by manager support, which was something we hadn't seen as frequently in the healthcare space. And then obviously, something that has evolved over the last couple of years is alignment with leadership values. A lot of very interesting key takeaways, but things you're starting to see evolve with the market and what's happening just with the workforce in general."
#RandstadUSA #TalentStrategy #WorkforceInsights #FutureofWork #HealthcareJobs #TalenRetention #WorkplaceTrends #HealthcareLeadership #EmployeeWellbeing #FutureofWork
randstadusa.com
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David Bates, CEO and Co-Founder of Linus Health, highlights the need to monitor brain health to identify the earliest signs of cognitive decline. The Linus Health AI-powered platform enables primary care providers to quickly screen for, diagnose, and help manage cognitive issues for an expanding population. Striving to overcome stigma and bias, this approach to early detection is crucial because many underlying causes of cognitive decline are treatable or reversible.
David explains, "In brain health, especially, I'll talk first about cognitive health. There are up to 15 million Americans right now who have mild cognitive impairment, which is a precursor to dementia, and they do not know it. So, it's believed that up to 92% of mild cognitive impairment is undiagnosed, and up to 60% of dementia is undiagnosed. So we have this massive need to identify these folks and help them, empower them to get the resources to manage the condition, to optimize quality of life for themselves and their family and their loved ones. On the preventative side, empower folks to prevent dementia as much as possible, and maybe even half of dementia cases could be prevented through lifestyle modification."
"Furthermore, if it's found early, there's a lot that can be done both to prepare for the advancement of the disease and to delay the advancement of the disease, and to empower people to live the highest quality of life in their circumstances. Furthermore, not all mild cognitive impairment or dementia is due to Alzheimer's disease. There are some things that, especially in the mild cognitive impairment stage, can be done, like changing medications, diagnosing depression, dealing with sleep apnea, vitamin deficiencies, and so on and so forth, that can actually reverse the course or at least slow the progression."
#LinusHealth #BrainHealth #AI #Healthcare #EarlyDetection #CognitiveHealth #HealthTech #Innovation
linushealth.com
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David Bates, CEO and Co-Founder of Linus Health, highlights the need to monitor brain health to identify the earliest signs of cognitive decline. The Linus Health AI-powered platform enables primary care providers to quickly screen for, diagnose, and help manage cognitive issues for an expanding population. Striving to overcome stigma and bias, this approach to early detection is crucial because many underlying causes of cognitive decline are treatable or reversible.
David explains, "In brain health, especially, I'll talk first about cognitive health. There are up to 15 million Americans right now who have mild cognitive impairment, which is a precursor to dementia, and they do not know it. So, it's believed that up to 92% of mild cognitive impairment is undiagnosed, and up to 60% of dementia is undiagnosed. So we have this massive need to identify these folks and help them, empower them to get the resources to manage the condition, to optimize quality of life for themselves and their family and their loved ones. On the preventative side, empower folks to prevent dementia as much as possible, and maybe even half of dementia cases could be prevented through lifestyle modification."
"Furthermore, if it's found early, there's a lot that can be done both to prepare for the advancement of the disease and to delay the advancement of the disease, and to empower people to live the highest quality of life in their circumstances. Furthermore, not all mild cognitive impairment or dementia is due to Alzheimer's disease. There are some things that, especially in the mild cognitive impairment stage, can be done, like changing medications, diagnosing depression, dealing with sleep apnea, vitamin deficiencies, and so on and so forth, that can actually reverse the course or at least slow the progression."
#LinusHealth #BrainHealth #AI #Healthcare #EarlyDetection #CognitiveHealth #HealthTech #Innovation
linushealth.com
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Mike Hoxter, CTO of Lightbeam Health Solutions, is focused on applying AI to population health management by using predictive models to enhance risk stratification for organizations with value-based care contracts. He emphasizes the importance of integrating social determinants of health along with clinical data to create more accurate predictive scores for patient outcomes, such as reducing hospital readmissions. AI enables a model to incorporate diverse data to derive more fine-tuned, actionable predictions.
Mike explains, "We're really all for optimization in value-based care plans and care management. That's really our bread and butter, which is a pretty wide net. So we have a lot of large provider organizations in either CMS MSSP, ACO REACH, or a wide range of value-based care contracts with a lot of the commercial players. The Blues, Humana, Cigna, and Aetna all have value-based care plans that they have contracts with providers. So, optimizing for performance in those contracts. Anybody who works within those is our main clientele. We also have payers that are administering value-based care plans and some hospital systems as well."
"If you're good at preventative healthcare, you prevent a lot of unnecessary healthcare. And so risk stratification is something that we do a lot of, and we use a lot of the standard models out there. We have Johns Hopkins embedded into our application. We have all of the different HCC models for Medicare Advantage, CDPs for Medicaid, but then also we have a suite of internal machine-learning-based models, which, I think, is funny - we've gotten to a point where there's such a thing as traditional AI, which is what it's called."
#LightbeamHealthSolutions #PopulationHealth #ValueBasedCare #VBC #VBCEnablement #AI #SDOH #RemotePatientMonitoring #Providers #Payers #ACO
lightbeamhealth.com
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Mike Hoxter, CTO of Lightbeam Health Solutions, is focused on applying AI to population health management by using predictive models to enhance risk stratification for organizations with value-based care contracts. He emphasizes the importance of integrating social determinants of health along with clinical data to create more accurate predictive scores for patient outcomes, such as reducing hospital readmissions. AI enables a model to incorporate diverse data to derive more fine-tuned, actionable predictions.
Mike explains, "We're really all for optimization in value-based care plans and care management. That's really our bread and butter, which is a pretty wide net. So we have a lot of large provider organizations in either CMS MSSP, ACO REACH, or a wide range of value-based care contracts with a lot of the commercial players. The Blues, Humana, Cigna, and Aetna all have value-based care plans that they have contracts with providers. So, optimizing for performance in those contracts. Anybody who works within those is our main clientele. We also have payers that are administering value-based care plans and some hospital systems as well."
"If you're good at preventative healthcare, you prevent a lot of unnecessary healthcare. And so risk stratification is something that we do a lot of, and we use a lot of the standard models out there. We have Johns Hopkins embedded into our application. We have all of the different HCC models for Medicare Advantage, CDPs for Medicaid, but then also we have a suite of internal machine-learning-based models, which, I think, is funny - we've gotten to a point where there's such a thing as traditional AI, which is what it's called."
#LightbeamHealthSolutions #PopulationHealth #ValueBasedCare #VBC #VBCEnablement #AI #SDOH #RemotePatientMonitoring #Providers #Payers #ACO
lightbeamhealth.com
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Adam David, CEO of Doctors House Calls, has identified a gap in healthcare for homebound, high-acuity patients who lack a primary care physician, which often leads to frequent hospital admissions. This service operates primarily for Medicare patients by deploying physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners to provide comprehensive care in patients' homes. Technology, such as connected devices, AI, and portable diagnostic equipment, enables efficient and effective visits to provide proactive care, extending the range of services available to this population.
Adam explains, "I put together Doctors House Calls, not to compete in the business of treating patients in assisted living facilities, which seems to be very popular among independent physicians looking to be more mobile and not wanting to work within four walls."
"And so they see facility-based type of care as a way to sort of get out and be mobile and have flexibility, but they're only servicing patients that are in facilities. I would say there are probably more patients who need this type of help who are still living in independent homes than who are actually in facilities. A lot of it's due to their socioeconomic needs. They just don't have the support around them to help guide them. They don't have social services that are in place to tell them what their options are. And so they're sort of just left at home by themselves."
"What I've done is over the course of about eight years, I've been working on building a group of nurse practitioners, physician associates, and physicians who are really willing to drive way out of their way at times and drive many miles just to see one patient to make sure that they're receiving the care they need."
#DoctorsHouseCalls #HomeHealthcare #MobileMedicine #AccessibleCare #CareContinuity
doctorshousecalls.com
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Adam David, CEO of Doctors House Calls, has identified a gap in healthcare for homebound, high-acuity patients who lack a primary care physician, which often leads to frequent hospital admissions. This service operates primarily for Medicare patients by deploying physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners to provide comprehensive care in patients' homes. Technology, such as connected devices, AI, and portable diagnostic equipment, enables efficient and effective visits to provide proactive care, extending the range of services available to this population.
Adam explains, "I put together Doctors House Calls, not to compete in the business of treating patients in assisted living facilities, which seems to be very popular among independent physicians looking to be more mobile and not wanting to work within four walls."
"And so they see facility-based type of care as a way to sort of get out and be mobile and have flexibility, but they're only servicing patients that are in facilities. I would say there are probably more patients who need this type of help who are still living in independent homes than who are actually in facilities. A lot of it's due to their socioeconomic needs. They just don't have the support around them to help guide them. They don't have social services that are in place to tell them what their options are. And so they're sort of just left at home by themselves."
"What I've done is over the course of about eight years, I've been working on building a group of nurse practitioners, physician associates, and physicians who are really willing to drive way out of their way at times and drive many miles just to see one patient to make sure that they're receiving the care they need."
#DoctorsHouseCalls #HomeHealthcare #MobileMedicine #AccessibleCare #CareContinuity
doctorshousecalls.com
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Linda Schatz, Director of AKASA, explains the role of Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI) specialists in ensuring accurate coding and bridging the gap between clinical documentation and specific, accurate codes to ensure proper reimbursement. The complexity of medical coding often leads to errors, which can be nearly eliminated by using AI to review 100% of patient encounters to identify inconsistencies and help CDI and coding professionals process more accurate claims quickly. Accurate documentation is important for hospital revenue, patient care quality, and perception of the hospital's performance.
Linda explains, "Well, the old adage, if it isn't documented, it wasn't done. If the doctor uses incorrect or perfectly acceptable medical terminology, it doesn't translate into an appropriate code. You've heard the term UIs, this is years ago, right? Grandma had UTIs and died. In the coding world, that used to code for a simple UTI. So the hospitals are getting paid for a patient that took care of a UTI, when in reality that patient was septic. To the outside world, it looks like Grandma came to the hospital, something that could have been treated outpatient, and she died. So the public perception of quality is less. So not only is it revenue, it's quality, but ultimately it's delivering patient care."
"I'm an old nurse. I've been in this field for over 40 years. I've worked across the NICU, PICU, and adult ICU. I've worked in access hospitals to large academics and all the way through hospice. That's pretty unique as a nurse to have that big of a background. Then I became a CDS, or clinical documentation specialist, or integrity specialist, and learned the documentation and coding aspect."
"Then I moved into the consulting role and worked with organizations and physicians all across this nation, helping them learn how to do this. And so you've got the clinical background, the coding background, and now I understand how generative AI works. And so while you're a new nurse, you're a horse, right? When we hear a heartbeat, we think of a horse, and after years, you earn your stripes and you become a zebra, and then you add all of these multiple areas of expertise, you become uniquely valuable as a pink zebra."
#AKASA #GenAI #CDI #RevenueCycleManagement
akasa.com
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Linda Schatz, Director of AKASA, explains the role of Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI) specialists in ensuring accurate coding and bridging the gap between clinical documentation and specific, accurate codes to ensure proper reimbursement. The complexity of medical coding often leads to errors, which can be nearly eliminated by using AI to review 100% of patient encounters to identify inconsistencies and help CDI and coding professionals process more accurate claims quickly. Accurate documentation is important for hospital revenue, patient care quality, and perception of the hospital's performance.
Linda explains, "Well, the old adage, if it isn't documented, it wasn't done. If the doctor uses incorrect or perfectly acceptable medical terminology, it doesn't translate into an appropriate code. You've heard the term UIs, this is years ago, right? Grandma had UTIs and died. In the coding world, that used to code for a simple UTI. So the hospitals are getting paid for a patient that took care of a UTI, when in reality that patient was septic. To the outside world, it looks like Grandma came to the hospital, something that could have been treated outpatient, and she died. So the public perception of quality is less. So not only is it revenue, it's quality, but ultimately it's delivering patient care."
"I'm an old nurse. I've been in this field for over 40 years. I've worked across the NICU, PICU, and adult ICU. I've worked in access hospitals to large academics and all the way through hospice. That's pretty unique as a nurse to have that big of a background. Then I became a CDS, or clinical documentation specialist, or integrity specialist, and learned the documentation and coding aspect."
"Then I moved into the consulting role and worked with organizations and physicians all across this nation, helping them learn how to do this. And so you've got the clinical background, the coding background, and now I understand how generative AI works. And so while you're a new nurse, you're a horse, right? When we hear a heartbeat, we think of a horse, and after years, you earn your stripes and you become a zebra, and then you add all of these multiple areas of expertise, you become uniquely valuable as a pink zebra."
#AKASA #GenAI #CDI #RevenueCycleManagement
akasa.com
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Tina Liedtky, President of Transplant Diagnostics at Thermo Fisher Scientific, identifies the significant challenges in the US organ transplant system that must be addressed to meet the demand for organs. Patient access to transplant care is hindered by geography, the need to match donors and recipients, and the threat of organ rejection. Living donations, particularly of kidneys and livers, are a solution to address the organ shortage, as organs from living donors often lead to better outcomes and can be scheduled to avoid damage caused by organ transportation.
Tina explains, "So first of all, I would say that organ transplantation saves thousands of lives a year and gives patients with end-stage organ disease the ability to extend their lives meaningfully for many years. However, the organ transplant system in the US is not perfect, and it faces several real challenges. The most pressing challenge is a persistent imbalance between organ supply and demand, in that far more patients are in need of a lifesaving transplant than there are available organs, which leaves many patients waiting too long for a compatible organ or perhaps will never receive a compatible match. And unfortunately, for those patients left waiting, many get sicker, and often patients die while waiting on the wait list. So this gap in supply and demand is real, and it underscores the importance of living donation, which can help expand the pool of available organs and give patients a chance at the timely care that they need."
"Another significant challenge is patient access to organ transplant care. For instance, in the weeks leading up to the transplant procedure and after the procedure, patients are often required to be living or situated near the hospital or the transplant center where the surgery is performed. This can pose a challenge to those who simply don't reside in areas where there are major transplant centers or who can't afford temporary housing. And that creates a socioeconomic inequity when it comes to access."
#ThermoFisherScientific #Transplantation #OrganDonors #LivingDonation #HeartTransplant #OrganTransplants
thermofisher.com
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Tina Liedtky, President of Transplant Diagnostics at Thermo Fisher Scientific, identifies the significant challenges in the US organ transplant system that must be addressed to meet the demand for organs. Patient access to transplant care is hindered by geography, the need to match donors and recipients, and the threat of organ rejection. Living donations, particularly of kidneys and livers, are a solution to address the organ shortage, as organs from living donors often lead to better outcomes and can be scheduled to avoid damage caused by organ transportation.
Tina explains, "So first of all, I would say that organ transplantation saves thousands of lives a year and gives patients with end-stage organ disease the ability to extend their lives meaningfully for many years. However, the organ transplant system in the US is not perfect, and it faces several real challenges. The most pressing challenge is a persistent imbalance between organ supply and demand, in that far more patients are in need of a lifesaving transplant than there are available organs, which leaves many patients waiting too long for a compatible organ or perhaps will never receive a compatible match. And unfortunately, for those patients left waiting, many get sicker, and often patients die while waiting on the wait list. So this gap in supply and demand is real, and it underscores the importance of living donation, which can help expand the pool of available organs and give patients a chance at the timely care that they need."
"Another significant challenge is patient access to organ transplant care. For instance, in the weeks leading up to the transplant procedure and after the procedure, patients are often required to be living or situated near the hospital or the transplant center where the surgery is performed. This can pose a challenge to those who simply don't reside in areas where there are major transplant centers or who can't afford temporary housing. And that creates a socioeconomic inequity when it comes to access."
#ThermoFisherScientific #Transplantation #OrganDonors #LivingDonation #HeartTransplant #OrganTransplants
thermofisher.com
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Dr. Sev MacLaughlin, the CEO of DeLorean AI, has developed an AI platform to identify at-risk patients, including those with renal disease, cardiovascular disease, and mental health conditions. Serving smaller and mid-sized provider clinics, this approach supports the shift to value-based care by predicting adverse events, recommending preventive measures, and reducing hospitalizations and healthcare costs. By analyzing entire populations instead of samples, the platform avoids biases and overlooked subgroups inherent in traditional analytical methods.
Sev explains, "So I think there's an opportunity to not only give better care at the point of care, but also aid in the discovery or assist in the diagnosis of unknown diseases that people may have in the chronic format. That may be identifying chronic kidney disease patients five years earlier, so they can have a different treatment modality and directionality in their lives, or hypertension or cardiovascular disease."
"We're very strong in renal. So both chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal failure, or patients on dialysis. And then the two comorbidities that most that are huge influences for that are cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular system, and diabetes. In addition to that, we do CD and pulmonary. And then we were asked by one of our largest clients, United Healthcare, to look at mental health. And I have to say another surprise to me is how important mental health is to the other disease states, so that mental health needs to be taken care of to ensure that those individuals are medically adherent, they're going to their appointments, they're taking their medications, they're taking their health seriously. And that is something that I learned was most important and needed to be treated in parallel with the primary care diagnosis."
#DeLoreanAI #PreventativeCare #RenalCare #MedAI #Diagnostics #PopulationHealth #RiskStratification
DeLoreanai.com
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Dr. Sev MacLaughlin, the CEO of DeLorean AI, has developed an AI platform to identify at-risk patients, including those with renal disease, cardiovascular disease, and mental health conditions. Serving smaller and mid-sized provider clinics, this approach supports the shift to value-based care by predicting adverse events, recommending preventive measures, and reducing hospitalizations and healthcare costs. By analyzing entire populations instead of samples, the platform avoids biases and overlooked subgroups inherent in traditional analytical methods.
Sev explains, "So I think there's an opportunity to not only give better care at the point of care, but also aid in the discovery or assist in the diagnosis of unknown diseases that people may have in the chronic format. That may be identifying chronic kidney disease patients five years earlier, so they can have a different treatment modality and directionality in their lives, or hypertension or cardiovascular disease."
"We're very strong in renal. So both chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal failure, or patients on dialysis. And then the two comorbidities that most that are huge influences for that are cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular system, and diabetes. In addition to that, we do CD and pulmonary. And then we were asked by one of our largest clients, United Healthcare, to look at mental health. And I have to say another surprise to me is how important mental health is to the other disease states, so that mental health needs to be taken care of to ensure that those individuals are medically adherent, they're going to their appointments, they're taking their medications, they're taking their health seriously. And that is something that I learned was most important and needed to be treated in parallel with the primary care diagnosis."
#DeLoreanAI #PreventativeCare #RenalCare #MedAI #Diagnostics #PopulationHealth #RiskStratification
DeLoreanai.com
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Antoine Pivron, Vice President of Health Solutions in the B2B division at Withings, highlights the clinical-grade connected devices that are changing the remote patient monitoring market. The equipment and AI-enhanced tools are designed to focus on personalized patient engagement and retention, ultimately leading to improved health outcomes. The data made available identifies trends over time, allowing for intervention when necessary, and is presented in a form that emphasizes prevention rather than reaction.
Antoine explains, "We are very well known for our connected devices, especially the weight scales. So we were the first company back in 2009 to develop a connected weight scale, and now we are the leader in this field, mainly in Europe and in the US. So I think we might have the broadest ecosystem of connected devices to be honest, on the market. So we have weight scales, but we also have blood pressure monitors, activity trackers with smart watches. We also have urine analyzers that we're going to launch next week, actually. We really do have a huge range of products that can be used at home to remotely monitor patients."
"They're actually analyzing the trends over weeks, months, and they have an intervention when there is something that is not going in the right direction. So it's more about managing alerts if needed. For instance, in chronic heart failure, most remote patient monitoring programs, doctors manage alerts only. And for obesity care, it might be like coaches or nutritionists having a one-time a week or a one-time a month video call with the patient, and they're just managing the trends. So it's not about being in constant alert, it's about having more data to help them make the right decision."
#Withings #DigitalHealth #RemoteMonitoring #ConnectedDevices #MedTech
withings.com
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Antoine Pivron, Vice President of Health Solutions in the B2B division at Withings, highlights the clinical-grade connected devices that are changing the remote patient monitoring market. The equipment and AI-enhanced tools are designed to focus on personalized patient engagement and retention, ultimately leading to improved health outcomes. The data made available identifies trends over time, allowing for intervention when necessary, and is presented in a form that emphasizes prevention rather than reaction.
Antoine explains, "We are very well known for our connected devices, especially the weight scales. So we were the first company back in 2009 to develop a connected weight scale, and now we are the leader in this field, mainly in Europe and in the US. So I think we might have the broadest ecosystem of connected devices to be honest, on the market. So we have weight scales, but we also have blood pressure monitors, activity trackers with smart watches. We also have urine analyzers that we're going to launch next week, actually. We really do have a huge range of products that can be used at home to remotely monitor patients."
"They're actually analyzing the trends over weeks, months, and they have an intervention when there is something that is not going in the right direction. So it's more about managing alerts if needed. For instance, in chronic heart failure, most remote patient monitoring programs, doctors manage alerts only. And for obesity care, it might be like coaches or nutritionists having a one-time a week or a one-time a month video call with the patient, and they're just managing the trends. So it's not about being in constant alert, it's about having more data to help them make the right decision."
#Withings #DigitalHealth #RemoteMonitoring #ConnectedDevices #MedTech
withings.com
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Dr. Jay Lalezari, CEO of CytoDyn, is focused on solid tumor immunology, particularly in triple-negative breast cancer, where their lead drug, leronlimab, is showing significant long-term survival benefits. This monoclonal antibody targets the CCR5 receptor, converting cold tumors into hot tumors and making them more susceptible to immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors. Work with leronlimab for 20 years has demonstrated the potential for use in colorectal cancer as well as TNBC, and to vastly expand the patient population that could benefit from immunotherapy.
Jay explains, "When I became CEO back in November of 2023, my first order of business was to figure out where CytoDyn should go with this intriguing monoclonal antibody called leronlimab that targets CCR5. And we looked at a number of indications, and by far and away, the data that we found in solid tumor oncology is clearly the place CytoDyn will go to create the most benefit for patients and the most benefit for our shareholders. We recently presented some data in triple-negative breast cancer that is truly remarkable and potentially paradigm-shifting in the world of solid tumor oncology."
"Over the years, it became clear that CCR5 was not just for the virus to get inside the cell, but was playing a key role in setting up the tumor microenvironment in a variety of solid tumors that were CCR5 positive. That included typically triple-negative breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, sarcoma, glioblastoma, and the urothelial cancers in particular. So CCR5 helps the cancer set up a tumor microenvironment that helps it both build blood vessels to provide nourishment for the cancer and attract suppressor cells that keep the host immune system at bay."
#CytoDyn #Oncology #Leronlimab #TNBC #ColorectalCancer #CCR5
cytodyn.com
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Dr. Jay Lalezari, CEO of CytoDyn, is focused on solid tumor immunology, particularly in triple-negative breast cancer, where their lead drug, leronlimab, is showing significant long-term survival benefits. This monoclonal antibody targets the CCR5 receptor, converting cold tumors into hot tumors and making them more susceptible to immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors. Work with leronlimab for 20 years has demonstrated the potential for use in colorectal cancer as well as TNBC, and to vastly expand the patient population that could benefit from immunotherapy.
Jay explains, "When I became CEO back in November of 2023, my first order of business was to figure out where CytoDyn should go with this intriguing monoclonal antibody called leronlimab that targets CCR5. And we looked at a number of indications, and by far and away, the data that we found in solid tumor oncology is clearly the place CytoDyn will go to create the most benefit for patients and the most benefit for our shareholders. We recently presented some data in triple-negative breast cancer that is truly remarkable and potentially paradigm-shifting in the world of solid tumor oncology."
"Over the years, it became clear that CCR5 was not just for the virus to get inside the cell, but was playing a key role in setting up the tumor microenvironment in a variety of solid tumors that were CCR5 positive. That included typically triple-negative breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, sarcoma, glioblastoma, and the urothelial cancers in particular. So CCR5 helps the cancer set up a tumor microenvironment that helps it both build blood vessels to provide nourishment for the cancer and attract suppressor cells that keep the host immune system at bay."
#CytoDyn #Oncology #Leronlimab #TNBC #ColorectalCancer #CCR5
cytodyn.com
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Andrew Rosen, Chief Executive Officer of the National Ataxia Foundation, has a dual mission of accelerating research for treatments and cures for Ataxia while supporting the patients affected by this rare disease. Ataxia describes both a group of hereditary genetic diseases and symptoms of lack of coordination seen in other conditions. While genetic tests exist for hereditary Ataxia, a significant challenge in drug development has been the lack of a reliable biomarker. To encourage drug development, NAF has funded translational research and the world's most extensive study for SCAs, Spinocerebellar Ataxias, providing new data on the progression of the disease and for the design of future trials.
Andrew explains, "NAF has been around for a long time. We were founded in the late 1950s by a neurologist in western Minnesota who had a disease called Ataxia in his family. And NAF's mission has really been twofold ever since that. Our formal statement is that we are trying to accelerate the development of treatments and a cure while working to improve the lives of those living with Ataxia. And so we really focus on research and support. We do a lot in the research world. We fund grants for researchers who are looking into the various types of Ataxia. You'd be hard pressed to find an Ataxia researcher in the world, I think I can say now at this point that hasn't received a grant from NAF at one time or another in their career. We also do a lot of translational-type research. We fund the largest natural history study in Ataxias."
"So, the term ataxia itself is even complex because it both describes a genetic disease, and I think of that as capital 'A' - Ataxia, but it's also a symptom of many other conditions. So small 'a', if you will. Ataxia just means a lack of coordination. It comes from a Greek word. And so what I mean by both hereditary and other things is if you, for instance, have too much to drink, you would show signs of Ataxia. You might stumble when you walk, and your speech might be slurred. Those are the two classic symptoms of hereditary Ataxia. Right. So that's really the Ataxias that we at NAF focus on. So hereditary, as in passed from parent to child, there are several hundred forms of hereditary Ataxia, and they continue to find more as more specific genetic mutations are discovered year after year now."
#NationalAtaxiaFoundation #Ataxia #PatientAdvocacy #RareDisease #SCA
ataxia.org
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Andrew Rosen, Chief Executive Officer of the National Ataxia Foundation, has a dual mission of accelerating research for treatments and cures for Ataxia while supporting the patients affected by this rare disease. Ataxia describes both a group of hereditary genetic diseases and symptoms of lack of coordination seen in other conditions. While genetic tests exist for hereditary Ataxia, a significant challenge in drug development has been the lack of a reliable biomarker. To encourage drug development, NAF has funded translational research and the world's most extensive study for SCAs, Spinocerebellar Ataxias, providing new data on the progression of the disease and for the design of future trials.
Andrew explains, "NAF has been around for a long time. We were founded in the late 1950s by a neurologist in western Minnesota who had a disease called Ataxia in his family. And NAF's mission has really been twofold ever since that. Our formal statement is that we are trying to accelerate the development of treatments and a cure while working to improve the lives of those living with Ataxia. And so we really focus on research and support. We do a lot in the research world. We fund grants for researchers who are looking into the various types of Ataxia. You'd be hard pressed to find an Ataxia researcher in the world, I think I can say now at this point that hasn't received a grant from NAF at one time or another in their career. We also do a lot of translational-type research. We fund the largest natural history study in Ataxias."
"So, the term ataxia itself is even complex because it both describes a genetic disease, and I think of that as capital 'A' - Ataxia, but it's also a symptom of many other conditions. So small 'a', if you will. Ataxia just means a lack of coordination. It comes from a Greek word. And so what I mean by both hereditary and other things is if you, for instance, have too much to drink, you would show signs of Ataxia. You might stumble when you walk, and your speech might be slurred. Those are the two classic symptoms of hereditary Ataxia. Right. So that's really the Ataxias that we at NAF focus on. So hereditary, as in passed from parent to child, there are several hundred forms of hereditary Ataxia, and they continue to find more as more specific genetic mutations are discovered year after year now."
#NationalAtaxiaFoundation #Ataxia #PatientAdvocacy #RareDisease #SCA
ataxia.org
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Anne Meneghetti, Executive Director of epocrates, is focused on medication management and providing tools for clinicians to better handle challenges from the increasing population of patients who take multiple drugs and are treating a wide variety of conditions. The epocrates app provides access to drug information, pill identification, checks for interactions, and calculates dosing, reducing medication errors and patient confusion. Polypharmacy patients are further at risk when they are taking over-the-counter drugs and supplements, requiring regular medication reconcilation to avoid serious drug interactions.
Anne explains, "So epocrates has been around since the late 1990s, and it's the number one mobile medical app in the country in terms of physician usership. And it's both a free model and a subscription model. The main reason why clinicians use epocrates is because of the drug information. So, quickly looking up a drug dose, for example, if a drug needs to be prescribed by weight, what is the calculation for that? And there's no way that clinicians can memorize 8,000 drugs. So having it in a quick, easy-to-use app is really crucial in modern times. And sometimes it's not that the clinician doesn't know the dose of the drug, it's just that validation. When you pick up an app and look and see, yep, that's what I thought it was. And that validation, that sense of confidence, is something really precious for a busy clinician. We also use it for drug interactions."
"We find that clinicians really value drug interactions because you can't memorize 8,000 drugs interacting with 8,000 other drugs. And your EHR might tell you if you're trying to prescribe two drugs at the same time, your EHR might tell you, oh, red light, green light, yellow light. But a really good drug reference, like epocrates can tell you, if you're going to prescribe these two drugs together, you need to cut the dose of this one in half and you need to monitor the potassium levels. We find that clinicians really value drug interactions because you can't memorize 8,000 drugs interacting with 8,000 other drugs. And your EHR might tell you if you're trying to prescribe two drugs at the same time, your EHR might tell you, oh, red light, green light, yellow light. But a really good drug reference, like epocrates can tell you, if you're going to prescribe these two drugs together, you need to cut the dose of this one in half and you need to monitor the potassium levels."
#epocrates #MedicationManagement #Polypharmacy #DrugInteractions #DigitalHealth
epocrates.com
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Anne Meneghetti, Executive Director of epocrates, is focused on medication management and providing tools for clinicians to better handle challenges from the increasing population of patients who take multiple drugs and are treating a wide variety of conditions. The epocrates app provides access to drug information, pill identification, checks for interactions, and calculates dosing, reducing medication errors and patient confusion. Polypharmacy patients are further at risk when they are taking over-the-counter drugs and supplements, requiring regular medication reconcilation to avoid serious drug interactions.
Anne explains, "So epocrates has been around since the late 1990s, and it's the number one mobile medical app in the country in terms of physician usership. And it's both a free model and a subscription model. The main reason why clinicians use epocrates is because of the drug information. So, quickly looking up a drug dose, for example, if a drug needs to be prescribed by weight, what is the calculation for that? And there's no way that clinicians can memorize 8,000 drugs. So having it in a quick, easy-to-use app is really crucial in modern times. And sometimes it's not that the clinician doesn't know the dose of the drug, it's just that validation. When you pick up an app and look and see, yep, that's what I thought it was. And that validation, that sense of confidence, is something really precious for a busy clinician. We also use it for drug interactions."
"We find that clinicians really value drug interactions because you can't memorize 8,000 drugs interacting with 8,000 other drugs. And your EHR might tell you if you're trying to prescribe two drugs at the same time, your EHR might tell you, oh, red light, green light, yellow light. But a really good drug reference, like epocrates can tell you, if you're going to prescribe these two drugs together, you need to cut the dose of this one in half and you need to monitor the potassium levels. We find that clinicians really value drug interactions because you can't memorize 8,000 drugs interacting with 8,000 other drugs. And your EHR might tell you if you're trying to prescribe two drugs at the same time, your EHR might tell you, oh, red light, green light, yellow light. But a really good drug reference, like epocrates can tell you, if you're going to prescribe these two drugs together, you need to cut the dose of this one in half and you need to monitor the potassium levels."
#epocrates #MedicationManagement #Polypharmacy #DrugInteractions #DigitalHealth
epocrates.com
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Dr. Adam Kilian, Director of the Rheumatology Fellowship Training Program at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, focuses on IgG4-related disease, a rare multi-organ disease that has only recently been recognized due to significant diagnostic challenges. The MITIGATE trial is a landmark study that demonstrated that the first FDA-approved treatment, UPLIZNA from Amgen, provides an effective, targeted, steroid-free therapy. The approval of this drug is driving awareness in the medical community about IgG4-RD and whether the disease should be considered after inconclusive results for other suspected conditions.
Adam explains, "IgG4-related disease is a rare disease that affects many organ systems. It's a chronic systemic, fibroinflammatory disease that can affect almost any organ system. And it will usually present with these tumor-like inflammatory masses that can cause scarring and lead to organ failure."
"Our understanding of it continues to evolve, and it's had a really interesting story over the last century because IgG4-related disease affects so many different organ systems. Over the past century, there were actually many different diagnoses that were recognized, which now all fall under the umbrella of IgG4-related disease. Different scientists and physicians around the world over the years recognized the different manifestations of the disease in the pancreas, in the lymph nodes, in the head and neck, in the kidneys, or in the blood vessels. And it's only been in the last 20 years or so that we have recognized that actually all of these different disease entities from the last century are actually all manifestations of this disease, IgG4, IgG4-related disease."
"The clinical trial is called the MITIGATE trial, and it's a very seminal clinical trial in rheumatology from the last several years. This was the first-ever phase three double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized controlled trial in IgG4-related disease. This was a huge trial. It was global. It was conducted in 22 countries with multiple specialties coordinating this trial. It was 52 weeks long, and its purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness and the safety of UPLIZNA in patients who have IgG4-related disease."
#MITIGATETrial #IgG4RelatedDisease #IgG4RD #UPLIZNA
UPLIZNA
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Dr. Adam Kilian, Director of the Rheumatology Fellowship Training Program at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, focuses on IgG4-related disease, a rare multi-organ disease that has only recently been recognized due to significant diagnostic challenges. The MITIGATE trial is a landmark study that demonstrated that the first FDA-approved treatment, UPLIZNA from Amgen, provides an effective, targeted, steroid-free therapy. The approval of this drug is driving awareness in the medical community about IgG4-RD and whether the disease should be considered after inconclusive results for other suspected conditions.
Adam explains, "IgG4-related disease is a rare disease that affects many organ systems. It's a chronic systemic, fibroinflammatory disease that can affect almost any organ system. And it will usually present with these tumor-like inflammatory masses that can cause scarring and lead to organ failure."
"Our understanding of it continues to evolve, and it's had a really interesting story over the last century because IgG4-related disease affects so many different organ systems. Over the past century, there were actually many different diagnoses that were recognized, which now all fall under the umbrella of IgG4-related disease. Different scientists and physicians around the world over the years recognized the different manifestations of the disease in the pancreas, in the lymph nodes, in the head and neck, in the kidneys, or in the blood vessels. And it's only been in the last 20 years or so that we have recognized that actually all of these different disease entities from the last century are actually all manifestations of this disease, IgG4, IgG4-related disease."
"The clinical trial is called the MITIGATE trial, and it's a very seminal clinical trial in rheumatology from the last several years. This was the first-ever phase three double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized controlled trial in IgG4-related disease. This was a huge trial. It was global. It was conducted in 22 countries with multiple specialties coordinating this trial. It was 52 weeks long, and its purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness and the safety of UPLIZNA in patients who have IgG4-related disease."
#MITIGATETrial #IgG4RelatedDisease #IgG4RD #UPLIZNA
UPLIZNA
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Dr. Thomas Wisniewski, Director of NYU Langone's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, shares insights from a recent study that projects new dementia cases in the US will double by 2060. New diagnostic tools have made it easier to identify early signs of Alzheimer's, and disease-modifying therapies are being approved, which can be effective if patients are treated in the earliest stages of the disease. AI is seen as a tool to help identify at-risk patients and routinely screen patients to manage the growing need for access to dementia care.
Thomas explains, "This was a study that was led by the NY Optimal Institute, which is directed by Dr. Joe Resh, who's really a leader in this area and many public health issues. He did a very thorough analysis along with his team that the annual number of incident dementia cases in the United States is projected to increase from current estimates of 500,000 to around 1 million in 2060. So basically doubling in white adults. Furthermore, in African Americans, this incidence of dementia rate is expected to triple, with the largest absolute increases in dementia cases going to be in the oldest old population."
"There was perhaps a lack of awareness of the prevalence of dementia in past decades. But now the importance of making an accurate diagnosis and recognition of dementia is becoming much more prominent in the medical literature and in the medical profession. And that message, I think, is permeating to the lay public as well. So there hasn't been a change in the definition so much, but there is an increase in knowledge in the medical profession about the importance of making this diagnosis, and people living alone."
"It's really been a dramatic change. So, apart from being a cognitive neurologist, I'm also a board-certified neuropathologist, and it used to be that making the definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease required a chunk of brain. I'm delighted I don't need those chunks of brain anymore to make a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. There are now very clear clinical criteria and biomarker definitions for making a very accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease."
#NYULangoneAlzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #DiagnosingAlzheimers #AlzheimersResearch #MedAI
med.nyu/centers-programs/alzheimers-disease-research/
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Dr. Thomas Wisniewski, Director of NYU Langone's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, shares insights from a recent study that projects new dementia cases in the US will double by 2060. New diagnostic tools have made it easier to identify early signs of Alzheimer's, and disease-modifying therapies are being approved, which can be effective if patients are treated in the earliest stages of the disease. AI is seen as a tool to help identify at-risk patients and routinely screen patients to manage the growing need for access to dementia care.
Thomas explains, "This was a study that was led by the NY Optimal Institute, which is directed by Dr. Joe Resh, who's really a leader in this area and many public health issues. He did a very thorough analysis along with his team that the annual number of incident dementia cases in the United States is projected to increase from current estimates of 500,000 to around 1 million in 2060. So basically doubling in white adults. Furthermore, in African Americans, this incidence of dementia rate is expected to triple, with the largest absolute increases in dementia cases going to be in the oldest old population."
"There was perhaps a lack of awareness of the prevalence of dementia in past decades. But now the importance of making an accurate diagnosis and recognition of dementia is becoming much more prominent in the medical literature and in the medical profession. And that message, I think, is permeating to the lay public as well. So there hasn't been a change in the definition so much, but there is an increase in knowledge in the medical profession about the importance of making this diagnosis, and people living alone."
"It's really been a dramatic change. So, apart from being a cognitive neurologist, I'm also a board-certified neuropathologist, and it used to be that making the definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease required a chunk of brain. I'm delighted I don't need those chunks of brain anymore to make a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. There are now very clear clinical criteria and biomarker definitions for making a very accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease."
#NYULangoneAlzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #DiagnosingAlzheimers #AlzheimersResearch #MedAI
med.nyu/centers-programs/alzheimers-disease-research/
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Pedro Sanchez de Lozada, CEO of Canid, highlights the significant financial risks that pediatricians face in managing their vaccine inventory. There are administrative burdens associated with ordering, patient demand, tracking, reporting, and filing for insurance reimbursement. The Canid platform was designed to be a vaccine-as-a-service model, removing risk and administrative work from pediatric practices, allowing small and independent practices to achieve economies of scale, and freeing up more time to spend with patients and their parents.
Pedro explains, "When managing a vaccine program, the expectation is that the pediatrician will buy and maintain the stock in their office until a patient comes in and gets vaccinated. So, the refrigeration, the temperature logging, the stocking up, and the cost of the vaccine always fall as liability to the pediatrician. And what happens there is that you have a fairly small margin on these vaccines. Now I'm sure we're going to get into this, but when people say pediatricians make money on vaccines, they're usually cherry-picking."
"But in reality, as a pediatrician, you actually have to stock all the vaccines. And not all of them have decent margins. Some of them have negative margins. And so as a portfolio, you end up making a pretty thin margin, and then that doesn't even include all the different challenges you might have along the way. So let's take an example: a vaccine that expires or is dropped, and unfortunately needs to be wasted."
"So the way that we like to think about it is we want to make it so that the pediatrician can just give vaccines. That's all they need to think about. And what that means is, let's just imagine for a second, a refrigerator that automatically restocks itself, and you just take out the vaccines, you give it to a child, and you go on your merry way. That's obviously a little bit of an idealistic way of viewing things, but it's the experience that we want to accomplish."
#Canid #Vaccinations #Pediatricians #Vaccines #PediatricVaccineManagement
canid.io
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Pedro Sanchez de Lozada, CEO of Canid, highlights the significant financial risks that pediatricians face in managing their vaccine inventory. There are administrative burdens associated with ordering, patient demand, tracking, reporting, and filing for insurance reimbursement. The Canid platform was designed to be a vaccine-as-a-service model, removing risk and administrative work from pediatric practices, allowing small and independent practices to achieve economies of scale, and freeing up more time to spend with patients and their parents.
Pedro explains, "When managing a vaccine program, the expectation is that the pediatrician will buy and maintain the stock in their office until a patient comes in and gets vaccinated. So, the refrigeration, the temperature logging, the stocking up, and the cost of the vaccine always fall as liability to the pediatrician. And what happens there is that you have a fairly small margin on these vaccines. Now I'm sure we're going to get into this, but when people say pediatricians make money on vaccines, they're usually cherry-picking."
"But in reality, as a pediatrician, you actually have to stock all the vaccines. And not all of them have decent margins. Some of them have negative margins. And so as a portfolio, you end up making a pretty thin margin, and then that doesn't even include all the different challenges you might have along the way. So let's take an example: a vaccine that expires or is dropped, and unfortunately needs to be wasted."
"So the way that we like to think about it is we want to make it so that the pediatrician can just give vaccines. That's all they need to think about. And what that means is, let's just imagine for a second, a refrigerator that automatically restocks itself, and you just take out the vaccines, you give it to a child, and you go on your merry way. That's obviously a little bit of an idealistic way of viewing things, but it's the experience that we want to accomplish."
#Canid #Vaccinations #Pediatricians #Vaccines #PediatricVaccineManagement
canid.io
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Alicia Silver, senior director at ADVI Health, highlights the evolving landscape of cell and gene therapy and the need to improve patient access and payment for these treatments. Availability of these therapies for solid tumors and genetic diseases like sickle cell disease is expanding due to the transition from inpatient to outpatient and community settings. The FDA's decision to remove REMS requirements for specific therapies has accelerated the growth of facilities to provide care, particularly for vulnerable populations.
Alicia explains, "We work with a number of different cell and gene therapy clients throughout the sector. So we work with manufacturers who have commercialized cell and gene therapy products. So they have products that are currently on the market, manufacturers who are going through the process of clinical trials right now, working with the FDA to get approved products. But we also work with trade organizations that are working behind the scenes at the sector level, trying to get different policies and access changes for patients."
"To date, there's probably close to a couple of dozen FDA-approved cell and gene therapies, and they treat everything from blood cancers, which were the first approvals in something called CAR T. We saw blood cancers as the first approvals, and then everything through to solid tumors in oncology. But also, we have newer gene therapies for conditions like sickle cell disease. And that's an area that's been incredibly underserved and definitely will benefit from a durable gene therapy that hopefully corrects some of the issues that patients with sickle cell disease have, like pain crises that end up in a hospital. So from that perspective, we see a really wide range of treatments available to patients today and many more on the horizon."
"I think the price tag is definitely somewhat of sticker shock for people who don't understand how cell and gene therapy products are valued. And so what we do a lot of times, educating on, is helping payers understand that it's not necessarily $2 million for a treatment that's going to be a recurrent payment, but something that's kind of an investment in the patient's and the plan's future."
#ADVIHealth #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #AcesstoCellGeneTherapy #ClinicalTrials
advi.com
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Alicia Silver, senior director at ADVI Health, highlights the evolving landscape of cell and gene therapy and the need to improve patient access and payment for these treatments. Availability of these therapies for solid tumors and genetic diseases like sickle cell disease is expanding due to the transition from inpatient to outpatient and community settings. The FDA's decision to remove REMS requirements for specific therapies has accelerated the growth of facilities to provide care, particularly for vulnerable populations.
Alicia explains, "We work with a number of different cell and gene therapy clients throughout the sector. So we work with manufacturers who have commercialized cell and gene therapy products. So they have products that are currently on the market, manufacturers who are going through the process of clinical trials right now, working with the FDA to get approved products. But we also work with trade organizations that are working behind the scenes at the sector level, trying to get different policies and access changes for patients."
"To date, there's probably close to a couple of dozen FDA-approved cell and gene therapies, and they treat everything from blood cancers, which were the first approvals in something called CAR T. We saw blood cancers as the first approvals, and then everything through to solid tumors in oncology. But also, we have newer gene therapies for conditions like sickle cell disease. And that's an area that's been incredibly underserved and definitely will benefit from a durable gene therapy that hopefully corrects some of the issues that patients with sickle cell disease have, like pain crises that end up in a hospital. So from that perspective, we see a really wide range of treatments available to patients today and many more on the horizon."
"I think the price tag is definitely somewhat of sticker shock for people who don't understand how cell and gene therapy products are valued. And so what we do a lot of times, educating on, is helping payers understand that it's not necessarily $2 million for a treatment that's going to be a recurrent payment, but something that's kind of an investment in the patient's and the plan's future."
#ADVIHealth #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #AcesstoCellGeneTherapy #ClinicalTrials
advi.com
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Dr. Stacy Lindborg, President and CEO of IMUNON, has developed a DNA-based immunotherapy candidate for the treatment of ovarian cancer. This therapy works by administering the drug, which utilizes IL-12, a powerful anti-cancer cytokine, directly into the cavity where the cancer resides, thereby affecting the tumor microenvironment. Trials are showing that the drug can produce significant life extension when used in combination with standard chemotherapy.
Stacy explains, "There are about 300,000 women who are newly diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer every year, about 20,000 in the US, and the frontline standard of care hasn't seen a change in the treatment in about 25 years. So this is for newly diagnosed women. The very first treatment that they would have, which we call frontline treatment, is a platinum-based chemotherapy. So carboplatin and Paclitaxel are both administered through IV over an hour for carboplatin, about three hours for Paclitaxel. So most women go directly to chemotherapy and then surgery, and then chemotherapy. Some women will go straight to surgery and then have this chemotherapy afterwards."
"Our approach is a DNA-based immunotherapy candidate that we have in Phase 3. We refer to the lead candidate as IMNN-001, and this is a non-viral nanoparticle that is administered directly into the cavity of interest. So, what we call the micro-tumor environment is the peritoneal cavity, where the cancer actually resides, and it's delivered through a catheter. And it basically has a very powerful anti-cancer fighting cytokine, IL-12, that is encoded in this immunotherapy. And it causes the cells that are within each woman's body, both cancer and non-cancer alike, to start producing activities that will help fight these complex cancer cells that exist."
#IMUNON #OvarianCancer #DNABasedImmunotherapy #WomensHealth #CancerAwareness
imunon.com
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Dr. Stacy Lindborg, President and CEO of IMUNON, has developed a DNA-based immunotherapy candidate for the treatment of ovarian cancer. This therapy works by administering the drug, which utilizes IL-12, a powerful anti-cancer cytokine, directly into the cavity where the cancer resides, thereby affecting the tumor microenvironment. Trials are showing that the drug can produce significant life extension when used in combination with standard chemotherapy.
Stacy explains, "There are about 300,000 women who are newly diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer every year, about 20,000 in the US, and the frontline standard of care hasn't seen a change in the treatment in about 25 years. So this is for newly diagnosed women. The very first treatment that they would have, which we call frontline treatment, is a platinum-based chemotherapy. So carboplatin and Paclitaxel are both administered through IV over an hour for carboplatin, about three hours for Paclitaxel. So most women go directly to chemotherapy and then surgery, and then chemotherapy. Some women will go straight to surgery and then have this chemotherapy afterwards."
"Our approach is a DNA-based immunotherapy candidate that we have in Phase 3. We refer to the lead candidate as IMNN-001, and this is a non-viral nanoparticle that is administered directly into the cavity of interest. So, what we call the micro-tumor environment is the peritoneal cavity, where the cancer actually resides, and it's delivered through a catheter. And it basically has a very powerful anti-cancer fighting cytokine, IL-12, that is encoded in this immunotherapy. And it causes the cells that are within each woman's body, both cancer and non-cancer alike, to start producing activities that will help fight these complex cancer cells that exist."
#IMUNON #OvarianCancer #DNABasedImmunotherapy #WomensHealth #CancerAwareness
imunon.com
Download the transcript here
Donovan Campbell, CEO of Medbridge, empowers clinicians through a platform that is focused on movement-based medicine and a holistic approach to patient care. MedBridge has developed AI tools to perform triage, act as a care coordinator, and serve as a patient-facing coach, offloading administrative tasks and providing better support to patients. These tools are designed to support clinicians by flagging potential issues and increasing patient engagement by delivering immediate digital access to care.
Donovan explains, "We serve primarily physical therapists. And those physical therapists can work either in what's called a private practice outpatient setting or in a hospital setting, whether that's inpatient rehab or outpatient rehab. We also service physical therapy and adjacent practitioners, such as athletic trainers, speech and language pathologists, or occupational therapists. With the release of our new hybrid care platform, we're moving into different care categories, which is really exciting. So we're increasingly working with advanced primary care companies that service the employer health market. That's exciting. And we're exploring other opportunities within women's health and within orthopedics."
"Movement-based medicine is relevant to a really holistic approach to patient care, and it spans multiple clinical specialties. So think about the elderly patient who's just had a right knee replacement. Movement-based medicine is critical to getting them back up and on their feet. For a woman postpartum, pelvic health and movement-based medicine are really important. And pelvic health, movement-based medicine that she can access at home, is really important in her recovery and meeting her where she's at in her phase of life. And then physical therapy obviously is all about movement-based medicine."
#Medbridge #DigitalHealth #HealthcareAI #FutureAI #MovementBasedMedicine
medbridge.com
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Donovan Campbell, CEO of Medbridge, empowers clinicians through a platform that is focused on movement-based medicine and a holistic approach to patient care. MedBridge has developed AI tools to perform triage, act as a care coordinator, and serve as a patient-facing coach, offloading administrative tasks and providing better support to patients. These tools are designed to support clinicians by flagging potential issues and increasing patient engagement by delivering immediate digital access to care.
Donovan explains, "We serve primarily physical therapists. And those physical therapists can work either in what's called a private practice outpatient setting or in a hospital setting, whether that's inpatient rehab or outpatient rehab. We also service physical therapy and adjacent practitioners, such as athletic trainers, speech and language pathologists, or occupational therapists. With the release of our new hybrid care platform, we're moving into different care categories, which is really exciting. So we're increasingly working with advanced primary care companies that service the employer health market. That's exciting. And we're exploring other opportunities within women's health and within orthopedics."
"Movement-based medicine is relevant to a really holistic approach to patient care, and it spans multiple clinical specialties. So think about the elderly patient who's just had a right knee replacement. Movement-based medicine is critical to getting them back up and on their feet. For a woman postpartum, pelvic health and movement-based medicine are really important. And pelvic health, movement-based medicine that she can access at home, is really important in her recovery and meeting her where she's at in her phase of life. And then physical therapy obviously is all about movement-based medicine."
#Medbridge #DigitalHealth #HealthcareAI #FutureAI #MovementBasedMedicine
medbridge.com
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Dr. Matt Goldstein, CEO of jscreen, focuses on the importance and power of preventive genetic testing for reproductive carrier screening and hereditary cancer screening. All genetic tests include analysis to inform specific medical management plans and provide genetic counselors to explore options. Of particular interest is testing for the gene mutations that cause Tay-Sachs disease and helping families take proactive steps to effectively eliminate the disease in future generations.
Matt explains, "So, jscreen is a nonprofit that focuses on providing access to education and high-touch support to individuals, families, and to clinicians in the area of preventive genetics and more specifically for reproductive carrier screening and hereditary cancer screening.
"These types of tests actually have been around for a really long time with the advancement in genomic technology and our knowledge generally of genetics. The capabilities we have around these panels—what we can test for and what we can do with them—have grown tremendously over the last two decades. And so, what we're offering now is completely different than what you may have been offered five or 10 years ago."
"What I will say is I think that this technology is the most powerful medical intervention that we have. Maybe second to vaccines, which we know obviously can have profound impacts on saving lives, preventive genetics, the ability to screen an individual or a couple or a family, and identify diseases that they may be at risk for, with things that you can do to prevent those diseases from happening or catch them early. That's the holy grail. That's the most amazing thing: being able to intervene."
#jscreen #GeneticTesting #TaySachsDisease #ReproductiveCarrierScreening #HereditaryCancerScreening
jscreen.org
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Dr. Matt Goldstein, CEO of jscreen, focuses on the importance and power of preventive genetic testing for reproductive carrier screening and hereditary cancer screening. All genetic tests include analysis to inform specific medical management plans and provide genetic counselors to explore options. Of particular interest is testing for the gene mutations that cause Tay-Sachs disease and helping families take proactive steps to effectively eliminate the disease in future generations.
Matt explains, "So, jscreen is a nonprofit that focuses on providing access to education and high-touch support to individuals, families, and to clinicians in the area of preventive genetics and more specifically for reproductive carrier screening and hereditary cancer screening.
"These types of tests actually have been around for a really long time with the advancement in genomic technology and our knowledge generally of genetics. The capabilities we have around these panels—what we can test for and what we can do with them—have grown tremendously over the last two decades. And so, what we're offering now is completely different than what you may have been offered five or 10 years ago."
"What I will say is I think that this technology is the most powerful medical intervention that we have. Maybe second to vaccines, which we know obviously can have profound impacts on saving lives, preventive genetics, the ability to screen an individual or a couple or a family, and identify diseases that they may be at risk for, with things that you can do to prevent those diseases from happening or catch them early. That's the holy grail. That's the most amazing thing: being able to intervene."
#jscreen #GeneticTesting #TaySachsDisease #ReproductiveCarrierScreening #HereditaryCancerScreening
jscreen.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Yuri Maricich, Chief Medical Officer at CAMP4 Therapeutics, describes regulatory RNA, a new area of biology that recognizes the role of Reg RNA in the production of proteins from specific genes. This technology is well-suited for haploinsufficient diseases such as SYNGAP1-related disorders, in which there is a lack of healthy protein and both parents carry a copy of the mutated gene. The goal is to create disease-modifying treatments that correct the underlying genetic cause rather than treating the symptoms.
Yuri explains, "What was really unique about CAMP4's scientific approach is that we're focused on a whole new and emerging area of biology called regulatory RNA. And these are control elements for the expression of genes. In other words, how much protein we get from a particular gene. And there's been a lot of work in the past on how to have less protein made, particularly if it's a protein that has a mutation that causes a problem. But in medicine, there have been very few opportunities to actually increase the amount of protein, but there are many diseases that need more healthy protein."
"The backdrop of CAMP4 is that there was work done just over eight years ago at the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a lab by Rick Young, and he was working with a colleague at Boston Children's Hospital, Lenson, and they noticed that there was this group of so-called regRNAs. These were non-coding regions that historically have been really ignored. And as they looked and explored their function further, what they discovered was that, in fact, these regRNA elements play a critical role in controlling how much protein is produced. And so the story of CAMP4 has been to continue to understand and map different cell lines so that we could take a particular target gene and, by using tools or established medicines, for example, like antisense oligonucleotides, we could actually increase the amount of a gene's protein back up to normal."
#CAMP4 #CAMP4Therapeutics #SYNGAP1 #CuresSYNGAP1 #regRNA #RegulatoryRNA
camp4tx.com
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Dr. Yuri Maricich, Chief Medical Officer at CAMP4 Therapeutics, describes regulatory RNA, a new area of biology that recognizes the role of Reg RNA in the production of proteins from specific genes. This technology is well-suited for haploinsufficient diseases such as SYNGAP1-related disorders, in which there is a lack of healthy protein and both parents carry a copy of the mutated gene. The goal is to create disease-modifying treatments that correct the underlying genetic cause rather than treating the symptoms.
Yuri explains, "What was really unique about CAMP4's scientific approach is that we're focused on a whole new and emerging area of biology called regulatory RNA. And these are control elements for the expression of genes. In other words, how much protein we get from a particular gene. And there's been a lot of work in the past on how to have less protein made, particularly if it's a protein that has a mutation that causes a problem. But in medicine, there have been very few opportunities to actually increase the amount of protein, but there are many diseases that need more healthy protein."
"The backdrop of CAMP4 is that there was work done just over eight years ago at the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a lab by Rick Young, and he was working with a colleague at Boston Children's Hospital, Lenson, and they noticed that there was this group of so-called regRNAs. These were non-coding regions that historically have been really ignored. And as they looked and explored their function further, what they discovered was that, in fact, these regRNA elements play a critical role in controlling how much protein is produced. And so the story of CAMP4 has been to continue to understand and map different cell lines so that we could take a particular target gene and, by using tools or established medicines, for example, like antisense oligonucleotides, we could actually increase the amount of a gene's protein back up to normal."
#CAMP4 #CAMP4Therapeutics #SYNGAP1 #CuresSYNGAP1 #regRNA #RegulatoryRNA
camp4tx.com
Download the transcript here
Phil L'Huillier, CEO of Scancell, has developed an off-the-shelf DNA immunotherapy designed to generate a potent and durable immune response against advanced melanoma in patients who are unresponsive to current therapies. Their lead candidate showed significant benefit when added to standard of care checkpoint inhibitors, improving duration of response without adding side effects or toxicity. Patient selection in future trials will use a blood test to identify the immune types that can be expected to respond best to the therapy.
Phil explains, "Perhaps first and foremost, Scancell is a clinical-stage company developing novel active immunotherapies for patients. And our objective for patients is to pick up the patients that are unresponsive to current therapies or that respond for a short period of time to improve the overall survival through developing therapies that give a good duration of response, potent immune responses, but are also safe for patients."
"Perhaps before I share results from the studies, I should step back a little bit and just tell you about the platform and the product that the data has arisen for. At Scancell, we're developing these off-the-shelf. The data that we're about to talk about comes from our lead program, which is an off-the-shelf DNA immunotherapy called Immunobody, that's the name that we use for it. And it's different from the personalized therapies, the personalized vaccines that require an individual to give a tumor sample. And then there's sequencing and manufacturing for the individual there. This is off the shelf."
#Scancell #Immunobody #Immunotherapy #Cancer #Oncology #Melanoma #Biotech
scancell.co.uk
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Phil L'Huillier, CEO of Scancell, has developed an off-the-shelf DNA immunotherapy designed to generate a potent and durable immune response against advanced melanoma in patients who are unresponsive to current therapies. Their lead candidate showed significant benefit when added to standard of care checkpoint inhibitors, improving duration of response without adding side effects or toxicity. Patient selection in future trials will use a blood test to identify the immune types that can be expected to respond best to the therapy.
Phil explains, "Perhaps first and foremost, Scancell is a clinical-stage company developing novel active immunotherapies for patients. And our objective for patients is to pick up the patients that are unresponsive to current therapies or that respond for a short period of time to improve the overall survival through developing therapies that give a good duration of response, potent immune responses, but are also safe for patients."
"Perhaps before I share results from the studies, I should step back a little bit and just tell you about the platform and the product that the data has arisen for. At Scancell, we're developing these off-the-shelf. The data that we're about to talk about comes from our lead program, which is an off-the-shelf DNA immunotherapy called Immunobody, that's the name that we use for it. And it's different from the personalized therapies, the personalized vaccines that require an individual to give a tumor sample. And then there's sequencing and manufacturing for the individual there. This is off the shelf."
#Scancell #Immunobody #Immunotherapy #Cancer #Oncology #Melanoma #Biotech
scancell.co.uk
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Dr. Costas Karatzas, CEO, Director, and Co-Founder of Acesis BioMed, is focused on developing a novel treatment for low testosterone in men, an oral peptide that stimulates the body to restore its own natural testosterone production. The therapy's mechanism differs from current testosterone replacement therapies and avoids the side effect of infertility seen in younger men using traditional TRT, which shuts down natural hormone and sperm production. This low T condition is not just a function of aging but is increasingly affecting younger men due to lifestyle, environmental factors, and co-morbidities like diabetes and obesity.
Costas explains, "Our mission is to revolutionize the treatment of low T, or male hypogonadism, and related comorbidities. Although we remain laser-focused on going in phase one with a low T application, because low testosterone is involved in many other diseases like type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, obesity, etc., we're also going to be co-developing those with partnerships initially with academia and later on with other pharma companies. So this is, in a nutshell, the short story about Acesis. The differentiation being everything else marketed provides the body with exogenous testosterone, whereas in our case, we teach the body to go back to its old memory and generate or restore its own testosterone in a natural way."
"Men can develop low testosterone because of the aging process, but this is a wrong idea. Low testosterone is not just an aging problem. It's true that we as men lose testosterone from the age of 30, about 1-1.5%, which is circulating in our blood. By the time we reach sixties or seventies, we could have probably 50% to 60% of the testosterone levels we had while we were at the age of 30 years old. Globally, it's estimated that about 40% of adult men may have suboptimal testosterone levels, especially if you include men with other health issues like diabetes, and we mentioned obesity. So, for older men, this is a big demographic, and as the global male population ages, the number of men with low T is increasing. Interestingly enough, the FDA has only approved the current marketed products of testosterone for men who are between the ages of 30 and 65. Anything over 65 is considered a normal process of aging according to the regulators."
#AcesisBioMed #HormoneHealth #TestosteroneReplacementTherapy #TRT #MensHealthAwareness #BiotechInnovation #EndocrinologyResearch #LowT #MensHealth #Testosterone #HormoneResearch #Menswellbeing #Andropause
acesisbio.com
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Dr. Costas Karatzas, CEO, Director, and Co-Founder of Acesis BioMed, is focused on developing a novel treatment for low testosterone in men, an oral peptide that stimulates the body to restore its own natural testosterone production. The therapy's mechanism differs from current testosterone replacement therapies and avoids the side effect of infertility seen in younger men using traditional TRT, which shuts down natural hormone and sperm production. This low T condition is not just a function of aging but is increasingly affecting younger men due to lifestyle, environmental factors, and co-morbidities like diabetes and obesity.
Costas explains, "Our mission is to revolutionize the treatment of low T, or male hypogonadism, and related comorbidities. Although we remain laser-focused on going in phase one with a low T application, because low testosterone is involved in many other diseases like type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, obesity, etc., we're also going to be co-developing those with partnerships initially with academia and later on with other pharma companies. So this is, in a nutshell, the short story about Acesis. The differentiation being everything else marketed provides the body with exogenous testosterone, whereas in our case, we teach the body to go back to its old memory and generate or restore its own testosterone in a natural way."
"Men can develop low testosterone because of the aging process, but this is a wrong idea. Low testosterone is not just an aging problem. It's true that we as men lose testosterone from the age of 30, about 1-1.5%, which is circulating in our blood. By the time we reach sixties or seventies, we could have probably 50% to 60% of the testosterone levels we had while we were at the age of 30 years old. Globally, it's estimated that about 40% of adult men may have suboptimal testosterone levels, especially if you include men with other health issues like diabetes, and we mentioned obesity. So, for older men, this is a big demographic, and as the global male population ages, the number of men with low T is increasing. Interestingly enough, the FDA has only approved the current marketed products of testosterone for men who are between the ages of 30 and 65. Anything over 65 is considered a normal process of aging according to the regulators."
#AcesisBioMed #HormoneHealth #TestosteroneReplacementTherapy #TRT #MensHealthAwareness #BiotechInnovation #EndocrinologyResearch #LowT #MensHealth #Testosterone #HormoneResearch #Menswellbeing #Andropause
acesisbio.com
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Dr. Adam Rogers, CEO of NervGen Pharma, highlights the significant unmet medical need for treating spinal cord injuries (SCI), as there are currently no approved pharmacological treatments to promote repair. The science behind this neurotrauma company's drug is designed to interfere with the inhibitory molecules that prevent neurons from regenerating after injury, allowing the nervous system to repair itself. Recent trials have shown success in patients with chronic SCI, indicating that it is possible to promote recovery long after initial damage occurs..
Adam explains, "Our mission at NervGen is to improve the lives of individuals with spinal cord injury. And there are roughly 310,000 individuals with spinal cord injury in the United States, and about 18,000, roughly 18,500 new cases per year. And it's such a difficult injury to treat because, other than largely exercise and physical therapy, there are absolutely no approved pharmacologic treatments that promote functional repair for individuals who have suffered a spinal cord injury."
"I'm a physician by training. I practiced for nearly 20 years, and in the medical world, we have always been taught that when a neuron is damaged, as occurs in spinal cord injury, the neuron becomes dystrophic and cannot regenerate. So the medical community has always believed, and I was taught this and even in my practice, that once you have a damaged neuron, that neuron is dead. The problem that we have to solve here is really twofold. Number one, are neurons still viable after a central nervous system (CNS) injury? And number two, if the neuron is viable, how can we get that neuron to sprout, remyelinate, and regrow so that we can gain some function in the end organ that that neuron is supposed to innervate? NervGen's scientific founder, the late Dr. Jerry Silver, dedicated his entire career to understanding what prevented the central nervous system from repairing itself."
#NervGenPharma #SpinalCordInjury #RegenerativeMedicine #NeuroTrauma
nervgen.com
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Dr. Adam Rogers, CEO of NervGen Pharma, highlights the significant unmet medical need for treating spinal cord injuries (SCI), as there are currently no approved pharmacological treatments to promote repair. The science behind this neurotrauma company's drug is designed to interfere with the inhibitory molecules that prevent neurons from regenerating after injury, allowing the nervous system to repair itself. Recent trials have shown success in patients with chronic SCI, indicating that it is possible to promote recovery long after initial damage occurs..
Adam explains, "Our mission at NervGen is to improve the lives of individuals with spinal cord injury. And there are roughly 310,000 individuals with spinal cord injury in the United States, and about 18,000, roughly 18,500 new cases per year. And it's such a difficult injury to treat because, other than largely exercise and physical therapy, there are absolutely no approved pharmacologic treatments that promote functional repair for individuals who have suffered a spinal cord injury."
"I'm a physician by training. I practiced for nearly 20 years, and in the medical world, we have always been taught that when a neuron is damaged, as occurs in spinal cord injury, the neuron becomes dystrophic and cannot regenerate. So the medical community has always believed, and I was taught this and even in my practice, that once you have a damaged neuron, that neuron is dead. The problem that we have to solve here is really twofold. Number one, are neurons still viable after a central nervous system (CNS) injury? And number two, if the neuron is viable, how can we get that neuron to sprout, remyelinate, and regrow so that we can gain some function in the end organ that that neuron is supposed to innervate? NervGen's scientific founder, the late Dr. Jerry Silver, dedicated his entire career to understanding what prevented the central nervous system from repairing itself."
#NervGenPharma #SpinalCordInjury #RegenerativeMedicine #NeuroTrauma
nervgen.com
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Dr. Sanjay Kakkar, CEO of Tensive, has developed an innovative bioresorbable polymeric scaffold for breast regeneration following a lumpectomy. The scaffold was designed to address a significant unmet need for breast cancer patients who have limited options for reconstruction. A key feature of this technology is that it facilitates a natural wound-healing response, allowing the body's own vascular, connective, and fat tissues to regrow as the scaffold gradually dissolves.
Sanjay explains, "What we've been developing at Tensive is at a late clinical stage of these advanced biomaterials, and we've spent the last decade or so pioneering this bioresorbable polymeric scaffold for natural tissue regeneration. So, coming directly to your question, we're on this mission to provide breast cancer survivors with the option of a natural breast reconstruction. What we developed is this resorbable biopolymer that can be implanted at the time of the lumpectomy procedure."
"But what it does is it replaces volume immediately, and it facilitates new tissue growth without cells or growth factors. This sponge, which is made of a fine scaffold matrix, gradually degrades. So it immediately fills the cavity left by the tumor removal. It facilitates natural tissue regeneration, allowing the body's own cells to grow back into the 97% of empty space, which is formed by this sponge. And that basically means that initially vascular tissue regrows inside the porous architecture, then connective tissue, and then fat comes back."
#Tensive #BreastCancer #BreastCancerAwareness #ClinicalTrials #ReconstructiveSurgery #REGENERA #BreastHealth #BreastReconstruction #Lumpectomy #Innovation
tensive.com
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Dr. Sanjay Kakkar, CEO of Tensive, has developed an innovative bioresorbable polymeric scaffold for breast regeneration following a lumpectomy. The scaffold was designed to address a significant unmet need for breast cancer patients who have limited options for reconstruction. A key feature of this technology is that it facilitates a natural wound-healing response, allowing the body's own vascular, connective, and fat tissues to regrow as the scaffold gradually dissolves.
Sanjay explains, "What we've been developing at Tensive is at a late clinical stage of these advanced biomaterials, and we've spent the last decade or so pioneering this bioresorbable polymeric scaffold for natural tissue regeneration. So, coming directly to your question, we're on this mission to provide breast cancer survivors with the option of a natural breast reconstruction. What we developed is this resorbable biopolymer that can be implanted at the time of the lumpectomy procedure."
"But what it does is it replaces volume immediately, and it facilitates new tissue growth without cells or growth factors. This sponge, which is made of a fine scaffold matrix, gradually degrades. So it immediately fills the cavity left by the tumor removal. It facilitates natural tissue regeneration, allowing the body's own cells to grow back into the 97% of empty space, which is formed by this sponge. And that basically means that initially vascular tissue regrows inside the porous architecture, then connective tissue, and then fat comes back."
#Tensive #BreastCancer #BreastCancerAwareness #ClinicalTrials #ReconstructiveSurgery #REGENERA #BreastHealth #BreastReconstruction #Lumpectomy #Innovation
tensive.com
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Dr. Saria Saccocio, Chief Medical Officer at Essence Healthcare, is using AI to enhance care and services for patients who are enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs. One application is to analyze data related to health equity, care authorization, and to address biases. Their AI agent is being used to interact with patients, offering them the option to access a human. Integration with wearables, such as the Oura Ring, focuses on identifying clinically useful information to prevent physicians from being overwhelmed by data.
Saria explains, "Medicare Advantage plans are absolutely that. It's an advantage because of the additional benefits that exist and the opportunity to connect with our members is rather unique. In fact, what I'll share with you and the audience is that AI has been a focus for us and a priority as we continue to expand the focus on quality and engagement with our members so that they have their best quality life possible to them. AI is a major piece of this work to make that happen. I can give you a couple of examples. In fact, when it comes to health equity, CMS has recently required Medicare plans to ensure that we are analyzing our data through a health equity lens. This year, in fact, we're focused on authorizations, authorizations of care. We want to make sure that it is critical to our members and AI. I see an opportunity to recognize any blind spots or implicit bias."
"I think that every human being has a capability for technology. And what's critical is that we meet them where they are, that we understand what they want, what they need out of technology. I think that works as well as providers. As you see all of these AI developers starting up companies and solving problems, the conversation that we're having every day at Lumeris and at Essence Healthcare is what does the patient want? What does that member need for quality of care? And then engage and include the providers in that conversation. What makes their job easier? Because one of the challenges with new technology is that we can also reach a point of technology exhaustion. So I'll give an example of our relationship with Oura ring, the wearable device that tracks for sleep, for health, for heart rate, and a number of different measures."
#EssenceHealthcare #MedicareAdvantage #HealthAI #OuraRing #DigitalHealth
essencehealthcare.com
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Dr. Saria Saccocio, Chief Medical Officer at Essence Healthcare, is using AI to enhance care and services for patients who are enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs. One application is to analyze data related to health equity, care authorization, and to address biases. Their AI agent is being used to interact with patients, offering them the option to access a human. Integration with wearables, such as the Oura Ring, focuses on identifying clinically useful information to prevent physicians from being overwhelmed by data.
Saria explains, "Medicare Advantage plans are absolutely that. It's an advantage because of the additional benefits that exist and the opportunity to connect with our members is rather unique. In fact, what I'll share with you and the audience is that AI has been a focus for us and a priority as we continue to expand the focus on quality and engagement with our members so that they have their best quality life possible to them. AI is a major piece of this work to make that happen. I can give you a couple of examples. In fact, when it comes to health equity, CMS has recently required Medicare plans to ensure that we are analyzing our data through a health equity lens. This year, in fact, we're focused on authorizations, authorizations of care. We want to make sure that it is critical to our members and AI. I see an opportunity to recognize any blind spots or implicit bias."
"I think that every human being has a capability for technology. And what's critical is that we meet them where they are, that we understand what they want, what they need out of technology. I think that works as well as providers. As you see all of these AI developers starting up companies and solving problems, the conversation that we're having every day at Lumeris and at Essence Healthcare is what does the patient want? What does that member need for quality of care? And then engage and include the providers in that conversation. What makes their job easier? Because one of the challenges with new technology is that we can also reach a point of technology exhaustion. So I'll give an example of our relationship with Oura ring, the wearable device that tracks for sleep, for health, for heart rate, and a number of different measures."
#EssenceHealthcare #MedicareAdvantage #HealthAI #OuraRing #DigitalHealth
essencehealthcare.com
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Kerry Mello-Parker, Director of Rare Diseases and REMS programs at Shields Health Solutions, addresses the complexities and challenges faced by patients with rare diseases including diagnostic delays and limited access to medication. Using an integrated specialty pharmacy model, Shields works with pharmacists to have direct access to the EHR, enabling better patient monitoring, shorter time to initiate medication, tracking outcomes, and providing patients with a direct line of communication to their care team. Pharmacists treating rare diseases are also supported with specialized information on medication administration, side effects and complex billing.
Kerry explains, "Shields Health Solutions is a specialty pharmacy accelerator. We partner with over 80 health systems across the United States. We support them in establishing and growing a specialty pharmacy. We help them to access critical medications. Some of them are not available at traditional pharmacies, and we support them in managing clinical quality care programs for their patients."
"I'd like to step back a little and talk about what a rare disease is and how we define it. Currently, it is defined as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people. However, over 7,000 rare diseases exist. So when we do the math, we come to see that they are not so rare. And some estimates show that up to 10% of the US population may actually have a rare disease. And what I've seen is that there are really three main complexities of treating rare diseases and challenges that patients may face. One of them is that there is a lack of available treatment options when compared with more common diseases. So, for example, only about 10% of rare diseases have an FDA-approved treatment option, but that is changing. We have the Orphan Drug Act, which has actually changed the landscape. It has incentivized and facilitated the development of medications to treat rare diseases."
#ShieldsHealthSolutions #IntegratedCareModel #SpecialtyPharmacy #RareDiseases #MedicationAdherence
shieldshealthsolutions.com
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Kerry Mello-Parker, Director of Rare Diseases and REMS programs at Shields Health Solutions, addresses the complexities and challenges faced by patients with rare diseases including diagnostic delays and limited access to medication. Using an integrated specialty pharmacy model, Shields works with pharmacists to have direct access to the EHR, enabling better patient monitoring, shorter time to initiate medication, tracking outcomes, and providing patients with a direct line of communication to their care team. Pharmacists treating rare diseases are also supported with specialized information on medication administration, side effects and complex billing.
Kerry explains, "Shields Health Solutions is a specialty pharmacy accelerator. We partner with over 80 health systems across the United States. We support them in establishing and growing a specialty pharmacy. We help them to access critical medications. Some of them are not available at traditional pharmacies, and we support them in managing clinical quality care programs for their patients."
"I'd like to step back a little and talk about what a rare disease is and how we define it. Currently, it is defined as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people. However, over 7,000 rare diseases exist. So when we do the math, we come to see that they are not so rare. And some estimates show that up to 10% of the US population may actually have a rare disease. And what I've seen is that there are really three main complexities of treating rare diseases and challenges that patients may face. One of them is that there is a lack of available treatment options when compared with more common diseases. So, for example, only about 10% of rare diseases have an FDA-approved treatment option, but that is changing. We have the Orphan Drug Act, which has actually changed the landscape. It has incentivized and facilitated the development of medications to treat rare diseases."
#ShieldsHealthSolutions #IntegratedCareModel #SpecialtyPharmacy #RareDiseases #MedicationAdherence
shieldshealthsolutions.com
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Ram Sahasranam, President and Co-Founder of Fold Health, has created a platform that integrates with the EHR to create an AI-driven interface that streamlines workflows, improves communication across the care team, and helps better manage patient care. Traditional EHR systems, while effective for documentation, were not built for proactive care and data sharing. With a focus on the patient and providers, Fold Health is integrating data sources and automating redundant administrative tasks helping to reduce clinician burnout and improve patient communication for scheduling and reminders.
Ram explains, "The way to look at it is that empowering providers and patients need to go hand in hand. That is the fundamental reason why we called ourselves Fold Health, which is that healthcare needs to fold around the providers and the team supporting the providers and the patients and the families of the patients who are involved in the care. We have seen healthcare go from $1.6 trillion in spending to $5.3 trillion in spending this year. But in those 15 years, we haven't yet seen it fold around the two most important people, the provider or the patient, in terms of better outcomes or improving the burnout rates that clinicians and their teams face today."
"So the fundamental challenge that we noticed was that multiple people were living in different systems and hence different silos from a data standpoint. So the clinician did not know what was happening with their care teams. The patient was living in a different system. If the patient goes to a specialist, the data comes in a compressed format to the physician in an easily digestible manner, which was a challenge. So what Fold does as a result of getting control of all these different nodes is that data can be used to summarize and provide things for the different teams in a quick, easily digestible manner."
#Foldhealth #CareCoordination #CareDelivery #ConnectedCare #HealthTech #AI #HealthAI
Fold.Health
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Ram Sahasranam, President and Co-Founder of Fold Health, has created a platform that integrates with the EHR to create an AI-driven interface that streamlines workflows, improves communication across the care team, and helps better manage patient care. Traditional EHR systems, while effective for documentation, were not built for proactive care and data sharing. With a focus on the patient and providers, Fold Health is integrating data sources and automating redundant administrative tasks helping to reduce clinician burnout and improve patient communication for scheduling and reminders.
Ram explains, "The way to look at it is that empowering providers and patients need to go hand in hand. That is the fundamental reason why we called ourselves Fold Health, which is that healthcare needs to fold around the providers and the team supporting the providers and the patients and the families of the patients who are involved in the care. We have seen healthcare go from $1.6 trillion in spending to $5.3 trillion in spending this year. But in those 15 years, we haven't yet seen it fold around the two most important people, the provider or the patient, in terms of better outcomes or improving the burnout rates that clinicians and their teams face today."
"So the fundamental challenge that we noticed was that multiple people were living in different systems and hence different silos from a data standpoint. So the clinician did not know what was happening with their care teams. The patient was living in a different system. If the patient goes to a specialist, the data comes in a compressed format to the physician in an easily digestible manner, which was a challenge. So what Fold does as a result of getting control of all these different nodes is that data can be used to summarize and provide things for the different teams in a quick, easily digestible manner."
#Foldhealth #CareCoordination #CareDelivery #ConnectedCare #HealthTech #AI #HealthAI
Fold.Health
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Ralph Keiser, CEO of ArcheHealth, highlights the severe financial pressures that hospitals are confronting as a result of rising costs and declining reimbursements. Reductions in reimbursements are threatening hospitals that serve underinsured populations. Costs are increasing due to tariffs on medical device components and the general price inflation on medical supplies and drugs. ArcheHealth is focused on helping hospitals improve operational efficiency to lower the expense of delivering care.
Ralph explains, "The tariff index is going to come mostly around medical devices and device components. So plastics, metals, packaging, things that the device manufacturers use to deliver their products to hospitals and health systems, those will likely get passed through. It won't be huge incremental costs, so there will be additional costs due to tariffs. It depends on a couple of things. Do you have a strong contract that sort of embargoes your current price? Then maybe in the next contract term you'll see that pass through or the contract so the supplier to pass through, you'll see them. We're monitoring month by month the current or last month's spend was on these items, and do we see a chart impact by manufacturer by line."
"One thing that I want to make sure we talk about, too, isn't just shared impact. So the cost to a hospital for devices and drugs averaged 8.9% more in 2024. So just by nature of the market raising its prices for goods that hospitals use to cover patient care, those moved up without tariffs 8.9% last year. We think we're tracking increases that are happening despite the tariff overlay or on top of the tariffs. We still think that the pressure on hospitals is due to the price of therapeutics, and is going to continue to go up, tariff or not. And so I want to mention that because this is the ongoing impact of the cost of MedTech and drugs that gets passed through to the consumer."
#ArcheHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareOperations
archehealth.ai
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Ralph Keiser, CEO of ArcheHealth, highlights the severe financial pressures that hospitals are confronting as a result of rising costs and declining reimbursements. Reductions in reimbursements are threatening hospitals that serve underinsured populations. Costs are increasing due to tariffs on medical device components and the general price inflation on medical supplies and drugs. ArcheHealth is focused on helping hospitals improve operational efficiency to lower the expense of delivering care.
Ralph explains, "The tariff index is going to come mostly around medical devices and device components. So plastics, metals, packaging, things that the device manufacturers use to deliver their products to hospitals and health systems, those will likely get passed through. It won't be huge incremental costs, so there will be additional costs due to tariffs. It depends on a couple of things. Do you have a strong contract that sort of embargoes your current price? Then maybe in the next contract term you'll see that pass through or the contract so the supplier to pass through, you'll see them. We're monitoring month by month the current or last month's spend was on these items, and do we see a chart impact by manufacturer by line."
"One thing that I want to make sure we talk about, too, isn't just shared impact. So the cost to a hospital for devices and drugs averaged 8.9% more in 2024. So just by nature of the market raising its prices for goods that hospitals use to cover patient care, those moved up without tariffs 8.9% last year. We think we're tracking increases that are happening despite the tariff overlay or on top of the tariffs. We still think that the pressure on hospitals is due to the price of therapeutics, and is going to continue to go up, tariff or not. And so I want to mention that because this is the ongoing impact of the cost of MedTech and drugs that gets passed through to the consumer."
#ArcheHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareOperations
archehealth.ai
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Dr. Marc Salzberg, President, CEO, and Chief Medical Officer at Airway Therapeutics, is developing a drug AT-100 to prevent bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in preterm infants, a severe condition with no existing treatment. These infants are at high risk for BPD because of a low level of a protective protein that reduces inflammation and clears infections from their underdeveloped lungs. The drug's mechanism of action suggests it has potential for treating other inflammatory conditions such as asthma, COPD, and severe pneumonia.
Marc explains, "We're focusing on developing drugs or interventions for severe respiratory conditions for prevention or treatment of severe respiratory conditions. And our first project is focusing on the respiratory condition that preterm neonates have, which is called bronchopulmonary dysplasia, and cannot be treated or prevented yet. It's a very severe condition. And that really triggered my interest in getting engaged because it's going to be a paradigm shift if we manage to bring this drug to market."
"The protein that we're developing is an endogenous protein that we all have. In the past years or decade, it has been discovered that this protein has a very essential function in fighting inflammation and infection on a daily basis. Now, there are certain conditions or instances where the protein is low-functioning. For instance, in preterm-born babies, but also in adults with severe respiratory inflammation, with pneumonias, with asthma, or COPD. In all those cases where protein is low, those are the instances where you actually need it most. So, replacing it in those instances is a kind of logical rationale for the concept for the treatment that we're developing."
#AirwayTherapeutics #BPD #InflammatoryDiseases #Zelpultidealfa #PrematureBabies #PretermBabies
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Dr. Marc Salzberg, President, CEO, and Chief Medical Officer at Airway Therapeutics, is developing a drug AT-100 to prevent bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in preterm infants, a severe condition with no existing treatment. These infants are at high risk for BPD because of a low level of a protective protein that reduces inflammation and clears infections from their underdeveloped lungs. The drug's mechanism of action suggests it has potential for treating other inflammatory conditions such as asthma, COPD, and severe pneumonia.
Marc explains, "We're focusing on developing drugs or interventions for severe respiratory conditions for prevention or treatment of severe respiratory conditions. And our first project is focusing on the respiratory condition that preterm neonates have, which is called bronchopulmonary dysplasia, and cannot be treated or prevented yet. It's a very severe condition. And that really triggered my interest in getting engaged because it's going to be a paradigm shift if we manage to bring this drug to market."
"The protein that we're developing is an endogenous protein that we all have. In the past years or decade, it has been discovered that this protein has a very essential function in fighting inflammation and infection on a daily basis. Now, there are certain conditions or instances where the protein is low-functioning. For instance, in preterm-born babies, but also in adults with severe respiratory inflammation, with pneumonias, with asthma, or COPD. In all those cases where protein is low, those are the instances where you actually need it most. So, replacing it in those instances is a kind of logical rationale for the concept for the treatment that we're developing."
#AirwayTherapeutics #BPD #InflammatoryDiseases #Zelpultidealfa #PrematureBabies #PretermBabies
airwaytherapeutics.com
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Wade Demmer, R&D Vice President at Medtronic, has developed a leadless pacemaker that is implanted on the heart through a minimally invasive procedure utilizing a catheter, potentially creating fewer complications and greater access for patients who could benefit from a pacemaker. This new design is a significantly smaller, safer, and longer-lasting device than traditional pacemakers and does not create a visible lump under the skin. Advancements in battery and computer technology have made the Micra next-generation pacemaker smarter, allowing cardiologists to treat a wider range of heart conditions.
Wase explains, "So yes, pacemakers have been around for about seventy years. They've been helping people save lives, live fuller lives, and improve quality of life for that whole time. But you know, if you think about the history of a pacemaker, a pacemaker is a computer inside a little box that's implanted in the body. And like any computer, a computer from 70 years ago and a computer from today are very different. You know, 70 years ago, a pacemaker would've been about the size of a hockey puck, but even a little bit thicker. And nowadays, pacemakers are not much bigger than a couple of silver dollars stacked together. So we've made really big advances."
"When you had those hockey puck-sized pacemakers or even modern-sized pacemakers, there's no place in the heart for it. And so they end up in the chest, and then there's a wire called the lead that goes down through the veins into the heart, and that's where the electricity gets delivered down to make the heartbeat. And that's also where the heart's electricity comes back up, so the pacemaker can know what's wrong. As we have pacemakers smaller and smaller, though, we suddenly reach a point where a radical downsizing is a possibility. And again, leveraging the computer technology of the world, getting a pacemaker inside the heart instead of in the chest."
#Medtronic #CardiacCare #Pacemaker #LeadlessPacemaker #Micra #Cardiologists #HeartHealth #Innovation
medtronic.com
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Wade Demmer, R&D Vice President at Medtronic, has developed a leadless pacemaker that is implanted on the heart through a minimally invasive procedure utilizing a catheter, potentially creating fewer complications and greater access for patients who could benefit from a pacemaker. This new design is a significantly smaller, safer, and longer-lasting device than traditional pacemakers and does not create a visible lump under the skin. Advancements in battery and computer technology have made the Micra next-generation pacemaker smarter, allowing cardiologists to treat a wider range of heart conditions.
Wase explains, "So yes, pacemakers have been around for about seventy years. They've been helping people save lives, live fuller lives, and improve quality of life for that whole time. But you know, if you think about the history of a pacemaker, a pacemaker is a computer inside a little box that's implanted in the body. And like any computer, a computer from 70 years ago and a computer from today are very different. You know, 70 years ago, a pacemaker would've been about the size of a hockey puck, but even a little bit thicker. And nowadays, pacemakers are not much bigger than a couple of silver dollars stacked together. So we've made really big advances."
"When you had those hockey puck-sized pacemakers or even modern-sized pacemakers, there's no place in the heart for it. And so they end up in the chest, and then there's a wire called the lead that goes down through the veins into the heart, and that's where the electricity gets delivered down to make the heartbeat. And that's also where the heart's electricity comes back up, so the pacemaker can know what's wrong. As we have pacemakers smaller and smaller, though, we suddenly reach a point where a radical downsizing is a possibility. And again, leveraging the computer technology of the world, getting a pacemaker inside the heart instead of in the chest."
#Medtronic #CardiacCare #Pacemaker #LeadlessPacemaker #Micra #Cardiologists #HeartHealth #Innovation
medtronic.com
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Dr. Vishwa Srivastava, APAC CEO of SSI, SS Innovations International, is a leader in telesurgery, using robotic surgery to extend surgical services in underserved areas. The SSI Mantra surgical robot is used for laparoscopic surgery and offers an affordable alternative to prevailing robotic solutions without compromising quality. Telesurgery has potential in remote operations and is also revolutionizing surgical training by providing real-time expert proctoring.
Vishwa explains, "My father was one of the early global pioneers in robotic cardiac surgery, and he had actually helped Intuitive Surgical back in their early days get their FDA approval. And what he recognized very quickly was that through these minimally invasive robotic cardiac surgical procedures, 20% of his patients went home the next day, 50% in two days or less, and the average length of stay was 3.2 days. So, he became convinced after they twisted his arm to launch robotic cardiac surgical programs. And Dr. Fred Moll at the time was the chairman and founder of Intuitive Surgical, and he wanted to start on the heart because it was the most complex procedure to do a beating heart, totally endoscopic, bypass surgery. And he felt that if you could do that, then everything else would be simple."
"The way that we look at remote robotic surgery, or what we call telesurgery, currently, we are the only company in India that has received formal regulatory approval from the CDSCO for both teleproctoring and telesurgery. The way that we look at teleproctoring and telesurgery, it's not like one rockstar surgeon sitting in one location operating omnipresent in a hundred different locations."
"With teleproctoring and telesurgery, the way that we look at it is in addition to operating and extending expertise in the remote areas of the country, we look at teleproctoring and telesurgery the same way that doctors are trained in residency where you always have an attending in the room, the junior surgeon will be operating, and the goal of the proctor or the attending surgeon is to guide the junior surgeon to maturity."
#SSInnovations #RoboticSurgery #Telesurgery #CardiacProcedures #HeartSurgery #Teleproctoring #RemoteSurgery
SSInnovations.com
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Dr. Vishwa Srivastava, APAC CEO of SSI, SS Innovations International, is a leader in telesurgery, using robotic surgery to extend surgical services in underserved areas. The SSI Mantra surgical robot is used for laparoscopic surgery and offers an affordable alternative to prevailing robotic solutions without compromising quality. Telesurgery has potential in remote operations and is also revolutionizing surgical training by providing real-time expert proctoring.
Vishwa explains, "My father was one of the early global pioneers in robotic cardiac surgery, and he had actually helped Intuitive Surgical back in their early days get their FDA approval. And what he recognized very quickly was that through these minimally invasive robotic cardiac surgical procedures, 20% of his patients went home the next day, 50% in two days or less, and the average length of stay was 3.2 days. So, he became convinced after they twisted his arm to launch robotic cardiac surgical programs. And Dr. Fred Moll at the time was the chairman and founder of Intuitive Surgical, and he wanted to start on the heart because it was the most complex procedure to do a beating heart, totally endoscopic, bypass surgery. And he felt that if you could do that, then everything else would be simple."
"The way that we look at remote robotic surgery, or what we call telesurgery, currently, we are the only company in India that has received formal regulatory approval from the CDSCO for both teleproctoring and telesurgery. The way that we look at teleproctoring and telesurgery, it's not like one rockstar surgeon sitting in one location operating omnipresent in a hundred different locations."
"With teleproctoring and telesurgery, the way that we look at it is in addition to operating and extending expertise in the remote areas of the country, we look at teleproctoring and telesurgery the same way that doctors are trained in residency where you always have an attending in the room, the junior surgeon will be operating, and the goal of the proctor or the attending surgeon is to guide the junior surgeon to maturity."
#SSInnovations #RoboticSurgery #Telesurgery #CardiacProcedures #HeartSurgery #Teleproctoring #RemoteSurgery
SSInnovations.com
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Vikram Ahuja, Co-Founder and CEO, and Joe Promoppatam, Co-Founder and CTO of OsseoLabs, are utilizing 3D printing and AI to advance reconstructive surgery by enabling the creation of personalized, precision-fit implants and surgical instruments. Traditional surgery has relied on standardized implants made of titanium and involves lengthy operations. The OsseoLabs approach reduces surgical planning and operating time, improving patient outcomes by achieving a better fit and enhanced bone integration through the use of advanced implant materials. AI is used to automate and accelerate the design process for these custom devices, enabling a scalable and cost-effective approach to create complex, regulated medical devices.
Vikram explains, "We want to use our engineering know-how, especially in 3D printing, to improve the quality of the outcome of the surgeries and also help the students to be able to offer a better solution at a speed, and also the outcome that is a little bit more precise. And that's what we have been working on for quite a long time. We want to use the knowledge of 3D printing, biomechanics, and also AI to help, especially in complex surgical cases. So both the patients and the surgeons are better off with the outcome. And the main gap that we are seeing here is not only in the Asian countries where we operate, but also in the US. And the use of 3D presented implants, even though it has been around for quite some time in the US, we still see a lot of gaps that can be improved in what materials are being used, and how the implants are designed. We help the surgeons and also the hospitals throughout this process."
Joe elaborates, "Yes, for such a device, they all look the same way, but the patients look different. So we see this gap between the available instrumentation and the actual treatment that the surgeons want to conduct. And we want to break that barrier by being able to decide which instrument is required individually, and I mean that in the day, we could not do that. The price can be competitive because all the manufacturing technology is used to support production. But we have to depend on how they matured in the past few years. We are able to adopt the technology, which allows us to decide and print the instrument for specific care and specific surgery. I think the speed and cost become much more practical, and all we need to look into is the 3D printer. But eventually, when you come into something like customization, you talk about the speed. In terms of speed, it's not just the speed of how we make things, but it's about the speed of how we decide things. That's where we see the gap that we can fill using AI to split up the bedside process."
#OsseoLabs #ReconstructiveSurgery #3DPrinting #PersonalizedImplants #MedAI
OsseoLabs.com
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Vikram Ahuja, Co-Founder and CEO, and Joe Promoppatam, Co-Founder and CTO of OsseoLabs, are utilizing 3D printing and AI to advance reconstructive surgery by enabling the creation of personalized, precision-fit implants and surgical instruments. Traditional surgery has relied on standardized implants made of titanium and involves lengthy operations. The OsseoLabs approach reduces surgical planning and operating time, improving patient outcomes by achieving a better fit and enhanced bone integration through the use of advanced implant materials. AI is used to automate and accelerate the design process for these custom devices, enabling a scalable and cost-effective approach to create complex, regulated medical devices.
Vikram explains, "We want to use our engineering know-how, especially in 3D printing, to improve the quality of the outcome of the surgeries and also help the students to be able to offer a better solution at a speed, and also the outcome that is a little bit more precise. And that's what we have been working on for quite a long time. We want to use the knowledge of 3D printing, biomechanics, and also AI to help, especially in complex surgical cases. So both the patients and the surgeons are better off with the outcome. And the main gap that we are seeing here is not only in the Asian countries where we operate, but also in the US. And the use of 3D presented implants, even though it has been around for quite some time in the US, we still see a lot of gaps that can be improved in what materials are being used, and how the implants are designed. We help the surgeons and also the hospitals throughout this process."
Joe elaborates, "Yes, for such a device, they all look the same way, but the patients look different. So we see this gap between the available instrumentation and the actual treatment that the surgeons want to conduct. And we want to break that barrier by being able to decide which instrument is required individually, and I mean that in the day, we could not do that. The price can be competitive because all the manufacturing technology is used to support production. But we have to depend on how they matured in the past few years. We are able to adopt the technology, which allows us to decide and print the instrument for specific care and specific surgery. I think the speed and cost become much more practical, and all we need to look into is the 3D printer. But eventually, when you come into something like customization, you talk about the speed. In terms of speed, it's not just the speed of how we make things, but it's about the speed of how we decide things. That's where we see the gap that we can fill using AI to split up the bedside process."
#OsseoLabs #ReconstructiveSurgery #3DPrinting #PersonalizedImplants #MedAI
OsseoLabs.com
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Trân Lê, Co-Founder and CEO of Grove AI, was founded to automate the manual and inefficient workflows in clinical trial recruitment, patient engagement, and support. The company's AI agent, Grace, is trained on specific trial protocols and approved scripts to respond to patient questions about pre-screening, logistics, and scheduling appointments. This platform aims to increase speed and quality of participant recruitment, improve representation, and expand accessibility to clinical trials by offering support in over 19 languages and providing access to information on demand.
Trân explains, "The birth of Grove really came from my co-founder, Sohit, and his experience working in the hospital. We were working at Stanford, and there we were, computer scientists building a lot of internal tools for clinical trials, clinical research, as well as for the greater healthcare patient services. And that, combined with my experience trying to enroll in a clinical trial, really set us off to think deeply about how we can automate a lot of the manual workflows that exist today for patients and for providers, as well as for pharma in taking new drugs to market. Specifically, within that, we identified patient engagement and support, and prescreening to be an important part of ensuring that patients know where they're going and what to do when they're participating in these trials. And so we decided to really step out into the industry and change this process and make it an easier and more accessible experience for patients."
"I would say that having worked inside a hospital and seeing all of this lead generation or getting people educated about the trial is an important aspect, and it's being done by a lot of the recruitment vendors as well as in-house teams out there. In addition to that, a bottleneck that previously has always been there now is possible to automate with agentic AI is actually doing the work of taking all the interest from different potential patients and helping them prescreen and understand the requirements of the trials, getting them to the right site, booking their transportation, reminding them about the appointments, and scheduling that appointment."
"I would say that Grace, as we call her, is a digital staff or an AI agent - both are comparable terms to describe Grace. The difference is that Grace is trained on the trial, the requirements, and the IRB-approved script of that trial. So she really has the knowledge to be able to respond spontaneously in real time to any questions that the participant may have about the trial."
#GroveAI #ClinicalTrials #PatientRecruitment #Pharma #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #AI #AgenticAI
grovetrials.com
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Trân Lê, Co-Founder and CEO of Grove AI, was founded to automate the manual and inefficient workflows in clinical trial recruitment, patient engagement, and support. The company's AI agent, Grace, is trained on specific trial protocols and approved scripts to respond to patient questions about pre-screening, logistics, and scheduling appointments. This platform aims to increase speed and quality of participant recruitment, improve representation, and expand accessibility to clinical trials by offering support in over 19 languages and providing access to information on demand.
Trân explains, "The birth of Grove really came from my co-founder, Sohit, and his experience working in the hospital. We were working at Stanford, and there we were, computer scientists building a lot of internal tools for clinical trials, clinical research, as well as for the greater healthcare patient services. And that, combined with my experience trying to enroll in a clinical trial, really set us off to think deeply about how we can automate a lot of the manual workflows that exist today for patients and for providers, as well as for pharma in taking new drugs to market. Specifically, within that, we identified patient engagement and support, and prescreening to be an important part of ensuring that patients know where they're going and what to do when they're participating in these trials. And so we decided to really step out into the industry and change this process and make it an easier and more accessible experience for patients."
"I would say that having worked inside a hospital and seeing all of this lead generation or getting people educated about the trial is an important aspect, and it's being done by a lot of the recruitment vendors as well as in-house teams out there. In addition to that, a bottleneck that previously has always been there now is possible to automate with agentic AI is actually doing the work of taking all the interest from different potential patients and helping them prescreen and understand the requirements of the trials, getting them to the right site, booking their transportation, reminding them about the appointments, and scheduling that appointment."
"I would say that Grace, as we call her, is a digital staff or an AI agent - both are comparable terms to describe Grace. The difference is that Grace is trained on the trial, the requirements, and the IRB-approved script of that trial. So she really has the knowledge to be able to respond spontaneously in real time to any questions that the participant may have about the trial."
#GroveAI #ClinicalTrials #PatientRecruitment #Pharma #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #AI #AgenticAI
grovetrials.com
Download the transcript here
Jeff Glazier, CEO of General Oncology, is taking a unique approach to treating cancer by using older chemotherapy drugs with broad action but in novel combinations designed to avoid the incidental toxicity. Their primary drug in trials is GO-4 which is focused on shutting down DNA repair in cancer cells to overcome drug resistance. While testing in patients with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, this approach was designed to combat tumor heterogeneity by targeting fundamental processes like proliferation that are common to all cancer cells within a tumor.
Jeff explains, "We're actually taking a different approach than a lot of companies are. And I would say there are really two approaches because we have two different things on, we have a clinical trial right now where we're using old chemotherapy drugs in a new way, and when you combine them together, you really get just a different result. We're trying to shut down DNA repair and kill cancer cells. But the other really interesting thing, and I think it's underlying general vision, is chemotherapy drugs long ago had very broad action, and with broad action comes unwanted incidental toxicity. And over the years, it's been huge in the industry, or moving towards specific drugs that target specific things and have less incidental toxicity. The unfortunate side effect is that cancer cells can evolve around a drug if there's too much specificity. So we're taking a pretty novel approach with our business of going after drugs that have broad action, but we found a way, we believe, to do it in a way that doesn't have incidental toxicity."
"I certainly feel that you want to have more than one attack. If you only do one, the cancer cells can evolve around it. The drug resistance approach I was referring to was what we call GO-4 in our clinical trial, and we're altering part of the cancer cells' fundamental biology that is involved in DNA repair and shutting it down. But we're doing it in more than one way."
#GeneralOncology #PancreaticCancer #CancerAwareness #MetastaticCancer #GO4Therapy #CancerResearch #InnovativeTherapies #DrugDevelopment
generaloncology.com
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Jeff Glazier, CEO of General Oncology, is taking a unique approach to treating cancer by using older chemotherapy drugs with broad action but in novel combinations designed to avoid the incidental toxicity. Their primary drug in trials is GO-4 which is focused on shutting down DNA repair in cancer cells to overcome drug resistance. While testing in patients with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, this approach was designed to combat tumor heterogeneity by targeting fundamental processes like proliferation that are common to all cancer cells within a tumor.
Jeff explains, "We're actually taking a different approach than a lot of companies are. And I would say there are really two approaches because we have two different things on, we have a clinical trial right now where we're using old chemotherapy drugs in a new way, and when you combine them together, you really get just a different result. We're trying to shut down DNA repair and kill cancer cells. But the other really interesting thing, and I think it's underlying general vision, is chemotherapy drugs long ago had very broad action, and with broad action comes unwanted incidental toxicity. And over the years, it's been huge in the industry, or moving towards specific drugs that target specific things and have less incidental toxicity. The unfortunate side effect is that cancer cells can evolve around a drug if there's too much specificity. So we're taking a pretty novel approach with our business of going after drugs that have broad action, but we found a way, we believe, to do it in a way that doesn't have incidental toxicity."
"I certainly feel that you want to have more than one attack. If you only do one, the cancer cells can evolve around it. The drug resistance approach I was referring to was what we call GO-4 in our clinical trial, and we're altering part of the cancer cells' fundamental biology that is involved in DNA repair and shutting it down. But we're doing it in more than one way."
#GeneralOncology #PancreaticCancer #CancerAwareness #MetastaticCancer #GO4Therapy #CancerResearch #InnovativeTherapies #DrugDevelopment
generaloncology.com
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Dr. Arup Roy-Burman, Founder and Chief Strategy and Medical Officer of Elemeno Health, is addressing the gap between established medical policies and actual frontline practice. The Elemeno microlearning platform provides just-in-time multimedia content, building confidence in high-risk, low-frequency procedures, helping support knowledge retention, and combating clinician burnout. This modern approach to learning caters to clinicians with shorter attention spans and the expectation of receiving information on the device of their choice when they need it.
Arup explains, "My background is as an ICU physician, and I have practiced as an ICU director for 20-plus years. And the challenge that we had in our ICUs is how to keep our teams on the same page with constantly changing information? And on top of that, in the context of constantly changing staff, medicine is full of so many different practices, workflows, and procedures, and we expect our staff to know all of them and to be able to execute on each one of them at the time that they need to. But that's really unrealistic. There's no way that people can stay on top of it. All medical knowledge doubles every 73 days."
"When we think about today's generational workforce, as we think about just those of us who have kids, we see that attention spans, as you said, are short. People don't want to sit through a whole classroom. They can't remember that. And the way that people want to learn now and the way that they do learn, it's like one of our clients put it, it's like the "TikTokification of education." How do we deliver information on a mobile device? How do we deliver it in short, bite-sized chunks? Multimedia that you can actually consume in context when you need it."
#ElemenoHealth #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #Microlearning #NurseTraining
elemenohealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Arup Roy-Burman, Founder and Chief Strategy and Medical Officer of Elemeno Health, is addressing the gap between established medical policies and actual frontline practice. The Elemeno microlearning platform provides just-in-time multimedia content, building confidence in high-risk, low-frequency procedures, helping support knowledge retention, and combating clinician burnout. This modern approach to learning caters to clinicians with shorter attention spans and the expectation of receiving information on the device of their choice when they need it.
Arup explains, "My background is as an ICU physician, and I have practiced as an ICU director for 20-plus years. And the challenge that we had in our ICUs is how to keep our teams on the same page with constantly changing information? And on top of that, in the context of constantly changing staff, medicine is full of so many different practices, workflows, and procedures, and we expect our staff to know all of them and to be able to execute on each one of them at the time that they need to. But that's really unrealistic. There's no way that people can stay on top of it. All medical knowledge doubles every 73 days."
"When we think about today's generational workforce, as we think about just those of us who have kids, we see that attention spans, as you said, are short. People don't want to sit through a whole classroom. They can't remember that. And the way that people want to learn now and the way that they do learn, it's like one of our clients put it, it's like the "TikTokification of education." How do we deliver information on a mobile device? How do we deliver it in short, bite-sized chunks? Multimedia that you can actually consume in context when you need it."
#ElemenoHealth #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #Microlearning #NurseTraining
elemenohealth.com
Download the transcript here
Kourosh Davarpanah, Co-Founder and CEO of Inato, is using an AI-enabled platform to transform participation in clinical trials. The existing clinical trial system is not seen as representative of the general population, and FDA directives have addressed this lack of diversity. The Inato platform features a marketplace approach that connects trial sponsors with a broader range of hospital sites, as well as an AI tool to assist doctors in identifying patients who are eligible for trials.
Kourosh explains, "Our focus at Inato is to expand the number of patients who are able to participate in clinical research. If you think about how things have been done for the past decades, most of the patients who have the opportunity to participate are coming from the larger academic hospitals. And what this means is that typically, 5% of the sites, meaning 5% of the hospitals running research, run about 70% of all the trials globally. So this has an impact not only on the number of patients that can actually participate in trials, but it also has an impact on the type of patients. So, typically, those are going to be white patients, richer patients. And so it has a big impact also on equity and on the diversity--and ethnic diversity especially--of patients participating."
"We have two pieces of the platform. The first piece is that we're helping connect the hospitals running the trials with trials that are being run by the sponsors. So the way this works is similar to marketplaces like Airbnb, where you have the sponsor that can share any number of upcoming trials. We enable the sites to discover all the trials on the platform and showcase, based on their profiles, how many trials they have done in the past, what is the makeup of the team and doctors, etc. We're able to allow them to get selected in trials that they otherwise wouldn't be able to get selected for. So this is the first piece of it, really connecting the sites and the trials. And increasingly with AI, we've started supporting sites in actually identifying patients at scale. And this has really been a massive tech shift, where the latest generations of LLMs are able to accurately identify patients eligible for any trial with over 95% accuracy."
#Inato #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalRearch #AI #MedAI #DrugDevelopment
Inato.com
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Kourosh Davarpanah, Co-Founder and CEO of Inato, is using an AI-enabled platform to transform participation in clinical trials. The existing clinical trial system is not seen as representative of the general population, and FDA directives have addressed this lack of diversity. The Inato platform features a marketplace approach that connects trial sponsors with a broader range of hospital sites, as well as an AI tool to assist doctors in identifying patients who are eligible for trials.
Kourosh explains, "Our focus at Inato is to expand the number of patients who are able to participate in clinical research. If you think about how things have been done for the past decades, most of the patients who have the opportunity to participate are coming from the larger academic hospitals. And what this means is that typically, 5% of the sites, meaning 5% of the hospitals running research, run about 70% of all the trials globally. So this has an impact not only on the number of patients that can actually participate in trials, but it also has an impact on the type of patients. So, typically, those are going to be white patients, richer patients. And so it has a big impact also on equity and on the diversity--and ethnic diversity especially--of patients participating."
"We have two pieces of the platform. The first piece is that we're helping connect the hospitals running the trials with trials that are being run by the sponsors. So the way this works is similar to marketplaces like Airbnb, where you have the sponsor that can share any number of upcoming trials. We enable the sites to discover all the trials on the platform and showcase, based on their profiles, how many trials they have done in the past, what is the makeup of the team and doctors, etc. We're able to allow them to get selected in trials that they otherwise wouldn't be able to get selected for. So this is the first piece of it, really connecting the sites and the trials. And increasingly with AI, we've started supporting sites in actually identifying patients at scale. And this has really been a massive tech shift, where the latest generations of LLMs are able to accurately identify patients eligible for any trial with over 95% accuracy."
#Inato #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalRearch #AI #MedAI #DrugDevelopment
Inato.com
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Javier Cuello, Founder and CEO of H+Trace highlights the significant and often overlooked problem of errors in the handling of medical samples. Issues like mislabeling, contamination, and improper shipping conditions are responsible for a majority of lab result errors, potentially leading to patient misdiagnoses. The H+Trace solution uses wireless sensors and AI to track samples, generate high-value data, and predict where errors are likely to occur. Working in Latin America and Central America has provided the company with experience in utilizing drones for shipping medical samples and organs to remote and hard-to-reach areas, while maintaining sample integrity.
Javier explains, "It all started for me when a very close friend of mine was misdiagnosed with diabetes while she was pregnant. And when I started digging into this problem, what we found out is that most lab tests today are highly reliable. Once the sample reaches the analyzer, the real danger lies in the logistics of collecting, labeling, and transporting samples prior to that. While not every mistake hurts, the patient studies showed that about 2% to 5% of errors are clinically significant, and this means over 9,000 patients every day in the US risk misdiagnosis, late treatment, and unnecessary procedures or even life-threatening consequences, all because of failures in the pre-analytic logistics."
"It's a quite new problem because over the past decades, laboratories have invested heavily in laboratory equipment and training, but the logistics of sample handling have seen little innovation. That is why roughly two-thirds of errors still occur in the pre-analytical phase."
"But the reality is that most laboratories don't even know under what conditions the transport takes place. Even some of the most important labs simply receive the sample processing and send the results. So we're working with a laboratory that addresses this kind of problem, which started with labor. They have their own logistics. We started in Latin America and Central America, and now we're about to launch in the US because this is a very big problem in the US."
#HTrace #Logistics #LabSamples #Sensors #ShippingLabSamples
h-trace.com
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Javier Cuello, Founder and CEO of H+Trace highlights the significant and often overlooked problem of errors in the handling of medical samples. Issues like mislabeling, contamination, and improper shipping conditions are responsible for a majority of lab result errors, potentially leading to patient misdiagnoses. The H+Trace solution uses wireless sensors and AI to track samples, generate high-value data, and predict where errors are likely to occur. Working in Latin America and Central America has provided the company with experience in utilizing drones for shipping medical samples and organs to remote and hard-to-reach areas, while maintaining sample integrity.
Javier explains, "It all started for me when a very close friend of mine was misdiagnosed with diabetes while she was pregnant. And when I started digging into this problem, what we found out is that most lab tests today are highly reliable. Once the sample reaches the analyzer, the real danger lies in the logistics of collecting, labeling, and transporting samples prior to that. While not every mistake hurts, the patient studies showed that about 2% to 5% of errors are clinically significant, and this means over 9,000 patients every day in the US risk misdiagnosis, late treatment, and unnecessary procedures or even life-threatening consequences, all because of failures in the pre-analytic logistics."
"It's a quite new problem because over the past decades, laboratories have invested heavily in laboratory equipment and training, but the logistics of sample handling have seen little innovation. That is why roughly two-thirds of errors still occur in the pre-analytical phase."
"But the reality is that most laboratories don't even know under what conditions the transport takes place. Even some of the most important labs simply receive the sample processing and send the results. So we're working with a laboratory that addresses this kind of problem, which started with labor. They have their own logistics. We started in Latin America and Central America, and now we're about to launch in the US because this is a very big problem in the US."
#HTrace #Logistics #LabSamples #Sensors #ShippingLabSamples
h-trace.com
Download the transcript here
Kyna Fong, Co-Founder and CEO of Elation Health, is developing AI tools that prioritize patient care and automate documentation and referrals to help alleviate physician burnout and improve the patient-provider relationship. Kyna emphasizes the critical role of interoperability in effective primary care, enabling primary care physicians to coordinate care. She also noted the recent White House initiative on interoperability, which encouraged the private sector to cooperate in data-sharing initiatives, now that AI can be used to overcome technical issues of data integration and analysis.
Kyna explains, "Clinical-first is not new for Elation. It's actually our founding product philosophy. When we first started building Elation, what we observed was that so many tools that were built for physicians to use and their electronic health records were very much oriented around billing needs and, in a lot of ways, followed a billing-first philosophy. And so we created Elation to really focus on clinical first, which means putting patient care first and foremost."
"The way that we are approaching AI is as a tool. It's a tool in our toolkit. It's a how and when we think about all the pressures and burdens on physicians, especially primary care physicians, that prevent them from being able to focus on their patients. We take each of those and think about, well, how can AI make this easier? And so there are a variety of areas where we've deployed AI to help our customers. There are the clear, fairly pervasive ones today that start with something like an ambient scribe that helps with documentation, saving multiple hours per day. It's radically transformative."
#ElationHealth #AI #MedAI #PrimaryCare #Physicians #EHR #HealthIT #DigitalHealth
elationhealth.com
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Kyna Fong, Co-Founder and CEO of Elation Health, is developing AI tools that prioritize patient care and automate documentation and referrals to help alleviate physician burnout and improve the patient-provider relationship. Kyna emphasizes the critical role of interoperability in effective primary care, enabling primary care physicians to coordinate care. She also noted the recent White House initiative on interoperability, which encouraged the private sector to cooperate in data-sharing initiatives, now that AI can be used to overcome technical issues of data integration and analysis.
Kyna explains, "Clinical-first is not new for Elation. It's actually our founding product philosophy. When we first started building Elation, what we observed was that so many tools that were built for physicians to use and their electronic health records were very much oriented around billing needs and, in a lot of ways, followed a billing-first philosophy. And so we created Elation to really focus on clinical first, which means putting patient care first and foremost."
"The way that we are approaching AI is as a tool. It's a tool in our toolkit. It's a how and when we think about all the pressures and burdens on physicians, especially primary care physicians, that prevent them from being able to focus on their patients. We take each of those and think about, well, how can AI make this easier? And so there are a variety of areas where we've deployed AI to help our customers. There are the clear, fairly pervasive ones today that start with something like an ambient scribe that helps with documentation, saving multiple hours per day. It's radically transformative."
#ElationHealth #AI #MedAI #PrimaryCare #Physicians #EHR #HealthIT #DigitalHealth
elationhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Hamid Ghanadan, CEO of LINUS, discusses the findings of the company's recent state-of-the-science research, a semiannual survey that tracks sentiment and confidence within the life sciences. Notably, a growing gap in optimism exists between academic and biopharma scientists. As a result, academics are seeking partnerships at a new level due to economic pressures from grant cancellations, the need for multidisciplinary collaboration to solve complex problems, and the desire for a stronger collective voice. AI was identified as the top priority for academia and biopharma, as is the need to improve communication with the public about scientific discoveries and medical advancements.
Hamid explains, "We started the state-of-the-science research four years ago, so this is the eighth time that we've done it. And what we're really doing is measuring consumer confidence within the life sciences. So we track sentiment, we track funding, we track barriers and opportunities, as well as purchase intentions. And we do it every six months for the coming six months of the year."
"So here you have to take into consideration that we talk to scientists globally in this survey, and we talk to them from a variety of different settings and environments. So while about half of our respondents are from academic institutions around the world, the other half are in a variety of industries, mostly biopharma. And we see here that there's a shift, there's a difference in sentiment and in optimism, in outlook, in interest in science, in the applicability of science, and how these different groups are managing it. As you can imagine, the academics are feeling a lot more pressure."
"The consumer sentiment is lower, and there's definitely more fear in that cohort of scientists. Biopharma is actually surprisingly more resilient, more forward-looking. So on the biopharma side, what we're seeing is that there's actually surprising resilience and there's forward-looking intentions. And we see that scientists are actually looking forward to applying new techniques and new technologies that are coming online, and they have more confidence in their ability to make progress for the second half of 2025."
#LINUSGroup #Lifesciences #Healthcare #AIHealthcare #Stategy #Scientists #AI #MedAI
thelinusgroup.com
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Hamid Ghanadan, CEO of LINUS, discusses the findings of the company's recent state-of-the-science research, a semiannual survey that tracks sentiment and confidence within the life sciences. Notably, a growing gap in optimism exists between academic and biopharma scientists. As a result, academics are seeking partnerships at a new level due to economic pressures from grant cancellations, the need for multidisciplinary collaboration to solve complex problems, and the desire for a stronger collective voice. AI was identified as the top priority for academia and biopharma, as is the need to improve communication with the public about scientific discoveries and medical advancements.
Hamid explains, "We started the state-of-the-science research four years ago, so this is the eighth time that we've done it. And what we're really doing is measuring consumer confidence within the life sciences. So we track sentiment, we track funding, we track barriers and opportunities, as well as purchase intentions. And we do it every six months for the coming six months of the year."
"So here you have to take into consideration that we talk to scientists globally in this survey, and we talk to them from a variety of different settings and environments. So while about half of our respondents are from academic institutions around the world, the other half are in a variety of industries, mostly biopharma. And we see here that there's a shift, there's a difference in sentiment and in optimism, in outlook, in interest in science, in the applicability of science, and how these different groups are managing it. As you can imagine, the academics are feeling a lot more pressure."
"The consumer sentiment is lower, and there's definitely more fear in that cohort of scientists. Biopharma is actually surprisingly more resilient, more forward-looking. So on the biopharma side, what we're seeing is that there's actually surprising resilience and there's forward-looking intentions. And we see that scientists are actually looking forward to applying new techniques and new technologies that are coming online, and they have more confidence in their ability to make progress for the second half of 2025."
#LINUSGroup #Lifesciences #Healthcare #AIHealthcare #Stategy #Scientists #AI #MedAI
thelinusgroup.com
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Dr. Kamal Golla, Vice President of Clinical Technologies and Performance at Evolent, highlights the complexities of cancer care and the need for care navigation to address medical, emotional, financial, and logistical challenges. This comprehensive approach leads to improved treatment adherence and patient satisfaction while reducing emergency room visits and hospitalization. The care team serves as an extension of the medical decision-makers, helping to manage care across multiple specialists, advising on overcoming side effects, and reducing logistical hurdles to ease the burden on physicians and caregivers, ultimately improving patient outcomes.
Kamal explains, "Cancer care navigation is really about creating a roadmap for patients. It's making sure they're not left alone to piece together appointments, interpret side effects, or figure out how to pay for medications. The role of a navigator here is really to guide them through the whole journey. That includes the medical components that many folks are familiar with, but also the emotional, financial, and logistical components that come with a cancer diagnosis. The evidence is really clear, given that more than half of emergency department visits and nearly a quarter of hospitalizations related to cancer care are actually avoidable, that responding rapidly to these situations is key."
"In our navigation program, we are rooted in patient-centric navigation, meaning we ask them what the transportation difficulties are that they might face. Who is your caregiver and their support? What do you do for work? What are your cultural and religious beliefs? All of those play a big part in dealing with the new diagnosis of cancer. We want all of that information to be able to provide a very personalized journey."
#Evolent #Oncology #CancerCare #CareNavigation #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PersonalizedCare #PatientCenteredCare #Evolent #Careology
Evolent.com
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Dr. Kamal Golla, Vice President of Clinical Technologies and Performance at Evolent, highlights the complexities of cancer care and the need for care navigation to address medical, emotional, financial, and logistical challenges. This comprehensive approach leads to improved treatment adherence and patient satisfaction while reducing emergency room visits and hospitalization. The care team serves as an extension of the medical decision-makers, helping to manage care across multiple specialists, advising on overcoming side effects, and reducing logistical hurdles to ease the burden on physicians and caregivers, ultimately improving patient outcomes.
Kamal explains, "Cancer care navigation is really about creating a roadmap for patients. It's making sure they're not left alone to piece together appointments, interpret side effects, or figure out how to pay for medications. The role of a navigator here is really to guide them through the whole journey. That includes the medical components that many folks are familiar with, but also the emotional, financial, and logistical components that come with a cancer diagnosis. The evidence is really clear, given that more than half of emergency department visits and nearly a quarter of hospitalizations related to cancer care are actually avoidable, that responding rapidly to these situations is key."
"In our navigation program, we are rooted in patient-centric navigation, meaning we ask them what the transportation difficulties are that they might face. Who is your caregiver and their support? What do you do for work? What are your cultural and religious beliefs? All of those play a big part in dealing with the new diagnosis of cancer. We want all of that information to be able to provide a very personalized journey."
#Evolent #Oncology #CancerCare #CareNavigation #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PersonalizedCare #PatientCenteredCare #Evolent #Careology
Evolent.com
Listen to the podcast here
Bill Snyder, CEO and Founder of Cylinder, is addressing the high prevalence of digestive health issues using a virtual care model to provide access to a coordinated care team, including dieticians and health coaches, to offer personalized care plans. GI conditions are complex and involve a combination of genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and dietary influences. There are strong correlations between the gut and brain, as well as digestive health and various physical and mental conditions. Cylinder fills a gap in traditional GI care, where physicians often lack extensive nutritional training.
Bill explains, "First and foremost, we think about the patients that we serve, and the patients that we serve come to us from across the country. We serve patients in every state across the US, and they suffer from a variety of GI-related conditions. That's things like ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and GERD. It's also a large population who don't have a formal diagnosis, but are symptomatic of GI conditions. So they may have chronic bloating, chronic constipation, and chronic heartburn, and they may not know what the underlying cause is. And then we also reach those members through our clients, which are large self-funded organizations and health plans. People traditionally gain access to Cylinder as part of their employee benefits package."
"But there's also a lot that we continue to understand in terms of our overall digestive health system connection. The gut-brain axis, which serves as a bilateral feedback loop between the gut and the brain, is where we found that your digestive health often correlates with your mental health, and vice versa. So we know that some of the reasons for the onset of these conditions can be genetic, but to your point, we're also seeing a lot of impact from our environment and certainly from the foods we eat. And so as you think about the American diet, and as you think about how that's changed over the past several decades, we're seeing an increase in the incidence of these conditions and an increase in people who are presenting with these symptoms and not really sure where to go or what to do."
#CylinderHealth #GIhealth #digestivehealth #cylinderhealth #GIcare #virtualhealth #employeebenefits
cylinderhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Bill Snyder, CEO and Founder of Cylinder, is addressing the high prevalence of digestive health issues using a virtual care model to provide access to a coordinated care team, including dieticians and health coaches, to offer personalized care plans. GI conditions are complex and involve a combination of genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and dietary influences. There are strong correlations between the gut and brain, as well as digestive health and various physical and mental conditions. Cylinder fills a gap in traditional GI care, where physicians often lack extensive nutritional training.
Bill explains, "First and foremost, we think about the patients that we serve, and the patients that we serve come to us from across the country. We serve patients in every state across the US, and they suffer from a variety of GI-related conditions. That's things like ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and GERD. It's also a large population who don't have a formal diagnosis, but are symptomatic of GI conditions. So they may have chronic bloating, chronic constipation, and chronic heartburn, and they may not know what the underlying cause is. And then we also reach those members through our clients, which are large self-funded organizations and health plans. People traditionally gain access to Cylinder as part of their employee benefits package."
"But there's also a lot that we continue to understand in terms of our overall digestive health system connection. The gut-brain axis, which serves as a bilateral feedback loop between the gut and the brain, is where we found that your digestive health often correlates with your mental health, and vice versa. So we know that some of the reasons for the onset of these conditions can be genetic, but to your point, we're also seeing a lot of impact from our environment and certainly from the foods we eat. And so as you think about the American diet, and as you think about how that's changed over the past several decades, we're seeing an increase in the incidence of these conditions and an increase in people who are presenting with these symptoms and not really sure where to go or what to do."
#CylinderHealth #GIhealth #digestivehealth #cylinderhealth #GIcare #virtualhealth #employeebenefits
cylinderhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Pat Michael, Director of Patient Contact Services at Nebraska Medicine, highlights the challenges of high-volume patient contact centers and how agentic AI can improve operational efficiency, enhance patient access, and allow human agents to focus on more complex and critical calls. The AI agent offers patients self-service options for scheduling, cancellations, and medication refills, resulting in a 40% reduction in call volume to human operators. Integrating AI into the contact center also enables the prioritization of time-sensitive calls, such as those related to organ transplant coordination.
Pat explains, "I'm the Patient Contact Services Director for Nebraska Medicine, which means I oversee our three main contact centers. They're our ambulatory contact center, which takes and schedules all the calls for our ambulatory clinic, and our radiology contact center, which schedules all of our outpatient radiology services. And then our medical communication center, which is our 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation with our hospital operators and a group of triage nurses."
"So, some of the challenges that we had are that one of the big things is that we deal with the sheer volume of calls coming into the contact center. And so through the three contact centers, we have about 2.5 million calls that come in, but they're not evenly distributed. They come in when they come in. And so the key to success is managing all these complex calls while ensuring accuracy in the call handling. And what does that mean in the simplest terms? You have to have time to handle the calls accurately. Are we actually staying ahead of the volume, or are we just trying to catch up?"
#NebraskaMedicine #ActiumHealth #AIAgents #PatientEngagement #healthtech #AgenticAI #automation
Nebraskamed.com
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Pat Michael, Director of Patient Contact Services at Nebraska Medicine, highlights the challenges of high-volume patient contact centers and how agentic AI can improve operational efficiency, enhance patient access, and allow human agents to focus on more complex and critical calls. The AI agent offers patients self-service options for scheduling, cancellations, and medication refills, resulting in a 40% reduction in call volume to human operators. Integrating AI into the contact center also enables the prioritization of time-sensitive calls, such as those related to organ transplant coordination.
Pat explains, "I'm the Patient Contact Services Director for Nebraska Medicine, which means I oversee our three main contact centers. They're our ambulatory contact center, which takes and schedules all the calls for our ambulatory clinic, and our radiology contact center, which schedules all of our outpatient radiology services. And then our medical communication center, which is our 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation with our hospital operators and a group of triage nurses."
"So, some of the challenges that we had are that one of the big things is that we deal with the sheer volume of calls coming into the contact center. And so through the three contact centers, we have about 2.5 million calls that come in, but they're not evenly distributed. They come in when they come in. And so the key to success is managing all these complex calls while ensuring accuracy in the call handling. And what does that mean in the simplest terms? You have to have time to handle the calls accurately. Are we actually staying ahead of the volume, or are we just trying to catch up?"
#NebraskaMedicine #ActiumHealth #AIAgents #PatientEngagement #healthtech #AgenticAI #automation
Nebraskamed.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Peter Altman, President and CEO of BioCardia, is focused on treating ischemic heart failure and chronic myocardial ischemia using autologous cells from the patient's bone marrow. The company has developed a cost-effective model that utilizes a pre-procedure diagnostic to select the optimal patients for this point-of-care system, which processes their cells in a single procedure. A key technology is the Helix catheter system, which enables minimally invasive delivery of cells into the heart, aided by the Heart3D Fusion imaging platform that provides a 3D map for precise cell delivery.
Peter explains, "BioCardia's focus is on ischemic etiology of heart disease. This is heart disease that results from poor perfusion, typically following, for example, a heart attack, which is an ischemic disease. And the two diseases we're working on are ischemic heart failure, which is often characterized by a large dilated heart. And in the second is chronic myocardial ischemia, which is characterized by what's called refractory angina or chest pain that actually can be incredibly severe. And so are our focus areas. And we're advancing cell therapies that have been shown to inherently improve the cells we're looking at, which are cells from the bone marrow space, the mononuclear cells that contain the CD34 and CD133 cell populations. They're actually involved in forming new microvasculature and supply."
"What we've done is come at it from a different perspective. Instead of selecting the cells and then manufacturing in a remote facility, we have a pre-procedure diagnostic that enables us to select the patients who have appropriate cells and then process them with a point-of-care cell processing platform, which involves just a simple disposable cartridge. And then we can treat these patients in a standard interventional cardiology setting at relatively low cost compared to all cell therapies."
#BioCardia #HeartDisease #AutologousCellTherapy #CellTherapy #3DImaging #Heart3DFusion #CardiAMP
biocardia.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Peter Altman, President and CEO of BioCardia, is focused on treating ischemic heart failure and chronic myocardial ischemia using autologous cells from the patient's bone marrow. The company has developed a cost-effective model that utilizes a pre-procedure diagnostic to select the optimal patients for this point-of-care system, which processes their cells in a single procedure. A key technology is the Helix catheter system, which enables minimally invasive delivery of cells into the heart, aided by the Heart3D Fusion imaging platform that provides a 3D map for precise cell delivery.
Peter explains, "BioCardia's focus is on ischemic etiology of heart disease. This is heart disease that results from poor perfusion, typically following, for example, a heart attack, which is an ischemic disease. And the two diseases we're working on are ischemic heart failure, which is often characterized by a large dilated heart. And in the second is chronic myocardial ischemia, which is characterized by what's called refractory angina or chest pain that actually can be incredibly severe. And so are our focus areas. And we're advancing cell therapies that have been shown to inherently improve the cells we're looking at, which are cells from the bone marrow space, the mononuclear cells that contain the CD34 and CD133 cell populations. They're actually involved in forming new microvasculature and supply."
"What we've done is come at it from a different perspective. Instead of selecting the cells and then manufacturing in a remote facility, we have a pre-procedure diagnostic that enables us to select the patients who have appropriate cells and then process them with a point-of-care cell processing platform, which involves just a simple disposable cartridge. And then we can treat these patients in a standard interventional cardiology setting at relatively low cost compared to all cell therapies."
#BioCardia #HeartDisease #AutologousCellTherapy #CellTherapy #3DImaging #Heart3DFusion #CardiAMP
biocardia.com
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Marissa Fayer, CEO of DeepLook Medical, points out the challenges of detecting breast cancer in dense breast tissue using mammography. The DeepLook DP Precise platform is a visual intelligence tool designed to help radiologists see inside dense tissue more clearly, without disrupting their workflow and potentially reducing the need for additional tests or biopsies. A recent FDA mandate requiring providers to inform patients about their breast density has increased patient demand for better screening tools
Marissa explains, "We're focused on breast imaging, and it's very specifically in dense breasts, because unfortunately, with dense, it's like seeing a cotton ball in the cloud. Radiologists have a really hard time seeing that in standard ways. This is a known problem. I developed the three mammography systems, so I absolutely know that it's a problem. We help radiologists visualize better with visual intelligence to be able to see inside these mammograms so that they potentially don't have to send their patients back for additional ultrasounds, other mammograms, or even biopsies."
"So dense breasts show up white on mammograms, and cancer shows up white. So again, it's the analogy of the cotton bowl in the cloud. It might be there, but it might not be. The cloud is just hiding the cotton ball. This is just how X-ray technology is. It's been a problem and known since its inception, and unfortunately 45% to 50% of all women have dense breasts. And so, this is a very common problem, and there's nothing anybody can do. You can't diet or change the way your body composition is. In reality, this is just an additional add-on to existing screening that is a standard of care to help women."
#DeepLookMedical #WomenInHealthTech #BreastCancerAwareness #DenseBreastTissue #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth #HealthEquity #EarlyDetection #EmpoweredPatients #PatientCenteredCare #WomensHealth #Breastcancer
deeplookmedical.com
Listen to the podcast here
Marissa Fayer, CEO of DeepLook Medical, points out the challenges of detecting breast cancer in dense breast tissue using mammography. The DeepLook DP Precise platform is a visual intelligence tool to help radiologists see inside dense tissue more clearly without disrupting their workflow, potentially reducing the need for additional tests or biopsies. A recent FDA mandate requiring providers to inform patients about their breast density has increased patient demand for better screening tools
Marissa explains, "We're focused on breast imaging, and it's very specifically in dense breasts, because unfortunately, with dense, it's like seeing a cotton ball in the cloud. Radiologists have a really hard time seeing that in standard ways. This is a known problem. I developed the three mammography systems, so I absolutely know that it's a problem. We help radiologists visualize better with visual intelligence to be able to see inside these mammograms so that they potentially don't have to send their patients back for additional ultrasounds, other mammograms, or even biopsies."
"So dense breasts show up white on mammograms, and cancer shows up white. So again, it's the analogy of the cotton bowl in the cloud. It might be there, but it might not be. The cloud is just hiding the cotton ball. This is just how X-ray technology is. It's been a problem and known since its inception, and unfortunately 45% to 50% of all women have dense breasts. And so, this is a very common problem, and there's nothing anybody can do. You can't diet or change the way your body composition is. In reality, this is just an additional add-on to existing screening that is a standard of care to help women."
#DeepLookMedical #WomenInHealthTech #BreastCancerAwareness #DenseBreastTissue #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth #HealthEquity #EarlyDetection #EmpoweredPatients #PatientCenteredCare #WomensHealth #Breastcancer
deeplookmedical.com
Download the transcript here
Dan Cohen, President and Co-Founder of Adhere+, is advancing the role and function of remote therapeutic monitoring by asking patients a few questions every day through a smartphone app. Gathering this kind of data makes in-person visits with providers more productive and insightful. It helps providers manage chronic conditions and pain by using direct and indirect questions to gain a holistic view of the patient's overall well-being. This type of real-world data shows promise for enhancing clinical trials and powering AI-driven healthcare insights.
Dan explains, "At its core, what we're doing is monitoring patients in between their visits with physicians. Now, I know a lot of your listeners have heard about telemedicine and telehealth, and sometimes they think they're the same thing, but they're not. Telemedicine is a synchronous communication where you'll be on your computer on a Zoom call with your doctor. That's telemedicine, where the physician is actually treating you as you would be in the office."
"Telehealth is what happens in between physician meetings. It goes back to a very simple principle of medicine, something that physicians learn in the first two weeks of medical school. And that simple principle is the more often you touch a patient, the better the outcome is going to be. And in our telehealth approach using remote therapeutic monitoring, our physicians touch their patients every day for a brief few seconds to reinforce their care plan, to help the patients know that they're being treated, and for the patients to be able to act and react appropriately for their disease state."
"The clinical questions are designed by clinicians around the country, and these questions change every day. They have normative ranges set in the background of those questions, and it really allows the physicians to drill down. We have default protocols, of course, to get practices started, and then physicians can titrate the questions to their needs. But if you think about the questions, it's the types of questions the physician is going to ask you when you're sitting in session with one another to try and find out what's happening."
#AdHerePlus #RTM #RemoteTherapeuticMonitoring #PainAwarenessMonth #USPain #ChangingthePainEquation #ChronicPain #DigitalHealth
adhereplus.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dan Cohen, President and Co-Founder of Adhere+, is advancing the role and function of remote therapeutic monitoring by asking patients a few questions every day through a smartphone app. Gathering this kind of data makes in-person visits with providers more productive and insightful. It helps providers manage chronic conditions and pain by using direct and indirect questions to gain a holistic view of the patient's overall well-being. This type of real-world data shows promise for enhancing clinical trials and powering AI-driven healthcare insights.
Dan explains, "At its core, what we're doing is monitoring patients in between their visits with physicians. Now, I know a lot of your listeners have heard about telemedicine and telehealth, and sometimes they think they're the same thing, but they're not. Telemedicine is a synchronous communication where you'll be on your computer on a Zoom call with your doctor. That's telemedicine, where the physician is actually treating you as you would be in the office."
"Telehealth is what happens in between physician meetings. It goes back to a very simple principle of medicine, something that physicians learn in the first two weeks of medical school. And that simple principle is the more often you touch a patient, the better the outcome is going to be. And in our telehealth approach using remote therapeutic monitoring, our physicians touch their patients every day for a brief few seconds to reinforce their care plan, to help the patients know that they're being treated, and for the patients to be able to act and react appropriately for their disease state."
"The clinical questions are designed by clinicians around the country, and these questions change every day. They have normative ranges set in the background of those questions, and it really allows the physicians to drill down. We have default protocols, of course, to get practices started, and then physicians can titrate the questions to their needs. But if you think about the questions, it's the types of questions the physician is going to ask you when you're sitting in session with one another to try and find out what's happening."
#AdHerePlus #RTM #RemoteTherapeuticMonitoring #PainAwarenessMonth #USPain #ChangingthePainEquation #ChronicPain #DigitalHealth
adhereplus.com
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Sam Libby is President and Managing Director of TCB Capital Advisors, a healthcare-focused investment and advisory firm with a focus on improving patient outcomes in oncology, neurodegenerative diseases, and women's health. The firm evaluates early-stage companies based on the strength of clinical data, scientific and medical expertise, and technology, which may have been overlooked or struggled to raise funding. Trends TCB is keeping an eye on include diagnostics and preventive healthcare, as well as the growing interest in women's health, an underinvested sector that presents significant opportunities for innovation and investment.
Sam explains, "I think first and foremost, we look at the clinical data. So the way that we built TCD is that we have a team of experienced bankers and investors who work with early-stage companies. We also have on the other side of the house commercial experts and consultants who can do, I like to always say they can do all the things that bankers talk about. So, post-merger integration, building out the sales funnel, and applying for grants."
"The other side, which I believe is probably the most important, is the scientific, strategic, and clinical advisory boards. And so when you're looking at one of these early-stage companies, the first thing is, does the science work? Is the actual foundation for the company solid? And so having experts that can drill into that because it's very easy when you start talking about deals and an early-stage company, everyone gets excited by the vision of the CEO or founder."
#TCBCapitalAdvisors #Healthcare #HeatlhcareInvestments #PatientOutcomes #Oncology #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #WomensHealth
TCBcapitaladvisors.com
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Sam Libby is President and Managing Director of TCB Capital Advisors, a healthcare-focused investment and advisory firm with a focus on improving patient outcomes in oncology, neurodegenerative diseases, and women's health. The firm evaluates early-stage companies based on the strength of clinical data, scientific and medical expertise, and technology, which may have been overlooked or struggled to raise funding. Trends TCB is keeping an eye on include diagnostics and preventive healthcare, as well as the growing interest in women's health, an underinvested sector that presents significant opportunities for innovation and investment.
Sam explains, "I think first and foremost, we look at the clinical data. So the way that we built TCD is that we have a team of experienced bankers and investors who work with early-stage companies. We also have on the other side of the house commercial experts and consultants who can do, I like to always say they can do all the things that bankers talk about. So, post-merger integration, building out the sales funnel, and applying for grants."
"The other side, which I believe is probably the most important, is the scientific, strategic, and clinical advisory boards. And so when you're looking at one of these early-stage companies, the first thing is, does the science work? Is the actual foundation for the company solid? And so having experts that can drill into that because it's very easy when you start talking about deals and an early-stage company, everyone gets excited by the vision of the CEO or founder."
#TCBCapitalAdvisors #Healthcare #HeatlhcareInvestments #PatientOutcomes #Oncology #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #WomensHealth
TCBcapitaladvisors.com
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Jon Friis, Founder and CEO of Miiskin, provides a telehealth platform to independent dermatologists and clinics, enabling them to serve a broader patient audience. Using an asynchronous model, patients submit their images and medical history for the provider to review, and then receive a diagnosis and treatment plan within 24-48 hours. This approach improves efficiency in handling routine care and prescription renewals, adds flexibility for patient convenience, and enables providers to allocate more time to address complex and high-value procedures.
Jon explains, "Miiskin's mission is to make high-quality dermatology care more accessible and convenient without compromising standards and care. We see ourselves as a differentiator in the market because we're enabling providers with a dermatology platform that they can use for their audience. They're not contracting with us as a provider. We enable the clinics and the providers with this technology platform. So we give the control back to the providers so they can meet the digital-first audience themselves and grow their business based on that."
"With dermatology care, the skin is visible to the patient, and I strongly believe that the future will strive towards that. Every visit starts with the patient taking images and supporting patient information and patient history before they see any provider and consult with the provider. Therefore, it's essential that the cameras are of good quality, the images are of high quality, and the image capture process is. And that's where we've been evolving a lot of imaging technology to support that process for our platform and providers."
#Miiskin #DigitalDermatology #Dermatologist #Telehealth
miiskin.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jon Friis, Founder and CEO of Miiskin, provides a telehealth platform to independent dermatologists and clinics, enabling them to serve a broader patient audience. Using an asynchronous model, patients submit their images and medical history for the provider to review, and then receive a diagnosis and treatment plan within 24-48 hours. This approach improves efficiency in handling routine care and prescription renewals, adds flexibility for patient convenience, and enables providers to allocate more time to address complex and high-value procedures.
Jon explains, "Miiskin's mission is to make high-quality dermatology care more accessible and convenient without compromising standards and care. We see ourselves as a differentiator in the market because we're enabling providers with a dermatology platform that they can use for their audience. They're not contracting with us as a provider. We enable the clinics and the providers with this technology platform. So we give the control back to the providers so they can meet the digital-first audience themselves and grow their business based on that."
"With dermatology care, the skin is visible to the patient, and I strongly believe that the future will strive towards that. Every visit starts with the patient taking images and supporting patient information and patient history before they see any provider and consult with the provider. Therefore, it's essential that the cameras are of good quality, the images are of high quality, and the image capture process is. And that's where we've been evolving a lot of imaging technology to support that process for our platform and providers."
#Miiskin #DigitalDermatology #Dermatologist #Telehealth
miiskin.com
Download the transcript here
Sandra Johnson, Senior VP of client services at CliniComp, discusses the findings from a survey commissioned to explore the support for AI by hospital CIOs. While 80% view AI implementation as a priority, less than half have actually implemented AI tools, which is attributed to privacy concerns and the limitations of legacy systems. There was a strong desire for AI solutions to be embedded within existing systems to avoid the complexity of integrating third-party applications. The goal is to improve data exchange and interoperability to bring the focus back on the patient and improving outcomes.
Sandra explains, "The survey painted a really clear picture. Hospital CIOs are not asking if AI should be a part of their strategy, but more about how to implement it. There's a lot of support for AI adoption now, and the use cases that come first and foremost are reducing administrative burden and streamlining workflows. The survey showed that 80% of CIOs are looking to automate administrative tasks as one of their top three priorities."
"That really signals a shift towards using technology not just for innovation's sake, but with a focused goal. And that's to free up providers to spend more time with the patients. I think the other thing the survey pointed out is that there's a real desire for AI to be embedded within the EHR. CIOs don't want to have another layer of complexity with third-party bolt-ons. They really want an integrated solution that is reliable, scalable, and sustainable."
#AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HealthITAutomation #AmbientAI #ClinicalAutomation #HealthcareLeadership #CIOInsights #HealthSystemStrategy #HospitalInnovation #HealthTechStrategy
CliniComp.com
Listen to the podcast here
Sandra Johnson, Senior VP of client services at CliniComp, discusses the findings from a survey commissioned to explore the support for AI by hospital CIOs. While 80% view AI implementation as a priority, less than half have actually implemented AI tools, which is attributed to privacy concerns and the limitations of legacy systems. There was a strong desire for AI solutions to be embedded within existing systems to avoid the complexity of integrating third-party applications. The goal is to improve data exchange and interoperability to bring the focus back on the patient and improving outcomes.
Sandra explains, "The survey painted a really clear picture. Hospital CIOs are not asking if AI should be a part of their strategy, but more about how to implement it. There's a lot of support for AI adoption now, and the use cases that come first and foremost are reducing administrative burden and streamlining workflows. The survey showed that 80% of CIOs are looking to automate administrative tasks as one of their top three priorities."
"That really signals a shift towards using technology not just for innovation's sake, but with a focused goal. And that's to free up providers to spend more time with the patients. I think the other thing the survey pointed out is that there's a real desire for AI to be embedded within the EHR. CIOs don't want to have another layer of complexity with third-party bolt-ons. They really want an integrated solution that is reliable, scalable, and sustainable."
#AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #HealthITAutomation #AmbientAI #ClinicalAutomation #HealthcareLeadership #CIOInsights #HealthSystemStrategy #HospitalInnovation #HealthTechStrategy
CliniComp.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ari Vojdani, Chief Scientific Officer at Cyrex Labs, describes the two primary components of the immune system--humoral and cell-mediated immunity and how the Cyrex diagnostics are designed to measure both. The Cyrex food immune reactivity testing measures antibodies against raw, cooked, modified, and processed food proteins as the structure of these proteins can change and affect immune responses. Cyrex is also developing tests to measure antibodies against various gut bacteria, fungi, and toxins, and how these relate to autoimmune conditions.
Ari explains, "Cyrex performs lots of tests, but we can divide them based on the immune system. As you know, the immune system has two major components, the humoral and cell-mediated immunity. The humoral components of the immune system deal with measurements of antibodies. So when we get exposed to certain antigens, proteins of pathogens, food, or toxic chemicals, when they bind to human tissue, our body reacts to them, and the end result of that is specific antibody production against that specific protein or antigen."
"The second component of the immune system is cell-mediated immunity, which looks at different lymphocytes, their markers, such as whether it is a T-cell, B-cell, CD4, CD8, T helper 1, T helper 2, regulatory T cells, or natural killer cells. So that also could be abnormal in certain inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. That's why at Cyrex, the tests that they are performing are classified based on humoral and cell-mediated immunity."
"In 1986 and 1987, I developed the ELISA method for measuring antibodies against different food antigens. Then I did not have the knowledge about the importance of raw versus cooked or raw versus modified foods. I established the methodologies, and many others came to visit my laboratories. Years later, they started their own laboratories. So they continue using the same raw food for measuring antibodies in their own laboratories."
#CyrexLabs #FunctionalImmunology #FunctionalMedicine #immuneHealth #FoodSensitivity #FoodAllergies
cyrexlabs.com
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Dr. Ari Vojdani, Chief Scientific Officer at Cyrex Labs, describes the two primary components of the immune system--humoral and cell-mediated immunity and how the Cyrex diagnostics are designed to measure both. The Cyrex food immune reactivity testing measures antibodies against raw, cooked, modified, and processed food proteins as the structure of these proteins can change and affect immune responses. Cyrex is also developing tests to measure antibodies against various gut bacteria, fungi, and toxins, and how these relate to autoimmune conditions.
Ari explains, "Cyrex performs lots of tests, but we can divide them based on the immune system. As you know, the immune system has two major components, the humoral and cell-mediated immunity. The humoral components of the immune system deal with measurements of antibodies. So when we get exposed to certain antigens, proteins of pathogens, food, or toxic chemicals, when they bind to human tissue, our body reacts to them, and the end result of that is specific antibody production against that specific protein or antigen."
"The second component of the immune system is cell-mediated immunity, which looks at different lymphocytes, their markers, such as whether it is a T-cell, B-cell, CD4, CD8, T helper 1, T helper 2, regulatory T cells, or natural killer cells. So that also could be abnormal in certain inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. That's why at Cyrex, the tests that they are performing are classified based on humoral and cell-mediated immunity."
"In 1986 and 1987, I developed the ELISA method for measuring antibodies against different food antigens. Then I did not have the knowledge about the importance of raw versus cooked or raw versus modified foods. I established the methodologies, and many others came to visit my laboratories. Years later, they started their own laboratories. So they continue using the same raw food for measuring antibodies in their own laboratories."
#CyrexLabs #FunctionalImmunology #FunctionalMedicine #immuneHealth #FoodSensitivity #FoodAllergies
cyrexlabs.com
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Kevin Freeman, Chief Commercial Officer at Health Catalyst, highlights the challenges mid-market healthcare systems are currently facing, including the predicted impact of Medicaid cuts and the increase in uninsured patients. There is a need to break down data silos and use AI and data analytics to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, and address clinician burnout. The Health Catalyst platform is designed to integrate existing technology, improve efficiency, and provide expertise and support to drive better patient outcomes and manage financially sound organizations.
Kevin explains, "Health Catalyst works with healthcare providers, really of all sizes. Historically, more academics and IDNs, but more recently, over the last six to seven months, have really focused on the mid-market health systems. Mid-market health systems still struggle with some of the same issues that large health systems do, but they lack the technology, expertise, and some of the clinical experience that drive outcomes. So, we're really excited to move into the mid-market, improve quality and patient care, and reduce costs at the same time."
"Our goal is not to rip and replace, but to meet them where they're at. Those investments that they've made, we can take those investments, integrate them into our platform, and drive those outcomes—that outcome improvement strategy across the entire system. I think that one of the biggest things we're seeing is that the technology is just not enough. Dashboards aren't enough. It really takes driving those outcomes and having that clinical expertise. But we don't just bring the technology. We bring the people with the technology to actually partner with them hand-in-hand to actually drive that outcome improvement."
#HealthCatalyst #MidMarketHospitals #Hospitals #Healthcare #MedicaidCuts #HealthcareProviders
healthcatalyst.com
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Kevin Freeman, Chief Commercial Officer at Health Catalyst, highlights the challenges mid-market healthcare systems are currently facing, including the predicted impact of Medicaid cuts and the increase in uninsured patients. There is a need to break down data silos and use AI and data analytics to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, and address clinician burnout. The Health Catalyst platform is designed to integrate existing technology, improve efficiency, and provide expertise and support to drive better patient outcomes and manage financially sound organizations.
Kevin explains, "Health Catalyst works with healthcare providers, really of all sizes. Historically, more academics and IDNs, but more recently, over the last six to seven months, have really focused on the mid-market health systems. Mid-market health systems still struggle with some of the same issues that large health systems do, but they lack the technology, expertise, and some of the clinical experience that drive outcomes. So, we're really excited to move into the mid-market, improve quality and patient care, and reduce costs at the same time."
"Our goal is not to rip and replace, but to meet them where they're at. Those investments that they've made, we can take those investments, integrate them into our platform, and drive those outcomes—that outcome improvement strategy across the entire system. I think that one of the biggest things we're seeing is that the technology is just not enough. Dashboards aren't enough. It really takes driving those outcomes and having that clinical expertise. But we don't just bring the technology. We bring the people with the technology to actually partner with them hand-in-hand to actually drive that outcome improvement."
#HealthCatalyst #MidMarketHospitals #Hospitals #Healthcare #MedicaidCuts #HealthcareProviders
healthcatalyst.com
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Nick Nunez, a strategy and solutions engineer at RevSpring, discusses the significant staffing shortages and technology vendor fragmentation that hamper the healthcare revenue cycle teams. RevSpring is addressing these issues by providing integrated analytics that function seamlessly with existing workflows and various dashboards, helping to prioritize work and eliminate inefficiencies. AI tools are being designed to support the financial and administrative aspects of healthcare, automating certain functions, augmenting human staff, and improving the quality of vendor and patient financial engagement.
Nick explains, "RevSpring has a fairly broad footprint inside of the healthcare revenue cycle ecosystem here, and we support everyone from large health systems, IDNs, these integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers, to specialty clinics and smaller managed care organizations. We also have a footprint, actually, within our early out or bad debt vendors in healthcare. So we really do get an opportunity to see the full lifecycle of revenue even outside the walls of the originating health systems."
"There are a couple of things that we've really started to focus on. We've been in the game for a long time doing things like statements, print and mail, and that is still important. So you asked the question about paper on day-to-day operations. I don't see as much about it, but paper statements out the door is still a need and sometimes an obligation that health systems have. And so we've done a lot to actually invest in giving analytics and insight to make sure that we are sending only the amount of statements via mail that are necessary to drive yield, drive down costs from postage by knowing this patient responds better to a text message versus a digital outreach versus print."
#RevSpring #Ai #RevenueCycle #InspiringAction #PatientPathway #PatientFinance
revspringinc.com
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Nick Nunez, a strategy and solutions engineer at RevSpring, discusses the significant staffing shortages and technology vendor fragmentation that hamper the healthcare revenue cycle teams. RevSpring is addressing these issues by providing integrated analytics that function seamlessly with existing workflows and various dashboards, helping to prioritize work and eliminate inefficiencies. AI tools are being designed to support the financial and administrative aspects of healthcare, automating certain functions, augmenting human staff, and improving the quality of vendor and patient financial engagement.
Nick explains, "RevSpring has a fairly broad footprint inside of the healthcare revenue cycle ecosystem here, and we support everyone from large health systems, IDNs, these integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers, to specialty clinics and smaller managed care organizations. We also have a footprint, actually, within our early out or bad debt vendors in healthcare. So we really do get an opportunity to see the full lifecycle of revenue even outside the walls of the originating health systems."
"There are a couple of things that we've really started to focus on. We've been in the game for a long time doing things like statements, print and mail, and that is still important. So you asked the question about paper on day-to-day operations. I don't see as much about it, but paper statements out the door is still a need and sometimes an obligation that health systems have. And so we've done a lot to actually invest in giving analytics and insight to make sure that we are sending only the amount of statements via mail that are necessary to drive yield, drive down costs from postage by knowing this patient responds better to a text message versus a digital outreach versus print."
#RevSpring #Ai #RevenueCycle #InspiringAction #PatientPathway #PatientFinance
revspringinc.com
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Michael Palladino, VP of Sales and Clinical Solutions at OptimizeRx, is utilizing AI to educate patients and providers, promoting shared decision-making about which medications are most likely to yield the best health outcomes. The goal is to combat information overload by precisely targeting education to specific patients and delivering that information on the patient's preferred media delivery platform. Technology-driven nudges deliver timely information, reminders about upcoming appointments, and address medication adherence issues.
Michael explains, "So OptimizeRx is a health technology company. We partner with the life sciences industry, and we help patients get on the right drug at the right time, educating both patient and provider. And we do that through some traditional methods of point-of-care. We also use our AI technology, which we will talk a little bit about today."
"We've evolved as a company to be as individualized as possible, and that really has been using the technological advances of AI and machine learning over the past three years to predict in a patient journey when they may qualify for a procedure or drug, and educating both the patient and the HCP. So, it's really the use of data and technology that has evolved, and it's how we're leveraging our expertise in the space."
"Traditionally, the way that a pharmaceutical industry may work or a life science manufacturer may work is they're often quite siloed. The patient gets some type of education on TV, the HCP somewhere in the country gets a similar type of education, and there's not a lot of synergy. What we have done in the marketplace is combine the patient's finding with the HCP's finding, and we educate them at the right time."
#OptimizeRx #PrecisionMedicine #HealthTech #AI #HealthAI #DrugInformation
optimizerx.com
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Michael Palladino, VP of Sales and Clinical Solutions at OptimizeRx, is utilizing AI to educate patients and providers, promoting shared decision-making about which medications are most likely to yield the best health outcomes. The goal is to combat information overload by precisely targeting education to specific patients and delivering that information on the patient's preferred media delivery platform. Technology-driven nudges deliver timely information, reminders about upcoming appointments, and address medication adherence issues.
Michael explains, "So OptimizeRx is a health technology company. We partner with the life sciences industry, and we help patients get on the right drug at the right time, educating both patient and provider. And we do that through some traditional methods of point-of-care. We also use our AI technology, which we will talk a little bit about today."
"We've evolved as a company to be as individualized as possible, and that really has been using the technological advances of AI and machine learning over the past three years to predict in a patient journey when they may qualify for a procedure or drug, and educating both the patient and the HCP. So, it's really the use of data and technology that has evolved, and it's how we're leveraging our expertise in the space."
"Traditionally, the way that a pharmaceutical industry may work or a life science manufacturer may work is they're often quite siloed. The patient gets some type of education on TV, the HCP somewhere in the country gets a similar type of education, and there's not a lot of synergy. What we have done in the marketplace is combine the patient's finding with the HCP's finding, and we educate them at the right time."
#OptimizeRx #PrecisionMedicine #HealthTech #AI #HealthAI #DrugInformation
optimizerx.com
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Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, highlights an often overlooked cybersecurity threat posed by network-connected printers in a hospital setting. Modern printers are complex devices with numerous features that create vulnerabilities and potential access points to patient and hospital data for cybercriminals, yet they are generally managed outside of the IT security environment. The first step in ensuring printer security is to determine the number of printing devices on the network, their locations, and their configurations. Additionally, it is essential to ask the IT team to demonstrate security hygiene for the entire printer fleet.
Jim explains, "We personally were exposed to the print industry in about 2015. And we noticed that the printers are really essential for patient care. They process, store, and transmit the most sensitive data, but they have grown up outside of the information security and supply chain. The security has been left vulnerable. In today's cybercrime growth industry climate, where opportunistic criminals are looking for opportunities to steal data, ransom, or attack patient care, you've got a real recipe for disaster. So really, we're facing a whole lot of issues that relate to the vulnerability of the printer."
"They're absolutely very complex business machines, and the manufacturers for the last 40 years or so, from what you're talking about, the analog days, have really enriched them with incredible features beyond the camera, the document sorter, and things like that. They built in incredible web server features, email servers, fax servers, FTP servers, like a Dropbox that we all use for heavy payload communication protocols. They built all those features into the devices, and they built in ways to secure those features, but they haven't been used, and they're not being used on networks."
#Symphion #Hospitals #PrinterSecurity #Cybercrimes #NetworkSecurity
symphion.com
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Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, highlights an often overlooked cybersecurity threat posed by network-connected printers in a hospital setting. Modern printers are complex devices with numerous features that create vulnerabilities and potential access points to patient and hospital data for cybercriminals, yet they are generally managed outside of the IT security environment. The first step in ensuring printer security is to determine the number of printing devices on the network, their locations, and their configurations. Additionally, it is essential to ask the IT team to demonstrate security hygiene for the entire printer fleet.
Jim explains, "We personally were exposed to the print industry in about 2015. And we noticed that the printers are really essential for patient care. They process, store, and transmit the most sensitive data, but they have grown up outside of the information security and supply chain. The security has been left vulnerable. In today's cybercrime growth industry climate, where opportunistic criminals are looking for opportunities to steal data, ransom, or attack patient care, you've got a real recipe for disaster. So really, we're facing a whole lot of issues that relate to the vulnerability of the printer."
"They're absolutely very complex business machines, and the manufacturers for the last 40 years or so, from what you're talking about, the analog days, have really enriched them with incredible features beyond the camera, the document sorter, and things like that. They built in incredible web server features, email servers, fax servers, FTP servers, like a Dropbox that we all use for heavy payload communication protocols. They built all those features into the devices, and they built in ways to secure those features, but they haven't been used, and they're not being used on networks."
#Symphion #Hospitals #PrinterSecurity #Cybercrimes #NetworkSecurity
symphion.com
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Sinan Gölhan, Founder and CEO of GelTech, describes the characteristics and applications for hydrogels, which are bio-friendly, super-absorbent materials similar to natural tissue. In cancer treatments, hydrogels offer a way to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to a tumor, which can significantly increase the accuracy and efficacy of the drug. GelTech has developed a robotic instrument to streamline the time-consuming testing process for new hydrogel treatments, automating repetitive actions, reducing inconsistencies, and enabling 24/7 testing capabilities.
Sinan explains, "You could think of hydrogels like sponges. They're super absorbent, bio-friendly materials that are made of water. For this reason, scientists like myself essentially consider them the next best thing to natural tissue. Just like our own bodies, they're mostly made up of water. They have great applications in drug delivery, implant cosmetics, all these modern hydrogel face masks, and other types of substances."
"I worked in hydrogel research for many years after seeing my mother and both my grandmothers go through chemotherapy treatments. I became motivated to make these treatments more effective, smarter, more targeted, and hydrogel-like. I just realized the main limitation is that to even make one of these treatments, it costs the company around a billion dollars over 10 years to figure out if this hydrogel is even going to work. And most of this was due to manual testing. It's scientists doing the same tests over and over again. It's very tedious, takes a long time, and it's very expensive to get a scientist to do this all day, every day. After feeling like a robot during the same test over and over again, I said, 'I want to build a robot that automates this.' The company I was working for loved it and I essentially started focusing on that for the rest of my career."
#GelTech #Hydrogels #Robots #ResearchRobotics #Cancer #CancerTreatments
geltechlabs.com
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Sinan Gölhan, Founder and CEO of GelTech, describes the characteristics and applications for hydrogels, which are bio-friendly, super-absorbent materials similar to natural tissue. In cancer treatments, hydrogels offer a way to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to a tumor, which can significantly increase the accuracy and efficacy of the drug. GelTech has developed a robotic instrument to streamline the time-consuming testing process for new hydrogel treatments, automating repetitive actions, reducing inconsistencies, and enabling 24/7 testing capabilities.
Sinan explains, "You could think of hydrogels like sponges. They're super absorbent, bio-friendly materials that are made of water. For this reason, scientists like myself essentially consider them the next best thing to natural tissue. Just like our own bodies, they're mostly made up of water. They have great applications in drug delivery, implant cosmetics, all these modern hydrogel face masks, and other types of substances."
"I worked in hydrogel research for many years after seeing my mother and both my grandmothers go through chemotherapy treatments. I became motivated to make these treatments more effective, smarter, more targeted, and hydrogel-like. I just realized the main limitation is that to even make one of these treatments, it costs the company around a billion dollars over 10 years to figure out if this hydrogel is even going to work. And most of this was due to manual testing. It's scientists doing the same tests over and over again. It's very tedious, takes a long time, and it's very expensive to get a scientist to do this all day, every day. After feeling like a robot during the same test over and over again, I said, 'I want to build a robot that automates this.' The company I was working for loved it and I essentially started focusing on that for the rest of my career."
#GelTech #Hydrogels #Robots #ResearchRobotics #Cancer #CancerTreatments
geltechlabs.com
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Elizabeth Jeffords, CEO and President of Iolyx Therapeutics, discusses dry eye disease and its connection to autoimmune conditions. The company's novel therapeutic topical immune modulator is designed to treat the root inflammation in the eye, which systemic drugs often fail to reach due to the blood-retina barrier. Patients with dry eye disease often have multiple comorbidities and are excluded from clinical trials, making this research even more significant in finding treatments for a growing population.
Elizabeth explains, "Some people have physical dry eye, i.e., they have a dysfunction in their meibomian glands, and they can't make enough tears or those tears aren't the right composition. But more than half of the patients with dry eye have an underlying autoimmune disease. And they might know that, and they might not. So, patients with either Sjogren's disease or any of the thyroid conditions, patients with rheumatoid arthritis, MS, connective tissue dysfunction, most of those patients have some ocular comorbidities, and specifically, dry eye is probably one of the biggest ones."
"Sometimes we treat the body, and we can treat autoimmune diseases successfully, but you don't really get most drugs into the eye. And so those alarm bells are still going off in the eye. And unfortunately, these patients with autoimmune disease tend to have more severe disease. They respond differently to the drugs that are out there today and probably most troublesome to us, and why Iolyx is really targeted these patients is that they get excluded from most of trials because they're just more difficult to treat, but they're also more difficult to treat because they have systemic medications that they're on, and most of those drugs get excluded."
#IolyxTherapeutics #DryEyeDisease #Ophthalmology #AutoimmuneDisease #EyeCare #ImmunoOphthalmology #ClinicalTrials
Iolyx.com
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Elizabeth Jeffords, CEO and President of Iolyx Therapeutics, discusses dry eye disease and its connection to autoimmune conditions. The company's novel therapeutic topical immune modulator is designed to treat the root inflammation in the eye, which systemic drugs often fail to reach due to the blood-retina barrier. Patients with dry eye disease often have multiple comorbidities and are excluded from clinical trials, making this research even more significant in finding treatments for a growing population.
Elizabeth explains, "Some people have physical dry eye, i.e., they have a dysfunction in their meibomian glands, and they can't make enough tears or those tears aren't the right composition. But more than half of the patients with dry eye have an underlying autoimmune disease. And they might know that, and they might not. So, patients with either Sjogren's disease or any of the thyroid conditions, patients with rheumatoid arthritis, MS, connective tissue dysfunction, most of those patients have some ocular comorbidities, and specifically, dry eye is probably one of the biggest ones."
"Sometimes we treat the body, and we can treat autoimmune diseases successfully, but you don't really get most drugs into the eye. And so those alarm bells are still going off in the eye. And unfortunately, these patients with autoimmune disease tend to have more severe disease. They respond differently to the drugs that are out there today and probably most troublesome to us, and why Iolyx is really targeted these patients is that they get excluded from most of trials because they're just more difficult to treat, but they're also more difficult to treat because they have systemic medications that they're on, and most of those drugs get excluded."
#IolyxTherapeutics #DryEyeDisease #Ophthalmology #AutoimmuneDisease #EyeCare #ImmunoOphthalmology #ClinicalTrials
Iolyx.com
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Gene Mack, CEO and President of Gain Therapeutics, is combining AI-powered drug discovery with the development of allosteric modulators, drugs that bind to unique sites on proteins. The company's AI platform, Magellan, is crucial for accelerating drug discovery by reducing the time for computational screening of potential drug compounds. Their lead compound is showing promising results as a potential disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson's disease, aiming to halt the progression of the disease rather than just treating symptoms.
Gene explains, "So allosteric modulators of protein, it's a bit of a word salad, but what we're trying to achieve here is finding unique binding sites on proteins that are sort of away from the active site of that protein."
"So, a lot of physics calculations go into these binding site calculations. The idea is to complete these quickly during the screening of hundreds or thousands of compounds. This process takes 10 to 15 minutes to run a set of computations and determine if a particular molecule is a fit for a specific protein. If that takes 10 or 15 minutes per compound, it's not a very big deal to go to that library if you need to get through billions, trillions of those compounds, and you need that computational speed to really fire up."
"We are able to speed up those calculations from, let's say, 10 minutes to milliseconds. You can screen through much larger numbers of compounds and potentially even construct new molecules that are not known to the public domain, which would be a real key innovation."
"What we think we have in our lead program, which is GT-02287, another molecule that was discovered through our application of Magellan. What we hope we have in GT-02287 is a disease-modifying approach to Parkinson's. Up until now, the only available treatments for Parkinson's are really just focused on the symptoms and allaying the severity of the symptoms."
#Parkinsons #ParkinsonsDisease #AI #DrugDiscovery #GAINtherapeutics #DiseaseModification
gaintherapeutics.com
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Gene Mack, CEO and President of Gain Therapeutics, is combining AI-powered drug discovery with the development of allosteric modulators, drugs that bind to unique sites on proteins. The company's AI platform, Magellan, is crucial for accelerating drug discovery by reducing the time for computational screening of potential drug compounds. Their lead compound is showing promising results as a potential disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson's disease, aiming to halt the progression of the disease rather than just treating symptoms.
Gene explains, "So allosteric modulators of protein, it's a bit of a word salad, but what we're trying to achieve here is finding unique binding sites on proteins that are sort of away from the active site of that protein."
"So, a lot of physics calculations go into these binding site calculations. The idea is to complete these quickly during the screening of hundreds or thousands of compounds. This process takes 10 to 15 minutes to run a set of computations and determine if a particular molecule is a fit for a specific protein. If that takes 10 or 15 minutes per compound, it's not a very big deal to go to that library if you need to get through billions, trillions of those compounds, and you need that computational speed to really fire up."
"We are able to speed up those calculations from, let's say, 10 minutes to milliseconds. You can screen through much larger numbers of compounds and potentially even construct new molecules that are not known to the public domain, which would be a real key innovation."
"What we think we have in our lead program, which is GT-02287, another molecule that was discovered through our application of Magellan. What we hope we have in GT-02287 is a disease-modifying approach to Parkinson's. Up until now, the only available treatments for Parkinson's are really just focused on the symptoms and allaying the severity of the symptoms."
#Parkinsons #ParkinsonsDisease #AI #DrugDiscovery #GAINtherapeutics #DiseaseModification
gaintherapeutics.com
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Paul Howe, COO of Protega Pharmaceuticals, is focused on how abuse-deterrent technology can address the opioid crisis and the need for mandates for insurance coverage of safer abuse-deterrent formulations. The SentryBond technology was specifically designed for immediate-release opioids to make it difficult to manipulate pills for abuse via crushing, inhaling, or injecting. Protega partnered with software company Opus to offer a program that helps educate chronic pain patients, manage their treatment, and provides physicians with risk stratification data to improve care and reduce the likelihood of abuse.
Paul explains, "Most importantly from our standpoint is to protect from the risk of misuse, abuse, and diversion, which is escalation from orally taking medications to crushing, inhaling, injecting, or smoking. Unfortunately, when that escalation happens, many times patients end up on illicit fentanyl and heroin through the black market. So what we're trying to do is stop that escalation through our abuse deterrent technology and our medication. It's called SentryBond abuse deterrent technology, the company's Protega Pharmaceuticals."
"We also have a software program that we're now offering to physicians that deal and work with a lot of patients with chronic pain that really helps patients with chronic pain understand how to treat their pain and also titrate down off medications when possible, or at least get on the lowest possible dose and try multimodal care, try other types of avenues of procedures, different things they can do to help with their chronic pain."
#ProtegaPharmaceuticals #PainManagement #ChronicPain #OpioidAbuse #OpioidPolicy #AbuseDeterrent.
protegapharma.com
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Paul Howe, COO of Protega Pharmaceuticals, is focused on how abuse-deterrent technology can address the opioid crisis and the need for mandates for insurance coverage of safer abuse-deterrent formulations. The SentryBond technology was specifically designed for immediate-release opioids to make it difficult to manipulate pills for abuse via crushing, inhaling, or injecting. Protega partnered with software company Opus to offer a program that helps educate chronic pain patients, manage their treatment, and provides physicians with risk stratification data to improve care and reduce the likelihood of abuse.
Paul explains, "Most importantly from our standpoint is to protect from the risk of misuse, abuse, and diversion, which is escalation from orally taking medications to crushing, inhaling, injecting, or smoking. Unfortunately, when that escalation happens, many times patients end up on illicit fentanyl and heroin through the black market. So what we're trying to do is stop that escalation through our abuse deterrent technology and our medication. It's called SentryBond abuse deterrent technology, the company's Protega Pharmaceuticals."
"We also have a software program that we're now offering to physicians that deal and work with a lot of patients with chronic pain that really helps patients with chronic pain understand how to treat their pain and also titrate down off medications when possible, or at least get on the lowest possible dose and try multimodal care, try other types of avenues of procedures, different things they can do to help with their chronic pain."
#ProtegaPharmaceuticals #PainManagement #ChronicPain #OpioidAbuse #OpioidPolicy #AbuseDeterrent.
protegapharma.com
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Dr. George Magrath, CEO of Opus Genetics, discusses the company's experience in obtaining non-dilutive funding for its ultra-rare inherited retinal disease program. He highlights the challenges and advantages of this funding source, as well as the importance of establishing relationships with patient advocacy groups and foundations to mitigate risk and increase their attractiveness to traditional investors. The drive for non-dilutive funding for ultra-rare diseases is expected to become increasingly important in helping to get drugs to clinical trials.
George explains, "Opus Genetics is a gene therapy company for eye disorders that occur in children. And these disorders are ultra-rare. It's 200 patients, a thousand patients per indication, and it's really good science. It's from Gene Bennett, who was the inventor of Luxturna, which was the first approved genetic medicine. And it does require some non-conventional thought on the financing, though, because these are so rare. And what we've done at Opus Genetics and have been really fortunate to be a part of is non-diluted funding from external sources. And that comes in the form of partnerships with patient families and organizations, like we just announced last week with RDH 12 Alliance."
" It also comes with the Foundation Fighting Blindness, which has given us a number of grants and non-dilutive funding deals. And so those have been really important to Opus and have really helped us progress the programs. The way we think about that is the first principle is the clinical data we typically generate using our equity dollars. The preclinical work we try to do with non-dilutive funding, and that way we're able to focus on spending in rare scenarios."
#OpusGenetics #RareDiseases #UltraRareDiseases #EyeDiseases #GeneTherapy #NonDilutiveFunding #Blindness #Ophthalmology
opusgtx.com
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Dr. George Magrath, CEO of Opus Genetics, discusses the company's experience in obtaining non-dilutive funding for its ultra-rare inherited retinal disease program. He highlights the challenges and advantages of this funding source, as well as the importance of establishing relationships with patient advocacy groups and foundations to mitigate risk and increase their attractiveness to traditional investors. The drive for non-dilutive funding for ultra-rare diseases is expected to become increasingly important in helping to get drugs to clinical trials.
George explains, "Opus Genetics is a gene therapy company for eye disorders that occur in children. And these disorders are ultra-rare. It's 200 patients, a thousand patients per indication, and it's really good science. It's from Gene Bennett, who was the inventor of Luxturna, which was the first approved genetic medicine. And it does require some non-conventional thought on the financing, though, because these are so rare. And what we've done at Opus Genetics and have been really fortunate to be a part of is non-diluted funding from external sources. And that comes in the form of partnerships with patient families and organizations, like we just announced last week with RDH 12 Alliance."
" It also comes with the Foundation Fighting Blindness, which has given us a number of grants and non-dilutive funding deals. And so those have been really important to Opus and have really helped us progress the programs. The way we think about that is the first principle is the clinical data we typically generate using our equity dollars. The preclinical work we try to do with non-dilutive funding, and that way we're able to focus on spending in rare scenarios."
#OpusGenetics #RareDiseases #UltraRareDiseases #EyeDiseases #GeneTherapy #NonDilutiveFunding #Blindness #Ophthalmology
opusgtx.com
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Lindsay Mateo is the Chief Commercial Officer at Weave. This company has developed a platform to automate and streamline the regulatory documentation process for FDA submission for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The regulatory lifecycle for drug development currently involves data from various sources in digital and paper formats. Weave Bio's tools are designed to automate and streamline administrative aspects of the regulatory process and create a living digital record of the development of the drug, which supports collaboration and saves time.
Lindsay explains, "I look at the regulatory life cycle for any given drug program, and experts are at the core of that. Those experts, who are scientists, strategists, and project managers, essentially put all the work into the documentation that goes to regulators like the FDA here in the US. And that information goes on to allow this drug to continue through various stages of development to ultimately get to market and obviously help patients."
"That is everything from early studies looking at how drugs are being handled in animals, in mice and rats, all the way through to clinical development. We start to get into humans and then again out through what gets drugs to market and even post-market expansion of various labels. So this is critical to getting any therapy to any patient with any condition. The process itself, the challenge with the process is that it's manual."
#Weave #WeaveBio #Pharma #Biopharma #WeavePlatform #AINative #AutoCT #AutoND #FDASubmission #RegulatoryDocumentation
Weave.bio
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Lindsay Mateo is the Chief Commercial Officer at Weave. This company has developed a platform to automate and streamline the regulatory documentation process for FDA submission for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The regulatory lifecycle for drug development currently involves data from various sources in digital and paper formats. Weave Bio's tools are designed to automate and streamline administrative aspects of the regulatory process and create a living digital record of the development of the drug, which supports collaboration and saves time.
Lindsay explains, "I look at the regulatory life cycle for any given drug program, and experts are at the core of that. Those experts, who are scientists, strategists, and project managers, essentially put all the work into the documentation that goes to regulators like the FDA here in the US. And that information goes on to allow this drug to continue through various stages of development to ultimately get to market and obviously help patients."
"That is everything from early studies looking at how drugs are being handled in animals, in mice and rats, all the way through to clinical development. We start to get into humans and then again out through what gets drugs to market and even post-market expansion of various labels. So this is critical to getting any therapy to any patient with any condition. The process itself, the challenge with the process is that it's manual."
#Weave #WeaveBio #Pharma #Biopharma #WeavePlatform #AINative #AutoCT #AutoND #FDASubmission #RegulatoryDocumentation
Weave.bio
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Aspen Noonan, CEO of Elevate Holistics, a company that helps patients obtain medical marijuana cards through a telehealth consultation with licensed doctors. The qualifications for obtaining a medical marijuana card vary by state, and Elevate Holistics helps patients navigate the regulatory landscape. Many doctors are hesitant to recommend cannabis due to the federal illegality and restrictions from employers, and Elevate Holistics is filling the gaps by connecting patients looking for alternative treatments for conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and chronic pain.
Aspen explains, "We are a one-stop shop for getting your online medical marijuana card. We connect doctors with patients 100% online in over 18 states to go through the process, which basically means book your appointment, fill out forms, join a video chat, call, and check for your emails because it's a hands-off experience. We really help people. I say A to Z, we don't just see you and get out. We ensure that your state application is filed correctly, so you ca your medical card at the end of the day."
"You have every right to ask your primary care provider for a medical marijuana recommendation. The problem is, and the reason we started, is that a lot of doctors do not want to sign their name next to something that says cannabis. They aren't allowed to go through their clinics. Let's say they work at a hospital, they work at a big organization, and they're not allowed to attach their name to the cannabis industry. And so that's where we come in and just take patients, take a provider, put them together."
#ElevateHolistics #Marijuana #Cannabis #MedialMarijuana #MedicalMarijuanaCard
elevate-holistics.com
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Aspen Noonan, CEO of Elevate Holistics, a company that helps patients obtain medical marijuana cards through a telehealth consultation with licensed doctors. The qualifications for obtaining a medical marijuana card vary by state, and Elevate Holistics helps patients navigate the regulatory landscape. Many doctors are hesitant to recommend cannabis due to the federal illegality and restrictions from employers, and Elevate Holistics is filling the gaps by connecting patients looking for alternative treatments for conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and chronic pain.
Aspen explains, "We are a one-stop shop for getting your online medical marijuana card. We connect doctors with patients 100% online in over 18 states to go through the process, which basically means book your appointment, fill out forms, join a video chat, call, and check for your emails because it's a hands-off experience. We really help people. I say A to Z, we don't just see you and get out. We ensure that your state application is filed correctly, so you ca your medical card at the end of the day."
"You have every right to ask your primary care provider for a medical marijuana recommendation. The problem is, and the reason we started, is that a lot of doctors do not want to sign their name next to something that says cannabis. They aren't allowed to go through their clinics. Let's say they work at a hospital, they work at a big organization, and they're not allowed to attach their name to the cannabis industry. And so that's where we come in and just take patients, take a provider, put them together."
#ElevateHolistics #Marijuana #Cannabis #MedialMarijuana #MedicalMarijuanaCard
elevate-holistics.com
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Mark Goddard, Vice President of Clinical Services at Infobionic.AI, describes the remote cardiac monitoring system that provides near real-time monitoring of patients with potential cardiac irregularities. The benefit of continuous monitoring allows for early detection of arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation, a growing concern driven by an aging population and factors like obesity and high blood pressure. AI-driven algorithms are used to analyze ECG data and identify potential issues, enabling proactive treatment and prevention of complications like stroke.
Mark explains, "The focus of our monitoring system is to provide near real-time monitoring of patients who are reporting maybe cardiac irregularities. The whole idea is to provide that near-real-time access to cardiac information so that arrhythmias can be identified relatively quickly. Additionally, the treatments for those arrhythmias are relatively quick as well, providing better patient outcomes. Just related to the fact that the data is always there, and it comes in maybe a minute or two behind live."
"We are partnered with a major health system that has an AI engine that is basically developing AI tools that can be utilized in cardiac monitors. And just looking at the patient's ECG, they're able to determine the potential for arrhythmias that may not have occurred yet. And that's kind of what we're focusing on. The ability to review ECG and understand those little nuances that may indicate, hey, this patient's going to have an event like atrial fibrillation, which is the most common irregular rhythm there is, especially for an aging population. Identifying those folks early can really help with not only the outcome for the patient, in that they're not going to run into the problems you may have if you don't recognize you have atrial fibrillation, but it'll also decrease healthcare costs, which in the end helps everybody."
#InfobionicAI #MedAI #Cardiology #AFib #HeartMonitor #CardiacTracking
infobionic.ai
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Mark Goddard, Vice President of Clinical Services at Infobionic.AI, describes the remote cardiac monitoring system that provides near real-time monitoring of patients with potential cardiac irregularities. The benefit of continuous monitoring allows for early detection of arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation, a growing concern driven by an aging population and factors like obesity and high blood pressure. AI-driven algorithms are used to analyze ECG data and identify potential issues, enabling proactive treatment and prevention of complications like stroke.
Mark explains, "The focus of our monitoring system is to provide near real-time monitoring of patients who are reporting maybe cardiac irregularities. The whole idea is to provide that near-real-time access to cardiac information so that arrhythmias can be identified relatively quickly. Additionally, the treatments for those arrhythmias are relatively quick as well, providing better patient outcomes. Just related to the fact that the data is always there, and it comes in maybe a minute or two behind live."
"We are partnered with a major health system that has an AI engine that is basically developing AI tools that can be utilized in cardiac monitors. And just looking at the patient's ECG, they're able to determine the potential for arrhythmias that may not have occurred yet. And that's kind of what we're focusing on. The ability to review ECG and understand those little nuances that may indicate, hey, this patient's going to have an event like atrial fibrillation, which is the most common irregular rhythm there is, especially for an aging population. Identifying those folks early can really help with not only the outcome for the patient, in that they're not going to run into the problems you may have if you don't recognize you have atrial fibrillation, but it'll also decrease healthcare costs, which in the end helps everybody."
#InfobionicAI #MedAI #Cardiology #AFib #HeartMonitor #CardiacTracking
infobionic.ai
Download the transcript here
Dr. Steven Quay, Chairman and CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, is dedicated to addressing unmet needs in breast cancer prevention and treatment. Dense breasts are a significant risk factor for breast cancer, and Atossa's lead drug candidate has shown effectiveness in reducing breast density and lowering the risk of cancer. This dual-action drug blocks estrogen receptor signaling and induces programmed cell death in cancer cells, potentially offering a more effective and more tolerable treatment option.
Steven explains, "So we are very focused on breast cancer to the point that Princess of Atossa, the company is named after, was the first woman in recorded history with breast cancer about four 50 BC. She was the wife of Darius the Great, who had the Persian Empire, the largest piece of real estate before the Roman Empire. And she had a breast lesion. It was documented that her slave cauterized it with a hot poker from the fire. We didn't get a follow-up from that, but anyway, we are dedicated to all the women, including her, and since then, who have been dealing with breast cancer."
"So it's a very interesting molecule. We call it a Janus molecule. Janus is the two-faced goddess. In this case, it is two-faced in a positive fashion because she addresses two different ways that cancer cells control themselves to drive the growth. Its major activity is to block estrogen binding to the estrogen receptor. So, as I said at the beginning, if 75% of all breast cancers are driven by estrogen, our drug is going to really nail 75% of all breast cancers. But then it gets even more exciting because it also has a second activity in another pathway in cancer driving called PKC beta."
#AtossaTherapeutics #BreastCancer #Cancer #DenseBreasts #Estrogen
atossatherapeutics.com
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Dr. Steven Quay, Chairman and CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, is dedicated to addressing unmet needs in breast cancer prevention and treatment. Dense breasts are a significant risk factor for breast cancer, and Atossa's lead drug candidate has shown effectiveness in reducing breast density and lowering the risk of cancer. This dual-action drug blocks estrogen receptor signaling and induces programmed cell death in cancer cells, potentially offering a more effective and more tolerable treatment option.
Steven explains, "So we are very focused on breast cancer to the point that Princess of Atossa, the company is named after, was the first woman in recorded history with breast cancer about four 50 BC. She was the wife of Darius the Great, who had the Persian Empire, the largest piece of real estate before the Roman Empire. And she had a breast lesion. It was documented that her slave cauterized it with a hot poker from the fire. We didn't get a follow-up from that, but anyway, we are dedicated to all the women, including her, and since then, who have been dealing with breast cancer."
"So it's a very interesting molecule. We call it a Janus molecule. Janus is the two-faced goddess. In this case, it is two-faced in a positive fashion because she addresses two different ways that cancer cells control themselves to drive the growth. Its major activity is to block estrogen binding to the estrogen receptor. So, as I said at the beginning, if 75% of all breast cancers are driven by estrogen, our drug is going to really nail 75% of all breast cancers. But then it gets even more exciting because it also has a second activity in another pathway in cancer driving called PKC beta."
#AtossaTherapeutics #BreastCancer #Cancer #DenseBreasts #Estrogen
atossatherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Alex Meves, distinguished dermatologist at the Mayo Clinic and a spokesperson for SkylineDx, discusses the challenges in diagnosing and treating melanoma and how a new molecular test called Merlin can help improve risk stratification and treatment decisions for patients with early-stage melanoma. Diagnosis and treatment have traditionally used tumor thickness as a primary risk factor. This molecular test measures the expression of genes in the tumor biopsy and can help determine the extent of surgery needed and whether additional therapies may be beneficial.
Alex explains, "My department, when I started to work here at Mayo, wanted me to do some translational research, and I had just come back from a postdoc in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute, and I was tasked to get some research going. And so I focused on melanoma because I thought at the time there wasn't a lot of molecular research going on in melanoma that could be translated to patients. And so we started to develop biomarkers, sort of molecular tests that we could apply to tissue, and then help patients with."
"Yes, so the problem that our research is focused on is what to do once you're diagnosed with a melanoma. What you want to do is to match the right therapy to the right patient. That's the goal. There are lots of melanomas that might not be very aggressive, and you don't have to do a lot of treatment. And then there's some melanoma that's very aggressive, and you want to do lots of treatment, but it's not always obvious which melanoma is low risk and which melanoma is high risk. And so this idea of risk stratification at diagnosis becomes very important to match therapy to patients."
#skincancer #melanoma #SkylineDx #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionDiagnostics
skylinedx.com
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Dr. Alex Meves, distinguished dermatologist at the Mayo Clinic and a spokesperson for SkylineDx, discusses the challenges in diagnosing and treating melanoma and how a new molecular test called Merlin can help improve risk stratification and treatment decisions for patients with early-stage melanoma. Diagnosis and treatment have traditionally used tumor thickness as a primary risk factor. This molecular test measures the expression of genes in the tumor biopsy and can help determine the extent of surgery needed and whether additional therapies may be beneficial.
Alex explains, "My department, when I started to work here at Mayo, wanted me to do some translational research, and I had just come back from a postdoc in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute, and I was tasked to get some research going. And so I focused on melanoma because I thought at the time there wasn't a lot of molecular research going on in melanoma that could be translated to patients. And so we started to develop biomarkers, sort of molecular tests that we could apply to tissue, and then help patients with."
"Yes, so the problem that our research is focused on is what to do once you're diagnosed with a melanoma. What you want to do is to match the right therapy to the right patient. That's the goal. There are lots of melanomas that might not be very aggressive, and you don't have to do a lot of treatment. And then there's some melanoma that's very aggressive, and you want to do lots of treatment, but it's not always obvious which melanoma is low risk and which melanoma is high risk. And so this idea of risk stratification at diagnosis becomes very important to match therapy to patients."
#skincancer #melanoma #SkylineDx #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionDiagnostics
skylinedx.com
Download the transcript here
Elaina McMillan, a director of product marketing at Edifecs, describes the challenges and opportunities around healthcare data interoperability with a focus on prior authorization. Standardizing prior authorization workflows and data submissions across payers is a major focus to reduce delays and errors. Ensuring data security and patient consent are critical concerns, especially for smaller payers with limited resources to comply with mandates.
Elaina explains, "Primarily, what I work on and what Edifecs is most known for is our healthcare data interoperability platform, which includes EDI standards and the new-ish since 2020 FHIR standards. So we're really focused on that. How I would explain it is the data engine that helps payers get things done with quality data through the standardization of that. In addition, we have a whole set of what we call workflow solutions or applications that you can actually build on top of the data platform. So it helps to do things like claims correction, enrollment management, value-based payments, risk adjustment, prior authorization, and consent management."
"So the one that actually comes to mind for me right now, and largely that's because of the recent interoperability and prior authorization mandate, is the prior authorization workflow. A lot of providers don't like the workflow itself and the prior authorizations. What happens today generally is that providers are contracted with a lot of different payers. All of these payers have their own systems and processes through which the provider needs to submit. So one problem is that the providers are managing multiple different workflows, processes, platforms, and technologies."
#HealthTech #Interoperability #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare
#PatientAccess #WomenInTech #WhatIRun
edifecs.com
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Elaina McMillan, a director of product marketing at Edifecs, describes the challenges and opportunities around healthcare data interoperability with a focus on prior authorization. Standardizing prior authorization workflows and data submissions across payers is a major focus to reduce delays and errors. Ensuring data security and patient consent are critical concerns, especially for smaller payers with limited resources to comply with mandates.
Elaina explains, "Primarily, what I work on and what Edifecs is most known for is our healthcare data interoperability platform, which includes EDI standards and the new-ish since 2020 FHIR standards. So we're really focused on that. How I would explain it is the data engine that helps payers get things done with quality data through the standardization of that. In addition, we have a whole set of what we call workflow solutions or applications that you can actually build on top of the data platform. So it helps to do things like claims correction, enrollment management, value-based payments, risk adjustment, prior authorization, and consent management."
"So the one that actually comes to mind for me right now, and largely that's because of the recent interoperability and prior authorization mandate, is the prior authorization workflow. A lot of providers don't like the workflow itself and the prior authorizations. What happens today generally is that providers are contracted with a lot of different payers. All of these payers have their own systems and processes through which the provider needs to submit. So one problem is that the providers are managing multiple different workflows, processes, platforms, and technologies."
#HealthTech #Interoperability #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare
#PatientAccess #WomenInTech #WhatIRun
edifecs.com
Download the transcript here
Anmy Mayfield, Vice President and Dean for the Western Governors University College of Nursing in the Michael O. Leavitt School of Health, discusses the university's mission to provide accessible, online nursing education to address the nursing workforce shortage and encourage a more diverse population of nurses. The ReNEW Fund, a collaborative initiative with Social Finance, provides zero-interest, forgivable loans to nursing students. This model appeals to a diverse student population, including working adults and career-changers, by offering flexibility and employment opportunities for graduates.
Anmy explains, "The ReNEW Fund is a collaboration with Social Finance, another nonprofit organization. And we have a shared goal of tackling the nursing shortage that is estimated to be about 30,000 to 40,000 fewer RNs entering the field compared to what's open to RNs. And there are a lot of barriers that can keep someone from becoming a nurse. And one of those is the cost of nursing school."
"We want to make sure that we can help in one way to help mitigate that barrier to becoming a nurse. And so it's trying to fill these gaps by placing an equal investment in return on employers. Also students get zero-interest loans that are forgivable if a graduate completes their program and then works at one of these ReNEW employer partners for at least three years. So it's a pay-it-forward model."
"One of the things that our program is focused on is ensuring that we're training a nurse workforce that is related or reflective of what the community looks like, because we've seen from research that patient outcomes are often improved when that happens. And so this means more men in nursing, different minority groups, etc., in nursing. We at WGU have seen a higher number of students who are first-generation, who are coming from the military, who are coming from underserved or underrepresented groups, and we're excited about that. And I think a lot of it has to do with our model. We offer our coursework online, and so a lot of times it's easier for our students to balance work and life."
#FutureOfNursing #ReNEWFund #UpskillingHealthcare #NursingWorkforce #PayItForwardEducation #WGUHealth
wgu.edu
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Anmy Mayfield, Vice President and Dean for the Western Governors University College of Nursing in the Michael O. Leavitt School of Health, discusses the university's mission to provide accessible, online nursing education to address the nursing workforce shortage and encourage a more diverse population of nurses. The ReNEW Fund, a collaborative initiative with Social Finance, provides zero-interest, forgivable loans to nursing students. This model appeals to a diverse student population, including working adults and career-changers, by offering flexibility and employment opportunities for graduates.
Anmy explains, "The ReNEW Fund is a collaboration with Social Finance, another nonprofit organization. And we have a shared goal of tackling the nursing shortage that is estimated to be about 30,000 to 40,000 fewer RNs entering the field compared to what's open to RNs. And there are a lot of barriers that can keep someone from becoming a nurse. And one of those is the cost of nursing school."
"We want to make sure that we can help in one way to help mitigate that barrier to becoming a nurse. And so it's trying to fill these gaps by placing an equal investment in return on employers. Also students get zero-interest loans that are forgivable if a graduate completes their program and then works at one of these ReNEW employer partners for at least three years. So it's a pay-it-forward model."
"One of the things that our program is focused on is ensuring that we're training a nurse workforce that is related or reflective of what the community looks like, because we've seen from research that patient outcomes are often improved when that happens. And so this means more men in nursing, different minority groups, etc., in nursing. We at WGU have seen a higher number of students who are first-generation, who are coming from the military, who are coming from underserved or underrepresented groups, and we're excited about that. And I think a lot of it has to do with our model. We offer our coursework online, and so a lot of times it's easier for our students to balance work and life."
#FutureOfNursing #ReNEWFund #UpskillingHealthcare #NursingWorkforce #PayItForwardEducation #WGUHealth
wgu.edu
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Dr. Frank Bedu-Addo, President and CEO of PDS Biotechnology, focuses on the challenge of cancer recurrence and the development of a targeted immunotherapy approach using nanoparticle technology. Their lead immunotherapy candidate is designed to train the immune system to detect and attack microscopic or undetectable cancer cells, prolonging survival by preventing recurrence. Early clinical results in cervical, head and neck, and other HPV 16-positive cancers have been promising, showing sustained immune response leading to long-lasting T cell memory.
Frank explains, "Recurrence of cancer after treatment is actually one of the bigger hurdles we face in successfully treating cancer. So, PDS Biotechnology, as you know, we have a sharp focus on advancing our targeted immunotherapy platforms to address significant unmet needs in treating cancer. And this is actually one of those key unmet needs in cancer today. The prevailing hypothesis on knowledge is that cancer treatment, whether it's done using radiation therapy or anti-cancer drugs such as chemotherapy, both methods actually work by destroying cancer cells or halting the growth."
"And so what may happen with time is that these remaining cancer cells may then grow until they can be detected or begin to cause symptoms. Now, even if the cancer has been removed by surgery, there is still a risk that some tiny microscopic cancer cells could still remain in the body. We would therefore expect the ideal immunotherapy to be able to detect these tiny microscopic cancer cells, even if they have spread to other parts of the body."
#PDSBiotech #Cancer #CancerVaccines #ImmunoOncology #CancerRecurrence
PDSbiotech.com
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Dr. Frank Bedu-Addo, President and CEO of PDS Biotechnology, focuses on the challenge of cancer recurrence and the development of a targeted immunotherapy approach using nanoparticle technology. Their lead immunotherapy candidate is designed to train the immune system to detect and attack microscopic or undetectable cancer cells, prolonging survival by preventing recurrence. Early clinical results in cervical, head and neck, and other HPV 16-positive cancers have been promising, showing sustained immune response leading to long-lasting T cell memory.
Frank explains, "Recurrence of cancer after treatment is actually one of the bigger hurdles we face in successfully treating cancer. So, PDS Biotechnology, as you know, we have a sharp focus on advancing our targeted immunotherapy platforms to address significant unmet needs in treating cancer. And this is actually one of those key unmet needs in cancer today. The prevailing hypothesis on knowledge is that cancer treatment, whether it's done using radiation therapy or anti-cancer drugs such as chemotherapy, both methods actually work by destroying cancer cells or halting the growth."
"And so what may happen with time is that these remaining cancer cells may then grow until they can be detected or begin to cause symptoms. Now, even if the cancer has been removed by surgery, there is still a risk that some tiny microscopic cancer cells could still remain in the body. We would therefore expect the ideal immunotherapy to be able to detect these tiny microscopic cancer cells, even if they have spread to other parts of the body."
#PDSBiotech #Cancer #CancerVaccines #ImmunoOncology #CancerRecurrence
PDSbiotech.com
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Paul Romness, Chairman, CEO, and President of OS Therapies, and Olivia Egge, a member of the Board of Directors of OS Therapies, discuss osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer that primarily affects teenagers. OS Therapies is developing an immunotherapy that utilizes a weakened form of the listeria bacteria to stimulate the immune system and prevent the spread of cancer cells to the lungs and brain. Olivia's experience as a patient has motivated her to advocate for better treatment options and join the board of OS Therapeutics.
Paul explains, "So osteosarcoma is quite literally bone cancer. It happens in teenagers like Olivia, after the growth comes together in the long bones, and there's some sort of miscalculation, and a very aggressive and very deadly cancer develops from that of the growth. And as a result, the cancer can usually spread to the lungs and then the brain. And that's where it gets very, very deadly. And our approach is to stimulate the immune system with a weakened or attenuated listeria that fires up the immune system and goes and finds these little culprits, little micro metastases that have survived the chemo and radiation that these kids go through. It tries to destroy those little micro metastases before they land in the lungs and the brain."
Olivia elaborates, "I talk to patients all the time. Actually, I was introduced to people who became close friends during my actual treatment, but today I still do physical therapy and I'm constantly meeting kids who are in the middle of treatment and some of them have relapse, some haven't, but so I'm constantly meeting new patients and it's just evident that we need better treatment options. I see how weak they are from chemo. They're all, especially with osteosarcoma, you usually have to have a joint replacement or amputation, and chemo just weakens you. So it makes it even harder to recover from that. And I mean, these treatments are just so old. And so for sure, seeing all of these patients going through active treatment just reinforces how badly we need new treatment options, especially treatment options like surgery and immunotherapy."
#OSTherapies #Osteosarcoma #SolidTumors #Immunotherapy #ListeriaCancerImmunotherapy #ComparativeOncology #CanineOsteosarcoma
ostherapies.com
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Paul Romness, Chairman, CEO, and President of OS Therapies, and Olivia Egge, a member of the Board of Directors of OS Therapies, discuss osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer that primarily affects teenagers. OS Therapies is developing an immunotherapy that utilizes a weakened form of the listeria bacteria to stimulate the immune system and prevent the spread of cancer cells to the lungs and brain. Olivia's experience as a patient has motivated her to advocate for better treatment options and join the board of OS Therapeutics.
Paul explains, "So osteosarcoma is quite literally bone cancer. It happens in teenagers like Olivia, after the growth comes together in the long bones, and there's some sort of miscalculation, and a very aggressive and very deadly cancer develops from that of the growth. And as a result, the cancer can usually spread to the lungs and then the brain. And that's where it gets very, very deadly. And our approach is to stimulate the immune system with a weakened or attenuated listeria that fires up the immune system and goes and finds these little culprits, little micro metastases that have survived the chemo and radiation that these kids go through. It tries to destroy those little micro metastases before they land in the lungs and the brain."
Olivia elaborates, "I talk to patients all the time. Actually, I was introduced to people who became close friends during my actual treatment, but today I still do physical therapy and I'm constantly meeting kids who are in the middle of treatment and some of them have relapse, some haven't, but so I'm constantly meeting new patients and it's just evident that we need better treatment options. I see how weak they are from chemo. They're all, especially with osteosarcoma, you usually have to have a joint replacement or amputation, and chemo just weakens you. So it makes it even harder to recover from that. And I mean, these treatments are just so old. And so for sure, seeing all of these patients going through active treatment just reinforces how badly we need new treatment options, especially treatment options like surgery and immunotherapy."
#OSTherapies #Osteosarcoma #SolidTumors #Immunotherapy #ListeriaCancerImmunotherapy #ComparativeOncology #CanineOsteosarcoma
ostherapies.com
Download the transcript here
Dan Schmitt, President and CEO of Actuate Therapeutics, is developing a cancer therapy that inhibits GSK3β, a key enzyme that is hijacked in cancer cells to drive tumor growth. Inhibiting this enzyme can impact the cancer cells and stimulate an immune response against the tumor. Actuate selected metastatic pancreatic cancer as their first target due to unmet need and promising data for their lead drug candidate. This could represent a significant advancement in the treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer, offering a new standard-of-care option.
Dan explains, "So, GSK-3β is a known quantity across a number of inflammatory diseases. It was understood when we first started the company that, particularly in cancer cells, GSK is hijacked in its activity. Basically it's been shown that in normal cells, GSK-3β sits in the cytoplasmic domain and there it's involved in multiple paths, basically in glucose metabolism. But in cancer cells, it translocates into the nuclear compartment, and there it's accumulated at much higher levels and then sits upstream of a pro-oncogenic set of pathways, all mediated by NF-κB. NF-κB is notorious in cancer. It regulates gene expression involved in tumor growth and progression, chemoresistance, and protects tumor cells from death."
"So it's been very difficult to target NF-κB directly, but we can target GSK-3β directly, specifically and potently, and therefore downregulate those key oncogenic processes. And that's really where we started the company, that set of activities of this protein. What's been shown since we've been in the clinic is that there is also a resulting upregulation of immune response from the host towards the cancer itself based on this inhibition of GSK-3β as well."
#ActuateTherapeutics #Cancer #PancreaticCancer #MetastaticPancreaticCancer
actuatetherapeutics.com
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Dan Schmitt, President and CEO of Actuate Therapeutics, is developing a cancer therapy that inhibits GSK3β, a key enzyme that is hijacked in cancer cells to drive tumor growth. Inhibiting this enzyme can impact the cancer cells and stimulate an immune response against the tumor. Actuate selected metastatic pancreatic cancer as their first target due to unmet need and promising data for their lead drug candidate. This could represent a significant advancement in the treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer, offering a new standard-of-care option.
Dan explains, "So, GSK-3β is a known quantity across a number of inflammatory diseases. It was understood when we first started the company that, particularly in cancer cells, GSK is hijacked in its activity. Basically it's been shown that in normal cells, GSK-3β sits in the cytoplasmic domain and there it's involved in multiple paths, basically in glucose metabolism. But in cancer cells, it translocates into the nuclear compartment, and there it's accumulated at much higher levels and then sits upstream of a pro-oncogenic set of pathways, all mediated by NF-κB. NF-κB is notorious in cancer. It regulates gene expression involved in tumor growth and progression, chemoresistance, and protects tumor cells from death."
"So it's been very difficult to target NF-κB directly, but we can target GSK-3β directly, specifically and potently, and therefore downregulate those key oncogenic processes. And that's really where we started the company, that set of activities of this protein. What's been shown since we've been in the clinic is that there is also a resulting upregulation of immune response from the host towards the cancer itself based on this inhibition of GSK-3β as well."
#ActuateTherapeutics #Cancer #PancreaticCancer #MetastaticPancreaticCancer
actuatetherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Andrea James, Chief Financial Officer at iMDx, is focused on expanding access to innovative molecular diagnostic testing staring with a test for monitoring transplanted organ health. The test measures the donor-derived cell-free DNA which can indicate the need for drugs to target organ rejection before invasive procedures are required. The company is developing a kit-based version of the test that can be run by hospitals rather than relying on centralized labs, to increase access to this diagnostic and improve transplant outcomes.
Andrea explains, "We changed our name on June 17th from OncoCyte, as you had just referenced, to Insight Molecular Diagnostics Inc. We're now going by iMDx, and our mission is to democratize access to novel molecular diagnostic testing to improve patient outcomes."
"We actually have three pieces of IP, intellectual property, and we are initially commercializing in transplant. So we measure a biomarker called donor-derived cell-free DNA, don't get too hung up on it. That's a lot of words. It basically looks for fragments of DNA in the blood, which can indicate transplanted organ damage and therefore rejection. And so that is where we are commercializing first."
"What's really interesting is that the innovations in this space are, okay, so let's say you've been on dialysis, that's a really tough life. You finally get your transplanted kidney, and now let's say your body is starting to reject it. You're one of those one in five who were a match, your kidney was a match for you, but then your immune system is attacking it anyway. That used to be almost a death sentence."
"Your options there were you're going to lose your kidney, you go back on dialysis, or you lose your life. But now there are therapies that are coming out to treat antibody-mediated rejection, or AMR, and our test is being used to monitor the efficacy of those therapies."
#iMDx #MolecularDiagnostics #Molecular #Diagnostics #Healthcare #PrecisionMedicine #Genomics #Decentralized #LiquidBiopsy #DigitalPCR #Transplant #Localization #Labs #PointOfCareTesting #RapidCare #Democratization
imdxinc.com
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Andrea James, Chief Financial Officer at iMDx, is focused on expanding access to innovative molecular diagnostic testing staring with a test for monitoring transplanted organ health. The test measures the donor-derived cell-free DNA which can indicate the need for drugs to target organ rejection before invasive procedures are required. The company is developing a kit-based version of the test that can be run by hospitals rather than relying on centralized labs, to increase access to this diagnostic and improve transplant outcomes.
Andrea explains, "We changed our name on June 17th from OncoCyte, as you had just referenced, to Insight Molecular Diagnostics Inc. We're now going by iMDx, and our mission is to democratize access to novel molecular diagnostic testing to improve patient outcomes."
"We actually have three pieces of IP, intellectual property, and we are initially commercializing in transplant. So we measure a biomarker called donor-derived cell-free DNA, don't get too hung up on it. That's a lot of words. It basically looks for fragments of DNA in the blood, which can indicate transplanted organ damage and therefore rejection. And so that is where we are commercializing first."
"What's really interesting is that the innovations in this space are, okay, so let's say you've been on dialysis, that's a really tough life. You finally get your transplanted kidney, and now let's say your body is starting to reject it. You're one of those one in five who were a match, your kidney was a match for you, but then your immune system is attacking it anyway. That used to be almost a death sentence."
"Your options there were you're going to lose your kidney, you go back on dialysis, or you lose your life. But now there are therapies that are coming out to treat antibody-mediated rejection, or AMR, and our test is being used to monitor the efficacy of those therapies."
#iMDx #MolecularDiagnostics #Molecular #Diagnostics #Healthcare #PrecisionMedicine #Genomics #Decentralized #LiquidBiopsy #DigitalPCR #Transplant #Localization #Labs #PointOfCareTesting #RapidCare #Democratization
imdxinc.com
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James Hereford, President and CEO of Fairview Health Services, describes this Minnesota-based healthcare system's $600 million turnaround and the importance of focusing on people and processes, not just technology changes. Addressing staff shortages, quality of care, and patient experience led to finding a holistic approach that improved financial outcomes and changed the culture in a sustainable way. Investments have been made in community programs like food access and vaccination events, recognizing the impact of social determinants of health on patient outcomes.
James explains, "When doing this, we have to think about sustainability, and there are things that you can do, like mass layoffs, that can change the short-term economics of an organization. They're just not sustainable. The work hasn't gone away. You haven't changed the nature of work, and we really tried to focus on the people in the process side of this and really make our focus on our processes."
"The other problem with thinking only about the financial turnaround and the direct cost drivers is that it's not the only measure of success for a healthcare organization. It's also about the quality and safety of the care we provide. It's about the experience we provide for our patients, and it's about the culture and the environment in which our caregivers and others provide that care. And so we had to be thinking more holistically about the nature of the turnaround and what we had to do to achieve all of those outcomes."
#FairviewHealth #Hospitals #Healthcare #FinancialTurnaround #HealthcareDelivery #FoodAccess #DigitalHealth #LeadershipSkills #Minnesota
fairview.org
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James Hereford, President and CEO of Fairview Health Services, describes this Minnesota-based healthcare system's $600 million turnaround and the importance of focusing on people and processes, not just technology changes. Addressing staff shortages, quality of care, and patient experience led to finding a holistic approach that improved financial outcomes and changed the culture in a sustainable way. Investments have been made in community programs like food access and vaccination events, recognizing the impact of social determinants of health on patient outcomes.
James explains, "When doing this, we have to think about sustainability, and there are things that you can do, like mass layoffs, that can change the short-term economics of an organization. They're just not sustainable. The work hasn't gone away. You haven't changed the nature of work, and we really tried to focus on the people in the process side of this and really make our focus on our processes."
"The other problem with thinking only about the financial turnaround and the direct cost drivers is that it's not the only measure of success for a healthcare organization. It's also about the quality and safety of the care we provide. It's about the experience we provide for our patients, and it's about the culture and the environment in which our caregivers and others provide that care. And so we had to be thinking more holistically about the nature of the turnaround and what we had to do to achieve all of those outcomes."
#FairviewHealth #Hospitals #Healthcare #FinancialTurnaround #HealthcareDelivery #FoodAccess #DigitalHealth #LeadershipSkills #Minnesota
fairview.org
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teve Butts, Co-Founder and CEO of Arrivo BioVentures, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies that target the root causes of disease rather than just treating the symptoms. Their drugs treat major depressive disorder and acute pancreatitis through novel epigenetic mechanisms of action. Sex-based differences were observed in clinical trials where the drug SP-624 showed efficacy in females but not in males, which could lead to a paradigm shift in how depression is treated in men and women.
Steve explains, "We've evolved over time at Arrivo and with our previous companies. What we're excited about right now is the fact that we have two drugs. One called SP-624 or Forvisirvat is the generic name, and the other one is code-named RABI-767. And as we've gotten into the science behind these drugs, what we're finding is that we're not just treating the symptoms of a disease, but we're really trying to get at what's causing the disease fundamentally and trying to make an impact there. And I think from a drug development standpoint - I've been doing this for 30 years - these are the two most exciting programs that I've had a chance to work on for a variety of reasons. One is the science, and they're both novel and new approaches to treating the diseases, but two, if we're right, they're going to create a situation where we're going to think about these diseases differently."
"We ran a large Phase 2 study. It was the first study we had run in patients with depression, and it was really the first study that anyone had run with a SIRT6 activator in patients with depression. And so we were breaking new ground there, and it was a pretty large study. When we got the results, what we found was that there were really nice effects in females across all of the measures that we had and no evidence of efficacy in males. And that was really puzzling to us. It wasn't what we were expecting. And we started diving into, well, what could be going on here? Science is iterative, and I think you do a trial, and trials lead to more questions. And so we started diving into the questions that we had around "Why the sex difference?"
#ArrivoBioVentures #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #WomensHealth #Depression #DepressionTreatment #Psychiatry #PrecisionMedicine
arrivobio.com
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Steve Butts, Co-Founder and CEO of Arrivo BioVentures, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies that target the root causes of disease rather than just treating the symptoms. Their drugs treat major depressive disorder and acute pancreatitis through novel epigenetic mechanisms of action. Sex-based differences were observed in clinical trials where the drug SP-624 showed efficacy in females but not in males, which could lead to a paradigm shift in how depression is treated in men and women.
Steve explains, "We've evolved over time at Arrivo and with our previous companies. What we're excited about right now is the fact that we have two drugs. One called SP-624 or Forvisirvat is the generic name, and the other one is code-named RABI-767. And as we've gotten into the science behind these drugs, what we're finding is that we're not just treating the symptoms of a disease, but we're really trying to get at what's causing the disease fundamentally and trying to make an impact there. And I think from a drug development standpoint - I've been doing this for 30 years - these are the two most exciting programs that I've had a chance to work on for a variety of reasons. One is the science, and they're both novel and new approaches to treating the diseases, but two, if we're right, they're going to create a situation where we're going to think about these diseases differently."
"We ran a large Phase 2 study. It was the first study we had run in patients with depression, and it was really the first study that anyone had run with a SIRT6 activator in patients with depression. And so we were breaking new ground there, and it was a pretty large study. When we got the results, what we found was that there were really nice effects in females across all of the measures that we had and no evidence of efficacy in males. And that was really puzzling to us. It wasn't what we were expecting. And we started diving into, well, what could be going on here? Science is iterative, and I think you do a trial, and trials lead to more questions. And so we started diving into the questions that we had around "Why the sex difference?"
#ArrivoBioVentures #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #WomensHealth #Depression #DepressionTreatment #Psychiatry #PrecisionMedicine
arrivobio.com
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Daniel Blumenthal, VP of Strategy at MDClone, is building synthetic data models to mimic real patient data without the need to protect the identity of individuals. This type of data is being utilized in drug discovery and development, building predictive tools and new care models, and to better understand biases in clinical trials making them more representative. AI tools play an essential role in generating and validating synthetic data as well as integrating it into various processes and environments.
Daniel explains, "Synthetic data means different things to different people. So I definitely would want to start with sharing what it usually means to MDClone, which is creating data based on real populations of patients, real patient data. Learning from that real patient data, extracting essentially the statistics from that data, understanding the relevant patterns that exist inside that data, and then, based on the statistics alone, generating a brand-new set of data, a brand-new set of people, and the synthetic data that we generate."
"If you look at it, essentially with your naked eye, you wouldn't know it's not real people. It has the same structure, has the same content appearance, and yet, inside, synthetic data contains no real people. So very different from other approaches to protecting patient privacy, which take a patient data set and hash data, mask data, or remove information like IDs, names, or locations."
"Instead of taking that sort of approach, synthetic data actually generates a brand-new set of people, fake people, that in our case, as we build it, maintain the same statistical properties, such that any analysis you want to complete, you could accomplish using the synthetic dataset just as you would with the original dataset. That it will yield the same meaningful conclusions as the synthetic that it would with the original."
#MDClone #MedAI #AI #SyntheticData #DrugDevelopment #DrugDiscovery #ClinicalTrials #PatientPrivacy
mdclone.com
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Daniel Blumenthal, VP of Strategy at MDClone, is building synthetic data models to mimic real patient data without the need to protect the identity of individuals. This type of data is being utilized in drug discovery and development, building predictive tools and new care models, and to better understand biases in clinical trials making them more representative. AI tools play an essential role in generating and validating synthetic data as well as integrating it into various processes and environments.
Daniel explains, "Synthetic data means different things to different people. So I definitely would want to start with sharing what it usually means to MDClone, which is creating data based on real populations of patients, real patient data. Learning from that real patient data, extracting essentially the statistics from that data, understanding the relevant patterns that exist inside that data, and then, based on the statistics alone, generating a brand-new set of data, a brand-new set of people, and the synthetic data that we generate."
"If you look at it, essentially with your naked eye, you wouldn't know it's not real people. It has the same structure, has the same content appearance, and yet, inside, synthetic data contains no real people. So very different from other approaches to protecting patient privacy, which take a patient data set and hash data, mask data, or remove information like IDs, names, or locations."
"Instead of taking that sort of approach, synthetic data actually generates a brand-new set of people, fake people, that in our case, as we build it, maintain the same statistical properties, such that any analysis you want to complete, you could accomplish using the synthetic dataset just as you would with the original dataset. That it will yield the same meaningful conclusions as the synthetic that it would with the original."
#MDClone #MedAI #AI #SyntheticData #DrugDevelopment #DrugDiscovery #ClinicalTrials #PatientPrivacy
mdclone.com
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Rick Geoffrion, Founder and CEO of Cyrano Therapeutics, is developing a drug to restore olfactory function due to post-viral loss of smell and taste. As a result of COVID-19, there has been a significant increase in the number of people affected by long-term smell and taste loss, with no effective pharmaceutical options previously available. Smell loss can also be an early indicator of neurodegenerative conditions, suggesting future applications of the intranasal spray that aims to directly restore function to the olfactory receptor neurons.
Rick explains, "Taste and smell have a really strong connection, actually. First of all, they're two out of the five basic senses that we have as human beings. When you lose your sense of smell, people actually perceive that they've lost about 80% of their sense of taste. Now, technically, you're not losing your sense of taste. We actually just give our tongue too much credit. Our tongue is able to detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. That's all it detects, and it detects them really in light monotone that are about 80% less intense if you've lost your sense of smell. In addition, if you no longer have your sense of smell, what you've really lost is the ability to detect flavor in food. So, to tell the difference between a peach, a pear, and a strawberry, maybe you'll tell that visually, but to tell it from a flavor perspective, you completely lose that ability.
"There really are no significant therapies to treat the condition right now. Essentially, if you've lost your sense of smell, a physician may recommend that you use smell training, which is essentially the regular smelling of intense essential oils, and they really haven't been shown to significantly treat or cure a chronic smell loss condition. It is thought that if your body is spontaneously recovering, say within those first few months, if you do undergo smell training, you may accelerate that recovery. But other than that, there's certainly no gold standard treatment or no significant treatments available right now, and no pharmaceuticals in the pipeline other than CYR-064, which is being developed by Cyrano."
#CyranoTherapeutics #Olfactory #LongCOVID #PostViralLoss #IntranasalSpray #SmellandTaste #LongTermSmellLoss
cyranotherapeutics.com
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Rick Geoffrion, Founder and CEO of Cyrano Therapeutics, is developing a drug to restore olfactory function due to post-viral loss of smell and taste. As a result of COVID-19, there has been a significant increase in the number of people affected by long-term smell and taste loss, with no effective pharmaceutical options previously available. Smell loss can also be an early indicator of neurodegenerative conditions, suggesting future applications of the intranasal spray that aims to directly restore function to the olfactory receptor neurons.
Rick explains, "Taste and smell have a really strong connection, actually. First of all, they're two out of the five basic senses that we have as human beings. When you lose your sense of smell, people actually perceive that they've lost about 80% of their sense of taste. Now, technically, you're not losing your sense of taste. We actually just give our tongue too much credit. Our tongue is able to detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. That's all it detects, and it detects them really in light monotone that are about 80% less intense if you've lost your sense of smell. In addition, if you no longer have your sense of smell, what you've really lost is the ability to detect flavor in food. So, to tell the difference between a peach, a pear, and a strawberry, maybe you'll tell that visually, but to tell it from a flavor perspective, you completely lose that ability.
"There really are no significant therapies to treat the condition right now. Essentially, if you've lost your sense of smell, a physician may recommend that you use smell training, which is essentially the regular smelling of intense essential oils, and they really haven't been shown to significantly treat or cure a chronic smell loss condition. It is thought that if your body is spontaneously recovering, say within those first few months, if you do undergo smell training, you may accelerate that recovery. But other than that, there's certainly no gold standard treatment or no significant treatments available right now, and no pharmaceuticals in the pipeline other than CYR-064, which is being developed by Cyrano."
#CyranoTherapeutics #Olfactory #LongCOVID #PostViralLoss #IntranasalSpray #SmellandTaste #LongTermSmellLoss
cyranotherapeutics.com
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Loren Larsen, CEO and Co-Founder of Videra Health, is using AI-powered technology to improve the patient-provider connection and monitor patient health, particularly mental health, in an empathetic and conversational way. The video-based AI platform engages patients in regular check-ins to assess mental and physical conditions and detect subtle changes in behavior, tone, or language that could indicate issues like suicidal ideation or movement disorders. Data from patient encounters is also providing insights to clinicians and helping patients and providers better understand the connection between mental health and chronic conditions.
Loren explains, "We started Videra Health recognizing this challenge that when a patient isn't with their doctor, they lose connection. You go to your doctor, you get good care, you leave. There's never been a good way to follow up or check in with patients to see how they're doing. And so we've really applied AI to this for the last six years since we started the company to check in with patients, finding out how they're doing in an empathetic, conversational, authentic way that replaces boring old assessments that require people to field lots and lots of multiple-choice questions, which no one enjoys. The whole goal here is how to build a better connection between the provider and their patient, even when the provider's too busy to check in on a regular basis."
"Then, as they're answering, the AI is analyzing both their verbal and nonverbal responses to measure things that the clinician is interested in, such as their depression, their anxiety, PTSD, whether they are using suicidal language, etc. And then having this nice conversation. It usually takes a few minutes."
"We think you often hear from doctors like, Oh, if I could just see my patients for a few minutes, I would know how they're doing. So there's this idea that we want to be able to see how a person is doing, not just verbally, but how they're presenting themselves, how they're communicating their facial expressions in addition to the words that they're using. So we're looking at their words, their tone of voice, and relevant facial expressions and movements that help us understand what's really happening."
#VideraHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealthTech #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthTech #ClinicalTrials #RemotePatientMonitoring #HealthInnovation #PatientCenteredCare
viderahealth.com
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Loren Larsen, CEO and Co-Founder of Videra Health, is using AI-powered technology to improve the patient-provider connection and monitor patient health, particularly mental health, in an empathetic and conversational way. The video-based AI platform engages patients in regular check-ins to assess mental and physical conditions and detect subtle changes in behavior, tone, or language that could indicate issues like suicidal ideation or movement disorders. Data from patient encounters is also providing insights to clinicians and helping patients and providers better understand the connection between mental health and chronic conditions.
Loren explains, "We started Videra Health recognizing this challenge that when a patient isn't with their doctor, they lose connection. You go to your doctor, you get good care, you leave. There's never been a good way to follow up or check in with patients to see how they're doing. And so we've really applied AI to this for the last six years since we started the company to check in with patients, finding out how they're doing in an empathetic, conversational, authentic way that replaces boring old assessments that require people to field lots and lots of multiple-choice questions, which no one enjoys. The whole goal here is how to build a better connection between the provider and their patient, even when the provider's too busy to check in on a regular basis."
"Then, as they're answering, the AI is analyzing both their verbal and nonverbal responses to measure things that the clinician is interested in, such as their depression, their anxiety, PTSD, whether they are using suicidal language, etc. And then having this nice conversation. It usually takes a few minutes."
"We think you often hear from doctors like, Oh, if I could just see my patients for a few minutes, I would know how they're doing. So there's this idea that we want to be able to see how a person is doing, not just verbally, but how they're presenting themselves, how they're communicating their facial expressions in addition to the words that they're using. So we're looking at their words, their tone of voice, and relevant facial expressions and movements that help us understand what's really happening."
#VideraHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealthTech #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthTech #ClinicalTrials #RemotePatientMonitoring #HealthInnovation #PatientCenteredCare
viderahealth.com
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David Fischel, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Stereotaxis, is advancing the ability of surgical robotics, particularly in the field of minimally invasive catheter-based procedures. Stereotaxis is developing the use of robotic technology to improve precision and accessibility in endovascular surgeries with a unique mechanism that allows surgeons to control the tip of the catheter. The adoption of surgical robotics for endovascular procedures will expand as remote access is made available and safety concerns are addressed for previously impossible-to-treat conditions.
David explains, "We build advanced robots that allow physicians to do minimally invasive catheter-based procedures with greater precision and safety. We're kind of pioneering that area of robotic surgery. We've seen other areas of medicine benefit significantly over the last decade or two from advanced robotic technologies. And there's a whole field of catheter-based endovascular cardiovascular procedures where we're still using handheld catheters that have limitations and weaknesses to them. And by improving that field of medicine, we think we can make care better for patients, and we can enable minimally invasive, effective care for many more patients."
"Robots are improving surgery in many areas in a fairly dramatic fashion. Endovascular surgery is where you use endo within vascular, within the blood vessels, you use the blood vessels as a type of superhighway and you insert these little devices called catheters into the blood vessels and then usually through the leg or the arm, and then you can go anywhere you want in the body to the brain or to the heart or to the periphery and treat the patient kind of using that catheter."
"It's a strange area of medicine, particularly for trying to implement robots, because you're working in very small, delicate anatomy, and you have to think about flexible robots because the catheter has to navigate all the tortuosity of the patient's blood vessels. You can't think about a robot in the traditional way you would imagine a robot, if you think about industrial robots. And so that's where that area has been more difficult, and that's where we're really pioneering and bringing robotics to play in that field."
#Stereotaxis #SturgicalRobots #RoboticAssistedSurgery #PrecisionMedicine #EndovascularSurgery #CardiacArrhythmias
stereotaxis.com
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David Fischel, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Stereotaxis, is advancing the ability of surgical robotics, particularly in the field of minimally invasive catheter-based procedures. Stereotaxis is developing the use of robotic technology to improve precision and accessibility in endovascular surgeries with a unique mechanism that allows surgeons to control the tip of the catheter. The adoption of surgical robotics for endovascular procedures will expand as remote access is made available and safety concerns are addressed for previously impossible-to-treat conditions.
David explains, "We build advanced robots that allow physicians to do minimally invasive catheter-based procedures with greater precision and safety. We're kind of pioneering that area of robotic surgery. We've seen other areas of medicine benefit significantly over the last decade or two from advanced robotic technologies. And there's a whole field of catheter-based endovascular cardiovascular procedures where we're still using handheld catheters that have limitations and weaknesses to them. And by improving that field of medicine, we think we can make care better for patients, and we can enable minimally invasive, effective care for many more patients."
"Robots are improving surgery in many areas in a fairly dramatic fashion. Endovascular surgery is where you use endo within vascular, within the blood vessels, you use the blood vessels as a type of superhighway and you insert these little devices called catheters into the blood vessels and then usually through the leg or the arm, and then you can go anywhere you want in the body to the brain or to the heart or to the periphery and treat the patient kind of using that catheter."
"It's a strange area of medicine, particularly for trying to implement robots, because you're working in very small, delicate anatomy, and you have to think about flexible robots because the catheter has to navigate all the tortuosity of the patient's blood vessels. You can't think about a robot in the traditional way you would imagine a robot, if you think about industrial robots. And so that's where that area has been more difficult, and that's where we're really pioneering and bringing robotics to play in that field."
#Stereotaxis #SturgicalRobots #RoboticAssistedSurgery #PrecisionMedicine #EndovascularSurgery #CardiacArrhythmias
stereotaxis.com
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Craig Limoli, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellsheet, is streamling workflows for clinicians by providing better access to patient data and improving care coordination across care teams. Wellsheet is integrated into existing health records to provide a seamless experience to users and help to reduce "pajama time" for doctors by reducing the amount of end-of-the-day work needed to document patient encounters. Wellsheet uses AI and natural language processing to surface the most relevant information for clinicians and generate documentation, reducing time spent and improving efficiency.
Craig explains, "Wellsheet is a care team, co-pilot that serves physicians as well as other clinicians with better access to all of the data they need to make treatment decisions for patients, as well as easier coordination across the whole care team. So we're really designed as a company and as a product to support a broad array of clinicians, both physicians, nursing case managers, and surface the data most relevant to them in the way that they want to see it. We coordinate care across those multidisciplinary stakeholders in a way that is seamlessly embedded and integrated into the existing electronic health record systems to ultimately create a really seamless and cohesive experience for our users."
"So our technology is embedded within Epic, Cerner, and other major EHRs. So physicians and other clinicians access it with the click of a button directly within their workflow in the EHR. They don't have to log in again, they don't have to reidentify the patient. It all feels like a native part of their EHR experience. And as soon as they click into Wellsheet, they are presented with a summarized view of the most relevant information from the entire patient's medical history and what pertains to that particular encounter, all in a single place."
#Wellsheet #ClinicalWorkflow #EHR #AI #ClinicalAI #MultidisciplinaryCare #PhysicianBurnout #DigitalHealth
wellsheet.com
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Craig Limoli, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellsheet, is streamling workflows for clinicians by providing better access to patient data and improving care coordination across care teams. Wellsheet is integrated into existing health records to provide a seamless experience to users and help to reduce "pajama time" for doctors by reducing the amount of end-of-the-day work needed to document patient encounters. Wellsheet uses AI and natural language processing to surface the most relevant information for clinicians and generate documentation, reducing time spent and improving efficiency.
Craig explains, "Wellsheet is a care team, co-pilot that serves physicians as well as other clinicians with better access to all of the data they need to make treatment decisions for patients, as well as easier coordination across the whole care team. So we're really designed as a company and as a product to support a broad array of clinicians, both physicians, nursing case managers, and surface the data most relevant to them in the way that they want to see it. We coordinate care across those multidisciplinary stakeholders in a way that is seamlessly embedded and integrated into the existing electronic health record systems to ultimately create a really seamless and cohesive experience for our users."
"So our technology is embedded within Epic, Cerner, and other major EHRs. So physicians and other clinicians access it with the click of a button directly within their workflow in the EHR. They don't have to log in again, they don't have to reidentify the patient. It all feels like a native part of their EHR experience. And as soon as they click into Wellsheet, they are presented with a summarized view of the most relevant information from the entire patient's medical history and what pertains to that particular encounter, all in a single place."
#Wellsheet #ClinicalWorkflow #EHR #AI #ClinicalAI #MultidisciplinaryCare #PhysicianBurnout #DigitalHealth
wellsheet.com
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Aron Knickerbocker, President and CEO of Aulos Bioscience, is on a mission to extend the lives of cancer patients through safer and more effective immunotherapy using AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and optimization. The company's lead drug candidate is an antibody that was designed using AI to harness the power of interleukin-2 to activate the immune system against tumors. The advantages of AU-007 over previous IL-2 therapies include the ability to selectively activate tumor-fighting immune cells while avoiding toxicity due to vascular leakage. Current trials are underway in advanced melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer, which are showing the potential for durable responses and immune memory.
Aron explains, "So Aulos has really been founded to carry out a mission to extend the lives of patients with innovative, safe, and ultimately effective cancer immunotherapy. And you mentioned IL-2, which is the naturally occurring protein that we're seeking to harness and redirect in productive ways to help the patients. And this has really been kind of a driver for me over the years, wanting to improve on cancer patient care. This is a company with an important mission and a great team, and our program is really interesting. It's harnessing IL-2 in such a way that it sends it to the cells that are capable of attacking the tumor and killing the tumor cells, and keeps it away from the cells that suppress the immune response. It's really kind of using a double-edged sword in a productive way to help patients with cancer."
"So this is the first antibody to go into human clinical trials. It was designed in part by leveraging an AI platform, as you noted. And that platform was created by our collaborators at Biologic Design. They're the company that created this molecule. And what biologic design does is essentially using an AI system that has machine learning algorithms that drive it. It mimics what the immune system does normally. So when we get sick and we need to make antibodies to something, our immune system says, Do I already have something that will kind of bind to the target or the virus or whatever it's trying to hit? And then it will optimize that. It will go through a process of rapid change. And what the AI system and the machine learning algorithms that have been trained on millions of antibodies in the targets to which they bind do is recognize patterns much like an AI chatbot might recognize language patterns."
#AulosBio #Antibodies #MedAi #AI #IL2 #Onocology #Cancer #NSCLC #AdvancedCutaneousMelanoma #DrugDiscovery #BiologicDesign #Tregs
aulosbio.com
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Aron Knickerbocker, President and CEO of Aulos Bioscience, is on a mission to extend the lives of cancer patients through safer and more effective immunotherapy using AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and optimization. The company's lead drug candidate is an antibody that was designed using AI to harness the power of interleukin-2 to activate the immune system against tumors. The advantages of AU-007 over previous IL-2 therapies include the ability to selectively activate tumor-fighting immune cells while avoiding toxicity due to vascular leakage. Current trials are underway in advanced melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer, which are showing the potential for durable responses and immune memory.
Aron explains, "So Aulos has really been founded to carry out a mission to extend the lives of patients with innovative, safe, and ultimately effective cancer immunotherapy. And you mentioned IL-2, which is the naturally occurring protein that we're seeking to harness and redirect in productive ways to help the patients. And this has really been kind of a driver for me over the years, wanting to improve on cancer patient care. This is a company with an important mission and a great team, and our program is really interesting. It's harnessing IL-2 in such a way that it sends it to the cells that are capable of attacking the tumor and killing the tumor cells, and keeps it away from the cells that suppress the immune response. It's really kind of using a double-edged sword in a productive way to help patients with cancer."
"So this is the first antibody to go into human clinical trials. It was designed in part by leveraging an AI platform, as you noted. And that platform was created by our collaborators at Biologic Design. They're the company that created this molecule. And what biologic design does is essentially using an AI system that has machine learning algorithms that drive it. It mimics what the immune system does normally. So when we get sick and we need to make antibodies to something, our immune system says, Do I already have something that will kind of bind to the target or the virus or whatever it's trying to hit? And then it will optimize that. It will go through a process of rapid change. And what the AI system and the machine learning algorithms that have been trained on millions of antibodies in the targets to which they bind do is recognize patterns much like an AI chatbot might recognize language patterns."
#AulosBio #Antibodies #MedAi #AI #IL2 #Onocology #Cancer #NSCLC #AdvancedCutaneousMelanoma #DrugDiscovery #BiologicDesign #Tregs
aulosbio.com
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Aniq Rahman, Founder and CEO of Fabric, a technology company that uses an AI-powered platform to support health systems, health plans, and employers, to streamline patient care, scheduling appointments, and receiving virtual care. The system can triage patients, route them to appropriate care, and simplify the provider workflows to improve operational efficiency, drive better patient outcomes, and reduce provider burnout. Fabric is taking an integrated approach to healthcare technology rather than offering individual point solutions in order to create a seamless experience for patients and providers.
Aniq explains, "We started Fabric about four years ago now in 2021 in the midst of the pandemic. And we're a technology company fundamentally. So, Fabric builds technology. We work primarily with health systems, but also with health plans and employers, to really help bring together the care journey of a patient. So that's everything from helping a patient find care, triage their symptoms, get virtual care, and also help with things like scheduling appointments and follow-ups. So we've built really an end-to-end platform today that has AI at its core and is able to sort of route patients more appropriately and then also help improve the workflows of providers and create efficiency on the clinical side as well."
"Yes, so one of the things that has been sort of core to the Fabric vision is figuring out ways to actually improve patient experience, provider experience, and operational throughput without it compromising any of those three buckets. And so one of the things that we've been fortunate to have is a virtual care platform that we actually acquired. We bought a company called Zipnosis back in 2023, and Zipnosis had built a pretty robust set of clinical protocols to help streamline the virtual urgent care visits effectively. So, say a patient's coming in with something like a pink eye or a urinary tract infection, or even just a cold or flu, we have protocols that allow patients to go through and answer a series of questions in an adaptive interview. And based on the patient responses, we can figure out if that patient needs to be seen in person or may need to get referred out to the emergency department."
#FabricHealth #MedAI #AI #DigitalAssistant #DigitalHealth #TriageEvaluation
fabrichealth.com
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Aniq Rahman, Founder and CEO of Fabric, a technology company that uses an AI-powered platform to support health systems, health plans, and employers, to streamline patient care, scheduling appointments, and receiving virtual care. The system can triage patients, route them to appropriate care, and simplify the provider workflows to improve operational efficiency, drive better patient outcomes, and reduce provider burnout. Fabric is taking an integrated approach to healthcare technology rather than offering individual point solutions in order to create a seamless experience for patients and providers.
Aniq explains, "We started Fabric about four years ago now in 2021 in the midst of the pandemic. And we're a technology company fundamentally. So, Fabric builds technology. We work primarily with health systems, but also with health plans and employers, to really help bring together the care journey of a patient. So that's everything from helping a patient find care, triage their symptoms, get virtual care, and also help with things like scheduling appointments and follow-ups. So we've built really an end-to-end platform today that has AI at its core and is able to sort of route patients more appropriately and then also help improve the workflows of providers and create efficiency on the clinical side as well."
"Yes, so one of the things that has been sort of core to the Fabric vision is figuring out ways to actually improve patient experience, provider experience, and operational throughput without it compromising any of those three buckets. And so one of the things that we've been fortunate to have is a virtual care platform that we actually acquired. We bought a company called Zipnosis back in 2023, and Zipnosis had built a pretty robust set of clinical protocols to help streamline the virtual urgent care visits effectively. So, say a patient's coming in with something like a pink eye or a urinary tract infection, or even just a cold or flu, we have protocols that allow patients to go through and answer a series of questions in an adaptive interview. And based on the patient responses, we can figure out if that patient needs to be seen in person or may need to get referred out to the emergency department."
#FabricHealth #MedAI #AI #DigitalAssistant #DigitalHealth #TriageEvaluation
fabrichealth.com
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James Keppel, Founder and CEO of Sarana Health, is focused on an integrated healthcare model that addresses chronic health challenges and preventative care. By providing personalized care, advanced lab testing, and one-on-one coaching with healthcare professionals, Sarana aims to fill the gaps in the traditional healthcare system, which often focuses on sick care rather than keeping people healthy. The company's integrated care model looks at the interconnected body systems to identify underlying causes of health issues, rather than just treating symptoms.
James explains, "What we provide is a totally personalized client-led and client-centric approach to wellness. We do that through an advanced series of lab tests and also you get to actually talk to the people who care for you, which I know is rare. Everything is very much about you and the person that you are, as opposed to charts and graphs about past history and that sort of thing with other doctors. So we get very dialed into the person."
"We've got a lot of different ranges that we can hit. So you mentioned people with chronic conditions. Yes, absolutely. We can deal with that. A lot of times, those people have not gotten any good answers from the legacy healthcare system. So they go and see their doctor every six months. They do the same test, they get the same, we don't know what's going on, or it's just you're older and that's the way it is, sort of thing. And then the other end of the spectrum is on the preventative side and looking at being in front of your health as opposed to waiting until you have a problem, which unfortunately the legacy healthcare system kind of does - they wait till you have a problem, they give you a prescription, and tell you, that's the way it goes. Whereas if you're on the preventive end, the easiest way to stay healthy is to never get sick."
#SaranaHealth #IntegratedHealth #Wellness #OptimalWellness #Wholebody #PersonalizedHealth
sarana.health
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James Keppel, Founder and CEO of Sarana Health, is focused on an integrated healthcare model that addresses chronic health challenges and preventative care. By providing personalized care, advanced lab testing, and one-on-one coaching with healthcare professionals, Sarana aims to fill the gaps in the traditional healthcare system, which often focuses on sick care rather than keeping people healthy. The company's integrated care model looks at the interconnected body systems to identify underlying causes of health issues, rather than just treating symptoms.
James explains, "What we provide is a totally personalized client-led and client-centric approach to wellness. We do that through an advanced series of lab tests and also you get to actually talk to the people who care for you, which I know is rare. Everything is very much about you and the person that you are, as opposed to charts and graphs about past history and that sort of thing with other doctors. So we get very dialed into the person."
"We've got a lot of different ranges that we can hit. So you mentioned people with chronic conditions. Yes, absolutely. We can deal with that. A lot of times, those people have not gotten any good answers from the legacy healthcare system. So they go and see their doctor every six months. They do the same test, they get the same, we don't know what's going on, or it's just you're older and that's the way it is, sort of thing. And then the other end of the spectrum is on the preventative side and looking at being in front of your health as opposed to waiting until you have a problem, which unfortunately the legacy healthcare system kind of does - they wait till you have a problem, they give you a prescription, and tell you, that's the way it goes. Whereas if you're on the preventive end, the easiest way to stay healthy is to never get sick."
#SaranaHealth #IntegratedHealth #Wellness #OptimalWellness #Wholebody #PersonalizedHealth
sarana.health
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Muffy Walker is a psychiatric nurse, mental health advocate, and author with a focus on bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's disease. As a founder of the Bipolar Foundation and through her work with the Alzheimer's Association, Muffy is working to raise awareness, reduce the stigma often associated with these conditions, and bring resources to patients and caregivers. Based on her personal experiences with family members with bipolar and Alzheimer's, Muffy has published her latest novel, Memory Weavers to help others deal with the challenges of diagnosing, treating, and supporting complex mental conditions.
Muffy explains, "I am a psychiatric nurse. I have a master's in psychiatric nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, and I worked in that space, mostly working in the PTSD area. And then I had a family member who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This was over 23 years ago. At that time, there were very few resources available, so three other women and I decided to launch what was then called the California Bipolar Foundation. As soon as we were up on the internet, we were getting requests, hits, and asks from all over the world. So we very quickly changed it to the International Bipolar Foundation. That foundation is 18 years old now, IBPF.org is globally accessible, and all of what we offer is free."
"And now, because of my book, I'm very involved with the Alzheimer's Association and Us Against Alzheimer's, etc. But we do see, of course, we have this brand new blood test that just came out that I think is a game changer, helping people to determine if they're having some kinds of issues related to memory. And then a simple test, just like we should do a simple mental health exam when you go to your GP, ask you if you're depressed, ask you how you're sleeping, ask you if you have thoughts of suicide. A simple test, but more related to memory, can be given by the family doctor."
#MuffyWalker #MemoryWeaver #IBPF #InternationalBipolarFoundation #BipolarDisorder #AlzheimersDisease #MentalHealth #Caregivers
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Muffy Walker is a psychiatric nurse, mental health advocate, and author with a focus on bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's disease. As a founder of the Bipolar Foundation and through her work with the Alzheimer's Association, Muffy is working to raise awareness, reduce the stigma often associated with these conditions, and bring resources to patients and caregivers. Based on her personal experiences with family members with bipolar and Alzheimer's, Muffy has published her latest novel, Memory Weavers to help others deal with the challenges of diagnosing, treating, and supporting complex mental conditions.
Muffy explains, "I am a psychiatric nurse. I have a master's in psychiatric nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, and I worked in that space, mostly working in the PTSD area. And then I had a family member who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This was over 23 years ago. At that time, there were very few resources available, so three other women and I decided to launch what was then called the California Bipolar Foundation. As soon as we were up on the internet, we were getting requests, hits, and asks from all over the world. So we very quickly changed it to the International Bipolar Foundation. That foundation is 18 years old now, IBPF.org is globally accessible, and all of what we offer is free."
"And now, because of my book, I'm very involved with the Alzheimer's Association and Us Against Alzheimer's, etc. But we do see, of course, we have this brand new blood test that just came out that I think is a game changer, helping people to determine if they're having some kinds of issues related to memory. And then a simple test, just like we should do a simple mental health exam when you go to your GP, ask you if you're depressed, ask you how you're sleeping, ask you if you have thoughts of suicide. A simple test, but more related to memory, can be given by the family doctor."
#MuffyWalker #MemoryWeaver #IBPF #InternationalBipolarFoundation #BipolarDisorder #AlzheimersDisease #MentalHealth #Caregivers
muffywalker.com
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Michael Reidy, a senior consultant at Interaction Associates, discusses the challenges and opportunities facing both new and experienced doctors, given the rise of virtual doctor visits and telemedicine, as well as the use of AI tools in the healthcare environment. While new doctors often possess strong technical skills, they may lack the interpersonal skills necessary to communicate effectively with patients. Experienced doctors may need a refresher on active listening skills to adapt to screen technologies. While technology and AI tools can enhance the patient-doctor relationship by providing data and insights, the human interaction remains essential.
Michael explains, "We are a 55-year-old company that has worked with clients ranging from healthcare to nuclear power to finance services. So we're providing tools to organizations to empower leaders, managers, individual contributors, and coaches to encourage performance and enhance capability."
"New physicians are such a brilliant audience for us. I think usually because they're technically very brilliant. They have come through an exhaustive training and passed through many, many hurdles and bridges in order to arrive at their calling or their vocation. At the same time, they arrive with some experience of being with people who are sick or who are ill or who are wondering what is wrong with me, but not a lot. And so our job, we find, is to enable, to empower, and to engage the human side of the younger doctor. In fact, it applies very often to older practitioners also."
#InteractionAssociates #MedTech #VirtualHealth #AI #MedAI #DoctorPatientRelationship
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Michael Reidy, a senior consultant at Interaction Associates, discusses the challenges and opportunities facing both new and experienced doctors, given the rise of virtual doctor visits and telemedicine, as well as the use of AI tools in the healthcare environment. While new doctors often possess strong technical skills, they may lack the interpersonal skills necessary to communicate effectively with patients. Experienced doctors may need a refresher on active listening skills to adapt to screen technologies. While technology and AI tools can enhance the patient-doctor relationship by providing data and insights, the human interaction remains essential.
Michael explains, "We are a 55-year-old company that has worked with clients ranging from healthcare to nuclear power to finance services. So we're providing tools to organizations to empower leaders, managers, individual contributors, and coaches to encourage performance and enhance capability."
"New physicians are such a brilliant audience for us. I think usually because they're technically very brilliant. They have come through an exhaustive training and passed through many, many hurdles and bridges in order to arrive at their calling or their vocation. At the same time, they arrive with some experience of being with people who are sick or who are ill or who are wondering what is wrong with me, but not a lot. And so our job, we find, is to enable, to empower, and to engage the human side of the younger doctor. In fact, it applies very often to older practitioners also."
#InteractionAssociates #MedTech #VirtualHealth #AI #MedAI #DoctorPatientRelationship
interactionassociates.com
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Allan Sheffield, Co-Founder of Gene By Gene, offers genetic testing to provide insights into an individual's risk for various diseases, including cancer and rare genetic disorders, allowing for more proactive and preventative healthcare. Analysis of pharmacogenomic data, which examines how an individual's genes influence their response to medications, also helps doctors prescribe the most effective treatments and avoid potential side effects. Integrating genetic data into electronic medical records and using AI to simplify the interpretation of results is enabling doctors and patients to improve patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and use polygenic risk scores to provide more comprehensive insights into an individual's health.
Allan explains, "Gene By Gene is one of the largest genomic sequencing or genetic tech companies in the US, and we do everything from whole genome sequencing to offering hereditary cancer screening, predictive cardiovascular risk, and things like pharmacogenomic testing to see how people respond to different medications. So if you can think about genetic testing, we've got the capabilities to do it."
"We're living in a really exciting time at the moment, where next-generation sequencing, or whole-genome sequencing, is becoming much more of a reality. I think 10 years ago, it would cost over a hundred thousand dollars to sequence your whole genome, which is the 3 billion base pairs of genetic code in your body. And so what we've had to do in the past is do very targeted tests to keep the costs affordable. But with the advancements in technology, we are now doing the whole genome sequence at Gene By Gene for in the hundreds of dollars as opposed to the thousands of dollars. And that's making it much more accessible and much more realistic in healthcare."
#GeneByGene #GeneticTesting #NextGenerationSequencing #NGS #Pharmagenomics #CancerScreening #PredictiveScreening #CardiovascularRisk #PrecisionMedicine
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Allan Sheffield, Co-Founder of Gene By Gene, offers genetic testing to provide insights into an individual's risk for various diseases, including cancer and rare genetic disorders, allowing for more proactive and preventative healthcare. Analysis of pharmacogenomic data, which examines how an individual's genes influence their response to medications, also helps doctors prescribe the most effective treatments and avoid potential side effects. Integrating genetic data into electronic medical records and using AI to simplify the interpretation of results is enabling doctors and patients to improve patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and use polygenic risk scores to provide more comprehensive insights into an individual's health.
Allan explains, "Gene By Gene is one of the largest genomic sequencing or genetic tech companies in the US, and we do everything from whole genome sequencing to offering hereditary cancer screening, predictive cardiovascular risk, and things like pharmacogenomic testing to see how people respond to different medications. So if you can think about genetic testing, we've got the capabilities to do it."
"We're living in a really exciting time at the moment, where next-generation sequencing, or whole-genome sequencing, is becoming much more of a reality. I think 10 years ago, it would cost over a hundred thousand dollars to sequence your whole genome, which is the 3 billion base pairs of genetic code in your body. And so what we've had to do in the past is do very targeted tests to keep the costs affordable. But with the advancements in technology, we are now doing the whole genome sequence at Gene By Gene for in the hundreds of dollars as opposed to the thousands of dollars. And that's making it much more accessible and much more realistic in healthcare."
#GeneByGene #GeneticTesting #NextGenerationSequencing #NGS #Pharmagenomics #CancerScreening #PredictiveScreening #CardiovascularRisk #PrecisionMedicine
GeneByGene.com
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Sandy Saggar, CEO of Connexall, aims to solve the challenge of disparate and unconnected technologies in hospitals that lead to inefficient workflows, data silos, and increased cognitive load on clinicians. Connexall's connected care platform helps integrate hospital systems and medical devices to improve communication, automate workflows, save time for clinicians, and enhance patient outcomes. The need for a connected hospital is becoming increasingly clear, as it helps break down technical barriers and improve interoperability.
Sandy explains, "So the challenge today and has been a challenge for some time is that hospitals have disparate technology pieces all over the place, and between technologies and medical devices, they're not connected to one another. It means less automation, silos of data, and just workflows that don't help clinicians and staff do their work around patient care. So when you look at all of these medical devices, clinical systems can be connected, which can really improve those workflows, improve communication, and lead to improved patient outcomes. So, how do we make it easier for nurses, doctors, and staff to do their day-to-day work?
"Really, that's our purpose here, is to help with that and decrease things like cognitive load. Why do I need to go to multiple devices or multiple medical devices, multiple apps, multiple workstations to check on things around patient care, like vital signs, alarms, and messages? So, just helping to support patient care and improving the caregiver experience is really the heart of what we do."
#Connexall #Hospitals #ConnectedHospitals #SmartHospitals #Healthcare #DataSilos #MedicalDevices #Interoperability
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Sandy Saggar, CEO of Connexall, aims to solve the challenge of disparate and unconnected technologies in hospitals that lead to inefficient workflows, data silos, and increased cognitive load on clinicians. Connexall's connected care platform helps integrate hospital systems and medical devices to improve communication, automate workflows, save time for clinicians, and enhance patient outcomes. The need for a connected hospital is becoming increasingly clear, as it helps break down technical barriers and improve interoperability.
Sandy explains, "So the challenge today and has been a challenge for some time is that hospitals have disparate technology pieces all over the place, and between technologies and medical devices, they're not connected to one another. It means less automation, silos of data, and just workflows that don't help clinicians and staff do their work around patient care. So when you look at all of these medical devices, clinical systems can be connected, which can really improve those workflows, improve communication, and lead to improved patient outcomes. So, how do we make it easier for nurses, doctors, and staff to do their day-to-day work?
"Really, that's our purpose here, is to help with that and decrease things like cognitive load. Why do I need to go to multiple devices or multiple medical devices, multiple apps, multiple workstations to check on things around patient care, like vital signs, alarms, and messages? So, just helping to support patient care and improving the caregiver experience is really the heart of what we do."
#Connexall #Hospitals #ConnectedHospitals #SmartHospitals #Healthcare #DataSilos #MedicalDevices #Interoperability
connexall.com
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Dr. George Sledge, Executive VP and Chief Medical Officer of Caris Life Sciences, is using advanced molecular testing, including DNA, RNA, and protein analysis, to identify specific mutations and characteristics of a patient's tumor, allowing for more personalized and targeted treatment. The company is developing liquid biopsies to detect cancer early, identify minimal residual disease, and assess the potential for future cancer development. Caris has a database of over half a million patients whose tumors have undergone next-generation sequencing, allowing them to draw increasingly accurate conclusions. The future of precision oncology is expected to involve broader and earlier use of next-generation sequencing as the cost of the test continues to decrease significantly.
George explains, "Caris Life Sciences is a molecular diagnostics company. Patients and their physicians send us tumor samples that can be obtained either from the primary tissue or from a distant recurrent site. When they come to us, we do several things. We look at DNA, what's called whole exome. We look at RNA, what's called whole transcriptome. We also frequently look at the protein level at immunohistochemistry, looking at slides that have been stained to look for particular molecular lesions that may be important from a treatment standpoint. Based on all of these, we're able to provide patients with information about which drugs represent the most appropriate treatment for their disease. This, of course, allows you to go to a drug that hopefully will be less toxic and more effective for your particular disease."
"When we look at the very specific mutations that manifest themselves at the level of either DNA or RNA, this requires fairly high technology, what's called next-generation sequencing, which allows us to pick up all these individual mutations that make up a particular patient's cancer. And every patient's cancer is different. Every patient's cancer involves different combinations of mutations that result in different responses to different treatments."
#CarisLifeSciences #CancerResearch #PrecisionMedicine #RealWorldData #AccestoCare #HealthEquity #NextGenerationSequencing #NGS #LiquidBiopsy #ClinicoGenomic #Biomarkers #PanCancer
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Dr. George Sledge, Executive VP and Chief Medical Officer of Caris Life Sciences, is using advanced molecular testing, including DNA, RNA, and protein analysis, to identify specific mutations and characteristics of a patient's tumor, allowing for more personalized and targeted treatment. The company is developing liquid biopsies to detect cancer early, identify minimal residual disease, and assess the potential for future cancer development. Caris has a database of over half a million patients whose tumors have undergone next-generation sequencing, allowing them to draw increasingly accurate conclusions. The future of precision oncology is expected to involve broader and earlier use of next-generation sequencing as the cost of the test continues to decrease significantly.
George explains, "Caris Life Sciences is a molecular diagnostics company. Patients and their physicians send us tumor samples that can be obtained either from the primary tissue or from a distant recurrent site. When they come to us, we do several things. We look at DNA, what's called whole exome. We look at RNA, what's called whole transcriptome. We also frequently look at the protein level at immunohistochemistry, looking at slides that have been stained to look for particular molecular lesions that may be important from a treatment standpoint. Based on all of these, we're able to provide patients with information about which drugs represent the most appropriate treatment for their disease. This, of course, allows you to go to a drug that hopefully will be less toxic and more effective for your particular disease."
"When we look at the very specific mutations that manifest themselves at the level of either DNA or RNA, this requires fairly high technology, what's called next-generation sequencing, which allows us to pick up all these individual mutations that make up a particular patient's cancer. And every patient's cancer is different. Every patient's cancer involves different combinations of mutations that result in different responses to different treatments."
#CarisLifeSciences #CancerResearch #PrecisionMedicine #RealWorldData #AccestoCare #HealthEquity #NextGenerationSequencing #NGS #LiquidBiopsy #ClinicoGenomic #Biomarkers #PanCancer
carislifesciences.com
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Kirk Huntsman, Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of Vivos Therapeutics, is focused on the connection between obstructive sleep apnea and Alzheimer's disease, the challenges of diagnosing sleep apnea, and the importance of sleep testing in treating the root causes of sleep disorders. The Vivos oral appliance is a non-invasive way to address the breathing disorder OSA and resulting sleep issues. Proper nasal breathing and airway development from a young age can help prevent the onset of sleep apnea and help preserve brain health.
Kirk explains, "Sleep apnea is an interesting condition that has only been actively researched for the last 60 years. It was really only identified and started showing up in the medical literature in the mid-1960s. And so we really have about a 60-year run at trying to figure out what this condition is, what it affects, what's comorbid with it, etc. We're now pushing 40 plus conditions, which are comorbid with sleep apnea, and every time we find another condition that is coexistent with sleep apnea or that is found in connection with sleep apnea, we just expand the horizon for that and we learn more about the sort of the biomechanical and the biological processes that are at work that drive the connection between these two. And you mentioned one of the main ones now that we've known about for a while, but the connection between obstructive sleep apnea in particular and Alzheimer's."
"What we know is that there's a drainage system on the brain. Our brains need to get into a deep state of rest, and it's called REM sleep. And there are other parts to this. I'll keep it really high level, but the bottom line is that our brains flush. There's a sewage system that basically flushes the toxins out of our brains. It's called the glymphatic system. And the glymphatic system needs to be able to function, and in order to function, the patient has to be in a state of deep sleep. And so if sleep apnea has interrupted that sleep and caused various arousals or various interruptions to avoid a patient arriving at that, what happens is that the brain is not able to flush the toxins out of the brain, and those toxins build up."
#VivosTherapeutics #SleepApnea #ObstructiveSleepApnea #OSA #SleepDisorders #CognitiveDecline #Alzheimers #OSATreatment #MedicalDevice
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Kirk Huntsman, Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of Vivos Therapeutics, is focused on the connection between obstructive sleep apnea and Alzheimer's disease, the challenges of diagnosing sleep apnea, and the importance of sleep testing in treating the root causes of sleep disorders. The Vivos oral appliance is a non-invasive way to address the breathing disorder OSA and resulting sleep issues. Proper nasal breathing and airway development from a young age can help prevent the onset of sleep apnea and help preserve brain health.
Kirk explains, "Sleep apnea is an interesting condition that has only been actively researched for the last 60 years. It was really only identified and started showing up in the medical literature in the mid-1960s. And so we really have about a 60-year run at trying to figure out what this condition is, what it affects, what's comorbid with it, etc. We're now pushing 40 plus conditions, which are comorbid with sleep apnea, and every time we find another condition that is coexistent with sleep apnea or that is found in connection with sleep apnea, we just expand the horizon for that and we learn more about the sort of the biomechanical and the biological processes that are at work that drive the connection between these two. And you mentioned one of the main ones now that we've known about for a while, but the connection between obstructive sleep apnea in particular and Alzheimer's."
"What we know is that there's a drainage system on the brain. Our brains need to get into a deep state of rest, and it's called REM sleep. And there are other parts to this. I'll keep it really high level, but the bottom line is that our brains flush. There's a sewage system that basically flushes the toxins out of our brains. It's called the glymphatic system. And the glymphatic system needs to be able to function, and in order to function, the patient has to be in a state of deep sleep. And so if sleep apnea has interrupted that sleep and caused various arousals or various interruptions to avoid a patient arriving at that, what happens is that the brain is not able to flush the toxins out of the brain, and those toxins build up."
#VivosTherapeutics #SleepApnea #ObstructiveSleepApnea #OSA #SleepDisorders #CognitiveDecline #Alzheimers #OSATreatment #MedicalDevice
vivos.com
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Marianne De Backer is the CEO of Vir Biotechnology, a company developing treatments that harness the power of the immune system to fight serious infectious diseases and cancer. Vir Biotechnology's current clinical trials include a registrational program in chronic hepatitis delta, a rare, often fatal liver disease, as well as two Phase 1 trials of PRO-XTEN™ dual-masked T-cell engagers (TCEs), one targeting HER-2 and the other targeting PSMA, each in heavily pre-treated cancer patients. TCEs have shown tremendous potential but have been limited due to toxicity challenges. The PRO-XTEN™ technology keeps the TCEs masked until they reach the tumor microenvironment, potentially mitigating the toxicity of TCEs and allowing them to unleash their tremendous potential to destroy cancer cells.
Marianne explains, "Vir Biotechnology is an immunology company, and that means that we are really developing treatments that take advantage of the power of basically the patient's own immune system to fight a variety of diseases. We have actually four clinical-stage programs in infectious disease and oncology, and a number of preclinical programs as well. And our most advanced program is to treat chronic hepatitis delta. That is actually a disease caused by a tiny virus, but it's causing liver cancer and is often fatal."
"We have recently initiated our registrational phase 3 program. It's called ECLIPSE. We had previously shown some very compelling data with one of our regimens for treating this disease. We're really excited about progressing that program. And the rest of our clinical pipeline includes a series of so-called PRO-XTEN™ masked T-cell engagers, or in short, TCEs, for the treatment of metastatic solid tumors."
Vir Biotechnology has exclusive rights to the PRO-XTEN™ masking platform for oncology and infectious disease. PRO-XTEN™ is a trademark of Amunix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. a Sanofi company.
#VirBiotechnology #MaskedTCellEngagers #TCellEngagers #SolidTumors #MetastaticSolidTumors #Cancer #Immunotherapy #ChronicHepatitisDelta #MedAI #PatientsAreWaiting
vir.bio
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Marianne De Backer is the CEO of Vir Biotechnology, a company developing treatments that harness the power of the immune system to fight serious infectious diseases and cancer. Vir Biotechnology's current clinical trials include a registrational program in chronic hepatitis delta, a rare, often fatal liver disease, as well as two Phase 1 trials of PRO-XTEN™ dual-masked T-cell engagers (TCEs), one targeting HER-2 and the other targeting PSMA, each in heavily pre-treated cancer patients. TCEs have shown tremendous potential but have been limited due to toxicity challenges. The PRO-XTEN™ technology keeps the TCEs masked until they reach the tumor microenvironment, potentially mitigating the toxicity of TCEs and allowing them to unleash their tremendous potential to destroy cancer cells.
Marianne explains, "Vir Biotechnology is an immunology company, and that means that we are really developing treatments that take advantage of the power of basically the patient's own immune system to fight a variety of diseases. We have actually four clinical-stage programs in infectious disease and oncology, and a number of preclinical programs as well. And our most advanced program is to treat chronic hepatitis delta. That is actually a disease caused by a tiny virus, but it's causing liver cancer and is often fatal."
"We have recently initiated our registrational phase 3 program. It's called ECLIPSE. We had previously shown some very compelling data with one of our regimens for treating this disease. We're really excited about progressing that program. And the rest of our clinical pipeline includes a series of so-called PRO-XTEN™ masked T-cell engagers, or in short, TCEs, for the treatment of metastatic solid tumors."
Vir Biotechnology has exclusive rights to the PRO-XTEN™ masking platform for oncology and infectious disease. PRO-XTEN™ is a trademark of Amunix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. a Sanofi company.
#VirBiotechnology #MaskedTCellEngagers #TCellEngagers #SolidTumors #MetastaticSolidTumors #Cancer #Immunotherapy #ChronicHepatitisDelta #MedAI #PatientsAreWaiting
vir.bio
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Evan Steele, Founder and CEO of online reputation management company rater8, emphasizes the importance of online reviews for healthcare providers and how patients are increasingly relying on reviews to select a doctor. The key to generating reviews is to actively ask for feedback and acknowledge receipt of comments. Negative reviews and low-star ratings can encourage practices to respond to comments, improving the patient experience and demonstrating to patients that the practice cares.
Evan explains, "Now, you look in your insurance guide to see which providers in your area accept the insurance. There's a Facebook group. You might ask, Who do I go to see for my shoulder that hurts for an orthopedic surgeon? You ask your friends and family, your PCP gives you some names, and you start going down the list. And what's changed is if you call that first doctor on the list and they don't have great reviews, you might not even call them, but let's say you call them and they have a convenient time, and a location is convenient, but the next doctor has 150 reviews, 4.9 stars."
"You read the comments, patients love this doctor. Even if the appointment time is not convenient for you or the drive is a little further than the most convenient location, you're going to book an appointment with that doctor. Just like I would never even think of dining at a 3.8-star rated restaurant. I wouldn't trust my health, my life, and my well-being to a 3.8-rated doctor. So I think people are making decisions now based on online reviews and even going out of their way and being inconvenienced to make sure they get the right doctor."
#rater8 #ReputationManagement #PatientFeedback #PatientEngagement #PracticeGrowth #TrustMarketing #PatientAcquisition #PatientProviderRelationship
rater8.com
Listen to the podcast here
Evan Steele, Founder and CEO of online reputation management company rater8, emphasizes the importance of online reviews for healthcare providers and how patients are increasingly relying on reviews to select a doctor. The key to generating reviews is to actively ask for feedback and acknowledge receipt of comments. Negative reviews and low-star ratings can encourage practices to respond to comments, improving the patient experience and demonstrating to patients that the practice cares.
Evan explains, "Now, you look in your insurance guide to see which providers in your area accept the insurance. There's a Facebook group. You might ask, Who do I go to see for my shoulder that hurts for an orthopedic surgeon? You ask your friends and family, your PCP gives you some names, and you start going down the list. And what's changed is if you call that first doctor on the list and they don't have great reviews, you might not even call them, but let's say you call them and they have a convenient time, and a location is convenient, but the next doctor has 150 reviews, 4.9 stars."
"You read the comments, patients love this doctor. Even if the appointment time is not convenient for you or the drive is a little further than the most convenient location, you're going to book an appointment with that doctor. Just like I would never even think of dining at a 3.8-star rated restaurant. I wouldn't trust my health, my life, and my well-being to a 3.8-rated doctor. So I think people are making decisions now based on online reviews and even going out of their way and being inconvenienced to make sure they get the right doctor."
#rater8 #ReputationManagement #PatientFeedback #PatientEngagement #PracticeGrowth #TrustMarketing #PatientAcquisition #PatientProviderRelationship
rater8.com
Download the transcript here
Elli Kaplan, CEO and Co-Founder of Neurotrack, emphasizes the importance of early cognitive assessment and the potential of digital tools in advancing the screening process for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. Screen-based assessment tools can provide more efficient, accurate, and objective screening compared to traditional pen and paper tests. Integrating cognitive screening into primary care settings can lead to early intervention when lifestyle changes can help maintain brain health and slow the progression of conditions like Alzheimer's disease.
Elli explains, "We are focused on screening for cognitive decline, and that includes mild cognitive impairment all the way through to Alzheimer's disease, working largely with primary care providers to help them then make a diagnosis of cognitive decline or Alzheimer's in their clinics and refer patients on to get better treatment."
"Historically, there have been tests that have existed in the universe that are pen and paper tests that measure cognition. I would say quite poorly. But the other problem with these types of tests is that they have to be administered by a trained administrator, who is typically a doctor, and they take a long time. So they may take anywhere from 10 minutes to 25 minutes. And so the advantages of digital tools are that one, they don't carry that same bias. Some that would occur with one provider versus another versus another, with a different kind of style administering the test. So they're much more objective."
"Our tests are quite short, so they can be administered, self-administered in about three minutes, depending on the patient. So, anywhere from three minutes up to about seven minutes, as we unlock additional tests as they may be needed for a particular patient. So they make it possible to standardize testing across a population and to integrate it into workflows in ways that haven't been possible before. So more efficient, more accurate, and more objective. And you take out a lot of the bias that has existed around both administration, as well as things like language or education levels, ethnicity, that type of thing."
#Neurotrack #Alzheimers #HealthTech #AlzheimersAwareness #MemoryCare #SeniorCare #Aging #Cognition #CognitionScreening #Dementia
neurotrack.com
Listen to the podcast here
Elli Kaplan, CEO and Co-Founder of Neurotrack, emphasizes the importance of early cognitive assessment and the potential of digital tools in advancing the screening process for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. Screen-based assessment tools can provide more efficient, accurate, and objective screening compared to traditional pen and paper tests. Integrating cognitive screening into primary care settings can lead to early intervention when lifestyle changes can help maintain brain health and slow the progression of conditions like Alzheimer's disease.
Elli explains, "We are focused on screening for cognitive decline, and that includes mild cognitive impairment all the way through to Alzheimer's disease, working largely with primary care providers to help them then make a diagnosis of cognitive decline or Alzheimer's in their clinics and refer patients on to get better treatment."
"Historically, there have been tests that have existed in the universe that are pen and paper tests that measure cognition. I would say quite poorly. But the other problem with these types of tests is that they have to be administered by a trained administrator, who is typically a doctor, and they take a long time. So they may take anywhere from 10 minutes to 25 minutes. And so the advantages of digital tools are that one, they don't carry that same bias. Some that would occur with one provider versus another versus another, with a different kind of style administering the test. So they're much more objective."
"Our tests are quite short, so they can be administered, self-administered in about three minutes, depending on the patient. So, anywhere from three minutes up to about seven minutes, as we unlock additional tests as they may be needed for a particular patient. So they make it possible to standardize testing across a population and to integrate it into workflows in ways that haven't been possible before. So more efficient, more accurate, and more objective. And you take out a lot of the bias that has existed around both administration, as well as things like language or education levels, ethnicity, that type of thing."
#Neurotrack #Alzheimers #HealthTech #AlzheimersAwareness #MemoryCare #SeniorCare #Aging #Cognition #CognitionScreening #Dementia
neurotrack.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Sandra Silberman, Chief Medical Officer at CNS Pharmaceuticals, has developed new therapies for glioblastoma that can cross the blood-brain barrier to reach brain tumors. Their lead drug candidates have been modified to slip into the membranes to inhibit tumor growth and attack the cancer cells. The anthracycline-based and taxane-based drugs are showing efficacy in clinical trials and are not showing the cardiotoxicity associated with anthracyclines.
Sandra explains, "Anthracyclines are characteristically cardiotoxic. And we have just conducted a study of over 160 patients who have received this, and some of them for quite a long period of time. And we have not seen any cardiotoxicity. So we have one of the anthracyclines that is the first to actually cross the blood-brain barrier without any help from other mechanisms, and it also doesn't cause cardiotoxicity. So we have a really open field to be able to further develop this drug. And we know that this drug, based on all of our preclinical studies, is very effective against glioma cells."
"This is to the great credit of the chemists that we've been working with. Can I develop a compound that can not be a substrate for this, so it can't even bind to this efflux transporter and can slip by? But not only that, can it be lipophilic, meaning it can get through all those membranes, and it can be something that leaks into the brain itself. So the two molecules that we have are not substrates for these multidrug-resistant transporters. They're also very highly lipophilic, meaning they're very oily. And so I guess this has two meanings to it, but they're oily and then they slip into the brain and are able to do what they're supposed to be doing, which is the inhibition of tumor growth and killing the tumor cells."
#CNSPharma #Glioblastoma ##BrainCancer #BloodBrainBarrier #NeuroOncology #CancerResearch #DrugDevelopment #BrainTumor
cnspharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Sandra Silberman, Chief Medical Officer at CNS Pharmaceuticals, has developed new therapies for glioblastoma that can cross the blood-brain barrier to reach brain tumors. Their lead drug candidates have been modified to slip into the membranes to inhibit tumor growth and attack the cancer cells. The anthracycline-based and taxane-based drugs are showing efficacy in clinical trials and are not showing the cardiotoxicity associated with anthracyclines.
Sandra explains, "Anthracyclines are characteristically cardiotoxic. And we have just conducted a study of over 160 patients who have received this, and some of them for quite a long period of time. And we have not seen any cardiotoxicity. So we have one of the anthracyclines that is the first to actually cross the blood-brain barrier without any help from other mechanisms, and it also doesn't cause cardiotoxicity. So we have a really open field to be able to further develop this drug. And we know that this drug, based on all of our preclinical studies, is very effective against glioma cells."
"This is to the great credit of the chemists that we've been working with. Can I develop a compound that can not be a substrate for this, so it can't even bind to this efflux transporter and can slip by? But not only that, can it be lipophilic, meaning it can get through all those membranes, and it can be something that leaks into the brain itself. So the two molecules that we have are not substrates for these multidrug-resistant transporters. They're also very highly lipophilic, meaning they're very oily. And so I guess this has two meanings to it, but they're oily and then they slip into the brain and are able to do what they're supposed to be doing, which is the inhibition of tumor growth and killing the tumor cells."
#CNSPharma #Glioblastoma ##BrainCancer #BloodBrainBarrier #NeuroOncology #CancerResearch #DrugDevelopment #BrainTumor
cnspharma.com
Download the transcript here
Kevin Caldwell, CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Ossium Health, discusses the opportunities for regenerative stem-cell therapies and the challenges of obtaining bone marrow from donors for bone marrow transplants. Ossium Health is collecting bone marrow from healthy, young donors and utilizing a cryopreservation process that enables long-term storage and on-demand availability of these cells. Ongoing clinical trials using allogeneic bone-marrow-derived cells to treat patients with acute leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome are showing promising results.
Kevin explains, "Our mission is to improve the health, longevity, and vitality of human beings through bioengineering. We believe that regenerative therapeutics, which involve cell and gene therapies that can permanently and positively improve human biology, will be fundamental to the prevention of disease and the preservation of health as we age. One of the most powerful tools we have in achieving this goal is engineering the immune system. And in particular at Ossium, we develop therapeutics that enable us today in the clinic to treat life-threatening malignancies of the immune system, like leukemia, in patients with dire need. Into the future, the goal is to make it possible to reconstitute, reprogram, and replace a blood and immune system in a manner that can treat patients with chronic diseases and ultimately do so in a preventive manner."
"Traditionally, the major application of bone marrow in the clinic is bone marrow transplants for patients with blood cancers like leukemia. And so the patient's native immune system is ablated or annihilated and replaced with a bone marrow infusion from a healthy donor, related or unrelated. And if that bone, new bone marrow from the donor in grafts in the patient, then it replaces or it constitutes their blood and immune system."
"And so one of the things that we're working on at Ossium is, okay, how do we address these problems? How do we make bone marrow more available to deliver and deploy on demand and easily, without needing to track down a volunteer donor? What can we do to reduce the risk of rejection so that the transplant is safer? What can we do to improve the likelihood of engraftment the first time and the speed of engraftment so the patients aren't immunocompromised for as long? All of these are things that we're working on to really make it possible to bring this lifesaving procedure to more patients."
#OssiumHealth #StemCellTherapy #RegenerativeMedicine #BoneMarrowTransplants
ossiumhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kevin Caldwell, CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Ossium Health, discusses the opportunities for regenerative stem-cell therapies and the challenges of obtaining bone marrow from donors for bone marrow transplants. Ossium Health is collecting bone marrow from healthy, young donors and utilizing a cryopreservation process that enables long-term storage and on-demand availability of these cells. Ongoing clinical trials using allogeneic bone-marrow-derived cells to treat patients with acute leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome are showing promising results.
Kevin explains, "Our mission is to improve the health, longevity, and vitality of human beings through bioengineering. We believe that regenerative therapeutics, which involve cell and gene therapies that can permanently and positively improve human biology, will be fundamental to the prevention of disease and the preservation of health as we age. One of the most powerful tools we have in achieving this goal is engineering the immune system. And in particular at Ossium, we develop therapeutics that enable us today in the clinic to treat life-threatening malignancies of the immune system, like leukemia, in patients with dire need. Into the future, the goal is to make it possible to reconstitute, reprogram, and replace a blood and immune system in a manner that can treat patients with chronic diseases and ultimately do so in a preventive manner."
"Traditionally, the major application of bone marrow in the clinic is bone marrow transplants for patients with blood cancers like leukemia. And so the patient's native immune system is ablated or annihilated and replaced with a bone marrow infusion from a healthy donor, related or unrelated. And if that bone, new bone marrow from the donor in grafts in the patient, then it replaces or it constitutes their blood and immune system."
"And so one of the things that we're working on at Ossium is, okay, how do we address these problems? How do we make bone marrow more available to deliver and deploy on demand and easily, without needing to track down a volunteer donor? What can we do to reduce the risk of rejection so that the transplant is safer? What can we do to improve the likelihood of engraftment the first time and the speed of engraftment so the patients aren't immunocompromised for as long? All of these are things that we're working on to really make it possible to bring this lifesaving procedure to more patients."
#OssiumHealth #StemCellTherapy #RegenerativeMedicine #BoneMarrowTransplants
ossiumhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Ann Bilyew, Executive VP of Health and Group General Manager at WebMD Ignite, works with hospitals, health systems, and payers to provide technology that builds trust, reduces administrative burdens on providers, and personalizes engagements with patients and members. While AI-powered solutions are showing great promise, challenges arise in deploying new technologies due to legacy infrastructure, interoperability issues, and the need to balance innovation with potential risks and costs. A strong foundation of high-quality, clinically reviewed content is key to the ability to provide accurate information on demand.
Ann explains, "We work with hospitals, health systems, payers, and essentially everybody involved in the provision or payment support in healthcare. And we work with 90% of US-based hospitals and health systems and about an equal percentage of all of the top payers in the United States."
"I'd say one of the key themes that we hear time and time again across all of our clients and all of our partners is the need to build trust and the need to stay relevant and the need to personalize engagements with consumers, with patients, with members. I mean, let's face it, humans today, we've all been trained, or humans in the United States, at least, have all been trained to have a really personalized experience with their partners and their vendors. So they expect us to know them, they expect us to understand them, they expect us to know the needs, their unique set of circumstances that make them a human. And doing that within the appropriate confines of privacy regulation and requirements is really the job at hand for many of our clients."
"And it's not just with hospitals, payers honestly have, for the most part, ancient care management platforms and ancient claims processing platforms. And look, there are good reasons for that. I mean, we like to sort of point to that as a thing, but it's not been because of negligence, or it's not been because people didn't want to improve and modernize their technology and their infrastructure. There are good reasons why what exists today exists, and part of it is resources and costs for sure. But part of it also is risk, and the risk associated with losing data or not being able to pay your clinicians if you're a health plan, or respond to your members in a timely way if you're a health plan, or not even being able to operate your ER effectively."
#WebMD #AIforHealth #MedAI #PatientEducation #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #DigitalHealthInnovations #PersonalizedCare #EmpoweredPatients
webmdignite.com
Listen to the podcast here
Ann Bilyew, Executive VP of Health and Group General Manager at WebMD Ignite, works with hospitals, health systems, and payers to provide technology that builds trust, reduces administrative burdens on providers, and personalizes engagements with patients and members. While AI-powered solutions are showing great promise, challenges arise in deploying new technologies due to legacy infrastructure, interoperability issues, and the need to balance innovation with potential risks and costs. A strong foundation of high-quality, clinically reviewed content is key to the ability to provide accurate information on demand.
Ann explains, "We work with hospitals, health systems, payers, and essentially everybody involved in the provision or payment support in healthcare. And we work with 90% of US-based hospitals and health systems and about an equal percentage of all of the top payers in the United States."
"I'd say one of the key themes that we hear time and time again across all of our clients and all of our partners is the need to build trust and the need to stay relevant and the need to personalize engagements with consumers, with patients, with members. I mean, let's face it, humans today, we've all been trained, or humans in the United States, at least, have all been trained to have a really personalized experience with their partners and their vendors. So they expect us to know them, they expect us to understand them, they expect us to know the needs, their unique set of circumstances that make them a human. And doing that within the appropriate confines of privacy regulation and requirements is really the job at hand for many of our clients."
"And it's not just with hospitals, payers honestly have, for the most part, ancient care management platforms and ancient claims processing platforms. And look, there are good reasons for that. I mean, we like to sort of point to that as a thing, but it's not been because of negligence, or it's not been because people didn't want to improve and modernize their technology and their infrastructure. There are good reasons why what exists today exists, and part of it is resources and costs for sure. But part of it also is risk, and the risk associated with losing data or not being able to pay your clinicians if you're a health plan, or respond to your members in a timely way if you're a health plan, or not even being able to operate your ER effectively."
#WebMD #AIforHealth #MedAI #PatientEducation #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #DigitalHealthInnovations #PersonalizedCare #EmpoweredPatients
webmdignite.com
Download the transcript here
Greg Farnum, Senior VP and General Manager at Audacious Inquiry, a PointClickCare company, brings expertise in health information exchange, public health, and health IT policy. Audacious is using AI to reduce administrative burdens and improve clinical workflows, facilitating data exchange, enhancing decision-making, and providing a better patient experience. Working with the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and other federal and state agencies, Audacious is developing tools to summarize lengthy test results, generate educational materials, and suggest relevant responses to public inquiries.
Greg explains, "We have a full-stack engineering team, a managed services team, expertise in health IT policy and regulation, health IT standards, public health, and now artificial intelligence. So we work with ASTP (Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy), which is also known as the old ONCCDC, plus a bunch of other federal and state agencies, HIEs, and public health. We are part of PointClickCare, a leading health tech company with one simple mission -- to help providers deliver exceptional care across thousands of facilities."
"ASTP has some really interesting challenges that are perfect for AI. They're dealing with some complex data analysis challenges and the creation of content for industry and the public. They also respond to thousands of public inquiries yearly. So we're helping them with all of those things and leveraging AI tools to do that."
"I'll get a little more specific. Every year, hundreds of health IT organizations and developers submit these things they call testing results associated with their real-world test plans. But there's no standard format for this. So, ASTP staff have to manually read through each of these documents. And these are big documents. They can be 50 pages, they could be 200 pages, and the staff need to go through and figure out where the answers are to these specific questions. So we've built some AI tools that can read the entire document and automatically extract the answers using things like natural language processing and other AI components."
#PointClickCare #AudaciousInquiry #AI #MedAI #ResponsibleAI #AdministrativeBurdens #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #HealthcareRegulation #ClinicianBurnout #Clinicians
ainq.com
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Greg Farnum, Senior VP and General Manager at Audacious Inquiry, a PointClickCare company, brings expertise in health information exchange, public health, and health IT policy. Audacious is using AI to reduce administrative burdens and improve clinical workflows, facilitating data exchange, enhancing decision-making, and providing a better patient experience. Working with the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and other federal and state agencies, Audacious is developing tools to summarize lengthy test results, generate educational materials, and suggest relevant responses to public inquiries.
Greg explains, "We have a full-stack engineering team, a managed services team, expertise in health IT policy and regulation, health IT standards, public health, and now artificial intelligence. So we work with ASTP (Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy), which is also known as the old ONCCDC, plus a bunch of other federal and state agencies, HIEs, and public health. We are part of PointClickCare, a leading health tech company with one simple mission -- to help providers deliver exceptional care across thousands of facilities."
"ASTP has some really interesting challenges that are perfect for AI. They're dealing with some complex data analysis challenges and the creation of content for industry and the public. They also respond to thousands of public inquiries yearly. So we're helping them with all of those things and leveraging AI tools to do that."
"I'll get a little more specific. Every year, hundreds of health IT organizations and developers submit these things they call testing results associated with their real-world test plans. But there's no standard format for this. So, ASTP staff have to manually read through each of these documents. And these are big documents. They can be 50 pages, they could be 200 pages, and the staff need to go through and figure out where the answers are to these specific questions. So we've built some AI tools that can read the entire document and automatically extract the answers using things like natural language processing and other AI components."
#PointClickCare #AudaciousInquiry #AI #MedAI #ResponsibleAI #AdministrativeBurdens #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #HealthcareRegulation #ClinicianBurnout #Clinicians
ainq.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Abe Delpassand, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at RadioMedix, is concentrated on the development of radiopharmaceuticals for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Advancements in handling radioactive materials and increased availability have enabled the growth of the use of alpha-emitting and beta-emitting radioisotopes in treating cancers that have been resistant to other therapies. Alpha-emitting radioisotopes are particularly interesting because they can cause double-strand DNA damage in cancer cells, making the probability of cancer recurrence much less likely.
Abe explains, "Just a brief introduction related to what radiopharmaceuticals are. These are drugs that have three parts, basically. One part is the radioactive material. The second part is what we call a ligand. It's like a vehicle that takes the radioactive material to the target that we have. And there is a third component, which is like a chain attaching the radioisotope to the ligand. Radiopharmaceuticals qualify as a form of therapy because we target a specific receptor antigen metabolic pathway in cancer cells, and this is how we can reach the cancer cells. It has two components: one, diagnostic and therapeutic, which is very unique to this modality because in many other cancer therapies before the treatment, we don't have any way to make sure that the patient who is receiving the treatment, that actually the drug can reach the cancer the patient has."
"We have been talking about the value of alpha-emitters in delivering high level of radiation in a targeted fashion to the cancer cells, but we in the last, I'd say 10 years or more, we have learned how to handle these isotopes. That's one aspect of the science part. The other aspect is the availability of these isotopes. Now the supply of these isotopes is becoming a lot more, and they are becoming more available."
#RadioMedix #TeamRadioMedix #Radiopharmaceuticals #TargetedAlphaTherapy #OncologyInnovation #NuclearMedicine #CancerResearch #RadiogandTherapy #PrecisionOncology #Theranostics #SPICACenter #OncologyCommunity #AlphaEmittingRadioisotopes #BetaEmittingRadioisotopes
radiomedix.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Abe Delpassand, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at RadioMedix, is concentrated on the development of radiopharmaceuticals for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Advancements in handling radioactive materials and increased availability have enabled the growth of the use of alpha-emitting and beta-emitting radioisotopes in treating cancers that have been resistant to other therapies. Alpha-emitting radioisotopes are particularly interesting because they can cause double-strand DNA damage in cancer cells, making the probability of cancer recurrence much less likely.
Abe explains, "Just a brief introduction related to what radiopharmaceuticals are. These are drugs that have three parts, basically. One part is the radioactive material. The second part is what we call a ligand. It's like a vehicle that takes the radioactive material to the target that we have. And there is a third component, which is like a chain attaching the radioisotope to the ligand. Radiopharmaceuticals qualify as a form of therapy because we target a specific receptor antigen metabolic pathway in cancer cells, and this is how we can reach the cancer cells. It has two components: one, diagnostic and therapeutic, which is very unique to this modality because in many other cancer therapies before the treatment, we don't have any way to make sure that the patient who is receiving the treatment, that actually the drug can reach the cancer the patient has."
"We have been talking about the value of alpha-emitters in delivering high level of radiation in a targeted fashion to the cancer cells, but we in the last, I'd say 10 years or more, we have learned how to handle these isotopes. That's one aspect of the science part. The other aspect is the availability of these isotopes. Now the supply of these isotopes is becoming a lot more, and they are becoming more available."
#RadioMedix #TeamRadioMedix #Radiopharmaceuticals #TargetedAlphaTherapy #OncologyInnovation #NuclearMedicine #CancerResearch #RadiogandTherapy #PrecisionOncology #Theranostics #SPICACenter #OncologyCommunity #AlphaEmittingRadioisotopes #BetaEmittingRadioisotopes
radiomedix.com
Download the transcript here
Kurt Lunkwitz, Chief Operating Officer at ProRx Pharma, describes the role compound pharmacies play in filling gaps when certain drugs are in short supply and providing personalized medications for patients. Compound pharmacies offer a wide range of customized formulations and delivery methods to meet the specific needs of patients, particularly in the areas of functional and preventative medicines. These pharmacies are enabling a shift towards precision medicine and individualized care, responding to the market demand for alternative and preferred formulations of medications.
Kurt explains, "There's primary clientele and then there's secondary clientele. Our primary clientele includes a host of prescribers, medical clinics, and could be telemedicine-type companies, and med spas. There are tens of thousands of these types of practitioner offices across the country, and it's a wide and booming industry as it relates to functional medicine, alternative medicine, or as we like to refer to it, preventative care. And the secondary customer would be the patient themselves. So the medications that ProRx is compounding would be ordered through these physicians' offices, these practices, and for their particular patient and customer base."
"One of the primary functions in the role of a 503 B outsourcing facility, or a number of them across the country, is to step in and fill this gap. If the primary manufacturer, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, has a disruption in the supply chain, or simply just can't keep up with the demand."
"If we want to take a look at one of the largest supply chain gaps that has existed, and it's been a very popular topic of conversation here more recently, this would relate a lot to some of the GLP-1 medications, both semaglutide and tirzepatide. So these were two medications that ProRx participated in and helped to fill the shortage gap. There were a handful of months where ProRx went into production, and we helped to fill tens of thousands of prescriptions for patients of medical necessity who badly needed these medications."
#ProRxPharma #CompoundPharmacy #DrugShortageList
prorxpharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kurt Lunkwitz, Chief Operating Officer at ProRx Pharma, describes the role compound pharmacies play in filling gaps when certain drugs are in short supply and providing personalized medications for patients. Compound pharmacies offer a wide range of customized formulations and delivery methods to meet the specific needs of patients, particularly in the areas of functional and preventative medicines. These pharmacies are enabling a shift towards precision medicine and individualized care, responding to the market demand for alternative and preferred formulations of medications.
Kurt explains, "There's primary clientele and then there's secondary clientele. Our primary clientele includes a host of prescribers, medical clinics, and could be telemedicine-type companies, and med spas. There are tens of thousands of these types of practitioner offices across the country, and it's a wide and booming industry as it relates to functional medicine, alternative medicine, or as we like to refer to it, preventative care. And the secondary customer would be the patient themselves. So the medications that ProRx is compounding would be ordered through these physicians' offices, these practices, and for their particular patient and customer base."
"One of the primary functions in the role of a 503 B outsourcing facility, or a number of them across the country, is to step in and fill this gap. If the primary manufacturer, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, has a disruption in the supply chain, or simply just can't keep up with the demand."
"If we want to take a look at one of the largest supply chain gaps that has existed, and it's been a very popular topic of conversation here more recently, this would relate a lot to some of the GLP-1 medications, both semaglutide and tirzepatide. So these were two medications that ProRx participated in and helped to fill the shortage gap. There were a handful of months where ProRx went into production, and we helped to fill tens of thousands of prescriptions for patients of medical necessity who badly needed these medications."
#ProRxPharma #CompoundPharmacy #DrugShortageList
prorxpharma.com
Download the transcript here
Amanda Wiggins is CEO of cGP Lab, a New Zealand-based company that is commercializing cycline Glycine Proline, cGP, a dipeptide molecule that helps regulate blood vessel formation. The Lab is pursuing a medical food regulatory pathway to bring its cGP-based products to the market for the dietary management of peripheral neuropathy and other vascular complications of type 2 diabetes and is exploring the potential for Parkinson's disease and other dementias. The Lab sources cGP from a combination of New Zealand blackcurrant and beef bone collagen using a proprietary manufacturing process.
Amanda explains, "The cGP Lab is a relatively new company. We were formed in 2020, and our mission is really to commercialize a really interesting dipeptide molecule called cycline Glycine Proline, or cGP for short. Although we're new to commercializing it, there's quite a huge body of evidence that sits behind where we've got today. Our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Jian Guan, has researched cGP for around 30 years. It's her life's work. What makes it really interesting is that cGP exists in all of our bodies. It's an endogenous molecule, but it also exists in some food sources. So we've identified those food sources and we've created a manufacturing process to create a standardized cGP ingredient that we use in our supplement range."
"Like many companies, we were actually founded on somewhat of a serendipitous discovery. So, back in 2016, the founders of the company had done a clinical trial on Parkinson's patients. And in that trial, they'd given the patients capsules containing blackcurrant extract because they were interested in whether blackcurrant extract, which is high in anthocyanins, could address some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease."
"What we've ended up with now is a proprietary manufacturing process that combines New Zealand blackcurrants together with beef bone collagen. And we put those two together through a prolonged heating process. And what happens is that the amino acids, glycine and proline, when subject to heat or, even better, heat and pressure, will cyclise and form the cGP. So it's really that manufacturing process that brings out the cGP. And in that initial Parkinson's study, the level of cGP was actually quite low because that heating process hadn't been done for long enough. So we've come a long way in learning how to make cGP, and it really comes from that combination of New Zealand blackcurrant together with the collagen peptides."
"So, where we're seeing it being most useful is right at the start of a peripheral neuropathy diagnosis. So patients often, well, I know in the US anyway, foot checks are generally done annually for people with type 2 diabetes. It's a bit different here in New Zealand. And so that should hopefully pick up the first inklings that someone's starting to develop peripheral neuropathy. And what the path to market that we're seeing for our innovation is called the medical food category, which is a bit different."
#cGPLab #cGP #MedicalFood #DiabeticPeripheralNeuropathy
cGPmax.com
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Amanda Wiggins is CEO of cGP Lab, a New Zealand-based company that is commercializing cycline Glycine Proline, cGP, a dipeptide molecule that helps regulate blood vessel formation. The Lab is pursuing a medical food regulatory pathway to bring its cGP-based products to the market for the dietary management of peripheral neuropathy and other vascular complications of type 2 diabetes and is exploring the potential for Parkinson's disease and other dementias. The Lab sources cGP from a combination of New Zealand blackcurrant and beef bone collagen using a proprietary manufacturing process.
Amanda explains, "The cGP Lab is a relatively new company. We were formed in 2020, and our mission is really to commercialize a really interesting dipeptide molecule called cycline Glycine Proline, or cGP for short. Although we're new to commercializing it, there's quite a huge body of evidence that sits behind where we've got today. Our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Jian Guan, has researched cGP for around 30 years. It's her life's work. What makes it really interesting is that cGP exists in all of our bodies. It's an endogenous molecule, but it also exists in some food sources. So we've identified those food sources and we've created a manufacturing process to create a standardized cGP ingredient that we use in our supplement range."
"Like many companies, we were actually founded on somewhat of a serendipitous discovery. So, back in 2016, the founders of the company had done a clinical trial on Parkinson's patients. And in that trial, they'd given the patients capsules containing blackcurrant extract because they were interested in whether blackcurrant extract, which is high in anthocyanins, could address some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease."
"What we've ended up with now is a proprietary manufacturing process that combines New Zealand blackcurrants together with beef bone collagen. And we put those two together through a prolonged heating process. And what happens is that the amino acids, glycine and proline, when subject to heat or, even better, heat and pressure, will cyclise and form the cGP. So it's really that manufacturing process that brings out the cGP. And in that initial Parkinson's study, the level of cGP was actually quite low because that heating process hadn't been done for long enough. So we've come a long way in learning how to make cGP, and it really comes from that combination of New Zealand blackcurrant together with the collagen peptides."
"So, where we're seeing it being most useful is right at the start of a peripheral neuropathy diagnosis. So patients often, well, I know in the US anyway, foot checks are generally done annually for people with type 2 diabetes. It's a bit different here in New Zealand. And so that should hopefully pick up the first inklings that someone's starting to develop peripheral neuropathy. And what the path to market that we're seeing for our innovation is called the medical food category, which is a bit different."
#cGPLab #cGP #MedicalFood #DiabeticPeripheralNeuropathy
cGPmax.com
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Dan Nardi, the CEO of Reimagine Care, is using a technology-enabled platform to support cancer patients and clinicians to extend care beyond the clinic and address the unique challenges of cancer treatments. The evolving landscape of cancer therapies and rise of oral and subcutaneous methods of delivering drug has increased the need for remote patient support and medication management. The use of AI and digital tools provide significant opportunities to help triage patient questions and reports of side effects to provide necessary, timely support from clinicians.
Dan explains, "At Reimagine Care, we focus on helping to support providers as they are providing care for patients going through cancer treatment. We built an on-demand cancer care platform that combines technology and an oncology-trained clinical care team. Then we partner with our providers, our oncologists around the country, to help them extend the really great care that they provide for patients in the clinic. We help them extend that and support those patients 98% of their time when they are outside of the clinic. And so that's what we've built, and we've been at this for a handful of years and are very excited about the continued progress."
"The uniqueness really stems from the fact that we call it cancer, but it's a combination of so many different types of that disease, and there's so much uniqueness in each one of the diagnoses and the treatment plan. It's not an easy one-size-fits-all model that some of healthcare has. Knee replacements and hip replacements are fairly straightforward and have been done somewhat the same for decades now. But when it comes to cancer, there's so many different factors that go into it, and as we've had such an increase in more of the personalized medicine and the oral oncolytics and the other treatment plans, it's become a lot for not only the patients, but also the providers and the care team to keep up. And so being able to use technology to help bridge that gap has been really impactful."
#ReimagineCare #EmpoweredPatient #DigitalHealth #AIinOncology #PatientCenteredCare #HealthEquity #MedStarHealth #PatientEmpowerment
reimaginecare.com
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Dan Nardi, the CEO of Reimagine Care, is using a technology-enabled platform to support cancer patients and clinicians to extend care beyond the clinic and address the unique challenges of cancer treatments. The evolving landscape of cancer therapies and rise of oral and subcutaneous methods of delivering drug has increased the need for remote patient support and medication management. The use of AI and digital tools provide significant opportunities to help triage patient questions and reports of side effects to provide necessary, timely support from clinicians.
Dan explains, "At Reimagine Care, we focus on helping to support providers as they are providing care for patients going through cancer treatment. We built an on-demand cancer care platform that combines technology and an oncology-trained clinical care team. Then we partner with our providers, our oncologists around the country, to help them extend the really great care that they provide for patients in the clinic. We help them extend that and support those patients 98% of their time when they are outside of the clinic. And so that's what we've built, and we've been at this for a handful of years and are very excited about the continued progress."
"The uniqueness really stems from the fact that we call it cancer, but it's a combination of so many different types of that disease, and there's so much uniqueness in each one of the diagnoses and the treatment plan. It's not an easy one-size-fits-all model that some of healthcare has. Knee replacements and hip replacements are fairly straightforward and have been done somewhat the same for decades now. But when it comes to cancer, there's so many different factors that go into it, and as we've had such an increase in more of the personalized medicine and the oral oncolytics and the other treatment plans, it's become a lot for not only the patients, but also the providers and the care team to keep up. And so being able to use technology to help bridge that gap has been really impactful."
#ReimagineCare #EmpoweredPatient #DigitalHealth #AIinOncology #PatientCenteredCare #HealthEquity #MedStarHealth #PatientEmpowerment
reimaginecare.com
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Dr. Eden Miller is an osteopathic board-certified family practitioner, a type 1 diabetic, and Founder of the nonprofit organization Diabetes Nation. The guidelines for injection technique have not been updated in 10 years, and poor injection can lead to improper medication absorption and other complications. The recently released FITTER Forward Guidelines address established approaches for clinicians and patients to improve injection practices, especially for those using injectable therapies such as insulin or GLP-1 agonists. This initiative was brought together by embecta, which worked with Dr. Miller and other experts to revise the guidelines.
Eden explains, "So the FITTER Forward Guidelines are taking the concept of injection technique and injection instruction, and giving it a fresh new look, a new peering back into something that many of us as clinicians kind of feel that we have nailed down. But what we have found with looking into communicating with patients, how to do injections, and how to maximize their technique, we needed to revisit it. So we convened a consensus of experts across many different disciplines of medicine, as well as engineers. We took a look at the data, took a look at the person who's using injection techniques, especially in the field of diabetes, either with insulin or with non-insulin agents. We gave it a fresh new look to help clinicians empower their patients to achieve the best possible results with injectable therapies."
"I think it spans the gamut. We always want to start people out on the right foot. The FITTER Forward Guidelines and resources are going to be a great way for our clinicians to freshen up. So when they do have a new patient who is very naive to injection technique, they may have a lot of barriers or preconceived ideas that really get in the way. They think it's going to hurt. They think it's hard to do. They don't know what to do with clothing. They think they have to go into the bathroom to get it done. So we have opportunities both for new users, but we also have the opportunity to go back to established users. "
#FITTERForward #Diabetes #Embecta #InjectionTechnique
DiabetesNation.com
embecta.com
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Dr. Eden Miller is an osteopathic board-certified family practitioner, a type 1 diabetic, and Founder of the nonprofit organization Diabetes Nation. The guidelines for injection technique have not been updated in 10 years, and poor injection can lead to improper medication absorption and other complications. The recently released FITTER Forward Guidelines address established approaches for clinicians and patients to improve injection practices, especially for those using injectable therapies such as insulin or GLP-1 agonists. This initiative was brought together by embecta, which worked with Dr. Miller and other experts to revise the guidelines.
Eden explains, "So the FITTER Forward Guidelines are taking the concept of injection technique and injection instruction, and giving it a fresh new look, a new peering back into something that many of us as clinicians kind of feel that we have nailed down. But what we have found with looking into communicating with patients, how to do injections, and how to maximize their technique, we needed to revisit it. So we convened a consensus of experts across many different disciplines of medicine, as well as engineers. We took a look at the data, took a look at the person who's using injection techniques, especially in the field of diabetes, either with insulin or with non-insulin agents. We gave it a fresh new look to help clinicians empower their patients to achieve the best possible results with injectable therapies."
"I think it spans the gamut. We always want to start people out on the right foot. The FITTER Forward Guidelines and resources are going to be a great way for our clinicians to freshen up. So when they do have a new patient who is very naive to injection technique, they may have a lot of barriers or preconceived ideas that really get in the way. They think it's going to hurt. They think it's hard to do. They don't know what to do with clothing. They think they have to go into the bathroom to get it done. So we have opportunities both for new users, but we also have the opportunity to go back to established users. "
#FITTERForward #Diabetes #Embecta #InjectionTechnique
DiabetesNation.com
embecta.com
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Dr. Jay Anders, Chief Medical Officer at Medicomp Systems, discusses the issue of dirty data — inaccurate and inconsistent medical data — and its origins, as well as how technology can be used to maintain correct health records. These kinds of errors can lead to incorrect diagnoses, inappropriate treatment, and negative consequences for patients, providers, and payers. AI and other technologies are being leveraged to help identify and flag inconsistencies, providing stakeholders with the tools to prioritize accuracy over efficiency.
Jay explains, "What we do at Medicomp is a clinical knowledge engine with a knowledge graph that's built in that helps clinicians document, sort data, and clean up data. That engine was developed 46 years ago, and it's been done over again in different iterations for those 46 years. We're now incorporating new technologies inside of it to make it more efficient. But we handle medical data in documentation, presentation, and cleanup."
"Well, dirty data has been around since physicians got a chisel and a hammer and etched it in a rock. Because if you think about the old days of dictation, when physicians didn't follow what they dictated or read it very carefully, things got into that medical record that may or may not be correct. What I mean by dirty data is, does the documentation of that patient's data actually represent what's going on with the patient?"
"The other thing that happens, and it's happening more now with ambient listing technologies and other things, is that a family history of a terminal disease will all of a sudden be applied to the patient that's in front of you. So my father had Alzheimer's, now I have Alzheimer's, and it gets into the medical record that way. Gender changes. I have seen this back in the days of dictation, where he turns to her and back and forth again in the same note, which is obviously not correct. So when I say dirty data, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Basically, it's incorrect or misconstrued, and it gets propagated through the medical record, and with interoperability, that medical record tends to follow you everywhere you go now, and getting rid of some of that is a daunting task at best."
#Medicomp #MedAI #MedicalRecords #PatientInformation #EHR
medicomp.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Jay Anders, Chief Medical Officer at Medicomp Systems, discusses the issue of dirty data — inaccurate and inconsistent medical data — and its origins, as well as how technology can be used to maintain correct health records. These kinds of errors can lead to incorrect diagnoses, inappropriate treatment, and negative consequences for patients, providers, and payers. AI and other technologies are being leveraged to help identify and flag inconsistencies, providing stakeholders with the tools to prioritize accuracy over efficiency.
Jay explains, "What we do at Medicomp is a clinical knowledge engine with a knowledge graph that's built in that helps clinicians document, sort data, and clean up data. That engine was developed 46 years ago, and it's been done over again in different iterations for those 46 years. We're now incorporating new technologies inside of it to make it more efficient. But we handle medical data in documentation, presentation, and cleanup."
"Well, dirty data has been around since physicians got a chisel and a hammer and etched it in a rock. Because if you think about the old days of dictation, when physicians didn't follow what they dictated or read it very carefully, things got into that medical record that may or may not be correct. What I mean by dirty data is, does the documentation of that patient's data actually represent what's going on with the patient?"
"The other thing that happens, and it's happening more now with ambient listing technologies and other things, is that a family history of a terminal disease will all of a sudden be applied to the patient that's in front of you. So my father had Alzheimer's, now I have Alzheimer's, and it gets into the medical record that way. Gender changes. I have seen this back in the days of dictation, where he turns to her and back and forth again in the same note, which is obviously not correct. So when I say dirty data, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Basically, it's incorrect or misconstrued, and it gets propagated through the medical record, and with interoperability, that medical record tends to follow you everywhere you go now, and getting rid of some of that is a daunting task at best."
#Medicomp #MedAI #MedicalRecords #PatientInformation #EHR
medicomp.com
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Doug Ryan, CEO of Arineta, describes the advancements in cardiac CT imaging technology and how their ultra-fast scanning is revealing more accurate and higher-quality imaging of the heart. Using wide-area coverage and deep learning image reconstruction, the Arineta platform can detect arterial occlusions and coronary plaque buildup, which is a significant risk factor for sudden cardiac events and is often missed when relying solely on calcium scoring. The development of a mobile cardiac CT scanning unit is improving access to this technology, particularly in rural and underserved areas.
Doug explains, "What you're trying to do is to stop the most complex organ inside the human body. The human heart translates, rotates, and beats somewhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute. So you really need advanced CT technology that comprises a great many areas, but the most important things are coverage speed and the ability to reconstruct it very quickly."
"You're using advanced algorithms like our DLIR, our deep learning image reconstruction, which focuses on high-contrast, high-spatial, low-noise reconstructions that can then be put into what we call a multiplanar format. So you can look at these coronary arteries from all angles and do the diagnostic."
"So it's actually a combination of several things. Ultra FAST is, of course, very important because you are literally trying to stop a bird mid-flight and get an accurate picture of it, but it's also the ability to encompass and see the entire heart in a single rotation. So, one of the secrets of the SpotLight and SpotLight Duo is both the ultra-fast rotation and the wide area coverage that we get with our detector system."
#Arineta #CTImaging #CardiovascularDiagnostics #Cardiology #DeepLearningImageReconstruction
Arineta.com
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Doug Ryan, CEO of Arineta, describes the advancements in cardiac CT imaging technology and how their ultra-fast scanning is revealing more accurate and higher-quality imaging of the heart. Using wide-area coverage and deep learning image reconstruction, the Arineta platform can detect arterial occlusions and coronary plaque buildup, which is a significant risk factor for sudden cardiac events and is often missed when relying solely on calcium scoring. The development of a mobile cardiac CT scanning unit is improving access to this technology, particularly in rural and underserved areas.
Doug explains, "What you're trying to do is to stop the most complex organ inside the human body. The human heart translates, rotates, and beats somewhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute. So you really need advanced CT technology that comprises a great many areas, but the most important things are coverage speed and the ability to reconstruct it very quickly."
"You're using advanced algorithms like our DLIR, our deep learning image reconstruction, which focuses on high-contrast, high-spatial, low-noise reconstructions that can then be put into what we call a multiplanar format. So you can look at these coronary arteries from all angles and do the diagnostic."
"So it's actually a combination of several things. Ultra FAST is, of course, very important because you are literally trying to stop a bird mid-flight and get an accurate picture of it, but it's also the ability to encompass and see the entire heart in a single rotation. So, one of the secrets of the SpotLight and SpotLight Duo is both the ultra-fast rotation and the wide area coverage that we get with our detector system."
#Arineta #CTImaging #CardiovascularDiagnostics #Cardiology #DeepLearningImageReconstruction
Arineta.com
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Kory Daniels, Chief Information Security Officer at Trustwave, highlights the unique cybersecurity challenges facing the healthcare industry, particularly in this environment of funding constraints and the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks. Healthcare data is highly valuable to cybercriminals, who can use it for ransomware attacks, identity and insurance fraud, and other nefarious purposes. AI can be part of both the attack and the solution, helping to build in more cyber resilience and awareness about vulnerabilities.
Kory explains, "Healthcare is a prime target for cyberattacks for a very fundamental reason. When human lives are at risk due to a criminal objective—which is to make money—they view organizations where human lives are at risk as a greater potential and opportunity. Facilitation of ransomware payments: Ransomware is one of the largest tactics that criminals use to achieve financial gain, but it's not the only tactic they use to achieve financial gain. So, they're looking to exploit the fear and uncertainty, putting patient lives at risk and adding complexity to patient care through their nefarious actions. But also, healthcare data is very attractive for cybercriminals, and just criminal activity in general. And why that is, is that criminals are looking at healthcare data even more so—it's more valuable than driver's license data."
"Look at the opportunity of what you can do with healthcare records, and what can you do with PII, Personally Identifiable Information. Threat actors are tapping into this data in several different ways to achieve the additional financial gain above and beyond targeting a healthcare organization with a ransomware attack."
"But they're also committing fraud, and fraud toward healthcare insurers, and looking at submitting false claims, fraud against the prescription drug industry in terms of soliciting and looking to obtain prescription drugs through nefarious means, but utilizing data and identity data that comes from hospital and healthcare records. There are a variety of different ways that we've just scratched the surface on, which make the healthcare industry such a desirable target for those seeking to achieve financial gain in the criminal industry."
#Trustwave #Cybersecurity #CyberAttacks #HealthcareSecurity #HealthcareIT #CISOInsights
trustwave.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kory Daniels, Chief Information Security Officer at Trustwave, highlights the unique cybersecurity challenges facing the healthcare industry, particularly in this environment of funding constraints and the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks. Healthcare data is highly valuable to cybercriminals, who can use it for ransomware attacks, identity and insurance fraud, and other nefarious purposes. AI can be part of both the attack and the solution, helping to build in more cyber resilience and awareness about vulnerabilities.
Kory explains, "Healthcare is a prime target for cyberattacks for a very fundamental reason. When human lives are at risk due to a criminal objective—which is to make money—they view organizations where human lives are at risk as a greater potential and opportunity. Facilitation of ransomware payments: Ransomware is one of the largest tactics that criminals use to achieve financial gain, but it's not the only tactic they use to achieve financial gain. So, they're looking to exploit the fear and uncertainty, putting patient lives at risk and adding complexity to patient care through their nefarious actions. But also, healthcare data is very attractive for cybercriminals, and just criminal activity in general. And why that is, is that criminals are looking at healthcare data even more so—it's more valuable than driver's license data."
"Look at the opportunity of what you can do with healthcare records, and what can you do with PII, Personally Identifiable Information. Threat actors are tapping into this data in several different ways to achieve the additional financial gain above and beyond targeting a healthcare organization with a ransomware attack."
"But they're also committing fraud, and fraud toward healthcare insurers, and looking at submitting false claims, fraud against the prescription drug industry in terms of soliciting and looking to obtain prescription drugs through nefarious means, but utilizing data and identity data that comes from hospital and healthcare records. There are a variety of different ways that we've just scratched the surface on, which make the healthcare industry such a desirable target for those seeking to achieve financial gain in the criminal industry."
#Trustwave #Cybersecurity #CyberAttacks #HealthcareSecurity #HealthcareIT #CISOInsights
trustwave.com
Download the transcript here
Matt Brown, VP of Telehealth at Advisory Services at CHG Healthcare, discusses the current state and future of telehealth, including the rapid adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of technology and AI in enhancing telehealth experiences, and how telehealth can help address physician and nurse burnout. Improved internet access, mobile device usage, and consumer preferences for convenience have driven the increasing telehealth usage for initial visits, follow-up appointments, and chronic care management.
Matt explains, "We are the nation's largest staffing agency. So, we're actually the founders of what's known as the locum tenens marketplace. CHG has been a pioneer in bringing physician services into remote and rural locations across the United States for the past four years. And over the last 10 years or so, we've continued to innovate on top of that physician-led experience and started to bring technology operations, as well as consulting services and telehealth, into the marketplace. So think of us as providing a broad array of staffing services, but also on top of that, technology and operations, and consulting that help the largest health systems in the country manage their physician workforce."
"It's been widely adopted since the pandemic. If you think about coming out of the pandemic, a lot of our health systems and hospitals were really forced to do a few things. One, they really had to upgrade a lot of their infrastructure and technology. So that meant that they were bringing broadband access into their hospitals. They started to think about how they could deliver care to their patients more remotely. And as they were doing a lot of these technology upgrades, they also started to address patients more like consumers. So I think that there was a big shift that started to take place in consumer services, starting to look like healthcare services."
"About that same time, you had a number of very large retail-focused, consumer-focused companies start to enter into the healthcare marketplace. So these are folks like Amazon, you have CVS and Walgreens, and now you've had a number of companies like Hims and Hers, and all of those are entering into the healthcare ecosystem through telehealth as a channel. So, as we've seen this increased infrastructure, this improvement in infrastructure, as well as consumerization of healthcare, continue to accelerate after the pandemic, and now we have more of this consumer-centric focus coming from a retail perspective."
#CHFGHealthcare #MedAI #DigitalHealth #PatientAccess #Telehealth #PhysicianBurnout #ClinicianBurnout
CHGHealthcare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Matt Brown, VP of Telehealth at Advisory Services at CHG Healthcare, discusses the current state and future of telehealth, including the rapid adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of technology and AI in enhancing telehealth experiences, and how telehealth can help address physician and nurse burnout. Improved internet access, mobile device usage, and consumer preferences for convenience have driven the increasing telehealth usage for initial visits, follow-up appointments, and chronic care management.
Matt explains, "We are the nation's largest staffing agency. So, we're actually the founders of what's known as the locum tenens marketplace. CHG has been a pioneer in bringing physician services into remote and rural locations across the United States for the past four years. And over the last 10 years or so, we've continued to innovate on top of that physician-led experience and started to bring technology operations, as well as consulting services and telehealth, into the marketplace. So think of us as providing a broad array of staffing services, but also on top of that, technology and operations, and consulting that help the largest health systems in the country manage their physician workforce."
"It's been widely adopted since the pandemic. If you think about coming out of the pandemic, a lot of our health systems and hospitals were really forced to do a few things. One, they really had to upgrade a lot of their infrastructure and technology. So that meant that they were bringing broadband access into their hospitals. They started to think about how they could deliver care to their patients more remotely. And as they were doing a lot of these technology upgrades, they also started to address patients more like consumers. So I think that there was a big shift that started to take place in consumer services, starting to look like healthcare services."
"About that same time, you had a number of very large retail-focused, consumer-focused companies start to enter into the healthcare marketplace. So these are folks like Amazon, you have CVS and Walgreens, and now you've had a number of companies like Hims and Hers, and all of those are entering into the healthcare ecosystem through telehealth as a channel. So, as we've seen this increased infrastructure, this improvement in infrastructure, as well as consumerization of healthcare, continue to accelerate after the pandemic, and now we have more of this consumer-centric focus coming from a retail perspective."
#CHFGHealthcare #MedAI #DigitalHealth #PatientAccess #Telehealth #PhysicianBurnout #ClinicianBurnout
CHGHealthcare.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Chuck Link is the Executive Chairman of Syncromune, a company developing a novel immunotherapy approach for solid tumors by delivering the therapy into the tumor and surrounding lymph nodes to stimulate a systemic immune response. Their complex drug has four different components with varying levels of activity that activate the immune system and counteract immune suppression. This in situ immunotherapy technology, SYNC-T, was tested in a phase 1 trial for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, which showed high response rates and a favorable safety profile with low rates of serious side effects and minimal autoimmune toxicity.
Chuck explains, "So, SYNC-T is a technology in which you put a needle directly into a tumor that can be done by a urologist in the prostate cancer situation, or by an interventional radiologist. That needle then the tip of it freezes, and does a freeze fracture. Think of a Coke bottle rupturing like in the freezer. And what that does is release the antigens from that patient's own specific tumor. So, it's personalized because the tumor proteins and antigens are used to create a vaccine effect that's released directly from the cancer."
"The tumor microenvironment is basically within the tumor itself, and there are immune suppressive mechanisms that the tumor has evolved to protect it from the immune system. I like to think of it as a castle, multiple levels of defense where you have the castle itself, and then you have a castle wall, and then you have a moat, and then an army in front of the wall. So the cancer has multiple immune-suppressive mechanisms that are activated to defeat the immune system, even though cancer has a lot of abnormal, mutated proteins that the immune system should attack and destroy. So what SYNC-T accomplishes is it basically hits solutions for all four of those types of defense simultaneously to make it more difficult for the castle, in this case, the tumor, to protect itself."
#Syncromune #Immunotherapy #MetastaticSolidTumors #Cancer #ProstateCancer
syncromune.com
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Dr. Chuck Link is the Executive Chairman of Syncromune, a company developing a novel immunotherapy approach for solid tumors by delivering the therapy into the tumor and surrounding lymph nodes to stimulate a systemic immune response. Their complex drug has four different components with varying levels of activity that activate the immune system and counteract immune suppression. This in situ immunotherapy technology, SYNC-T, was tested in a phase 1 trial for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, which showed high response rates and a favorable safety profile with low rates of serious side effects and minimal autoimmune toxicity.
Chuck explains, "So, SYNC-T is a technology in which you put a needle directly into a tumor that can be done by a urologist in the prostate cancer situation, or by an interventional radiologist. That needle then the tip of it freezes, and does a freeze fracture. Think of a Coke bottle rupturing like in the freezer. And what that does is release the antigens from that patient's own specific tumor. So, it's personalized because the tumor proteins and antigens are used to create a vaccine effect that's released directly from the cancer."
"The tumor microenvironment is basically within the tumor itself, and there are immune suppressive mechanisms that the tumor has evolved to protect it from the immune system. I like to think of it as a castle, multiple levels of defense where you have the castle itself, and then you have a castle wall, and then you have a moat, and then an army in front of the wall. So the cancer has multiple immune-suppressive mechanisms that are activated to defeat the immune system, even though cancer has a lot of abnormal, mutated proteins that the immune system should attack and destroy. So what SYNC-T accomplishes is it basically hits solutions for all four of those types of defense simultaneously to make it more difficult for the castle, in this case, the tumor, to protect itself."
#Syncromune #Immunotherapy #MetastaticSolidTumors #Cancer #ProstateCancer
syncromune.com
Download the transcript here
David Sontag, CEO and Co-Founder of Layer Health, describes the environment of chart reviews in healthcare and how AI and large language models can be used to analyze a patient's medical record to extract key clinical details. Applying natural language processing to medical records has been challenging due to the complexity of the language and the longitudinal nature of the data. This large language approach from Layer can enhance clinical decision-making, quality measurement, regulatory compliance, and patient outcomes.
David explains, "Every patient will have experienced a chart review at some point. Whether it's when they've come home from a medical visit and go to their electronic medical record to look at the notes written by their providers. Or it's been experienced in the patient room, in the doctor’s room, watching a clinician review the past medical records to try to get a better context of what's going on with that patient, so that's from the patient’s perspective."
"The same thing happens everywhere else in healthcare. So, chart review is the process of analyzing a patient's medical record to extract key clinical details. You can imagine going through clinical notes, lab results, imaging reports, and medical history, trying to create that complete and accurate picture of the patient's health. And it's used everywhere for measuring quality, for improving the financial performance of health system providers, and for regulatory compliance."
"Some aspects of natural language understanding from patients' medical records have been attempted for well over a decade, and these approaches have been typically very surface-level. So look at a single note, try to answer a relatively simplistic question from that note, but the grand challenge has always been one of how do we mimic the type of reasoning that a physician would do where they would be looking at a patient's longitudinal medical record across many notes trying to piece together data from not just from the unstructured but also the structured data."
#LayerHealth #ClinicalAI #AIinHealthcare #MedicalChartReview #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalResearch #LLMsinHealthcare
layerhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
David Sontag, CEO and Co-Founder of Layer Health, describes the environment of chart reviews in healthcare and how AI and large language models can be used to analyze a patient's medical record to extract key clinical details. Applying natural language processing to medical records has been challenging due to the complexity of the language and the longitudinal nature of the data. This large language approach from Layer can enhance clinical decision-making, quality measurement, regulatory compliance, and patient outcomes.
David explains, "Every patient will have experienced a chart review at some point. Whether it's when they've come home from a medical visit and go to their electronic medical record to look at the notes written by their providers. Or it's been experienced in the patient room, in the doctor’s room, watching a clinician review the past medical records to try to get a better context of what's going on with that patient, so that's from the patient’s perspective."
"The same thing happens everywhere else in healthcare. So, chart review is the process of analyzing a patient's medical record to extract key clinical details. You can imagine going through clinical notes, lab results, imaging reports, and medical history, trying to create that complete and accurate picture of the patient's health. And it's used everywhere for measuring quality, for improving the financial performance of health system providers, and for regulatory compliance."
"Some aspects of natural language understanding from patients' medical records have been attempted for well over a decade, and these approaches have been typically very surface-level. So look at a single note, try to answer a relatively simplistic question from that note, but the grand challenge has always been one of how do we mimic the type of reasoning that a physician would do where they would be looking at a patient's longitudinal medical record across many notes trying to piece together data from not just from the unstructured but also the structured data."
#LayerHealth #ClinicalAI #AIinHealthcare #MedicalChartReview #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalResearch #LLMsinHealthcare
layerhealth.com
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Alexandra Paul is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Accolade, a company that provides comprehensive healthcare for its members by integrating digital health solutions and leveraging AI. The company focuses on addressing the healthcare needs of underserved communities, such as truck drivers, and provides 24/7/365 access to virtual care. The Experience Store and WayFinding navigator utilizes AI and large language models to deliver real-time, chat-based guidance and personalized treatment options based on plan benefits.
Alexandra explains, "What's really important for us is ensuring that we are targeting the right buyer who can help us really get in front of members to help them navigate a complex healthcare experience. Our core foundation is being the one place to go for health and care. And so, whether that's through a health plan offering or whether that's through an employer benefit offering, we've truly become kind of that front door experience and what we call WayFinding, which is our AI-powered solution to help members get the right care."
"We're very excited about the Experience Store that we just launched, and a big part of that is making sure that we tap into technology. So, as we think about how we can provide this comprehensive care experience and this one place to go for health and care for members, we have been heavily focused on investing in AI and technology systems that make this care experience easier. A lot of that is really just thinking about large language models. So, members in their chat function can type in a question that AI in the new world, which feels so much like a person, can answer and provide real-time guidance to that member."
#Accolade #DigitalHealth #HealthcareBenefits #Healthcare #PersonalizedCare #HealthTech
accolade.com
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Alexandra Paul is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Accolade, a company that provides comprehensive healthcare for its members by integrating digital health solutions and leveraging AI. The company focuses on addressing the healthcare needs of underserved communities, such as truck drivers, and provides 24/7/365 access to virtual care. The Experience Store and WayFinding navigator utilizes AI and large language models to deliver real-time, chat-based guidance and personalized treatment options based on plan benefits.
Alexandra explains, "What's really important for us is ensuring that we are targeting the right buyer who can help us really get in front of members to help them navigate a complex healthcare experience. Our core foundation is being the one place to go for health and care. And so, whether that's through a health plan offering or whether that's through an employer benefit offering, we've truly become kind of that front door experience and what we call WayFinding, which is our AI-powered solution to help members get the right care."
"We're very excited about the Experience Store that we just launched, and a big part of that is making sure that we tap into technology. So, as we think about how we can provide this comprehensive care experience and this one place to go for health and care for members, we have been heavily focused on investing in AI and technology systems that make this care experience easier. A lot of that is really just thinking about large language models. So, members in their chat function can type in a question that AI in the new world, which feels so much like a person, can answer and provide real-time guidance to that member."
#Accolade #DigitalHealth #HealthcareBenefits #Healthcare #PersonalizedCare #HealthTech
accolade.com
Download the transcript here
Julio Martinez-Clark, Co-Founder and CEO of Bioaccess, a Latin American MedTech CRO that works with US-based medtech and biopharma startups to conduct their first-in-human trials outside the US to accelerate development and recruitment. Data from overseas clinical trials conducted to international standards is considered valid and can support conversations with investors, strategic partners, and the FDA. Drawing on resources in the Balkans, Latin America, and Australia, clinical trials can get faster approvals, more easily recruit patients, and benefit those living in the communities where clinical trials are conducted.
Julio explains, "The mission is to accelerate global clinical trials, and the type of clients is mostly us. Occasionally, we have European clients, but they're mostly San Francisco-based, Boston-based, San Diego-based, Minnesota-based, or Boston-based companies that are looking to execute a first-in-human clinical study outside of the United States. And for many reasons, Latin America is an obvious choice, at least for the exploratory phase. When they're looking for different countries, they usually explore Eastern Europe, Australia, and Latin America. And we help these companies, which have been predominantly US-based MedTech startups. More recently, we have expanded to biopharma as well. But let's talk with the conversation on MedTech startups, and their struggle to conduct these first inhuman trials in the United States. They seek help when they want to go overseas, and they call for us to help them find investigators and to recruit patients and to get past approvals, etc."
"There is one single thing, which is that these companies are startups. Getting this type of trial approved is really, really difficult and expensive. And the timeline to get them approved is really uncertain. So when you have a startup that has investors backing the company and they have a business plan, they have some milestones, it is difficult to predict when you're going to hit these milestones, and you need to keep the investors happy. So if you don't have a solid business plan, then you are not going to be able to raise more funds to continue your operation and development."
#BioAccess #GlobalTrialAccelerators #DigitalHealth #PrecisionMedicine #LATAMTrials #BalkansClinicalResearch #AustraliaCTN #AANVISA #ALIMS #MINSA #TrialAcceleration #FirstinHumanTrials #ClinicalTrials #MedTechInnovation #Biopharma #MedTech #PatientRecruitment #CRO
bioaccessla.com
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Julio Martinez-Clark, Co-Founder and CEO of Bioaccess, a Latin American MedTech CRO that works with US-based medtech and biopharma startups to conduct their first-in-human trials outside the US to accelerate development and recruitment. Data from overseas clinical trials conducted to international standards is considered valid and can support conversations with investors, strategic partners, and the FDA. Drawing on resources in the Balkans, Latin America, and Australia, clinical trials can get faster approvals, more easily recruit patients, and benefit those living in the communities where clinical trials are conducted.
Julio explains, "The mission is to accelerate global clinical trials, and the type of clients is mostly us. Occasionally, we have European clients, but they're mostly San Francisco-based, Boston-based, San Diego-based, Minnesota-based, or Boston-based companies that are looking to execute a first-in-human clinical study outside of the United States. And for many reasons, Latin America is an obvious choice, at least for the exploratory phase. When they're looking for different countries, they usually explore Eastern Europe, Australia, and Latin America. And we help these companies, which have been predominantly US-based MedTech startups. More recently, we have expanded to biopharma as well. But let's talk with the conversation on MedTech startups, and their struggle to conduct these first inhuman trials in the United States. They seek help when they want to go overseas, and they call for us to help them find investigators and to recruit patients and to get past approvals, etc."
"There is one single thing, which is that these companies are startups. Getting this type of trial approved is really, really difficult and expensive. And the timeline to get them approved is really uncertain. So when you have a startup that has investors backing the company and they have a business plan, they have some milestones, it is difficult to predict when you're going to hit these milestones, and you need to keep the investors happy. So if you don't have a solid business plan, then you are not going to be able to raise more funds to continue your operation and development."
#BioAccess #GlobalTrialAccelerators #DigitalHealth #PrecisionMedicine #LATAMTrials #BalkansClinicalResearch #AustraliaCTN #AANVISA #ALIMS #MINSA #TrialAcceleration #FirstinHumanTrials #ClinicalTrials #MedTechInnovation #Biopharma #MedTech #PatientRecruitment #CRO
bioaccessla.com
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Nicole Clark, Co-Founder and CEO of the Adult and Pediatric Institute for Health and Wellness, a comprehensive, personalized psychiatric practice that takes a holistic approach to mental health, looking at the interconnection of physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Nicole has two daughters with autism, which has informed the Institute's focus on serving the autism community, especially in these times of changes in the definition of autism spectrum disorder. Services include psychiatric and autism evaluations, medication management, education, and early intervention for children and adults and their family members.
Nicole explains, "We're a comprehensive psychiatric practice, and we're kind of unique in that we have fully blended behavioral and mental health therapy. We see an individual as a whole person. They're not just one piece of their identity. They have multiple pieces of their identity. And so we don't like to only focus on a singular issue. We like to look at the person as a whole, and so we see the entire family. We see ages 18 months when we're doing autism evaluations, all the way up to 65 years old. And we offer psychiatric evaluations, autism evaluations, medication management, and different therapy modalities."
"A lot of the time, we are treating someone's anxiety, or maybe we're treating their ADHD, or maybe we're treating bipolar depression, the other illnesses that are kind of stemming from that stomachache, especially with kids, the headaches, the 'I'm always feeling sick.” I don't want to go to school."
"Or in adults-- the chronic stomachaches, the heart disease, all of these issues tend to start to resolve when you can treat the mind and when you can work on the mental health side of things, because these are real problems and these are real issues, physiological issues, heart disease. A heart attack, that's real. We know that is real. Well, what is causing that? Well, maybe it's being caused by elevated cortisol levels over an extended period of time because you have unresolved trauma, anxiety, or depression. And so, it's becoming a more collaborative approach to healthcare, which I love."
#PEDSInstitute #PsychiatricCare #MentalHealth #PediatricHealth #Autism #AutismDiagnosis #AutismAwareness
pedsinstitute.com
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Nicole Clark, Co-Founder and CEO of the Adult and Pediatric Institute for Health and Wellness, a comprehensive, personalized psychiatric practice that takes a holistic approach to mental health, looking at the interconnection of physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Nicole has two daughters with autism, which has informed the Institute's focus on serving the autism community, especially in these times of changes in the definition of autism spectrum disorder. Services include psychiatric and autism evaluations, medication management, education, and early intervention for children and adults and their family members.
Nicole explains, "We're a comprehensive psychiatric practice, and we're kind of unique in that we have fully blended behavioral and mental health therapy. We see an individual as a whole person. They're not just one piece of their identity. They have multiple pieces of their identity. And so we don't like to only focus on a singular issue. We like to look at the person as a whole, and so we see the entire family. We see ages 18 months when we're doing autism evaluations, all the way up to 65 years old. And we offer psychiatric evaluations, autism evaluations, medication management, and different therapy modalities."
"A lot of the time, we are treating someone's anxiety, or maybe we're treating their ADHD, or maybe we're treating bipolar depression, the other illnesses that are kind of stemming from that stomachache, especially with kids, the headaches, the 'I'm always feeling sick.” I don't want to go to school."
"Or in adults-- the chronic stomachaches, the heart disease, all of these issues tend to start to resolve when you can treat the mind and when you can work on the mental health side of things, because these are real problems and these are real issues, physiological issues, heart disease. A heart attack, that's real. We know that is real. Well, what is causing that? Well, maybe it's being caused by elevated cortisol levels over an extended period of time because you have unresolved trauma, anxiety, or depression. And so, it's becoming a more collaborative approach to healthcare, which I love."
#PEDSInstitute #PsychiatricCare #MentalHealth #PediatricHealth #Autism #AutismDiagnosis #AutismAwareness
pedsinstitute.com
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Bob Roda, President and CEO of HemoSonics, highlights the current blood shortage and the challenges of patient blood management to minimize the need for transfusions. The HemoSonics Quanta Analyzer technology utilizes ultrasound to measure blood viscosity, providing real-time information on the patient's coagulation status and enabling clinicians to make more informed decisions about blood product administration. This approach can be applied in the operating room, emergency rooms, and hospital laboratories to improve patient outcomes and yield cost savings for the healthcare system.
Bob explains, "As a company, we are very centered and focused on helping to shape human healthcare moving forward. Specifically, as it relates to coagulation management, we have a technology that is about five years old, and in layman's terms, it helps to identify what is going on with your blood in terms of coagulation, intraoperatively, and in near real-time. So what does that mean? It means that it is an aid for clinicians as they're making determinations for their patients as to what to do next in terms of managing their bleeding situations."
"Think about patient blood management as a patient-centered, systematic, and evidence-based approach to improving patient outcomes simply by managing and preserving a patient's own blood while promoting safety and ultimately the empowerment of the patient. So what does that mean? What it means is that there is a multifaceted approach in terms of any surgical intervention, where ultimately your own blood, the patient's own blood, is really what's best for them. And so to the extent that you can limit or prevent or get ahead of the need for transfusion, that's ultimately to the benefit of the patient and to the benefit of the healthcare system from an economic perspective."
#HemoSonics #Hemostasis #BloodManagement #Quantra #BleedingManagement #MedTech #HealthcareInnovation
hemosonics.com
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Bob Roda, President and CEO of HemoSonics, highlights the current blood shortage and the challenges of patient blood management to minimize the need for transfusions. The HemoSonics Quanta Analyzer technology utilizes ultrasound to measure blood viscosity, providing real-time information on the patient's coagulation status and enabling clinicians to make more informed decisions about blood product administration. This approach can be applied in the operating room, emergency rooms, and hospital laboratories to improve patient outcomes and yield cost savings for the healthcare system.
Bob explains, "As a company, we are very centered and focused on helping to shape human healthcare moving forward. Specifically, as it relates to coagulation management, we have a technology that is about five years old, and in layman's terms, it helps to identify what is going on with your blood in terms of coagulation, intraoperatively, and in near real-time. So what does that mean? It means that it is an aid for clinicians as they're making determinations for their patients as to what to do next in terms of managing their bleeding situations."
"Think about patient blood management as a patient-centered, systematic, and evidence-based approach to improving patient outcomes simply by managing and preserving a patient's own blood while promoting safety and ultimately the empowerment of the patient. So what does that mean? What it means is that there is a multifaceted approach in terms of any surgical intervention, where ultimately your own blood, the patient's own blood, is really what's best for them. And so to the extent that you can limit or prevent or get ahead of the need for transfusion, that's ultimately to the benefit of the patient and to the benefit of the healthcare system from an economic perspective."
#HemoSonics #Hemostasis #BloodManagement #Quantra #BleedingManagement #MedTech #HealthcareInnovation
hemosonics.com
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Dr. David Carmouche, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Lumeris, is addressing the primary care shortage by providing a platform that supports primary care physicians in managing a broader patient population and delivering better health outcomes. The Lumeris platform, Tom, is an AI-powered virtual assistant that can interact with patients, provide chronic disease management, education and support, and coordinate care on behalf of providers. Tom can improve efficiency, reduce clinician burnout, and provide more convenient and personalized experiences for patients.
David explains, "And so, they built the company, Lumeris, as a commercialization arm of their relationship to empower other primary care physicians to manage populations and deliver better health outcomes at a lower cost. And so for the last 12 years or so, Lumaris has been partnering largely with large medical groups and health systems to help them manage populations, Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial populations, and helping drive high performance and high outcomes within those relationships. The economics are shared economics, so when the plans and providers are successful by delivering better outcomes, Lumeris shares in those rewards."
"Given the 20-year history that I mentioned of understanding care deeply as a provider of care and as a partner to those providers of care, we have the fortune to build new technology to support primary care. Our environment starts with aggregating data, and that data helps us define a view of a patient. That data could come from an electronic medical record, it could come from claims data from a pharmacist, it could come from claims data from a payer, or it could come from a pharmacist or a lab. It could be consumer data that is purchasable, as organizations like Target, Walmart, and others use to market to us today. We aggregate that data to create a 360° view of a patient. Then we're able to leverage some of the new artificial intelligence that creates the ability for the platform to interact with patients on behalf of their clinical care teams at points in time where we understand that there is a defined next best clinical action that might help you in your health journey."
#Lumeris #MedAI #DigitalHealth #PrimaryCareProviders
lumeris.com
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Dr. David Carmouche, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Lumeris, is addressing the primary care shortage by providing a platform that supports primary care physicians in managing a broader patient population and delivering better health outcomes. The Lumeris platform, Tom, is an AI-powered virtual assistant that can interact with patients, provide chronic disease management, education and support, and coordinate care on behalf of providers. Tom can improve efficiency, reduce clinician burnout, and provide more convenient and personalized experiences for patients.
David explains, "And so, they built the company, Lumeris, as a commercialization arm of their relationship to empower other primary care physicians to manage populations and deliver better health outcomes at a lower cost. And so for the last 12 years or so, Lumaris has been partnering largely with large medical groups and health systems to help them manage populations, Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial populations, and helping drive high performance and high outcomes within those relationships. The economics are shared economics, so when the plans and providers are successful by delivering better outcomes, Lumeris shares in those rewards."
"Given the 20-year history that I mentioned of understanding care deeply as a provider of care and as a partner to those providers of care, we have the fortune to build new technology to support primary care. Our environment starts with aggregating data, and that data helps us define a view of a patient. That data could come from an electronic medical record, it could come from claims data from a pharmacist, it could come from claims data from a payer, or it could come from a pharmacist or a lab. It could be consumer data that is purchasable, as organizations like Target, Walmart, and others use to market to us today. We aggregate that data to create a 360° view of a patient. Then we're able to leverage some of the new artificial intelligence that creates the ability for the platform to interact with patients on behalf of their clinical care teams at points in time where we understand that there is a defined next best clinical action that might help you in your health journey."
#Lumeris #MedAI #DigitalHealth #PrimaryCareProviders
lumeris.com
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Jeff Bennett, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Modivcare, is addressing and expanding supportive care services to provide transportation, personal care services, and remote patient monitoring. A lack of transportation leads to missed appointments and therapies, necessitating a coordinated approach to support vulnerable populations. Modivcare utilizes remote sensors and AI to enhance human engagement and coordination, and is designed to be both preventative and predictive, keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital.
Jeff explains, "Modivcare works on behalf of health plans, states, and risk-based entities. We provide supportive care services that meet the needs and address the needs of patients. One of those services is transportation, so non-emergency medical transportation. We also provide personal care services, which support members with activities of daily living, like bathing, meal preparation, and such. And then finally, I lead the monitoring organization, which provides services to monitor members or patients at home so they can live and age at home on their own."
"The biggest need, at the top, is that our members have health-related social needs or SDOH needs. They also are living with chronic conditions, so they need supportive care services that not only provides that core service -- so there's the obvious "I need a ride" or "if I press the button because I've fallen and I need 911 to be called if I need an ambulance or my caregiver or family member to come help me." But most importantly, the services that they need are providing an engagement service. Really, what we provide is a supportive care service that drives human connection through cutting-edge technology that drives continuous engagement. They always know that we're here, and we listen to them. We understand their needs and try to address those needs, which could be healthcare-related, social-related, or simply loneliness. So it spans that broad spectrum. And any one of our services, we're delivering that core service, but we're also driving engagement and listening for what else the member needs."
#Modivcare #SDOH #SupportiveCareServices #MedAI #DigitalHealth #CareCoordination
modivcare.com
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Jeff Bennett, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Modivcare, is addressing and expanding supportive care services to provide transportation, personal care services, and remote patient monitoring. A lack of transportation leads to missed appointments and therapies, necessitating a coordinated approach to support vulnerable populations. Modivcare utilizes remote sensors and AI to enhance human engagement and coordination, and is designed to be both preventative and predictive, keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital.
Jeff explains, "Modivcare works on behalf of health plans, states, and risk-based entities. We provide supportive care services that meet the needs and address the needs of patients. One of those services is transportation, so non-emergency medical transportation. We also provide personal care services, which support members with activities of daily living, like bathing, meal preparation, and such. And then finally, I lead the monitoring organization, which provides services to monitor members or patients at home so they can live and age at home on their own."
"The biggest need, at the top, is that our members have health-related social needs or SDOH needs. They also are living with chronic conditions, so they need supportive care services that not only provides that core service -- so there's the obvious "I need a ride" or "if I press the button because I've fallen and I need 911 to be called if I need an ambulance or my caregiver or family member to come help me." But most importantly, the services that they need are providing an engagement service. Really, what we provide is a supportive care service that drives human connection through cutting-edge technology that drives continuous engagement. They always know that we're here, and we listen to them. We understand their needs and try to address those needs, which could be healthcare-related, social-related, or simply loneliness. So it spans that broad spectrum. And any one of our services, we're delivering that core service, but we're also driving engagement and listening for what else the member needs."
#Modivcare #SDOH #SupportiveCareServices #MedAI #DigitalHealth #CareCoordination
modivcare.com
Download the transcript here
Peter Ordentlich, Chief Scientific Officer and Founder at Syndax Pharmaceuticals, a clinical oncology company, is focused on developing precision medicine approaches to treat cancer and chronic graft-versus-host disease. The menin protein plays a critical role in driving certain types of blood cancers, and the Synex therapy is a menin inhibitor that can disrupt this cancer-driving pathway. The platform is also developing an antibody addressing the unmet needs in cGVHD to reduce the disease-driving macrophages.
Peter explains, "Syndax is a clinical oncology company, which means we're focused primarily on cancer, and we're primarily doing clinical development. We started the company really looking at resistance pathways to developing cancer, and we've been focused on two main areas. One in the indication space of leukemia, which are certain types of blood cancers, and that's with a program we have around the small molecule drug called revumenib. We are also focused in another area of diseases called chronic graft-versus-host disease. These are diseases that happen post-stem cell transplant, and there we're developing an antibody called axatilimab. And so those two programs are really what we've been focusing on for the last five or six years and have led to each of those drugs."
"So menin is a very interesting protein, and basically what this is, it's called a scaffold protein. And you can imagine a scaffold, just something you build things upon. And so menin interacts with DNA through a variety of other factors, and you build on top of this a complex of other proteins that can turn genes on and off. And in the case of certain types of leukemias, the mutation that creates certain other cancer-causing proteins binds to menin. That's what drives certain genes that drive leukemia to always be turned on. And so what we've tried to do and others have tried to do is disrupt that interaction and essentially cause the scaffold to fall apart. And when that falls apart, you can no longer keep those genes on that drive leukemia, and instead, you have genes that essentially cause the cell to stop growing."
#SyndaxPharma #AcuteLeukemia #cGHVD #Oncology #PrecisionMedicine #Menin #MeninInhibitors
syndax.com
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Peter Ordentlich, Chief Scientific Officer and Founder at Syndax Pharmaceuticals, a clinical oncology company, is focused on developing precision medicine approaches to treat cancer and chronic graft-versus-host disease. The menin protein plays a critical role in driving certain types of blood cancers, and the Synex therapy is a menin inhibitor that can disrupt this cancer-driving pathway. The platform is also developing an antibody addressing the unmet needs in cGVHD to reduce the disease-driving macrophages.
Peter explains, "Syndax is a clinical oncology company, which means we're focused primarily on cancer, and we're primarily doing clinical development. We started the company really looking at resistance pathways to developing cancer, and we've been focused on two main areas. One in the indication space of leukemia, which are certain types of blood cancers, and that's with a program we have around the small molecule drug called revumenib. We are also focused in another area of diseases called chronic graft-versus-host disease. These are diseases that happen post-stem cell transplant, and there we're developing an antibody called axatilimab. And so those two programs are really what we've been focusing on for the last five or six years and have led to each of those drugs."
"So menin is a very interesting protein, and basically what this is, it's called a scaffold protein. And you can imagine a scaffold, just something you build things upon. And so menin interacts with DNA through a variety of other factors, and you build on top of this a complex of other proteins that can turn genes on and off. And in the case of certain types of leukemias, the mutation that creates certain other cancer-causing proteins binds to menin. That's what drives certain genes that drive leukemia to always be turned on. And so what we've tried to do and others have tried to do is disrupt that interaction and essentially cause the scaffold to fall apart. And when that falls apart, you can no longer keep those genes on that drive leukemia, and instead, you have genes that essentially cause the cell to stop growing."
#SyndaxPharma #AcuteLeukemia #cGHVD #Oncology #PrecisionMedicine #Menin #MeninInhibitors
syndax.com
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Vikram Bhaskran, CEO and Co-Founder, and Dr. Rohan Ramakrishna, Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of Roon, have taken on the mission to provide trustworthy and personalized medical information to patients and caregivers. Leveraging technology and the expertise of medical professionals, Roon has created a comprehensive resource for navigating medical challenges. They emphasize the importance of addressing misinformation and providing accurate, science-based information. The platform is not intended to replace doctors, but to supplement relevant information and enable better communication with healthcare providers and improve patient outcomes.
Vikram explains, "Our mission is to be the best place online for anyone navigating any health condition. I started the company really through my own journey as a caregiver to my dad, who had ALS. And in that journey, I had two insights. One is that the biggest tech companies fail us. And in this moment of crisis, most people navigating any health condition will turn to "Doctor Google" and Facebook groups, which can be an overwhelming experience. And so I felt we could do better as someone coming from the tech world. I was at Pinterest before this, and my second insight was that there's a finite number of doctors. And so the experience of health today for really anyone is that you spend a ton of time in waiting rooms. You spend a ton of time waiting for someone to answer your health questions. And so Roon was born out of those two insights. And our goal is to be the best online platform to scale the world's best medical experts and their knowledge."
Rohan elaborates, "The doctors are from more than 70 different academic medical institutions, and the number is growing. They represent all the experts who have expertise to share alongside the health journeys we've launched. So as of today, we've launched brain cancer, ALS, dementia, Fertility and Family Building, PCOS, endometriosis, menopause, and we are soon to launch several other conditions related to women's health, including gynecological health. Our experts span the doctors you would expect, such as oncologists, neurologists, and OBGYNs, among others, but also social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and legal and financial counselors - really anyone who has real expertise that they can lend to the experience of a journey. So much of dementia care, for example, is not driven by your neurologist, but by the experience of caring for someone who needs help, whether it's at a memory care facility or a skilled nursing facility, dealing with issues that doctors typically don't have a great answer for."
#Roon #HealthcareInformation #MedAI #HealthcareOutcomes #DigitalHealth
roon.com
Listen to the podcast here
Vikram Bhaskran, CEO and Co-Founder, and Dr. Rohan Ramakrishna, Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of Roon, have taken on the mission to provide trustworthy and personalized medical information to patients and caregivers. Leveraging technology and the expertise of medical professionals, Roon has created a comprehensive resource for navigating medical challenges. They emphasize the importance of addressing misinformation and providing accurate, science-based information. The platform is not intended to replace doctors, but to supplement relevant information and enable better communication with healthcare providers and improve patient outcomes.
Vikram explains, "Our mission is to be the best place online for anyone navigating any health condition. I started the company really through my own journey as a caregiver to my dad, who had ALS. And in that journey, I had two insights. One is that the biggest tech companies fail us. And in this moment of crisis, most people navigating any health condition will turn to "Doctor Google" and Facebook groups, which can be an overwhelming experience. And so I felt we could do better as someone coming from the tech world. I was at Pinterest before this, and my second insight was that there's a finite number of doctors. And so the experience of health today for really anyone is that you spend a ton of time in waiting rooms. You spend a ton of time waiting for someone to answer your health questions. And so Roon was born out of those two insights. And our goal is to be the best online platform to scale the world's best medical experts and their knowledge."
Rohan elaborates, "The doctors are from more than 70 different academic medical institutions, and the number is growing. They represent all the experts who have expertise to share alongside the health journeys we've launched. So as of today, we've launched brain cancer, ALS, dementia, Fertility and Family Building, PCOS, endometriosis, menopause, and we are soon to launch several other conditions related to women's health, including gynecological health. Our experts span the doctors you would expect, such as oncologists, neurologists, and OBGYNs, among others, but also social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and legal and financial counselors - really anyone who has real expertise that they can lend to the experience of a journey. So much of dementia care, for example, is not driven by your neurologist, but by the experience of caring for someone who needs help, whether it's at a memory care facility or a skilled nursing facility, dealing with issues that doctors typically don't have a great answer for."
#Roon #HealthcareInformation #MedAI #HealthcareOutcomes #DigitalHealth
roon.com
Download the transcript here
Barry Quart, CEO of Connect Biopharma, is developing the next generation of monoclonal antibodies targeting inflammatory respiratory diseases such as COPD and asthma. Administered subcutaneously, their lead program targets IL-4 and has demonstrated the ability to rapidly improve airway function and reduce the incidence of acute exacerbations in these patients. Current treatments rely on steroids and bronchodilators, which do not address the underlying inflammatory causes, an area that has largely been under-addressed by other biologic developers.
Barry explains, "Connect has been dedicated for quite a few years to designing next-generation monoclonal antibodies targeting inflammatory diseases. I joined the company last year and really kind of turned the ship towards a sole focus on our lead program, which is rademikibart, a second-generation Dupixent, a monoclonal antibody targeting IL-4, a really important target for certain inflammatory diseases."
"IL-4 can be used as a monoclonal antibody targeting IL-4 for diseases such as atopic dermatitis, asthma, and COPD, as well as several other conditions. We're focused on asthma and COPD. So, inflammatory respiratory disease, because our product has some unique characteristics that are going to allow us to focus on an area that's really been completely ignored by other developers of biologics in the respiratory space, and specifically on patients having acute exacerbations."
#ConnectBiopharma #MonoclonalAntibody #IL4 #COPD #Asthma #AtopicDermatitis #InflammatoryDiseases #RespiratoryDiseases
connectbiopharm.com
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Barry Quart, CEO of Connect Biopharma, is developing the next generation of monoclonal antibodies targeting inflammatory respiratory diseases such as COPD and asthma. Administered subcutaneously, their lead program targets IL-4 and has demonstrated the ability to rapidly improve airway function and reduce the incidence of acute exacerbations in these patients. Current treatments rely on steroids and bronchodilators, which do not address the underlying inflammatory causes, an area that has largely been under-addressed by other biologic developers.
Barry explains, "Connect has been dedicated for quite a few years to designing next-generation monoclonal antibodies targeting inflammatory diseases. I joined the company last year and really kind of turned the ship towards a sole focus on our lead program, which is rademikibart, a second-generation Dupixent, a monoclonal antibody targeting IL-4, a really important target for certain inflammatory diseases."
"IL-4 can be used as a monoclonal antibody targeting IL-4 for diseases such as atopic dermatitis, asthma, and COPD, as well as several other conditions. We're focused on asthma and COPD. So, inflammatory respiratory disease, because our product has some unique characteristics that are going to allow us to focus on an area that's really been completely ignored by other developers of biologics in the respiratory space, and specifically on patients having acute exacerbations."
#ConnectBiopharma #MonoclonalAntibody #IL4 #COPD #Asthma #AtopicDermatitis #InflammatoryDiseases #RespiratoryDiseases
connectbiopharm.com
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Dr. Kilian Kelly, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Cynata Therapeutics, has taken on the challenge of manufacturing stem cell therapies consistently and at scale in order to drive the advancements necessary for the next generation of regenerative medicine. Cynata is employing a novel approach that utilizes a single source of pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and mesenchymal cell ancestors (MCAs) to generate mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Lead programs are targeting graft-versus-host disease, osteoarthritis, and diabetic wounds, where clinical trials have shown great promise to treat these and other diseases.
Kilian explains, "We're a stem cell regenerative medicine company, and what we're trying to do is to change the way that we can manufacture stem cell therapies in a consistent and scalable way. I'm sure many of your listeners have heard about stem cell therapies of various types. The particular type of cells that we're working on are called mesenchymal stem cells or MSCs. They've shown lots of promise for lots of different purposes, but a real challenge has been making these cells consistently, especially when you try to do that at a large scale. We have a unique novel manufacturing platform, which helps us to address that major challenge."
"The way that these cells were historically produced and indeed still are produced in most cases is by harvesting cells from, for example, somebody donating bone marrow or adipose tissue, also known as fat. And those approaches have certainly allowed a lot of early-stage clinical trials to be performed, which showed lots of really exciting results. But often what happens is that when you move to a larger scale using such a process, and you try to make much larger quantities of cells, perhaps using many different donors, you start to see a lot of inconsistency. There are a few reasons for this. When you have inconsistency with a product, it's inevitable that you're going to get inconsistent results."
"If you have inconsistent results in a clinical trial, it becomes a bit of a lottery, and sometimes you can have very disappointing results that are hard to explain. So we think that's been a really big issue that has caused a lot of problems in the field. And aside from the impact on clinical trial results, we also need to think about the future when these products are available and on the market, and how you can actually, in practical terms, produce enough of these products. So, in a nutshell, I think that is probably the major challenge that the field has faced."
#CynataTherapeutics #StemCellTherapy #RegenerativeMedicine #iPSCs #MSCs #MCAs
Cynata.com
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Dr. Kilian Kelly, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Cynata Therapeutics, has taken on the challenge of manufacturing stem cell therapies consistently and at scale in order to drive the advancements necessary for the next generation of regenerative medicine. Cynata is employing a novel approach that utilizes a single source of pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and mesenchymal cell ancestors (MCAs) to generate mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Lead programs are targeting graft-versus-host disease, osteoarthritis, and diabetic wounds, where clinical trials have shown great promise to treat these and other diseases.
Kilian explains, "We're a stem cell regenerative medicine company, and what we're trying to do is to change the way that we can manufacture stem cell therapies in a consistent and scalable way. I'm sure many of your listeners have heard about stem cell therapies of various types. The particular type of cells that we're working on are called mesenchymal stem cells or MSCs. They've shown lots of promise for lots of different purposes, but a real challenge has been making these cells consistently, especially when you try to do that at a large scale. We have a unique novel manufacturing platform, which helps us to address that major challenge."
"The way that these cells were historically produced and indeed still are produced in most cases is by harvesting cells from, for example, somebody donating bone marrow or adipose tissue, also known as fat. And those approaches have certainly allowed a lot of early-stage clinical trials to be performed, which showed lots of really exciting results. But often what happens is that when you move to a larger scale using such a process, and you try to make much larger quantities of cells, perhaps using many different donors, you start to see a lot of inconsistency. There are a few reasons for this. When you have inconsistency with a product, it's inevitable that you're going to get inconsistent results."
"If you have inconsistent results in a clinical trial, it becomes a bit of a lottery, and sometimes you can have very disappointing results that are hard to explain. So we think that's been a really big issue that has caused a lot of problems in the field. And aside from the impact on clinical trial results, we also need to think about the future when these products are available and on the market, and how you can actually, in practical terms, produce enough of these products. So, in a nutshell, I think that is probably the major challenge that the field has faced."
#CynataTherapeutics #StemCellTherapy #RegenerativeMedicine #iPSCs #MSCs #MCAs
Cynata.com
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Shauna Sweeney, Founder of tendercare, aims to assist caregivers with digital tools and expert support to simplify the process of caring for an aging family member. Recognizing the essential role of caregivers in the quality of life of the patient, tendercare provides a user-friendly interface that incorporates data from wearables and remote sensors to identify early warning signs of risks, help coordinate care, and encourage proactive preparation. The Magic Magnet feature allows caregivers and emergency responders to quickly update and share critical health information.
Shauna explains, "This is not just a gendered issue. We have 54 million just Americans, if we keep it to the US, who are currently providing unpaid family care. This usually takes the form of anything from looking through bills, managing medications, renewing prescriptions, coordinating doctors’ visits, and all other visits. Often, we find that those who are on our platform are the eldest child. So whether that's a daughter or a son, this is the type of person who is often leaning in to help. What is generally a parent or a grandparent who may or may not have the ability or the means to be able to get themselves to the doctor's appointments or pick up their prescriptions themselves, for instance."
"Up until now, a lot of this has actually been human-powered. So, sitting down at the kitchen table with Mom and going through the mail to determine what needs to be paid by what time, but increasingly, because so many of us are living farther apart from one another, this is becoming more and more complicated. There is a level of coordination that we're all doing with one another, but we're often doing it over text. We're doing it over email, we're doing it over shared accounts and passwords. And so it's getting a lot more complicated, which is really where tendercare dropped in to try and help simplify a lot of this experience that so many of us are walking through right now."
#Trytendercare #DigitalHealth #CareGiving #CareGivingTech #SmartCare #AginginPlace #HealthEquity
trytendercare.com
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Shauna Sweeney, Founder of tendercare, aims to assist caregivers with digital tools and expert support to simplify the process of caring for an aging family member. Recognizing the essential role of caregivers in the quality of life of the patient, tendercare provides a user-friendly interface that incorporates data from wearables and remote sensors to identify early warning signs of risks, help coordinate care, and encourage proactive preparation. The Magic Magnet feature allows caregivers and emergency responders to quickly update and share critical health information.
Shauna explains, "This is not just a gendered issue. We have 54 million just Americans, if we keep it to the US, who are currently providing unpaid family care. This usually takes the form of anything from looking through bills, managing medications, renewing prescriptions, coordinating doctors’ visits, and all other visits. Often, we find that those who are on our platform are the eldest child. So whether that's a daughter or a son, this is the type of person who is often leaning in to help. What is generally a parent or a grandparent who may or may not have the ability or the means to be able to get themselves to the doctor's appointments or pick up their prescriptions themselves, for instance."
"Up until now, a lot of this has actually been human-powered. So, sitting down at the kitchen table with Mom and going through the mail to determine what needs to be paid by what time, but increasingly, because so many of us are living farther apart from one another, this is becoming more and more complicated. There is a level of coordination that we're all doing with one another, but we're often doing it over text. We're doing it over email, we're doing it over shared accounts and passwords. And so it's getting a lot more complicated, which is really where tendercare dropped in to try and help simplify a lot of this experience that so many of us are walking through right now."
#Trytendercare #DigitalHealth #CareGiving #CareGivingTech #SmartCare #AginginPlace #HealthEquity
trytendercare.com
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Karen Sussman Horgan is the Co-Founder and CEO of VAL Health, a behavioral economics consulting firm that helps healthcare organizations drive engagement and nudge patients to improve their health and lifestyle choices. Behavioral economics is the science of understanding how patients make irrational choices based on biases, fear, and faulty analysis of outcomes and risk. Nudges can be carrots or sticks, but in healthcare, the focus is on making the right path easier to follow, reducing friction, and introducing positive reinforcements rather than penalties.
Karen explains, "We work across the entire healthcare ecosystem. We think about digital health companies, how do you drive enrollment and engagement, and how do you optimize the journey? There are communications for that. We do a lot of work with payers, which is closing gaps in care, but also just improving the member experience in general with providers. It could be around provider adoption of new care pathways, but it's also about population health. We work with employers on wellness programs and pharma on that adherence. So think about where information alone isn't driving people to think about their health or take care of themselves. We create the nudges to help make that happen."
"It's the science of understanding that we as humans are irrational. We have a bias toward the present. We have an aversion to loss and regret. We overweight probability. There are dozens of known biases, and what we do is harness them rather than asking people to change their biases. So let me give you a few examples to bring this to light because right now people are probably like, What is a bias? So think about Netflix when you watch an episode. First of all, you have choice overload when you get there. So it's giving you recommendations, but it also defaults you into the next episode because it plays on the fact that we have a status quo bias, and we're lazy, and we're just going to sit there and binge-watch. "
#VALHealth #BehavioralEconomics #BehavioralScience #BehaviorChange #DigitalHealth #Payers #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareConsulting
valhealth.com
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Karen Sussman Horgan is the Co-Founder and CEO of VAL Health, a behavioral economics consulting firm that helps healthcare organizations drive engagement and nudge patients to improve their health and lifestyle choices. Behavioral economics is the science of understanding how patients make irrational choices based on biases, fear, and faulty analysis of outcomes and risk. Nudges can be carrots or sticks, but in healthcare, the focus is on making the right path easier to follow, reducing friction, and introducing positive reinforcements rather than penalties.
Karen explains, "We work across the entire healthcare ecosystem. We think about digital health companies, how do you drive enrollment and engagement, and how do you optimize the journey? There are communications for that. We do a lot of work with payers, which is closing gaps in care, but also just improving the member experience in general with providers. It could be around provider adoption of new care pathways, but it's also about population health. We work with employers on wellness programs and pharma on that adherence. So think about where information alone isn't driving people to think about their health or take care of themselves. We create the nudges to help make that happen."
"It's the science of understanding that we as humans are irrational. We have a bias toward the present. We have an aversion to loss and regret. We overweight probability. There are dozens of known biases, and what we do is harness them rather than asking people to change their biases. So let me give you a few examples to bring this to light because right now people are probably like, What is a bias? So think about Netflix when you watch an episode. First of all, you have choice overload when you get there. So it's giving you recommendations, but it also defaults you into the next episode because it plays on the fact that we have a status quo bias, and we're lazy, and we're just going to sit there and binge-watch. "
#VALHealth #BehavioralEconomics #BehavioralScience #BehaviorChange #DigitalHealth #Payers #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareConsulting
valhealth.com
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Christine Lee, Head of Health Strategy and Partnerships at AnalyticsIQ, focuses on helping healthcare brands and pharmaceutical companies better understand and engage with healthcare providers by taking into account data beyond their professional lives. This data-driven Provider as a Person approach analyzes the healthcare professional's personal characteristics, outside interests, decision-making style, and preferred method of communication. The goal is to foster more meaningful relationships with providers, address provider burnout, and improve patient outcomes.
Christine explains, "We're coming into play here in supporting healthcare brands and better understanding the providers as people. As I mentioned, we're a people-based data company. I'd say that in an era where data is abundant and there is no shortage of health data being gathered and analyzed. So, you've got a lot of data assets out there that are coming from clinical trials, your real-world evidence, claims data, your electronic health records, all of which give insight into the aspects of a provider from a clinical setting. Traditionally, healthcare providers have been viewed primarily through the lens of their professional lives, their specialties, their role in patient care, prescription-writing behaviors, and even their affiliations. And these are super important factors. We do see those truly as table stakes, but they paint an incomplete picture."
"Providers, like patients, have unique lives, needs, and preferences, which really shape how they interact with the work they do and the brands they seek to engage with. The industry is really recognizing these nuances, which presents a unique opportunity for healthcare brands to acknowledge the complexity of the providers' lives beyond what you could say are their white coat moments, and differentiate their message. And so this can dig into driving more meaningful engagement. And for us here at AnalyticsIQ, we're focused on helping to understand healthcare providers, or HCPs, more broadly, and understanding some of their personal characteristics. So, the data we're bringing to the table to complement all the other data in the ecosystem will be things like considering their work-life balance."
#AnalyticsIQ #HealthcareData #HealthcareAnalytics #HealthTech #HCPengagement #PatientExperience #ValueBasedCare #PersonalizedCare #HealthEquity #SDOH #HealthcarePrivacy #PatientData
analytics-iq.com
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Christine Lee, Head of Health Strategy and Partnerships at AnalyticsIQ, focuses on helping healthcare brands and pharmaceutical companies better understand and engage with healthcare providers by taking into account data beyond their professional lives. This data-driven Provider as a Person approach analyzes the healthcare professional's personal characteristics, outside interests, decision-making style, and preferred method of communication. The goal is to foster more meaningful relationships with providers, address provider burnout, and improve patient outcomes.
Christine explains, "We're coming into play here in supporting healthcare brands and better understanding the providers as people. As I mentioned, we're a people-based data company. I'd say that in an era where data is abundant and there is no shortage of health data being gathered and analyzed. So, you've got a lot of data assets out there that are coming from clinical trials, your real-world evidence, claims data, your electronic health records, all of which give insight into the aspects of a provider from a clinical setting. Traditionally, healthcare providers have been viewed primarily through the lens of their professional lives, their specialties, their role in patient care, prescription-writing behaviors, and even their affiliations. And these are super important factors. We do see those truly as table stakes, but they paint an incomplete picture."
"Providers, like patients, have unique lives, needs, and preferences, which really shape how they interact with the work they do and the brands they seek to engage with. The industry is really recognizing these nuances, which presents a unique opportunity for healthcare brands to acknowledge the complexity of the providers' lives beyond what you could say are their white coat moments, and differentiate their message. And so this can dig into driving more meaningful engagement. And for us here at AnalyticsIQ, we're focused on helping to understand healthcare providers, or HCPs, more broadly, and understanding some of their personal characteristics. So, the data we're bringing to the table to complement all the other data in the ecosystem will be things like considering their work-life balance."
#AnalyticsIQ #HealthcareData #HealthcareAnalytics #HealthTech #HCPengagement #PatientExperience #ValueBasedCare #PersonalizedCare #HealthEquity #SDOH #HealthcarePrivacy #PatientData
analytics-iq.com
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Francisco Salva, President and CEO of Azitra, Inc., is leveraging the microbial bacteria that comprise the skin microbiome and exploring novel methods to deliver precision medicines to the skin. Azitra has genetically engineered specific strains of these microbes to produce proteins that are missing in patients with skin conditions like Netherton syndrome and cancer therapy-associated rashes. These bacterial strains have the ability to get beneath the stratum corneum and turn into miniature factories to make the therapeutic proteins and help the skin return to homeostasis.
Francisco explains, "We're leveraging the billions of microbial bacteria that naturally live on us and are synergistic with our skin to help keep our skin in homeostasis or a regulated standard of existence. These bacteria makeup that are known as the skin microbiome, we have built up a library of these microbial bacteria strains commonly found on normal people and characterize them in a way that allows us to look for specific strains that may be able to deliver special proteins that may be missing or aberrantly made in the skin."
"What we're leveraging is that microbial strain’s ability to get past the outer protective layer of the skin called the stratum corneum. And these microbial strains get through that outer layer through intermittent spaces between the hair and that outer skin layer, the stratum corneum, and are able to get underneath the stratum corneum, grow, multiply, and colonize. And so by genetically engineering specific strains of these microbes, we're able to synthetically, or also known as recombinantly, make proteins that are missing in the patient's skin."
"It's a little bit newer than the gut microbiome, and the field of study is also a little bit newer. And so the development of the understanding of the microbiome, which is what they call the defined consortia of various strains that normally live on us, is not quite as well elucidated as it is in the gut microbiome. That said, our mission at Azitra isn't to try to reset the entire regulation of the entire skin microbiome, but really just leverage specific strains of these bacteria that have the ability to get underneath that external layer of the skin."
#RareDisease #OrphanDisease #Dermatology #SkinDisease #SkinDisorder #PrecisionsMedicine #PrecisionDermatology #PrecisionDerm #Netherton #NethertonSyndrome #Ichthyosis #CancerRash #EGFRiRash #EGFRiTreament
azitrainc.com
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Francisco Salva, President and CEO of Azitra, Inc., is leveraging the microbial bacteria that comprise the skin microbiome and exploring novel methods to deliver precision medicines to the skin. Azitra has genetically engineered specific strains of these microbes to produce proteins that are missing in patients with skin conditions like Netherton syndrome and cancer therapy-associated rashes. These bacterial strains have the ability to get beneath the stratum corneum and turn into miniature factories to make the therapeutic proteins and help the skin return to homeostasis.
Francisco explains, "We're leveraging the billions of microbial bacteria that naturally live on us and are synergistic with our skin to help keep our skin in homeostasis or a regulated standard of existence. These bacteria makeup that are known as the skin microbiome, we have built up a library of these microbial bacteria strains commonly found on normal people and characterize them in a way that allows us to look for specific strains that may be able to deliver special proteins that may be missing or aberrantly made in the skin."
"What we're leveraging is that microbial strain’s ability to get past the outer protective layer of the skin called the stratum corneum. And these microbial strains get through that outer layer through intermittent spaces between the hair and that outer skin layer, the stratum corneum, and are able to get underneath the stratum corneum, grow, multiply, and colonize. And so by genetically engineering specific strains of these microbes, we're able to synthetically, or also known as recombinantly, make proteins that are missing in the patient's skin."
"It's a little bit newer than the gut microbiome, and the field of study is also a little bit newer. And so the development of the understanding of the microbiome, which is what they call the defined consortia of various strains that normally live on us, is not quite as well elucidated as it is in the gut microbiome. That said, our mission at Azitra isn't to try to reset the entire regulation of the entire skin microbiome, but really just leverage specific strains of these bacteria that have the ability to get underneath that external layer of the skin."
#RareDisease #OrphanDisease #Dermatology #SkinDisease #SkinDisorder #PrecisionsMedicine #PrecisionDermatology #PrecisionDerm #Netherton #NethertonSyndrome #Ichthyosis #CancerRash #EGFRiRash #EGFRiTreament
azitrainc.com
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Dr. Quyen Nguyen, CEO and Founder of Alume Biosciences, is developing fluorescent-guided precision surgery technologies that enable surgeons to visualize critical structures, such as nerves, blood vessels, and tumor margins, more clearly during procedures. Alume is developing fluorescent dyes and imaging systems to support this approach, building on work by Roger Tsien who won the Nobel Prize for fluorescence. This technology has the potential to enable more complex surgical procedures to be performed safely in brain, head, neck, and abdominal surgeries and has the promise to transform surgery.
Quyen elaborates, "I first met Roger Tsien Nobel Laureate for his work in fluorescence, in 2001. I had worked with green fluorescent protein, one of the things that he was working on for fluorescence, and he ultimately was awarded the Nobel Prize for fluorescence. And I asked him, ‘Roger, is there a way we can make nerves fluorescent in patients? We certainly have that in research, but surgeons don't have this tool now.’ And he said, ‘What, no one's done that yet?’ And so that's the beginning of our story together. I see that the use of fluorescence is going to be transformative in the field of surgery. Who wants to turn off the light and see if surgeons can see and operate in the dark? So I feel like fluorescence is just another level of light that allows you to see structures more precisely."
"Of course, you want to see structures more precisely so you can continue to carry on your work, tumor resection, reconstructive surgery, or any other procedures that patients are undergoing. Of course, you want to see tumor margins more clearly. Of course, you want to see arteries and veins and so forth. Of all the structures that we work on, I would say that nerves are considered the holy grail of surgery, partly because they're so delicate. One or two millimeters can take away somebody’s ability to have urinary continence or erectile function or the ability to smile."
#AlumeBiosciences #FluorescentGuidedSurgery #PrecisionSurgery #HeadNeckSurgery
AlumeBiosciences.com
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Dr. Quyen Nguyen, CEO and Founder of Alume Biosciences, is developing fluorescent-guided precision surgery technologies that enable surgeons to visualize critical structures, such as nerves, blood vessels, and tumor margins, more clearly during procedures. Alume is developing fluorescent dyes and imaging systems to support this approach, building on work by Roger Tsien who won the Nobel Prize for fluorescence. This technology has the potential to enable more complex surgical procedures to be performed safely in brain, head, neck, and abdominal surgeries and has the promise to transform surgery.
Quyen elaborates, "I first met Roger Tsien Nobel Laureate for his work in fluorescence, in 2001. I had worked with green fluorescent protein, one of the things that he was working on for fluorescence, and he ultimately was awarded the Nobel Prize for fluorescence. And I asked him, ‘Roger, is there a way we can make nerves fluorescent in patients? We certainly have that in research, but surgeons don't have this tool now.’ And he said, ‘What, no one's done that yet?’ And so that's the beginning of our story together. I see that the use of fluorescence is going to be transformative in the field of surgery. Who wants to turn off the light and see if surgeons can see and operate in the dark? So I feel like fluorescence is just another level of light that allows you to see structures more precisely."
"Of course, you want to see structures more precisely so you can continue to carry on your work, tumor resection, reconstructive surgery, or any other procedures that patients are undergoing. Of course, you want to see tumor margins more clearly. Of course, you want to see arteries and veins and so forth. Of all the structures that we work on, I would say that nerves are considered the holy grail of surgery, partly because they're so delicate. One or two millimeters can take away somebody’s ability to have urinary continence or erectile function or the ability to smile."
#AlumeBiosciences #FluorescentGuidedSurgery #PrecisionSurgery #HeadNeckSurgery
AlumeBiosciences.com
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Rob Armstrong, CEO of Artax Biopharma, highlights the basic mechanism of action of Nck modulators and how they differ from traditional immunosuppressant drugs to treat autoimmune diseases. Taking this adjustable thermostat approach aims to modulate the immune response rather than completely suppressing the response, potentially reducing side effects. The oral, small molecule drug is an advantage over injectable biologics currently dominating the automimmune disease treatment landscape.
Rob explains, "Nck stands for non-catalytic kinase, and what Nck is is an adapter protein that interacts with the T cell receptor. Its role is basically to amplify any signals when an antigen is presented to the T cell receptor. It's really interesting because it's called signal one. In other words, it's the beginning of the immune cascade when an antigen is presented. And what's interesting is that it's upstream of what the target of most other drugs are, which are the cytokines that are the offending entities for many of the autoimmune diseases. So what Nck does basically is it amplifies different types of antigens that are bound to the T cell receptor."
"So, T cell receptors are a fascinating construct of proteins because they need to address the binding of antigens that are across an incredibly different range of avidity. In other words, it has to be able to be activated by both very strong avidity antigens and weak antigens. So what Nck does is it amplifies the signal when the antigen is a weak antigen, but when it's a strong antigen, Nck is really not necessary at all. And that particular distinction is why we modulate the immune system instead of suppressing it."
#ArtaxPharma #AutoimmuneDiseases #AtopicDermatitis #immunomodulation #NckModulators #TCellActivation #psoriasis #Dermotology artaxbiopharma.com
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Rob Armstrong, CEO of Artax Biopharma, highlights the basic mechanism of action of Nck modulators and how they differ from traditional immunosuppressant drugs to treat autoimmune diseases. Taking this adjustable thermostat approach aims to modulate the immune response rather than completely suppressing the response, potentially reducing side effects. The oral, small molecule drug is an advantage over injectable biologics currently dominating the automimmune disease treatment landscape.
Rob explains, "Nck stands for non-catalytic kinase, and what Nck is is an adapter protein that interacts with the T cell receptor. Its role is basically to amplify any signals when an antigen is presented to the T cell receptor. It's really interesting because it's called signal one. In other words, it's the beginning of the immune cascade when an antigen is presented. And what's interesting is that it's upstream of what the target of most other drugs are, which are the cytokines that are the offending entities for many of the autoimmune diseases. So what Nck does basically is it amplifies different types of antigens that are bound to the T cell receptor."
"So, T cell receptors are a fascinating construct of proteins because they need to address the binding of antigens that are across an incredibly different range of avidity. In other words, it has to be able to be activated by both very strong avidity antigens and weak antigens. So what Nck does is it amplifies the signal when the antigen is a weak antigen, but when it's a strong antigen, Nck is really not necessary at all. And that particular distinction is why we modulate the immune system instead of suppressing it."
#ArtaxPharma #AutoimmuneDiseases #AtopicDermatitis #immunomodulation #NckModulators #TCellActivation #psoriasis #Dermotology artaxbiopharma.com
Download the transcript here
Shyam Natarajan, Founder and CEO of Avenda Health, is utilizing the Unfold AI platform that combines imaging, pathology, and clinical data to provide a comprehensive 3D visualization of prostate cancer. This platform has demonstrated significantly higher accuracy than conventional imaging techniques, enabling physicians to make more informed diagnoses and treatment decisions. The technology has been integrated into the clinical workflow to provide real-time insights and precision-guided interventions, minimizing treatment-related side effects and preserving patient quality of life.
Shyam explains, "Unfold AI is unique in that it's multimodal. We take in imaging biomarkers, pathology, and clinical information as input. And conventional imaging really doesn't show you exactly everywhere the cancer is. MRI today misses two-thirds of the disease by volume, and so imaging is really good at screening and that initial diagnosis. But when it comes time to decide how to treat patients, the standard of care is challenging today because, really, up to a third of patients end up having cancer left behind after treatment. So what we're trying to solve is this pain point where cancer is missed, and as a consequence, cancer is left behind."
"This product is really for patients who have a diagnosis of what we call clinically significant or cancer that you have to do something about. So, it’s not the very low-risk, where being on what's called surveillance, watch and wait, is probably more appropriate. But this product, you touched upon the value proposition where a lot of patients are coming to their doctor saying, Hey Doc, I don't want to get surgery because I'm scared of the quality of life outcomes or the side effect profile. They want to get a targeted therapy. Well, physicians really can't offer targeted therapy in a broad sense unless they know where the cancer is. And so, AI is empowering and enabling physicians to perform precision-guided therapy or focal therapy."
#AvendaHealth #UnfoldAi #ProstateCancer #ProstateCancerTreatment #HealthcareAI #CancerAI #RadiologyAI #DiagnosticAI #MedicalAI #AIinHealthcare
avendahealth.com
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Shyam Natarajan, Founder and CEO of Avenda Health, is utilizing the Unfold AI platform that combines imaging, pathology, and clinical data to provide a comprehensive 3D visualization of prostate cancer. This platform has demonstrated significantly higher accuracy than conventional imaging techniques, enabling physicians to make more informed diagnoses and treatment decisions. The technology has been integrated into the clinical workflow to provide real-time insights and precision-guided interventions, minimizing treatment-related side effects and preserving patient quality of life.
Shyam explains, "Unfold AI is unique in that it's multimodal. We take in imaging biomarkers, pathology, and clinical information as input. And conventional imaging really doesn't show you exactly everywhere the cancer is. MRI today misses two-thirds of the disease by volume, and so imaging is really good at screening and that initial diagnosis. But when it comes time to decide how to treat patients, the standard of care is challenging today because, really, up to a third of patients end up having cancer left behind after treatment. So what we're trying to solve is this pain point where cancer is missed, and as a consequence, cancer is left behind."
"This product is really for patients who have a diagnosis of what we call clinically significant or cancer that you have to do something about. So, it’s not the very low-risk, where being on what's called surveillance, watch and wait, is probably more appropriate. But this product, you touched upon the value proposition where a lot of patients are coming to their doctor saying, Hey Doc, I don't want to get surgery because I'm scared of the quality of life outcomes or the side effect profile. They want to get a targeted therapy. Well, physicians really can't offer targeted therapy in a broad sense unless they know where the cancer is. And so, AI is empowering and enabling physicians to perform precision-guided therapy or focal therapy."
#AvendaHealth #UnfoldAi #ProstateCancer #ProstateCancerTreatment #HealthcareAI #CancerAI #RadiologyAI #DiagnosticAI #MedicalAI #AIinHealthcare
avendahealth.com
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Richard Mackey, Chief Technology Officer at CCS, focuses on the challenges faced by patients with diabetes and multiple morbidities, as well as their healthcare providers, in managing their conditions. CCS has developed the Living Connected approach to connect patients, providers, and payers, and promotes the role that durable medical equipment companies and pharmacists can play in supporting patients and doctors. Recognizing that patients are more than their disease, CCS addresses social determinants of health to provide education and care coordination.
Richard explains, "CCS is a company that is in the business of chronic care management. We focus on delivering products and services to patients with a variety of chronic care conditions. But foremost among these for us is diabetes. We're very focused on being able to provide solutions and services for folks who are managing their diabetic condition."
"On the machine learning side, we have a tremendous amount of data and information about how our patients will understand the devices they might be using. For example, continuous glucose monitors or CGMs are an important standard of care that we work with a lot of patients across the US to equip them, find the right device, help them begin using that device, and best understand what it can do and how it can help them make better decisions to manage their conditions."
"We might talk to the patient once or twice a month. We might be talking to them multiple times within a quarter. In some cases, we're interacting with a patient more often than others in the ecosystem, maybe more often than even their physician in terms of the number of interactions per month or period, even their health insurance provider. So all that interaction helps give us information and data to draw insights on what those patients might need, what's most important to them, and how they interact with us. We can also work with a variety of other sources to bring information together. And by using the machine learning tools that we've developed, we can understand things that are important to them. So, it might be around the product or specific information related to the plan or the payer they're working with."
#CCSMed #Diabetes #ChronicCare #CGM #Healthcare #DigitalHealth #MedicalAI
ccsmed.com
Listen to the podcast here
Richard Mackey, Chief Technology Officer at CCS, focuses on the challenges faced by patients with diabetes and multiple morbidities, as well as their healthcare providers, in managing their conditions. CCS has developed the Living Connected approach to connect patients, providers, and payers, and promotes the role that durable medical equipment companies and pharmacists can play in supporting patients and doctors. Recognizing that patients are more than their disease, CCS addresses social determinants of health to provide education and care coordination.
Richard explains, "CCS is a company that is in the business of chronic care management. We focus on delivering products and services to patients with a variety of chronic care conditions. But foremost among these for us is diabetes. We're very focused on being able to provide solutions and services for folks who are managing their diabetic condition."
"On the machine learning side, we have a tremendous amount of data and information about how our patients will understand the devices they might be using. For example, continuous glucose monitors or CGMs are an important standard of care that we work with a lot of patients across the US to equip them, find the right device, help them begin using that device, and best understand what it can do and how it can help them make better decisions to manage their conditions."
"We might talk to the patient once or twice a month. We might be talking to them multiple times within a quarter. In some cases, we're interacting with a patient more often than others in the ecosystem, maybe more often than even their physician in terms of the number of interactions per month or period, even their health insurance provider. So all that interaction helps give us information and data to draw insights on what those patients might need, what's most important to them, and how they interact with us. We can also work with a variety of other sources to bring information together. And by using the machine learning tools that we've developed, we can understand things that are important to them. So, it might be around the product or specific information related to the plan or the payer they're working with."
#CCSMed #Diabetes #ChronicCare #CGM #Healthcare #DigitalHealth #MedicalAI
ccsmed.com
Download the transcript here
Catherine Richards Golini, Patient Resource Manager at Karger Publishers, is providing high-quality, accurate healthcare information to patients, addressing the need for trusted health information. Karger has a rigorous process in place to ensure the relevance of its patient resources, involving patients, clinical reviewers, and obtaining a quality mark. With the increasing use of AI and healthcare influencers, healthcare providers need these resources to have more productive conversations with patients and encourage health literacy.
Catherine explains, "I will refer to the patient resources we publish. We also produce resources for healthcare professionals, as you know. But my job is patient resources, and I think we're quite proud of our patient resources in the sense that we have a very watertight production process that involves patients from the very beginning. So we're confident that we're producing relevant information that's very important, relevant to the patient community, and what they want. Accuracy. We always involve clinical reviewers, usually two for each patient resource actually, to make sure that the content is accurate."
"We've also got something called the PIF TICK, which is a British thing, but I believe it's now spreading across Europe. It may even be known of in the States. And the PIF TICK is like a quality mark, a certification mark for patient healthcare information. We have to have our resources, our production processes, and our resources evaluated. When we pass the evaluation, and there are about 10 criteria with multiple sub-criteria, we get the right to use this PIF TICK on the back of our resources. So those are three ways to guarantee that we produce trusted, accurate healthcare information for patients."
#KargerPublishers #Publishing #Science #Research #HealthInformation #MedicalAI #AI
karger.com
Listen to the podcast here
Catherine Richards Golini, Patient Resource Manager at Karger Publishers, is providing high-quality, accurate healthcare information to patients, addressing the need for trusted health information. Karger has a rigorous process in place to ensure the relevance of its patient resources, involving patients, clinical reviewers, and obtaining a quality mark. With the increasing use of AI and healthcare influencers, healthcare providers need these resources to have more productive conversations with patients and encourage health literacy.
Catherine explains, "I will refer to the patient resources we publish. We also produce resources for healthcare professionals, as you know. But my job is patient resources, and I think we're quite proud of our patient resources in the sense that we have a very watertight production process that involves patients from the very beginning. So we're confident that we're producing relevant information that's very important, relevant to the patient community, and what they want. Accuracy. We always involve clinical reviewers, usually two for each patient resource actually, to make sure that the content is accurate."
"We've also got something called the PIF TICK, which is a British thing, but I believe it's now spreading across Europe. It may even be known of in the States. And the PIF TICK is like a quality mark, a certification mark for patient healthcare information. We have to have our resources, our production processes, and our resources evaluated. When we pass the evaluation, and there are about 10 criteria with multiple sub-criteria, we get the right to use this PIF TICK on the back of our resources. So those are three ways to guarantee that we produce trusted, accurate healthcare information for patients."
#KargerPublishers #Publishing #Science #Research #HealthInformation #MedicalAI #AI
karger.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Orit Wimpfheimer, Chief Medical Officer at Nanox, a medical imaging AI company using technology to detect early signs of diseases through opportunistic screening of CT scans. The AI platform identifies signs of diseases such as osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease that may have been overlooked by the radiologist. The tools are designed to be integrated into the radiologist's workflow to provide quantified measurements to guide clinical care decisions leading to improved patient outcomes.
Orit explains, "The number of CT scans over the last 20 years has risen astronomically. People are getting CT scans for many reasons, and there's a lot of data on the images that doesn't get translated into patient care. And what our AI tools do is to scan all those CT scans in the background unobtrusively, so they look for signs of chronic conditions and highlight those to the radiologists while they're reading the scans. This ensures that chronic diseases are commented on in the reports, initiating a clinical pathway to help treat those diseases at the early stages of their disease processes. Ultimately, we're trying to find diseases much earlier to treat them much better and therefore increase the quality of life and the length of life by treating these diseases before they become very symptomatic."
"So our tools are actually measurement tools. When the radiologist looks at the images, they have their checklist in their mind, myself included. I'm a radiologist. Things we're always looking for on the scan, and then we pay attention based on the patient's clinical history or rule out pneumonia, rule out cancer, whatever it is. Sometimes these chronic diseases might be lurking in the background, but they don't get attention from the radiologist. And even if the radiologist is super careful and tries to find everything on the exam, we don't have time to start measuring things. And when you comment on something without giving a quantified measurement, it's very hard for the clinician down the line to know what to do with this patient. It's too vague. When we give quantified information, the doctor, after the radiologist, can take that quantified information and then know where to send the patient next and what to do next with the patient. And that's critical because we don't want to drop patients along the way, the clinical care pathway, because then it’s ineffective."
#NanoxVision #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #MedAI #RadiologyAI #HealthcareInnovation #Medical Imaging #Radiology #EarlyDetection #PreventiveCare #PatientCare
nanox.vision
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Chelsey Lindner, a pharmacist and Manager of Clinical Services at Shields Health Solutions, provides insights about the growing prevalence of oral and subcutaneous injection oncology medications, which is shifting the delivery of care from the clinic to at-home. This innovation in cancer care introduces complexities around accessing and affording these specialty drugs and requires the skills of a specialty pharmacy to support the patients and providers. In an integrated care model, there is also a growing need for attention to medication adherence and monitoring for side effects by these pharmacists.
Chelsey explains, "Shields is considered a specialty pharmacy integrator. We partner with health systems across the country to help them operate best-in-class specialty pharmacy programs. We are focused on improving patient outcomes through specialized pharmacy services and supporting the optimized use of specialty medications through navigation of access, care coordination, and comprehensive medication management. So those are three of the big services Shields offers as a company."
"I would say that the number one component that these oral oncology medications offer is a level of patient convenience and maintenance of their quality of life. Because what was a cancer diagnosis 20 years ago meant they were going to have to come to the health center or be admitted to the hospital to receive their treatment. Whereas now, when a patient might be faced with a certain cancer diagnosis, they will be managing it like a chronic condition. They can stay at home, they can stay with their families. They can do all of those things that they want to do that help support that quality of life as they're going through active cancer treatment. And so with that certainly comes, I think, a level of popularity. And I think the pharmaceutical companies certainly would be incentivized to continue the research in this area and the development of these agents."
#ShieldsHealthSolutions #IntegratedCareModel #SpecialtyPharmacy #CancerTreatment #MedicationAdherence
shieldshealthsolutions.com
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Chelsey Lindner, a pharmacist and Manager of Clinical Services at Shields Health Solutions, provides insights about the growing prevalence of oral and subcutaneous injection oncology medications, which is shifting the delivery of care from the clinic to at-home. This innovation in cancer care introduces complexities around accessing and affording these specialty drugs and requires the skills of a specialty pharmacy to support the patients and providers. In an integrated care model, there is also a growing need for attention to medication adherence and monitoring for side effects by these pharmacists.
Chelsey explains, "Shields is considered a specialty pharmacy integrator. We partner with health systems across the country to help them operate best-in-class specialty pharmacy programs. We are focused on improving patient outcomes through specialized pharmacy services and supporting the optimized use of specialty medications through navigation of access, care coordination, and comprehensive medication management. So those are three of the big services Shields offers as a company."
"I would say that the number one component that these oral oncology medications offer is a level of patient convenience and maintenance of their quality of life. Because what was a cancer diagnosis 20 years ago meant they were going to have to come to the health center or be admitted to the hospital to receive their treatment. Whereas now, when a patient might be faced with a certain cancer diagnosis, they will be managing it like a chronic condition. They can stay at home, they can stay with their families. They can do all of those things that they want to do that help support that quality of life as they're going through active cancer treatment. And so with that certainly comes, I think, a level of popularity. And I think the pharmaceutical companies certainly would be incentivized to continue the research in this area and the development of these agents."
#ShieldsHealthSolutions #IntegratedCareModel #SpecialtyPharmacy #CancerTreatment #MedicationAdherence
shieldshealthsolutions.com
Listen to the podcast here
Chelsey Lindner, a pharmacist and Manager of Clinical Services at Shields Health Solutions, provides insights about the growing prevalence of oral and subcutaneous injection oncology medications, which is shifting the delivery of care from the clinic to at-home. This innovation in cancer care introduces complexities around accessing and affording these specialty drugs and requires the skills of a specialty pharmacy to support the patients and providers. In an integrated care model, there is also a growing need for attention to medication adherence and monitoring for side effects by these pharmacists.
Chelsey explains, "Shields is considered a specialty pharmacy integrator. We partner with health systems across the country to help them operate best-in-class specialty pharmacy programs. We are focused on improving patient outcomes through specialized pharmacy services and supporting the optimized use of specialty medications through navigation of access, care coordination, and comprehensive medication management. So those are three of the big services Shields offers as a company."
"I would say that the number one component that these oral oncology medications offer is a level of patient convenience and maintenance of their quality of life. Because what was a cancer diagnosis 20 years ago meant they were going to have to come to the health center or be admitted to the hospital to receive their treatment. Whereas now, when a patient might be faced with a certain cancer diagnosis, they will be managing it like a chronic condition. They can stay at home, they can stay with their families. They can do all of those things that they want to do that help support that quality of life as they're going through active cancer treatment. And so with that certainly comes, I think, a level of popularity. And I think the pharmaceutical companies certainly would be incentivized to continue the research in this area and the development of these agents."
#ShieldsHealthSolutions #IntegratedCareModel #SpecialtyPharmacy #CancerTreatment #MedicationAdherence
shieldshealthsolutions.com
Download the transcript here
Tamsin Chislett, CEO of Hyfe, highlights the importance of understanding coughs for healthcare providers, the lack of information about coughs, and Hyfe's advancements in building a database and developing biomarkers based on different kinds of coughs. Hyfe's AI technology, which can integrate with other devices and platforms for remote patient monitoring, enables passive, continuous tracking of cough patterns that can be used in research and clinical trials. Opportunities for digital therapeutics include chronic cough, COPD, lung cancer, respiratory infections, and cardiovascular diseases.
Tamsin elaborates, "Hyfe is the global leader in AI power. The problem we're trying to solve is that you have this really common symptom cough, which has been experienced by every human alive and is experienced daily by many people, yet to discuss it, measure it, monitor it, or even manage it, we're entirely reliant on subjective data. Everyone's had the experience of going into a primary care doctor, and saying I've got a really bad cough. The doctor says How bad is it, and is it getting worse? We don't even have the proper language to describe it."
"We want to get to the point where, in those situations, the doctor can start to get objective data about the patient's cough patterns and use that instead. The way we see it is that there was a time when to measure fever, we put a hand on a patient's forehead. We hope that within a few years, thanks to Hyfe's technology, we should not be in the same position with cough. So we're always looking to have objective data."
"I think the interesting thing about cough is that because it's never been measurable, it hasn't been studied anywhere near as much as it probably should have. And even in the first five years of Hyfe's life, we've seen an explosion in cough-related science now that it's possible to monitor coughs with a smartphone, a smart watch, or anything with a microphone running Hyfe's technology. We've seen exciting science across a whole range, many of which are intuitive when you start thinking about cough, acute cough is a big one and respiratory infections, but there's also chronic cough."
"There's also COPD, there's IPF, there's lung cancer, there are so many respiratory and even cardiology diseases where cough is a cardinal symptom, a really clear sign of exacerbation of disease or worsening. However, to date, it has not been able to be measured, and cough monitoring with Hyfe allows you to monitor cough over time, see patterns, and use those patterns to optimize patient care in the future."
#HyfeAI #ChronicCough #HyfeDTx #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #DigitalTherapeutics #MedAI #CoughMonitoring #RemotePatientMonitoring #HealthInnovation #RespiratoryAwareness #CoughAwareness #CoughScience #PatientCentricCare
hyfe.com
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Tamsin Chislett, CEO of Hyfe, highlights the importance of understanding coughs for healthcare providers, the lack of information about coughs, and Hyfe's advancements in building a database and developing biomarkers based on different kinds of coughs. Hyfe's AI technology, which can integrate with other devices and platforms for remote patient monitoring, enables passive, continuous tracking of cough patterns that can be used in research and clinical trials. Opportunities for digital therapeutics include chronic cough, COPD, lung cancer, respiratory infections, and cardiovascular diseases.
Tamsin elaborates, "Hyfe is the global leader in AI power. The problem we're trying to solve is that you have this really common symptom cough, which has been experienced by every human alive and is experienced daily by many people, yet to discuss it, measure it, monitor it, or even manage it, we're entirely reliant on subjective data. Everyone's had the experience of going into a primary care doctor, and saying I've got a really bad cough. The doctor says How bad is it, and is it getting worse? We don't even have the proper language to describe it."
"We want to get to the point where, in those situations, the doctor can start to get objective data about the patient's cough patterns and use that instead. The way we see it is that there was a time when to measure fever, we put a hand on a patient's forehead. We hope that within a few years, thanks to Hyfe's technology, we should not be in the same position with cough. So we're always looking to have objective data."
"I think the interesting thing about cough is that because it's never been measurable, it hasn't been studied anywhere near as much as it probably should have. And even in the first five years of Hyfe's life, we've seen an explosion in cough-related science now that it's possible to monitor coughs with a smartphone, a smart watch, or anything with a microphone running Hyfe's technology. We've seen exciting science across a whole range, many of which are intuitive when you start thinking about cough, acute cough is a big one and respiratory infections, but there's also chronic cough."
"There's also COPD, there's IPF, there's lung cancer, there are so many respiratory and even cardiology diseases where cough is a cardinal symptom, a really clear sign of exacerbation of disease or worsening. However, to date, it has not been able to be measured, and cough monitoring with Hyfe allows you to monitor cough over time, see patterns, and use those patterns to optimize patient care in the future."
#HyfeAI #ChronicCough #HyfeDTx #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #DigitalTherapeutics #MedAI #CoughMonitoring #RemotePatientMonitoring #HealthInnovation #RespiratoryAwareness #CoughAwareness #CoughScience #PatientCentricCare
hyfe.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Orit Wimpfheimer, Chief Medical Officer at Nanox, a medical imaging AI company using technology to detect early signs of diseases through opportunistic screening of CT scans. The AI platform identifies signs of diseases such as osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease that may have been overlooked by the radiologist. The tools are designed to be integrated into the radiologist's workflow to provide quantified measurements to guide clinical care decisions leading to improved patient outcomes.
Orit explains, "The number of CT scans over the last 20 years has risen astronomically. People are getting CT scans for many reasons, and there's a lot of data on the images that doesn't get translated into patient care. And what our AI tools do is to scan all those CT scans in the background unobtrusively, so they look for signs of chronic conditions and highlight those to the radiologists while they're reading the scans. This ensures that chronic diseases are commented on in the reports, initiating a clinical pathway to help treat those diseases at the early stages of their disease processes. Ultimately, we're trying to find diseases much earlier to treat them much better and therefore increase the quality of life and the length of life by treating these diseases before they become very symptomatic."
"So our tools are actually measurement tools. When the radiologist looks at the images, they have their checklist in their mind, myself included. I'm a radiologist. Things we're always looking for on the scan, and then we pay attention based on the patient's clinical history or rule out pneumonia, rule out cancer, whatever it is. Sometimes these chronic diseases might be lurking in the background, but they don't get attention from the radiologist. And even if the radiologist is super careful and tries to find everything on the exam, we don't have time to start measuring things. And when you comment on something without giving a quantified measurement, it's very hard for the clinician down the line to know what to do with this patient. It's too vague. When we give quantified information, the doctor, after the radiologist, can take that quantified information and then know where to send the patient next and what to do next with the patient. And that's critical because we don't want to drop patients along the way, the clinical care pathway, because then it’s ineffective."
#NanoxVision #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareAI #MedAI #RadiologyAI #HealthcareInnovation #Medical Imaging #Radiology #EarlyDetection #PreventiveCare #PatientCare
nanox.vision
Listen to the podcast here
Geoff Nau, Senior Manager of Product Management for Paragon at Altera Digital Health, highlights how digital health solutions can address the challenges of nurse burnout and retention. AI and machine learning can help automate documentation tasks and streamline workflows to allow nurses better access to patient information. Improving nurse retention requires attention to factors like time-off policies and leveraging technology to give nurses more time to focus on patient care.
Geoff elaborates, "I have been a nurse since 2004. I practiced at the bedside for approximately 15 years. I did pediatric and adult ER as well as NICU. So I started my nursing career on paper and transitioned to electronic. And so in that time, a couple of factors, in the beginning, there was not enough information, and click-intensive. And looking at my travels and going to hospitals and sites today, that challenge is still there as far as access to data relevant to that patient visit, whether it's trending labs, care plans, etc. My experience with most EHRs out there, most of all, is that it’s just click-intensive. A one-size-fits-all is tough to do nowadays."
"There is still a considerable amount of paper out there. When you start getting into these specialized areas like behavioral health, IOP or intensive outpatient, a lot of that, especially if there's anything like a treatment plan, things that may have multiple people needing to touch it, I still see a lot of that on paper. My goal from a solutions perspective is to get as much of that electronic as possible, especially given where we're at with challenges with nursing and staffing. Today, your patient loads go from four to five to one nurse."
"I'm a nurse. I also have a doctorate in organizational psychology. And this was a big study of my focus during my dissertation, where I looked at why people stay on the job as opposed to why they leave. When I first got into nursing, nurses would leave for a dollar. They would go up the street to another facility. But now, having support systems in place allows nurses to take time off, as you said. I know that here, where I live in North Carolina, a couple of institutions are taking a look at their PTO policies. They're looking at their holiday policies and trying to be more flexible. They're working with PRN staffing. In my research, I also found a community component to job embeddedness, if you will, in nursing."
#AlteraDigitalHealth #DigitalHealth #Nurses #Nursing #NurseBurnout #NurseRetention #MedAI
alterahealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Geoff Nau, Senior Manager of Product Management for Paragon at Altera Digital Health, highlights how digital health solutions can address the challenges of nurse burnout and retention. AI and machine learning can help automate documentation tasks and streamline workflows to allow nurses better access to patient information. Improving nurse retention requires attention to factors like time-off policies and leveraging technology to give nurses more time to focus on patient care.
Geoff elaborates, "I have been a nurse since 2004. I practiced at the bedside for approximately 15 years. I did pediatric and adult ER as well as NICU. So I started my nursing career on paper and transitioned to electronic. And so in that time, a couple of factors, in the beginning, there was not enough information, and click-intensive. And looking at my travels and going to hospitals and sites today, that challenge is still there as far as access to data relevant to that patient visit, whether it's trending labs, care plans, etc. My experience with most EHRs out there, most of all, is that it’s just click-intensive. A one-size-fits-all is tough to do nowadays."
"There is still a considerable amount of paper out there. When you start getting into these specialized areas like behavioral health, IOP or intensive outpatient, a lot of that, especially if there's anything like a treatment plan, things that may have multiple people needing to touch it, I still see a lot of that on paper. My goal from a solutions perspective is to get as much of that electronic as possible, especially given where we're at with challenges with nursing and staffing. Today, your patient loads go from four to five to one nurse."
"I'm a nurse. I also have a doctorate in organizational psychology. And this was a big study of my focus during my dissertation, where I looked at why people stay on the job as opposed to why they leave. When I first got into nursing, nurses would leave for a dollar. They would go up the street to another facility. But now, having support systems in place allows nurses to take time off, as you said. I know that here, where I live in North Carolina, a couple of institutions are taking a look at their PTO policies. They're looking at their holiday policies and trying to be more flexible. They're working with PRN staffing. In my research, I also found a community component to job embeddedness, if you will, in nursing."
#AlteraDigitalHealth #DigitalHealth #Nurses #Nursing #NurseBurnout #NurseRetention #MedAI
alterahealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Paul Moore, Chief Scientific Officer at Zymeworks, focuses on developing targeted therapies, particularly multispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates for hard-to-treat cancers such as gynecological, thoracic, and digestive tract cancers. This approach can target multiple areas on tumor cells and immune cells, potentially overcoming tumor heterogeneity and allowing for immune system modulation. The platform allows for a plug-and-play approach, enabling the development of therapies for oncology and autoimmune diseases.
Paul explains, "So, multispecific antibodies are antibodies. Antibodies traditionally have a single target that they bind, so they're monoclonal and hit a specific target. A lot of excitement is generated for bispecific antibodies, which are engineered to bind two targets. Then with multispecifics, you are trying to broaden even further the number of targets or binding sites you've incorporated into your drug so that you can simultaneously interact with more than one target. The reason that can be important is that allows and facilitates new biology that is not possible for just a monoclonal antibody or a single antibody-targeting drug conjugate."
"Multispecifics open up the opportunity to take two targets that are on different cells, different cell populations. So, you can have a target on a tumor cell you're trying to target. Then you can have a target on an immune cell like a T cell, which you can co-engage. You can bridge a T cell to a binding domain that's on a multispecific with your second specificity, which can bind to the cell. And what that allows you to do is bring the T cell into the environment of the tumor cell, and through that engagement, the T cell can kill the tumor cell. So that is the foundation of a lot of excitement in bispecifics."
#Zymeworks #Antibodies #MultispecificAntibodies #ADC #AntibodyDrugConjugate #Tumors #Cancer #ImmuneSystem
zymeworks.com
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Dr. Paul Moore, Chief Scientific Officer at Zymeworks, focuses on developing targeted therapies, particularly multispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates for hard-to-treat cancers such as gynecological, thoracic, and digestive tract cancers. This approach can target multiple areas on tumor cells and immune cells, potentially overcoming tumor heterogeneity and allowing for immune system modulation. The platform allows for a plug-and-play approach, enabling the development of therapies for oncology and autoimmune diseases.
Paul explains, "So, multispecific antibodies are antibodies. Antibodies traditionally have a single target that they bind, so they're monoclonal and hit a specific target. A lot of excitement is generated for bispecific antibodies, which are engineered to bind two targets. Then with multispecifics, you are trying to broaden even further the number of targets or binding sites you've incorporated into your drug so that you can simultaneously interact with more than one target. The reason that can be important is that allows and facilitates new biology that is not possible for just a monoclonal antibody or a single antibody-targeting drug conjugate."
"Multispecifics open up the opportunity to take two targets that are on different cells, different cell populations. So, you can have a target on a tumor cell you're trying to target. Then you can have a target on an immune cell like a T cell, which you can co-engage. You can bridge a T cell to a binding domain that's on a multispecific with your second specificity, which can bind to the cell. And what that allows you to do is bring the T cell into the environment of the tumor cell, and through that engagement, the T cell can kill the tumor cell. So that is the foundation of a lot of excitement in bispecifics."
#Zymeworks #Antibodies #MultispecificAntibodies #ADC #AntibodyDrugConjugate #Tumors #Cancer #ImmuneSystem
zymeworks.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Sonja Tarrago, head of Physician Strategy and Engagement at DexCare, has created a care orchestration platform to help health systems improve patient access to care, direct patients to the proper care, and optimize provider capacity. DexCare solutions have enabled health systems to treat more patients with existing resources, increase new patient acquisition, and reduce time to care. This platform reduces long wait times, provides real-time online scheduling, and matches patient demand with provider availability.
Sonja explains, "DexCare is a care orchestration platform used by leading health systems to help manage the supply and demand of healthcare. That means that our platform helps health systems get discovered at the point of search. So, where patients are searching for care, we know that's typically Google, and then we navigate patients to the best fit care. So we do that while optimizing provider capacity and resources in real time. So, as we talk about our customers, we think that first of all, we need to acknowledge that healthcare is in crisis right now."
"In addition to making care more discoverable, we're using data to help direct our patients to the right care based on what they're looking for. This makes sure that the patients are getting connected to the right resources within the health systems that we work with, and we're helping to reduce bottlenecks and improve efficiencies within the health system."
"So we need to help patients find care, not find a doctor. In addition to that, I think another gap is that patients have limited access to real-time online scheduling. And by that, I don't mean a form that a patient fills out and waits for someone to get back to them. I mean a real-time slot that patients can book into."
#DexCare #CareOrchestration #DigitalHealth #CareOptimization
dexcare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Sonja Tarrago, head of Physician Strategy and Engagement at DexCare, has created a care orchestration platform to help health systems improve patient access to care, direct patients to the proper care, and optimize provider capacity. DexCare solutions have enabled health systems to treat more patients with existing resources, increase new patient acquisition, and reduce time to care. This platform reduces long wait times, provides real-time online scheduling, and matches patient demand with provider availability.
Sonja explains, "DexCare is a care orchestration platform used by leading health systems to help manage the supply and demand of healthcare. That means that our platform helps health systems get discovered at the point of search. So, where patients are searching for care, we know that's typically Google, and then we navigate patients to the best fit care. So we do that while optimizing provider capacity and resources in real time. So, as we talk about our customers, we think that first of all, we need to acknowledge that healthcare is in crisis right now."
"In addition to making care more discoverable, we're using data to help direct our patients to the right care based on what they're looking for. This makes sure that the patients are getting connected to the right resources within the health systems that we work with, and we're helping to reduce bottlenecks and improve efficiencies within the health system."
"So we need to help patients find care, not find a doctor. In addition to that, I think another gap is that patients have limited access to real-time online scheduling. And by that, I don't mean a form that a patient fills out and waits for someone to get back to them. I mean a real-time slot that patients can book into."
#DexCare #CareOrchestration #DigitalHealth #CareOptimization
dexcare.com
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David Norris, Founder and CEO of Affineon Health Inc., recognizes the significant problem of provider burnout, which is primarily caused by the time doctors spend on administrative tasks rather than with the patient. Affineon's AI-powered solution aims to address this by automating the review of the provider's inbox and reducing their cognitive load. The inboxes are filled with lab results, pharmacy messages, and other tasks that need review. This approach enables doctors to focus on the required actions quickly.
David explains, "We're attacking one of the biggest problems providers often complain about: the inbox. And this is their clinical inbox, not their email inbox like you and I have. The clinical inbox is typically filled with hundreds of things that come in daily. For a PCP, this can often include things like lab results. So you go to your doctor for your annual wellness visit, and they order five to 10 different labs, which come into their inbox the next day. If you're seeing 20 patients a day, that's hundreds of results, plus you're getting prescription renewal requests from the pharmacies, you're getting patient messages. The provider, while trying to stay focused on seeing 20 patients a day and keeping their focus on those patients, they're now literally trying to squeeze a little inbox time in before and after patients."
"Affineon has introduced an AI inbox that integrates directly into the electronic health record system. We do exactly what you would do if you hired an assistant in the medical terminology, triage your inbox, which is to handle everything they can handle. The provider focuses on the most critical things. So we're using an AI agent to do that, and unlike a human, which would be very costly to do this, our solution costs $2.50 a day. So about half a cup of coffee. So, for a provider to now have the ability to have an assistant triage their inbox every day and to help them by reducing their daily inbox volume by up to 50%-60%, that's pretty incredible. And before AI, that wasn't possible."
#Affineon #MedAI #ProviderBurnout #AIInbox
affineon.com
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David Norris, Founder and CEO of Affineon Health Inc., recognizes the significant problem of provider burnout, which is primarily caused by the time doctors spend on administrative tasks rather than with the patient. Affineon's AI-powered solution aims to address this by automating the review of the provider's inbox and reducing their cognitive load. The inboxes are filled with lab results, pharmacy messages, and other tasks that need review. This approach enables doctors to focus on the required actions quickly.
David explains, "We're attacking one of the biggest problems providers often complain about: the inbox. And this is their clinical inbox, not their email inbox like you and I have. The clinical inbox is typically filled with hundreds of things that come in daily. For a PCP, this can often include things like lab results. So you go to your doctor for your annual wellness visit, and they order five to 10 different labs, which come into their inbox the next day. If you're seeing 20 patients a day, that's hundreds of results, plus you're getting prescription renewal requests from the pharmacies, you're getting patient messages. The provider, while trying to stay focused on seeing 20 patients a day and keeping their focus on those patients, they're now literally trying to squeeze a little inbox time in before and after patients."
"Affineon has introduced an AI inbox that integrates directly into the electronic health record system. We do exactly what you would do if you hired an assistant in the medical terminology, triage your inbox, which is to handle everything they can handle. The provider focuses on the most critical things. So we're using an AI agent to do that, and unlike a human, which would be very costly to do this, our solution costs $2.50 a day. So about half a cup of coffee. So, for a provider to now have the ability to have an assistant triage their inbox every day and to help them by reducing their daily inbox volume by up to 50%-60%, that's pretty incredible. And before AI, that wasn't possible."
#Affineon #MedAI #ProviderBurnout #AIInbox
affineon.com
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Dr. Jason Williams, President and Director of Interventional Oncology and Immunotherapy at the Williams Cancer Institute, uses a combination of Pulse Electric Field technology to ablate tumors and direct injection of immunotherapy drugs into the tumor to stimulate the immune system. This approach can be used in conjunction with traditional cancer treatments and has fewer side effects than standard immunotherapy. This method is part of the broader trend in cancer research to provide a more targeted approach to treating tumors.
Jason explains, "Our big focus is going to the tumor itself, so we do treatments directly at the tumor, and we do a combination of things. We do things that will be considered ablation where we're using different technologies or energies — I'll explain — particularly, we use one called Pulse Electric Field (PEF), which kills the tumor by essentially shocking it, and that kills it in a way that actually makes the immune system see it better. You're not trying to kill all of the tumor, you're trying to kill pieces for the immune system. Then we inject drugs into that area of the tumor, particularly immunotherapy drugs, but it can be other drugs as well, and just really taking the fight to the cancer right in the tumor."
"I think that our mistake in cancer treatments is that we're not addressing the tumors directly. I mean, it's one thing to expect that you're going to take a drug orally or intravenously and that it's going to arrive and make it to the cancer cells. Still, the other way is to go right into it, putting the drugs there, and particularly with immunotherapies, where you want to attract the immune system to it. You want those drugs in the cancer, you don't want them just everywhere in the body."
#WilliamsCancer #Cancer #Oncology #Tumors #Immunotherapy #PulseElectricField #ImmuneSystem #TargetingTumors
WilliamsCancerInstitute.com
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Dr. Jason Williams, President and Director of Interventional Oncology and Immunotherapy at the Williams Cancer Institute, uses a combination of Pulse Electric Field technology to ablate tumors and direct injection of immunotherapy drugs into the tumor to stimulate the immune system. This approach can be used in conjunction with traditional cancer treatments and has fewer side effects than standard immunotherapy. This method is part of the broader trend in cancer research to provide a more targeted approach to treating tumors.
Jason explains, "Our big focus is going to the tumor itself, so we do treatments directly at the tumor, and we do a combination of things. We do things that will be considered ablation where we're using different technologies or energies — I'll explain — particularly, we use one called Pulse Electric Field (PEF), which kills the tumor by essentially shocking it, and that kills it in a way that actually makes the immune system see it better. You're not trying to kill all of the tumor, you're trying to kill pieces for the immune system. Then we inject drugs into that area of the tumor, particularly immunotherapy drugs, but it can be other drugs as well, and just really taking the fight to the cancer right in the tumor."
"I think that our mistake in cancer treatments is that we're not addressing the tumors directly. I mean, it's one thing to expect that you're going to take a drug orally or intravenously and that it's going to arrive and make it to the cancer cells. Still, the other way is to go right into it, putting the drugs there, and particularly with immunotherapies, where you want to attract the immune system to it. You want those drugs in the cancer, you don't want them just everywhere in the body."
#WilliamsCancer #Cancer #Oncology #Tumors #Immunotherapy #PulseElectricField #ImmuneSystem #TargetingTumors
WilliamsCancerInstitute.com
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Joel Stanley is the CEO of Ajna Biosciences, a company developing the next generation of botanical medicines. These full-spectrum drugs, derived from plants and fungi, are regulated and approved through the FDA, unlike dietary supplements. Lead drug candidates are targeting autism, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD. With expertise in cultivating and scaling the production of botanical raw materials, Ajna is creating a sustainable model compared to wild-harvested botanicals.
Joel explains, "It's no secret that before about a hundred years ago, all of our medicines were botanical medicines, or mostly coming from plants, or maybe mushrooms. And in the last century, as we developed Western medicine - modern medicine - the drug approval process started to learn how to synthesize molecules and isolate molecules from nature. So we started to step completely away from plant medicine and into a synthetic pharmaceutical landscape. The FDA fairly recently started allowing botanical drugs. So what that means is that it's full-spectrum medicines coming from the given root, shrub, leaf, flower, or mushroom. Those would be botanical drugs. So botanical drugs are not single-compound botanically derived drugs, which make up about 20% of our pharmaceuticals. They're a full-spectrum plant extract, a botanical drug from a regulatory standpoint."
"So, plant-based therapeutics can mean dietary supplements that do not go through clinical trials. They're not legally prescribed by doctors and generally not covered by insurance. Whereas botanical drugs go through the FDA drug approval process, rigorous clinical trials against placebo control to become FDA approved, covered by insurance, and legally prescribable. So that's really what sets what we're doing, creating botanical drugs, apart from what people have considered plant medicine this last century."
"Our most advanced drug in our pipeline is called AJA001, and it's very special to me because I've been basically working on this drug for more than 15 years. It's made in partnership with my previous company. I was the first CEO of a company called Charlotte's Web, which was really the first, and it's still the largest CBD brand out there. It was everything we learned at Charlotte's Web that kind of prompted me to start Ajna BioSciences four years ago. And that first drug is made from full-spectrum hemp, so it is CBD dominant, and it does have other cannabinoids, such as THC, as well as other minor cannabinoids. It also has certain terpenes."
#AjnaBiosciences #BotanicalMedicine #PlantBasedTherapeutics #PharmaInnovation #DrugDevelopment #NaturalMedicine #BioTech
ajnabiosciences.com
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Joel Stanley is the CEO of Ajna Biosciences, a company developing the next generation of botanical medicines. These full-spectrum drugs, derived from plants and fungi, are regulated and approved through the FDA, unlike dietary supplements. Lead drug candidates are targeting autism, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD. With expertise in cultivating and scaling the production of botanical raw materials, Ajna is creating a sustainable model compared to wild-harvested botanicals.
Joel explains, "It's no secret that before about a hundred years ago, all of our medicines were botanical medicines, or mostly coming from plants, or maybe mushrooms. And in the last century, as we developed Western medicine - modern medicine - the drug approval process started to learn how to synthesize molecules and isolate molecules from nature. So we started to step completely away from plant medicine and into a synthetic pharmaceutical landscape. The FDA fairly recently started allowing botanical drugs. So what that means is that it's full-spectrum medicines coming from the given root, shrub, leaf, flower, or mushroom. Those would be botanical drugs. So botanical drugs are not single-compound botanically derived drugs, which make up about 20% of our pharmaceuticals. They're a full-spectrum plant extract, a botanical drug from a regulatory standpoint."
"So, plant-based therapeutics can mean dietary supplements that do not go through clinical trials. They're not legally prescribed by doctors and generally not covered by insurance. Whereas botanical drugs go through the FDA drug approval process, rigorous clinical trials against placebo control to become FDA approved, covered by insurance, and legally prescribable. So that's really what sets what we're doing, creating botanical drugs, apart from what people have considered plant medicine this last century."
"Our most advanced drug in our pipeline is called AJA001, and it's very special to me because I've been basically working on this drug for more than 15 years. It's made in partnership with my previous company. I was the first CEO of a company called Charlotte's Web, which was really the first, and it's still the largest CBD brand out there. It was everything we learned at Charlotte's Web that kind of prompted me to start Ajna BioSciences four years ago. And that first drug is made from full-spectrum hemp, so it is CBD dominant, and it does have other cannabinoids, such as THC, as well as other minor cannabinoids. It also has certain terpenes."
#AjnaBiosciences #BotanicalMedicine #PlantBasedTherapeutics #PharmaInnovation #DrugDevelopment #NaturalMedicine #BioTech
ajnabiosciences.com
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Dana Brown serves as President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at iCAD Inc., which has developed a next-generation approach that leverages advancements in AI and imaging technology to improve the accuracy and efficiency of breast cancer screening. This technology can help reduce unnecessary biopsies and additional tests while more accurately identifying cancers that need immediate attention. The concerning trend of rising breast cancer in younger women highlights the importance of early detection and personalized care plans.
Dana explains, "Literally, iCAD's first FDA-cleared product in a first-generation AI was around 2002. So it's been well over 20 years. We're now on our fourth generation. So, yes, you're very accurate in describing this as a next-generation approach. So, not only has imaging technology improved over the past 20 years, but artificial intelligence has also improved. We continue to leverage the latest in artificial intelligence technology, how the artificial intelligence can be trained and learn, and a broad base of researchers that help us develop the solution. So you have new minds, new ways to think about solving the problem, and new technology that can be used to solve the problem. Then, there is a new underlying screening technology that gets better and better at clearer imaging."
"The American Cancer Society reports that if we can catch a breast cancer very early in stage one, then the likelihood of, I'll say surviving breast cancer is 99%, so very, very high. So the earlier we can catch a breast cancer, the less invasive and costly and length of time the treatments can be. There are more options for those patients as well as the likelihood of a positive outcome, being able to again, have no further evidence of the disease is increased."
#iCAD #BreastCancer #BreastCancerScreening #Radiology #CancerDetection #BreastBiopsies #Mammogram #WomensHealth #MedAI
icadmed.com
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Dana Brown serves as President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at iCAD Inc., which has developed a next-generation approach that leverages advancements in AI and imaging technology to improve the accuracy and efficiency of breast cancer screening. This technology can help reduce unnecessary biopsies and additional tests while more accurately identifying cancers that need immediate attention. The concerning trend of rising breast cancer in younger women highlights the importance of early detection and personalized care plans.
Dana explains, "Literally, iCAD's first FDA-cleared product in a first-generation AI was around 2002. So it's been well over 20 years. We're now on our fourth generation. So, yes, you're very accurate in describing this as a next-generation approach. So, not only has imaging technology improved over the past 20 years, but artificial intelligence has also improved. We continue to leverage the latest in artificial intelligence technology, how the artificial intelligence can be trained and learn, and a broad base of researchers that help us develop the solution. So you have new minds, new ways to think about solving the problem, and new technology that can be used to solve the problem. Then, there is a new underlying screening technology that gets better and better at clearer imaging."
"The American Cancer Society reports that if we can catch a breast cancer very early in stage one, then the likelihood of, I'll say surviving breast cancer is 99%, so very, very high. So the earlier we can catch a breast cancer, the less invasive and costly and length of time the treatments can be. There are more options for those patients as well as the likelihood of a positive outcome, being able to again, have no further evidence of the disease is increased."
#iCAD #BreastCancer #BreastCancerScreening #Radiology #CancerDetection #BreastBiopsies #Mammogram #WomensHealth #MedAI
icadmed.com
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Dr. Rany Aburashed, CEO and Founder of Neurogen Biomarking, is using a blood-based biomarker looking at p-tau 217 to detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease, up to 8-10 years before the onset of clinical symptoms. The company has built an ecosystem to provide patients with a comprehensive health assessment with an at-home blood test, cognitive testing, access to neurologists, and education on lifestyle changes that can support a good quality of life. Their mission is to take a proactive rather than the current reactive approach to diagnosing and slowing the progression of cognitive decline.
Rany explains, "The challenge for us, and this is what I saw from years of clinical practice and hospital management, is that a disease like Alzheimer's operates almost like a green light. Life is okay, you're having minor issues, but for the most part, you're moving along. Then suddenly you notice a sentinel event, which then becomes that red light, and now you have Alzheimer's dementia. And so the issue that is at the core of Alzheimer's is early detection. Is there a way for us to detect things earlier and, in turn, provide patients with an opportunity to take control of their dementia and make the necessary changes in treatments?"
"In the current setting, the way that we do it in the United States and around the world is really reactive and it is too late by the time your mother or father is developing cognitive complaints. It's very easy to ignore the early stages of it because you can function for three to five years without really anything dramatic happening. So suddenly, when that dramatic instance occurs, for example, you leave the stove on, or you get lost driving back to your house, something that's very obviously outside of the normal, that might trigger you to say, "Let's get Mom checked."
"At launch, our focus is on using the biomarker called p-tau 217. This biomarker can be detected now with more technologies in the blood at microscopic levels, and we couldn't do that effectively 10 or 15 years ago. That science has caught up, and the technology has caught up to a point that now, even 8 to 10 years before any significant clinical symptoms occur, we're able to detect if this protein is elevated. Now, if this protein is elevated, depending on the assay that we use, it's about 93%-97% sensitive for potentially developing Alzheimer's long-term. So it's a good protein to use as a triage protein."
#NeurogenBiomarkings #Biomarkers #BloodBiomarkers #Alzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #CognitiveDecline #Dementia #EarlyDetection #Neurologists
NeurogenBiomarking.com
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Dr. Rany Aburashed, CEO and Founder of Neurogen Biomarking, is using a blood-based biomarker looking at p-tau 217 to detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease, up to 8-10 years before the onset of clinical symptoms. The company has built an ecosystem to provide patients with a comprehensive health assessment with an at-home blood test, cognitive testing, access to neurologists, and education on lifestyle changes that can support a good quality of life. Their mission is to take a proactive rather than the current reactive approach to diagnosing and slowing the progression of cognitive decline.
Rany explains, "The challenge for us, and this is what I saw from years of clinical practice and hospital management, is that a disease like Alzheimer's operates almost like a green light. Life is okay, you're having minor issues, but for the most part, you're moving along. Then suddenly you notice a sentinel event, which then becomes that red light, and now you have Alzheimer's dementia. And so the issue that is at the core of Alzheimer's is early detection. Is there a way for us to detect things earlier and, in turn, provide patients with an opportunity to take control of their dementia and make the necessary changes in treatments?"
"In the current setting, the way that we do it in the United States and around the world is really reactive and it is too late by the time your mother or father is developing cognitive complaints. It's very easy to ignore the early stages of it because you can function for three to five years without really anything dramatic happening. So suddenly, when that dramatic instance occurs, for example, you leave the stove on, or you get lost driving back to your house, something that's very obviously outside of the normal, that might trigger you to say, "Let's get Mom checked."
"At launch, our focus is on using the biomarker called p-tau 217. This biomarker can be detected now with more technologies in the blood at microscopic levels, and we couldn't do that effectively 10 or 15 years ago. That science has caught up, and the technology has caught up to a point that now, even 8 to 10 years before any significant clinical symptoms occur, we're able to detect if this protein is elevated. Now, if this protein is elevated, depending on the assay that we use, it's about 93%-97% sensitive for potentially developing Alzheimer's long-term. So it's a good protein to use as a triage protein."
#NeurogenBiomarkings #Biomarkers #BloodBiomarkers #Alzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #CognitiveDecline #Dementia #EarlyDetection #Neurologists
NeurogenBiomarking.com
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Ram Krishnan, CEO of Valant, uses AI to make mental health care more accessible through their practice management and patient engagement platforms designed specifically for mental health providers. AI is applied to improve administrative efficiency, address billing and compliance, and drive successful patient outcomes. New solutions are needed due to the growing patient population for mental health services and the potential of advanced therapeutics that are transforming the behavioral health environment, where demand is outpacing the supply of mental health care providers.
Ram explains, "If I took a step back, AI - let's describe what AI is across a practice. Multiple functional verticals exist within a practice, including marketing. A team is trying to acquire the right type of patients. There's your administrative vertical, if you will, which is just making sure you're running the business well. You have your clinical vertical, which is the time the clinician, prescriber, psychiatrist, and practitioner spend with the patient. There's billing, making sure you're getting paid for all this work, and there's compliance along the way. And each of these verticals has the potential to have an increased efficiency, first and foremost, by AI. Secondly, behind it are improved outcomes."
"Yes, I think we are getting into a wild realm of possibilities for our application of AI. I think what we are making in our systems is a cautious and practical, pragmatic approach of working our way through the functions that I laid out, and then the goals in terms of efficiency. I think there is a wide range of potential here with AI. When people think of AI in mental health, they immediately think of an AI avatar of some kind that you can converse with and becomes a replacement for the therapist and a replacement for the understanding and awareness of everything. From the words you're choosing to the changes in your vocal modulation to the facial expressions on your face. Putting that all through the analytics to come back and assess risk of things like you said, suicide ideation or violence, potential violence. I think those are much later-term applications. There has to be a purpose behind that."
#Valant #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #PatientEngagement #PracticeManagement
valant.io
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Ram Krishnan, CEO of Valant, uses AI to make mental health care more accessible through their practice management and patient engagement platforms designed specifically for mental health providers. AI is applied to improve administrative efficiency, address billing and compliance, and drive successful patient outcomes. New solutions are needed due to the growing patient population for mental health services and the potential of advanced therapeutics that are transforming the behavioral health environment, where demand is outpacing the supply of mental health care providers.
Ram explains, "If I took a step back, AI - let's describe what AI is across a practice. Multiple functional verticals exist within a practice, including marketing. A team is trying to acquire the right type of patients. There's your administrative vertical, if you will, which is just making sure you're running the business well. You have your clinical vertical, which is the time the clinician, prescriber, psychiatrist, and practitioner spend with the patient. There's billing, making sure you're getting paid for all this work, and there's compliance along the way. And each of these verticals has the potential to have an increased efficiency, first and foremost, by AI. Secondly, behind it are improved outcomes."
"Yes, I think we are getting into a wild realm of possibilities for our application of AI. I think what we are making in our systems is a cautious and practical, pragmatic approach of working our way through the functions that I laid out, and then the goals in terms of efficiency. I think there is a wide range of potential here with AI. When people think of AI in mental health, they immediately think of an AI avatar of some kind that you can converse with and becomes a replacement for the therapist and a replacement for the understanding and awareness of everything. From the words you're choosing to the changes in your vocal modulation to the facial expressions on your face. Putting that all through the analytics to come back and assess risk of things like you said, suicide ideation or violence, potential violence. I think those are much later-term applications. There has to be a purpose behind that."
#Valant #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #PatientEngagement #PracticeManagement
valant.io
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Jaya Tiwari, Senior Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at XVIVO, which is focused on improving organ preservation for transplantation. Current organ preservation methods using ice coolers limit the time and distance organs can be transported. XVIVO's perfusion technology can significantly extend the preservation time of hearts, kidneys, livers, and lungs, providing hospitals and transplant centers access to more viable organs. The company is passionate about increasing organ availability to give more patients access to life-saving transplants.
Jaya explains, "I take it back to 1967 when the first heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, and the way that the heart was preserved and transported in essentially an ice box. The standard of care for the preservation of organs is still an ice or an ice cooler with ice. So, this decreases metabolic activities. So, to try to preserve the organs so that you can get them from the donor to the recipient, the problem is that the organs are not viable for a very long time, and they start to degrade very quickly. That really limits the amount of time that the organs can be on ice, transported from the donor to the recipient hospital. Because of that logistical complexity, a lot of organs are ultimately not transplanted."
"There have been some preclinical studies that we've done that have shown viability of the heart tissue for up to 24 hours. But what I think is probably the most remarkable example that we've seen is that the universities in Paris have put together something called an investigator-initiated study, where they actually were able to transport a donor heart from the French West Indies to Paris for transplant. That was about 12 hours that the heart was in transport and using the device. So that's remarkable because that essentially tripled the standard preservation time for hearts. Now, in the US, we have a clinical trial where we're currently seeking approval from the FDA that it's safe and effective to use this device for up to 12 hours."
#XVIVO #HealthcareInnovation #LifeSavingTechnology #PatientOutcomes #OrganTransplantation #OrganTransplants
xvivogroup.com
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Jaya Tiwari, Senior Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at XVIVO, which is focused on improving organ preservation for transplantation. Current organ preservation methods using ice coolers limit the time and distance organs can be transported. XVIVO's perfusion technology can significantly extend the preservation time of hearts, kidneys, livers, and lungs, providing hospitals and transplant centers access to more viable organs. The company is passionate about increasing organ availability to give more patients access to life-saving transplants.
Jaya explains, "I take it back to 1967 when the first heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, and the way that the heart was preserved and transported in essentially an ice box. The standard of care for the preservation of organs is still an ice or an ice cooler with ice. So, this decreases metabolic activities. So, to try to preserve the organs so that you can get them from the donor to the recipient, the problem is that the organs are not viable for a very long time, and they start to degrade very quickly. That really limits the amount of time that the organs can be on ice, transported from the donor to the recipient hospital. Because of that logistical complexity, a lot of organs are ultimately not transplanted."
"There have been some preclinical studies that we've done that have shown viability of the heart tissue for up to 24 hours. But what I think is probably the most remarkable example that we've seen is that the universities in Paris have put together something called an investigator-initiated study, where they actually were able to transport a donor heart from the French West Indies to Paris for transplant. That was about 12 hours that the heart was in transport and using the device. So that's remarkable because that essentially tripled the standard preservation time for hearts. Now, in the US, we have a clinical trial where we're currently seeking approval from the FDA that it's safe and effective to use this device for up to 12 hours."
#XVIVO #HealthcareInnovation #LifeSavingTechnology #PatientOutcomes #OrganTransplantation #OrganTransplants
xvivogroup.com
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Brian Drozdowicz, Senior VP and General Manager for Acute and Payer at PointClickCare, provides a platform using predictive analytics and AI for data sharing and collaboration across healthcare stakeholders. Interoperability has been an ongoing challenge due to the lack of standards and clear governance to support data sharing. The shift to value-based care drives the need for more access to patient data to improve patient outcomes, facilitate care transitions, and reduce readmissions and costs.
Brian explains, "PointClickCare has been a player in the market for quite some time. We're best known for the market-leading senior care EHR that we've had in market for 20-plus years. I run a business unit that sits by the side of that. We refer to that as the acute and payer business. And ultimately, this additional business and value proposition to the market operates the largest care collaboration network, sharing healthcare data across all the different stakeholders, hospitals, health plans, ambulatory clinics, community providers, and connecting is our core business. So we're ultimately in the business of sharing data and doing that safely, securely in a trusted way."
"There are a lot of ways of driving adoption and sharing data at scale. I'd call out a couple of key areas in which we've seen a lot of progress in recent years. First is having well-established technology standards that safely and securely transmit that data. Number Two is having to share that data. So, otherwise, it's a bunch of data flowing back and forth just for the sake of data. And that doesn't solve anything with value-based care. Putting a set of guardrails in place requires providers and payers to work together with this data."
#PointClickCare #HealthcareData #Interoperability #MedAI #DataSilos #ValueBasedCare #VBC
pointclickcare.com
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Brian Drozdowicz, Senior VP and General Manager for Acute and Payer at PointClickCare, provides a platform using predictive analytics and AI for data sharing and collaboration across healthcare stakeholders. Interoperability has been an ongoing challenge due to the lack of standards and clear governance to support data sharing. The shift to value-based care drives the need for more access to patient data to improve patient outcomes, facilitate care transitions, and reduce readmissions and costs.
Brian explains, "PointClickCare has been a player in the market for quite some time. We're best known for the market-leading senior care EHR that we've had in market for 20-plus years. I run a business unit that sits by the side of that. We refer to that as the acute and payer business. And ultimately, this additional business and value proposition to the market operates the largest care collaboration network, sharing healthcare data across all the different stakeholders, hospitals, health plans, ambulatory clinics, community providers, and connecting is our core business. So we're ultimately in the business of sharing data and doing that safely, securely in a trusted way."
"There are a lot of ways of driving adoption and sharing data at scale. I'd call out a couple of key areas in which we've seen a lot of progress in recent years. First is having well-established technology standards that safely and securely transmit that data. Number Two is having to share that data. So, otherwise, it's a bunch of data flowing back and forth just for the sake of data. And that doesn't solve anything with value-based care. Putting a set of guardrails in place requires providers and payers to work together with this data."
#PointClickCare #HealthcareData #Interoperability #MedAI #DataSilos #ValueBasedCare #VBC
pointclickcare.com
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G.T. LaBorde, CEO and Co-Founder of IllumiCare, focuses on reducing hospital clinical waste. Doctors often make decisions about tests, medications, and procedures without knowing the actual cost to the hospital and the patient. The IllumiCare platform aims to nudge doctors to make cost-effective decisions without compromising the quality of patient care by providing cost information and clinical guidance at the point of care. Another benefit is the reduction in overtesting and overprescribing, supporting efforts to improve patient safety..
G.T. explains, "When doctors make decisions about what test to order and what medications to prescribe, particularly in the inpatient setting, they have no idea what the cost is. They don't know the relative cost of one drug or another, and it's not a knock on doctors. It's very difficult to know because there are, in our average hospital across hundreds of hospitals, something like 2,000 different medications on the formulary that are available to order if you're a provider."
"We self-impose a limit, on average, taking only 60 seconds of a provider's attention a day. We calculate when we nudge somebody, when we present something in their workflow, how much time is it on the screen? And it comes down to 60 seconds a day of attention that we take. So we take great pride in how much technology we use to figure out when not to say something or not. We try to figure out the person most likely to take action, and is this information germane to this person for this patient, such that there's a high probability they'll take action? And we measure how frequently people take the action we recommend, and it's several times higher than similar alerts within the electronic medical record."
#IllumiCare #ValueBasedCare #VBC #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalDecisionSupport #HealthIT #HospitalIT #EHR
illumicare.com
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G.T. LaBorde, CEO and Co-Founder of IllumiCare, focuses on reducing hospital clinical waste. Doctors often make decisions about tests, medications, and procedures without knowing the actual cost to the hospital and the patient. The IllumiCare platform aims to nudge doctors to make cost-effective decisions without compromising the quality of patient care by providing cost information and clinical guidance at the point of care. Another benefit is the reduction in overtesting and overprescribing, supporting efforts to improve patient safety..
G.T. explains, "When doctors make decisions about what test to order and what medications to prescribe, particularly in the inpatient setting, they have no idea what the cost is. They don't know the relative cost of one drug or another, and it's not a knock on doctors. It's very difficult to know because there are, in our average hospital across hundreds of hospitals, something like 2,000 different medications on the formulary that are available to order if you're a provider."
"We self-impose a limit, on average, taking only 60 seconds of a provider's attention a day. We calculate when we nudge somebody, when we present something in their workflow, how much time is it on the screen? And it comes down to 60 seconds a day of attention that we take. So we take great pride in how much technology we use to figure out when not to say something or not. We try to figure out the person most likely to take action, and is this information germane to this person for this patient, such that there's a high probability they'll take action? And we measure how frequently people take the action we recommend, and it's several times higher than similar alerts within the electronic medical record."
#IllumiCare #ValueBasedCare #VBC #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalDecisionSupport #HealthIT #HospitalIT #EHR
illumicare.com
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Gary Falcetano, Scientific Affairs Manager for Allergy at Thermo Fisher Scientific, is a leader in allergy and autoimmune diagnostics, providing specific IgE tests and the instruments to run them. Accurately diagnosing allergies can be challenging, but specific IgE testing can help confirm the underlying causes by looking at individual allergen components for precise diagnosis. This is the first step in determining the appropriate management approach to potentially interrupt the atopic march, where allergies can progress or even be life-threatening.
Gary explains, "It runs the gamut of just about anything that could potentially be an allergy disease. So I think the majority of our testing is done in both environmental allergies and food allergies. What people think about when we, especially this time of year in the US, with spring about to become a big onslaught, are environmental allergies, including pollens, grass, trees, and weeds. Also, looking at some of the indoor triggers to environmental allergies like dust mites, pets, molds, and mice is pretty key when assessing for respiratory-type symptoms. On the food side, any of a number of foods can potentially cause a patient to produce specific IgE, which is the sensitization that allows us to become allergic."
"We all think of respiratory allergies as straightforward, but there's an overlap of symptoms, especially from non-allergic causes, that can cause similar symptoms. So when thinking about respiratory allergies, we think about nasal congestion, post-nasal drip, and cough. Those symptoms can all be certainly caused by allergies, but they also can be caused by non-allergic triggers. That's one of the places where diagnostic allergy testing or specific IgE testing comes in to confirm whether we're dealing with an allergy. Then, if it's an allergy, what specifically is driving the symptoms? Once we rule out allergy, we can go down a whole other diagnostic pathway for all the various causes, like non-allergic rhinitis."
#ThermoFisherScientific #Allergies #AllergyTesting #ClinicalDiagnostics #PatientCare #IgETesting
thermofisher.com
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Gary Falcetano, Scientific Affairs Manager for Allergy at Thermo Fisher Scientific, is a leader in allergy and autoimmune diagnostics, providing specific IgE tests and the instruments to run them. Accurately diagnosing allergies can be challenging, but specific IgE testing can help confirm the underlying causes by looking at individual allergen components for precise diagnosis. This is the first step in determining the appropriate management approach to potentially interrupt the atopic march, where allergies can progress or even be life-threatening.
Gary explains, "It runs the gamut of just about anything that could potentially be an allergy disease. So I think the majority of our testing is done in both environmental allergies and food allergies. What people think about when we, especially this time of year in the US, with spring about to become a big onslaught, are environmental allergies, including pollens, grass, trees, and weeds. Also, looking at some of the indoor triggers to environmental allergies like dust mites, pets, molds, and mice is pretty key when assessing for respiratory-type symptoms. On the food side, any of a number of foods can potentially cause a patient to produce specific IgE, which is the sensitization that allows us to become allergic."
"We all think of respiratory allergies as straightforward, but there's an overlap of symptoms, especially from non-allergic causes, that can cause similar symptoms. So when thinking about respiratory allergies, we think about nasal congestion, post-nasal drip, and cough. Those symptoms can all be certainly caused by allergies, but they also can be caused by non-allergic triggers. That's one of the places where diagnostic allergy testing or specific IgE testing comes in to confirm whether we're dealing with an allergy. Then, if it's an allergy, what specifically is driving the symptoms? Once we rule out allergy, we can go down a whole other diagnostic pathway for all the various causes, like non-allergic rhinitis."
#ThermoFisherScientific #Allergies #AllergyTesting #ClinicalDiagnostics #PatientCare #IgETesting
thermofisher.com
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Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO of LogicMark, is developing technology solutions to help seniors age independently and safely. Their AgeTech ecosystem addresses the requirements and comfort levels of the diverse aging population and provides predictive technology to identify potential health issues and emergencies. The key is keeping a human-centric approach to the application of this technology and integration with other health monitoring devices and apps.
Chia-Lin explains, "At LogicMark, we tell people that the medical react technology business is saying that our job is to make better technology to help identify that fall or a catastrophe or a health issue, and then help as we can within that golden hour in a medical emergency. When I joined the company in June of 2021, our goal was not just to be even better at reactive technology but to develop predictive technology, which is to take a look at the pattern of living and your experiences and being able to stop that first initial catastrophe or fall if we can. And that's where our interest and a lot of our IT development have been focused on."
"Our job as technology providers to caretakers and those they love is not that we're meant to be technology that is helicoptering over, for example, your parents. Our job is to provide a safety net. And I think that visual, to give you a sense of what we think is important, at the end of the day, your parents are not your children. They want to live independently and live the life that they want to live fully as grown adults. And so our job is to provide them with the capability to be independent and safe, as well as the safety and privacy they want as grown adults. And so, how does that translate? At the center of everything we do, we call compassionate technology or human-centric technology."
#LogicMark #AgeTech #HealthTech #MedTech #ElderCare #AgingInPlace #SeniorSafety #Innovation #FutureOfHealth #HealthcareInnovation #ConnectedHealth
logicmark.com
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Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO of LogicMark, is developing technology solutions to help seniors age independently and safely. Their AgeTech ecosystem addresses the requirements and comfort levels of the diverse aging population and provides predictive technology to identify potential health issues and emergencies. The key is keeping a human-centric approach to the application of this technology and integration with other health monitoring devices and apps.
Chia-Lin explains, "At LogicMark, we tell people that the medical react technology business is saying that our job is to make better technology to help identify that fall or a catastrophe or a health issue, and then help as we can within that golden hour in a medical emergency. When I joined the company in June of 2021, our goal was not just to be even better at reactive technology but to develop predictive technology, which is to take a look at the pattern of living and your experiences and being able to stop that first initial catastrophe or fall if we can. And that's where our interest and a lot of our IT development have been focused on."
"Our job as technology providers to caretakers and those they love is not that we're meant to be technology that is helicoptering over, for example, your parents. Our job is to provide a safety net. And I think that visual, to give you a sense of what we think is important, at the end of the day, your parents are not your children. They want to live independently and live the life that they want to live fully as grown adults. And so our job is to provide them with the capability to be independent and safe, as well as the safety and privacy they want as grown adults. And so, how does that translate? At the center of everything we do, we call compassionate technology or human-centric technology."
#LogicMark #AgeTech #HealthTech #MedTech #ElderCare #AgingInPlace #SeniorSafety #Innovation #FutureOfHealth #HealthcareInnovation #ConnectedHealth
logicmark.com
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Martin Brenner, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of iBio, is focused on the untapped potential of therapeutic antibodies for obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. Leveraging AI and machine learning, iBio is streamlining the antibody discovery and optimization process and addressing the need for more complex antibody mechanisms of action. Their lead candidate, iBio 600, is an anti-myostatin antibody designed to address the side effects of muscle mass and bone density loss associated with current GLP-1 therapies.
Martin explains, "We can separate this into multiple areas. First of all, there's a predictive model that suggests that there are 5,000 different targets related to disease out there. So, there are 5,000 different possibilities to make medicines. All of the currently approved antibodies target only 92 targets. Even worse, 40% of approved antibodies only target about 10. So you can imagine there's a huge untapped potential of novel targets for which antibodies could be used. The problem is that the technologies must keep up with this to open that novel target space. That is problem number one."
"So, as you know, AI has gotten a little bit of a bad reputation over the last few years, and there was a huge hype about this, and I want to be very clear about this. It takes more than 10,000 steps to make a medicine. At iBio, we enable three of these steps with generative AI. So, that does not make us an AI company. That does not make our molecules AI drugs. What it does is it actually makes it possible for us to create medicines that we couldn't do before. So, the way we use AI at iBio is multiplefold. First, we start our discovery process with the epitope steering engine. You have to imagine that drug targets are massive proteins, and only very small regions on these proteins have a biological function. So you want to get your antibody exactly to those regions that cause a biological function."
#iBio #DrugDiscovery #MedAI #Obesity #GLP1 #CardioMetabolicDiseases #Antibodies #AntibodyTherapies #Myostatin
iBioinc.com
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Martin Brenner, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of iBio, is focused on the untapped potential of therapeutic antibodies for obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. Leveraging AI and machine learning, iBio is streamlining the antibody discovery and optimization process and addressing the need for more complex antibody mechanisms of action. Their lead candidate, iBio 600, is an anti-myostatin antibody designed to address the side effects of muscle mass and bone density loss associated with current GLP-1 therapies.
Martin explains, "We can separate this into multiple areas. First of all, there's a predictive model that suggests that there are 5,000 different targets related to disease out there. So, there are 5,000 different possibilities to make medicines. All of the currently approved antibodies target only 92 targets. Even worse, 40% of approved antibodies only target about 10. So you can imagine there's a huge untapped potential of novel targets for which antibodies could be used. The problem is that the technologies must keep up with this to open that novel target space. That is problem number one."
"So, as you know, AI has gotten a little bit of a bad reputation over the last few years, and there was a huge hype about this, and I want to be very clear about this. It takes more than 10,000 steps to make a medicine. At iBio, we enable three of these steps with generative AI. So, that does not make us an AI company. That does not make our molecules AI drugs. What it does is it actually makes it possible for us to create medicines that we couldn't do before. So, the way we use AI at iBio is multiplefold. First, we start our discovery process with the epitope steering engine. You have to imagine that drug targets are massive proteins, and only very small regions on these proteins have a biological function. So you want to get your antibody exactly to those regions that cause a biological function."
#iBio #DrugDiscovery #MedAI #Obesity #GLP1 #CardioMetabolicDiseases #Antibodies #AntibodyTherapies #Myostatin
iBioinc.com
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Dr. Lauren Parks Nicola, Chief Medical Officer at RevealDx, has extensive experience dealing with the challenges of accurately describing lung nodules and distinguishing between benign and malignant nodules based on visual inspection of CT scans. RevealDx software tool integrates into the radiologists' workflow and uses advanced algorithms and a large database of lung nodule data to provide a malignancy score for lung nodules. This technology can help reduce unnecessary follow-up scans and invasive procedures for patients with benign lung nodules while identifying high-risk ones requiring more aggressive investigation.
Lauren explains, "Reveal's product is a software that characterizes lung nodules. So lung nodules, little blips on a lung that we find on a chest CT. And the thing is, they're very, very common. Lots of patients have them, they can turn out to be cancer, most of them aren't. But with the knowledge that we have right now, just as radiologists looking at those nodules, it's really hard to tell which ones are going to turn out to be cancerous and which ones aren't."
"The software tool characterizes which nodules are more likely to be malignant and might need faster diagnosis, more aggressive workup, biopsy, some interventions, things that can help us diagnose cancer earlier when it's easier, less expensive, and much better for the patient to treat versus the ones that don't need that kind of care. And for a lot of patients, that means not needing follow-up scans, not needing biopsies, and not needing invasive treatments to prevent something that would never have been a problem for them in the first place. So it is that added information, as well as added clinical information, gives us and the patients tools to better predict how these are going to behave."
#RevealDx #RadiologyAI #MedicalImaging #Radiology #LungCancer #DigitalHealth #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIinHealthcare #MedicalAI
reveal-dx.com
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Dr. Lauren Parks Nicola, Chief Medical Officer at RevealDx, has extensive experience dealing with the challenges of accurately describing lung nodules and distinguishing between benign and malignant nodules based on visual inspection of CT scans. RevealDx software tool integrates into the radiologists' workflow and uses advanced algorithms and a large database of lung nodule data to provide a malignancy score for lung nodules. This technology can help reduce unnecessary follow-up scans and invasive procedures for patients with benign lung nodules while identifying high-risk ones requiring more aggressive investigation.
Lauren explains, "Reveal's product is a software that characterizes lung nodules. So lung nodules, little blips on a lung that we find on a chest CT. And the thing is, they're very, very common. Lots of patients have them, they can turn out to be cancer, most of them aren't. But with the knowledge that we have right now, just as radiologists looking at those nodules, it's really hard to tell which ones are going to turn out to be cancerous and which ones aren't."
"The software tool characterizes which nodules are more likely to be malignant and might need faster diagnosis, more aggressive workup, biopsy, some interventions, things that can help us diagnose cancer earlier when it's easier, less expensive, and much better for the patient to treat versus the ones that don't need that kind of care. And for a lot of patients, that means not needing follow-up scans, not needing biopsies, and not needing invasive treatments to prevent something that would never have been a problem for them in the first place. So it is that added information, as well as added clinical information, gives us and the patients tools to better predict how these are going to behave."
#RevealDx #RadiologyAI #MedicalImaging #Radiology #LungCancer #DigitalHealth #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIinHealthcare #MedicalAI
reveal-dx.com
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Daniel Getts, the CEO and Founder of Myeloid Therapeutics, is focused on the role of myeloid cells in the immune response to solid tumors. These cells are the first responders in the immune system and play a crucial role in bridging the innate and adaptive immune response. The Myeloid Therapeutics' mRNA technology activates myeloid cells in tumors, making the tumor microenvironment hot and attracting other immune cells to fight the cancer.
Daniel explains, "The ability to harness our immune systems has revolutionized how we treat cancer. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go, and if you think about some of the worst of the worst cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, and so on, immunotherapy has still not gotten us to a place where we can solve this. It's our mission at Myeloid Therapeutics to overcome these challenges. We've uncovered a lot of really interesting things about these cancers in the last 20 years, and we've been harnessing that knowledge."
"Myeloid cells are at the heart of the immune system. They're the first responders. So, if you have an infection or bump your knee, these cells are immediately called to the site to wall off and prevent any more damage. However, they also serve as the bridge to adaptive immunity, the T cells and the B cells, which are also important for integrating an immune response. In the context of COVID vaccines, we talk about antibodies and T cells, it's the myeloid cells that are essential. In the context of what we've been learning, immunotherapy, up until recently, had been very focused on T cells and how to short-circuit the whole system just by using or activating those cells to kill cancer. And what we're starting to learn is to harness the full capability of our own immune systems, you've got to go back to the start. You've got to harness the myeloid compartment so you can orchestrate all immune elements to kill cancer."
#MyeloidTherapeutics #MyeloidCells #ImmuneSystem #SolidTumors #Cancer #ImmuneResponse #Oncology #TumorMicroenvironment
myeloidtx.com
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Daniel Getts, the CEO and Founder of Myeloid Therapeutics is focused on the role of myeloid cells in the immune response to solid tumors. These cells are the first responders in the immune system and play a crucial role in bridging the innate and adaptive immune response. The Myeloid Therapeutics' mRNA technology activates myeloid cells in tumors, making the tumor microenvironment hot and attracting other immune cells to fight the cancer.
Daniel explains, "The ability to harness our immune systems has revolutionized how we treat cancer. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go, and if you think about some of the worst of the worst cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, and so on, immunotherapy has still not gotten us to a place where we can solve this. It's our mission at Myeloid Therapeutics to overcome these challenges. We've uncovered a lot of really interesting things about these cancers in the last 20 years, and we've been harnessing that knowledge."
"Myeloid cells are at the heart of the immune system. They're the first responders. So, if you have an infection or bump your knee, these cells are immediately called to the site to wall off and prevent any more damage. However, they also serve as the bridge to adaptive immunity, the T cells and the B cells, which are also important for integrating an immune response. In the context of COVID vaccines, we talk about antibodies and T cells, it's the myeloid cells that are essential. In the context of what we've been learning, immunotherapy, up until recently, had been very focused on T cells and how to short-circuit the whole system just by using or activating those cells to kill cancer. And what we're starting to learn is to harness the full capability of our own immune systems, you've got to go back to the start. You've got to harness the myeloid compartment so you can orchestrate all immune elements to kill cancer."
#MyeloidTherapeutics #MyeloidCells #ImmuneSystem #SolidTumors #Cancer #ImmuneResponse #Oncology #TumorMicroenvironment
myeloidtx.com
Download the transcript here
Saul Marquez, Founder and CEO of Outcomes Rocket, emphasizes the need for strategic healthcare communications, including earned media and paid advertising, content creation, and social influencers. The explosion of social media and online news outlets has changed the healthcare information environment, challenging companies to express authentic and intentional messages to their target audience. Identifying pain points and unique propositions is key to effective healthcare messaging that persuades, motivates, and informs.
Saul elaborates, "I started the Outcomes Rocket agency as a podcast, and then it evolved into a full-service agency focused on healthcare organizations, leaders, and brands looking to maximize their impact in the market and accelerate their growth. We work in four areas: strategy, earned, owned, and paid. So, under each of those categories, there are different focus areas."
"It's never been more important for leaders to be authentic in an age of artificial intelligence and just so much noise. Authenticity cuts through that noise. And when I say authenticity, it's important for brands as well as leaders to be true to who they are, and it's important that the message be well-crafted and intentional. So, if you're being authentic on the fly or on the whim, that's not very strategic. You want to make sure that under the strategy and the work you do to put your messaging out there, that everything ties back to why you do what you do. How is it different? Whether you're an individual influencer or a brand, what is the promise?"
#OutcomesRocket #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalMarketing #HealthTech #HealthcareCommunications
OutcomesRocket.health
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Saul Marquez, Founder and CEO of Outcomes Rocket, emphasizes the need for strategic healthcare communications, including earned media and paid advertising, content creation, and social influencers. The explosion of social media and online news outlets has changed the healthcare information environment, challenging companies to express authentic and intentional messages to their target audience. Identifying pain points and unique propositions is key to effective healthcare messaging that persuades, motivates, and informs.
Saul elaborates, "I started the Outcomes Rocket agency as a podcast, and then it evolved into a full-service agency focused on healthcare organizations, leaders, and brands looking to maximize their impact in the market and accelerate their growth. We work in four areas: strategy, earned, owned, and paid. So, under each of those categories, there are different focus areas."
"It's never been more important for leaders to be authentic in an age of artificial intelligence and just so much noise. Authenticity cuts through that noise. And when I say authenticity, it's important for brands as well as leaders to be true to who they are, and it's important that the message be well-crafted and intentional. So, if you're being authentic on the fly or on the whim, that's not very strategic. You want to make sure that under the strategy and the work you do to put your messaging out there, that everything ties back to why you do what you do. How is it different? Whether you're an individual influencer or a brand, what is the promise?"
#OutcomesRocket #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalMarketing #HealthTech #HealthcareCommunications
OutcomesRocket.health
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Robert Maxwell, Founder of ClinConnect, is building this neutral third-party intermediary between patients and clinical trial sponsors, improving on the clinicaltrials.gov platform by streamlining the clinical trial enrollment process. This patient-facing platform provides patients with up-to-date information about trial options and eligibility criteria and guides them through the enrollment process. This resource is particularly significant for the rare disease community, where ClinConnect works with patient advocacy networks to improve study design and identify trial participants.
Robert explains, "One thing that has changed over the last year since we last spoke is we have far more relationships and far better relationships with many clinical trial sponsors. So the folks behind whatever therapeutic or investigational, drug, biologic, whatever it might be. And so when it comes to recruitment and enrollment, we have what are called enrollment criteria, inclusion and exclusion criteria. Those are filed within the protocol with the FDA. Every clinical trial has some set of enrollment criteria."
"Anyone can go to the FDA and get an understanding of what any trial enrollment criteria might be. It's listed on clinicaltrials.gov. But oftentimes what we have found is that the protocol that is on file with the FDA actually might be out of date, it might be invalid. There might be an update. There might be 10 updates that haven't been submitted to the FDA. And so what's helpful when patients work with a platform like ours, or I think we're the only one still somehow the only one doing this, is that we have those direct relationships with the sponsors."
#ClinConnect #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #ClinicalTrialEnrollment #ClinicalTrialRetention #RareDiseases
clinconnect.io
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Robert Maxwell, Founder of ClinConnect, is building this neutral third-party intermediary between patients and clinical trial sponsors, improving on the clinicaltrials.gov platform by streamlining the clinical trial enrollment process. This patient-facing platform provides patients with up-to-date information about trial options and eligibility criteria and guides them through the enrollment process. This resource is particularly significant for the rare disease community, where ClinConnect works with patient advocacy networks to improve study design and identify trial participants.
Robert explains, "One thing that has changed over the last year since we last spoke is we have far more relationships and far better relationships with many clinical trial sponsors. So the folks behind whatever therapeutic or investigational, drug, biologic, whatever it might be. And so when it comes to recruitment and enrollment, we have what are called enrollment criteria, inclusion and exclusion criteria. Those are filed within the protocol with the FDA. Every clinical trial has some set of enrollment criteria."
"Anyone can go to the FDA and get an understanding of what any trial enrollment criteria might be. It's listed on clinicaltrials.gov. But oftentimes what we have found is that the protocol that is on file with the FDA actually might be out of date, it might be invalid. There might be an update. There might be 10 updates that haven't been submitted to the FDA. And so what's helpful when patients work with a platform like ours, or I think we're the only one still somehow the only one doing this, is that we have those direct relationships with the sponsors."
#ClinConnect #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #ClinicalTrialEnrollment #ClinicalTrialRetention #RareDiseases
clinconnect.io
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Angela Adams, CEO at Inflo Health, is addressing the opportunity to improve the tracking and follow-up of radiology findings. Info Health uses natural language processing to understand radiologists' reports and identify findings that require additional imaging and possible actions. Healthcare providers often lack the resources to manage radiology test results effectively. Inflo Health's solution can drive significant revenue to these providers by minimizing missed follow-ups and appointments.
Angela explains, "Inflo Health is a technology company that serves healthcare—primarily health systems and imaging centers. We're built around solving the problem for health systems of never missing a follow-up related to radiology. If you look at the research, it will show you pretty readily that about 50% of radiology findings and actionable findings are missed in the healthcare system today, primarily because it's a really difficult problem to solve. You've got a radiologist who dictates a report in real-time, understanding what the imaging is showing on a patient. Many times, they dictate multiple follow-ups in a study. They might find something that's incidental, meaning they're going for an image of their cervical spine because they have an upcoming surgery, but they might find a thyroid lesion on that scan. So, for the patient, not only how do we identify that there's a follow-up in that report, but also how do we care navigate the patient in the right direction?"
"The really big issues in the health system today are care navigation and the identification of follow-ups, which Inflo helps solve. We built a large language model. You probably hear that term a lot these days with ChatGPT and OpenAI and things like that. If you can think of one that's very specific to radiology language. What we've done is teach a computer to speak radiology language so that it can understand what the intention was of the radiologist. So we very much empower the radiologist, and whatever their follow-up is that they're identifying, we basically put a microphone to that, and we automate the tracking, the follow-up, the patient communication. So, we engage with the patient to ensure they understand their care. And in doing so, we're able to save - our last estimate was close to 20,000 patient lives a year."
#InfloHealth #Radiology #PatientCare #HealthTech #HealthcareInnovation #MedAI
inflohealth.com
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Angela Adams, CEO at Inflo Health, is addressing the opportunity to improve the tracking and follow-up of radiology findings. Info Health uses natural language processing to understand radiologists' reports and identify findings that require additional imaging and possible actions. Healthcare providers often lack the resources to manage radiology test results effectively. Inflo Health's solution can drive significant revenue to these providers by minimizing missed follow-ups and appointments.
Angela explains, "Inflo Health is a technology company that serves healthcare—primarily health systems and imaging centers. We're built around solving the problem for health systems of never missing a follow-up related to radiology. If you look at the research, it will show you pretty readily that about 50% of radiology findings and actionable findings are missed in the healthcare system today, primarily because it's a really difficult problem to solve. You've got a radiologist who dictates a report in real-time, understanding what the imaging is showing on a patient. Many times, they dictate multiple follow-ups in a study. They might find something that's incidental, meaning they're going for an image of their cervical spine because they have an upcoming surgery, but they might find a thyroid lesion on that scan. So, for the patient, not only how do we identify that there's a follow-up in that report, but also how do we care navigate the patient in the right direction?"
"The really big issues in the health system today are care navigation and the identification of follow-ups, which Inflo helps solve. We built a large language model. You probably hear that term a lot these days with ChatGPT and OpenAI and things like that. If you can think of one that's very specific to radiology language. What we've done is teach a computer to speak radiology language so that it can understand what the intention was of the radiologist. So we very much empower the radiologist, and whatever their follow-up is that they're identifying, we basically put a microphone to that, and we automate the tracking, the follow-up, the patient communication. So, we engage with the patient to ensure they understand their care. And in doing so, we're able to save - our last estimate was close to 20,000 patient lives a year."
#InfloHealth #Radiology #PatientCare #HealthTech #HealthcareInnovation #MedAI
inflohealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Chris Duma, President and Founder of Regeneration Biomedical, is developing stem cell therapies to treat neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, ALS, and multiple sclerosis. Their approach involves directly injecting the patient's stem cells into the brain ventricles to stimulate the brain's innate stem cells to repair and replace damaged neurons. Current clinical trials are showing promising results and, notably, minimal side effects compared to other Alzheimer's drugs.
Chris explains, "So our focus is to treat the full disease and make a difference in the disease's progression. The way the disease presents itself and the way that the disease is actually cured. The focus until now has been to target particular areas of abnormality in patients’ brains. Those with Alzheimer's disease, as we know, have plaques in the brain, and they have tangles in the brain. Alzheimer's disease was discovered or invented by a pathologist in the early 1900s. When they sliced the brain of an Alzheimer's patient, they found these abnormal collections of protein, and they called them plaques and tangles. The target of most research and most treatments have been monoclonal antibodies to these plaques and tangles. And we at Regeneration Biomedical do not necessarily feel that that is the cause of the problem. We think that they're the end product of cell death. So, what you need to do is fix the problem from the origin, and there might be nothing other than a stem cell that could do that. So that is our trajectory, and that's where we are today."
"We had rogue stem cell clinics out there that were giving stem cells for every possible disease, and patients were lured to places like Mexico, Germany, and China to get very expensive stem cell treatments that were probably completely worthless. The difference between them and us is that we're an FDA-cleared trial. We have gone to the FDA to do this and believe me, you are right, the FDA opening up their arms to stem cells is absolutely brand new. We're actually one of the newest kids on the block who can do this. What we're doing with our stem cells, which is directly injecting them into the brain, which we can discuss later, is the first in the world. We're at that threshold now that the FDA is probably looking more and more into this and more and more into personalized medicine. And that's what this falls into the category of as well."
#RegenerationBiomedical #AlzheimersDisease #AlzheimersResearch #RegenerativeMedicine #StemCellTherapy #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #MedicalInnovation
regenerationbiomedical.com
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Dr. Chris Duma, President and Founder of Regeneration Biomedical, is developing stem cell therapies to treat neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, ALS, and multiple sclerosis. Their approach involves directly injecting the patient's stem cells into the brain ventricles to stimulate the brain's innate stem cells to repair and replace damaged neurons. Current clinical trials are showing promising results and, notably, minimal side effects compared to other Alzheimer's drugs.
Chris explains, "So our focus is to treat the full disease and make a difference in the disease's progression. The way the disease presents itself and the way that the disease is actually cured. The focus until now has been to target particular areas of abnormality in patients’ brains. Those with Alzheimer's disease, as we know, have plaques in the brain, and they have tangles in the brain. Alzheimer's disease was discovered or invented by a pathologist in the early 1900s. When they sliced the brain of an Alzheimer's patient, they found these abnormal collections of protein, and they called them plaques and tangles. The target of most research and most treatments have been monoclonal antibodies to these plaques and tangles. And we at Regeneration Biomedical do not necessarily feel that that is the cause of the problem. We think that they're the end product of cell death. So, what you need to do is fix the problem from the origin, and there might be nothing other than a stem cell that could do that. So that is our trajectory, and that's where we are today."
"We had rogue stem cell clinics out there that were giving stem cells for every possible disease, and patients were lured to places like Mexico, Germany, and China to get very expensive stem cell treatments that were probably completely worthless. The difference between them and us is that we're an FDA-cleared trial. We have gone to the FDA to do this and believe me, you are right, the FDA opening up their arms to stem cells is absolutely brand new. We're actually one of the newest kids on the block who can do this. What we're doing with our stem cells, which is directly injecting them into the brain, which we can discuss later, is the first in the world. We're at that threshold now that the FDA is probably looking more and more into this and more and more into personalized medicine. And that's what this falls into the category of as well."
#RegenerationBiomedical #AlzheimersDisease #AlzheimersResearch #RegenerativeMedicine #StemCellTherapy #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #MedicalInnovation
regenerationbiomedical.com
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Will Ho, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of IN8bio, a company developing next-generation cellular therapies using gamma delta T cells, which play a unique role in bridging the innate and adaptive immune systems. GDT cell therapies may have reduced side effects compared to other T cell therapies as they can more selectively target tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue. IN8bio is conducting clinical trials using autologous and allogeneic gamma delta T cells for leukemia and glioblastoma with the goal of eliminating the cancer.
Will explains, "As you probably are aware, our immune system is generally broken down into two halves. One is the innate or the immediate portion of the system, which is why we're called IN8bio, the gamma delta T cells, which are considered innate immune cells. On the other, the adaptive is the memory part of our immune system. The gamma delta T cells bridge between both the innate and the adaptive. They actually have features across both. In particular, one of their natural functions is actually to discriminate and to distinguish between those cells that are healthy and safe versus those that are transformed or should be eliminated. That's the very challenge of cancer cells. At the end of the day, they're our own cells, and the gamma delta T cells have a unique ability to distinguish between what should be safe and left alone versus those cells that they should kill."
"With the CAR T therapies, we have genetically engineered specific targets such as CD 19 or DPMA into an alpha-beta T cell - somewhat of a release and let it go. Those cells go and seek out every cell in the body that expresses its specific target and kills it. I kind of half-heartedly joke that it's a little bit like Terminator- once you let it go, it seeks its target to try to kill it, no matter the secondary damage. In many cases, we've had numerous toxicities, some of which have resulted in patient death. The gamma delta T cells are more nuanced in its approach. We have created CAR T, specifically for the biology of gamma delta T cells."
"Early preclinical work shows they can discriminate between the leukemic cells that should be eliminated and the healthy tissue. This will become increasingly important as we try to target solid tumors. Solid tumors is a market that's nine times bigger than that of leukemias and lymphomas. It's challenging because the tumors, at the end of the day, are intertwined in an organ. Most likely, we need to keep those organs, whether they're your brain like in glioblastoma that we're targeting, or lung cancer or pancreatic cancer and others, we need to be able to discriminate and pick out the healthy tissue versus the tumor tissue because we can't just completely ablate the organ."
#IN8bio #CancerZero #Immunotherapy #Immunology #CancerResearch #TCellEngagers #GDTCells #CART #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #Pharmaceuticals #BioTech #ClinicalResearch
IN8bio.com
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Will Ho, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of IN8bio, a company developing next-generation cellular therapies using gamma delta T cells, which play a unique role in bridging the innate and adaptive immune systems. GDT cell therapies may have reduced side effects compared to other T cell therapies as they can more selectively target tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue. IN8bio is conducting clinical trials using autologous and allogeneic gamma delta T cells for leukemia and glioblastoma with the goal of eliminating the cancer.
Will explains, "As you probably are aware, our immune system is generally broken down into two halves. One is the innate or the immediate portion of the system, which is why we're called IN8bio, the gamma delta T cells, which are considered innate immune cells. On the other, the adaptive is the memory part of our immune system. The gamma delta T cells bridge between both the innate and the adaptive. They actually have features across both. In particular, one of their natural functions is actually to discriminate and to distinguish between those cells that are healthy and safe versus those that are transformed or should be eliminated. That's the very challenge of cancer cells. At the end of the day, they're our own cells, and the gamma delta T cells have a unique ability to distinguish between what should be safe and left alone versus those cells that they should kill."
"With the CAR T therapies, we have genetically engineered specific targets such as CD 19 or DPMA into an alpha-beta T cell - somewhat of a release and let it go. Those cells go and seek out every cell in the body that expresses its specific target and kills it. I kind of half-heartedly joke that it's a little bit like Terminator- once you let it go, it seeks its target to try to kill it, no matter the secondary damage. In many cases, we've had numerous toxicities, some of which have resulted in patient death. The gamma delta T cells are more nuanced in its approach. We have created CAR T, specifically for the biology of gamma delta T cells."
"Early preclinical work shows they can discriminate between the leukemic cells that should be eliminated and the healthy tissue. This will become increasingly important as we try to target solid tumors. Solid tumors is a market that's nine times bigger than that of leukemias and lymphomas. It's challenging because the tumors, at the end of the day, are intertwined in an organ. Most likely, we need to keep those organs, whether they're your brain like in glioblastoma that we're targeting, or lung cancer or pancreatic cancer and others, we need to be able to discriminate and pick out the healthy tissue versus the tumor tissue because we can't just completely ablate the organ."
#IN8bio #CancerZero #Immunotherapy #Immunology #CancerResearch #TCellEngagers #GDTCells #CART #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #Pharmaceuticals #BioTech #ClinicalResearch
IN8bio.com
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Patrick Mobley, CEO and Co-Founder of Vivid Health has developed a platform to address the inefficiencies in the post-acute care industry. Home health and hospice nurses often spend hours completing required paper-based forms and assessments to create personalized patient care plans and submissions for payments. This technology aims to streamline the workflow and collection of patient information while proactively monitoring patients and using AI-powered voice agents to improve patient engagement.
Patrick explains, "So the way it works with your standard home health organization is that referral is received from a hospital, and most of the work from that point on takes place within any EMR. There are some other vendors that process places, but there is no getting around that form. It is required that you've got to complete every single step. There's really no difference no matter what state you're in or what jurisdiction; you might see slight variations between Medicare, Medicare Advantage, or Medicaid, but it's rather consistent across every single home agency."
"Well, it's a mixture of the nurse and medical director. The nurses are often called startup care nurses. They go in the home and complete the work. It can take anywhere from two to three hours to be in the patient's home, and then once it's done, the response care goes to the medical director for sign-off. From there, there are a couple of extra steps to validate some of the information and coding associated with it. Then, it can be submitted to CMS for payment."
"For that problem, we wanted to take those anywhere from one to four hours and get them down. Well, not because we're trying not to be thorough or rush onto the next patient or anything like that. It's just that there were better ways to do it, and the technology advances, especially in the AI space, have gotten to the point where you can be efficient, lower that timeframe, and still provide good quality care."
#VividHealth #AIinHealthcare #HomeHealthAI #HomeHealth #HomeCare #Hospice #EmergingAI
vividhealth.ai
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Patrick Mobley, CEO and Co-Founder of Vivid Health has developed a platform to address the inefficiencies in the post-acute care industry. Home health and hospice nurses often spend hours completing required paper-based forms and assessments to create personalized patient care plans and submissions for payments. This technology aims to streamline the workflow and collection of patient information while proactively monitoring patients and using AI-powered voice agents to improve patient engagement.
Patrick explains, "So the way it works with your standard home health organization is that referral is received from a hospital, and most of the work from that point on takes place within any EMR. There are some other vendors that process places, but there is no getting around that form. It is required that you've got to complete every single step. There's really no difference no matter what state you're in or what jurisdiction; you might see slight variations between Medicare, Medicare Advantage, or Medicaid, but it's rather consistent across every single home agency."
"Well, it's a mixture of the nurse and medical director. The nurses are often called startup care nurses. They go in the home and complete the work. It can take anywhere from two to three hours to be in the patient's home, and then once it's done, the response care goes to the medical director for sign-off. From there, there are a couple of extra steps to validate some of the information and coding associated with it. Then, it can be submitted to CMS for payment."
"For that problem, we wanted to take those anywhere from one to four hours and get them down. Well, not because we're trying not to be thorough or rush onto the next patient or anything like that. It's just that there were better ways to do it, and the technology advances, especially in the AI space, have gotten to the point where you can be efficient, lower that timeframe, and still provide good quality care."
#VividHealth #AIinHealthcare #HomeHealthAI #HomeHealth #HomeCare #Hospice #EmergingAI
vividhealth.ai
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Dr. Jonathan Usuka, CEO of Sapient, uses insights about proteomics and metabolomics to provide deep molecular characterization of diseases from a single sample to support drug discovery, development, and approval. The company's unique dataset combines real-world data with longitudinal molecular profiling of tens of thousands of samples across different diseases, ethnicities, genders, and ages. By measuring proteins and metabolites, this data and insights engine helps pharmaceutical companies gain a significantly more comprehensive view of the molecular basis of disease, better understand drug targets, and predict potential drug outcomes and safety.
Jonathan explains, "We support drug discovery and drug development, and a couple of things are going on in the industry right now in discovery and development. One is the overall pharma landscape of how a drug gets approved. That's been fairly static since the 1970s with the creation of the FDA. So clinical trials are well established, but the structure of it was based around not knowing much about the underlying drug target that your drug is interacting with. Since then, they've tightened up the requirements around mechanisms of action, but mostly, the process itself is almost protein agnostic in terms of the development process and how the drug interacts with patients."
"So what we do, what has happened recently, is a revolution in understanding the molecular basis of disease and how the therapeutics interact with it at a molecular level. We support pharmaceutical companies in understanding the safety and the efficacy and being able to predict how their therapies will do in the clinic, and then really understanding a lot more about the available drug targets, which expands the arsenal of ways to fight disease."
"At Sapient, we don't just identify dynamic biomarkers, biomarkers that change with disease or change in response to therapy. We also give a lot of context about those biomarkers. We also say where we have seen those biomarkers occur and how they have changed in response to other therapies, disease conditions, and immunological responses. So, a pharma company can see better what it's getting into when it invests in a dynamic biomarker."
#SapientBio #Multiomics #Proteomics #Metabotomics #DarkProteome #BeyondtheGenome #Plasmaproteomics #Biomarkers
sapient.bio
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Dr. Jonathan Usuka, CEO of Sapient, uses insights about proteomics and metabolomics to provide deep molecular characterization of diseases from a single sample to support drug discovery, development, and approval. The company's unique dataset combines real-world data with longitudinal molecular profiling of tens of thousands of samples across different diseases, ethnicities, genders, and ages. By measuring proteins and metabolites, this data and insights engine helps pharmaceutical companies gain a significantly more comprehensive view of the molecular basis of disease, better understand drug targets, and predict potential drug outcomes and safety.
Jonathan explains, "We support drug discovery and drug development, and a couple of things are going on in the industry right now in discovery and development. One is the overall pharma landscape of how a drug gets approved. That's been fairly static since the 1970s with the creation of the FDA. So clinical trials are well established, but the structure of it was based around not knowing much about the underlying drug target that your drug is interacting with. Since then, they've tightened up the requirements around mechanisms of action, but mostly, the process itself is almost protein agnostic in terms of the development process and how the drug interacts with patients."
"So what we do, what has happened recently, is a revolution in understanding the molecular basis of disease and how the therapeutics interact with it at a molecular level. We support pharmaceutical companies in understanding the safety and the efficacy and being able to predict how their therapies will do in the clinic, and then really understanding a lot more about the available drug targets, which expands the arsenal of ways to fight disease."
"At Sapient, we don't just identify dynamic biomarkers, biomarkers that change with disease or change in response to therapy. We also give a lot of context about those biomarkers. We also say where we have seen those biomarkers occur and how they have changed in response to other therapies, disease conditions, and immunological responses. So, a pharma company can see better what it's getting into when it invests in a dynamic biomarker."
#SapientBio #Multiomics #Proteomics #Metabotomics #DarkProteome #BeyondtheGenome #Plasmaproteomics #Biomarkers
sapient.bio
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Dr. Joel Salinas, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, and Dr. Julius Bruch, Co-Founder and CEO of Isaac Health, leverage virtual care and home visits to provide proactive, technology-enabled services for early diagnosis and treatment of dementia. Their mission is to reduce barriers to cognitive assessment and improve access to personalized care plans and treatments that can delay brain disease progression. The key is respecting the patient's decisions and building trust with the care team.
Joel explains, "The first thing is really just meeting people where they're at. It's so hard to get access to high-quality care due to wait times and geographic reasons. What we're building at Isaac is meant to require zero distance and move a hundred times faster than the current care journey. The other piece is we develop these partnerships where we're much more proactive about identifying changes that someone might be having with memory or thinking. We are looking at risk factors that they may have within their health record and then actually doing some outreach to those who may have some undiagnosed cognitive impairment. Part of the goal here is by meeting people when their symptoms are at their earliest, we have an opportunity of really a golden window of time to be able to bring in interventions that can impact the long-term trajectory of their brain health."
Julius elaborates, "We have built a very extensive technology platform that underpins the entire care journey, from identifying and screening patients to diagnosing, treating, and care management, and seeing as you specifically asked about the diagnosis part. So once we've identified that the member is at high risk, we reach out to them and enroll them in one of our programs. The first visit is generally a medical assessment, and we use a neuropsychologist who does that initial assessment. Still, our platform guides that whole interaction to make sure that we collect all the right information in the most efficient way possible. So it's still very much over Zoom because it is the most effective way to get to the information in this population. Our platform supports the whole care flow and makes sure that it's run as efficiently as possible."
#IsaacHealth #BrainHealth #DementiaCare #Caregiversupport #GUIDEModel #DigitalHealth #HealthEquity #EarlyDetection #DigitalHealthcare #Telehealth #InnovativeHealthcare #PatientEmpowerment
myisaachealth.com
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Dr. Joel Salinas, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, and Dr. Julius Bruch, Co-Founder and CEO of Isaac Health, leverage virtual care and home visits to provide proactive, technology-enabled services for early diagnosis and treatment of dementia. Their mission is to reduce barriers to cognitive assessment and improve access to personalized care plans and treatments that can delay brain disease progression. The key is respecting the patient's decisions and building trust with the care team.
Joel explains, "The first thing is really just meeting people where they're at. It's so hard to get access to high-quality care due to wait times and geographic reasons. What we're building at Isaac is meant to require zero distance and move a hundred times faster than the current care journey. The other piece is we develop these partnerships where we're much more proactive about identifying changes that someone might be having with memory or thinking. We are looking at risk factors that they may have within their health record and then actually doing some outreach to those who may have some undiagnosed cognitive impairment. Part of the goal here is by meeting people when their symptoms are at their earliest, we have an opportunity of really a golden window of time to be able to bring in interventions that can impact the long-term trajectory of their brain health."
Julius elaborates, "We have built a very extensive technology platform that underpins the entire care journey, from identifying and screening patients to diagnosing, treating, and care management, and seeing as you specifically asked about the diagnosis part. So once we've identified that the member is at high risk, we reach out to them and enroll them in one of our programs. The first visit is generally a medical assessment, and we use a neuropsychologist who does that initial assessment. Still, our platform guides that whole interaction to make sure that we collect all the right information in the most efficient way possible. So it's still very much over Zoom because it is the most effective way to get to the information in this population. Our platform supports the whole care flow and makes sure that it's run as efficiently as possible."
#IsaacHealth #BrainHealth #DementiaCare #Caregiversupport #GUIDEModel #DigitalHealth #HealthEquity #EarlyDetection #DigitalHealthcare #Telehealth #InnovativeHealthcare #PatientEmpowerment
myisaachealth.com
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Dr. Traci Sweet, Co-Founder and COO of Holon Health has developed an approach to treating substance use disorder that emphasizes integrating physical and behavioral health with an awareness of the impact of social determinants of health. Focusing on serving a marginalized criminal justice population that has struggled to navigate the healthcare system, Holon Health is making treatments accessible with 24/7 digital support and human-to-human interactions. Features of the Vibe app include daily affirmations, lessons, and contingency management. The key is looking forward, not revisiting the past.
Traci explains, "We developed Holon Health because so many people struggle with navigating the system, particularly in terms of integrated complete treatment, for so many years now. And I've been a doctor in the field for 31 years. For so many years, we've had such a spidered system where we look at the physical health of a patient, and we look at their behavioral health and SUD needs, and we never come together to look at that in a whole body space. So Holon focuses on fully integrating care between physical health needs, substance use disorder, behavioral health, and the additional social determinants of health. So housing, employment, education. We throw everything we can at the clients. On top of that, the addition of our digital app called Holon Vibe really makes treatment accessible 365 days a year, 24/7."
"We serve predominantly folks at the intersection of criminal justice and healthcare. My co-founder is formerly very enmeshed in working with the criminal justice population from his former company. I also have some Department of Corrections in my background as well. This patient has been marginalized in many ways and has found just getting through the system without judgment, without stigma, without having to focus on their shame. Their trauma has found it very difficult to navigate. So we're focused on changing that experience, moving this patient in the direction of preventative care, rewarding pro-social behaviors, and offering support that is kind of like Planet Fitness, just judgment-free. And it's been an amazing experience so far."
#HolonHealth #CriminalJusticePopulation #HolisticHealthcare #SDOH #SubstanceUseDisorder
holonhealth.com
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Dr. Traci Sweet, Co-Founder and COO of Holon Health has developed an approach to treating substance use disorder that emphasizes integrating physical and behavioral health with an awareness of the impact of social determinants of health. Focusing on serving a marginalized criminal justice population that has struggled to navigate the healthcare system, Holon Health is making treatments accessible with 24/7 digital support and human-to-human interactions. Features of the Vibe app include daily affirmations, lessons, and contingency management. The key is looking forward, not revisiting the past.
Traci explains, "We developed Holon Health because so many people struggle with navigating the system, particularly in terms of integrated complete treatment, for so many years now. And I've been a doctor in the field for 31 years. For so many years, we've had such a spidered system where we look at the physical health of a patient, and we look at their behavioral health and SUD needs, and we never come together to look at that in a whole body space. So Holon focuses on fully integrating care between physical health needs, substance use disorder, behavioral health, and the additional social determinants of health. So housing, employment, education. We throw everything we can at the clients. On top of that, the addition of our digital app called Holon Vibe really makes treatment accessible 365 days a year, 24/7."
"We serve predominantly folks at the intersection of criminal justice and healthcare. My co-founder is formerly very enmeshed in working with the criminal justice population from his former company. I also have some Department of Corrections in my background as well. This patient has been marginalized in many ways and has found just getting through the system without judgment, without stigma, without having to focus on their shame. Their trauma has found it very difficult to navigate. So we're focused on changing that experience, moving this patient in the direction of preventative care, rewarding pro-social behaviors, and offering support that is kind of like Planet Fitness, just judgment-free. And it's been an amazing experience so far."
#HolonHealth #CriminalJusticePopulation #HolisticHealthcare #SDOH #SubstanceUseDisorder
holonhealth.com
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John Orosco, CEO and Co-Founder of Red Rover Health is focused on interoperability in the healthcare industry and the potential impact of AI and automation in streamlining healthcare processes. The emergence of revised industry-wide standards has helped improve integration, but true ease of data sharing remains elusive. An app store approach and real-time data access are the next steps in the evolution of integration methodologies, allowing providers to access the best solutions and integrate them with the core EMR systems.
John elaborates, "The app store concept, which goes back to what I was saying when I started in this industry in 1998, was the approach. It was to pick the best solution regardless of the vendor that solves this departmental workflow need and let's implement the best solution. Well, integration with the core electronic medical record system was so tough and so painful and so ugly that pretty much the entire industry shifted to one vendor of record. They were like, we're just going to select one vendor. We're going to forego and give up feature functionality. We know that other solutions are better, but everything will be integrated. So, the entire industry shifts to one vendor. With the advent of APIs and interoperability becoming less painful, that was the right model."
"So an app store helps facilitate this notion that any provider, regardless of where you're in the country, should have access to the best solutions that any of these vendors offer. They should be able to integrate it with the medical record. It shouldn't be up to the EMR vendors, let's say, to dictate which solutions do and don't integrate or that their solutions are the only ones that are available. A true app store concept would open the door for all these great solutions that providers would have access to, and they get to decide which ones they want to implement and use."
#RedRoverHealth #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech #Interoperability #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #AIinHealthcare #SeamlessIntegration
redrover.health
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John Orosco, CEO and Co-Founder of Red Rover Health is focused on interoperability in the healthcare industry and the potential impact of AI and automation in streamlining healthcare processes. The emergence of revised industry-wide standards has helped improve integration, but true ease of data sharing remains elusive. An app store approach and real-time data access are the next steps in the evolution of integration methodologies, allowing providers to access the best solutions and integrate them with the core EMR systems.
John elaborates, "The app store concept, which goes back to what I was saying when I started in this industry in 1998, was the approach. It was to pick the best solution regardless of the vendor that solves this departmental workflow need and let's implement the best solution. Well, integration with the core electronic medical record system was so tough and so painful and so ugly that pretty much the entire industry shifted to one vendor of record. They were like, we're just going to select one vendor. We're going to forego and give up feature functionality. We know that other solutions are better, but everything will be integrated. So, the entire industry shifts to one vendor. With the advent of APIs and interoperability becoming less painful, that was the right model."
"So an app store helps facilitate this notion that any provider, regardless of where you're in the country, should have access to the best solutions that any of these vendors offer. They should be able to integrate it with the medical record. It shouldn't be up to the EMR vendors, let's say, to dictate which solutions do and don't integrate or that their solutions are the only ones that are available. A true app store concept would open the door for all these great solutions that providers would have access to, and they get to decide which ones they want to implement and use."
#RedRoverHealth #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech #Interoperability #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #AIinHealthcare #SeamlessIntegration
redrover.health
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Mike Esworthy, Chief Strategy Officer at EnableComp, understands the challenges that health systems face when dealing with complex health claims such as workers' compensation, Veterans Administration, motor vehicle accidents, Medicaid, and out-of-state claims. These exception-based claims require deep subject matter expertise to identify the right payer and process the claims correctly. Using AI-driven technology, EnableComp helps hospitals manage complex claims, minimize the number of denials, optimize revenue, and allow them to focus on their core commercial claims.
Mike explains, "I think the easiest example to provide in that context, if you look at a worker's comp claim, more often than not, when a patient comes into the hospital, they don’t know who their company's workers' comp provider is, and so often they hand over the commercial insurance card. If that doesn't get caught early, the commercial insurance gets billed, it results in a denial, and the claim sits out there in the ether for 30, 45 days before it comes back to the provider to go figure out who is the right payer class for this. So that's the big picture of the challenges. And then each of those claim types has unique nuances that make this challenging."
"I think there are a lot of good things happening in the VA that are, in theory, improving access for veterans, and that's a great thing. From a claim standpoint, though, I think all of the core challenges still remain. And so I know that many of the EMRs have been putting a focus on interoperability, and all of that is great from a treatment care coordination, getting veterans seen in hospitals, and getting them through the door."
"But once they've been treated, all of the same challenges that were prevalent before, all of these announcements are still out there. And I think the complexity still exists in terms of not being a normal payer pathway for providers and not knowing all the specific rules. One such example is that you were only allowed one appeal level within the veteran's claims, which means you have to get it right the first time. And so there's a really important component of knowing how to process the claim, getting it done correctly, and ensuring that you're maximizing the yield and the outcome of the claim itself."
#EnableComp #VeteranCare #HealthcareInnovation #ComplexRCM
enablecomp.com
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Mike Esworthy, Chief Strategy Officer at EnableComp, understands the challenges that health systems face when dealing with complex health claims such as workers' compensation, Veterans Administration, motor vehicle accidents, Medicaid, and out-of-state claims. These exception-based claims require deep subject matter expertise to identify the right payer and process the claims correctly. Using AI-driven technology, EnableComp helps hospitals manage complex claims, minimize the number of denials, optimize revenue, and allow them to focus on their core commercial claims.
Mike explains, "I think the easiest example to provide in that context, if you look at a worker's comp claim, more often than not, when a patient comes into the hospital, they don’t know who their company's workers' comp provider is, and so often they hand over the commercial insurance card. If that doesn't get caught early, the commercial insurance gets billed, it results in a denial, and the claim sits out there in the ether for 30, 45 days before it comes back to the provider to go figure out who is the right payer class for this. So that's the big picture of the challenges. And then each of those claim types has unique nuances that make this challenging."
"I think there are a lot of good things happening in the VA that are, in theory, improving access for veterans, and that's a great thing. From a claim standpoint, though, I think all of the core challenges still remain. And so I know that many of the EMRs have been putting a focus on interoperability, and all of that is great from a treatment care coordination, getting veterans seen in hospitals, and getting them through the door."
"But once they've been treated, all of the same challenges that were prevalent before, all of these announcements are still out there. And I think the complexity still exists in terms of not being a normal payer pathway for providers and not knowing all the specific rules. One such example is that you were only allowed one appeal level within the veteran's claims, which means you have to get it right the first time. And so there's a really important component of knowing how to process the claim, getting it done correctly, and ensuring that you're maximizing the yield and the outcome of the claim itself."
#EnableComp #VeteranCare #HealthcareInnovation #ComplexRCM
enablecomp.com
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Dr. Neal Kassell, Founder and Chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, is working to raise awareness and drive the utilization of focused ultrasound to treat a wide range of medical conditions. This non-invasive technology uses medical imaging to precisely target and treat tissue deep in the body. Focused ultrasound has multiple mechanisms of action and can be used for destroying tumors, modulating neural activity, delivering drugs, and stimulating the immune system.
Neal explains, "So focused ultrasound is a new, totally non-invasive therapeutic technology, and it's the intersection of medical imaging, which is either ultrasound or MR imaging, which is used to identify the portion of the body that we want to treat to plan the treatment, and then to guide the treatment. Then, the focused ultrasound technology delivers the energy that treats the tissue. The way it works is analogous to using a magnifying glass to focus beams of light and burn a hole in a leaf."
"But at that focal point where all the beams converge, we now understand 30 ways ultrasound can affect tissue. That's in contrast to, for instance, radiation therapy, which is only one mechanism of action. Or a surgical robot, which is one mechanism of action. Focused Ultrasound has at least 30 mechanisms of action, including destroying tissue at that focal point by a variety of mechanisms, stimulating or blocking neural activity in the brain called neuromodulation, and delivering drugs or other therapeutic agents precisely to a point in the body where they are needed. This increases both the effectiveness and decreases the systemic side effects, stimulates the body's immune response to tumor, and to the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy agents."
"The point in the body where the ultrasound is targeted is, as I said, previously guided and controlled by medical imaging, either ultrasound or MR imaging. Now, the fact that there are so many different mechanisms of action creates the opportunity to treat a wide variety of medical disorders. Today, around the world, there are more than 180 clinical indications or diseases in various stages of research and development in commercialization. Ten years ago or so, there were only three. That's how rapidly the field is growing."
#FocusedUltrasoundFoundation #FUSFoundation #FocusedUltrasound #Glioblastoma #ClinicalTrials #NeuroOncology #Innovation #Healthcare #MedTech #Oncology #Neurology
fusfoundation.org
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Dr. Neal Kassell, Founder and Chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, is working to raise awareness and drive the utilization of focused ultrasound to treat a wide range of medical conditions. This non-invasive technology uses medical imaging to precisely target and treat tissue deep in the body. Focused ultrasound has multiple mechanisms of action and can be used for destroying tumors, modulating neural activity, delivering drugs, and stimulating the immune system.
Neal explains, "So focused ultrasound is a new, totally non-invasive therapeutic technology, and it's the intersection of medical imaging, which is either ultrasound or MR imaging, which is used to identify the portion of the body that we want to treat to plan the treatment, and then to guide the treatment. Then, the focused ultrasound technology delivers the energy that treats the tissue. The way it works is analogous to using a magnifying glass to focus beams of light and burn a hole in a leaf."
"But at that focal point where all the beams converge, we now understand 30 ways ultrasound can affect tissue. That's in contrast to, for instance, radiation therapy, which is only one mechanism of action. Or a surgical robot, which is one mechanism of action. Focused Ultrasound has at least 30 mechanisms of action, including destroying tissue at that focal point by a variety of mechanisms, stimulating or blocking neural activity in the brain called neuromodulation, and delivering drugs or other therapeutic agents precisely to a point in the body where they are needed. This increases both the effectiveness and decreases the systemic side effects, stimulates the body's immune response to tumor, and to the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy agents."
"The point in the body where the ultrasound is targeted is, as I said, previously guided and controlled by medical imaging, either ultrasound or MR imaging. Now, the fact that there are so many different mechanisms of action creates the opportunity to treat a wide variety of medical disorders. Today, around the world, there are more than 180 clinical indications or diseases in various stages of research and development in commercialization. Ten years ago or so, there were only three. That's how rapidly the field is growing."
#FocusedUltrasoundFoundation #FUSFoundation #FocusedUltrasound #Glioblastoma #ClinicalTrials #NeuroOncology #Innovation #Healthcare #MedTech #Oncology #Neurology
fusfoundation.org
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Bryan Mazlish is CEO of Surf Bio, a company focused on novel subcutaneous formulations of biologics to enable patients to self-administer these treatments at home. The limitations of subcutaneous administration have historically made time-consuming IV infusions necessary for many biologics. The growing number of biologics and biosimilars in development will further strain the capacity of infusion centers, making subcutaneous administration a way to increase access, reduce healthcare costs, and improve patient adherence.
Bryan explains, "Surf Bio is focused on enhancing the ability for patients to take a lot of the innovative and novel biologics that are currently on the market and in development. The vast majority of these historically have required a trip to the infusion center at the hospital, which is quite burdensome and takes a lot of time and resources from the patients and the healthcare system. We focus on creating novel formulations of those same drugs. These biologics can be self-administered at home in seconds instead of requiring a patient to spend the better part of the day commuting to and from an infusion center and sitting in a chair."
"When you formulate biologics, they typically are formulated in water and concentrated to very high levels. They become extremely viscous and, consequently, not injectable. So, the ability to inject very high-concentration biologics subcutaneously is limited by the volume that can be administered and the concentration of the biologic that can be squeezed into that volume. As a consequence of this, historically, a large quantity of drug has been diluted at great levels and then dripped into your bloodstream through the intravenous route, which can typically take an hour or, in some cases, multiple hours."
#SurfBio #BiologicsDelivery #SubcutaneousInnovation #HealthcareEfficiency
surf.bio
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Bryan Mazlish is CEO of Surf Bio, a company focused on novel subcutaneous formulations of biologics to enable patients to self-administer these treatments at home. The limitations of subcutaneous administration have historically made time-consuming IV infusions necessary for many biologics. The growing number of biologics and biosimilars in development will further strain the capacity of infusion centers, making subcutaneous administration a way to increase access, reduce healthcare costs, and improve patient adherence.
Bryan explains, "Surf Bio is focused on enhancing the ability for patients to take a lot of the innovative and novel biologics that are currently on the market and in development. The vast majority of these historically have required a trip to the infusion center at the hospital, which is quite burdensome and takes a lot of time and resources from the patients and the healthcare system. We focus on creating novel formulations of those same drugs. These biologics can be self-administered at home in seconds instead of requiring a patient to spend the better part of the day commuting to and from an infusion center and sitting in a chair."
"When you formulate biologics, they typically are formulated in water and concentrated to very high levels. They become extremely viscous and, consequently, not injectable. So, the ability to inject very high-concentration biologics subcutaneously is limited by the volume that can be administered and the concentration of the biologic that can be squeezed into that volume. As a consequence of this, historically, a large quantity of drug has been diluted at great levels and then dripped into your bloodstream through the intravenous route, which can typically take an hour or, in some cases, multiple hours."
#SurfBio #BiologicsDelivery #SubcutaneousInnovation #HealthcareEfficiency
surf.bio
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Mark Newman, CEO of Nomi Health, focuses on building an operating system for self-insured healthcare to lower costs, remove friction, and simplify the transaction process for employers and providers. Nomi emphasizes holistic preventative healthcare by eliminating barriers like deductibles and copays to encourage the utilization of primary care, mental health, and other services. The company leverages technology, AI, and asynchronous care to improve access to diverse communities, including Spanish-speaking and low-income workers.
Mark explains, "Our model, starting from scratch and starting from a blank sheet of paper, is focused on getting providers out of the collection business so they can focus on the care business. Simplifying the entire transaction of buying and paying for healthcare has been a revolutionary way for our customers to cut their healthcare costs by 20% to 30%. And someday, I think we can hit 50%."
"Last time I checked the cost curve in American healthcare has not slowed down and has done nothing but accelerate. So, in my book, I think value-based care has pretty much failed and has been more of a pipe dream versus reality. Our world is how do we take the same doctors, same care and cut 25% of the cost out of it by removing all the friction and pain points and ambiguity and noise as it relates to what an employer pays for healthcare and what a provider collects for delivering that healthcare. We're betting on our model and hope for the best on things like value-based care or other models, but we haven't seen the results delivered yet."
#NomiHealth #HealthcareIndustry #HealthInsurance #Healthcare #HealthcareCEO
nomihealth.com
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Mark Newman, CEO of Nomi Health, focuses on building an operating system for self-insured healthcare to lower costs, remove friction, and simplify the transaction process for employers and providers. Nomi emphasizes holistic preventative healthcare by eliminating barriers like deductibles and copays to encourage the utilization of primary care, mental health, and other services. The company leverages technology, AI, and asynchronous care to improve access to diverse communities, including Spanish-speaking and low-income workers.
Mark explains, "Our model, starting from scratch and starting from a blank sheet of paper, is focused on getting providers out of the collection business so they can focus on the care business. Simplifying the entire transaction of buying and paying for healthcare has been a revolutionary way for our customers to cut their healthcare costs by 20% to 30%. And someday, I think we can hit 50%."
"Last time I checked the cost curve in American healthcare has not slowed down and has done nothing but accelerate. So, in my book, I think value-based care has pretty much failed and has been more of a pipe dream versus reality. Our world is how do we take the same doctors, same care and cut 25% of the cost out of it by removing all the friction and pain points and ambiguity and noise as it relates to what an employer pays for healthcare and what a provider collects for delivering that healthcare. We're betting on our model and hope for the best on things like value-based care or other models, but we haven't seen the results delivered yet."
#NomiHealth #HealthcareIndustry #HealthInsurance #Healthcare #HealthcareCEO
nomihealth.com
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Maureen McBeth, Senior Medical Affairs Liaison for ImpediMed, a company that develops bio-impedance spectroscopy technology for the early detection and monitoring of lymphedema. This swelling, a common side effect of breast cancer surgery, is often overlooked until it impacts the quality of life of the patient. Using this advanced diagnostic technology, objective data on the risk and progression enables personalized intervention at the mild stage to prevent progression to severe, irreversible stages.
Maureen explains, "Breast cancer-related lymphedema is an underappreciated side effect. Most people think that it's not an issue anymore because we do sentinel node biopsy. Still, we know that any time lymph nodes are removed, damaged, or radiated, they can cause problems with the plumbing system in that area of the body. And inflammation starts, and that's the first thing. People don't feel that, but over time, it starts to impact the lymphatic vessels, and those lymphatic vessels don't pump as well, and a fluid buildup starts to occur. Finally, a patient may start to have symptoms like an aching or a fullness, or they notice things don't fit right, and by the time they notice it, they're likely well into stage one lymphedema, which has noticeable symptoms."
"And 20 years ago, when we didn't have these methods to detect it early, we often didn't see patients even with that at stage one. We wouldn't see them until the arm got really big and noticeable. If you can imagine, the guidelines said that the arm had to be 10% larger than the other side before we would diagnose it with lymphedema. Imagine your arm being 10% bigger on one side."
"One of the important things about our technology is that it's about a 30-second test. In terms of non-invasive, the patient doesn't feel it. It gives us this L-Dex score, and we can get other things like body composition. And so, at the start of someone's treatment, it can be used not only for surveillance of lymphedema but also for other side effects of cancer treatment."
#ImpediMed #EarlyDetectionMatters #LymphedemaAwarenessMonth #Survivorship #SurvivorshipCare #PatientEmpowerment
impedimed.com
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Maureen McBeth, Senior Medical Affairs Liaison for ImpediMed, a company that develops bio-impedance spectroscopy technology for the early detection and monitoring of lymphedema. This swelling, a common side effect of breast cancer surgery, is often overlooked until it impacts the quality of life of the patient. Using this advanced diagnostic technology, objective data on the risk and progression enables personalized intervention at the mild stage to prevent progression to severe, irreversible stages.
Maureen explains, "Breast cancer-related lymphedema is an underappreciated side effect. Most people think that it's not an issue anymore because we do sentinel node biopsy. Still, we know that any time lymph nodes are removed, damaged, or radiated, they can cause problems with the plumbing system in that area of the body. And inflammation starts, and that's the first thing. People don't feel that, but over time, it starts to impact the lymphatic vessels, and those lymphatic vessels don't pump as well, and a fluid buildup starts to occur. Finally, a patient may start to have symptoms like an aching or a fullness, or they notice things don't fit right, and by the time they notice it, they're likely well into stage one lymphedema, which has noticeable symptoms."
"And 20 years ago, when we didn't have these methods to detect it early, we often didn't see patients even with that at stage one. We wouldn't see them until the arm got really big and noticeable. If you can imagine, the guidelines said that the arm had to be 10% larger than the other side before we would diagnose it with lymphedema. Imagine your arm being 10% bigger on one side."
"One of the important things about our technology is that it's about a 30-second test. In terms of non-invasive, the patient doesn't feel it. It gives us this L-Dex score, and we can get other things like body composition. And so, at the start of someone's treatment, it can be used not only for surveillance of lymphedema but also for other side effects of cancer treatment."
#ImpediMed #EarlyDetectionMatters #LymphedemaAwarenessMonth #Survivorship #SurvivorshipCare #PatientEmpowerment
impedimed.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Sam Clark, Founder and CEO of Terran Biosciences, is developing a long-acting once-daily formulation of a new class of antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia. The use of a prodrug approach to modify the new drug Cobenfy allows for improved bioavailability and has been shown to have fewer side effects than traditional antipsychotics. This novel class of antipsychotic drugs targets the muscarinic receptor system, which is a different mechanism of action compared to existing treatments.
Sam explains, "Schizophrenia is a very severe disease. It has both hallucinations and delusions. It also has a set of symptoms called negative symptoms, which encompass social withdrawal and symptoms that can resemble depressive symptoms, cognitive dysfunction, and memory issues. So, with this patient population, there are a number of drugs that are approved to treat schizophrenia called antipsychotics. But until now, there hasn't been a new drug approved with a new mechanism. So, all drugs have the same mechanism to treat the disease since the 1950s."
"But we just got, right now in the space, a new drug approved from Bristol Myers. It just got approved, and Cobenfy is the first new mechanism to treat schizophrenia since the 1950s. But there are some downsides to that drug in that it's dosed twice daily as an oral drug, and there's currently no long-acting injectable. And so, twice daily can be difficult for patients with schizophrenia to take. The space is moving towards long-acting injectables, which can last just one injection for several months."
"Now, that strategy has been used with other anti-psychotics on the market, such as Invega, to improve their bioavailability and make long-acting forms. So we took that same approach and created the long-acting prodrugs of Cobenfy, which are TerXT, those long-acting prodrugs. We believe that that will enable a once-daily form and a long-acting injectable that can go multiple months from a single injection and thus improve options for patients with schizophrenia."
#TerranBio #Prodrug #Antipsychotic #Schizophrenia #MentalHealth
terranbiosciences.com
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Dr. Sam Clark, Founder and CEO of Terran Biosciences, is developing a long-acting once-daily formulation of a new class of antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia. The use of a prodrug approach to modify the new drug Cobenfy allows for improved bioavailability and has been shown to have fewer side effects than traditional antipsychotics. This novel class of antipsychotic drugs targets the muscarinic receptor system, which is a different mechanism of action compared to existing treatments.
Sam explains, "Schizophrenia is a very severe disease. It has both hallucinations and delusions. It also has a set of symptoms called negative symptoms, which encompass social withdrawal and symptoms that can resemble depressive symptoms, cognitive dysfunction, and memory issues. So, with this patient population, there are a number of drugs that are approved to treat schizophrenia called antipsychotics. But until now, there hasn't been a new drug approved with a new mechanism. So, all drugs have the same mechanism to treat the disease since the 1950s."
"But we just got, right now in the space, a new drug approved from Bristol Myers. It just got approved, and Cobenfy is the first new mechanism to treat schizophrenia since the 1950s. But there are some downsides to that drug in that it's dosed twice daily as an oral drug, and there's currently no long-acting injectable. And so, twice daily can be difficult for patients with schizophrenia to take. The space is moving towards long-acting injectables, which can last just one injection for several months."
"Now, that strategy has been used with other anti-psychotics on the market, such as Invega, to improve their bioavailability and make long-acting forms. So we took that same approach and created the long-acting prodrugs of Cobenfy, which are TerXT, those long-acting prodrugs. We believe that that will enable a once-daily form and a long-acting injectable that can go multiple months from a single injection and thus improve options for patients with schizophrenia."
#TerranBio #Prodrug #Antipsychotic #Schizophrenia #MentalHealth
terranbiosciences.com
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Joe Tucker, CEO of Enveric Biosciences, is developing non-hallucinogenic psychedelic drugs that aim to induce neuroplasticity and beneficial changes in the brains of patients with mental health disorders. The FDA rejected the approval of MDMA for PTSD treatment due to concerns about the inability to run blind trials to separate the placebo effect from the effects of the drug. Enveric addresses the promise of neuroplastic drugs that stimulate the neural connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala without hallucinations.
Joe explains, "And the problem, endemic to hallucinogenic psychedelics, is that there's no question in the patient's mind, in the doctor's mind, in everybody's mind whether or not they got an hallucinogenic agent. And so when everybody knows whether they got it or not, that's what you call functional unblinding. And so the FDA was very concerned about this. They said you must be able to separate the placebo from the actual drug. Until we see data that gives us confidence that you separated it, we can't approve it, even though it looks like a very positive impact for the patients."
"We were looking precisely to see if we could remove the hallucination without removing the benefit. So that's the field we're in. What's it being called right now? It's a very, very new field being called the non-hallucinogenic neuroplastogen- neuroplastogen indicating that it induces neuroplasticity, in other words, rewiring of the brain, but does so without inducing hallucination. We saw two challenges coming: How do you separate placebo from non-placebo effect and the treatment?"
"Then the idea would be, hopefully, this psychedelic treatment was so impactful, you didn't need to take any other treatment again for a long period of time. And that seems pretty aspirational, honestly, and likely to get in the way of real patient acceptance that you want something which is not so sort of rock your world. Most people don't want that. They like to be able to have a drug that is like, take an aspirin. You take it every day. You don't have a big impact. You can go about your life. You don't really notice it other than you feel better. And that's the idea behind the non-hallucinogenic neuroplastogen. It fits much more in line with what patients are looking for and expecting and doctors, the whole healthcare system. It just makes a lot more sense."
#MentalHealth #MentalHealthDisorders #MentalHealthEpidemic #Depression #Anxiety #PTSD #Neuroplastogens #Psychedelics
enveric.com
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Joe Tucker, CEO of Enveric Biosciences, is developing non-hallucinogenic psychedelic drugs that aim to induce neuroplasticity and beneficial changes in the brains of patients with mental health disorders. The FDA rejected the approval of MDMA for PTSD treatment due to concerns about the inability to run blind trials to separate the placebo effect from the effects of the drug. Enveric addresses the promise of neuroplastic drugs that stimulate the neural connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala without hallucinations.
Joe explains, "And the problem, endemic to hallucinogenic psychedelics, is that there's no question in the patient's mind, in the doctor's mind, in everybody's mind whether or not they got an hallucinogenic agent. And so when everybody knows whether they got it or not, that's what you call functional unblinding. And so the FDA was very concerned about this. They said you must be able to separate the placebo from the actual drug. Until we see data that gives us confidence that you separated it, we can't approve it, even though it looks like a very positive impact for the patients."
"We were looking precisely to see if we could remove the hallucination without removing the benefit. So that's the field we're in. What's it being called right now? It's a very, very new field being called the non-hallucinogenic neuroplastogen- neuroplastogen indicating that it induces neuroplasticity, in other words, rewiring of the brain, but does so without inducing hallucination. We saw two challenges coming: How do you separate placebo from non-placebo effect and the treatment?"
"Then the idea would be, hopefully, this psychedelic treatment was so impactful, you didn't need to take any other treatment again for a long period of time. And that seems pretty aspirational, honestly, and likely to get in the way of real patient acceptance that you want something which is not so sort of rock your world. Most people don't want that. They like to be able to have a drug that is like, take an aspirin. You take it every day. You don't have a big impact. You can go about your life. You don't really notice it other than you feel better. And that's the idea behind the non-hallucinogenic neuroplastogen. It fits much more in line with what patients are looking for and expecting and doctors, the whole healthcare system. It just makes a lot more sense."
#MentalHealth #MentalHealthDisorders #MentalHealthEpidemic #Depression #Anxiety #PTSD #Neuroplastogens #Psychedelics
enveric.com
Download the transcript here
Ray Jordan is the principal at Putnam Insights, a strategic communications and policy consulting firm, and a partner at Echo Research. The core elements of reputation building are consistent across large and small companies. Many companies mistakenly think that a good reputation comes naturally, but building and maintaining a strong reputation requires a clear mission statement and an authentic voice to reinforce the company's message.
Ray elaborates, "In particular, when I've worked on reputation matters, including a lot of reputation on companies, smaller companies are more instinctual rather than based on data. The core elements of reputation are still there. What you need to do is build it, what you can do to lose it, and how it adds value to what you're doing. All of those elements are consistent in some respects. Very different situations, but they have much of the same core elements. That's true from the clinical side, the regulatory side, and the patient care side. From the opinion leader side across the spectrum, including reputation communication."
"So, to my mind, building it involves first knowing who and what you are and having a clear definition of yourself. The second is acting consistent with that characterization of who and what you are. The third is being seen acting that way, so being visible in those actions. Those are simple steps. They're not easy steps to accomplish, but they're simple. Who you are, how you behave, and whether you behave accordingly and are seen in that behavior."
#CorporateCommunications #LeadershipInHealthcare #CrisisManagement #ESGStrategy #ReputationManagement #HealthcareLeadership
putnaminsights.com
echoresearch.com
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Ray Jordan is the principal at Putnam Insights, a strategic communications and policy consulting firm, and a partner at Echo Research. The core elements of reputation building are consistent across large and small companies. Many companies mistakenly think that a good reputation comes naturally, but building and maintaining a strong reputation requires a clear mission statement and an authentic voice to reinforce the company's message.
Ray elaborates, "In particular, when I've worked on reputation matters, including a lot of reputation on companies, smaller companies are more instinctual rather than based on data. The core elements of reputation are still there. What you need to do is build it, what you can do to lose it, and how it adds value to what you're doing. All of those elements are consistent in some respects. Very different situations, but they have much of the same core elements. That's true from the clinical side, the regulatory side, and the patient care side. From the opinion leader side across the spectrum, including reputation communication."
"So, to my mind, building it involves first knowing who and what you are and having a clear definition of yourself. The second is acting consistent with that characterization of who and what you are. The third is being seen acting that way, so being visible in those actions. Those are simple steps. They're not easy steps to accomplish, but they're simple. Who you are, how you behave, and whether you behave accordingly and are seen in that behavior."
#CorporateCommunications #LeadershipInHealthcare #CrisisManagement #ESGStrategy #ReputationManagement #HealthcareLeadership
putnaminsights.com
echoresearch.com
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Dr. Shankar Musunuri, Chairman of the Board, CEO, and Co-Founder of Ocugen, is developing gene therapies for rare blindness diseases like retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease, which have significant unmet medical needs. The modifier gene therapy approach aims to reset homeostasis and create a healthy environment for photoreceptors to stabilize vision loss. Ocugen is also working on a gene therapy for dry age-related macular degeneration, which has the potential to address the late-stage geographic atrophy form of the disease.
Shankar explains, "Vision is the most important part for all of us. Many years ago, when we founded Ocugen, it was based on targeting the ophthalmology disease area. We looked into many blindness diseases related to the back of the eye/retina. We have diseases such as AMD- and many people get into that – age-related macular degeneration. Then, there are diseases that are inherited in nature, like retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease. A lot of these diseases impact many families globally. Therefore, our passion for patients has driven that. If there is a significant unmet medical need, we want to take that as a challenge and provide solutions for patients and provide that hope."
"There are two rare blindness diseases. One is retinitis pigmentosa. There are about two million people globally who struggle with it. About 300,000 patients are in the US and EU. Effects in about 100 genes can cause retinitis pigmentosa. With our modifier game-changing gene therapy technology, potentially, our one product, which is currently going through a Phase 3 clinical trial, can target this entire population, rather than building or developing 100 products with the traditional gene therapy gene. The second inherited retinal disease we are working on, Stargardt, affects about 100,000 patients in the US and EU. Similar to RP, there are no therapies today to treat these patients’ significant unmet medical needs."
#Ocugen #CourageousInnovation #GeneTherapy #ModifierGeneTherapy #BlindnessDiseases #RetinitisPigmentosa #GeographicAtrophy #Stargardt
ocugen.com
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Dr. Shankar Musunuri, Chairman of the Board, CEO, and Co-Founder of Ocugen, is developing gene therapies for rare blindness diseases like retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease, which have significant unmet medical needs. The modifier gene therapy approach aims to reset homeostasis and create a healthy environment for photoreceptors to stabilize vision loss. Ocugen is also working on a gene therapy for dry age-related macular degeneration, which has the potential to address the late-stage geographic atrophy form of the disease.
Shankar explains, "Vision is the most important part for all of us. Many years ago, when we founded Ocugen, it was based on targeting the ophthalmology disease area. We looked into many blindness diseases related to the back of the eye/retina. We have diseases such as AMD- and many people get into that – age-related macular degeneration. Then, there are diseases that are inherited in nature, like retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease. A lot of these diseases impact many families globally. Therefore, our passion for patients has driven that. If there is a significant unmet medical need, we want to take that as a challenge and provide solutions for patients and provide that hope."
"There are two rare blindness diseases. One is retinitis pigmentosa. There are about two million people globally who struggle with it. About 300,000 patients are in the US and EU. Effects in about 100 genes can cause retinitis pigmentosa. With our modifier game-changing gene therapy technology, potentially, our one product, which is currently going through a Phase 3 clinical trial, can target this entire population, rather than building or developing 100 products with the traditional gene therapy gene. The second inherited retinal disease we are working on, Stargardt, affects about 100,000 patients in the US and EU. Similar to RP, there are no therapies today to treat these patients’ significant unmet medical needs."
#Ocugen #CourageousInnovation #GeneTherapy #ModifierGeneTherapy #BlindnessDiseases #RetinitisPigmentosa #GeographicAtrophy #Stargardt
ocugen.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Shankar Musunuri, Chairman of the Board, CEO, and Co-Founder of Ocugen, is developing gene therapies for rare blindness diseases like retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease, which have significant unmet medical needs. The modifier gene therapy approach aims to reset homeostasis and create a healthy environment for photoreceptors to stabilize vision loss. Ocugen is also working on a gene therapy for dry age-related macular degeneration, which has the potential to address the late-stage geographic atrophy form of the disease.
Shankar explains, "Vision is the most important part for all of us. Many years ago, when we founded Ocugen, it was based on targeting the ophthalmology disease area. We looked into many blindness diseases related to the back of the eye/retina. We have diseases such as AMD- and many people get into that – age-related macular degeneration. Then, there are diseases that are inherited in nature, like retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease. A lot of these diseases impact many families globally. Therefore, our passion for patients has driven that. If there is a significant unmet medical need, we want to take that as a challenge and provide solutions for patients and provide that hope."
"There are two rare blindness diseases. One is retinitis pigmentosa. There are about two million people globally who struggle with it. About 300,000 patients are in the US and EU. Effects in about 100 genes can cause retinitis pigmentosa. With our modifier game-changing gene therapy technology, potentially, our one product, which is currently going through a Phase 3 clinical trial, can target this entire population, rather than building or developing 100 products with the traditional gene therapy gene. The second inherited retinal disease we are working on, Stargardt, affects about 100,000 patients in the US and EU. Similar to RP, there are no therapies today to treat these patients’ significant unmet medical needs."
#Ocugen #CourageousInnovation #GeneTherapy #ModifierGeneTherapy #BlindnessDiseases #RetinitisPigmentosa #GeographicAtrophy #Stargardt
ocugen.com
Listen to the podcast here
Allen Cooper, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of ReadyList, highlights the challenges environmental services (EVS) leaders face in hospitals: controlling healthcare-associated infections, managing facility maintenance, and meeting patient expectations. Ensuring efficient room turnover for patient rooms and operating rooms is critical to maintaining workflow and avoiding delays. Real-time tracking, task management, and data-driven insights help EVS managers and staff eliminate outdated, inefficient methods and improve patient outcomes and safety in hospital operations.
Allen explains, "When you look at it from a patient's perspective, I think meeting and exceeding patients’ expectations of getting great quality care is probably at the forefront of everyone's mind. There's a lot of competition out there between hospitals and health systems. I think, looking from a patient's point of view, making sure that the patients are delighted is number one. A close number 2, if not number 1, is making sure that the hospitals themselves are controlling and reducing their healthcare-associated infections. I think that's been such a hot topic in the last 10-plus years, making sure that the patients are safe and taken care of, and when they leave, they're in a better spot than before they came."
"We have four core modules of ReadyList. One is called ReadyList Room Care, which empowers the EVS cleaners to understand what's expected of them to turn over a room in a given day or hour. And it details out what's expected in a given room. Each unit in the hospital typically has different requirements and ensures that the equipment is what is actually supposed to be in place and that cleaning is done appropriately and done repeatedly the same way every single time. So the tool provides almost like a script for the cleaners so they understand exactly what their expectations are. On the flip side, for the supervisors, it also allows them to understand exactly what is going on, which rooms are cleaned or being cleaned, and who's doing what."
#ReadyList #HospitalOperations #EVSManagement #EVSLeader #EnvironmentalService #EVS #HospitalFloorcare #FacilityOperation #Healthcare #HospitalSafety #HospitalInfectionPrevention
ReadyList.com
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Allen Cooper, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of ReadyList, highlights the challenges environmental services (EVS) leaders face in hospitals: controlling healthcare-associated infections, managing facility maintenance, and meeting patient expectations. Ensuring efficient room turnover for patient rooms and operating rooms is critical to maintaining workflow and avoiding delays. Real-time tracking, task management, and data-driven insights help EVS managers and staff eliminate outdated, inefficient methods and improve patient outcomes and safety in hospital operations.
Allen explains, "When you look at it from a patient's perspective, I think meeting and exceeding patients’ expectations of getting great quality care is probably at the forefront of everyone's mind. There's a lot of competition out there between hospitals and health systems. I think, looking from a patient's point of view, making sure that the patients are delighted is number one. A close number 2, if not number 1, is making sure that the hospitals themselves are controlling and reducing their healthcare-associated infections. I think that's been such a hot topic in the last 10-plus years, making sure that the patients are safe and taken care of, and when they leave, they're in a better spot than before they came."
"We have four core modules of ReadyList. One is called ReadyList Room Care, which empowers the EVS cleaners to understand what's expected of them to turn over a room in a given day or hour. And it details out what's expected in a given room. Each unit in the hospital typically has different requirements and ensures that the equipment is what is actually supposed to be in place and that cleaning is done appropriately and done repeatedly the same way every single time. So the tool provides almost like a script for the cleaners so they understand exactly what their expectations are. On the flip side, for the supervisors, it also allows them to understand exactly what is going on, which rooms are cleaned or being cleaned, and who's doing what."
#ReadyList #HospitalOperations #EVSManagement #EVSLeader #EnvironmentalService #EVS #HospitalFloorcare #FacilityOperation #Healthcare #HospitalSafety #HospitalInfectionPrevention
ReadyList.com
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Sheila Phicil, Founder and CEO of Phicil-itate Change, works with innovators in healthcare to apply new technologies to solutions that incorporate the patients' voice. One goal is to reduce resistance to change, which often stems from the desire to avoid adding more complexity, by listening to patients, physicians, and community organizations. Data analytics and awareness of social determinants of health can provide insights to develop effective and sustainable solutions. Still, the data must be collected and analyzed in a way that preserves the context and individual experience.
Shelia explains, "Well, the simplest way I can put it is helping the helpers and in this case, it's helping people who want to bring forward good innovation in healthcare. To do it well by focusing the work around the patient's lived experience through understanding their stories and their health data. So what I'm aiming to do is to, one, put out great frameworks and strategies around how to do this well and efficiently and effectively. We are building a platform utilizing blockchain and AI to automate some of this work in collecting patient stories and data and generating insights into how to design health tech solutions that meet their needs."
"So all forms of social innovation, where we're trying to solve human problems, should always start with the people who have lived the experience of the problem and understand through their lens what their perspective is. What I often tell people, especially in the healthcare space, is that someone who has a lived experience of having diabetes or lost a loved one to cancer or is dealing with a rare disease, they become the expert. They become the expert in what that looks like for them, how that affects their life, and what they can tolerate in terms of coping or treatment and other things."
#SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #MedTech #DataAnalytics
Phicil-itateChange.com
Listen to the podcast here
Sheila Phicil, Founder and CEO of Phicil-itate Change, works with innovators in healthcare to apply new technologies to solutions that incorporate the patients' voice. One goal is to reduce resistance to change, which often stems from the desire to avoid adding more complexity, by listening to patients, physicians, and community organizations. Data analytics and awareness of social determinants of health can provide insights to develop effective and sustainable solutions. Still, the data must be collected and analyzed in a way that preserves the context and individual experience.
Shelia explains, "Well, the simplest way I can put it is helping the helpers and in this case, it's helping people who want to bring forward good innovation in healthcare. To do it well by focusing the work around the patient's lived experience through understanding their stories and their health data. So what I'm aiming to do is to, one, put out great frameworks and strategies around how to do this well and efficiently and effectively. We are building a platform utilizing blockchain and AI to automate some of this work in collecting patient stories and data and generating insights into how to design health tech solutions that meet their needs."
"So all forms of social innovation, where we're trying to solve human problems, should always start with the people who have lived the experience of the problem and understand through their lens what their perspective is. What I often tell people, especially in the healthcare space, is that someone who has a lived experience of having diabetes or lost a loved one to cancer or is dealing with a rare disease, they become the expert. They become the expert in what that looks like for them, how that affects their life, and what they can tolerate in terms of coping or treatment and other things."
#SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #MedTech #DataAnalytics
Phicil-itateChange.com
Download the transcript here
Lisa Ricciardi, CEO, and Dr. Tony Caggiano, Chief Medical Officer at Cognition Therapeutics, are developing effective treatments for neurological disorders, particularly Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). While DLB is related to Parkinson's, sharing symptoms include hallucinations, sleep disorders, and cognitive dysfunction, there are no good diagnostics to identify DLB and effective treatments. Cognition Therapeutics' lead drug candidate, an oral treatment, has shown promise in protecting neurons from the toxic effects of the pathological proteins involved in Alzheimer's and DLB.
Lisa explains, "This company started in 2007, so we've had a long number of years to burnish our mission. One of the things we say is we're the beginning of the end of neurologic disorders and the start of hope for an improved future for patients. So Alzheimer's disease, in particular, has been long studied with little success, and in the last few years, we've seen some successes with monoclonal antibodies. There are a number of other approaches in clinical trials, but we have recently generated very positive data in two different trials with an oral once-a-day drug."
Tony elaborates, "Lewy body dementia or dementia with Lewy bodies is a disease very much related to Parkinson's disease that's believed to be, in part, caused by pathological levels of a certain protein called alpha synuclein and particularly small oligomers of misfolded alpha synuclein."
"And in Alzheimer's disease, this is largely a cognitive memory disorder as it presents. So, those two diseases are very different. Now, the idea of treating them with a single drug is somewhat unique to what we have here at Cognition Therapeutics. So our company started around the idea of developing therapies for Alzheimer's disease, and our lead molecule CT1812 or zervimesine was developed out of a screening assay where we were looking for molecules that could protect neurons or brain cells from the toxicities of this pathological amyloid protein. So, we identified CT1812 and have been developing it."
#CognitionTherapeutics #BrainHealth #DementiaCare #LewyStrong #Livingwithlewy #Alzheimers #EndAlz #Alzheimersdisease #DLBAwareness #NeurodegenerativeDisease #Dementia #DementiaWithLewyBodies
cogrx.com
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Lisa Ricciardi, CEO, and Dr. Tony Caggiano, Chief Medical Officer at Cognition Therapeutics, are developing effective treatments for neurological disorders, particularly Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). While DLB is related to Parkinson's, sharing symptoms include hallucinations, sleep disorders, and cognitive dysfunction, there are no good diagnostics to identify DLB and effective treatments. Cognition Therapeutics' lead drug candidate, an oral treatment, has shown promise in protecting neurons from the toxic effects of the pathological proteins involved in Alzheimer's and DLB.
Lisa explains, "This company started in 2007, so we've had a long number of years to burnish our mission. One of the things we say is we're the beginning of the end of neurologic disorders and the start of hope for an improved future for patients. So Alzheimer's disease, in particular, has been long studied with little success, and in the last few years, we've seen some successes with monoclonal antibodies. There are a number of other approaches in clinical trials, but we have recently generated very positive data in two different trials with an oral once-a-day drug."
Tony elaborates, "Lewy body dementia or dementia with Lewy bodies is a disease very much related to Parkinson's disease that's believed to be, in part, caused by pathological levels of a certain protein called alpha synuclein and particularly small oligomers of misfolded alpha synuclein."
"And in Alzheimer's disease, this is largely a cognitive memory disorder as it presents. So, those two diseases are very different. Now, the idea of treating them with a single drug is somewhat unique to what we have here at Cognition Therapeutics. So our company started around the idea of developing therapies for Alzheimer's disease, and our lead molecule CT1812 or zervimesine was developed out of a screening assay where we were looking for molecules that could protect neurons or brain cells from the toxicities of this pathological amyloid protein. So, we identified CT1812 and have been developing it."
#CognitionTherapeutics #BrainHealth #DementiaCare #LewyStrong #Livingwithlewy #Alzheimers #EndAlz #Alzheimersdisease #DLBAwareness #NeurodegenerativeDisease #Dementia #DementiaWithLewyBodies
cogrx.com
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Arielle Smith, the President of Life Science at Event Cadence, discusses the changes in the event technology landscape and the expectations of pharmaceutical companies and attendees for a hybrid approach, including participation in person and virtually. There is an increased demand for insight capturing and analytics to measure the return on investment in conferences and the time attendees spend there. The platform includes scheduling, appointment management, and lead generation with tools to encourage networking and interaction to enhance the event experience.
Arielle explains, "Medical conferences are held all over the world, as you know, and there's not always going to be a time where you can physically put boots on the ground and travel for them. So we're seeing a lot more of a hot tier point, a hybrid model approach to it where, let's say, the majority of the team will be in a meeting room face to face with some of their HCPs, but then even that HCP might decide to dial in their counterpart. Or if a pharmaceutical client is not able to participate in person for many different reasons, we're looping them in from a virtual perspective as well. And our platform can help coordinate all of that."
"So there's a lot of talk in the industry about insight capturing and gathering and exactly how that can be done but how best to make it actionable. Many great platforms are spinning up recently that are meant for capturing recordings or recording a conversation like the one you and I are having now, but then using AI to transcribe it all. A lot of our accounts are playing with technology like that, and then our platform is being used to set those conversations up."
#EventCadence #MedicalConferences #ConferenceManagement #HybridConferences
eventcadence.com
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Arielle Smith, the President of Life Science at Event Cadence, discusses the changes in the event technology landscape and the expectations of pharmaceutical companies and attendees for a hybrid approach, including participation in person and virtually. There is an increased demand for insight capturing and analytics to measure the return on investment in conferences and the time attendees spend there. The platform includes scheduling, appointment management, and lead generation with tools to encourage networking and interaction to enhance the event experience.
Arielle explains, "Medical conferences are held all over the world, as you know, and there's not always going to be a time where you can physically put boots on the ground and travel for them. So we're seeing a lot more of a hot tier point, a hybrid model approach to it where, let's say, the majority of the team will be in a meeting room face to face with some of their HCPs, but then even that HCP might decide to dial in their counterpart. Or if a pharmaceutical client is not able to participate in person for many different reasons, we're looping them in from a virtual perspective as well. And our platform can help coordinate all of that."
"So there's a lot of talk in the industry about insight capturing and gathering and exactly how that can be done but how best to make it actionable. Many great platforms are spinning up recently that are meant for capturing recordings or recording a conversation like the one you and I are having now, but then using AI to transcribe it all. A lot of our accounts are playing with technology like that, and then our platform is being used to set those conversations up."
#EventCadence #MedicalConferences #ConferenceManagement #HybridConferences
eventcadence.com
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Dr. Thomas Chen, Founder, CEO, and CSO of NeOnc Technologies, is working on the challenge of delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier by using an intranasal delivery approach to target brain cancers. This delivery platform leverages the cranial nerve to transport the drugs directly to the brain, bypassing the blood-brain barrier. Genomic analysis of the long-surviving patients in the phase one trial revealed a common genetic mutation, informing the trial design for the next phase.
Thomas explains, "So our platform is what we call intranasal delivery. And with the intranasal delivery, we're not trying to cross the blood-brain barrier. We're trying to cross over it. And how we're doing that is doing the delivery of the drug via what we call the C nerves. Now the cranial nerves are, we have 12 cranial nerves in our brain. These cranial nerves have various functions, but the cranial nerves involved with the nasal brain delivery are the first and the fifth cranial nerves. The first cranial nerve is what we call the olfactory nerve. That's the nerve that's responsible for smell. The fifth cranial nerve is called the trigeminal nerve, which involves facial sensation and allows us to chew."
"So what happens is that when we want to deliver the drug to the brain cancer, we have the patient inhale it. When the patient inhales, it goes through the nose, and through the olfactory nerve, it goes to the brain. Usually, that molecule then absorbs in the spinal brain and then circulates to the target, in this case, brain cancer. Now you know how powerful that cranial nerve is from the standpoint of what it does when you smell something, that scent, that odor gets transported from the olfactory nerve to our brain. And that's basically what we're doing. We're taking something external to the brain, allowing the cranial nerve to absorb and transport it to the brain."
#NeOnc #BloodBrainBarrier #BBB #BrainCancer #DrugDelivery
neonc.com
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Dr. Thomas Chen, Founder, CEO, and CSO of NeOnc Technologies, is working on the challenge of delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier by using an intranasal delivery approach to target brain cancers. This delivery platform leverages the cranial nerve to transport the drugs directly to the brain, bypassing the blood-brain barrier. Genomic analysis of the long-surviving patients in the phase one trial revealed a common genetic mutation, informing the trial design for the next phase.
Thomas explains, "So our platform is what we call intranasal delivery. And with the intranasal delivery, we're not trying to cross the blood-brain barrier. We're trying to cross over it. And how we're doing that is doing the delivery of the drug via what we call the C nerves. Now the cranial nerves are, we have 12 cranial nerves in our brain. These cranial nerves have various functions, but the cranial nerves involved with the nasal brain delivery are the first and the fifth cranial nerves. The first cranial nerve is what we call the olfactory nerve. That's the nerve that's responsible for smell. The fifth cranial nerve is called the trigeminal nerve, which involves facial sensation and allows us to chew."
"So what happens is that when we want to deliver the drug to the brain cancer, we have the patient inhale it. When the patient inhales, it goes through the nose, and through the olfactory nerve, it goes to the brain. Usually, that molecule then absorbs in the spinal brain and then circulates to the target, in this case, brain cancer. Now you know how powerful that cranial nerve is from the standpoint of what it does when you smell something, that scent, that odor gets transported from the olfactory nerve to our brain. And that's basically what we're doing. We're taking something external to the brain, allowing the cranial nerve to absorb and transport it to the brain."
#NeOnc #BloodBrainBarrier #BBB #BrainCancer #DrugDelivery
neonc.com
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Ali Morin, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at symplr, emphasizes the need to focus on the challenges nurses face and AI's potential to reduce administrative burdens and nurse burnout. Significant staffing shortages, scheduling challenges, and increased patient acuity demand better data analytics and technology implementation to allow nurses to spend more time with patients and improve patient care. For successful integration of technology solutions into the nurses' workflow, pilot tests, training of new and experienced nurses, and listening to their concerns and ideas are essential.
Ali explains, "We focus on the nursing informatics side -- that middle communicator between technology and the nurses at the bedside. So, I consider myself a translator. I listen to the clinicians and the nurses who are using our software, and we have a number of solutions that are applicable for direct care nurses as well as nurse managers and nurse leaders. I take in the pain points that they're experiencing today and bring them to our developers and our product teams. This allows them to understand the pain points that nurses are experiencing and how we can help solve some of those problems."
"However, we're taking it to the next level and putting in some additional machine learning around which nurses are still available to pick up shifts and which nurses are still available who haven't maybe met their core component. Today, how that's done: there are spreadsheets, call lists, and post-it notes all over the place. Who have I called? Who have I checked with? Who hasn't seen this manual kind of back-and-forth? And so our work is really to make that balancing phase of the nursing scheduling simpler, pun intended, 100%, but also simpler so that we can make it so those nurses and nurse managers, the nurses can say, I want to work these kinds of shifts. The nurse managers can say, great, plug them in, and off they go. And then it's less time in that kind of back and forth between them."
#symplr #Nurses #HealthTech #HealthcareAI #CompassSurvey
symplr.com
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Ali Morin, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at symplr, emphasizes the need to focus on the challenges nurses face and AI's potential to reduce administrative burdens and nurse burnout. Significant staffing shortages, scheduling challenges, and increased patient acuity demand better data analytics and technology implementation to allow nurses to spend more time with patients and improve patient care. For successful integration of technology solutions into the nurses' workflow, pilot tests, training of new and experienced nurses, and listening to their concerns and ideas are essential.
Ali explains, "We focus on the nursing informatics side -- that middle communicator between technology and the nurses at the bedside. So, I consider myself a translator. I listen to the clinicians and the nurses who are using our software, and we have a number of solutions that are applicable for direct care nurses as well as nurse managers and nurse leaders. I take in the pain points that they're experiencing today and bring them to our developers and our product teams. This allows them to understand the pain points that nurses are experiencing and how we can help solve some of those problems."
"However, we're taking it to the next level and putting in some additional machine learning around which nurses are still available to pick up shifts and which nurses are still available who haven't maybe met their core component. Today, how that's done: there are spreadsheets, call lists, and post-it notes all over the place. Who have I called? Who have I checked with? Who hasn't seen this manual kind of back-and-forth? And so our work is really to make that balancing phase of the nursing scheduling simpler, pun intended, 100%, but also simpler so that we can make it so those nurses and nurse managers, the nurses can say, I want to work these kinds of shifts. The nurse managers can say, great, plug them in, and off they go. And then it's less time in that kind of back and forth between them."
#symplr #Nurses #HealthTech #HealthcareAI #CompassSurvey
symplr.com
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Maggie Cline, Executive Director at EyeCare4Kids Utah, highlights the importance of providing eye exams and eyeglasses to underserved children, their parents, and those in shelters, refugee camps, and Native American reservations. Early testing and glasses with the correct prescription can significantly impact academic performance, confidence, and social skills. Making wearing glasses cool and offering a wide selection of frames is key to encouraging everyone to wear them proudly. The EyeCare4Kids partners with various organizations to operate brick-and-mortar and mobile clinics in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, and Africa with expansion plans.
Maggie explains, "I think glasses are cool these days, but the kids have to wear their glasses. So something that we do, and I love that we do this, we don't just give them a selection of five or six glasses. They get hundreds to choose from because we know that if they feel good about what they're wearing, they will wear them. And so I just got a message from a nurse the other day telling me she has been so happy seeing these students proudly wearing their glasses. They absolutely love them, and they show them off. They tell their friends about them."
"There are a lot of barriers. There are parents who are working, and in many of the homes just here in the US, both parents are working, so there's just no time. They don't want to take them out of school. I think there's just a lot of different reasons. I think there needs to be more education for parents to be able to notice the signs. Maybe kids have behavioral problems in the classroom that are often misdiagnosed. A kid sitting at the back of the classroom who isn't able to see the PowerPoint or the board is probably just unable to focus because they can't see clearly."
"For example, our team was dispensed at an elementary school. There was a first grader who put on his pair of glasses, his first pair of glasses, and he had a significant prescription, and there was a brick wall right next to him. He was just amazed at the brick wall and that it had texture, and he just kept feeling it and talking about it. Then he looked at the school staff and was like, I can see your face. And they were just so amazed at the different details he could see."
#ChildrensVisionCare #PediatricVisionCare #Glasses4Kids #EyeGlasses
EyeCare4Kids.org
Listen to the podcast here
Maggie Cline, Executive Director at EyeCare4Kids Utah, highlights the importance of providing eye exams and eyeglasses to underserved children, their parents, and those in shelters, refugee camps, and Native American reservations. Early testing and glasses with the correct prescription can significantly impact academic performance, confidence, and social skills. Making wearing glasses cool and offering a wide selection of frames is key to encouraging everyone to wear them proudly. The EyeCare4Kids partners with various organizations to operate brick-and-mortar and mobile clinics in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, and Africa with expansion plans.
Maggie explains, "I think glasses are cool these days, but the kids have to wear their glasses. So something that we do, and I love that we do this, we don't just give them a selection of five or six glasses. They get hundreds to choose from because we know that if they feel good about what they're wearing, they will wear them. And so I just got a message from a nurse the other day telling me she has been so happy seeing these students proudly wearing their glasses. They absolutely love them, and they show them off. They tell their friends about them."
"There are a lot of barriers. There are parents who are working, and in many of the homes just here in the US, both parents are working, so there's just no time. They don't want to take them out of school. I think there's just a lot of different reasons. I think there needs to be more education for parents to be able to notice the signs. Maybe kids have behavioral problems in the classroom that are often misdiagnosed. A kid sitting at the back of the classroom who isn't able to see the PowerPoint or the board is probably just unable to focus because they can't see clearly."
"For example, our team was dispensed at an elementary school. There was a first grader who put on his pair of glasses, his first pair of glasses, and he had a significant prescription, and there was a brick wall right next to him. He was just amazed at the brick wall and that it had texture, and he just kept feeling it and talking about it. Then he looked at the school staff and was like, I can see your face. And they were just so amazed at the different details he could see."
#ChildrensVisionCare #PediatricVisionCare #Glasses4Kids #EyeGlasses
EyeCare4Kids.org
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Olivier Visa, President and CEO of Evergen specializes in developing and manufacturing biomaterials for use in regenerative medicine. These customized biomaterial solutions use xenografts, allografts, and emerging technologies inside and outside the body with applications in wound healing, cardiac, dental, breast, neuro, and spine repair. This approach provides surgeons with a broader range of biomaterials to better tailor treatments for individual patients.
Olivier explains, "There is a multitude that we can support. There is form and function, and I can give you a couple of examples of biomaterials in regenerative medicine. One is bovine pericardium, which is bovine collagen that we use for the development and manufacturing of cardiac heart valves. Another one would be acellular dermal matrix from human tissue that we use for reconstruction in plastic and, of course, with surgeries such as breast reconstruction after mastectomy."
"Think about the body as a whole, and I'll give you a couple of examples where- when you're in cardiac - whether it's a patch or a valve, we're inside the body. When we're in breast reconstruction, we are totally inside the body. When we're in the neuro spine, we're totally inside the body, whether you're repairing or restoring or regenerating peripheral nerves or dura around the brain, you're inside the body. And yes, you are right, wound management is part of it, whether it's diabetic food, ulcer, ulcer or some form of a burn, then I would say you're looking at the skin as an organ and repairing, restoring, and regenerating that skin."
#Evergen #TissueEngineering #RegenerativeMedicine #CDMO #Biomaterials #Biotechnology #LifeSciences #MedicalDevices #SportsMedicine #Orthopedics #Surgeons
evergenbio.com
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Olivier Visa, President and CEO of Evergen specializes in developing and manufacturing biomaterials for use in regenerative medicine. These customized biomaterial solutions use xenografts, allografts, and emerging technologies inside and outside the body with applications in wound healing, cardiac, dental, breast, neuro, and spine repair. This approach provides surgeons with a broader range of biomaterials to better tailor treatments for individual patients.
Olivier explains, "There is a multitude that we can support. There is form and function, and I can give you a couple of examples of biomaterials in regenerative medicine. One is bovine pericardium, which is bovine collagen that we use for the development and manufacturing of cardiac heart valves. Another one would be acellular dermal matrix from human tissue that we use for reconstruction in plastic and, of course, with surgeries such as breast reconstruction after mastectomy."
"Think about the body as a whole, and I'll give you a couple of examples where- when you're in cardiac - whether it's a patch or a valve, we're inside the body. When we're in breast reconstruction, we are totally inside the body. When we're in the neuro spine, we're totally inside the body, whether you're repairing or restoring or regenerating peripheral nerves or dura around the brain, you're inside the body. And yes, you are right, wound management is part of it, whether it's diabetic food, ulcer, ulcer or some form of a burn, then I would say you're looking at the skin as an organ and repairing, restoring, and regenerating that skin."
#Evergen #TissueEngineering #RegenerativeMedicine #CDMO #Biomaterials #Biotechnology #LifeSciences #MedicalDevices #SportsMedicine #Orthopedics #Surgeons
evergenbio.com
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Dr. Rekha Kumar, Chief Medical Officer at Found, is focused on weight care, not just weight management, to provide personalized medical care. GLP-1 medications have changed the landscape of obesity treatment, providing doctors with more effective tools for patients, but they don't work for everyone. With this telehealth approach, patients engage with the platform to determine a tailored treatment plan based on each patient's unique biology, lifestyle, and history. There is also an increased stigma around obesity due to the availability of GLP-1s, reinforcing the need for new medications and approaches based on real-world outcomes.
Rekha explains, "I would say the way GLP-1s have changed this entire field of medicine is that doctors now feel like they have a tool that works that they can offer their patients. Although GLP-1s don't work perfectly in everybody, and there may be people who don't respond well to them for decades or longer than decades, doctors felt like all they could tell patients was to eat less and exercise more. Even when doctors said that, I think they felt like what they were offering wasn't very useful. Now, an actual tool, or a class of medicine, can be very effective for patients."
"I am looped into the conversation on stigma. In some ways, it’s been helpful to that conversation in the sense that people like Oprah have come out and said that now she realizes biology is involved in body weight control and that thin people are wired differently. They don't have as much of a preoccupation with food or noise."
"In some ways, it's reduced the stigma by bringing attention to the role of biology and hormones that contribute to our body weight that we don't have control of. Unfortunately, now that there is this tool that's so powerful, some would say that it's made weight stigma worse because if somebody chooses not to take this medicine, they're judged for not wanting to be thin."
#JoinFound #WeightCare #WeightManagment #Obesity #GLP1
joinfound.com
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Dr. Rekha Kumar, Chief Medical Officer at Found, is focused on weight care, not just weight management, to provide personalized medical care. GLP-1 medications have changed the landscape of obesity treatment, providing doctors with more effective tools for patients, but they don't work for everyone. With this telehealth approach, patients engage with the platform to determine a tailored treatment plan based on each patient's unique biology, lifestyle, and history. There is also an increased stigma around obesity due to the availability of GLP-1s, reinforcing the need for new medications and approaches based on real-world outcomes.
Rekha explains, "I would say the way GLP-1s have changed this entire field of medicine is that doctors now feel like they have a tool that works that they can offer their patients. Although GLP-1s don't work perfectly in everybody, and there may be people who don't respond well to them for decades or longer than decades, doctors felt like all they could tell patients was to eat less and exercise more. Even when doctors said that, I think they felt like what they were offering wasn't very useful. Now, an actual tool, or a class of medicine, can be very effective for patients."
"I am looped into the conversation on stigma. In some ways, it’s been helpful to that conversation in the sense that people like Oprah have come out and said that now she realizes biology is involved in body weight control and that thin people are wired differently. They don't have as much of a preoccupation with food or noise."
"In some ways, it's reduced the stigma by bringing attention to the role of biology and hormones that contribute to our body weight that we don't have control of. Unfortunately, now that there is this tool that's so powerful, some would say that it's made weight stigma worse because if somebody chooses not to take this medicine, they're judged for not wanting to be thin."
#JoinFound #WeightCare #WeightManagment #Obesity #GLP1
joinfound.com
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Tim Tobin, CEO and Founder of Planatome, has a background in the semiconductor industry where precision polishing techniques were developed. Planatome has used that technology to create molecularly smooth scalpel blades that remove all the jagged edges on traditional surgical scalpels. These new nano polished blades significantly reduce scarring and inflammation from incisions and improve healing outcomes for patients, especially those with darker skin tones who are more prone to hypertrophic scarring. The challenge is disrupting an industry that has not changed in over 100 years and that has been driven by reducing the costs, not improving the blade.
Tim explains, "So we picked the surgical scalpel because it's still the foundation, the primary incision tool, whether it's a minimally invasive procedure or a procedure with a lot of cutting. So we started with that. We've since applied our technology to many other surgical instruments. We started with the scalpel, which was patented in 1915. There's been no change, no technological change, just change to drag down the cost. So it's just completely commoditized, a scalpel blade somewhere in the 20 to 50 cent range, and nobody thinks about it because everybody just uses a scalpel, and they don't need to be more critical."
"So we started looking, and if you look at a scalpel blade underneath magnification, it looks almost like it's highly serrated and jagged because they're made by taking a piece of stainless steel, and they grind it up to a point, and that's the cutting edge. But they leave it like that."
"We took that, and we said, okay, well, what if we polish it and take out all of those jagged serrations, at least a thousand times smoother. Now if you measure the surface, it changes the cutting mechanism from tearing and snagging to a nice clean incision. So some of the challenges in that is when surgeons have been using the same thing pretty much their whole career, when they try something different, that's not always something they want to think about."
#Planatome #MedTech #MedicalDevice #Surgery
planatome.com
Listen to the podcast here
Tim Tobin, CEO and Founder of Planatome, has a background in the semiconductor industry where precision polishing techniques were developed. Planatome has used that technology to create molecularly smooth scalpel blades that remove all the jagged edges on traditional surgical scalpels. These new nano polished blades significantly reduce scarring and inflammation from incisions and improve healing outcomes for patients, especially those with darker skin tones who are more prone to hypertrophic scarring. The challenge is disrupting an industry that has not changed in over 100 years and that has been driven by reducing the costs, not improving the blade.
Tim explains, "So we picked the surgical scalpel because it's still the foundation, the primary incision tool, whether it's a minimally invasive procedure or a procedure with a lot of cutting. So we started with that. We've since applied our technology to many other surgical instruments. We started with the scalpel, which was patented in 1915. There's been no change, no technological change, just change to drag down the cost. So it's just completely commoditized, a scalpel blade somewhere in the 20 to 50 cent range, and nobody thinks about it because everybody just uses a scalpel, and they don't need to be more critical."
"So we started looking, and if you look at a scalpel blade underneath magnification, it looks almost like it's highly serrated and jagged because they're made by taking a piece of stainless steel, and they grind it up to a point, and that's the cutting edge. But they leave it like that."
"We took that, and we said, okay, well, what if we polish it and take out all of those jagged serrations, at least a thousand times smoother. Now if you measure the surface, it changes the cutting mechanism from tearing and snagging to a nice clean incision. So some of the challenges in that is when surgeons have been using the same thing pretty much their whole career, when they try something different, that's not always something they want to think about."
#Planatome #MedTech #MedicalDevice #Surgery
planatome.com
Download the transcript here
Kiran Nistala, Chief Medical Officer and head of development at Zura Bio, describes how their novel molecules target multiple pathways to provide more effective treatments for patients with autoimmune diseases. This is particularly necessary for those with complex, heterogeneous manifestations not well addressed by current therapies. Zura Bio's novel molecules target rare diseases such as systemic sclerosis and hidradenitis suppurativa and show potential for use in combination with existing approaches.
Kiran, "Developing bispecifics is a known, but it's quite a technical skill, and I think there are lots of reasons—first, bioengineering to get the right molecule. Secondly, you must also know how to design studies to show that both sides are doing what you expect of that molecule. So both pathways are being affected. And I guess you must also choose the right disease where you think those pathways are super important. So, we've been incredibly thoughtful in our approach- we haven't just jumped in, and some of that time we've taken is really to speak to patients and physicians and learn and hopefully overcome some of the mistakes we've seen from other competitors."
"Your point about heterogeneity speaks to why we're stuck and don't have enough medicines that are changing the boundaries. If I give you a specific example, scleroderma, I talked a bit about it. One of the points is that there's no treatment for the whole of this disease -there's just treatment for the lung. And maybe the lungs are a bit simpler, but what you want to treat is every organ, the whole of disease. That issue is probably more varied between patients. The same is true for our second disease of interest: hidradenitis suppurativa. There's been some great progress, and molecules are out there now that are licensed to treat it. But unfortunately, the same thing occurs. So, more than half of patients in recent studies are still not getting good or very good responses. I think it's not just one thing, but heterogeneity certainly contributes to it."
#ZuraBio #SystemicSclerosis #SSc #Scleroderma #HidradenitisSuppurativa #Autoimmune #Immunology #RareDisease #Biologic
zurabio.com
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Kiran Nistala, Chief Medical Officer and head of development at Zura Bio, describes how their novel molecules target multiple pathways to provide more effective treatments for patients with autoimmune diseases. This is particularly necessary for those with complex, heterogeneous manifestations not well addressed by current therapies. Zura Bio's novel molecules target rare diseases such as systemic sclerosis and hidradenitis suppurativa and show potential for use in combination with existing approaches.
Kiran, "Developing bispecifics is a known, but it's quite a technical skill, and I think there are lots of reasons—first, bioengineering to get the right molecule. Secondly, you must also know how to design studies to show that both sides are doing what you expect of that molecule. So both pathways are being affected. And I guess you must also choose the right disease where you think those pathways are super important. So, we've been incredibly thoughtful in our approach- we haven't just jumped in, and some of that time we've taken is really to speak to patients and physicians and learn and hopefully overcome some of the mistakes we've seen from other competitors."
"Your point about heterogeneity speaks to why we're stuck and don't have enough medicines that are changing the boundaries. If I give you a specific example, scleroderma, I talked a bit about it. One of the points is that there's no treatment for the whole of this disease -there's just treatment for the lung. And maybe the lungs are a bit simpler, but what you want to treat is every organ, the whole of disease. That issue is probably more varied between patients. The same is true for our second disease of interest: hidradenitis suppurativa. There's been some great progress, and molecules are out there now that are licensed to treat it. But unfortunately, the same thing occurs. So, more than half of patients in recent studies are still not getting good or very good responses. I think it's not just one thing, but heterogeneity certainly contributes to it."
#ZuraBio #SystemicSclerosis #SSc #Scleroderma #HidradenitisSuppurativa #Autoimmune #Immunology #RareDisease #Biologic
zurabio.com
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Dr. Rafael Amado, President, Head of Global Research and Development at Zai Lab, highlights the renewed interest in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with advancements in linker technology and payload delivery, leading to improved therapeutic windows and reduced side effects. The Zai Lab lead ADC ZL-1310 has shown promising results in small cell lung cancer and the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier to treat brain metastases, a common complication in small cell lung cancer. Combining ADCs with immunotherapy can potentially enhance the immune response.
Rafael elaborates, "ADCs have undergone a bit of a renaissance. In the past, traditional ADCs had many drawbacks. They had what's called a narrow therapeutic window. So the dose that was effective was very close to the dose that was toxic. This was due to many factors. The construction of the antibodies and the chemotherapy, which we call payload, wasn't liberated in the right compartment. Either the tumor microenvironment or the antibody was not well internalized and didn't go into the cancer cell."
"There are now new generations of antibody-drug conjugates, and ZL-1310 is one of them. It uses a technology called TMALIN. The advantage of this is that the linker is quite specific and the antibody internalizes, it can release the payload, which is a different chemotherapy, than a classic ADC. Also, it can be digested in the tumor microenvironment, and the chemotherapy can penetrate cells that don't have the target just by influx into the cell. So that's called the bystander effect."
#ZaiLaboratory #innovation #Cancer #ADC #Antibodydrug #Biotech #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #LifeSciences #Healthcare
zailaboratory.com
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Dr. Rafael Amado, President, Head of Global Research and Development at Zai Lab, highlights the renewed interest in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with advancements in linker technology and payload delivery, leading to improved therapeutic windows and reduced side effects. The Zai Lab lead ADC ZL-1310 has shown promising results in small cell lung cancer and the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier to treat brain metastases, a common complication in small cell lung cancer. Combining ADCs with immunotherapy can potentially enhance the immune response.
Rafael elaborates, "ADCs have undergone a bit of a renaissance. In the past, traditional ADCs had many drawbacks. They had what's called a narrow therapeutic window. So the dose that was effective was very close to the dose that was toxic. This was due to many factors. The construction of the antibodies and the chemotherapy, which we call payload, wasn't liberated in the right compartment. Either the tumor microenvironment or the antibody was not well internalized and didn't go into the cancer cell."
"There are now new generations of antibody-drug conjugates, and ZL-1310 is one of them. It uses a technology called TMALIN. The advantage of this is that the linker is quite specific and the antibody internalizes, it can release the payload, which is a different chemotherapy, than a classic ADC. Also, it can be digested in the tumor microenvironment, and the chemotherapy can penetrate cells that don't have the target just by influx into the cell. So that's called the bystander effect."
#ZaiLaboratory #innovation #Cancer #ADC #Antibodydrug #Biotech #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #LifeSciences #Healthcare
zailaboratory.com
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Dr. Halinder Mangat, Director of Research at the Brain Trauma Foundation, has developed evidence-based guidelines for treating severe traumatic brain injuries, which have been shown to improve outcomes significantly. The Foundation is conducting research in collaboration with the US Defense Department and Veterans Administration, including a clinical trial on the use of lumbar drainage to reduce intracranial pressure from a brain injury. While the brain was once thought incapable of healing, research shows early intervention from injuries can result in the regeneration of cells and formation of new neural circuits.
Halinder explains, "The initial focus of the Brain Trauma Foundation's mission was treatment. The Brain Trauma Foundation in 1997 became the first surgical organization and first professional body to produce evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of severe head injury. That means looking at the comprehensive literature body, finding out what robust research is, and compiling it all. Some studies may have contradictory results. We compile it all in a very objective, systematic way to then frame recommendations as to the best practice, and these fall under the umbrella of evidence-based medicine. In 1997, the first edition was published. Over the years, multiple studies have shown that this set of guidelines has improved good outcomes or decreased poor outcomes by 50%, which is the most remarkable intervention, perhaps short of vaccines or antibiotics. But in the surgical field, it is probably the most impactful intervention."
"So the first impact of the injury causes X amount of damage, and then following that, there is a cascade of it like dominoes falling. The whole focus has been to prevent downstream dominoes from falling by early intervention. And after the first injury when a few dominoes, for example, have fallen, the goal of the guidelines has been to as early and as intensively as possible to minimize downstream dominos falling, which means secondary injury, which in itself has its own legacy of influencing outcome. Over a period of time, there's been a lot of trials to try neuroprotective drugs, which would, in the first instance, mitigate the secondary injury."
#BrainTraumaFoundation #BTF #Neurology #Neurologist #TraumaticBrainInjury #TBI #BrainTrauma
braintrauma.org
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Dr. Halinder Mangat, Director of Research at the Brain Trauma Foundation, has developed evidence-based guidelines for treating severe traumatic brain injuries, which have been shown to improve outcomes significantly. The Foundation is conducting research in collaboration with the US Defense Department and Veterans Administration, including a clinical trial on the use of lumbar drainage to reduce intracranial pressure from a brain injury. While the brain was once thought incapable of healing, research shows early intervention from injuries can result in the regeneration of cells and formation of new neural circuits.
Halinder explains, "The initial focus of the Brain Trauma Foundation's mission was treatment. The Brain Trauma Foundation in 1997 became the first surgical organization and first professional body to produce evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of severe head injury. That means looking at the comprehensive literature body, finding out what robust research is, and compiling it all. Some studies may have contradictory results. We compile it all in a very objective, systematic way to then frame recommendations as to the best practice, and these fall under the umbrella of evidence-based medicine. In 1997, the first edition was published. Over the years, multiple studies have shown that this set of guidelines has improved good outcomes or decreased poor outcomes by 50%, which is the most remarkable intervention, perhaps short of vaccines or antibiotics. But in the surgical field, it is probably the most impactful intervention."
"So the first impact of the injury causes X amount of damage, and then following that, there is a cascade of it like dominoes falling. The whole focus has been to prevent downstream dominoes from falling by early intervention. And after the first injury when a few dominoes, for example, have fallen, the goal of the guidelines has been to as early and as intensively as possible to minimize downstream dominos falling, which means secondary injury, which in itself has its own legacy of influencing outcome. Over a period of time, there's been a lot of trials to try neuroprotective drugs, which would, in the first instance, mitigate the secondary injury."
#BrainTraumaFoundation #BTF #Neurology #Neurologist #TraumaticBrainInjury #TBI #BrainTrauma
braintrauma.org
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Jeffrey Meckler, CEO of Indaptus Therapeutics, is focused on using their decoy platform to activate the immune system to fight cancer and infections. This approach activates the innate and adaptive pathways in a controlled manner using a short-term pulsed dosing regimen and helps avoid the toxicity issues seen in other immunotherapies. The therapy is cleared from the system quickly, allowing the immune system to be modulated and potentially used with other cancer treatments.
Jeffrey explains, "It's a very uncommon approach because we have, over the last several decades, really had a paradigm for treating cancer in immunotherapy, and that paradigm is turning one or a couple switches in the immune system to help fight the cancer. Again, as I mentioned before, the concept of doing too much, activating too much comes from this idea that you'll hit toxicities and, like I said, cytokine storm or whatever. What we do is go about it in a way that people are coming to. The big talk right now are these VEGF PD-1 bispecific antibodies and what they're actually doing. Part of this is that the VEGF activates innate immune pathways. The PD-1 activates adaptive immune pathways."
"So there's a lot of talk about what's been going on with Summit Therapeutics, and everybody now is doing these VEGF PD-1. We're even broader than that. And more importantly, we're also in a short burst. We call our therapy pulse prime, but it's cleared in the system within a couple of hours. So it does this activation, but instead of keeping the foot on the accelerator the entire time, it lets up. And what we started doing is giving it weekly, and our preclinical models show that weekly administration in combination with other therapies is the most potent approach for us."
#IndaptusTherapeutics #Decoy20 #Biotech #Cancer #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #LungCancer #BladderCancer #LiverCancer #PancreaticCancer #ColonCancer
indaptusrx.com
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Jeffrey Meckler, CEO of Indaptus Therapeutics, is focused on using their decoy platform to activate the immune system to fight cancer and infections. This approach activates the innate and adaptive pathways in a controlled manner using a short-term pulsed dosing regimen and helps avoid the toxicity issues seen in other immunotherapies. The therapy is cleared from the system quickly, allowing the immune system to be modulated and potentially used with other cancer treatments.
Jeffrey explains, "It's a very uncommon approach because we have, over the last several decades, really had a paradigm for treating cancer in immunotherapy, and that paradigm is turning one or a couple switches in the immune system to help fight the cancer. Again, as I mentioned before, the concept of doing too much, activating too much comes from this idea that you'll hit toxicities and, like I said, cytokine storm or whatever. What we do is go about it in a way that people are coming to. The big talk right now are these VEGF PD-1 bispecific antibodies and what they're actually doing. Part of this is that the VEGF activates innate immune pathways. The PD-1 activates adaptive immune pathways."
"So there's a lot of talk about what's been going on with Summit Therapeutics, and everybody now is doing these VEGF PD-1. We're even broader than that. And more importantly, we're also in a short burst. We call our therapy pulse prime, but it's cleared in the system within a couple of hours. So it does this activation, but instead of keeping the foot on the accelerator the entire time, it lets up. And what we started doing is giving it weekly, and our preclinical models show that weekly administration in combination with other therapies is the most potent approach for us."
#IndaptusTherapeutics #Decoy20 #Biotech #Cancer #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #LungCancer #BladderCancer #LiverCancer #PancreaticCancer #ColonCancer
indaptusrx.com
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Dr. Charles Bridges, the CSO at CorVista Health, has developed a cardiovascular diagnostic platform that uses a simple device to collect various heart signals. The platform then sends that data to the cloud for fast machine learning-based analytics, which can detect conditions like pulmonary hypertension and coronary artery diseases. This test can be given at the point of care and is significant, as these conditions are frequently under-diagnosed due to a lack of accessible testing.
Charles explains, "It's really an amazing breakthrough. Yes, it's a very simple device from the point of view that it's about the size of an iPad. It requires that you connect seven electrodes to the patient. An electrode is identical to what they put on your chest when you get an electrocardiogram, an EKG, and a PPG sensor on the finger. Those of us who made it through COVID-19 probably learned a little about PPG sensors because those we use to measure your arterial oxygen saturation and the most severe cases of COVID-19 were associated with a reduction in that. So it's always reassuring to see that yours was 98%, for example, which would be normal, but we're not using that sensor to measure oxygen saturation. We're measuring the raw light signals, the red and infrared light signals."
"As we do for the electrical signals we measure, we apply very sophisticated mathematics to those 10 million data points we derive. And we get that all in about three minutes and we send those in a very secure fashion to the cloud."
"To summarize that, the CorVista device, while the patient is still in the office, gives the doctor a report in about 15 minutes, both about pulmonary hypertension and about coronary artery disease, which are comparable and, in some cases, arguably more accurate than the standard of care for those two diseases."
#CorVistaSystem #CorVistaHealth #CardiovascularCare #Cardiology #CardioDiagnostics #HeartHealthInnovation #NonInvasiveDiagnosis #MedicalDevice #MedTech #Diagnostics #PointOfCareSolutions #ML #DigitalCardiology #HealthEquity #HealthcareAccess #CardiologyDesert #PulmonaryHypertension #CoronaryArteryDisease #CardiovascularDisease
corvista.com
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Dr. Charles Bridges, the CSO at CorVista Health, has developed a cardiovascular diagnostic platform that uses a simple device to collect various heart signals. The platform then sends that data to the cloud for fast machine learning-based analytics, which can detect conditions like pulmonary hypertension and coronary artery diseases. This test can be given at the point of care and is significant, as these conditions are frequently under-diagnosed due to a lack of accessible testing.
Charles explains, "It's really an amazing breakthrough. Yes, it's a very simple device from the point of view that it's about the size of an iPad. It requires that you connect seven electrodes to the patient. An electrode is identical to what they put on your chest when you get an electrocardiogram, an EKG, and a PPG sensor on the finger. Those of us who made it through COVID-19 probably learned a little about PPG sensors because those we use to measure your arterial oxygen saturation and the most severe cases of COVID-19 were associated with a reduction in that. So it's always reassuring to see that yours was 98%, for example, which would be normal, but we're not using that sensor to measure oxygen saturation. We're measuring the raw light signals, the red and infrared light signals."
"As we do for the electrical signals we measure, we apply very sophisticated mathematics to those 10 million data points we derive. And we get that all in about three minutes and we send those in a very secure fashion to the cloud."
"To summarize that, the CorVista device, while the patient is still in the office, gives the doctor a report in about 15 minutes, both about pulmonary hypertension and about coronary artery disease, which are comparable and, in some cases, arguably more accurate than the standard of care for those two diseases."
#CorVistaSystem #CorVistaHealth #CardiovascularCare #Cardiology #CardioDiagnostics #HeartHealthInnovation #NonInvasiveDiagnosis #MedicalDevice #MedTech #Diagnostics #PointOfCareSolutions #ML #DigitalCardiology #HealthEquity #HealthcareAccess #CardiologyDesert #PulmonaryHypertension #CoronaryArteryDisease #CardiovascularDisease
corvista.com
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Sean Ainsworth, the CEO of Immusoft, is developing novel cell therapies by programming B cells to produce therapeutic proteins, including antibodies, enzymes, signaling proteins, and other protein types. This autologous cell therapy has shown promising results in early clinical trials for enzyme replacement therapies for rare lysosomal storage disorders. Some advantages of this approach are the ability to re-dose patients as necessary and to cross the blood-brain barrier. Initial findings are opening the door to other indications such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Sean explains, "We're developing B cells as modalities for therapeutic protein delivery. B cells have an exceptional ability to produce and release therapeutic proteins into the bloodstream. So naturally, they're producing and releasing antibodies, which are a type of protein. And so we're harnessing that biofactory capability of these B cells, programming them to manufacture our therapeutic protein. The idea is that once we've done that, we deliver the cells back to the patient. They naturally will go to the bone marrow and engraft, and once they've engrafted, they can live for many years, potentially decades. The two key things about the B cell are A, it's a natural biofactory, and B, they naturally engraft in the bone marrow."
"We got started with antibodies that we would programmed initially against HIV. So, it was a natural starting point for B cells, given that they produce antibodies. We were just coaxing them to produce very specific antibodies. And then the idea came about that if they can produce antibodies, we could probably enable them to produce other therapeutic protein types. So we began to experiment with enzymes, signaling proteins, and a number of different protein types. We found that under the right conditions, indeed, we could enable these B cells to produce a broad array of different protein types. But that ultimately means we have applications across a multitude of different therapeutic indications as well."
#Immusoft #CART #CellTherapy #BCells #RareDisease #LysosomalStorageDisorders
immusoft.com
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Sean Ainsworth, the CEO of Immusoft, is developing novel cell therapies by programming B cells to produce therapeutic proteins, including antibodies, enzymes, signaling proteins, and other protein types. This autologous cell therapy has shown promising results in early clinical trials for enzyme replacement therapies for rare lysosomal storage disorders. Some advantages of this approach are the ability to re-dose patients as necessary and to cross the blood-brain barrier. Initial findings are opening the door to other indications such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Sean explains, "We're developing B cells as modalities for therapeutic protein delivery. B cells have an exceptional ability to produce and release therapeutic proteins into the bloodstream. So naturally, they're producing and releasing antibodies, which are a type of protein. And so we're harnessing that biofactory capability of these B cells, programming them to manufacture our therapeutic protein. The idea is that once we've done that, we deliver the cells back to the patient. They naturally will go to the bone marrow and engraft, and once they've engrafted, they can live for many years, potentially decades. The two key things about the B cell are A, it's a natural biofactory, and B, they naturally engraft in the bone marrow."
"We got started with antibodies that we would programmed initially against HIV. So, it was a natural starting point for B cells, given that they produce antibodies. We were just coaxing them to produce very specific antibodies. And then the idea came about that if they can produce antibodies, we could probably enable them to produce other therapeutic protein types. So we began to experiment with enzymes, signaling proteins, and a number of different protein types. We found that under the right conditions, indeed, we could enable these B cells to produce a broad array of different protein types. But that ultimately means we have applications across a multitude of different therapeutic indications as well."
#Immusoft #CART #CellTherapy #BCells #RareDisease #LysosomalStorageDisorders
immusoft.com
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Joy Duemke, Director of Marketing North America at Terumo, BCT, and Barry Liden, President and Managing Advisor of Patient Voice Advisors, highlight the importance of medical device companies engaging with patient associations to incorporate patient feedback into the design and development of their products. Patients can provide unique insights to engineers and researchers that may lead to better outcomes and patient experiences. The discussion focuses on the collaboration related to improving blood therapy delivery for sickle cell patients.
Barry explains, "So if medical device companies want to ensure that their technologies are going to get to the people that need them and that those folks want to be able to take potentially some risks of having the device implanted or used on them, they need to listen to the patient and understand what kind of outcomes are important to them and what they're willing to tolerate."
Joy elaborates, "With medical devices, it's very personal to the patient. It's not a bag that's hung or a pill that's taken, but it's typically something that might be, as Barry mentioned, implanted in their body or interacting very closely with their body. So the processes are very technical. There's often a high amount of training that has to happen with those operators, and it's often even a specialty department that might utilize those devices. So for me, at least on the medical device side, I think it's even more important that we understand what that patient impact is going to be with the innovations that we're launching into the market and making sure that they have a positive experience and that they can access those therapies."
"So what's interesting about blood therapy for sickle cell disease is it takes a lot of players to come to the table to successfully enable care. As we get excited about some of the transformative therapies on the horizon for sickle cell, we still need to manage those patients well with blood therapy like automated red cell exchange. And to get that, you need to bring together the patient, the prescriber, a service provider, and blood donor to bring that blood to the table because it's very, very specialized and matched to the donors that donate those cells."
#TerumoBCT #PatientVoiceAdvisors #MedicalDevices #MedTech #SickleCell
terumomedical.com
patientvoiceadvisors.com
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Joy Duemke, Director of Marketing North America at Terumo, BCT, and Barry Liden, President and Managing Advisor of Patient Voice Advisors, highlight the importance of medical device companies engaging with patient associations to incorporate patient feedback into the design and development of their products. Patients can provide unique insights to engineers and researchers that may lead to better outcomes and patient experiences. The discussion focuses on the collaboration related to improving blood therapy delivery for sickle cell patients.
Barry explains, "So if medical device companies want to ensure that their technologies are going to get to the people that need them and that those folks want to be able to take potentially some risks of having the device implanted or used on them, they need to listen to the patient and understand what kind of outcomes are important to them and what they're willing to tolerate."
Joy elaborates, "With medical devices, it's very personal to the patient. It's not a bag that's hung or a pill that's taken, but it's typically something that might be, as Barry mentioned, implanted in their body or interacting very closely with their body. So the processes are very technical. There's often a high amount of training that has to happen with those operators, and it's often even a specialty department that might utilize those devices. So for me, at least on the medical device side, I think it's even more important that we understand what that patient impact is going to be with the innovations that we're launching into the market and making sure that they have a positive experience and that they can access those therapies."
"So what's interesting about blood therapy for sickle cell disease is it takes a lot of players to come to the table to successfully enable care. As we get excited about some of the transformative therapies on the horizon for sickle cell, we still need to manage those patients well with blood therapy like automated red cell exchange. And to get that, you need to bring together the patient, the prescriber, a service provider, and blood donor to bring that blood to the table because it's very, very specialized and matched to the donors that donate those cells."
#TerumoBCT #PatientVoiceAdvisors #MedicalDevices #MedTech #SickleCell
terumomedical.com
patientvoiceadvisors.com
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Dr. Simrit Parmar, Founder of Cellenkos, is developing T regulatory cell therapies from cord blood to treat aplastic anemia, myelofibrosis, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Their three-prong strategy focuses on resolving inflammation and alleviating the burden of transfusions. Treg cells from cord blood are naturally tolerant and do not risk rejection, meaning they can be administered to patients without the need for matching. The cells can be consistently manufactured in a scalable way and distributed globally.
Simrit explains, "Tregs, the T regulatory cells, are actually regulators of our immune system. So if you think about it every day as a human being, we face many challenges. We face many insults and injuries to our body, both externally and internally, but our body has a way to maintain that balance. The T regulatory cells are the cells that are the mastermind of making sure that any response by our body, for example, to get rid of an antigen or to get rid of an irritant does not overstay the welcome because our body utilizes the mechanism of inflammation to get rid of these injuries or these insults."
"So umbilical cord blood is, or the umbilical cord is, the connection between the baby, the fetus, and the mother. And if you think about it, the baby is 50% mismatched to the mother, and nature allows it. Nature allows a permissive environment where the baby can grow and eventually give birth, and the whole species is advanced. What happens is that nature has allowed the tolerance, and one of the mechanisms by which this tolerance, the maternal-fetal tolerance, is induced by the very T regulatory cells that populate the conduit between the mother and the baby, is the cord blood. So what we did is harness the power that nature has bestowed upon these cells to just do one job and one job only, which is to resolve inflammation. This is the fundamental reason we went after cord blood as a starting material because as a physician and drug developer, we wanted to make sure that the product, the cells we're giving into the patient, are doing its job."
#Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #LifeSciences #AplasticAnemia #Myelofibrosis #GVHD #ALS #Tregs #CellTherapies #TargetedTherapies #AutoimmuneDiseases
cellenkosinc.com
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Dr. Simrit Parmar, Founder of Cellenkos, is developing T regulatory cell therapies from cord blood to treat aplastic anemia, myelofibrosis, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Their three-prong strategy focuses on resolving inflammation and alleviating the burden of transfusions. Treg cells from cord blood are naturally tolerant and do not risk rejection, meaning they can be administered to patients without the need for matching. The cells can be consistently manufactured in a scalable way and distributed globally.
Simrit explains, "Tregs, the T regulatory cells, are actually regulators of our immune system. So if you think about it every day as a human being, we face many challenges. We face many insults and injuries to our body, both externally and internally, but our body has a way to maintain that balance. The T regulatory cells are the cells that are the mastermind of making sure that any response by our body, for example, to get rid of an antigen or to get rid of an irritant does not overstay the welcome because our body utilizes the mechanism of inflammation to get rid of these injuries or these insults."
"So umbilical cord blood is, or the umbilical cord is, the connection between the baby, the fetus, and the mother. And if you think about it, the baby is 50% mismatched to the mother, and nature allows it. Nature allows a permissive environment where the baby can grow and eventually give birth, and the whole species is advanced. What happens is that nature has allowed the tolerance, and one of the mechanisms by which this tolerance, the maternal-fetal tolerance, is induced by the very T regulatory cells that populate the conduit between the mother and the baby, is the cord blood. So what we did is harness the power that nature has bestowed upon these cells to just do one job and one job only, which is to resolve inflammation. This is the fundamental reason we went after cord blood as a starting material because as a physician and drug developer, we wanted to make sure that the product, the cells we're giving into the patient, are doing its job."
#Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #LifeSciences #AplasticAnemia #Myelofibrosis #GVHD #ALS #Tregs #CellTherapies
#TargetedTherapies #AutoimmuneDiseases
cellenkosinc.com
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Jay Hartenbach, the President and COO of Diakonos Oncology, is developing a dendritic cell therapy to treat late-stage and aggressive cancers like glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer. This approach uses the patient's cells and tumor tissue to generate a personalized treatment. The resulting vaccination tricks the immune system to attack cancer cells by making them look like a virus which the immune system knows how to eliminate.
Jay explains, "Our vaccine works by using something called a dendritic cell from the patient. And so the dendritic cell is what we like to think of as the master of the immune system and somewhat the general that directs immune responses against threats, whether a bacterial threat or a viral, fungal threat, whatever it may be. The dendritic cell sits on top of the immune hierarchy. So, we take a patient's dendritic cell, and we also take a sample of that patient's tumor. We replicate effectively a viral infection with those tumor-derived antigens, the tumor-derived specific genetic material."
"By mimicking how a virus would infect those dendritic cells with the specific tumor antigens, we're able to trick the body into thinking that the cancer cells are virally infected cells. And from there, the body's good at eliminating those cells because we've all fought viruses before, and we're all standing and walking around and alive today. We just take over or hijack into that immune response except instead of killing infected cells, the body is now targeting those cancer cells."
#Diakonos #Vaccines #Cancer #Oncology #Glioblastoma #PancreaticCancer #Tumors #DendriticCells
diakonosoncology.com
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Jay Hartenbach, the President and COO of Diakonos Oncology, is developing a dendritic cell therapy to treat late-stage and aggressive cancers like glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer. This approach uses the patient's cells and tumor tissue to generate a personalized treatment. The resulting vaccination tricks the immune system to attack cancer cells by making them look like a virus which the immune system knows how to eliminate.
Jay explains, "Our vaccine works by using something called a dendritic cell from the patient. And so the dendritic cell is what we like to think of as the master of the immune system and somewhat the general that directs immune responses against threats, whether a bacterial threat or a viral, fungal threat, whatever it may be. The dendritic cell sits on top of the immune hierarchy. So, we take a patient's dendritic cell, and we also take a sample of that patient's tumor. We replicate effectively a viral infection with those tumor-derived antigens, the tumor-derived specific genetic material."
"By mimicking how a virus would infect those dendritic cells with the specific tumor antigens, we're able to trick the body into thinking that the cancer cells are virally infected cells. And from there, the body's good at eliminating those cells because we've all fought viruses before, and we're all standing and walking around and alive today. We just take over or hijack into that immune response except instead of killing infected cells, the body is now targeting those cancer cells."
#Diakonos #Vaccines #Cancer #Oncology #Glioblastoma #PancreaticCancer #Tumors #DendriticCells
diakonosoncology.com
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Dr. Pol Boudes, CMO of Rectify Pharmaceutical, highlights the importance of membrane proteins, specifically the role transporters play in how cells interact with their environment. Rectify is working on developing positive functional modulators (PFM) to address diseases related to dysfunctional transporters the first being primary sclerosing cholangitis, a rare liver disease with no current treatment options. The PFM can potentially restore the normal function of transporters involved in bile composition and secretion, which are key mechanisms in PSC.
Pol explains, "So you have different types of membrane proteins, but what we're working with are called transporters, so they’re proteins that are based on the membrane but channel components out and in the cells. So basically, it's a way for the cell to interact with its environment, and you have multiple types of transporter proteins. We're specifically working or started to work with one group of family of proteins that are called the ABC transporters. They're a very important function, and they can either be disrupted because there is a mutation in the protein, so it's a genetic disease, or they are potentially disrupted because there is just a functional deficit of this transporter. The protein is normal, but it's not functioning properly. So it's a functional deficit of what we call the wildtype protein."
"So with the PFMs, what we're doing is to use small molecules that you can administer orally, and they bind to the transporter, and by doing so, they can modify the three-dimensional structure of the transporter and consequently the way this protein behaves within the cellular environment. So we correct the function of the transporter by changing the size, if you want, of the shape of the transporter. So we started to focus on this type of proteins and you have many potential diseases due to transporter deficit."
"We're focusing on one disease, liver disease. That's our lead PFM for a disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis, which is a disease of the liver. This very severe liver disease is also a disease that has no treatment available, which is a little bit frustrating because the progression of this disease leads to liver cirrhosis. And the only thing you can do at this stage is liver transplantation. As you might know, liver transplantation is problematic because it's a very complex process, it's also very expensive, and unfortunately, there is a shortage of transplants. So we're trying to address this problem."
#RectifyPharma #PrimarySclerosingCholangitis #PSC #RareDisease #LiverDiseases #BileProduction #Transporters
rectifypharma.com
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Dr. Pol Boudes, CMO of Rectify Pharmaceutical, highlights the importance of membrane proteins, specifically the role transporters play in how cells interact with their environment. Rectify is working on developing positive functional modulators (PFM) to address diseases related to dysfunctional transporters the first being primary sclerosing cholangitis, a rare liver disease with no current treatment options. The PFM can potentially restore the normal function of transporters involved in bile composition and secretion, which are key mechanisms in PSC.
Pol explains, "So you have different types of membrane proteins, but what we're working with are called transporters, so they’re proteins that are based on the membrane but channel components out and in the cells. So basically, it's a way for the cell to interact with its environment, and you have multiple types of transporter proteins. We're specifically working or started to work with one group of family of proteins that are called the ABC transporters. They're a very important function, and they can either be disrupted because there is a mutation in the protein, so it's a genetic disease, or they are potentially disrupted because there is just a functional deficit of this transporter. The protein is normal, but it's not functioning properly. So it's a functional deficit of what we call the wildtype protein."
"So with the PFMs, what we're doing is to use small molecules that you can administer orally, and they bind to the transporter, and by doing so, they can modify the three-dimensional structure of the transporter and consequently the way this protein behaves within the cellular environment. So we correct the function of the transporter by changing the size, if you want, of the shape of the transporter. So we started to focus on this type of proteins and you have many potential diseases due to transporter deficit."
"We're focusing on one disease, liver disease. That's our lead PFM for a disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis, which is a disease of the liver. This very severe liver disease is also a disease that has no treatment available, which is a little bit frustrating because the progression of this disease leads to liver cirrhosis. And the only thing you can do at this stage is liver transplantation. As you might know, liver transplantation is problematic because it's a very complex process, it's also very expensive, and unfortunately, there is a shortage of transplants. So we're trying to address this problem."
#RectifyPharma #PrimarySclerosingCholangitis #PSC #RareDisease #LiverDiseases #BileProduction #Transporters
rectifypharma.com
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Neetu Rajpal, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Lilac Software, brings data and analytics tools to healthcare payers with a specific focus on addressing health disparities and improving benefits for Medicare Advantage members. The Medicare Advantage Star Rating program is a key incentive for health plans to be more innovative about data analysis to improve quality measures and receive financial incentives. Timely, reliable information in an accessible format and better data analytics improve decision-making, patient outcomes, and engagement with providers and patients.
Neetu explains, "Health plans tend to have lots of data. They have lots of valuable tools, but those tools have data that is locked inside those tools themselves. So if you're, for example, part of an actuarial team, you may actually be getting PDFs, you may be getting spreadsheets, you may be getting access directly to a CSV file. You may get all these things on a one-off basis, and you have to make sense of all this data. The burden of cleaning and making use of this data falls on you."
"This is exactly where lots of energy is lost, lots of labor costs are lost, and lots of efficiency is lost. So with Lilac, we're trying to make sure that all of this stuff of banal value is just available behind the scenes. This is exactly what tech is supposed to be doing for you. Help you operate at the top of your license. If you're an actuary, do actuarial things and let tech make sure that the data you need to do your work is available to you when you need it, and you can just rely on and trust it."
"Yes, unfortunately, there is still a lot of paper in the process. Some of the paper is regulatorily required. So if you're a payer, you're required to send any of your members a directory of providers that are available. If they ask for it in paper, you are required to send them ID cards that can be paper. We all know about the fax machines and all of those things on paper."
#LilacSoftware #DataAnalytics #HealthAI #AI #MedicareAdvantage #MedicareStarRating #HealthPlan #HealthcarePayers #HealthcareInsurance
lilacsoftware.com
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Neetu Rajpal, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Lilac Software, brings data and analytics tools to healthcare payers with a specific focus on addressing health disparities and improving benefits for Medicare Advantage members. The Medicare Advantage Star Rating program is a key incentive for health plans to be more innovative about data analysis to improve quality measures and receive financial incentives. Timely, reliable information in an accessible format and better data analytics improve decision-making, patient outcomes, and engagement with providers and patients.
Neetu explains, "Health plans tend to have lots of data. They have lots of valuable tools, but those tools have data that is locked inside those tools themselves. So if you're, for example, part of an actuarial team, you may actually be getting PDFs, you may be getting spreadsheets, you may be getting access directly to a CSV file. You may get all these things on a one-off basis, and you have to make sense of all this data. The burden of cleaning and making use of this data falls on you."
"This is exactly where lots of energy is lost, lots of labor costs are lost, and lots of efficiency is lost. So with Lilac, we're trying to make sure that all of this stuff of banal value is just available behind the scenes. This is exactly what tech is supposed to be doing for you. Help you operate at the top of your license. If you're an actuary, do actuarial things and let tech make sure that the data you need to do your work is available to you when you need it, and you can just rely on and trust it."
"Yes, unfortunately, there is still a lot of paper in the process. Some of the paper is regulatorily required. So if you're a payer, you're required to send any of your members a directory of providers that are available. If they ask for it in paper, you are required to send them ID cards that can be paper. We all know about the fax machines and all of those things on paper."
#LilacSoftware #DataAnalytics #HealthAI #AI #MedicareAdvantage #MedicareStarRating #HealthPlan #HealthcarePayers #HealthcareInsurance
lilacsoftware.com
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Dr. Sean Ianchulev, CEO of Iantrek, is developing a new approach to treating glaucoma, which involves a biologic implant that can be customized to the patient's disease progression. This technology is designed to be more durable compared to traditional glaucoma treatments, which often require lifelong use of eye drops. This treatment is a combination of microinterventional technology with biologic tissue technology to transform the approach to eye care.
Sean explains, "So we are a first not only for ophthalmology but also for medicine. We are the first, made of biologic technology, and we're to implant that tissue without any hardware, which is important because it minimizes implantable response. We can treat glaucoma patients who need intraocular pressure opening by opening and stenting the outflow pathway in a very unprecedented way. So, we've created a new categorical treatment, which we call bio-interventional."
"I think in cataract, we can say we've probably been able to cure that disease by cataract surgery and have a permanent cure. Unfortunately, glaucoma is difficult, affecting the optic nerve. And when you talk about neurodegenerative diseases, we're not yet there where we can cure them, but if we can slow them down, and we can slow them down to the point where it does not impact somebody's well-being and vision until the end of their lifespan, I think that's almost equivalent to cure because we've been able to enable them to have a productive life."
#Iantek #Glaucoma #Innovation #Biointerventional #Microinterventional #Biotissue #EyeCare #Ophthalmology
iantrekmed.com
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Dr. Sean Ianchulev, CEO of Iantrek, is developing a new approach to treating glaucoma, which involves a biologic implant that can be customized to the patient's disease progression. This technology is designed to be more durable compared to traditional glaucoma treatments, which often require lifelong use of eye drops. This treatment is a combination of microinterventional technology with biologic tissue technology to transform the approach to eye care.
Sean explains, "So we are a first not only for ophthalmology but also for medicine. We are the first, made of biologic technology, and we're to implant that tissue without any hardware, which is important because it minimizes implantable response. We can treat glaucoma patients who need intraocular pressure opening by opening and stenting the outflow pathway in a very unprecedented way. So, we've created a new categorical treatment, which we call bio-interventional."
"I think in cataract, we can say we've probably been able to cure that disease by cataract surgery and have a permanent cure. Unfortunately, glaucoma is difficult, affecting the optic nerve. And when you talk about neurodegenerative diseases, we're not yet there where we can cure them, but if we can slow them down, and we can slow them down to the point where it does not impact somebody's well-being and vision until the end of their lifespan, I think that's almost equivalent to cure because we've been able to enable them to have a productive life."
#Iantek #Glaucoma #Innovation #Biointerventional #Microinterventional #Biotissue #EyeCare #Ophthalmology
iantrekmed.com
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Robert Den, Chief Medical Officer at Alpha Tau Medical, is changing cancer treatment using their Alpha DaRT technology to deliver a potent form of alpha radiation directly into solid tumors with minimal side effects. There is potential for the Alpha DaRT to be combined with immunotherapy and chemotherapy to further invoke an immune response. This one-time alpha radiation treatment has shown the ability to treat all solid tumors, only limited by the ability to deliver the Alpha DaRT directly to the tumor.
Robert explains, "So alpha radiation is one of the three types of radiation that occur naturally, and it's been known as a very potent form of radiation for several decades now. The challenge with alpha radiation in the treatment of patients with localized disease and with solid tumors, meaning tumors not like leukemias or lymphomas but more like pancreas, lung, and prostate cancer, is that the alpha particles themselves aren't only able to travel a very short distance inside tissue or inside the cancer itself."
"Before Alpha Tau and the Alpha DaRT technology, there was no pragmatic way to use this super potent and very safe type of radiation because you could not put enough alpha particles inside a tumor to cover the tumor with the radiation dose. What Alpha DaRT technology does is rely on the movement of what's called alpha-emitting daughter atoms."
"So essentially, we take a biocompatible inert metal seed, which means that if you were to put this seed into the body, there would be no immune effect. Patients could have it inside them for the entirety of their life. Essentially, what we do is we cover this seed with a radiopharmaceutical called Radium-224. We just put Radium-224 on the outside of the seed. Then, we insert it either through a minimally invasive approach or using a different endoscopic approach inside the tumor directly. So now we have the seed covered with the radium inside the tumor, and this is basically where the magic happens."
#AlphaTauMedical #Cancer #TargetedRadiation #ClinicalResearch #RadiationOncology #Oncology #CancerTreatment #AlphaRadiation
alphatau.com
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Robert Den, Chief Medical Officer at Alpha Tau Medical, is changing cancer treatment using their Alpha DaRT technology to deliver a potent form of alpha radiation directly into solid tumors with minimal side effects. There is potential for the Alpha DaRT to be combined with immunotherapy and chemotherapy to further invoke an immune response. This one-time alpha radiation treatment has shown the ability to treat all solid tumors, only limited by the ability to deliver the Alpha DaRT directly to the tumor.
Robert explains, "So alpha radiation is one of the three types of radiation that occur naturally, and it's been known as a very potent form of radiation for several decades now. The challenge with alpha radiation in the treatment of patients with localized disease and with solid tumors, meaning tumors not like leukemias or lymphomas but more like pancreas, lung, and prostate cancer, is that the alpha particles themselves aren't only able to travel a very short distance inside tissue or inside the cancer itself."
"Before Alpha Tau and the Alpha DaRT technology, there was no pragmatic way to use this super potent and very safe type of radiation because you could not put enough alpha particles inside a tumor to cover the tumor with the radiation dose. What Alpha DaRT technology does is rely on the movement of what's called alpha-emitting daughter atoms."
"So essentially, we take a biocompatible inert metal seed, which means that if you were to put this seed into the body, there would be no immune effect. Patients could have it inside them for the entirety of their life. Essentially, what we do is we cover this seed with a radiopharmaceutical called Radium-224. We just put Radium-224 on the outside of the seed. Then, we insert it either through a minimally invasive approach or using a different endoscopic approach inside the tumor directly. So now we have the seed covered with the radium inside the tumor, and this is basically where the magic happens."
#AlphaTauMedical #Cancer #TargetedRadiation #ClinicalResearch #RadiationOncology #Oncology #CancerTreatment #AlphaRadiation
alphatau.com
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Dr. Daniel Vitt, the CEO of Immunic Therapeutics, is taking a different approach to treating autoimmune diseases, focusing on neuroprotection, gut barrier restoration, and anti-inflammatory effects. These dual-mechanism small-molecule drugs are initially developed for multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel diseases. The lead candidate for MS aims to reduce relapses, slow disease progression, and help prevent reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus due to the antiviral properties of the oral drug.
Daniel explains, "If you look back over the last 20 years, maybe even longer, you figure out that there have been limited improvements in treating big chronic indications like autoimmune diseases. Specifically, looking from the patient’s point of view, there are a lot of things missing. So, there are a lot of indications that are untreatable or not sufficiently solving the medical need or a lack of convenience for use, for example. Another thing that is highly underestimated usually is the safety and tolerability of the drugs. And it's our mission to work on having better drugs with better safety and tolerability profiles to offer patients more convenient and easy-to-use therapies."
"That is something currently not addressed by the drugs available for patients today. Therefore, our drug is making a difference because our mode of action is a dual mode of action. On the one hand, the molecule is a potent anti-inflammatory drug by inhibition of a protein called DHODH. Secondly, we also have our molecule, a very good activator of a protein called Nurr1. This is a neuroprotective factor and plays an important role in the different areas of the brain, directly in the neurons in the brain, but also in the environment of the brain. That is why we believe Nurr1 activation is a key step forward to treating patients and offering a better benefit for slowing down the disability."
"This is because quality of life is one of the important parameters for judging whether a drug does its job or not. We need to address this more in our industry, and therefore, I agree that it's an important piece. And with gut wall repair, you're more on the side of ok, maybe we can fix the problem in general and the body returns to normal behavior. So, in a perfect world, in further clinical trials, we can see cases of patients who maybe flip back to healthy status or disease-free status or something like that, for example, in celiac disease or other GI indications."
#ImmunicThera #MultipleSclerosis #MS #AutoimmuneDiseases #InflammatoryDiseases #EpsteinBarrVirus #UlcerativeColitis #IBD
imux.com
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Dr. Daniel Vitt, the CEO of Immunic Therapeutics, is taking a different approach to treating autoimmune diseases, focusing on neuroprotection, gut barrier restoration, and anti-inflammatory effects. These dual-mechanism small-molecule drugs are initially developed for multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel diseases. The lead candidate for MS aims to reduce relapses, slow disease progression, and help prevent reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus due to the antiviral properties of the oral drug.
Daniel explains, "If you look back over the last 20 years, maybe even longer, you figure out that there have been limited improvements in treating big chronic indications like autoimmune diseases. Specifically, looking from the patient’s point of view, there are a lot of things missing. So, there are a lot of indications that are untreatable or not sufficiently solving the medical need or a lack of convenience for use, for example. Another thing that is highly underestimated usually is the safety and tolerability of the drugs. And it's our mission to work on having better drugs with better safety and tolerability profiles to offer patients more convenient and easy-to-use therapies."
"That is something currently not addressed by the drugs available for patients today. Therefore, our drug is making a difference because our mode of action is a dual mode of action. On the one hand, the molecule is a potent anti-inflammatory drug by inhibition of a protein called DHODH. Secondly, we also have our molecule, a very good activator of a protein called Nurr1. This is a neuroprotective factor and plays an important role in the different areas of the brain, directly in the neurons in the brain, but also in the environment of the brain. That is why we believe Nurr1 activation is a key step forward to treating patients and offering a better benefit for slowing down the disability."
"This is because quality of life is one of the important parameters for judging whether a drug does its job or not. We need to address this more in our industry, and therefore, I agree that it's an important piece. And with gut wall repair, you're more on the side of ok, maybe we can fix the problem in general and the body returns to normal behavior. So, in a perfect world, in further clinical trials, we can see cases of patients who maybe flip back to healthy status or disease-free status or something like that, for example, in celiac disease or other GI indications."
#ImmunicThera #MultipleSclerosis #MS #AutoimmuneDiseases #InflammatoryDiseases #EpsteinBarrVirus #UlcerativeColitis #IBD
imux.com
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Kent Dicks, CEO of Life365, has extensive experience in the remote patient monitoring industry and is focused on developing wireless and cost-effective RPM technologies to connect patients to their healthcare providers and improve patient engagement and care. The mission is to support the shift from reactive to proactive care by using RPM data fed into AI and machine learning systems to identify trends and the need for early intervention. Working with partners and large enterprise clients, Life365 is connecting patients in rural areas with RPM technology. In an arrangement with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the company is part of a remote patient monitoring initiative to identify biomarkers and early warning signs so patients can stay compliant with their therapy plan.
Kent explains, "I've been in the industry for about 18 years now and dealing with remote patient monitoring. We've been fortunate to have built the vision when there wasn't reimbursement and when remote patient monitoring had been started by previous companies that were using wired technology. Our strategy was to use wireless and cost-effective technology to try to get into see patients or to connect with patients who were especially in hard-to-reach places like rural locations, trying to connect them to their doctors."
"So Life365 is about making sure that we can help support the new models of care that are emerging, that are out there, value-based care, the ability to connect people in rural locations. The ability to get data cost-effectively from patients used to mean feeding the data directly into their HER. It's now really important to be able to feed the data into artificial intelligence and machine learning systems that are going to be used a lot to be able to monitor patients and see trends occurring. This is way before a patient decides that they need to go to the emergency room and be admitted to the hospital."
#Life365 #CareAccess #CareatHome #ConnectedCare #CommunityCare #Datasharing #Healthcare #HealthEquity #HospitalatHome #PopulationHealth #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #ValueBasedCare #VBC #VirtualCare #VeteransCare
Life365.Health
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Kent Dicks, CEO of Life365, has extensive experience in the remote patient monitoring industry and is focused on developing wireless and cost-effective RPM technologies to connect patients to their healthcare providers and improve patient engagement and care. The mission is to support the shift from reactive to proactive care by using RPM data fed into AI and machine learning systems to identify trends and the need for early intervention. Working with partners and large enterprise clients, Life365 is connecting patients in rural areas with RPM technology. In an arrangement with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the company is part of a remote patient monitoring initiative to identify biomarkers and early warning signs so patients can stay compliant with their therapy plan.
Kent explains, "I've been in the industry for about 18 years now and dealing with remote patient monitoring. We've been fortunate to have built the vision when there wasn't reimbursement and when remote patient monitoring had been started by previous companies that were using wired technology. Our strategy was to use wireless and cost-effective technology to try to get into see patients or to connect with patients who were especially in hard-to-reach places like rural locations, trying to connect them to their doctors."
"So Life365 is about making sure that we can help support the new models of care that are emerging, that are out there, value-based care, the ability to connect people in rural locations. The ability to get data cost-effectively from patients used to mean feeding the data directly into their HER. It's now really important to be able to feed the data into artificial intelligence and machine learning systems that are going to be used a lot to be able to monitor patients and see trends occurring. This is way before a patient decides that they need to go to the emergency room and be admitted to the hospital."
#Life365 #CareAccess #CareatHome #ConnectedCare #CommunityCare #Datasharing #Healthcare #HealthEquity #HospitalatHome #PopulationHealth #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #ValueBasedCare #VBC #VirtualCare #VeteransCare
Life365.Health
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Dave Rosa is President and CEO of NeuroOne, a company focused on advancing neurotechnology by developing thin-film minimally invasive electrode technology that can perform diagnostic and therapeutic functions for neurological conditions. The company's OneRF ablation system allows doctors to identify and ablate problematic brain tissue in a single hospitalization. NeuroOne is expanding its technology beyond the brain to include the spine to treat pain and is addressing various neurological conditions through ablation, stimulation, and drug delivery.
Dave explains, "The OneRF ablation system is an electrode that looks very similar to the electrode that we got cleared shortly after our last discussion. So that was in October of 2022. But that device only had diagnostic capabilities. So what doctors would do is they would implant those electrodes, and they would leave the patient in the hospital for, say, up to a week on average."
"The goal was for the neurosurgeon and neurologist to be able to identify the parts of brain tissue that were triggering seizures or causing neurological issues. Then, after that procedure was done, the devices would be removed, and patients would go home. So that was kind of the old way of doing it."
"What we did was to have the ability to reduce the amount of hospitalizations a patient would have to experience. We did develop this electrode technology that looks very similar to the diagnostic one approved in April but with the capability of not just doing the diagnostics but also the ablation. So the difference here is that when the patient comes in for the diagnostic procedure after that concludes, the doctor will wheel them into the patient's room, not the operating room."
#NeuroOne #Neurosurgery #ElectrodeTechnology
nmtc1.com
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Dave Rosa is President and CEO of NeuroOne, a company focused on advancing neurotechnology by developing thin-film minimally invasive electrode technology that can perform diagnostic and therapeutic functions for neurological conditions. The company's OneRF ablation system allows doctors to identify and ablate problematic brain tissue in a single hospitalization. NeuroOne is expanding its technology beyond the brain to include the spine to treat pain and is addressing various neurological conditions through ablation, stimulation, and drug delivery.
Dave explains, "The OneRF ablation system is an electrode that looks very similar to the electrode that we got cleared shortly after our last discussion. So that was in October of 2022. But that device only had diagnostic capabilities. So what doctors would do is they would implant those electrodes, and they would leave the patient in the hospital for, say, up to a week on average."
"The goal was for the neurosurgeon and neurologist to be able to identify the parts of brain tissue that were triggering seizures or causing neurological issues. Then, after that procedure was done, the devices would be removed, and patients would go home. So that was kind of the old way of doing it."
"What we did was to have the ability to reduce the amount of hospitalizations a patient would have to experience. We did develop this electrode technology that looks very similar to the diagnostic one approved in April but with the capability of not just doing the diagnostics but also the ablation. So the difference here is that when the patient comes in for the diagnostic procedure after that concludes, the doctor will wheel them into the patient's room, not the operating room."
#NeuroOne #Neurosurgery #ElectrodeTechnology
nmtc1.com
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Michael Demurjian is Chairman and CEO of Aspargo Labs, a drug development company focused on improving drug delivery through suspension-based formulation and smart device technology. Traditional pill-based drug delivery has significant limitations, with poor absorption rates and difficulties swallowing for many patients. The company's initial focus is on an oral spray formulation of sildenafil to treat erectile dysfunction that has shown rapid absorption. Suspension technology can be applied to reformulate many prescription and over-the-counter drugs to improve drug delivery, adherence, the onset of action, and user experience.
Michael explains, "Here at Aspargo we have a proprietary technology, both in the suspension and in how we coat it, so that we can mask the taste of the drug itself. And so I know you're going to probably go down the path of our first drug to market, and I'll answer the next question, but masking is key because there are two things that happen with the masking. One is you make it more of a pleasant experience. People are more willing to adhere and comply than administering the drugs. If you don't, people are going to say, my goodness, that tasted horrible, and I'm not going to do that again. Or they're going to be resistant in particular children, they won't do it."
"Well, 30 years in the drug development business, and I will tell you, you bring an ED product to market where you're showing a five-minute absorption time, it captures a lot of people's attention. So we've been very well received. Our first drug to market is an oral spray, sildenafil, which is the active ingredient in Viagra. And what we've shown is a five-minute absorption time. So, it has a lovely peppermint flavor. Now, here's the key there. Sildenafil is extremely bitter. It's one of the top 20 most bitter drugs that is manufactured. Our taste is peppermint. Through the proprietary technology that we have, we've successfully bonded the flavor agents right to the molecule without damaging it. I'll tell you, it's an interesting experience. Typically, it's the medical community. But when you're looking at a drug like Sildenafil, it's a consumer experience as well."
"You have to remind yourself the efficiency of absorption is critical. We look at patients, particularly in oncology, where we know that if they miss a dose of a medicine, cancers rapidly reproduce. So, missing one dose can set a patient back. What we look at and focus on is two things. One is our device to remind patients to dose their medicine. And if they forget that their physician, the physician assistant, or the office manager can intervene and text or call them saying your device just said you didn't dose. That's key."
#AspargoLabs #DrugDelivery #ED #ErectileDysfunction #Sildenafil #DrugAdherence #MedTech
aspargolabs.com
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Michael Demurjian is Chairman and CEO of Aspargo Labs, a drug development company focused on improving drug delivery through suspension-based formulation and smart device technology. Traditional pill-based drug delivery has significant limitations, with poor absorption rates and difficulties swallowing for many patients. The company's initial focus is on an oral spray formulation of sildenafil to treat erectile dysfunction that has shown rapid absorption. Suspension technology can be applied to reformulate many prescription and over-the-counter drugs to improve drug delivery, adherence, the onset of action, and user experience.
Michael explains, "Here at Aspargo we have a proprietary technology, both in the suspension and in how we coat it, so that we can mask the taste of the drug itself. And so I know you're going to probably go down the path of our first drug to market, and I'll answer the next question, but masking is key because there are two things that happen with the masking. One is you make it more of a pleasant experience. People are more willing to adhere and comply than administering the drugs. If you don't, people are going to say, my goodness, that tasted horrible, and I'm not going to do that again. Or they're going to be resistant in particular children, they won't do it."
"Well, 30 years in the drug development business, and I will tell you, you bring an ED product to market where you're showing a five-minute absorption time, it captures a lot of people's attention. So we've been very well received. Our first drug to market is an oral spray, sildenafil, which is the active ingredient in Viagra. And what we've shown is a five-minute absorption time. So, it has a lovely peppermint flavor. Now, here's the key there. Sildenafil is extremely bitter. It's one of the top 20 most bitter drugs that is manufactured. Our taste is peppermint. Through the proprietary technology that we have, we've successfully bonded the flavor agents right to the molecule without damaging it. I'll tell you, it's an interesting experience. Typically, it's the medical community. But when you're looking at a drug like Sildenafil, it's a consumer experience as well."
"You have to remind yourself the efficiency of absorption is critical. We look at patients, particularly in oncology, where we know that if they miss a dose of a medicine, cancers rapidly reproduce. So, missing one dose can set a patient back. What we look at and focus on is two things. One is our device to remind patients to dose their medicine. And if they forget that their physician, the physician assistant, or the office manager can intervene and text or call them saying your device just said you didn't dose. That's key."
#AspargoLabs #DrugDelivery #ED #ErectileDysfunction #Sildenafil #DrugAdherence #MedTech
aspargolabs.com
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Kathy Lee-Sepsick, President, Founder, and CEO of Femasys, uses innovative medical technologies to address unmet women's reproductive healthcare needs. Femasyis is developing treatments for infertility and birth control and diagnostic tools to support its treatment offerings. The devices are intentionally designed to be more accessible, less invasive, and safer for women than existing options, some of which have not changed in 100 years.
Kathy explains, "Our technologies are just for women. So, we include broad categories of women. And we did this, particularly with the FemBloc product that we're advancing. It's a non-surgical permanent birth control solution for women that is delivered in the office. No anesthesia, no incisions, no hormones, no implants, none of the things that come par for the course for what's out there right now. And we included in our patient population women who did not have children before, which had never been done before."
"So, there've been other technologies that have come and have failed in this market in an attempt to bring forward a permanent birth control solution that's non-surgical. And they only included women who have had children. When you include women who haven't had children, you have to be very responsible to do that because women should have a choice no matter what their choice is as far as childbearing."
"When we think about infertility, it's not just a woman’s issue. And we're seeing the problems in donor sperm also, whether it's a single person or the LGTQ community that's coming forward, they have to get the sperm to contribute to the overall process. And the sperms compromised, like I said, even with donors. So we see a third of the time that it's strictly the male issue. About a third of the time, it's a female issue only, and then the combination is both. So about 50% of the time the male factor is contributing."
#Femasys $FEMY #WomensHealth #IVF #Fertility #Birthcontrol #FemaSeed #FemBloc #FemVue #FemCerv
femasys.com
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Kathy Lee-Sepsick, President, Founder, and CEO of Femasys, uses innovative medical technologies to address unmet women's reproductive healthcare needs. Femasyis is developing treatments for infertility and birth control and diagnostic tools to support its treatment offerings. The devices are intentionally designed to be more accessible, less invasive, and safer for women than existing options, some of which have not changed in 100 years.
Kathy explains, "Our technologies are just for women. So, we include broad categories of women. And we did this, particularly with the FemBloc product that we're advancing. It's a non-surgical permanent birth control solution for women that is delivered in the office. No anesthesia, no incisions, no hormones, no implants, none of the things that come par for the course for what's out there right now. And we included in our patient population women who did not have children before, which had never been done before."
"So, there've been other technologies that have come and have failed in this market in an attempt to bring forward a permanent birth control solution that's non-surgical. And they only included women who have had children. When you include women who haven't had children, you have to be very responsible to do that because women should have a choice no matter what their choice is as far as childbearing."
"When we think about infertility, it's not just a woman’s issue. And we're seeing the problems in donor sperm also, whether it's a single person or the LGTQ community that's coming forward, they have to get the sperm to contribute to the overall process. And the sperms compromised, like I said, even with donors. So we see a third of the time that it's strictly the male issue. About a third of the time, it's a female issue only, and then the combination is both. So about 50% of the time the male factor is contributing."
#Femasys $FEMY #WomensHealth #IVF #Fertility #Birthcontrol #FemaSeed #FemBloc #FemVue #FemCerv
femasys.com
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Kim Brunisholz, director of Population Health Research at Johnson & Johnson, is conducting research to bridge the gap between evidence-based care and its implementation in routine clinical practice. Overcoming the challenges of translating research into practice requires understanding patient-provider perspectives and using qualitative and quantitative methods to identify and address care gaps. This research can also identify root causes and barriers to care, enabling stakeholders to develop and implement interventions to improve patient care.
Kim explains, "My goal is really around how I impact the translation and implementation of evidence-based care into routine practice. What I'm looking to do is ensure that all patients have access to what we know works in medicine. So, there are a variety of questions that we may pursue in our research programs, mostly around how we might think around closing the evidence-to-practice gap for patients and bringing what we know works to them."
"It starts with the patient-provider relationship. And it's probably a lot harder than the public realizes around how we can actually deliver in healthcare, the standard of care. For example, there's a statistic from the early 2000s where we're seeing that it takes on average, about 17 years to translate research into practice. That takes a long time to get what we know works into the hospitals and the clinics and to the bedside."
"What's even worse is that not only does it take forever for that evidence to get to the frontline, but even when it does, what we're seeing is, on average, only about 14% of clinicians will actually adopt that innovation as standard of care. So that means over 80% of patients are getting that low-value care, potentially ineffective care. I think that's what shows up as poor outcomes for our patients."
#MultipleMyeloma #HealthEquity #PopulationHealth #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #CancerCare
jnj.com
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Kim Brunisholz, director of Population Health Research at Johnson & Johnson, is conducting research to bridge the gap between evidence-based care and its implementation in routine clinical practice. Overcoming the challenges of translating research into practice requires understanding patient-provider perspectives and using qualitative and quantitative methods to identify and address care gaps. This research can also identify root causes and barriers to care, enabling stakeholders to develop and implement interventions to improve patient care.
Kim explains, "My goal is really around how I impact the translation and implementation of evidence-based care into routine practice. What I'm looking to do is ensure that all patients have access to what we know works in medicine. So, there are a variety of questions that we may pursue in our research programs, mostly around how we might think around closing the evidence-to-practice gap for patients and bringing what we know works to them."
"It starts with the patient-provider relationship. And it's probably a lot harder than the public realizes around how we can actually deliver in healthcare, the standard of care. For example, there's a statistic from the early 2000s where we're seeing that it takes on average, about 17 years to translate research into practice. That takes a long time to get what we know works into the hospitals and the clinics and to the bedside."
"What's even worse is that not only does it take forever for that evidence to get to the frontline, but even when it does, what we're seeing is, on average, only about 14% of clinicians will actually adopt that innovation as standard of care. So that means over 80% of patients are getting that low-value care, potentially ineffective care. I think that's what shows up as poor outcomes for our patients."
#MultipleMyeloma #HealthEquity #PopulationHealth #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #CancerCare
jnj.com
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Nick Orser, General Manager at Verato, highlights the importance of trusted identity data in the healthcare industry and how master data management can help healthcare organizations deliver personalized patient experiences. The proliferation of data sources and health record systems makes maintaining a single, accurate view of each patient challenging. The MDM technology can help healthcare organizations access patient data across multiple systems to improve care outcomes and provide effective analytics and population management tools.
Nick explains, "To summarize what I'm talking about here, despite EHR consolidation with many organizations choosing to go all Epic or all Cerner, despite health system consolidation where organizations are buying up hospitals and physician practices like crazy, there's now this challenge in the industry that is 10 times harder today than it was just a decade ago."
"The challenge is that dozens of these new applications in which a patient's data might be stored that an organization needs to tie together and unify. That data spans numerous clinical encounters, but now, there are marketing applications, digital applications, call centers, joint ventures, telehealth, and home health portals. And it's not just the number of applications that's really hard. It's the fact that my data as a patient might be represented differently across each application. In fact, 30% of stored patient identifying data is out of date, incorrect, or incomplete, making it hard to identify the same patient's data across all these different touch points because patients move and change their address. They get married and change their names, fill out a web form and provide only their email address, and schedule an appointment for a call center that mistypes their birthdate."
#Verato #HealthData #MasterDataManagement #WhoisWho #PtExperience #AIinHealthcare #PatientInformation
verato.com
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Nick Orser, General Manager at Verato, highlights the importance of trusted identity data in the healthcare industry and how master data management can help healthcare organizations deliver personalized patient experiences. The proliferation of data sources and health record systems makes maintaining a single, accurate view of each patient challenging. The MDM technology can help healthcare organizations access patient data across multiple systems to improve care outcomes and provide effective analytics and population management tools.
Nick explains, "To summarize what I'm talking about here, despite EHR consolidation with many organizations choosing to go all Epic or all Cerner, despite health system consolidation where organizations are buying up hospitals and physician practices like crazy, there's now this challenge in the industry that is 10 times harder today than it was just a decade ago."
"The challenge is that dozens of these new applications in which a patient's data might be stored that an organization needs to tie together and unify. That data spans numerous clinical encounters, but now, there are marketing applications, digital applications, call centers, joint ventures, telehealth, and home health portals. And it's not just the number of applications that's really hard. It's the fact that my data as a patient might be represented differently across each application. In fact, 30% of stored patient identifying data is out of date, incorrect, or incomplete, making it hard to identify the same patient's data across all these different touch points because patients move and change their address. They get married and change their names, fill out a web form and provide only their email address, and schedule an appointment for a call center that mistypes their birthdate."
#Verato #HealthData #MasterDataManagement #WhoisWho #PtExperience #AIinHealthcare #PatientInformation
verato.com
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Richard Mackey is the Chief Technology Officer at CCS, a company that provides chronic care management services focusing on diabetes. CCS uses machine learning and generative AI to analyze patient data from continuous glucose monitors and patient interactions to predict potential issues and proactively provide personalized information and support. CCS works with the patient's healthcare provider to support the prescribed care plan, improve adherence to care plans, and improve outcomes.
Richard explains, "On the machine learning side, we have a tremendous amount of data and information about how our patients will understand the devices they might be using. For example, continuous glucose monitors or CGMs are an important standard of care that we work with a lot of patients across the US to equip them, find the right device, help them begin using that device, and best understand what it can do and how it can help them make better decisions to manage their conditions."
"We might talk to the patient once or twice a month. We might be talking to them multiple times within a quarter. In some cases, we're interacting with a patient more often than others in the ecosystem, maybe more often than even their physician in terms of the number of interactions per month or period, even their provider, their health insurance provider, as an example. So all that interaction helps give us information and data to take insights on what those patients might need, what's most important to them, how they interact with us. We also can work with a variety of other sources to bring information together. And by using the machine learning tools that we've developed, we can understand things that are important to them. So, it might be around the product or specific information related to the plan or the payer they're working with."
#CCSmed #Diabete #CGM #ChronicCare #HealthAI #AI
CCSmed.com
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Richard Mackey is the Chief Technology Officer at CCS, a company that provides chronic care management services focusing on diabetes. CCS uses machine learning and generative AI to analyze patient data from continuous glucose monitors and patient interactions to predict potential issues and proactively provide personalized information and support. CCS works with the patient's healthcare provider to support the prescribed care plan, improve adherence to care plans, and improve outcomes.
Richard explains, "On the machine learning side, we have a tremendous amount of data and information about how our patients will understand the devices they might be using. For example, continuous glucose monitors or CGMs are an important standard of care that we work with a lot of patients across the US to equip them, find the right device, help them begin using that device, and best understand what it can do and how it can help them make better decisions to manage their conditions."
"We might talk to the patient once or twice a month. We might be talking to them multiple times within a quarter. In some cases, we're interacting with a patient more often than others in the ecosystem, maybe more often than even their physician in terms of the number of interactions per month or period, even their provider, their health insurance provider, as an example. So all that interaction helps give us information and data to take insights on what those patients might need, what's most important to them, how they interact with us. We also can work with a variety of other sources to bring information together. And by using the machine learning tools that we've developed, we can understand things that are important to them. So, it might be around the product or specific information related to the plan or the payer they're working with."
#CCSmed #Diabete #CGM #ChronicCare #HealthAI #AI
CCSmed.com
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Dr. Raza Bokhari, Executive Chairman and CEO of Medicus Pharma, has developed a novel, non-invasive treatment for basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. This cost-effective transdermal Skinject patch delivers a chemotherapeutic agent applied in a clinician's office over three sessions to remove the lesion, potentially avoiding the need for Mohs surgery, the current standard of care. Medicus is incorporating AI and advanced imaging techniques in its clinical trials to improve diagnosis and monitoring of the treatment's effectiveness.
Raza explains, "The gold standard to treat basal cell carcinoma of the skin is surgical intervention, generally speaking, all solid tumors to eliminate cancer if it is caught in the early stage. The treatment regimen is that you surgically take the malignant cells out. The same is true for basal cell carcinoma of the skin. It is a slow-growing cancer. It appears on areas of the body that are exposed to ultraviolet radiation, which is being exposed primarily to the sun. When the lesion appears and is diagnosed, the treatment available is what is called Mohs surgical procedure, which is a micrographic go around the lesion of the cancer and just curate out the cancer cells in a surgical suite done by an experienced surgeon."
"We are trying to disrupt by delivering a known chemotherapeutic agent through these uniquely designed, cellulose-based microneedle arrays, which can penetrate the dermis and deliver a chemotherapeutic agent at the site of the lesion and kill the cancer cells, thereby eliminating the need of surgical intervention."
"It is currently in clinical trial, but post-approval, it is ready to commercialize. We hope that the dermatologists who are also trained to do Mohs surgery before scheduling the surgery, which usually takes about six to eight weeks to schedule, can also invite the patients to, in an office setting, take our patch and have it placed over the site of the lesion for 30 minutes over three settings. So if a cancer is diagnosed today, you schedule Mohs surgery, which is considered the gold standard six to eight weeks out because that is the wait time. The average wait time in the United States is about six to eight weeks. You could provide an option to have these three sittings one week apart of 30 minutes of our patch and come back for an examination on week four or five. If the lesion has been cured and the skin has become clear, then there is no need for surgical intervention. If, for some reason, our treatment fails, the patient can go on and get more surgery done and eventually become cancer-free."
#MedicusPharma #PatchCure #BasalCellPatch #PatchTherapy #BCC #BasalCellCarcinoma #SkinCancer #Biotech #Dermatology #ClinicalTrials #Phase2Trial #SkinCancerTreatment
medicuspharma.com
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Dr. Raza Bokhari, Executive Chairman and CEO of Medicus Pharma, has developed a novel, non-invasive treatment for basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. This cost-effective transdermal Skinject patch delivers a chemotherapeutic agent applied in a clinician's office over three sessions to remove the lesion, potentially avoiding the need for Mohs surgery, the current standard of care. Medicus is incorporating AI and advanced imaging techniques in its clinical trials to improve diagnosis and monitoring of the treatment's effectiveness.
Raza explains, "The gold standard to treat basal cell carcinoma of the skin is surgical intervention, generally speaking, all solid tumors to eliminate cancer if it is caught in the early stage. The treatment regimen is that you surgically take the malignant cells out. The same is true for basal cell carcinoma of the skin. It is a slow-growing cancer. It appears on areas of the body that are exposed to ultraviolet radiation, which is being exposed primarily to the sun. When the lesion appears and is diagnosed, the treatment available is what is called Mohs surgical procedure, which is a micrographic go around the lesion of the cancer and just curate out the cancer cells in a surgical suite done by an experienced surgeon."
"We are trying to disrupt by delivering a known chemotherapeutic agent through these uniquely designed, cellulose-based microneedle arrays, which can penetrate the dermis and deliver a chemotherapeutic agent at the site of the lesion and kill the cancer cells, thereby eliminating the need of surgical intervention."
"It is currently in clinical trial, but post-approval, it is ready to commercialize. We hope that the dermatologists who are also trained to do Mohs surgery before scheduling the surgery, which usually takes about six to eight weeks to schedule, can also invite the patients to, in an office setting, take our patch and have it placed over the site of the lesion for 30 minutes over three settings. So if a cancer is diagnosed today, you schedule Mohs surgery, which is considered the gold standard six to eight weeks out because that is the wait time. The average wait time in the United States is about six to eight weeks. You could provide an option to have these three sittings one week apart of 30 minutes of our patch and come back for an examination on week four or five. If the lesion has been cured and the skin has become clear, then there is no need for surgical intervention. If, for some reason, our treatment fails, the patient can go on and get more surgery done and eventually become cancer-free."
#MedicusPharma #PatchCure #BasalCellPatch #PatchTherapy #BCC #BasalCellCarcinoma #SkinCancer #Biotech #Dermatology #ClinicalTrials #Phase2Trial #SkinCancerTreatment
medicuspharma.com
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Scott Xiao, Co-Founder and CEO of Luminopia is developing a virtual reality-based treatment for amblyopia, also known as Lazy Eye in children. A traditional treatment is eye patching, which children find difficult to comply with. The Luminopia approach allows children to use a VR headset to watch content licensed from Sesame Street and Nickelodeon as a treatment to improve visual acuity by modifying the content presented to each eye. This FDA-approved VR-based medical treatment is an immersive environment that reduces distraction and enhances engagement so that children are more likely to comply with and complete treatment plans.
Scott explains, "We're pioneering a new class of treatments for a variety of visual conditions, and we're starting with a condition called amblyopia, which is more commonly known as Lazy Eye. And it's the number one cause of vision loss in children. And despite that, there hasn't been innovation in this space for a long time. Traditional treatment for amblyopia requires patients to wear glasses and then, in most cases, go through patching, which is exactly what it sounds like. You take an eye patch and stick it on your stronger eye for multiple hours daily."
"The product that we've developed, we like to say, allows patients to watch their favorite TV show as a treatment instead of having to wear a patch. The way that it works is that it's a virtual reality-based product. The kids put on a kid-friendly headset and can choose from more than 3,000 episodes of content that we've licensed from partners like Sesame Street and Nickelodeon. Once the child has chosen a video to watch, we modify how the images are presented to each eye with the goal of rebalancing the input to the brain and getting the brain to use both eyes together properly. We've shown that we can get significant vision improvement just by having patients watch TV for an hour per day."
"Certainly compliance is much easier with our product, and that's an important driver of outcomes. So we think that alone is an important advantage over what you could get with patching. The other important thing we've seen in our studies is that we can improve vision even in patients who have been through patching and failed patching. And that's a pretty big chunk of patients. Anywhere from 50% to close to 80% of patients that go through patching are still left with some amount of amblyopia. We've shown that our treatment works even in those patients, and we think it's because we're taking a different mechanism to treat the condition."
#Luminopia #Amblyopia #LazyEye #Healthtech #VRMED
luminopia.com
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Scott Xiao, Co-Founder and CEO of Luminopia is developing a virtual reality-based treatment for amblyopia, also known as Lazy Eye in children. A traditional treatment is eye patching, which children find difficult to comply with. The Luminopia approach allows children to use a VR headset to watch content licensed from Sesame Street and Nickelodeon as a treatment to improve visual acuity by modifying the content presented to each eye. This FDA-approved VR-based medical treatment is an immersive environment that reduces distraction and enhances engagement so that children are more likely to comply with and complete treatment plans.
Scott explains, "We're pioneering a new class of treatments for a variety of visual conditions, and we're starting with a condition called amblyopia, which is more commonly known as Lazy Eye. And it's the number one cause of vision loss in children. And despite that, there hasn't been innovation in this space for a long time. Traditional treatment for amblyopia requires patients to wear glasses and then, in most cases, go through patching, which is exactly what it sounds like. You take an eye patch and stick it on your stronger eye for multiple hours daily."
"The product that we've developed, we like to say, allows patients to watch their favorite TV show as a treatment instead of having to wear a patch. The way that it works is that it's a virtual reality-based product. The kids put on a kid-friendly headset and can choose from more than 3,000 episodes of content that we've licensed from partners like Sesame Street and Nickelodeon. Once the child has chosen a video to watch, we modify how the images are presented to each eye with the goal of rebalancing the input to the brain and getting the brain to use both eyes together properly. We've shown that we can get significant vision improvement just by having patients watch TV for an hour per day."
"Certainly compliance is much easier with our product, and that's an important driver of outcomes. So we think that alone is an important advantage over what you could get with patching. The other important thing we've seen in our studies is that we can improve vision even in patients who have been through patching and failed patching. And that's a pretty big chunk of patients. Anywhere from 50% to close to 80% of patients that go through patching are still left with some amount of amblyopia. We've shown that our treatment works even in those patients, and we think it's because we're taking a different mechanism to treat the condition."
#Luminopia #Amblyopia #LazyEye #Healthtech #VRMED
luminopia.com
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Shaun Rothwell is Chairman and CEO of EVOQ Nano, a company focused on developing antimicrobial technology to combat healthcare-associated infections. EVOQ nanotechnology involves a unique non-ionic silver nanoparticle that can effectively kill even the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. These nanoparticles can be incorporated into medical devices to prevent bacteria from colonizing and causing infections. The bacteria can not form resistance to the nanoparticles, making hospitals safer for patients and healthcare workers.
Shaun explains, "We're surrounded by bacteria all day, every day. When compromised, when we're compromised from an immune perspective, those infections take hold and cause some serious damage in addition to acquired healthcare-associated infections. We understand that paying attention to the issues of the healthcare system today also involves antimicrobial resistance. These bugs are hiding and present everywhere around us. The antibiotic solutions available today are becoming less and less effective over time because these bugs are developing resistance against them. So we have a two-pronged approach to addressing this around AMR, antimicrobial resistance, and impacting healthcare-associated infections.
"At EVOQ Nano, we have created and patented very unique nanoparticles. We can make these nanoparticles out of a variety of different platforms, but we're focused on silver right now. One of our challenges when we first introduced it was that silver was commonly known to emit ions. And the reason that it's effective against bacteria is because of that ion emission. And those ions lyse the cell wall and destroy the bacteria even with these silver chlorides. They've been heavily used with coatings and different applications on catheters and different devices. The same reason it's had some effect is also why it's dangerous and toxic at high levels with this ion emission."
"The EVQ 218 asset that we have is perfectly spherical, non-ionic silver, a completely new form of silver that has never been created before. And we've been successful in creating this. We have been able to go through a variety of studies at the Seattle Children's Institute with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's help to prove efficacy. When we were first tested, we were successful in killing 64 isolates from the six most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria known to man, as recognized by the World Health Organization."
#EVOQNano #HospitalAssociatedInfections #HAI #NanoParticles #DrugResistantBacteria #SuperBugs #Catheters
evoqnano.com
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Shaun Rothwell is Chairman and CEO of EVOQ Nano, a company focused on developing antimicrobial technology to combat healthcare-associated infections. EVOQ nanotechnology involves a unique non-ionic silver nanoparticle that can effectively kill even the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. These nanoparticles can be incorporated into medical devices to prevent bacteria from colonizing and causing infections. The bacteria can not form resistance to the nanoparticles, making hospitals safer for patients and healthcare workers.
Shaun explains, "We're surrounded by bacteria all day, every day. When compromised, when we're compromised from an immune perspective, those infections take hold and cause some serious damage in addition to acquired healthcare-associated infections. We understand that paying attention to the issues of the healthcare system today also involves antimicrobial resistance. These bugs are hiding and present everywhere around us. The antibiotic solutions available today are becoming less and less effective over time because these bugs are developing resistance against them. So we have a two-pronged approach to addressing this around AMR, antimicrobial resistance, and impacting healthcare-associated infections.
"At EVOQ Nano, we have created and patented very unique nanoparticles. We can make these nanoparticles out of a variety of different platforms, but we're focused on silver right now. One of our challenges when we first introduced it was that silver was commonly known to emit ions. And the reason that it's effective against bacteria is because of that ion emission. And those ions lyse the cell wall and destroy the bacteria even with these silver chlorides. They've been heavily used with coatings and different applications on catheters and different devices. The same reason it's had some effect is also why it's dangerous and toxic at high levels with this ion emission."
"The EVQ 218 asset that we have is perfectly spherical, non-ionic silver, a completely new form of silver that has never been created before. And we've been successful in creating this. We have been able to go through a variety of studies at the Seattle Children's Institute with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's help to prove efficacy. When we were first tested, we were successful in killing 64 isolates from the six most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria known to man, as recognized by the World Health Organization."
#EVOQNano #HospitalAssociatedInfections #HAI #NanoParticles #SuperBugs #Catheters
evoqnano.com
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Manish Arora, the CEO and Co-Founder of LinusBio, is developing technologies to measure and analyze the exposome which reveals lifelong exposure to environmental factors. Their platform measures molecular signatures in hair samples for early detection and diagnosis of conditions such as autism, where traditional observational methods can be limited. LinusBio is also exploring the use of the platform for other neurological conditions like ADHD and ALS and gaining a better understanding of the role of environmental exposures in the development of diseases. The company has received Breakthrough Designation from the FDA for its autism biomarker to bring this technology to patients.
Manish explains, "Our genes are static. So if I were to measure your genes when you were a child, or measure them today, I would get the same answer pretty much. Whereas your exposome changes all the time and so does your body's reaction to it. Let me give you a very simple example. A cup of espresso in the morning has a very different reaction to you than a cup of espresso at 9:00 PM at night, which will keep you awake. So even the same environmental input can have a very different reaction within a day."
"So the technical challenge is this: how do we map something that is constantly dynamic? It's always changing in time, and unfortunately, medicine is set with these snapshot technologies. Can that snapshot really give us enough information on what is happening to me? How am I reacting to that environment over the entire year since my last blood test? And that is the big technological challenge facing us as we enter into this arena of exposomes."
"The way we're measuring the exposome is that we've developed a technology where we can map exposures and our response at almost an hourly interval. You get all this data in a few moments in more detail. Using that single strand, we get enough information that would take you a thousand blood tests. There's this massive volume of data. To put a number on it, we just recently generated 50 million data points for each patient in our study. Not all of that signal is easy to decipher. So what we do is we put many, many controls, quality controls in there to say anything below this we do not trust. And these controls have been set in place through years of good scientific practice."
"So, going back to the technology to very briefly describe, we open up a strand of hair, and then we start looking inside it using lasers and these detectors that we call mass spectrometers, which can measure thousands of molecular features. So that is what we are measuring. We are measuring molecules in your body."
#LinusBio #Exposome #Biomarkers #Autism #AutismSpectrumDisorder #AutismBiomarker #ADHD #ALS #Metabolism #MedTech
linusbio.com
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Manish Arora, the CEO and Co-Founder of LinusBio, is developing technologies to measure and analyze the exposome which reveals lifelong exposure to environmental factors. Their platform measures molecular signatures in hair samples for early detection and diagnosis of conditions such as autism, where traditional observational methods can be limited. LinusBio is also exploring the use of the platform for other neurological conditions like ADHD and ALS and gaining a better understanding of the role of environmental exposures in the development of diseases. The company has received Breakthrough Designation from the FDA for its autism biomarker to bring this technology to patients.
Manish explains, "Our genes are static. So if I were to measure your genes when you were a child, or measure them today, I would get the same answer pretty much. Whereas your exposome changes all the time and so does your body's reaction to it. Let me give you a very simple example. A cup of espresso in the morning has a very different reaction to you than a cup of espresso at 9:00 PM at night, which will keep you awake. So even the same environmental input can have a very different reaction within a day."
"So the technical challenge is this: how do we map something that is constantly dynamic? It's always changing in time, and unfortunately, medicine is set with these snapshot technologies. Can that snapshot really give us enough information on what is happening to me? How am I reacting to that environment over the entire year since my last blood test? And that is the big technological challenge facing us as we enter into this arena of exposomes."
"The way we're measuring the exposome is that we've developed a technology where we can map exposures and our response at almost an hourly interval. You get all this data in a few moments in more detail. Using that single strand, we get enough information that would take you a thousand blood tests. There's this massive volume of data. To put a number on it, we just recently generated 50 million data points for each patient in our study. Not all of that signal is easy to decipher. So what we do is we put many, many controls, quality controls in there to say anything below this we do not trust. And these controls have been set in place through years of good scientific practice."
"So, going back to the technology to very briefly describe, we open up a strand of hair, and then we start looking inside it using lasers and these detectors that we call mass spectrometers, which can measure thousands of molecular features. So that is what we are measuring. We are measuring molecules in your body."
#LinusBio #Exposome #Biomarkers #Autism #AutismSpectrumDisorder #AutismBiomarker #ADHD #ALS #Metabolism #MedTech
linusbio.com
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Shailu Verma, CEO and Co-Founder of Mila Health is addressing missed appointments and no-shows for appointments to improve patient outcomes, drive staff efficiency, and reduce clinician stress. The Mila platform aims to automate time-consuming tasks, allowing staff to manage their schedules and patient flow better. This AI-powered assistant drives patient engagement by reminding about appointments, checking on medication adherence, and helping address social determinants of health that may be barriers to care.
Shailu explains, "These are conditions where a patient has to manage many of these elements that I just talked about. And because the conditions don’t have low equity, as we would call it, patients tend to have a relatively high no-show rate. If you look at chronic, which is almost 50% of the spend in healthcare, the no-show rates where patients aren’t able to keep up with their care plans is anywhere between 36% to 45% in some cases."
"There are these external variables around a healthcare plan. I call them externalities. They’re all elements that create no-show rates and barriers for us to complete the care journey. And there are answers to these barriers. There are many hospital systems that provide help to address these barriers, but they’re not communicated at the right time. The individuals who are trying to get to that healthcare don’t quite know it. And that’s where solutions like Mila come in -- Mila is automating many of these guidance mechanisms to ensure compliance to a care plan."
"Today, a health system would send a postcard, or they may have a call center sort of an operation, call these 10,000 patients, or send a scripted text message. Scripted text messages work reasonably well for a reminder system, but they don’t really work quite well for communicating with you why an annual wellness visit is important and that you need to come in. So what the platform does is you can give it a goal, such as set up an annual wellness visit or set up or prepare these patients for a colonoscopy. Mila autonomously communicates with the patient either on the phone or by text in a very personalized, engaging, empathetic manner like a human being would, reminding them of their meds, checking on their meds, their symptoms, their diets, and autonomously completing a particular task or getting them ready."
#AIPoweredAssistant #CareGap #CarePlan #ChronicConditions #HealthcareTech #MedicationAdherence #NoShowRates #PatientCareGap #PatientCareJourney #PatientOutcome #Readmissions #StaffBurnout #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #ValueBasedCare #VBC
milahealth.com
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Shailu Verma, CEO and Co-Founder of Mila Health is addressing missed appointments and no-shows for appointments to improve patient outcomes, drive staff efficiency, and reduce clinician stress. The Mila platform aims to automate time-consuming tasks, allowing staff to manage their schedules and patient flow better. This AI-powered assistant drives patient engagement by reminding about appointments, checking on medication adherence, and helping address social determinants of health that may be barriers to care.
Shailu explains, "These are conditions where a patient has to manage many of these elements that I just talked about. And because the conditions don’t have low equity, as we would call it, patients tend to have a relatively high no-show rate. If you look at chronic, which is almost 50% of the spend in healthcare, the no-show rates where patients aren’t able to keep up with their care plans is anywhere between 36% to 45% in some cases."
"There are these external variables around a healthcare plan. I call them externalities. They’re all elements that create no-show rates and barriers for us to complete the care journey. And there are answers to these barriers. There are many hospital systems that provide help to address these barriers, but they’re not communicated at the right time. The individuals who are trying to get to that healthcare don’t quite know it. And that’s where solutions like Mila come in -- Mila is automating many of these guidance mechanisms to ensure compliance to a care plan."
"Today, a health system would send a postcard, or they may have a call center sort of an operation, call these 10,000 patients, or send a scripted text message. Scripted text messages work reasonably well for a reminder system, but they don’t really work quite well for communicating with you why an annual wellness visit is important and that you need to come in. So what the platform does is you can give it a goal, such as set up an annual wellness visit or set up or prepare these patients for a colonoscopy. Mila autonomously communicates with the patient either on the phone or by text in a very personalized, engaging, empathetic manner like a human being would, reminding them of their meds, checking on their meds, their symptoms, their diets, and autonomously completing a particular task or getting them ready."
#AIPoweredAssistant #CareGap #CarePlan #ChronicConditions #HealthcareTech #MedicationAdherence #NoShowRates #PatientCareGap #PatientCareJourney #PatientOutcome #Readmissions #StaffBurnout #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #ValueBasedCare #VBC
milahealth.com
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Dr. Joseph Dayan is a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Institute for Lymphatic Surgery and Innovation, a division of the Institute for Advanced Reconstruction. Doctors have traditionally focused on treating cancer rather than long-term effects such as lymphedema, a swelling condition caused by dysfunction of the lymphatic system. New surgical techniques such as lymph node transplants and lymphovenous bypasses can help reconstruct the lymphatic system and reduce lymphedema symptoms.
Joseph explains, "Lymphedema is swelling, usually most often in the arms or legs, that’s permanent and often gets worse over time caused by dysfunction of your lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is basically the sewage system of the body. It clears out fluid waste from your body’s tissues and channels that waste into your lymph nodes, which are part of your immune system that has billions of immune cells that kill bacteria and purify that waste. That fluid then goes back into your veins and back in the bloodstream. When that’s not functioning, that fluid can get backed up, causing swelling in all parts of the body, but also infection, sometimes even life-threatening infections. It is currently incurable, and generally, it gets worse over time, as chronic diseases tend to do."
"There are some types of chemotherapy that do cause problems with the lymphatic system, the taxane therapies like Cytoxan, but most commonly for patients undergoing removal of their lymph nodes, the removing of the lymph nodes or radiation to the lymph nodes or both are the most common cause of cancer-related lymphedemas."
"I think there are two reasons. Historically, lymphedema was not something typically seen by a doctor or treated by an MD. It’s a disease typically sent to a physical therapist or occupational therapist specializing in lymphedema therapy without being able to offer treatment. I think doctors focus on those things that they can help with. And so one part I think in the MD’s mind is that there’s not a whole lot you can do for it. The other part is at the time of the cancer diagnosis, understandably, the cancer is number one, two, and three priorities, and the consequences of cancer treatment fall a distance second."
#Lymphedema #Cancer #LymphedemaAwareness #BreastReconstruction #LymphovenousBypass #LymphNodeTransplant #LymphaticSurgery #LymphedemaTreatmentAct #GLP1
advancedreconstruction.com/lymphedema
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Dr. Joseph Dayan is a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Institute for Lymphatic Surgery and Innovation, a division of the Institute for Advanced Reconstruction. Doctors have traditionally focused on treating cancer rather than long-term effects such as lymphedema, a swelling condition caused by dysfunction of the lymphatic system. New surgical techniques such as lymph node transplants and lymphovenous bypasses can help reconstruct the lymphatic system and reduce lymphedema symptoms.
Joseph explains, "Lymphedema is swelling, usually most often in the arms or legs, that’s permanent and often gets worse over time caused by dysfunction of your lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is basically the sewage system of the body. It clears out fluid waste from your body’s tissues and channels that waste into your lymph nodes, which are part of your immune system that has billions of immune cells that kill bacteria and purify that waste. That fluid then goes back into your veins and back in the bloodstream. When that’s not functioning, that fluid can get backed up, causing swelling in all parts of the body, but also infection, sometimes even life-threatening infections. It is currently incurable, and generally, it gets worse over time, as chronic diseases tend to do."
"There are some types of chemotherapy that do cause problems with the lymphatic system, the taxane therapies like Cytoxan, but most commonly for patients undergoing removal of their lymph nodes, the removing of the lymph nodes or radiation to the lymph nodes or both are the most common cause of cancer-related lymphedemas."
"I think there are two reasons. Historically, lymphedema was not something typically seen by a doctor or treated by an MD. It’s a disease typically sent to a physical therapist or occupational therapist specializing in lymphedema therapy without being able to offer treatment. I think doctors focus on those things that they can help with. And so one part I think in the MD’s mind is that there’s not a whole lot you can do for it. The other part is at the time of the cancer diagnosis, understandably, the cancer is number one, two, and three priorities, and the consequences of cancer treatment fall a distance second."
#Lymphedema #Cancer #LymphedemaAwareness #BreastReconstruction #LymphovenousBypass #LymphNodeTransplant #LymphaticSurgery #LymphedemaTreatmentAct #GLP1
advancedreconstruction.com/lymphedema
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Dr. Tom Coughlin, Founder and CEO of OncRef, has developed a platform that provides oncologists with a single source of information to keep up with the rapidly evolving field of cancer research and therapies. OncRef is addressing oncologists' information overload and time constraints, as well as curating and structuring the vast amount of available cancer data. The company recognizes the potential for AI and data-driven tools to advance cancer care while acknowledging the challenges of developing hallucination-proof AI models for use in the medical field.
Tom explains, "OncRef is looking to create a single source of truth for oncologists to keep up with the field of cancer. Cancer is now progressing so quickly with more personalized medicine. And now, with AI, more research publications are being published than ever, making it extremely hard to stay on top of this field. So, we're making it very easy by providing oncologists and oncology professionals with a single source of truth, all curated, and giving them exactly what they need rather than having them drink through the firehose of data out there because it's too much right now. So we're taking that pain out of it."
"The data is organized in a cancer-specific way. So, categorized by specific cancers and by having a consistent user interface and interaction, we just add the data to our interface so that the user can see what's changing over time. They do not have to wonder where the data is or be uncertain if they are getting lost in that information or perhaps missing what's happening on that constantly moving and progressing leading edge of cancer research."
"We rely on a lot of government data and published information. This government data is sometimes very disorganized and unstructured. So, we have a robust team of data engineers that can structure the data and apply some categorization and labeling using our medical team, which curates the data so we can provide some structure to it to present it on our platform. That's really what we're most excited about. By structuring all of this unstructured data, we're setting the stage for a future Large Language Model or system that we can have less likelihood of hallucination. So, by having structured curated data, we will move towards something more reliable and give oncology an AI they can trust."
#OncRef #CancerResearch #Cancer #Oncology #HeathTech #MedAI
oncref.com
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Dr. Tom Coughlin, Founder and CEO of OncRef, has developed a platform that provides oncologists with a single source of information to keep up with the rapidly evolving field of cancer research and therapies. OncRef is addressing oncologists' information overload and time constraints, as well as curating and structuring the vast amount of available cancer data. The company recognizes the potential for AI and data-driven tools to advance cancer care while acknowledging the challenges of developing hallucination-proof AI models for use in the medical field.
Tom explains, "OncRef is looking to create a single source of truth for oncologists to keep up with the field of cancer. Cancer is now progressing so quickly with more personalized medicine. And now, with AI, more research publications are being published than ever, making it extremely hard to stay on top of this field. So, we're making it very easy by providing oncologists and oncology professionals with a single source of truth, all curated, and giving them exactly what they need rather than having them drink through the firehose of data out there because it's too much right now. So we're taking that pain out of it."
"The data is organized in a cancer-specific way. So, categorized by specific cancers and by having a consistent user interface and interaction, we just add the data to our interface so that the user can see what's changing over time. They do not have to wonder where the data is or be uncertain if they are getting lost in that information or perhaps missing what's happening on that constantly moving and progressing leading edge of cancer research."
"We rely on a lot of government data and published information. This government data is sometimes very disorganized and unstructured. So, we have a robust team of data engineers that can structure the data and apply some categorization and labeling using our medical team, which curates the data so we can provide some structure to it to present it on our platform. That's really what we're most excited about. By structuring all of this unstructured data, we're setting the stage for a future Large Language Model or system that we can have less likelihood of hallucination. So, by having structured curated data, we will move towards something more reliable and give oncology an AI they can trust."
#OncRef #CancerResearch #Cancer #Oncology #HeathTech #MedAI
oncref.com
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Bradley Bostic, CEO of hc1, uses advanced data science, AI, and natural language processing to identify optimal patient testing, better predict disease development, and provide insights that can help prevent disease progression. The use of lab data is crucial for making diagnostic decisions, yet the potential of leveraging data is not being realized. Using technology to address issues like over-utilization of testing and data silos that prevent clinicians from seeing the complete story, hc1 is building a diagnostic insight network that unifies the provider and pharmacists to improve the patient journey and improve outcomes.
Bradley explains, "We are transforming laboratories into strategic assets that improve patient care and boost the bottom line for healthcare systems. And really, the way that I came about this was having been in the healthcare industry for quite a while, most of my career, I started seeing this common fact that data was important. The largest component of the data that was used to make diagnostic decisions and diagnose patients was lab data. It's like 80% of all diagnostic decisions at least are informed by lab data. Yet, of everybody I saw out there looking to leverage data, there wasn't anybody that I saw who was hyper-specialized in how you can leverage signals from lab data to make patients healthier. I decided there was a void in the market and that we could be the best in the world. So that's what we've been working on here at hc1."
"What we've been able to do is use these advanced data science capabilities, use artificial intelligence, use natural language understanding to not only be able to identify the optimal testing for patients at any given time to get to the best diagnosis faster. But also to become predictive - to identify those people in that constellation of signals who, for example, are trending toward developing chronic kidney disease or those people who are trending toward developing diabetes or any number of different disease states. We have created an artificial intelligence model that can identify individuals who are highly predisposed to developing cognitive decline well into the future without any sort of a specialized test, but just using routine test values all analyzed in this constellation."
#hc1 #HealthTechLeaders #LabData #HealthTech #HealthcareAI #HealthAI #FutureOfHealthcare #HealthcareTech #LabDiagnostics #HealthcareAnalytics
hc1.com
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Bradley Bostic, CEO of hc1, uses advanced data science, AI, and natural language processing to identify optimal patient testing, better predict disease development, and provide insights that can help prevent disease progression. The use of lab data is crucial for making diagnostic decisions, yet the potential of leveraging data is not being realized. Using technology to address issues like over-utilization of testing and data silos that prevent clinicians from seeing the complete story, hc1 is building a diagnostic insight network that unifies the provider and pharmacists to improve the patient journey and improve outcomes.
Bradley explains, "We are transforming laboratories into strategic assets that improve patient care and boost the bottom line for healthcare systems. And really, the way that I came about this was having been in the healthcare industry for quite a while, most of my career, I started seeing this common fact that data was important. The largest component of the data that was used to make diagnostic decisions and diagnose patients was lab data. It's like 80% of all diagnostic decisions at least are informed by lab data. Yet, of everybody I saw out there looking to leverage data, there wasn't anybody that I saw who was hyper-specialized in how you can leverage signals from lab data to make patients healthier. I decided there was a void in the market and that we could be the best in the world. So that's what we've been working on here at hc1."
"What we've been able to do is use these advanced data science capabilities, use artificial intelligence, use natural language understanding to not only be able to identify the optimal testing for patients at any given time to get to the best diagnosis faster. But also to become predictive - to identify those people in that constellation of signals who, for example, are trending toward developing chronic kidney disease or those people who are trending toward developing diabetes or any number of different disease states. We have created an artificial intelligence model that can identify individuals who are highly predisposed to developing cognitive decline well into the future without any sort of a specialized test, but just using routine test values all analyzed in this constellation."
#hc1 #HealthTechLeaders #LabData #HealthTech #HealthcareAI #HealthAI #FutureOfHealthcare #HealthcareTech #LabDiagnostics #HealthcareAnalytics
hc1.com
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Niels Riedemann, the CEO, Founder, and Executive Director of the Board of InflaRx, explains that InflaRx develops pioneering anti-inflammatory therapeutics against a specific portion of the complement cascade, a part of the body’s immune system that responds to infectious microbes. By applying its proprietary monoclonal anti-C5a and anti-C5aR technologies, InflaRx hopes to affect the progression of a wide variety of inflammatory diseases.
Niels explains, "Absolutely. So, I was a postdoc and research fellow at the University of Michigan and I researched this immune response I was talking about with another fellow in settings of sepsis of devastating, life-threatening inflammation and the other fellow and myself found it so intriguing that we ended up founding a company saying we're going to one day hopefully save people's lives with this approach by controlling this immune response. And when COVID came along, while we had a focus on other diseases and we have a key focus on devastating chronic diseases as well in the immune dermatological space and others, when COVID came along, we had all this knowledge and all this work in the immune response in life-threatening infections including in other viruses with our drug, for example, in an influenza type of virus. But we had not tested it, of course, in COVID or humans with this disease."
"We felt we had to do something about it. We were very sure that this was a potential lifesaving approach. So we ended up running what we believe is the largest global study, a one-to-one randomized placebo-controlled study that was powered to show a benefit, a survival benefit, in the most severely sick COVID-patients. And when I say most severely sick, I really mean patients that need invasive mechanical ventilation or even lung replacement therapy, also called ECMO. So that's our focus, and we ended up showing a survival benefit. We may be talking about this a bit today, but it’s an interesting story and a life endeavor. I should probably also mention that in order to better understand the other side of the research part, I became a physician, and I actually ran a large academic ICU in Germany for almost seven years, and also enrolled patients in trials. So, I know how it is as an intensive care physician to take care of patients when they're that devastatingly sick. The lots of motivations within the company, and we are really glad that we could bring this drug forward to help patients."
InflaRx.de
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Niels Riedemann, the CEO, Founder, and Executive Director of the Board of InflaRx, explains that InflaRx develops pioneering anti-inflammatory therapeutics against a specific portion of the complement cascade, a part of the body’s immune system that responds to infectious microbes. By applying its proprietary monoclonal anti-C5a and anti-C5aR technologies, InflaRx hopes to affect the progression of a wide variety of inflammatory diseases.
Niels explains, "Absolutely. So, I was a postdoc and research fellow at the University of Michigan and I researched this immune response I was talking about with another fellow in settings of sepsis of devastating, life-threatening inflammation and the other fellow and myself found it so intriguing that we ended up founding a company saying we're going to one day hopefully save people's lives with this approach by controlling this immune response. And when COVID came along, while we had a focus on other diseases and we have a key focus on devastating chronic diseases as well in the immune dermatological space and others, when COVID came along, we had all this knowledge and all this work in the immune response in life-threatening infections including in other viruses with our drug, for example, in an influenza type of virus. But we had not tested it, of course, in COVID or humans with this disease."
"We felt we had to do something about it. We were very sure that this was a potential lifesaving approach. So we ended up running what we believe is the largest global study, a one-to-one randomized placebo-controlled study that was powered to show a benefit, a survival benefit, in the most severely sick COVID-patients. And when I say most severely sick, I really mean patients that need invasive mechanical ventilation or even lung replacement therapy, also called ECMO. So that's our focus, and we ended up showing a survival benefit. We may be talking about this a bit today, but it’s an interesting story and a life endeavor. I should probably also mention that in order to better understand the other side of the research part, I became a physician, and I actually ran a large academic ICU in Germany for almost seven years, and also enrolled patients in trials. So, I know how it is as an intensive care physician to take care of patients when they're that devastatingly sick. The lots of motivations within the company, and we are really glad that we could bring this drug forward to help patients."
InflaRx.de
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Michael Oleksiw is the CEO of Pleio, a company focused on addressing the emotional barriers to patient engagement and medication adherence that medical professionals often overlook. Emotional barriers like loneliness, fear, and stigma can impact patients of all ages and backgrounds when they are facing a health challenge. Pleio uses technology and a peer-to-patient model to personalize interactions with empathetic humans, provide ongoing patient support, track emotional patterns, and bring pharmacists in to work with patients taking multiple medications or with chronic conditions.
Michael explains, "Our focus on the emotional barriers is meant to complement what’s out there today. The bulk of the focus when it comes to engaging patients and supporting patients is really on supporting the transaction, ensuring that a patient can get their medication, that they can get it cost-effectively, that they can pick it up, that it gets into their hands. But once they’re at home, everything gets real really fast and they’re faced with a variety of emotions such as loneliness, stigma, fear, etc. The American Medical Association recognizes that five of the eight major barriers to adherence are emotional, as I mentioned. So we try to stay in that swim lane and connect with the patient to target those barriers as a complement to all the stuff already being done out there."
"You can say that we break White Coat syndrome in that we get the patient to focus on what’s important to them. Many times, patients don’t know or are intimidated by their healthcare professionals and don’t know how to engage in conversation. So one of the things we do is instill confidence so they can engage in fruitful conversations with their pharmacists and the like. So, the best way to think of it is we’re an extension of the pharmacy. We bring that trust and the care in the pharmacy into the home with what we call a peer-to-patient model where patients engage in conversation with people just like them to complement the baseline they received at the pharmacy."
"Technology helps us be more efficient in terms of the patients we target, the words we choose, and the times we call. So, our view on technology is we use technology to support human interaction and make it better, optimize it, and make it more efficient, but not replace it. So, we don’t use technology to pretend to be human. Humans do a good job at that. I think humans could own being human. Technology is meant to support the human to be more efficient, make things more personalized, and take that step back to see the big picture and address trends over time."
#Pleio #MedicationAdherence #PatientEngagement #EmotionalBarriers #MedAI #DigitalHealth
pleio.com
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Michael Oleksiw is the CEO of Pleio, a company focused on addressing the emotional barriers to patient engagement and medication adherence that medical professionals often overlook. Emotional barriers like loneliness, fear, and stigma can impact patients of all ages and backgrounds when they are facing a health challenge. Pleio uses technology and a peer-to-patient model to personalize interactions with empathetic humans, provide ongoing patient support, track emotional patterns, and bring pharmacists in to work with patients taking multiple medications or with chronic conditions.
Michael explains, "Our focus on the emotional barriers is meant to complement what’s out there today. The bulk of the focus when it comes to engaging patients and supporting patients is really on supporting the transaction, ensuring that a patient can get their medication, that they can get it cost-effectively, that they can pick it up, that it gets into their hands. But once they’re at home, everything gets real really fast and they’re faced with a variety of emotions such as loneliness, stigma, fear, etc. The American Medical Association recognizes that five of the eight major barriers to adherence are emotional, as I mentioned. So we try to stay in that swim lane and connect with the patient to target those barriers as a complement to all the stuff already being done out there."
"You can say that we break White Coat syndrome in that we get the patient to focus on what’s important to them. Many times, patients don’t know or are intimidated by their healthcare professionals and don’t know how to engage in conversation. So one of the things we do is instill confidence so they can engage in fruitful conversations with their pharmacists and the like. So, the best way to think of it is we’re an extension of the pharmacy. We bring that trust and the care in the pharmacy into the home with what we call a peer-to-patient model where patients engage in conversation with people just like them to complement the baseline they received at the pharmacy."
"Technology helps us be more efficient in terms of the patients we target, the words we choose, and the times we call. So, our view on technology is we use technology to support human interaction and make it better, optimize it, and make it more efficient, but not replace it. So, we don’t use technology to pretend to be human. Humans do a good job at that. I think humans could own being human. Technology is meant to support the human to be more efficient, make things more personalized, and take that step back to see the big picture and address trends over time."
#Pleio #MedicationAdherence #PatientEngagement #EmotionalBarriers #MedAI #DigitalHealth
pleio.com
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Dan Levendowski, Co-Founder and President, and Chris Berka, Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Brain Monitoring, have developed medical devices that measure brain activity through electroencephalography (EEG) during awake and sleeping states. These easy-to-use EEG devices can be used at home and in a clinic to identify biomarkers for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. The company has built large databases of EEG data from healthy individuals and those with various neurodegenerative diseases, which allows them to compare a patient's brain activity to healthy controls and track changes over time.
Dan explains, "We're now in year seven of a large longitudinal study where we've identified and extracted these measures of the brain's electrical activity under different conditions that help us differentiate or characterize whether the person has normal cognition or their sleep looks like somebody with normal cognition. Or how the brain responds to certain stimuli and if it looks like somebody with Parkinson's disease or early Alzheimer's disease. We do that both during sleep and during wake."
Chris elaborates, "What differentiates our products is that Dan mentioned that we've received a little over $40 million in funding from NIH, DARPA, and other funding sources. And that has allowed us to create very large databases with tens of thousands of recordings from healthy controls. So people ages 6 to 96. For any new patient that comes in, we can compare their brain to a group of people in the same age range and sex and say, how far are you quantitatively from your healthy control peers?"
"We print everything, all of the EEG sensors, on a very lightweight flex cable, which is easily applied and hits all the target sites according to the neurology 10-20 system. That is fully disposable. So after you take it off, you discard it. It's only used once. Then, all of the electronics for our system, which does the amplification of the signals, the digitization of the signals, and then sending via Bluetooth to a laptop or a handheld or desktop computer. All of that is in a very small electronics box worn on the head. The entire system weighs less than three ounces. So we've had patients wear it for many hours and forget they're wearing it. It's so lightweight and comfortable."
#AdvancedBrainMonitoring #EEG #NeuroBiomarkers #Cognition #NeuroDiagnosticDevice #AlzheimersDisease #Dementia #ParkinsonsDisease #LewyBodyDementia
advancedbrainmonitoring.com
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Dan Levendowski, Co-Founder and President, and Chris Berka, Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Brain Monitoring, have developed medical devices that measure brain activity through electroencephalography (EEG) during awake and sleeping states. These easy-to-use EEG devices can be used at home and in a clinic to identify biomarkers for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. The company has built large databases of EEG data from healthy individuals and those with various neurodegenerative diseases, which allows them to compare a patient's brain activity to healthy controls and track changes over time.
Dan explains, "We're now in year seven of a large longitudinal study where we've identified and extracted these measures of the brain's electrical activity under different conditions that help us differentiate or characterize whether the person has normal cognition or their sleep looks like somebody with normal cognition. Or how the brain responds to certain stimuli and if it looks like somebody with Parkinson's disease or early Alzheimer's disease. We do that both during sleep and during wake."
Chris elaborates, "What differentiates our products is that Dan mentioned that we've received a little over $40 million in funding from NIH, DARPA, and other funding sources. And that has allowed us to create very large databases with tens of thousands of recordings from healthy controls. So people ages 6 to 96. For any new patient that comes in, we can compare their brain to a group of people in the same age range and sex and say, how far are you quantitatively from your healthy control peers?"
"We print everything, all of the EEG sensors, on a very lightweight flex cable, which is easily applied and hits all the target sites according to the neurology 10-20 system. That is fully disposable. So after you take it off, you discard it. It's only used once. Then, all of the electronics for our system, which does the amplification of the signals, the digitization of the signals, and then sending via Bluetooth to a laptop or a handheld or desktop computer. All of that is in a very small electronics box worn on the head. The entire system weighs less than three ounces. So we've had patients wear it for many hours and forget they're wearing it. It's so lightweight and comfortable."
#AdvancedBrainMonitoring #EEG #NeuroBiomarkers #Cognition #NeuroDiagnosticDevice #AlzheimersDisease #Dementia #ParkinsonsDisease #LewyBodyDementia
advancedbrainmonitoring.com
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Dr. Julie Schulz, VP of product at Avalon Healthcare Solutions, a company that helps health plans manage their laboratory spend and benefits by contracting with labs and analyzing lab data. Lab tests are important for identifying the right patients for GLP-1 drugs and assessing their cardiometabolic health. While GLP-1 drugs were initially developed for diabetes they have been found to have broader benefits in treating conditions like obesity, heart disease, and kidney disease. Avalon's real-time access to lab data can help health plans and providers better identify appropriate patients for GLP-1 drugs and address health equity and access issues.
Julie explains, "Labs are increasingly looking at biomarkers that provide an overall sense of patient health. Molecular diagnostics, including genetic testing, is on the upswing. Understanding the complexities of that testing and the clinical decisions that come from it is more and more important for health plan employers in the broader healthcare ecosystem."
"So GLP-1 drugs were initially indicated for diabetes and help patients who struggle to control their diabetes with other medications to help bring down their hemoglobin A1c. But we found they have a much broader effect on the entire cardio kidney metabolic syndrome. Increasingly, clinicians in the American Heart Association are recognizing that cardiorenal metabolic syndrome is a collection of related disorders that involve cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, liver disease, and others as well. What's interesting about GLP-1s is they've been shown to have an impact on many of these systems."
"Now all of those labs can come together and can actually be used to calculate a score of a patient's tenure and 30-year risk of major adverse cardiac events. So, heart attack and stroke, but also heart failure. So, bringing all those things together will inform the patient's broader cardiometabolic health status and can also help start identifying patients who will benefit the most from these drugs."
#AvalonHCS #LaboratoryBenefitsManager #HealthPlans #HealthEquity #GLP1 #CardiometabolicDiseases #Obesity #KidneyDisease #HeartDisease
avalonhcs.com
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Dr. Julie Schulz, VP of product at Avalon Healthcare Solutions, a company that helps health plans manage their laboratory spend and benefits by contracting with labs and analyzing lab data. Lab tests are important for identifying the right patients for GLP-1 drugs and assessing their cardiometabolic health. While GLP-1 drugs were initially developed for diabetes they have been found to have broader benefits in treating conditions like obesity, heart disease, and kidney disease. Avalon's real-time access to lab data can help health plans and providers better identify appropriate patients for GLP-1 drugs and address health equity and access issues.
Julie explains, "Labs are increasingly looking at biomarkers that provide an overall sense of patient health. Molecular diagnostics, including genetic testing, is on the upswing. Understanding the complexities of that testing and the clinical decisions that come from it is more and more important for health plan employers in the broader healthcare ecosystem."
"So GLP-1 drugs were initially indicated for diabetes and help patients who struggle to control their diabetes with other medications to help bring down their hemoglobin A1c. But we found they have a much broader effect on the entire cardio kidney metabolic syndrome. Increasingly, clinicians in the American Heart Association are recognizing that cardiorenal metabolic syndrome is a collection of related disorders that involve cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, liver disease, and others as well. What's interesting about GLP-1s is they've been shown to have an impact on many of these systems."
"Now all of those labs can come together and can actually be used to calculate a score of a patient's tenure and 30-year risk of major adverse cardiac events. So, heart attack and stroke, but also heart failure. So, bringing all those things together will inform the patient's broader cardiometabolic health status and can also help start identifying patients who will benefit the most from these drugs."
#AvalonHCS #LaboratoryBenefitsManager #HealthPlans #HealthEquity #GLP1 #CardiometabolicDiseases #Obesity #KidneyDisease #HeartDisease
avalonhcs.com
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Adrian Mendes, CEO of Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, is solving the problem of margin assessment in cancer surgery. Surgeons often have to perform a second surgery on breast cancer patients because they are unable to completely remove all of the cancerous cells the first time. The company has developed Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging technology that allows surgeons to see cells at a microscopic level in real-time during surgery, helping them remove the tumor and all surrounding cancerous tissue.
Adrian explains, "The surgeon is trying to ensure that when they extract the tumor and the cancer, there is a margin of healthy cells around it. Studies have shown that if they can achieve that, and with breast cancer, that margin needs to be two millimeters generally, then the likelihood of them having left cancer cells back in the body goes down drastically. This is every surgeon's objective for cancer treatment. We help the surgeons ensure that they've achieved what they call clean margins."
"Yes, it's quite significant. So, for breast cancer surgery alone, it's about one in every five surgeries are unsuccessful because the margins aren't clean, and then the patient has to come back for a second surgery. So, there are about 300,000 breast cancer surgeries per year in the United States. If you think about 20% of that, there are a lot of women that are having to go back for a second surgery every year. That's just in the United States. And it's a global problem."
"What's unique about our technology is we use an imaging tech called OCT or Optical Coherence Tomography that allows images to be created down at around 15-micron width level. And that's small enough to be able to distinguish cells. And so with that, it just gives the surgeon so much more ability to see what they're looking at."
"The next generation uses the same imaging modality, the OCT imaging, but it adds an artificial intelligence and AI layer to it. So what we've done is trained an AI algorithm to recognize suspicious areas inside images of breast tissue. And these suspicious areas are indicative of cancer. The way we train the model is we have a library of about 2 million images of breast tissue, both cancerous and healthy tissue, and we've got labels that have been provided by pathologists."
#PerimeterMedical #Oncology #BreastCancerSurgery #OCT #Tumors #MedAI
perimetermed.com
Listen to the podcast here
Adrian Mendes, CEO of Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, is solving the problem of margin assessment in cancer surgery. Surgeons often have to perform a second surgery on breast cancer patients because they are unable to completely remove all of the cancerous cells the first time. The company has developed Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging technology that allows surgeons to see cells at a microscopic level in real-time during surgery, helping them remove the tumor and all surrounding cancerous tissue.
Adrian explains, "The surgeon is trying to ensure that when they extract the tumor and the cancer, there is a margin of healthy cells around it. Studies have shown that if they can achieve that, and with breast cancer, that margin needs to be two millimeters generally, then the likelihood of them having left cancer cells back in the body goes down drastically. This is every surgeon's objective for cancer treatment. We help the surgeons ensure that they've achieved what they call clean margins."
"Yes, it's quite significant. So, for breast cancer surgery alone, it's about one in every five surgeries are unsuccessful because the margins aren't clean, and then the patient has to come back for a second surgery. So, there are about 300,000 breast cancer surgeries per year in the United States. If you think about 20% of that, there are a lot of women that are having to go back for a second surgery every year. That's just in the United States. And it's a global problem."
"What's unique about our technology is we use an imaging tech called OCT or Optical Coherence Tomography that allows images to be created down at around 15-micron width level. And that's small enough to be able to distinguish cells. And so with that, it just gives the surgeon so much more ability to see what they're looking at."
"The next generation uses the same imaging modality, the OCT imaging, but it adds an artificial intelligence and AI layer to it. So what we've done is trained an AI algorithm to recognize suspicious areas inside images of breast tissue. And these suspicious areas are indicative of cancer. The way we train the model is we have a library of about 2 million images of breast tissue, both cancerous and healthy tissue, and we've got labels that have been provided by pathologists."
#PerimeterMedical #Oncology #BreastCancerSurgery #OCT #Tumors #MedAI
perimetermed.com
Download the transcript here
Brent Lucas, CEO of Envoy Medical, highlights the lack of innovation in hearing aids and the need to better address hearing health. Envoy has developed fully implanted hearing devices that provide 24/7 hearing assistance without the need for daily recharging of the battery. With the introduction of over-the-counter hearing aids and the advanced Apple AirPods Pro 2, customer options have been expanded, making it easier to address some forms of hearing loss. Implanted devices eliminate the limitations of external hearing aids and reduce the impact of hearing loss on their daily lives.
Brent explains, "Part of the problem in the hearing loss industry has been that it's not well understood. So there has not been a great deal of competition and innovation in the hearing loss world. Most of us have thought about hearing loss and how it's addressed by looking to our grandparents, the elders. Plenty of people joke about our dads or our grandfathers not being able to hear our grandmothers. When I tell people I'm in the hearing industry, the first thing that they say is, I can't hear you. And I always fall for it. And I say, I'm in the hearing industry, and they come clean that it was a joke. At the end of the day, there are unmet needs in finding solutions for people that are not just the status quo. That's really where Envoy Medical is building products that are fully implanted, in a sense, a better life because they're not tied to their hearing loss."
"Right now, the current solutions on the market are all external products that need to be taken off at night or around water in the shower, during strenuous activity, working out, sweating too much, that sort of thing. You have to take your external device off. Our devices are fully implanted, meaning you can be capable of hearing 24/7, hearing all day, every day. We think that's the right thing to do for a patient because your hearing loss, after all, is a 24-hour problem. It shouldn't be that your solution is only on for part of the day."
#EnvoyMedical #HearingLoss #Acclaim #HearingAids #CochlearImplant $COCH #HearingHealth
envoymedical.com
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Brent Lucas, CEO of Envoy Medical, highlights the lack of innovation in hearing aids and the need to better address hearing health. Envoy has developed fully implanted hearing devices that provide 24/7 hearing assistance without the need for daily recharging of the battery. With the introduction of over-the-counter hearing aids and the advanced Apple AirPods Pro 2, customer options have been expanded, making it easier to address some forms of hearing loss. Implanted devices eliminate the limitations of external hearing aids and reduce the impact of hearing loss on their daily lives.
Brent explains, "Part of the problem in the hearing loss industry has been that it's not well understood. So there has not been a great deal of competition and innovation in the hearing loss world. Most of us have thought about hearing loss and how it's addressed by looking to our grandparents, the elders. Plenty of people joke about our dads or our grandfathers not being able to hear our grandmothers. When I tell people I'm in the hearing industry, the first thing that they say is, I can't hear you. And I always fall for it. And I say, I'm in the hearing industry, and they come clean that it was a joke. At the end of the day, there are unmet needs in finding solutions for people that are not just the status quo. That's really where Envoy Medical is building products that are fully implanted, in a sense, a better life because they're not tied to their hearing loss."
"Right now, the current solutions on the market are all external products that need to be taken off at night or around water in the shower, during strenuous activity, working out, sweating too much, that sort of thing. You have to take your external device off. Our devices are fully implanted, meaning you can be capable of hearing 24/7, hearing all day, every day. We think that's the right thing to do for a patient because your hearing loss, after all, is a 24-hour problem. It shouldn't be that your solution is only on for part of the day."
#EnvoyMedical #HearingLoss #Acclaim #HearingAids #CochlearImplant $COCH #HearingHealth
envoymedical.com
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Caleb Manscill, President of Vyne Medical, has a mission to present a holistic view of data, from origination to use, within a healthcare organization. The goal is to guide them to find ways to streamline the workflow, save time, reduce errors and costs, and improve patient outcomes. Using AI to handle faxes, data entry, and other administrative tasks can free up staff to handle issues that require human intervention. Vyne Medical provides insights about implementing technology and overcoming cultural resistance to changes in healthcare organizations.
Caleb explains, "We've got multiple use cases, but I'll speak to two. The first one is the simple handling of faxes. There's lots of unstructured data coming into different points of care. In this case, I'll talk about the hospital, but there are lots of referrals being made. There are lab reports being sent and there's data that needs to be appended through HIM. Often, this data will come in through the fax machine as unstructured data, and individuals will pick up this paper. And we're talking, again, going back to the paper and picking it up and keying it in. There's the risk, not to mention miskeying it or accuracy. Still, that process is potentially taking place anywhere. If it's a simple patient order, it could take a few minutes. If it's an extensive lab report, it could take upwards of 20 minutes. The automation or AI utilized within our product suite and platform can take that down to 30 seconds or even just a few seconds, depending on the workflow that needs to be initiated."
"That's why we exist in that very specific use case of fax management. The way that our solution works is it streamlines the whole process so that there isn't any paper handling. So it's almost as if it's being sent electronically, through the internet, or however you want it to be. What's most important to us is that if they're not going to change their behavior, at least we can meet them where they are and streamline it as if they had adopted the most up-to-date APIs or ways of sending those data."
#VyneMedical #Workflow #Hospitals #Automation #HospitalWorkflow
vynemedical.com
Listen to the podcast here
Caleb Manscill, President of Vyne Medical, has a mission to present a holistic view of data, from origination to use, within a healthcare organization. The goal is to guide them to find ways to streamline the workflow, save time, reduce errors and costs, and improve patient outcomes. Using AI to handle faxes, data entry, and other administrative tasks can free up staff to handle issues that require human intervention. Vyne Medical provides insights about implementing technology and overcoming cultural resistance to changes in healthcare organizations.
Caleb explains, "We've got multiple use cases, but I'll speak to two. The first one is the simple handling of faxes. There's lots of unstructured data coming into different points of care. In this case, I'll talk about the hospital, but there are lots of referrals being made. There are lab reports being sent and there's data that needs to be appended through HIM. Often, this data will come in through the fax machine as unstructured data, and individuals will pick up this paper. And we're talking, again, going back to the paper and picking it up and keying it in. There's the risk, not to mention miskeying it or accuracy. Still, that process is potentially taking place anywhere. If it's a simple patient order, it could take a few minutes. If it's an extensive lab report, it could take upwards of 20 minutes. The automation or AI utilized within our product suite and platform can take that down to 30 seconds or even just a few seconds, depending on the workflow that needs to be initiated."
"That's why we exist in that very specific use case of fax management. The way that our solution works is it streamlines the whole process so that there isn't any paper handling. So it's almost as if it's being sent electronically, through the internet, or however you want it to be. What's most important to us is that if they're not going to change their behavior, at least we can meet them where they are and streamline it as if they had adopted the most up-to-date APIs or ways of sending those data."
#VyneMedical #Workflow #Hospitals #Automation #HospitalWorkflow
vynemedical.com
Download the transcript here
Andre Esteva is the CEO and Co-Founder of Artera, a company focused on improving prostate cancer diagnostics. The company uses an AI-driven test, validated in large-scale clinical trials, to analyze a tumor biopsy or surgical specimen and predict response to therapy and likely long-term outcomes. This helps inform treatment decisions, reduce the risk of over-treatment, and support healthcare equity in diverse patient populations. Plans are underway to expand the AI-driven diagnostic tools to other solid tumor types leveraging the ability of AI to learn across different cancers.
Andre explains, "In general, when it comes to the treatment of prostate cancer, and this is true for most cancers, clinicians tend to be conservative, rightfully so, and there is a tendency to overtreat patients. You see, when it comes to assigning a therapy to a patient, there's this notion of the optimal therapy, and you want to get it right. If you undertreat your patient, the disease will progress, and nobody wants their cancer to progress. So as a result, patients tend to be overtreated when too much therapy is applied. While that does support killing the cancer, it also comes with a series of negative side effects. Real toxicities occur, and this is especially true in the case of prostate cancer."
"The ArteraAI test is an AI that will look at an image of a patient's tumor, specifically a digitized image of the patient's histopathology of a biopsy or surgical specimen. It will look at all the patient's cells and the tumor morphology and the tumor microenvironment, everything else that you'll see on a histopathology slide in the form of a digital image. From that, it'll generate a report for the patient's clinician with two pieces of really important information on it. The first piece is how that patient will respond to therapy. The AI will predict the response to therapy. The second piece is prognostic information. So, the AI will prognosticate patient outcomes. Outcomes here mean will the patient's cancer metastasize in the next five or 10 years, will the patient die of cancer, will dangerous biochemical levels recur in time and so forth. And in doing so, we help to inform treatments."
#Artera #MedAI #AI #ProstateCancer #CancerDiagnostics #Tumors #HealthEquity
artera.ai
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Andre Esteva is the CEO and Co-Founder of Artera, a company focused on improving prostate cancer diagnostics. The company uses an AI-driven test, validated in large-scale clinical trials, to analyze a tumor biopsy or surgical specimen and predict response to therapy and likely long-term outcomes. This helps inform treatment decisions, reduce the risk of over-treatment, and support healthcare equity in diverse patient populations. Plans are underway to expand the AI-driven diagnostic tools to other solid tumor types leveraging the ability of AI to learn across different cancers.
Andre explains, "In general, when it comes to the treatment of prostate cancer, and this is true for most cancers, clinicians tend to be conservative, rightfully so, and there is a tendency to overtreat patients. You see, when it comes to assigning a therapy to a patient, there's this notion of the optimal therapy, and you want to get it right. If you undertreat your patient, the disease will progress, and nobody wants their cancer to progress. So as a result, patients tend to be overtreated when too much therapy is applied. While that does support killing the cancer, it also comes with a series of negative side effects. Real toxicities occur, and this is especially true in the case of prostate cancer."
"The ArteraAI test is an AI that will look at an image of a patient's tumor, specifically a digitized image of the patient's histopathology of a biopsy or surgical specimen. It will look at all the patient's cells and the tumor morphology and the tumor microenvironment, everything else that you'll see on a histopathology slide in the form of a digital image. From that, it'll generate a report for the patient's clinician with two pieces of really important information on it. The first piece is how that patient will respond to therapy. The AI will predict the response to therapy. The second piece is prognostic information. So, the AI will prognosticate patient outcomes. Outcomes here mean will the patient's cancer metastasize in the next five or 10 years, will the patient die of cancer, will dangerous biochemical levels recur in time and so forth. And in doing so, we help to inform treatments."
#Artera #MedAI #AI #ProstateCancer #CancerDiagnostics #Tumors #HealthEquity
artera.ai
Download the transcript here
Len D'Avolio is the CEO of Blue Circle Health a program launched with the support of the Helmsley Charitable Trust to provide care, education, and support to adults with type 1 diabetes. The program provides free, remote support for 6 months including access to continuous glucose monitors, endocrinologists, counseling, insurance navigation, and affordable insulin and clinical care. The program aims to address the care gaps that exists for people with T1D and support them to better manage their condition.
Len explains, "The Helmsley Charitable Trust, which is a major philanthropic donor to the space dedicated to improving the lives of people with T1D, basically recognized that there's this big care gap between what people with T1D need to live healthy lives and what the US healthcare system tends to provide, based on what is or isn't reimbursable. So, they gathered a bunch of experts and conducted a number of focus groups and decided they'd like to close that gap. They formed Blue Circle Health as a free care education and support program designed to work with folks for about six months, trying to empower and educate them and close the gap."
"Education itself is not as widely reimbursed as it should be, and this particular condition requires a thousand more decisions a day than the average person dealing with a health problem because you're playing the role of your pancreas. You're having to understand your blood glucose levels, the foods you're about to eat, and then it's one of the few diseases in which we ask people to measure out and administer a potentially deadly bolus of drugs many times a day."
#BlueCircleHealth #T1D #Type1 #Type1Diabetes #DiabetesAwareness #CGM #TypeOneDiabetes #TypeOne #EmpoweredPatient #Florida #Ohio #Delaware #Maine #Vermont
bluecirclehealth.org
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Len D'Avolio is the CEO of Blue Circle Health a program launched with the support of the Helmsley Charitable Trust to provide care, education, and support to adults with type 1 diabetes. The program provides free, remote support for 6 months including access to continuous glucose monitors, endocrinologists, counseling, insurance navigation, and affordable insulin and clinical care. The program aims to address the care gaps that exists for people with T1D and support them to better manage their condition.
Len explains, "The Helmsley Charitable Trust, which is a major philanthropic donor to the space dedicated to improving the lives of people with T1D, basically recognized that there's this big care gap between what people with T1D need to live healthy lives and what the US healthcare system tends to provide, based on what is or isn't reimbursable. So, they gathered a bunch of experts and conducted a number of focus groups and decided they'd like to close that gap. They formed Blue Circle Health as a free care education and support program designed to work with folks for about six months, trying to empower and educate them and close the gap."
"Education itself is not as widely reimbursed as it should be, and this particular condition requires a thousand more decisions a day than the average person dealing with a health problem because you're playing the role of your pancreas. You're having to understand your blood glucose levels, the foods you're about to eat, and then it's one of the few diseases in which we ask people to measure out and administer a potentially deadly bolus of drugs many times a day."
#BlueCircleHealth #T1D #Type1 #Type1Diabetes #DiabetesAwareness #CGM #TypeOneDiabetes #TypeOne #EmpoweredPatient #Florida #Ohio #Delaware #Maine #Vermont
bluecirclehealth.org
Download the transcript here
Henry O'Connell is the CEO and Co-Founder of Canary Speech, which analyzes voice biomarkers to detect various medical conditions, including neurological disorders like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and cognitive decline. Their approach looks at the underlying mechanisms of speech controlled by the central nervous system rather than the words spoken. The technology has been validated to correlate with clinical diagnoses at a high accuracy level. It provides real-time, objective assessments to healthcare providers, which could help overcome biases and reveal early signs of the presence of a disease.
Henry explains, "Canary Speech is now about eight years old. Jeff Adams, my business partner and friend, and I created Canary Speech to evaluate voice for a range of different human conditions and diseases. We actually established an approach that was unique in the market. Jeff has a history of innovation in voice and voice analysis. He was the lead that developed the first natural language processing commercial tools. He also led the team that developed Dragon naturally speaking, the most prominent tool for transcription services in healthcare. He also led the team that built the Amazon Echo."
"With that deep experience and 40 years of relationship together and friendship, we created Canary speech. Canary looks at sub-language characters and elements. We look at 15 million different data elements every minute, and we process those for a range of different diseases, progressive neurological diseases, cognitive health, and behavioral health. We're beginning to build models for children's health."
"Everything that we have built has been built in clinical settings with peer review with organizations such as The Harvard Beth Israel, Hackensack Meridian, Intermountain Healthcare, Cala Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, Belfast Hospital, and Alster Hospital in Belfast, and also National Institutes of Health in Japan. So, we use those rigorous environments and those clinical settings to build local biomarker algorithms that can identify."
#CanarySpeech #Biomarkers #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Alzheimers #Parkinsons #CognitiveDecline
canaryspeech.com
Listen to the podcast here
Henry O'Connell is the CEO and Co-Founder of Canary Speech, which analyzes voice biomarkers to detect various medical conditions, including neurological disorders like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and cognitive decline. Their approach looks at the underlying mechanisms of speech controlled by the central nervous system rather than the words spoken. The technology has been validated to correlate with clinical diagnoses at a high accuracy level. It provides real-time, objective assessments to healthcare providers, which could help overcome biases and reveal early signs of the presence of a disease.
Henry explains, "Canary Speech is now about eight years old. Jeff Adams, my business partner and friend, and I created Canary Speech to evaluate voice for a range of different human conditions and diseases. We actually established an approach that was unique in the market. Jeff has a history of innovation in voice and voice analysis. He was the lead that developed the first natural language processing commercial tools. He also led the team that developed Dragon naturally speaking, the most prominent tool for transcription services in healthcare. He also led the team that built the Amazon Echo."
"With that deep experience and 40 years of relationship together and friendship, we created Canary speech. Canary looks at sub-language characters and elements. We look at 15 million different data elements every minute, and we process those for a range of different diseases, progressive neurological diseases, cognitive health, and behavioral health. We're beginning to build models for children's health."
"Everything that we have built has been built in clinical settings with peer review with organizations such as The Harvard Beth Israel, Hackensack Meridian, Intermountain Healthcare, Cala Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, Belfast Hospital, and Alster Hospital in Belfast, and also National Institutes of Health in Japan. So, we use those rigorous environments and those clinical settings to build local biomarker algorithms that can identify."
#CanarySpeech #Biomarkers #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Alzheimers #Parkinsons #CognitiveDecline
canaryspeech.com
Download the transcript here
Greg Mayes, President and CEO of Reunion Neuroscience, is developing a psychedelic therapy for the treatment of postpartum depression. This serious acute, non-chronic mental health condition affects an estimated 20% of women after giving birth. A phase two trial is underway to evaluate how RE-104, a rapid-acting psilocybin-like novel molecule, can help women with moderate to severe postpartum depression get faster relief compared to existing treatments.
Greg explains, "The course of our psychedelic administration is significant because we believe it can be shorter in time period than other psilocybin-like treatments. In our case, we were able to establish it as 3.7 hours. Because it's a psychedelic and it is for an acute and non-chronic indication, we believe that women who take our product will see a rapid uptake and potentially day of administration benefit of the psychedelic therapy. Our phase two study is called the RECONNECT study because it's named for women reconnecting with themselves, their families, their children, and the world around them."
"Postpartum depression is considered to be a subset depressive of major depressive disorder, major depressive order that's not put into remission after two treatments becomes treatment-resistant depression. There's also generalized anxiety disorder. We believe that RE104 and our lead product have a lot of legs to potentially go in this area. But as the CEO of the company, we want to stay focused. We know what we need to do first and foremost is we need to get our RECONNECT phase two proof of concept study and women with moderate to severe postpartum depression recruited. And we need to show that we can work there. Once we show that, we'll pivot to other indications. One is adjustment disorder in patients with cancer and with other major medical illnesses like Parkinson's disease, ALS, MS, or pulmonary fibrosis."
#ReunionNeuro #PostPartumDepression #PPD #Psychedelics #Mothers #MentalHealth #Depression #PPDRECONNECTStudy
reunionneuro.com
PPDReconnectstudy.com
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Greg Mayes, President and CEO of Reunion Neuroscience, is developing a psychedelic therapy for the treatment of postpartum depression. This serious acute, non-chronic mental health condition affects an estimated 20% of women after giving birth. A phase two trial is underway to evaluate how RE-104, a rapid-acting psilocybin-like novel molecule, can help women with moderate to severe postpartum depression get faster relief compared to existing treatments.
Greg explains, "The course of our psychedelic administration is significant because we believe it can be shorter in time period than other psilocybin-like treatments. In our case, we were able to establish it as 3.7 hours. Because it's a psychedelic and it is for an acute and non-chronic indication, we believe that women who take our product will see a rapid uptake and potentially day of administration benefit of the psychedelic therapy. Our phase two study is called the RECONNECT study because it's named for women reconnecting with themselves, their families, their children, and the world around them."
"Postpartum depression is considered to be a subset depressive of major depressive disorder, major depressive order that's not put into remission after two treatments becomes treatment-resistant depression. There's also generalized anxiety disorder. We believe that RE104 and our lead product have a lot of legs to potentially go in this area. But as the CEO of the company, we want to stay focused. We know what we need to do first and foremost is we need to get our RECONNECT phase two proof of concept study and women with moderate to severe postpartum depression recruited. And we need to show that we can work there. Once we show that, we'll pivot to other indications. One is adjustment disorder in patients with cancer and with other major medical illnesses like Parkinson's disease, ALS, MS, or pulmonary fibrosis."
#ReunionNeuro #PostPartumDepression #PPD #Psychedelics #Mothers #MentalHealth #Depression #RECONNECTStudy
reunionneuro.com
PPDReconnectstudy.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Adrian Quartel, Chief Medical Officer at Zevra Therapeutics, has received FDA approval for their drug MIPLYFFA in combination with miglustat, the first treatment in the US for Niemann-Pick type C, an ultra-orphan disease. This hard to diagnose, rare genetic lysosomal storage disorder affects the recycling of cholesterol and lipids in cells, leading to neurological and physical problems. The Amplify Assist program has been set up to help patients access and afford the treatment.
Adrian elaborates, "Niemann-Pick C is a very rare or ultra-orphan disease. It's one of what is considered a lysosomal storage disorder. I'll try to explain a little bit about what that means. So lysosomes are little organelles or little systems within the cell that are basically the waste disposal system from the cell. They break down worn-out parts on the inside of the cells, or they break down harmful molecules and waste products. They're effectively recycling materials in the cell. So, any lysosomal storage disorder actually affects the system where waste products are recycled within the cell. In Niemann-Pick C disease, it's specific for lipids such as cholesterol or sphingolipids inside the cell that need to be recycled."
"The early onset of the late infantile onset usually occurs before the age of 10. Then, you have the juvenile and adult-onset, which usually occurs after the age of 10 and have different types of symptoms. Once you have the neurological symptoms, they usually start with delay in motor milestones in the younger children. But most often, we see a diagnosis happening between the ages of, say, three and seven, starting with problems in walking, stability or gait problems, clumsiness, delay in speech, or losing the ability to speak appropriately, as well as seizures, problems at school, problems to follow direction at school, some behavioral problems."
#ZevraTherapeutics #RareDisease #OrphanDisease #NiemannPick #NPC #NiemannPickAwareness #PediatricRareDisease
zevra.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Adrian Quartel, Chief Medical Officer at Zevra Therapeutics, has received FDA approval for their drug MIPLYFFA in combination with miglustat, the first treatment in the US for Niemann-Pick type C, an ultra-orphan disease. This hard to diagnose, rare genetic lysosomal storage disorder affects the recycling of cholesterol and lipids in cells, leading to neurological and physical problems. The Amplify Assist program has been set up to help patients access and afford the treatment.
Adrian elaborates, "Niemann-Pick C is a very rare or ultra-orphan disease. It's one of what is considered a lysosomal storage disorder. I'll try to explain a little bit about what that means. So lysosomes are little organelles or little systems within the cell that are basically the waste disposal system from the cell. They break down worn-out parts on the inside of the cells, or they break down harmful molecules and waste products. They're effectively recycling materials in the cell. So, any lysosomal storage disorder actually affects the system where waste products are recycled within the cell. In Niemann-Pick C disease, it's specific for lipids such as cholesterol or sphingolipids inside the cell that need to be recycled."
"The early onset of the late infantile onset usually occurs before the age of 10. Then, you have the juvenile and adult-onset, which usually occurs after the age of 10 and have different types of symptoms. Once you have the neurological symptoms, they usually start with delay in motor milestones in the younger children. But most often, we see a diagnosis happening between the ages of, say, three and seven, starting with problems in walking, stability or gait problems, clumsiness, delay in speech, or losing the ability to speak appropriately, as well as seizures, problems at school, problems to follow direction at school, some behavioral problems."
#ZevraTherapeutics #RareDisease #OrphanDisease #NiemannPick #NPC #NiemannPickAwareness #PediatricRareDisease
zevra.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Shika Pappoe, CMO and COO of Carna Health is working to identify and treat chronic kidney disease earlier through screening tests. This is a breakthrough for a disease that often shows no symptoms until the damage is irreversible. Using technology and AI-powered risk prediction models to improve early detection and intervention for CKD can help slow or even halt the progression of the disease. In recent pilot programs in Bermuda and Cameroon, Carna Health found high rates of CKD and is working to connect those patients with the necessary care.
Shika explains, "Chronic kidney disease is a condition that has been growing over the years. We know that diabetes and hypertension are leading causes, and currently, CKD is the 10th leading cause of death globally. And by 2040, it's estimated that it will be the fifth cause of death. Carna is working on finding ways to identify kidney disease early so that we can slow progression and optimize the outcomes of patients around the world."
"We are seeing globally increasing rates of, again, diabetes and hypertension, the number one and two causes globally. Interestingly, communicable diseases have often been the priority in low- and middle-income countries. Still, we're seeing the rise of noncommunicable diseases such as CKD. I should say one of the other causes of this increasing epidemic is the environmental stressors, particularly heat. So. we see a lot of individuals who are working or living in very hot climates who are developing recurrent episodes of acute kidney injury, which ultimately leads to CKD. So, we have numerous causes for the increasing epidemic of CKD around the globe."
#CarnaHealth #ChronicKidneyDisease #CKD #EarlyDetectionCKD
Carna.Health
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Shika Pappoe, CMO and COO of Carna Health is working to identify and treat chronic kidney disease earlier through screening tests. This is a breakthrough for a disease that often shows no symptoms until the damage is irreversible. Using technology and AI-powered risk prediction models to improve early detection and intervention for CKD can help slow or even halt the progression of the disease. In recent pilot programs in Bermuda and Cameroon, Carna Health found high rates of CKD and is working to connect those patients with the necessary care.
Shika explains, "Chronic kidney disease is a condition that has been growing over the years. We know that diabetes and hypertension are leading causes, and currently, CKD is the 10th leading cause of death globally. And by 2040, it's estimated that it will be the fifth cause of death. Carna is working on finding ways to identify kidney disease early so that we can slow progression and optimize the outcomes of patients around the world."
"We are seeing globally increasing rates of, again, diabetes and hypertension, the number one and two causes globally. Interestingly, communicable diseases have often been the priority in low- and middle-income countries. Still, we're seeing the rise of noncommunicable diseases such as CKD. I should say one of the other causes of this increasing epidemic is the environmental stressors, particularly heat. So. we see a lot of individuals who are working or living in very hot climates who are developing recurrent episodes of acute kidney injury, which ultimately leads to CKD. So, we have numerous causes for the increasing epidemic of CKD around the globe."
#CarnaHealth #ChronicKidneyDisease #CKD #EarlyDetectionCKD
Carna.Health
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Karthik Ganesh, CEO at OnMed, is expanding access to healthcare through its CareStation, a self-contained medical pod that allows patients to receive comprehensive primary care services conveniently. The CareStation is designed to be easily deployed and operated in underserved communities, including rural areas, prisons, and foster care facilities. This scalable, hybrid approach provides a personalized examination using medical devices and cameras that allow a remote clinician to prescribe treatment and, if necessary, arrange for further actions.
Karthik explains, "The OnMed CareStation gives you the psychological comfort and the confidence of a comprehensive primary care visit. With the rapid scalability and the convenience of telemedicine, it essentially takes the best of both worlds between virtual care and traditional care while also neutralizing the inherent scalability weaknesses and experience weaknesses of both of those. This is why we look at OnMed really as a hybrid care company and the CareStation as a tech-enabled, hybrid care vehicle."
"Pretty much every day of the week without a wait, you can just walk in for care. It's cleaner than a doctor's office because, after every single visit, we use UVC lighting to clean out the CareStation. UVC has been known to essentially kill over 99.9% of viruses and bacteria inside of the CareStation. And then, finally, the third thing I would say that makes it unique is it's an extremely personalized experience. There are the reviews we've gotten back from the patients going into the CareStation, where they feel the interpersonal connection with a live clinician. Still, at the same time, they feel it's without any distractions of a doctor's office, people walking outside, the doctor coming in and out, and so on. They feel in that contained space, it's an extremely personalized and intimate conversation with the doctor, exactly as you would expect a highly personal doctor-patient relationship to be."
#OnMed #HybridCare #HealthEquity #HealthcareAccess
onmed.com
Listen to the podcast here
Karthik Ganesh, CEO at OnMed, is expanding access to healthcare through its CareStation, a self-contained medical pod that allows patients to receive comprehensive primary care services conveniently. The CareStation is designed to be easily deployed and operated in underserved communities, including rural areas, prisons, and foster care facilities. This scalable, hybrid approach provides a personalized examination using medical devices and cameras that allow a remote clinician to prescribe treatment and, if necessary, arrange for further actions.
Karthik explains, "The OnMed CareStation gives you the psychological comfort and the confidence of a comprehensive primary care visit. With the rapid scalability and the convenience of telemedicine, it essentially takes the best of both worlds between virtual care and traditional care while also neutralizing the inherent scalability weaknesses and experience weaknesses of both of those. This is why we look at OnMed really as a hybrid care company and the CareStation as a tech-enabled, hybrid care vehicle."
"Pretty much every day of the week without a wait, you can just walk in for care. It's cleaner than a doctor's office because, after every single visit, we use UVC lighting to clean out the CareStation. UVC has been known to essentially kill over 99.9% of viruses and bacteria inside of the CareStation. And then, finally, the third thing I would say that makes it unique is it's an extremely personalized experience. There are the reviews we've gotten back from the patients going into the CareStation, where they feel the interpersonal connection with a live clinician. Still, at the same time, they feel it's without any distractions of a doctor's office, people walking outside, the doctor coming in and out, and so on. They feel in that contained space, it's an extremely personalized and intimate conversation with the doctor, exactly as you would expect a highly personal doctor-patient relationship to be."
#OnMed #HybridCare #HealthEquity #HealthcareAccess
onmed.com
Download the transcript here
George Eliades, the CEO of Mythic Therapeutics a company focused on the next generation of antibody-drug conjugates, ADCs, to treat cancer. Their approach aims to expand the population of patients who can benefit from ADCs by targeting proteins expressed at low levels on cancer cells. The company's lead candidate targets the MET protein in non-small cell lung cancer cells and is designed to deliver chemotherapy more selectively and effectively to cancer cells using the FateControl ™ technology.
George explains, "We try to be different in two important ways for patients. If you think about ADCs, they've been around for a long time with the promise of bringing chemotherapy-like efficacy, but the safety of a targeted therapy because so much less chemo is being administered to the patient and that chemo is going directly, at least in theory, to the cancer cell. That was sort of the first promise. The second thing that's happened over the years is that the patients who benefit from ADCs tend to be a very small subset of patients, and those are the patients who express a very high level of the target. Generally, it's a protein on the cancer cell that the ADC binds to. And if you don't have a high level of that target expression in general, you don't benefit as much from the ADC."
"What we're trying to do is two things. Number one, we're trying to make it so more patients can benefit from ADCs and bring it to the patients who have low expressions of those proteins we're trying to target. And the second thing that we're trying to do is deliver on the initial promise. When I say that, I mean to have a drug that is very tolerable for patients but gives them the tumor shrinkage that the patient wants. Also it lets them stay on the drug without feeling terrible so they can get on with their day."
#MythicTherapeutics #ADCs #AntibodyDrugConjugate #FateControl #NSCLC #LungCancer #Oncology
mythictx.com
Listen to the podcast here
George Eliades, the CEO of Mythic Therapeutics a company focused on the next generation of antibody-drug conjugates, ADCs, to treat cancer. Their approach aims to expand the population of patients who can benefit from ADCs by targeting proteins expressed at low levels on cancer cells. The company's lead candidate targets the MET protein in non-small cell lung cancer cells and is designed to deliver chemotherapy more selectively and effectively to cancer cells using the FateControl ™ technology.
George explains, "We try to be different in two important ways for patients. If you think about ADCs, they've been around for a long time with the promise of bringing chemotherapy-like efficacy, but the safety of a targeted therapy because so much less chemo is being administered to the patient and that chemo is going directly, at least in theory, to the cancer cell. That was sort of the first promise. The second thing that's happened over the years is that the patients who benefit from ADCs tend to be a very small subset of patients, and those are the patients who express a very high level of the target. Generally, it's a protein on the cancer cell that the ADC binds to. And if you don't have a high level of that target expression in general, you don't benefit as much from the ADC."
"What we're trying to do is two things. Number one, we're trying to make it so more patients can benefit from ADCs and bring it to the patients who have low expressions of those proteins we're trying to target. And the second thing that we're trying to do is deliver on the initial promise. When I say that, I mean to have a drug that is very tolerable for patients but gives them the tumor shrinkage that the patient wants. Also it lets them stay on the drug without feeling terrible so they can get on with their day."
#MythicTherapeutics #ADCs #AntibodyDrugConjugate #FateControl #NSCLC #LungCancer #Oncology
mythictx.com
Download the transcript here
Karl Ulfers, CEO and Co-Founder of DUOS, helps older adults and their caregivers access government benefits and programs to improve the quality of life and enable aging in place. Working with Medicare Advantage and dual-eligible health plans, DUOS uses a combination of technology, generative AI, and personalized support to help patients navigate the system to apply for and receive state, Federal, and VA benefits and services. The focus is on addressing the social determinants of health and health equity, especially in rural and underserved communities.
Karl explains "It's really interesting when you study these individuals that we work with. We tend to get about 15% of a payer's population activated and using our service, which is pretty high. And the people that make up that population, it's quite interesting - 88% of them make less than $28,000 a year. They're, on average, about 74 years old. They tend to skew female versus male and value what we bring to them in terms of helping them tap into these benefits and government programs available to them. They either didn't know about or didn't know how to use them."
"We love to say that we are re-imagining the aging experience and to some of the comments where we started our conversation - we believe that we're not just creating a system of aging. We're creating a system of aging that we ourselves are going to inherit. So we're motivated by the direct impact that we can have on the older adults in our lives, as well as the impact that we can have on the system in the future for ourselves."
#DUOS #AgeTech #MedicareAdvantage #Medicare #AgingIndependently #PowerofConnections #Healthcare #SDOH #VABenefits #FederalBenefits
getduos.com
Listen to the podcast here
Karl Ulfers, CEO and Co-Founder of DUOS, helps older adults and their caregivers access government benefits and programs to improve the quality of life and enable aging in place. Working with Medicare Advantage and dual-eligible health plans, DUOS uses a combination of technology, generative AI, and personalized support to help patients navigate the system to apply for and receive state, Federal, and VA benefits and services. The focus is on addressing the social determinants of health and health equity, especially in rural and underserved communities.
Karl explains "It's really interesting when you study these individuals that we work with. We tend to get about 15% of a payer's population activated and using our service, which is pretty high. And the people that make up that population, it's quite interesting - 88% of them make less than $28,000 a year. They're, on average, about 74 years old. They tend to skew female versus male and value what we bring to them in terms of helping them tap into these benefits and government programs available to them. They either didn't know about or didn't know how to use them."
"We love to say that we are re-imagining the aging experience and to some of the comments where we started our conversation - we believe that we're not just creating a system of aging. We're creating a system of aging that we ourselves are going to inherit. So we're motivated by the direct impact that we can have on the older adults in our lives, as well as the impact that we can have on the system in the future for ourselves."
#DUOS #AgeTech #MedicareAdvantage #Medicare #AgingIndependently #PowerofConnections #Healthcare #SDOH #VABenefits #FederalBenefits
getduos.com
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Dr. Ed Glynn, Chief Clinical Officer at RhythmX AI, is bridging the gap between real-world clinical data and the use of artificial intelligence. One of the key problems RhythmX is trying to solve is the cognitive burden on primary care clinicians to understand all relevant details about each patient. Using the RhythmX platform, an AI-enabled intelligent assistant sits alongside the doctor to summarize patient information, track progress, and provide recommendations to help provide more holistic, patient-centered care.
Ed explains, "Our vision is to really pioneer hyper-personalized care. We do this by enabling clinicians, specialists, and care teams to deliver the right care, at the right time for the right patient and the right channel. We do this through a very clear focus on marrying both real-world clinicians- clinicians who are out there on the front lines and see patients - with deep artificial intelligence experience. And we have a number of years in many different engineers in the background taking care of this. We believe that the synergy of these two aspects, real-world clinicians with deep artificial intelligence experience, is much greater than the sum of the two. And that's the spirit we're approaching primary care with this new tool."
"As a starting clinical officer here at RhythmX AI, I see my focus as bringing together those two worlds: the real world, the clinical world, and this artificial intelligence world. It's bridging the gap between the two of those and assuring that the two of these aspects, clinicians and artificial intelligence expertise, can sit down and decide what are the prioritized problems that are facing primary care clinicians today? How do we approach that and bring safe, trustworthy artificial intelligence as an intelligent assistant to these clinicians on the front lines? Ultimately, through this process, we champion patient safety and quality here at RhythmX AI."
#RhythmXAI #PrimaryCare #HealthAI #Healthcare #PatientCentric #ClinicianBurnout #CognitiveBurnout #PrecisionCare
rhythmx.ai
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ed Glynn, Chief Clinical Officer at RhythmX AI, is bridging the gap between real-world clinical data and the use of artificial intelligence. One of the key problems RhythmX is trying to solve is the cognitive burden on primary care clinicians to understand all relevant details about each patient. Using the RhythmX platform, an AI-enabled intelligent assistant sits alongside the doctor to summarize patient information, track progress, and provide recommendations to help provide more holistic, patient-centered care.
Ed explains, "Our vision is to really pioneer hyper-personalized care. We do this by enabling clinicians, specialists, and care teams to deliver the right care, at the right time for the right patient and the right channel. We do this through a very clear focus on marrying both real-world clinicians- clinicians who are out there on the front lines and see patients - with deep artificial intelligence experience. And we have a number of years in many different engineers in the background taking care of this. We believe that the synergy of these two aspects, real-world clinicians with deep artificial intelligence experience, is much greater than the sum of the two. And that's the spirit we're approaching primary care with this new tool."
"As a starting clinical officer here at RhythmX AI, I see my focus as bringing together those two worlds: the real world, the clinical world, and this artificial intelligence world. It's bridging the gap between the two of those and assuring that the two of these aspects, clinicians and artificial intelligence expertise, can sit down and decide what are the prioritized problems that are facing primary care clinicians today? How do we approach that and bring safe, trustworthy artificial intelligence as an intelligent assistant to these clinicians on the front lines? Ultimately, through this process, we champion patient safety and quality here at RhythmX AI."
#RhythmXAI #PrimaryCare #HealthAI #Healthcare #PatientCentric #ClinicianBurnout #CognitiveBurnout #PrecisionCare
rhythmx.ai
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Marina Bigsby, Chief Customer Experience Officer at AccessOne, focuses on providing financial products and services to help make healthcare more affordable for patients and improve the physicians' revenue cycle management. The aim is to provide more transparency and payment options upfront to avoid situations where patients forgo needed care. Using AccessOne's technology and mobile payment solution, providers collect payments faster and proactively identify and address operational inefficiencies and staffing challenges.
Marina explains, "We're a technology company. We partner with our providers and look at their various situations. Their situation might be that they have a pocket of their population with high debt problems, or maybe there is a staff shortage or some other operational efficiency challenge. We're designing a product that works for them. Our platform is highly configurable, and we built something that works for them and helps them collect more so they can allocate funds to wherever they need. We have a proprietary funding option, so they can work with us to accelerate cash quickly into their RCM or manage risk differently. So that's really what we're doing. We're working with them to collect more so they can help more patients."
"It's a time savings so that they get cash faster, which is always good, but it's also a time savings from an operational savings. So responses are great -- we send out a text and our MobilePay product is a replacement, a complete replacement of a piece of paper. Awareness of the text helps people say that even if they don't want to pay through the text, they know there's a bill and know it earlier than they normally would have, so they can pay it however they'd like. Whether in a portal or through our text, that awareness is increased. There are lots of glowing reviews around that product."
#AccessOne #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM #PatientExperience #PatientFinancing #PatientAccess
accessonepay.com
Listen to the podcast here
Marina Bigsby, Chief Customer Experience Officer at AccessOne, focuses on providing financial products and services to help make healthcare more affordable for patients and improve the physicians' revenue cycle management. The aim is to provide more transparency and payment options upfront to avoid situations where patients forgo needed care. Using AccessOne's technology and mobile payment solution, providers collect payments faster and proactively identify and address operational inefficiencies and staffing challenges.
Marina explains, "We're a technology company. We partner with our providers and look at their various situations. Their situation might be that they have a pocket of their population with high debt problems, or maybe there is a staff shortage or some other operational efficiency challenge. We're designing a product that works for them. Our platform is highly configurable, and we built something that works for them and helps them collect more so they can allocate funds to wherever they need. We have a proprietary funding option, so they can work with us to accelerate cash quickly into their RCM or manage risk differently. So that's really what we're doing. We're working with them to collect more so they can help more patients."
"It's a time savings so that they get cash faster, which is always good, but it's also a time savings from an operational savings. So responses are great -- we send out a text and our MobilePay product is a replacement, a complete replacement of a piece of paper. Awareness of the text helps people say that even if they don't want to pay through the text, they know there's a bill and know it earlier than they normally would have, so they can pay it however they'd like. Whether in a portal or through our text, that awareness is increased. There are lots of glowing reviews around that product."
#AccessOne #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM #PatientExperience #PatientFinancing #PatientAccess
accessonepay.com
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Aaron Patzer, Founder and CEO of Vital, focuses on the stress on patients and clinicians created in urgent care, emergency rooms, and hospitals. The Vital platform provides real-time updates and plain-language explanations for patients on their mobile devices. Managing expectations for wait times, connecting to electronic health records, and providing discharge instructions increases patient satisfaction, reduces the burden on doctors and nurses, and causes and addresses staff turnover.
Aaron explains, "Everything is done on your mobile phone. You step into a hospital, whether it's urgent care or an emergency visit, or if you're admitted to stay overnight, it's called an inpatient stay. You'll get a text message. So it'll say, welcome to Children's of Los Angeles. Do you want to see what your wait times are? To understand your test results, click here. All you have to do is click this special link, like an airline record locator or password reset link. It can only be used by you. It's secure and brings up a mobile web application that is just a personalized webpage for you. Just like an Airbnb, a Facebook, or something personal to you."
"The other thing we let patients do is ask them throughout their visit how things are going. Is it one star or five stars? If they say, you know what, it's been a four or five-star visit, we'll say, great, do you want to tell your nurse that you appreciate them?"
"I was worried. I thought it was going to be mostly negative. It turns out that it's about 15% one- and two-star negative comments and 85% positive. And most nurses don't get compliments. They're in one of the most high-stress jobs you can have. They're often verbally or even physically assaulted. They're assaulted more than police officers. There've been a bunch of articles on this. It's crazy what happens in hospitals and emergency rooms. A steady stream of compliments has made all the difference in their quality of life."
#VitalAI #AIinHealth #HealthcareTransparency #VitalPatientExperience #HealthTech #PatientEmpowerment
vital.io
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Aaron Patzer, Founder and CEO of Vital, focuses on the stress on patients and clinicians created in urgent care, emergency rooms, and hospitals. The Vital platform provides real-time updates and plain-language explanations for patients on their mobile devices. Managing expectations for wait times, connecting to electronic health records, and providing discharge instructions increases patient satisfaction, reduces the burden on doctors and nurses, and causes and addresses staff turnover.
Aaron explains, "Everything is done on your mobile phone. You step into a hospital, whether it's urgent care or an emergency visit, or if you're admitted to stay overnight, it's called an inpatient stay. You'll get a text message. So it'll say, welcome to Children's of Los Angeles. Do you want to see what your wait times are? To understand your test results, click here. All you have to do is click this special link, like an airline record locator or password reset link. It can only be used by you. It's secure and brings up a mobile web application that is just a personalized webpage for you. Just like an Airbnb, a Facebook, or something personal to you."
"The other thing we let patients do is ask them throughout their visit how things are going. Is it one star or five stars? If they say, you know what, it's been a four or five-star visit, we'll say, great, do you want to tell your nurse that you appreciate them?"
"I was worried. I thought it was going to be mostly negative. It turns out that it's about 15% one- and two-star negative comments and 85% positive. And most nurses don't get compliments. They're in one of the most high-stress jobs you can have. They're often verbally or even physically assaulted. They're assaulted more than police officers. There've been a bunch of articles on this. It's crazy what happens in hospitals and emergency rooms. A steady stream of compliments has made all the difference in their quality of life."
#VitalAI #AIinHealth #HealthcareTransparency #VitalPatientExperience #HealthTech #PatientEmpowerment
vital.io
Download the transcript here
Haitham Ayad, CEO of SPIMA Therapeutics, has secured a global licensing agreement for its lead peptide-based immunotherapy candidate, which targets the Myddosome complex involved in inflammation. This approach aims to target undruggable protein-protein interactions, leveraging the advantages of peptides over small molecules and antibodies. In addition to inflammatory diseases like acute pancreatitis, SPIMA is also exploring the potential in certain cancers with mutations in the Myddosome complex.
Haitham explains, "In fact, what happened is that the four scientific co-founders worked together for long years to develop and to bring them to the clinical phase and to secure a global patent for that. So, at one point, the technology transfer office of the university, which is called SATT, decided that it was the appropriate moment to create a spin-off of the company so that the company could continue the work and take the lead candidate further to the clinical phase. And I joined at that point as a co-founder and CEO, immediately after the legal creation and incorporation of SPIMA, we signed a global licensing agreement with SATT to secure the rights of the lead candidate globally. At the same time, we were accepted in the incubator of the University, which is called the TTM factory. So we're happy to continue working with that set and the university to progress the lead toward the clinical phase."
"It's known that more than 80% of drug targets consist of interactions between proteins, which take place inside the cells. So this is a big challenge for drugs because small molecules, small chemical molecules that can go inside the cells, are not very specific enough to inhibit this interaction between two big proteins. On the other hand, large molecules like antibodies have good specificity to inhibit such interaction, but they are too large to go inside the cells. This is the sweet spot of SPIMA Therapeutics because the Stapled peptides have the advantage of each category. They have very good cell penetration and good stability. So, it's allowed them to go inside the cell, and at the same time, they have enough specificity to block this interaction between the two proteins. This is where we choose our target, the Myddosome complex, which is the interaction between several proteins involved in the inflammation process."
#SPIMATherapeutics #Peptide #Immunotherapies #Cancer #Oncology #StapledPeptides #Inflammation #Immunology #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #AggresiveCancers #PeptideTherapies
spima-therapeutics.com
Listen to the podcast here
Haitham Ayad, CEO of SPIMA Therapeutics, has secured a global licensing agreement for its lead peptide-based immunotherapy candidate, which targets the Myddosome complex involved in inflammation. This approach aims to target undruggable protein-protein interactions, leveraging the advantages of peptides over small molecules and antibodies. In addition to inflammatory diseases like acute pancreatitis, SPIMA is also exploring the potential in certain cancers with mutations in the Myddosome complex.
Haitham explains, "In fact, what happened is that the four scientific co-founders worked together for long years to develop and to bring them to the clinical phase and to secure a global patent for that. So, at one point, the technology transfer office of the university, which is called SATT, decided that it was the appropriate moment to create a spin-off of the company so that the company could continue the work and take the lead candidate further to the clinical phase. And I joined at that point as a co-founder and CEO, immediately after the legal creation and incorporation of SPIMA, we signed a global licensing agreement with SATT to secure the rights of the lead candidate globally. At the same time, we were accepted in the incubator of the University, which is called the TTM factory. So we're happy to continue working with that set and the university to progress the lead toward the clinical phase."
"It's known that more than 80% of drug targets consist of interactions between proteins, which take place inside the cells. So this is a big challenge for drugs because small molecules, small chemical molecules that can go inside the cells, are not very specific enough to inhibit this interaction between two big proteins. On the other hand, large molecules like antibodies have good specificity to inhibit such interaction, but they are too large to go inside the cells. This is the sweet spot of SPIMA Therapeutics because the Stapled peptides have the advantage of each category. They have very good cell penetration and good stability. So, it's allowed them to go inside the cell, and at the same time, they have enough specificity to block this interaction between the two proteins. This is where we choose our target, the Myddosome complex, which is the interaction between several proteins involved in the inflammation process."
#SPIMATherapeutics #Peptide #Immunotherapies #Cancer #Oncology #StapledPeptides #Inflammation #Immunology #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #AggresiveCancers #PeptideTherapies
spima-therapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
This is a conversation with Nicole Andrews, a patient with LGSOC and STAAR Ovarian Cancer Foundation Board Chairperson, and Dan Paterson, President and CEO of Verastem Oncology. Low-grade serous ovarian cancer is a rare and slow-growing ovarian cancer that is often misdiagnosed. Verastem Oncology is developing a targeted treatment for LGSOC and working with the STAAR Foundation to inform researchers about the disease and ways to improve treatments. Nicole was finally diagnosed with LGSOC after 18 months of unexplained symptoms, and her role at the STAAR Foundation is to raise awareness and funds to support research.
Nicole explains, "I have since learned that low-grade is difficult for pathologists who aren't used to seeing it and don't know the intricacies of diagnosing. My surgeon finally said I have to get this right because it changes treatment."
"So, she asked permission to send this to a specialty cancer center. And we did. Once that happened, they came back pretty quickly and said this was low-grade serous ovarian cancer. They were used to seeing it. They had high volume cases of reading pathology reports and, therefore, were able to diagnose and diagnose it."
Dan elaborates, "The majority of ovarian cancers are so-called high-grade, and that's when you hear about treatment with chemotherapies like platinum. A new class of drugs called PARP inhibitors came out in the last couple of years. And I think when you generally hear about ovarian, it's high grade. It was only in the last couple of years that the World Health Organization and, more recently, the FDA, based on some of our work, recognized it as a distinct and different disease because it acts very differently. It tends to occur in younger women, and it's slower growing, which, on the face of it, you would think is a good thing. And I think a lot of times, and we've heard anecdotes, and Nicole can probably speak to this, where women have said, oh, well, you have the good ovarian cancer. The downside of a slower-growing tumor is it's harder to treat."
#VerastemOncology #STAARFoundation #LGSOC #LGSOCAwareness #LowGradeSerousOvarianCancer #Cancer #RareDisease
verastemoncology.com
STAAR Foundation
Listen to the podcast here
This is a conversation with Nicole Andrews, a patient with LGSOC and STAAR Ovarian Cancer Foundation Board Chairperson, and Dan Paterson, President and CEO of Verastem Oncology. Low-grade serous ovarian cancer is a rare and slow-growing ovarian cancer that is often misdiagnosed. Verastem Oncology is developing a targeted treatment for LGSOC and working with the STAAR Foundation to inform researchers about the disease and ways to improve treatments. Nicole was finally diagnosed with LGSOC after 18 months of unexplained symptoms, and her role at the STAAR Foundation is to raise awareness and funds to support research.
Nicole explains, "I have since learned that low-grade is difficult for pathologists who aren't used to seeing it and don't know the intricacies of diagnosing. My surgeon finally said I have to get this right because it changes treatment."
"So, she asked permission to send this to a specialty cancer center. And we did. Once that happened, they came back pretty quickly and said this was low-grade serous ovarian cancer. They were used to seeing it. They had high volume cases of reading pathology reports and, therefore, were able to diagnose and diagnose it."
Dan elaborates, "The majority of ovarian cancers are so-called high-grade, and that's when you hear about treatment with chemotherapies like platinum. A new class of drugs called PARP inhibitors came out in the last couple of years. And I think when you generally hear about ovarian, it's high grade. It was only in the last couple of years that the World Health Organization and, more recently, the FDA, based on some of our work, recognized it as a distinct and different disease because it acts very differently. It tends to occur in younger women, and it's slower growing, which, on the face of it, you would think is a good thing. And I think a lot of times, and we've heard anecdotes, and Nicole can probably speak to this, where women have said, oh, well, you have the good ovarian cancer. The downside of a slower-growing tumor is it's harder to treat."
#VerastemOncology #STAARFoundation #LGSOC #LGSOCAwareness #LowGradeSerousOvarianCancer #Cancer #RareDisease
verastemoncology.com
STAAR Foundation
Download the transcript here
Maria Perrin, President and Chief Strategy Officer at PPL, is focused on expanding access to self-directed and whole person care allowing people to stay in their homes and receive the services they need to maintain a good quality of life. Consumer-directed care programs funded by Medicaid allows disabled and the aged populations to choose their own caregivers they know and trust to provide personal services like meals, dressing, and transportation. PPL provides training, technology, quality assurance, and other support to help consumers and their caregivers participate in these programs.
Maria explains, "So the programs differ from state to state. If someone needs care in their home, say they had an injury or they need help because of a disability or certain access, they can get help for people to, for example, come in, prepare meals, help them get dressed, and for bathing. Or if they're relatively healthy and can do that themselves, some programs support things like meal services, transportation, occupational assistance, and other goods and services they may need to thrive."
"We see a lot of health disparities. I know that many people who work in healthcare talk about this, and you have communities that are underserved. They don't have enough home health workers in their community to serve them. Often, they don't have facilities that speak the language they speak or consider their religious or cultural implications. Therefore, the consumer-directed care program allows people to choose the caregiver that meets their needs and to have them deliver the services within their home."
"That's a little different than, for example, a home health agency model whereby the agency will choose the caregiver they get, and that person may or may not be trusted by the individual consumer. They may not speak the same language as the individual consumer. So this elevates the care that the consumer is getting to what they specifically need and establishes trust by enabling them to choose the caregiver. A caregiver may be a family member, it might be a church member, a friend of the family, someone who's in the community who they already know and trust, and who can best serve that particular consumer."
#PPL #Healthcare #Caregivers #ConsumerDirectedCare #SelfDirection #AtHomeCare #CommunityBasedSupportServices #LongTermServicesSupports #Medicaid
PPLfirst.com
Listen to the podcast here
Maria Perrin, President and Chief Strategy Officer at PPL, is focused on expanding access to self-directed and whole person care allowing people to stay in their homes and receive the services they need to maintain a good quality of life. Consumer-directed care programs funded by Medicaid allows disabled and the aged populations to choose their own caregivers they know and trust to provide personal services like meals, dressing, and transportation. PPL provides training, technology, quality assurance, and other support to help consumers and their caregivers participate in these programs.
Maria explains, "So the programs differ from state to state. If someone needs care in their home, say they had an injury or they need help because of a disability or certain access, they can get help for people to, for example, come in, prepare meals, help them get dressed, and for bathing. Or if they're relatively healthy and can do that themselves, some programs support things like meal services, transportation, occupational assistance, and other goods and services they may need to thrive."
"We see a lot of health disparities. I know that many people who work in healthcare talk about this, and you have communities that are underserved. They don't have enough home health workers in their community to serve them. Often, they don't have facilities that speak the language they speak or consider their religious or cultural implications. Therefore, the consumer-directed care program allows people to choose the caregiver that meets their needs and to have them deliver the services within their home."
"That's a little different than, for example, a home health agency model whereby the agency will choose the caregiver they get, and that person may or may not be trusted by the individual consumer. They may not speak the same language as the individual consumer. So this elevates the care that the consumer is getting to what they specifically need and establishes trust by enabling them to choose the caregiver. A caregiver may be a family member, it might be a church member, a friend of the family, someone who's in the community who they already know and trust, and who can best serve that particular consumer."
#PPL #Healthcare #Caregivers #ConsumerDirectedCare #SelfDirection #AtHomeCare #CommunityBasedSupportServices #LongTermServicesSupports #Medicaid
PPLfirst.com
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James Grover, President of Vyne Dental, addresses the friction and inefficiencies in the dental healthcare system to facilitate payments and improve patient outcomes. The dental care environment is fragmented and lacks coordination between patients, dentists, and payers. Vyne Dental works with dental practices to streamline the revenue cycle management process, improve patient communication, and ensure timely and accurate payments.
James explains, "We sit at the commerce crossroads between patients, practices, and payers, basically helping patients to pay, helping payers to pay, and helping practices to get paid for the services that they’re rendering."
"Then in the payer space, they’re trying to avoid fraud. They also have certain places where there are plans that approve certain things but don’t allow for others, and they need to do their work. Unfortunately, there’s a tremendous amount of waste between all three constituents. That waste results in higher prices for patients and less business success for both practices and payers."
"So you have a patient who gets services and the practice is pretty much programmed to get that payment when the patient comes back in the next time. Why? Because they want their insurance to pay for it. For practices to get paid, that patient has to come back in. Well, there’s a huge problem. The ADA says that only about 41% of new patient visits result in the patient returning. And so, about six in ten new patients don’t return to the practice, and there is only about 85% retention of existing patients."
#VyneDental #AccelerateRev #DentalBilling #RCM
vynedental.com
Listen to the podcast here
James Grover, President of Vyne Dental, addresses the friction and inefficiencies in the dental healthcare system to facilitate payments and improve patient outcomes. The dental care environment is fragmented and lacks coordination between patients, dentists, and payers. Vyne Dental works with dental practices to streamline the revenue cycle management process, improve patient communication, and ensure timely and accurate payments.
James explains, "We sit at the commerce crossroads between patients, practices, and payers, basically helping patients to pay, helping payers to pay, and helping practices to get paid for the services that they’re rendering."
"Then in the payer space, they’re trying to avoid fraud. They also have certain places where there are plans that approve certain things but don’t allow for others, and they need to do their work. Unfortunately, there’s a tremendous amount of waste between all three constituents. That waste results in higher prices for patients and less business success for both practices and payers."
"So you have a patient who gets services and the practice is pretty much programmed to get that payment when the patient comes back in the next time. Why? Because they want their insurance to pay for it. For practices to get paid, that patient has to come back in. Well, there’s a huge problem. The ADA says that only about 41% of new patient visits result in the patient returning. And so, about six in ten new patients don’t return to the practice, and there is only about 85% retention of existing patients."
#VyneDental #AccelerateRev #DentalBilling #RCM
vynedental.com
Download the transcript here
Professor Piotr Trzonkowski, CEO of PolTREG, is focused on developing cell therapies for autoimmune diseases like type-1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis using polyclonal T-regulatory cell therapy. Treg cells are key in regulating the immune system and preventing autoimmune diseases. Clinical trials are showing promise for safe and effective treatments for preventing type-1 diabetes in pre-symptomatic patients and maintaining insulin production for years after treatment in those with this form of diabetes.
Piotr explains, "My initial research subject was vaccination in the elderly, and I was looking for the reasons they did not respond to the vaccine. It was initially on the flu vaccine. The same is valuable, for example, for the COVID-19 vaccine. What we found is that elderly people do not respond to the vaccines because of the high level of accumulation of T-regulatory cells. T-regulatory cells can suppress immune responses, which is bad for the elderly."
"A very simple answer would be if you compare the immune system to kind of an army. The majority of the army fights with enemies. In the case of the immune system, these enemies are bacteria and viruses that attack us, and in each and every army, there must be police who keep an eye on the soldiers. So, the soldiers really fight with the enemies and do not fight with the self-tissue."
"The T-regulatory cells are a kind of military police of the immune system, which really keeps an eye on the immune system. So, the immune system fights with bacteria and virus cells and does not touch our own tissues. We call it in immunology, keeping the immune tolerance. So, proper immune tolerance is very dependent on T-regulatory cells. We say that this is an immune-dominant mechanism. T-regulatory cells are present in each and every process where the immune system responds to the bacteria. So, we successfully fight the infection, and at the same time, we do not destroy ourselves."
#PolTREG #TregCells TRegulatoryCells #CellTherapy #AutoimmuneDiseases #Diabetes #Type1Diabetes
poltreg.com
Listen to the podcast here
Professor Piotr Trzonkowski, CEO of PolTREG, is focused on developing cell therapies for autoimmune diseases like type-1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis using polyclonal T-regulatory cell therapy. Treg cells are key in regulating the immune system and preventing autoimmune diseases. Clinical trials are showing promise for safe and effective treatments for preventing type-1 diabetes in pre-symptomatic patients and maintaining insulin production for years after treatment in those with this form of diabetes.
Piotr explains, "My initial research subject was vaccination in the elderly, and I was looking for the reasons they did not respond to the vaccine. It was initially on the flu vaccine. The same is valuable, for example, for the COVID-19 vaccine. What we found is that elderly people do not respond to the vaccines because of the high level of accumulation of T-regulatory cells. T-regulatory cells can suppress immune responses, which is bad for the elderly."
"A very simple answer would be if you compare the immune system to kind of an army. The majority of the army fights with enemies. In the case of the immune system, these enemies are bacteria and viruses that attack us, and in each and every army, there must be police who keep an eye on the soldiers. So, the soldiers really fight with the enemies and do not fight with the self-tissue."
"The T-regulatory cells are a kind of military police of the immune system, which really keeps an eye on the immune system. So, the immune system fights with bacteria and virus cells and does not touch our own tissues. We call it in immunology, keeping the immune tolerance. So, proper immune tolerance is very dependent on T-regulatory cells. We say that this is an immune-dominant mechanism. T-regulatory cells are present in each and every process where the immune system responds to the bacteria. So, we successfully fight the infection, and at the same time, we do not destroy ourselves."
#PolTREG #TregCells TRegulatoryCells #CellTherapy #AutoimmuneDiseases #Diabetes #Type1Diabetes
poltreg.com
Download the transcript here
Cecil Pineda, Senior VP and Chief Information Security Officer at R1 RCM, is focused on integrating robust cybersecurity into the revenue cycle management process. When healthcare organizations are hit with ransomware attacks, they must respond rapidly and accurately communicate with internal and external partners. Long-term strategies include controlling network access, backup/recovery testing and educating personnel in order to limit damage from attempts to invade the network.
Cecil explains, "I think most organizations, not just R1, many organizations have made that decision beforehand whether to pay or not. And that decision is not easy. That’s something that takes into account several factors, starting from patient safety to protecting customer data and being able to go back into operations. So there are a lot of things that they can do, the analysis before making that call. So, beforehand, a lot of organizations have their stance on payments."
"Another key area besides speed is communications. This is something that organizations should focus on. You don’t want patients, relatives of your patients, business partners, shareholders, and other groups to learn it from social media. Going out there quickly with the proper level of messaging and the right amount is key in communicating with your partners."
"I would say that in the first couple of hours, you probably need to make sure that you can communicate quickly at the right level and with the right information without causing any panic. It’s good to be able to reach out quickly to your partners before they get the wrong information from social media."
#R1RCM #CyberSecurity #CyberAttacks #DataSecurity #Ransomware #DataProtection #InformationSecurity #RCM
R1rcm.com
Listen to the podcast here
Cecil Pineda, Senior VP and Chief Information Security Officer at R1 RCM, is focused on integrating robust cybersecurity into the revenue cycle management process. When healthcare organizations are hit with ransomware attacks, they must respond rapidly and accurately communicate with internal and external partners. Long-term strategies include controlling network access, backup/recovery testing and educating personnel in order to limit damage from attempts to invade the network.
Cecil explains, "I think most organizations, not just R1, many organizations have made that decision beforehand whether to pay or not. And that decision is not easy. That’s something that takes into account several factors, starting from patient safety to protecting customer data and being able to go back into operations. So there are a lot of things that they can do, the analysis before making that call. So, beforehand, a lot of organizations have their stance on payments."
"Another key area besides speed is communications. This is something that organizations should focus on. You don’t want patients, relatives of your patients, business partners, shareholders, and other groups to learn it from social media. Going out there quickly with the proper level of messaging and the right amount is key in communicating with your partners."
"I would say that in the first couple of hours, you probably need to make sure that you can communicate quickly at the right level and with the right information without causing any panic. It’s good to be able to reach out quickly to your partners before they get the wrong information from social media."
#R1RCM #CyberSecurity #CyberAttacks #DataSecurity #Ransomware #DataProtection #InformationSecurity #RCM
R1rcm.com
Download the transcript here
David explains, "We went to the Simons Foundation and, with their support, have established a network in the United States. We have three collection sites: one at the UC Davis Mind Institute in Sacramento, one at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas, and one at the Mass General Hospital in Boston, where a postmortem brain donation can be sent. Those brains are then prepared in ways that will facilitate all kinds of research both now and in the future. We have developed this resource to foster autism research throughout the world. What we are seeing now that we've just celebrated our 10th anniversary is that we've collected nearly 400 brain donations so far, and we're seeing an increasing demand from researchers worldwide to get access to that resource."
Dorothy elaborates, "I was the main support person for my older cousin, Gregory Blackstock, for a couple of decades. He needed a lot of executive function help. He lived on his own but couldn't make critical decisions very well. As long as everything went along without any hitch, he was generally fine. But as he got older and experienced more physical infirmities, then I needed to step up more. So then he was very obviously autistic, so it was kind of peripherally interesting to me."
"One of his savant traits was that he was an incredible artist. He also spoke many languages that he picked up by ear. He had a perfect pitch and learned the accordion, but he could easily transfer that information to playing the organ and the piano. He had almost total recall of anything that crossed his path that interested him. And so, just being around him and being involved with furthering his artistic career gave me further insights about the people I met who were interested in autism."
#AutismBrainNet #BrainDonation #AutismResearch #Autism #BrainResearch
autismbrainnet.org
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This is a conversation with Dr. David Amaral, a distinguished professor at the MIND Institute and scientific director of Autism BrainNet, and Dorothy Frisch, an activist and supporter of the program. Autism BrainNet is funded by the Simons Foundation to collect and study postmortem brain samples from individuals with autism to understand the neurological basis of the disorder better. Currently, there are no biomarkers for autism, so studying the brains and accomplishments of those who had autism can lead to a better understanding of the abilities and challenges seen on the autism spectrum.
David explains, "We went to the Simons Foundation and, with their support, have established a network in the United States. We have three collection sites: one at the UC Davis Mind Institute in Sacramento, one at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas, and one at the Mass General Hospital in Boston, where a postmortem brain donation can be sent. Those brains are then prepared in ways that will facilitate all kinds of research both now and in the future. We have developed this resource to foster autism research throughout the world. What we are seeing now that we've just celebrated our 10th anniversary is that we've collected nearly 400 brain donations so far, and we're seeing an increasing demand from researchers worldwide to get access to that resource."
Dorothy elaborates, "I was the main support person for my older cousin, Gregory Blackstock, for a couple of decades. He needed a lot of executive function help. He lived on his own but couldn't make critical decisions very well. As long as everything went along without any hitch, he was generally fine. But as he got older and experienced more physical infirmities, then I needed to step up more. So then he was very obviously autistic, so it was kind of peripherally interesting to me."
"One of his savant traits was that he was an incredible artist. He also spoke many languages that he picked up by ear. He had a perfect pitch and learned the accordion, but he could easily transfer that information to playing the organ and the piano. He had almost total recall of anything that crossed his path that interested him. And so, just being around him and being involved with furthering his artistic career gave me further insights about the people I met who were interested in autism."
#AutismBrainNet #BrainDonation #AutismResearch #Autism #BrainResearch
autismbrainnet.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jose Luchsinger, Vice Chair for Clinical and Epidemiologic Research at Columbia University, is leading a phase 2 clinical trial of a prodrug Benfo that aims to raise the level of thiamine in the brain to improve memory and function in people with early Alzheimer's disease. This effort is based on research showing that Alzheimer's is associated with impaired thiamine processing in the brain, even if thiamine levels in the blood are normal. The phase 2 clinical trial for the drug is testing the ability to overcome the mishandling of thiamine in the brain by patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia with evidence of amyloid.
Jose explains, "So this approach is based on decades of study by Dr. Gary Gibson, who’s at the Burke Institute in New York and Cornell University in New York. What he has found, particularly in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease, is that these animals have memory problems that are related to the ability to process thiamine in the brain, which is a key vitamin that is needed for proper function of the brain. The hypothesis that he came up with was that if you could somehow fix the misuse of the thiamine in the brain, that maybe you could improve memory symptoms and also functional problems in people who have Alzheimer’s disease. He tested first in animals, a prodrug called benfotiamine that after ingestion it, increases thiamine levels a hundred times in the blood. And he did observe in animals that the thiamine handling deficiency in the brain was fixed, and that memory and other characteristics in these animals improved."
"One thing that I want to explain is that we’re not saying that people with early Alzheimer’s disease have low thiamine, which is vitamin B1 in the blood. What we’re saying is that because of the Alzheimer’s disease, their brains are not handling the thiamine that there is in the blood, even if it’s at normal levels, in the correct way. What we’re doing is, and what we’re hypothesizing is that by increasing the thiamine levels a hundred times with this prodrug benfotiamine, we will overcome the mishandling of the thiamine in the brain, which has bad effects on brain metabolism and memory, etc."
#BenfoTeam #Alzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #MCI #MildCognitiveImpairment #MemoryLoss #ClinicalTrials #Memory #VitaminB1 #Thiamine
benfoteam.org
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Dr. Jose Luchsinger, Vice Chair for Clinical and Epidemiologic Research at Columbia University, is leading a phase 2 clinical trial of a prodrug Benfo that aims to raise the level of thiamine in the brain to improve memory and function in people with early Alzheimer's disease. This effort is based on research showing that Alzheimer's is associated with impaired thiamine processing in the brain, even if thiamine levels in the blood are normal. The phase 2 clinical trial for the drug is testing the ability to overcome the mishandling of thiamine in the brain by patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia with evidence of amyloid.
Jose explains, "So this approach is based on decades of study by Dr. Gary Gibson, who’s at the Burke Institute in New York and Cornell University in New York. What he has found, particularly in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease, is that these animals have memory problems that are related to the ability to process thiamine in the brain, which is a key vitamin that is needed for proper function of the brain. The hypothesis that he came up with was that if you could somehow fix the misuse of the thiamine in the brain, that maybe you could improve memory symptoms and also functional problems in people who have Alzheimer’s disease. He tested first in animals, a prodrug called benfotiamine that after ingestion it, increases thiamine levels a hundred times in the blood. And he did observe in animals that the thiamine handling deficiency in the brain was fixed, and that memory and other characteristics in these animals improved."
"One thing that I want to explain is that we’re not saying that people with early Alzheimer’s disease have low thiamine, which is vitamin B1 in the blood. What we’re saying is that because of the Alzheimer’s disease, their brains are not handling the thiamine that there is in the blood, even if it’s at normal levels, in the correct way. What we’re doing is, and what we’re hypothesizing is that by increasing the thiamine levels a hundred times with this prodrug benfotiamine, we will overcome the mishandling of the thiamine in the brain, which has bad effects on brain metabolism and memory, etc."
#BenfoTeam #Alzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #MCI #MildCognitiveImpairment #MemoryLoss #ClinicalTrials #Memory #VitaminB1 #Thiamine
benfoteam.org
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Dr. Michael Sherling, Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer, and Strategy Officer at ModMed, aims to save time for physicians and patients by reducing administrative burden through technology. Their AI-based solutions focus on automating mundane tasks like fax routing and documentation and can passively transcribe doctor-patient conversations to generate structured notes. The interface is designed to be simple and unobtrusive, minimizing extra clicks or steps for the doctors to review and accept the AI's recommendations.
Michael explains, "Our approach to AI is focused on curing the drudgery of healthcare. What I mean by that is using any kind of tool to reduce the burden of documentation for staff, providers, and people in the back office. That's really what we're focused on. We're not so focused on how to improve diagnoses or any of the clinical aspects of healthcare but more on the administrative burden."
"We're still in the development phase of our AI strategy, but there are two products that we're pretty far along on. One is around AI fax routing. It's how we can basically recognize faxes that come in and then route them to the correct patients and the correct category in the chart. It's amazing today that medical practices in 2024 rely on faxes as much as they do, but they do."
"The truth of the matter is there's just so much burden on doctors. If they have a 15-minute visit, they may be spending half the time or more just trying to capture all the information. Some of it has to do with the patient's complaint in front of them, but some is just administrative stuff. We're trying to reduce that so that doctor-patient relationship can be center stage. How is it different? Well, our solution is on an iPad, which I think is great because it's unobtrusive. It's a great form factor that brings the patient and the doctor together. The model itself is specialty-specific."
#ModMed #Healthcare #HealthTech #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #EHR #ElectronicHealthRecords #Physicians #PatientExperience
modmed.com
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Dr. Michael Sherling, Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer, and Strategy Officer at ModMed, aims to save time for physicians and patients by reducing administrative burden through technology. Their AI-based solutions focus on automating mundane tasks like fax routing and documentation and can passively transcribe doctor-patient conversations to generate structured notes. The interface is designed to be simple and unobtrusive, minimizing extra clicks or steps for the doctors to review and accept the AI's recommendations.
Michael explains, "Our approach to AI is focused on curing the drudgery of healthcare. What I mean by that is using any kind of tool to reduce the burden of documentation for staff, providers, and people in the back office. That's really what we're focused on. We're not so focused on how to improve diagnoses or any of the clinical aspects of healthcare but more on the administrative burden."
"We're still in the development phase of our AI strategy, but there are two products that we're pretty far along on. One is around AI fax routing. It's how we can basically recognize faxes that come in and then route them to the correct patients and the correct category in the chart. It's amazing today that medical practices in 2024 rely on faxes as much as they do, but they do."
"The truth of the matter is there's just so much burden on doctors. If they have a 15-minute visit, they may be spending half the time or more just trying to capture all the information. Some of it has to do with the patient's complaint in front of them, but some is just administrative stuff. We're trying to reduce that so that doctor-patient relationship can be center stage. How is it different? Well, our solution is on an iPad, which I think is great because it's unobtrusive. It's a great form factor that brings the patient and the doctor together. The model itself is specialty-specific."
#ModMed #Healthcare #HealthTech #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #EHR #ElectronicHealthRecords #Physicians #PatientExperience
modmed.com
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Dr. Eric Siemers, Medical Officer at Acumen Pharma, is developing a monoclonal antibody called sabirnetug that targets a specific toxic form of amyloid beta, Aβ oligomers. These oligomers are now believed to be a key driver of neuronal damage in Alzheimer's disease. The drug is in phase 2 clinical trials to evaluate its ability to slow cognitive decline in early-stage Alzheimer's patients and demonstrate the accuracy of biomarkers in identifying pathology before symptoms appear.
Eric explains, "We've identified, and this is a monoclonal antibody, a monoclonal antibody with a unique mechanism of action in that it targets what are called Aβ oligomers. And without going into all the details, these Aβ oligomers are now really felt to be the toxic species, the ones that cause the neurons to die, and the two drugs that have recently gotten approval sort of indirectly get at those toxic species, maybe one more than the other. But in our case, we're directly targeting what we think is the most toxic species. And so the progress in the field is wonderful, and nobody can say that it's not, or take anything away from that, but nobody's cured the disease either. Now we know we've got a toehold, we know an approach, and Acumen is using an antibody because of this unique target. We think of it as a next-generation treatment for Alzheimer's disease."
"We've known about these Alzheimer's plaques for a long time, but what's more recent is understanding some of these intermediate species. And so these Aβ oligomers we target are oligo, meaning a few. So, anywhere from 2 to 200 of these Aβ stuck together. The Aβs are basically inherently sticky. And so the things we're most interested in are probably 10 of the Aβ together up to say 50, which seems to be the sweet spot."
#AcumenPharmaceuticals #Alzheimers #ALZ #EndALZ #Sabirnetug #DrugDevelopment
acumenpharm.com
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Dr. Eric Siemers, Medical Officer at Acumen Pharma, is developing a monoclonal antibody called sabirnetug that targets a specific toxic form of amyloid beta, Aβ oligomers. These oligomers are now believed to be a key driver of neuronal damage in Alzheimer's disease. The drug is in phase 2 clinical trials to evaluate its ability to slow cognitive decline in early-stage Alzheimer's patients and demonstrate the accuracy of biomarkers in identifying pathology before symptoms appear.
Eric explains, "We've identified, and this is a monoclonal antibody, a monoclonal antibody with a unique mechanism of action in that it targets what are called Aβ oligomers. And without going into all the details, these Aβ oligomers are now really felt to be the toxic species, the ones that cause the neurons to die, and the two drugs that have recently gotten approval sort of indirectly get at those toxic species, maybe one more than the other. But in our case, we're directly targeting what we think is the most toxic species. And so the progress in the field is wonderful, and nobody can say that it's not, or take anything away from that, but nobody's cured the disease either. Now we know we've got a toehold, we know an approach, and Acumen is using an antibody because of this unique target. We think of it as a next-generation treatment for Alzheimer's disease."
"We've known about these Alzheimer's plaques for a long time, but what's more recent is understanding some of these intermediate species. And so these Aβ oligomers we target are oligo, meaning a few. So, anywhere from 2 to 200 of these Aβ stuck together. The Aβs are basically inherently sticky. And so the things we're most interested in are probably 10 of the Aβ together up to say 50, which seems to be the sweet spot."
#AcumenPharmaceuticals #Alzheimers #ALZ #EndALZ #Sabirnetug #DrugDevelopment
acumenpharm.com
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Rob Abbott, CEO and Executive Director at ISPOR, the Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, focuses on defining and measuring value in healthcare, including accessibility, affordability, effectiveness, and patient outcomes. HEOR (health economics and outcomes research) can provide data-driven insights to guide healthcare decision-making, reduce bias in research, and consider a broader range of factors like social determinants of health. This can improve treatment adherence, align therapies with what matters most to patients, and support the evaluation of technology used for treatments and predictive analysis of new therapies.
Rob explains, "I'm excited at both the legacy of work that health economics and outcomes research has contributed to, but I'm particularly excited about the extent to which health economics and outcomes research can provide data-driven insights to highlight health interventions that provide the best health outcomes for the investment made. This is good for managing the expenditure of public resources. Still, even more so, data-driven insights can help us lead to better health outcomes, better treatment protocols, and better health outcomes for patients."
"As health economists and a professional society representing health economists and outcomes researchers, I think we know that historically, we have defined value quite narrowly in terms of a person's physical health, for instance. But we know that increasingly the concept of whole health or a more holistic approach to health is gaining a lot of traction. So, we are actively engaged in expanding the definition of health to include access to housing, social connections and networks, healthy food and lifestyle choices, and things of that nature. So, I think we are beginning to bring some new ideas to the table in terms of how we think about health."
#ISPOR #Patients #Healthcare #DigitalHealth #GlobalHealth #HEOR #RWE #HealthEconomics #HealthAI #DrugPriceNegotiations
ISPOR.org
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Rob Abbott, CEO and Executive Director at ISPOR, the Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, focuses on defining and measuring value in healthcare, including accessibility, affordability, effectiveness, and patient outcomes. HEOR (health economics and outcomes research) can provide data-driven insights to guide healthcare decision-making, reduce bias in research, and consider a broader range of factors like social determinants of health. This can improve treatment adherence, align therapies with what matters most to patients, and support the evaluation of technology used for treatments and predictive analysis of new therapies.
Rob explains, "I'm excited at both the legacy of work that health economics and outcomes research has contributed to, but I'm particularly excited about the extent to which health economics and outcomes research can provide data-driven insights to highlight health interventions that provide the best health outcomes for the investment made. This is good for managing the expenditure of public resources. Still, even more so, data-driven insights can help us lead to better health outcomes, better treatment protocols, and better health outcomes for patients."
"As health economists and a professional society representing health economists and outcomes researchers, I think we know that historically, we have defined value quite narrowly in terms of a person's physical health, for instance. But we know that increasingly the concept of whole health or a more holistic approach to health is gaining a lot of traction. So, we are actively engaged in expanding the definition of health to include access to housing, social connections and networks, healthy food and lifestyle choices, and things of that nature. So, I think we are beginning to bring some new ideas to the table in terms of how we think about health."
#ISPOR #Patients #Healthcare #DigitalHealth #GlobalHealth #HEOR #RWE #HealthEconomics #HealthAI #DrugPriceNegotiations
ISPOR.org
Download the transcript here
Tony Goodman is the Chief Operating Officer at Adial Pharmaceuticals, which is developing a personalized therapy for alcohol use disorder based on a genetic biomarker. This unique approach combines the therapeutic AD04 with the biomarker AG Plus to identify a specific AUD patient population that responds well to this drug. Insights from this work could potentially lead to a broader understanding of the genetic and neurobiological connection underlying addiction.
Tony explains, "What makes us unique is that we're out in front of where the current prevailing wisdom of science is going in the addiction space. There's a renewed interest in personalized medicine or genetics, the study of genetic biomarkers, and things of that sort in addiction. As you know, we've been doing this for a long time. And so I think the uniqueness comes into the fact that we've coupled a therapeutic with a genetic biomarker, in this case, known as AG Plus, which we believe can produce results for patients that have this specific genotype. And you may recall that there's a lot of individual variability in addiction, and particularly at AUD, you have gender and genetic differences. You have sort of history of genetic patient history, differences, environmental factors, comorbid conditions including major depression, and you have trauma."
"A lot of patients in the AUD space have a history of PTSD or negative experiences. There's a lot of variation in severity levels, which is something else we find unique about our program because we have stratified patients into less than ten drinks per drinking day and greater than ten drinks per drinking day. We know there is a difference in the responder analysis of the patients who fall into the less than ten drinks per drinking day. And a lot of theories have been postulated as to why that may be the case."
#Adial #AlcoholUseDisorder #AUD #HealthcareInnovations #AddictionTreatment #BiotechSolutions #GeneticBiomarkers #PrecisionMedicine
adial.com
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Tony Goodman is the Chief Operating Officer at Adial Pharmaceuticals, which is developing a personalized therapy for alcohol use disorder based on a genetic biomarker. This unique approach combines the therapeutic AD04 with the biomarker AG Plus to identify a specific AUD patient population that responds well to this drug. Insights from this work could potentially lead to a broader understanding of the genetic and neurobiological connection underlying addiction.
Tony explains, "What makes us unique is that we're out in front of where the current prevailing wisdom of science is going in the addiction space. There's a renewed interest in personalized medicine or genetics, the study of genetic biomarkers, and things of that sort in addiction. As you know, we've been doing this for a long time. And so I think the uniqueness comes into the fact that we've coupled a therapeutic with a genetic biomarker, in this case, known as AG Plus, which we believe can produce results for patients that have this specific genotype. And you may recall that there's a lot of individual variability in addiction, and particularly at AUD, you have gender and genetic differences. You have sort of history of genetic patient history, differences, environmental factors, comorbid conditions including major depression, and you have trauma."
"A lot of patients in the AUD space have a history of PTSD or negative experiences. There's a lot of variation in severity levels, which is something else we find unique about our program because we have stratified patients into less than ten drinks per drinking day and greater than ten drinks per drinking day. We know there is a difference in the responder analysis of the patients who fall into the less than ten drinks per drinking day. And a lot of theories have been postulated as to why that may be the case."
#Adial #AlcoholUseDisorder #AUD #HealthcareInnovations #AddictionTreatment #BiotechSolutions #GeneticBiomarkers #PrecisionMedicine
adial.com
Download the transcript here
Shai Shen-Orr, the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of CytoReason, is developing computational disease models powered by AI to improve the probability of success in phase 2 clinical trials. Their goal is to more precisely develop drugs using AI to analyze large amounts of biological and clinical data and overcome the challenges of the complexity and uncertainty in medical information. Working with large pharmaceutical companies, CytoReason is supporting companies in their drug development efforts and helping them choose the right drug target and patient populations to study.
Shai explains, "There are many challenges. I would say that CytoReason right now isn't tackling images. And there are certainly companies in the field that have been doing this. We've been focused more on the molecular side of the data, the genes, the proteins, the cells, the genetics. But the challenge is that when you work in this field and try to do AI in biology, it's very difficult for us to know the ground truth. We don't know when we're wrong or when we're right."
"We strive to support as many diseases as we can. Where we've placed the focus now has been immunology and oncology and, particularly, immuno-oncology. We kind of grew up as a company that really can specialize in the immune system. While the immune system plays a role in almost every disease, there are particular diseases, autoimmune diseases, and oncology, where it plays a very large role."
"So now when we develop drugs, drug developers are thinking very much across the board, they're thinking about the mechanisms of the disease. They keep asking themselves where are there similar mechanisms that are triggering diseases that may be ultimately, from a physiological perspective, from a disease perspective, the patients may look very different, they may even have a different disease. Yet, from the drug perspective, what the drug is hitting, the mechanisms are similar. And so we need to support that. We need to support the ability of drug developers to think across the board. That also plays into the role of which models we prioritize."
#CytoReason #PharmaAI #AI #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials
cytoreason.com
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Shai Shen-Orr, the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of CytoReason, is developing computational disease models powered by AI to improve the probability of success in phase 2 clinical trials. Their goal is to more precisely develop drugs using AI to analyze large amounts of biological and clinical data and overcome the challenges of the complexity and uncertainty in medical information. Working with large pharmaceutical companies, CytoReason is supporting companies in their drug development efforts and helping them choose the right drug target and patient populations to study.
Shai explains, "There are many challenges. I would say that CytoReason right now isn't tackling images. And there are certainly companies in the field that have been doing this. We've been focused more on the molecular side of the data, the genes, the proteins, the cells, the genetics. But the challenge is that when you work in this field and try to do AI in biology, it's very difficult for us to know the ground truth. We don't know when we're wrong or when we're right."
"We strive to support as many diseases as we can. Where we've placed the focus now has been immunology and oncology and, particularly, immuno-oncology. We kind of grew up as a company that really can specialize in the immune system. While the immune system plays a role in almost every disease, there are particular diseases, autoimmune diseases, and oncology, where it plays a very large role."
"So now when we develop drugs, drug developers are thinking very much across the board, they're thinking about the mechanisms of the disease. They keep asking themselves where are there similar mechanisms that are triggering diseases that may be ultimately, from a physiological perspective, from a disease perspective, the patients may look very different, they may even have a different disease. Yet, from the drug perspective, what the drug is hitting, the mechanisms are similar. And so we need to support that. We need to support the ability of drug developers to think across the board. That also plays into the role of which models we prioritize."
#CytoReason #PharmaAI #AI #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials
cytoreason.com
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Josh Hix, the CEO of Season Health, has developed a food as medicine platform that combines registered dietitian services, food delivery, and medical nutrition therapy. This makes it easier for patients to access food benefits and eat healthier. The rise of GLP-1 agonist medications for weight management has highlighted the need to develop personalized nutrition plans to help patients maintain a healthy lifestyle. There is growing interest in food as medicine as it is increasingly recognized that improving nutrition can help prevent and manage many chronic health conditions.
Josh explains, "I think many people, if not most, do better with a GLP-1 and some form of medical nutrition therapy, dietician services, etc. We hear from a lot of folks that GLP-1 helps turn down the cravings and the food noise. While they're on the drug, whether that's for a month or a year, that's the best time to start to figure out how to eat better and to form some new habits, to eat more whole foods, to find things that they like in the absence of some of the cravings for more processed foods or otherwise. And start building habits around these new choices."
"What we hear from a lot of people, both patients and doctors, is that many folks are not able to stay on GLP-1s for all that long. Sometimes, their insurance coverage is short, and the insurance company will only pay for a certain period of time. Sometimes, folks are non-responders. I'm not sure that there are more studies on seniors than others that don't respond to the drugs. Some people have side effects, and some don't want to be on them forever. So, the number that I've heard most frequently cited is that only about 25% of people who start on a GLP-1 are still on it a year later. So I think that it may turn out that these are very, very powerful interventions for a quarter of patients or so, but that many people need more. It's either GLP-1 and a lifestyle intervention, some other form of therapy, or just something altogether different."
#SeasonHealth #FoodasMedicine #ChronicDiseases #Nutrition #NutritionTherapy #GLP1 #GLP1Agonist
seasonhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Josh Hix, the CEO of Season Health, has developed a food as medicine platform that combines registered dietitian services, food delivery, and medical nutrition therapy. This makes it easier for patients to access food benefits and eat healthier. The rise of GLP-1 agonist medications for weight management has highlighted the need to develop personalized nutrition plans to help patients maintain a healthy lifestyle. There is growing interest in food as medicine as it is increasingly recognized that improving nutrition can help prevent and manage many chronic health conditions.
Josh explains, "I think many people, if not most, do better with a GLP-1 and some form of medical nutrition therapy, dietician services, etc. We hear from a lot of folks that GLP-1 helps turn down the cravings and the food noise. While they're on the drug, whether that's for a month or a year, that's the best time to start to figure out how to eat better and to form some new habits, to eat more whole foods, to find things that they like in the absence of some of the cravings for more processed foods or otherwise. And start building habits around these new choices."
"What we hear from a lot of people, both patients and doctors, is that many folks are not able to stay on GLP-1s for all that long. Sometimes, their insurance coverage is short, and the insurance company will only pay for a certain period of time. Sometimes, folks are non-responders. I'm not sure that there are more studies on seniors than others that don't respond to the drugs. Some people have side effects, and some don't want to be on them forever. So, the number that I've heard most frequently cited is that only about 25% of people who start on a GLP-1 are still on it a year later. So I think that it may turn out that these are very, very powerful interventions for a quarter of patients or so, but that many people need more. It's either GLP-1 and a lifestyle intervention, some other form of therapy, or just something altogether different."
#SeasonHealth #FoodasMedicine #ChronicDiseases #Nutrition #NutritionTherapy #GLP1 #GLP1Agonist
seasonhealth.com
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Dr. Philip Räth, Managing Director at Palleos, discusses the advantages of a mid-size contract research organization compared to a large CRO. Customized solutions, strong cross-departmental cooperation, and fast decision-making are key to addressing the most significant unmet needs of clinical trial sponsors. This nimble clinical trial model, supported by machine learning, emphasizes collaboration and transparency.
Philip explains, "In the end, we are a service industry, so it's always about time, costs, and quality. So, certain structures have been established in terms of project management and how you set up trials. We have regulations in place that are very clear on how things should get done. So, I think what collaboration enables is getting something done together. Collaboration between sponsors and CROs can transform the landscape and situation where collaboration enables trust and, therefore, change is possible."
"I think that's always the biggest challenge for collaboration. You have change in the project, you have change in the clinical trial landscape in terms of maybe IT or information systems which become more prominent, or there are changes in regulation. So tackling these changes is mostly done through collaboration with a big foundation and trust so people can make bigger jumps and quicker decisions instead of just looking at what's on the contract regarding the deliverables."
#Palleos #ClinicalTrials #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization
palleos.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Philip Räth, Managing Director at Palleos, discusses the advantages of a mid-size contract research organization compared to a large CRO. Customized solutions, strong cross-departmental cooperation, and fast decision-making are key to addressing the most significant unmet needs of clinical trial sponsors. This nimble clinical trial model, supported by machine learning, emphasizes collaboration and transparency.
Philip explains, "In the end, we are a service industry, so it's always about time, costs, and quality. So, certain structures have been established in terms of project management and how you set up trials. We have regulations in place that are very clear on how things should get done. So, I think what collaboration enables is getting something done together. Collaboration between sponsors and CROs can transform the landscape and situation where collaboration enables trust and, therefore, change is possible."
"I think that's always the biggest challenge for collaboration. You have change in the project, you have change in the clinical trial landscape in terms of maybe IT or information systems which become more prominent, or there are changes in regulation. So tackling these changes is mostly done through collaboration with a big foundation and trust so people can make bigger jumps and quicker decisions instead of just looking at what's on the contract regarding the deliverables."
#Palleos #ClinicalTrials #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization
palleos.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Kristin MacGregor, a clinical psychologist and senior clinical director of Integrated Behavioral Health at LifeStance Health, the largest outpatient mental health practice in the U.S., employing nearly 7,000 clinicians across 33 states to provide therapy, psychiatry, and psychological/neuropsychological services both in-person and virtually. They work with large medical practices and health systems to help build integrated behavioral health programs using the collaborative care model. Integrating mental health into primary care settings can help address early warning signs of cognitive decline, reduce stigma, and improve collaboration between providers to address both mental and physical health needs better and manage chronic diseases.
Kristin explains, "I think anything that removes barriers to people accessing mental health care when they actually need it is a positive thing. The research shows that it takes 11 years, on average, between the time someone experiences a mental health symptom and the time that they get connected to care. And that is just far, far too long. There are, of course, many reasons for this. Still, one of them is that the longer time a person has to wait between the time they get referred to a mental health provider to the time that they have an appointment, the longer that time, the more likely it is the patient might actually talk themselves out of the appointment."
"It's very challenging to do that in the way that the physical healthcare system and the mental healthcare system are currently set up. We're very siloed. There's not a lot of shared data that goes back and forth between PCP and mental health providers. However, in these integrated care settings, which I feel very strongly about, collaboration is incredibly important because there is something to learn. There's something to learn as a mental health provider about how physical symptoms can manifest themselves and about how chronic conditions can impact a patient."
"But, bi-directionally, PCPs also really need to understand how mental health symptoms can present in different age groups and different cultures and ethnicities, and things like that. And when you're working side by side together on shared treatment plans, it's just so much easier to learn those things from one another as opposed to continuing to perpetuate these sorts of silos that we currently operate in with very little to no collaboration between the two parties."
#LifeStanceHealth #MentalHealthMatters #LFST #MentalHealth
lifestance.com
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Dr. Kristin MacGregor, a clinical psychologist and senior clinical director of Integrated Behavioral Health at LifeStance Health, the largest outpatient mental health practice in the U.S., employing nearly 7,000 clinicians across 33 states to provide therapy, psychiatry, and psychological/neuropsychological services both in-person and virtually. They work with large medical practices and health systems to help build integrated behavioral health programs using the collaborative care model. Integrating mental health into primary care settings can help address early warning signs of cognitive decline, reduce stigma, and improve collaboration between providers to address both mental and physical health needs better and manage chronic diseases.
Kristin explains, "I think anything that removes barriers to people accessing mental health care when they actually need it is a positive thing. The research shows that it takes 11 years, on average, between the time someone experiences a mental health symptom and the time that they get connected to care. And that is just far, far too long. There are, of course, many reasons for this. Still, one of them is that the longer time a person has to wait between the time they get referred to a mental health provider to the time that they have an appointment, the longer that time, the more likely it is the patient might actually talk themselves out of the appointment."
"It's very challenging to do that in the way that the physical healthcare system and the mental healthcare system are currently set up. We're very siloed. There's not a lot of shared data that goes back and forth between PCP and mental health providers. However, in these integrated care settings, which I feel very strongly about, collaboration is incredibly important because there is something to learn. There's something to learn as a mental health provider about how physical symptoms can manifest themselves and about how chronic conditions can impact a patient."
"But, bi-directionally, PCPs also really need to understand how mental health symptoms can present in different age groups and different cultures and ethnicities, and things like that. And when you're working side by side together on shared treatment plans, it's just so much easier to learn those things from one another as opposed to continuing to perpetuate these sorts of silos that we currently operate in with very little to no collaboration between the two parties."
#LifeStanceHealth #MentalHealthMatters #LFST #MentalHealth
lifestance.com
Download the transcript here
Meri Beckwith, Co-Founder of Lindus Health, aims to transform clinical trials by changing the CRO model to leverage technology to improve patient recruitment, retention, and the experience of the sponsors and trial participants. While the compensation model for contract research organizations is often not aligned with trial outcomes, Lindus ties compensation to hitting milestones and outcomes. They emphasize the need for more flexible trial design and a decentralized and hybrid approach to reduce participant burden and bring drugs to market sooner.
Meri explains, "This comes back to how contract research organizations are paid and compensated where they’re typically paid per hour of input, and it’s not at all tied to the outputs being speed, patient experience, or quality of data. And so we’ve created this monster over the last 10 or 20 years where the cost of clinical trials keeps going up. Patient experience certainly seems to be getting worse. Above all, patients suffer because the direct experience in clinical trials is worse. Still, they have to wait longer and ultimately pay more for new treatments as the cost of those clinical trials is ultimately passed on to patients."
"So essentially, we’re responsible for running the entire clinical trial end to end, but we do that in a very different way and with a very different business model from that of industry incumbents. On the business model front, we provide completely fixed costs for everything and our customers, the companies developing the drugs, only pay us when we hit milestones. In other words, our compensation is tied to the actual trial outcomes, moving the trial along, et cetera. The second difference is under the hood, we have the same level of concierge service - folks who oversee and design the clinical trials, medics and clinicians who are looking after patients. We also have our technology platform to help us find the right patients, get them enrolled in the right trial quickly, and monitor and capture the data as we go – leading to higher quality data."
#LindusHealth #ClinicalResearch #CRO #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #DrugDevelopment
lindushealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Meri Beckwith, Co-Founder of Lindus Health, aims to transform clinical trials by changing the CRO model to leverage technology to improve patient recruitment, retention, and the experience of the sponsors and trial participants. While the compensation model for contract research organizations is often not aligned with trial outcomes, Lindus ties compensation to hitting milestones and outcomes. They emphasize the need for more flexible trial design and a decentralized and hybrid approach to reduce participant burden and bring drugs to market sooner.
Meri explains, "This comes back to how contract research organizations are paid and compensated where they’re typically paid per hour of input, and it’s not at all tied to the outputs being speed, patient experience, or quality of data. And so we’ve created this monster over the last 10 or 20 years where the cost of clinical trials keeps going up. Patient experience certainly seems to be getting worse. Above all, patients suffer because the direct experience in clinical trials is worse. Still, they have to wait longer and ultimately pay more for new treatments as the cost of those clinical trials is ultimately passed on to patients."
"So essentially, we’re responsible for running the entire clinical trial end to end, but we do that in a very different way and with a very different business model from that of industry incumbents. On the business model front, we provide completely fixed costs for everything and our customers, the companies developing the drugs, only pay us when we hit milestones. In other words, our compensation is tied to the actual trial outcomes, moving the trial along, et cetera. The second difference is under the hood, we have the same level of concierge service - folks who oversee and design the clinical trials, medics and clinicians who are looking after patients. We also have our technology platform to help us find the right patients, get them enrolled in the right trial quickly, and monitor and capture the data as we go – leading to higher quality data."
#LindusHealth #ClinicalResearch #CRO #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #DrugDevelopment
lindushealth.com
Download the transcript here
Greg explains, "For many of these cancers, determining the right cancer treatment is the difference between life and death. When we look at how we treat cancer today, what hasn’t changed is that there’ll be a biopsy. So, they take a piece of the tumor out and send that tumor to a pathologist. Pathologists will take that tumor and put it in a glass slide. They usually use what’s called H&E, they kind of stain it to read it better. But basically, a pathologist is looking under a microscope at the cells, and that’s how we diagnose cancer. That’s the formal way that we diagnose cancer. And so the pathologist will send a report back to the oncologist at that point saying, yes, your patient has cancer."
"Now, once the pathologist has diagnosed the cancer, they can just scan that slide or take a picture of the slide and upload it to our cloud-based software. They get an immediate result on the presence or absence of the particular biomarker."
"For instance, like ovarian cancer in the guidelines in ovarian cancer, if the patient is positive for ovarian cancer, she’s supposed to get a biomarker test for a biomarker called HRD. Now, we can do that immediately. When that pathologist gives the report back to the oncologist, now it can say your patient has ovarian cancer, she’s stage three, and she’s positive or negative for HRD. And the oncologist, on the day they tell the patient that they have cancer, can also tell them, you have this biomarker, and based on the guidelines, here’s the treatment we’re going to start you on tomorrow. In essence, we can get the patient on the appropriate frontline therapy weeks ahead of time. And at the end of the day, cancer is a race against time."
#PrecisionOncology #PrecisionMedicine #AI #Cancer #BioMarker #Pathologists #Oncologists #Tumors
io9.ai
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Greg Hamilton, CEO of io9, aims to enable precision oncology treatments for patients globally. The company has developed an AI-powered biomarker analysis platform called OncoGaze that can rapidly analyze digital pathology images to identify cancer biomarkers. This enables pathologists to efficiently and quickly digitize and analyze tumor samples and oncologists to start patients on the appropriate targeted therapy much faster.
Greg explains, "For many of these cancers, determining the right cancer treatment is the difference between life and death. When we look at how we treat cancer today, what hasn’t changed is that there’ll be a biopsy. So, they take a piece of the tumor out and send that tumor to a pathologist. Pathologists will take that tumor and put it in a glass slide. They usually use what’s called H&E, they kind of stain it to read it better. But basically, a pathologist is looking under a microscope at the cells, and that’s how we diagnose cancer. That’s the formal way that we diagnose cancer. And so the pathologist will send a report back to the oncologist at that point saying, yes, your patient has cancer."
"Now, once the pathologist has diagnosed the cancer, they can just scan that slide or take a picture of the slide and upload it to our cloud-based software. They get an immediate result on the presence or absence of the particular biomarker."
"For instance, like ovarian cancer in the guidelines in ovarian cancer, if the patient is positive for ovarian cancer, she’s supposed to get a biomarker test for a biomarker called HRD. Now, we can do that immediately. When that pathologist gives the report back to the oncologist, now it can say your patient has ovarian cancer, she’s stage three, and she’s positive or negative for HRD. And the oncologist, on the day they tell the patient that they have cancer, can also tell them, you have this biomarker, and based on the guidelines, here’s the treatment we’re going to start you on tomorrow. In essence, we can get the patient on the appropriate frontline therapy weeks ahead of time. And at the end of the day, cancer is a race against time."
#PrecisionOncology #PrecisionMedicine #AI #Cancer #BioMarker #Pathologists #Oncologists #Tumors
io9.ai
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jeng Her, Founder and CEO of AP Biosciences, is developing T-Cube bispecific antibodies that can target cancer cells and engage T-cells to kill them more effectively and safely than existing treatments. The company is focused on treating hard-to-treat cancers such as HER2-positive breast cancer, lung cancer, head and neck cancer, and pancreatic cancer. The T-Cube bispecific antibodies use CD137 instead of CD3 to activate T-cells, which can lead to better efficacy and safety compared to other T-cell engager antibodies.
Jeng explains, "So why not just take two, let's say, monospecific antibodies and then put them together and give them to the patient in the combination therapy? Instead, we wanted to develop bispecific antibodies by fusing two antibodies together into one single molecule. So what's the advantage? Eventually, what it comes down to is the therapeutic window of bispecific antibodies. This means you want your antibodies, your bispecific, to have better efficacy, better safety, and sometimes lower cost of goods since you are only expressing or producing one single drug molecule. So, the way we look at bispecific and the real advantage is not just the additive effect. It's not even the synergistic effect, which means we would like our bispecific antibodies to do something combination therapy cannot do. And that's the value of our bispecific antibodies."
"Basically, we have two technology platforms. The first one is an antibody phage display library. We call it Omni-mAb. This library is a live library, which means it has more than 100 billion antibody sequences. That's a collection of the 100 billion sequences. And whatever antigen, whatever conformation of the structure of antigens you have, you could isolate a very high-affinity antibody from the library in probably 4-6 weeks."
#APBiosciences #Antibody #Biotech #Bispecific #ImmunoOncology #Cancer #SolidTumors
APBioInc.com
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Dr. Jeng Her, Founder and CEO of AP Biosciences, is developing T-Cube bispecific antibodies that can target cancer cells and engage T-cells to kill them more effectively and safely than existing treatments. The company is focused on treating hard-to-treat cancers such as HER2-positive breast cancer, lung cancer, head and neck cancer, and pancreatic cancer. The T-Cube bispecific antibodies use CD137 instead of CD3 to activate T-cells, which can lead to better efficacy and safety compared to other T-cell engager antibodies.
Jeng explains, "So why not just take two, let's say, monospecific antibodies and then put them together and give them to the patient in the combination therapy? Instead, we wanted to develop bispecific antibodies by fusing two antibodies together into one single molecule. So what's the advantage? Eventually, what it comes down to is the therapeutic window of bispecific antibodies. This means you want your antibodies, your bispecific, to have better efficacy, better safety, and sometimes lower cost of goods since you are only expressing or producing one single drug molecule. So, the way we look at bispecific and the real advantage is not just the additive effect. It's not even the synergistic effect, which means we would like our bispecific antibodies to do something combination therapy cannot do. And that's the value of our bispecific antibodies."
"Basically, we have two technology platforms. The first one is an antibody phage display library. We call it Omni-mAb. This library is a live library, which means it has more than 100 billion antibody sequences. That's a collection of the 100 billion sequences. And whatever antigen, whatever conformation of the structure of antigens you have, you could isolate a very high-affinity antibody from the library in probably 4-6 weeks."
#APBiosciences #Antibody #Biotech #Bispecific #ImmunoOncology #Cancer #SolidTumors
APBioInc.com
Download the transcript here
Sonia Veluchamy, CEO and Co-founder of Celegence discusses the increasing regulatory requirements and complexities faced by the medical device industry. Celegence works with companies to streamline their regulatory data management processes and adopt advanced technology solutions to manage compliance efficiently. Medical device companies are often slower than pharmaceutical companies to recognize the need to invest in data governance and process optimization to maintain compliance and avoid fines, delays in product approval, and loss of market access.
Sonia explains, "The awareness is there, but medical device companies have traditionally been a bit slower in adapting and bringing in consultancy, expertise, and technology. That is partly because the sector’s regulations have not evolved at the same pace as in the pharmaceutical industry. More recently, though, the regulations have become more complex. For instance, the requirements under the EU MDR- Medical Device Regulation – are very heavy in terms of the information that needs to be submitted on an ongoing basis. So, the industry is starting to recognize what it takes to maintain documentation, specifically detailing post-market surveillance activities, which is required to be compliant with the regulations worldwide."
"When you think about how medical devices are evolving, you get a sense of the growing complexity. For instance, there is now software that serves as a medical device. You also have AI being embedded into medical devices. But ultimately, it’s about ensuring that the products placed on the market are safe and efficacious. The ability to prove that via proper documentation is important. That, in turn, enables different regulatory authorities to feel comfortable with the products that are being approved and being marketed in each region."
#Celegence #RegulatoryAffairs #RegTech #RegulatoryStrategy #Pharmaceuticals
celegence.com
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Sonia Veluchamy, CEO and Co-founder of Celegence discusses the increasing regulatory requirements and complexities faced by the medical device industry. Celegence works with companies to streamline their regulatory data management processes and adopt advanced technology solutions to manage compliance efficiently. Medical device companies are often slower than pharmaceutical companies to recognize the need to invest in data governance and process optimization to maintain compliance and avoid fines, delays in product approval, and loss of market access.
Sonia explains, "The awareness is there, but medical device companies have traditionally been a bit slower in adapting and bringing in consultancy, expertise, and technology. That is partly because the sector’s regulations have not evolved at the same pace as in the pharmaceutical industry. More recently, though, the regulations have become more complex. For instance, the requirements under the EU MDR- Medical Device Regulation – are very heavy in terms of the information that needs to be submitted on an ongoing basis. So, the industry is starting to recognize what it takes to maintain documentation, specifically detailing post-market surveillance activities, which is required to be compliant with the regulations worldwide."
"When you think about how medical devices are evolving, you get a sense of the growing complexity. For instance, there is now software that serves as a medical device. You also have AI being embedded into medical devices. But ultimately, it’s about ensuring that the products placed on the market are safe and efficacious. The ability to prove that via proper documentation is important. That, in turn, enables different regulatory authorities to feel comfortable with the products that are being approved and being marketed in each region."
#Celegence #RegulatoryAffairs #RegTech #RegulatoryStrategy #Pharmaceuticals
celegence.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ethan Korngold is the chief medical officer and divisional vice president of medical affairs at Abbott’s vascular business, which has developed a dissolvable stent technology to treat peripheral artery disease. PAD disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities and is often overlooked because early symptoms can be mistaken for other conditions. The Esprit BTK stent can help open up the smaller arteries below the knee and improve blood flow to the legs and feet to treat PAD and prevent severe complications and amputations.
Ethan explains, "So peripheral artery disease refers to blockages in the arteries to the legs. When those blockages build up, it’s because of cholesterol typically that builds up in the walls of the artery and causes limited blood flow. Initially, people can have cramping or soreness in their legs when they walk. That gets better with rest. As the blockages get worse, people can develop infections, ulcers, or non-healing wounds of their legs with what we call chronic limb-threatening ischemia. And ultimately, that can put people at risk for amputation."
"A lot of people aren’t aware of how common it is, and a lot of people aren’t attuned to the symptoms of it. People just sort of slow down. They do less and less, and they wind up being limited in their activities, and that really affects their health and their life, and ultimately, that can threaten their limbs. One of the things that Abbott is emphatic about is spreading awareness of the disease, trying to educate patients, trying to educate families, and trying to educate physicians so that people are more on guard for looking out for the signs and symptoms of the disease."
"We have been working at Abbott for many years on techniques to help open up these blockages in the arteries of the legs. They start at about the belly button and go all the way down to the toes. At the belly button, the iliac arteries are quite large. They are about a half an inch in diameter. And then, as they go down all the way to the toes, they get narrower and narrower so that they’re about a quarter of an inch to an eighth of an inch in diameter. There are a variety of different techniques to get through those blockages, such as using catheters, and wires balloons, and stents and scaffolds to help open up those arteries and change people’s lives. One of the biggest challenges in this space has been those smaller arteries below the knee."
#Abbott #AbbottVascular #PeripheralArteryDisease #PAD #DissolvableStentTechnology
abbott.com
PAD-info.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ethan Korngold is the chief medical officer and divisional vice president of medical affairs at Abbott’s vascular business, which has developed a dissolvable stent technology to treat peripheral artery disease. PAD disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities and is often overlooked because early symptoms can be mistaken for other conditions. The Esprit BTK stent can help open up the smaller arteries below the knee and improve blood flow to the legs and feet to treat PAD and prevent severe complications and amputations.
Ethan explains, "So peripheral artery disease refers to blockages in the arteries to the legs. When those blockages build up, it’s because of cholesterol typically that builds up in the walls of the artery and causes limited blood flow. Initially, people can have cramping or soreness in their legs when they walk. That gets better with rest. As the blockages get worse, people can develop infections, ulcers, or non-healing wounds of their legs with what we call chronic limb-threatening ischemia. And ultimately, that can put people at risk for amputation."
"A lot of people aren’t aware of how common it is, and a lot of people aren’t attuned to the symptoms of it. People just sort of slow down. They do less and less, and they wind up being limited in their activities, and that really affects their health and their life, and ultimately, that can threaten their limbs. One of the things that Abbott is emphatic about is spreading awareness of the disease, trying to educate patients, trying to educate families, and trying to educate physicians so that people are more on guard for looking out for the signs and symptoms of the disease."
"We have been working at Abbott for many years on techniques to help open up these blockages in the arteries of the legs. They start at about the belly button and go all the way down to the toes. At the belly button, the iliac arteries are quite large. They are about a half an inch in diameter. And then, as they go down all the way to the toes, they get narrower and narrower so that they’re about a quarter of an inch to an eighth of an inch in diameter. There are a variety of different techniques to get through those blockages, such as using catheters, and wires balloons, and stents and scaffolds to help open up those arteries and change people’s lives. One of the biggest challenges in this space has been those smaller arteries below the knee."
#Abbott #AbbottVascular #PeripheralArteryDisease #PAD #DissolvableStentTechnology
abbott.com
PAD-info.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jonathon Hill, VP of Science and Technology and Co-Founder of Wasatch Bio Labs has developed the Next-Generation Sequencing 3.0, NESSI-Seq platform, which can analyze blood to detect epigenetic changes and provide insights into current health and predisposition for diseases. This native-read third-generation sequencing tool can provide longer sequence reads and analyze epigenetic modifications to DNA. Epigenetics can change over time in response to diet, environment, and lifestyle. Advanced genetic testing has the potential to provide biomarkers to support personalized medicine for earlier detection and tailored interventions.
Jonathon explains, "The biggest limitation with the Illumina sequencing was that it was only short sequences, so you had to get a lot of them to stitch them together and figure out what the human genome looked like. With this third-generation sequencing, we can get much longer reads, sometimes to the order of a hundred thousand nucleotide bases at a time. So we get these big complex reads."
"The other thing we can do now with this third-generation sequencing is look at certain chemical modifications the body makes to the DNA to help regulate that DNA and help the body function. And looking at those chemical modifications can tell us a lot about someone's health. It can tell us their age, and it can tell us what disease they might have. We can get a lot of information out of that that just wasn't available to us in the previous two generations."
"If you think of classical genetics, it's the DNA sequence and the mutations you might have that might give you a propensity for the disease, etc. Those don't change throughout your life. Every cell in your body has that exact same sequence from birth until death. It never changes. But the epigenetics, these chemical modifications change. They change as you age. They are different in different tissues and organs within your body, changing even in response to pathogens or certain disease states. So they have a lot of information that we would not get otherwise."
#WasatchBioLabs #Epigenetics #GeneticResearch #PersonalizedMedicine #DNAInnovation #GeneticTesting #NextGenSequencing #BiotechBreakthroughs #GeneRegulation #HealthcareInnovation #FutureofMedicine
Wasatchbiolabs.com
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Dr. Jonathon Hill, VP of Science and Technology and Co-Founder of Wasatch Bio Labs has developed the Next-Generation Sequencing 3.0, NESSI-Seq platform, which can analyze blood to detect epigenetic changes and provide insights into current health and predisposition for diseases. This native-read third-generation sequencing tool can provide longer sequence reads and analyze epigenetic modifications to DNA. Epigenetics can change over time in response to diet, environment, and lifestyle. Advanced genetic testing has the potential to provide biomarkers to support personalized medicine for earlier detection and tailored interventions.
Jonathon explains, "The biggest limitation with the Illumina sequencing was that it was only short sequences, so you had to get a lot of them to stitch them together and figure out what the human genome looked like. With this third-generation sequencing, we can get much longer reads, sometimes to the order of a hundred thousand nucleotide bases at a time. So we get these big complex reads."
"The other thing we can do now with this third-generation sequencing is look at certain chemical modifications the body makes to the DNA to help regulate that DNA and help the body function. And looking at those chemical modifications can tell us a lot about someone's health. It can tell us their age, and it can tell us what disease they might have. We can get a lot of information out of that that just wasn't available to us in the previous two generations."
"If you think of classical genetics, it's the DNA sequence and the mutations you might have that might give you a propensity for the disease, etc. Those don't change throughout your life. Every cell in your body has that exact same sequence from birth until death. It never changes. But the epigenetics, these chemical modifications change. They change as you age. They are different in different tissues and organs within your body, changing even in response to pathogens or certain disease states. So they have a lot of information that we would not get otherwise."
#WasatchBioLabs #Epigenetics #GeneticResearch #PersonalizedMedicine #DNAInnovation #GeneticTesting #NextGenSequencing #BiotechBreakthroughs #GeneRegulation #HealthcareInnovation #FutureofMedicine
Wasatchbiolabs.com
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Bob Zemke, Director at Extreme Networks, provides network infrastructure and security solutions to help hospitals build resilient and secure networks. Critical security challenges hospitals face in managing networks include the proliferation of connected devices and the vulnerability of medical devices to cyber threats. In addition to education and collaboration between stakeholders, strategies for reducing security risks include network segmentation, AI-powered monitoring, and behavior analysis to help hospitals proactively address possible threats.
Bob explains, "There are multiple factors that we take into play. First, how do we build a resilient network that can handle the amount of devices and traffic types? How do we prioritize the type of traffic flowing through, like the wires of the infrastructure and the wireless connectivity? And then how do we understand through analytics the behavior of those applications so that the healthcare organization, the security team can understand what is standard traffic or potentially rogue behaviors or traffic? What is performance impacting? So, visibility becomes just as important as the segmentation of device types and users on a network."
"It's a security and performance risk. And if you think back to guest WiFi, when we started designing this about 20 years ago, we always laughed. It was like, well, we're building it, but how many people will bring a laptop into a hospital and want to connect as a guest user? Or even how many wireless devices compared to wired would be in a hospital network. Fast forward 20 years, you now have more mobile or wireless connected devices than wired in a given hospital network. So, you have to deal with RF performance management and security. And then you have the personal devices, which again, now with the mobile phone, people expect it."
#ExtremeNetworks #Cybersecurity #Hospitals #CyberThreats #MedicalDevices #AI #NetworkSecurity #HospitalNetworkSecurity #SecurityRisks #HealthTech #EnhancePatientCare #WiFi
extremenetworks.com
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Bob Zemke, Director at Extreme Networks, provides network infrastructure and security solutions to help hospitals build resilient and secure networks. Critical security challenges hospitals face in managing networks include the proliferation of connected devices and the vulnerability of medical devices to cyber threats. In addition to education and collaboration between stakeholders, strategies for reducing security risks include network segmentation, AI-powered monitoring, and behavior analysis to help hospitals proactively address possible threats.
Bob explains, "There are multiple factors that we take into play. First, how do we build a resilient network that can handle the amount of devices and traffic types? How do we prioritize the type of traffic flowing through, like the wires of the infrastructure and the wireless connectivity? And then how do we understand through analytics the behavior of those applications so that the healthcare organization, the security team can understand what is standard traffic or potentially rogue behaviors or traffic? What is performance impacting? So, visibility becomes just as important as the segmentation of device types and users on a network."
"It's a security and performance risk. And if you think back to guest WiFi, when we started designing this about 20 years ago, we always laughed. It was like, well, we're building it, but how many people will bring a laptop into a hospital and want to connect as a guest user? Or even how many wireless devices compared to wired would be in a hospital network. Fast forward 20 years, you now have more mobile or wireless connected devices than wired in a given hospital network. So, you have to deal with RF performance management and security. And then you have the personal devices, which again, now with the mobile phone, people expect it."
#ExtremeNetworks #Cybersecurity #Hospitals #CyberThreats #MedicalDevices #AI #NetworkSecurity #HospitalNetworkSecurity #SecurityRisks #HealthTech #EnhancePatientCare #WiFi
extremenetworks.com
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Wardah Inam is the CEO of Overjet, which uses AI to analyze dental X-rays to help dentists provide more comprehensive and objective diagnoses and treatment recommendations for patients. The Overjet platform can quantify dental disease progression and provide visualizations to help patients better understand their oral health. The use of AI in dentistry can improve patient outcomes, practice workflows, and the ability of dentists to communicate with patients about personalized data-driven care.
Wardah explains, "One of our main challenges is that the dentist and the patients speak different languages when talking to each other. For example, a dentist licenses dental X-rays to communicate. Patients don't read X-rays, so they do not understand what the dentist says. So, for example, they might say, Hey, I see a radiolucency on tooth number four. The patient doesn't know what tooth number four is, and they don't know what atypical radiolucency is. And then they're squinting and trying to see what the dentist sees. And if you're not trained in reading dental X-rays, you don't see much. You see a lot of gray, white, and black, which causes confusion and lack of acceptance around the treatment and, in the end, what patients think. If it doesn't hurt, I don't need the treatment."
"Overjet analyzes the dental data and identifies disease similarly how a dentist would, but we quantify the disease as well. So, for example, rather than just saying that there is bone loss, we'll measure the bone levels and say there are four millimeters of bone loss. And that helps look at what this state is. But also, you can start to say, how has it progressed since the last time you came and has there been a more longitudinal progression of disease as well?"
#Overjet #Dentistry #Dentists #OralHealth #Xrays #DentalAI
overjet.com
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Wardah Inam is the CEO of Overjet, which uses AI to analyze dental X-rays to help dentists provide more comprehensive and objective diagnoses and treatment recommendations for patients. The Overjet platform can quantify dental disease progression and provide visualizations to help patients better understand their oral health. The use of AI in dentistry can improve patient outcomes, practice workflows, and the ability of dentists to communicate with patients about personalized data-driven care.
Wardah explains, "One of our main challenges is that the dentist and the patients speak different languages when talking to each other. For example, a dentist licenses dental X-rays to communicate. Patients don't read X-rays, so they do not understand what the dentist says. So, for example, they might say, Hey, I see a radiolucency on tooth number four. The patient doesn't know what tooth number four is, and they don't know what atypical radiolucency is. And then they're squinting and trying to see what the dentist sees. And if you're not trained in reading dental X-rays, you don't see much. You see a lot of gray, white, and black, which causes confusion and lack of acceptance around the treatment and, in the end, what patients think. If it doesn't hurt, I don't need the treatment."
"Overjet analyzes the dental data and identifies disease similarly how a dentist would, but we quantify the disease as well. So, for example, rather than just saying that there is bone loss, we'll measure the bone levels and say there are four millimeters of bone loss. And that helps look at what this state is. But also, you can start to say, how has it progressed since the last time you came and has there been a more longitudinal progression of disease as well?"
#Overjet #Dentistry #Dentists #OralHealth #Xrays #DentalAI
overjet.com
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Dan Gallagher, Vice President for Strategy and Partnerships at Lyric, describes how Lyric uses advanced analytics to improve the coordination of benefits by proactively identifying coverage changes, verifying eligibility at the time of service, and transitioning patients to the correct payer. Coordination of benefits can be complex due to job changes, data lags, and situations like workplace accidents where multiple payers may be involved. Improving coordination of benefits can reduce patients' out-of-pocket costs and get providers paid faster.
Dan explains, "Simply stated, coordination of benefits is determining who or what entity has financial responsibility for an individual during a course of treatment. So, for a large portion of the population, it's pretty straightforward. You may have commercial insurance, and you may have one insurance card for your family, but there's not a lot to coordinate for other members of the population. You may have Medicare and you're still working over the age of 65. You may be under the age of 65 and have some conditions that make you Medicare eligible. You may have another spouse or two insured in the same family."
"Then there are always remnant issues like work comp. Maybe you got hurt at work, had a motor vehicle accident, or had a slip and fall where there's another party responsible for the medical bills. Coordination of benefits is the process of identifying all the parties that might have a responsibility and then putting those parties in the right order so that the member pays the correct amount if they owe anything and that all the other parties pay their fair share."
#LyricAI #CoordinationofBenefits #HealthInsurance #MedicalBills
lyric.ai
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Dan Gallagher, Vice President for Strategy and Partnerships at Lyric, describes how Lyric uses advanced analytics to improve the coordination of benefits by proactively identifying coverage changes, verifying eligibility at the time of service, and transitioning patients to the correct payer. Coordination of benefits can be complex due to job changes, data lags, and situations like workplace accidents where multiple payers may be involved. Improving coordination of benefits can reduce patients' out-of-pocket costs and get providers paid faster.
Dan explains, "Simply stated, coordination of benefits is determining who or what entity has financial responsibility for an individual during a course of treatment. So, for a large portion of the population, it's pretty straightforward. You may have commercial insurance, and you may have one insurance card for your family, but there's not a lot to coordinate for other members of the population. You may have Medicare and you're still working over the age of 65. You may be under the age of 65 and have some conditions that make you Medicare eligible. You may have another spouse or two insured in the same family."
"Then there are always remnant issues like work comp. Maybe you got hurt at work, had a motor vehicle accident, or had a slip and fall where there's another party responsible for the medical bills. Coordination of benefits is the process of identifying all the parties that might have a responsibility and then putting those parties in the right order so that the member pays the correct amount if they owe anything and that all the other parties pay their fair share."
#LyricAI #CoordinationofBenefits #HealthInsurance #MedicalBills
lyric.ai
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Yoona Kim, CEO of Arine, a medication intelligence company, works with health plans and payers to ensure safe and effective medication therapy for patients. The Arine platform addresses polypharmacy, medication mismanagement, drug interactions, and proper dosing. Using AI and integrated databases, Arine is identifying patients who would benefit from medication management and shifting from reactive to proactive and preventative care.
Yoona explains, "Our clients are health plans and risk-bearing providers. So these are the payers of the healthcare system, those who bear the financial burden of healthcare costs because medications can be very powerful, they can cure, or they can lead to detrimental consequences and even unnecessary fatalities and high-cost events like hospitalizations. So it's important to these customers to make sure that their members are on the right medications to avoid these unnecessary clinical and financial outcomes."
"I think it pertains to all of these situations. One of our biggest problems in healthcare is that 66% of Americans are on some prescription drugs, and in fact, more than 50% use more than three drugs a year. We need to search through a population and find who would benefit from a medication change with the population-based approach. This is why we spent so much time at Arine building our patient targeting model to identify in which patients would a small medication change lead to a difference in outcomes."
"We're looking through all that patient's data, their medication history, their medical history, their demographics, and what their current clinical social, and behavioral risk factors are so we can identify that they're on the best medications, the safest and most effective for where they are in their health trajectory today. And, of course, the challenge is that their patient evolving health needs constantly change over time. On top of that, we have new medications being approved constantly and new advances being made. Our platform puts all this information together so that we can ensure that the best medication regimen is prescribed to the patients."
#Arine #Medication #MedicationManagement #MedicationMismanagement #Prescription #SDOH #ArtificialIntelligence #Polypharmacy #Deprescribing #Overprescribing #MedicationAdherence
Arine.io
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Yoona Kim, CEO of Arine, a medication intelligence company, works with health plans and payers to ensure safe and effective medication therapy for patients. The Arine platform addresses polypharmacy, medication mismanagement, drug interactions, and proper dosing. Using AI and integrated databases, Arine is identifying patients who would benefit from medication management and shifting from reactive to proactive and preventative care.
Yoona explains, "Our clients are health plans and risk-bearing providers. So these are the payers of the healthcare system, those who bear the financial burden of healthcare costs because medications can be very powerful, they can cure, or they can lead to detrimental consequences and even unnecessary fatalities and high-cost events like hospitalizations. So it's important to these customers to make sure that their members are on the right medications to avoid these unnecessary clinical and financial outcomes."
"I think it pertains to all of these situations. One of our biggest problems in healthcare is that 66% of Americans are on some prescription drugs, and in fact, more than 50% use more than three drugs a year. We need to search through a population and find who would benefit from a medication change with the population-based approach. This is why we spent so much time at Arine building our patient targeting model to identify in which patients would a small medication change lead to a difference in outcomes."
"We're looking through all that patient's data, their medication history, their medical history, their demographics, and what their current clinical social, and behavioral risk factors are so we can identify that they're on the best medications, the safest and most effective for where they are in their health trajectory today. And, of course, the challenge is that their patient evolving health needs constantly change over time. On top of that, we have new medications being approved constantly and new advances being made. Our platform puts all this information together so that we can ensure that the best medication regimen is prescribed to the patients."
#Arine #Medication #MedicationManagement #MedicationMismanagement #Prescription #SDOH #ArtificialIntelligence #Polypharmacy #Deprescribing #Overprescribing #MedicationAdherence
Arine.io
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Andrew Spier is the Vice President of Advanced Cyber Solutions and Commercial Services at Core4ce, a company specializing in protecting healthcare organizations and critical infrastructure from cyber threats. The healthcare environment has outdated software, weak access controls, insecure network connectivity, and a large Internet of Things network with many connected medical devices vulnerable to cyberattacks. Core4ce provides cybersecurity services, risk assessment, and education so that healthcare organizations can be more proactive in recognizing vulnerabilities and protecting against cyber criminals.
Andrew explains, "Core4ce is a data-centric national and enterprise security organization primarily specializing in protecting the nation and healthcare organizations. Critical infrastructure is mostly from cyber threats, which could be insider threats, cybersecurity or cyber criminals, or adversarial nation-states. We also provide a full suite of cybersecurity solutions in support of those customers."
"I think that primarily in the healthcare environment, individually, you've got a giant IoT footprint, and for the listeners at home, IoT is the internet of things. This creates some challenges for healthcare organizations and medical device providers. The cybersecurity services that those customers typically use are vulnerabilities, vulnerability assessments, network assessments, network design, and penetration testing. I mean everything from policy reviews. The list goes on and on, but it's full spectrum of cybersecurity services."
"If you think about the complications associated with a number of IoT or medical devices inside an organization or a hospital, it can be quite daunting. But many of the fixes are available. It's just a lot of time, bandwidth, and budget, and periodically, it's just a lack of staff and knowledge. Frankly, that's where we can come in and supplement, educate, help get them remediated, get them set up, protect their network, and work with them on an ongoing educational or iterative basis."
#Core4ce #HealthcareCybersecurity #MedicalDevices #MedicalDeviceSecurity #HealthcareThreats #IoT
core4ce.com
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Andrew Spier is the Vice President of Advanced Cyber Solutions and Commercial Services at Core4ce, a company specializing in protecting healthcare organizations and critical infrastructure from cyber threats. The healthcare environment has outdated software, weak access controls, insecure network connectivity, and a large Internet of Things network with many connected medical devices vulnerable to cyberattacks. Core4ce provides cybersecurity services, risk assessment, and education so that healthcare organizations can be more proactive in recognizing vulnerabilities and protecting against cyber criminals.
Andrew explains, "Core4ce is a data-centric national and enterprise security organization primarily specializing in protecting the nation and healthcare organizations. Critical infrastructure is mostly from cyber threats, which could be insider threats, cybersecurity or cyber criminals, or adversarial nation-states. We also provide a full suite of cybersecurity solutions in support of those customers."
"I think that primarily in the healthcare environment, individually, you've got a giant IoT footprint, and for the listeners at home, IoT is the internet of things. This creates some challenges for healthcare organizations and medical device providers. The cybersecurity services that those customers typically use are vulnerabilities, vulnerability assessments, network assessments, network design, and penetration testing. I mean everything from policy reviews. The list goes on and on, but it's full spectrum of cybersecurity services."
"If you think about the complications associated with a number of IoT or medical devices inside an organization or a hospital, it can be quite daunting. But many of the fixes are available. It's just a lot of time, bandwidth, and budget, and periodically, it's just a lack of staff and knowledge. Frankly, that's where we can come in and supplement, educate, help get them remediated, get them set up, protect their network, and work with them on an ongoing educational or iterative basis."
#Core4ce #HealthcareCybersecurity #MedicalDevices #MedicalDeviceSecurity #HealthcareThreats #IoT
core4ce.com
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Dr. Sam Lee, Co-CEO of Cocrystal Pharma, is an expert in developing small-molecule antiviral drugs to treat COVID-19, Norovirus, influenza, avian flu, West Nile virus, Dengue, Zika, and other RNA viruses. Cocrystal uses its structure-based drug discovery platform to identify promising drug targets for potent broad-spectrum oral and inhaled antiviral therapeutics. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for vaccines and effective therapeutics to respond to viral outbreaks and prevent further transmission.
Sam elaborates, "Before we talk about avian flu, let's just step back up about the strains. Influenza, as you know, includes influenza A strains, influenza B, and the C. But the public health point of view is the influenza A strains are important. These cause the pandemic flu, as well as the seasonal flu. Influenza B is roughly less than 20% of flu patients that have this influenza B. It's seasonal. It doesn't cause a pandemic influenza infection."
"So we're talking about avian flu. Avian flu is mostly an influenza A strain. So, it's often classified as H5N1 or H7N9, depending on the antigen. So, why is it so important? We know this year that people isolate the avian H5N1 from cow and cow milk and humans. Avian flu is normally avian influenza that stays with the birds, the wild birds. What we see here is already past the host barrier. So instead of staying with avian, the birds, or domestic animals, now it's passed to a human. So it's a serious issue that the avian flu, H5N1, actually we see here, not only cow and farm workers are infected with it. That's a really serious concern."
"We believe we have a pretty good understanding. If you look at the 1918 Spanish flu, that was actually classified as an H1N1, but several years ago, with a beautiful molecular analysis, people completed the sequencing analysis with the patient sample from 1918 Spanish flu victims. They isolated the gene. They showed that even those with H1N1 contained the avian flu sequence."
#CocrystalPharma #AvianFlu #Influenza #WestNileVirus #AntiviralTherapeutics #RNAViruses #COVID19
CocrystalPharma.com
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Dr. Sam Lee, Co-CEO of Cocrystal Pharma, is an expert in developing small-molecule antiviral drugs to treat COVID-19, Norovirus, influenza, avian flu, West Nile virus, Dengue, Zika, and other RNA viruses. Cocrystal uses its structure-based drug discovery platform to identify promising drug targets for potent broad-spectrum oral and inhaled antiviral therapeutics. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for vaccines and effective therapeutics to respond to viral outbreaks and prevent further transmission.
Sam elaborates, "Before we talk about avian flu, let's just step back up about the strains. Influenza, as you know, includes influenza A strains, influenza B, and the C. But the public health point of view is the influenza A strains are important. These cause the pandemic flu, as well as the seasonal flu. Influenza B is roughly less than 20% of flu patients that have this influenza B. It's seasonal. It doesn't cause a pandemic influenza infection."
"So we're talking about avian flu. Avian flu is mostly an influenza A strain. So, it's often classified as H5N1 or H7N9, depending on the antigen. So, why is it so important? We know this year that people isolate the avian H5N1 from cow and cow milk and humans. Avian flu is normally avian influenza that stays with the birds, the wild birds. What we see here is already past the host barrier. So instead of staying with avian, the birds, or domestic animals, now it's passed to a human. So it's a serious issue that the avian flu, H5N1, actually we see here, not only cow and farm workers are infected with it. That's a really serious concern."
"We believe we have a pretty good understanding. If you look at the 1918 Spanish flu, that was actually classified as an H1N1, but several years ago, with a beautiful molecular analysis, people completed the sequencing analysis with the patient sample from 1918 Spanish flu victims. They isolated the gene. They showed that even those with H1N1 contained the avian flu sequence."
#CocrystalPharma #AvianFlu #Influenza #WestNileVirus #AntiviralTherapeutics #RNAViruses #COVID19
CocrystalPharma.com
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Dr. Mark Campbell, Chief Pharmacy Officer at RxBenefits, a prescription benefit optimizer that works with self-funded employers to help them get the best clinical and economic value from their pharmacy benefit manager relationships. As the healthcare landscape has become more complex with the rise of specialty and high-cost drugs, a significant portion of an employer's pharmacy costs can be impacted by a small population. A key challenge is managing the volatility introduced each year by changes in the health of employees and their families while also managing costs for the broader covered population.
Mark explains, "The landscape for prescription benefits has shifted a lot over the course of my career. In 1998, for example, 35% of the prescriptions were generic, and 65% were branded. There was no appreciable amount of specialties at that time. And the average cost for a plan was probably in the mid-thirties per member per month. But with the shift we've seen where generics have grown to roughly 88% of the prescriptions for most of our groups, now the remaining 12% of brand and specialty drugs make up about 85% of the cost."
"And you could narrow that even further to say that roughly 2% of the members make up about 65% to 70% of the cost of a plan. And now we're getting into conditions, diabetes, and the non-specialty realm, which is a very large influence on the overall cost for a plan. Also we are getting into specialty therapies for a variety of conditions, whether it's inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, or certain types of cancers where we have new therapies that we didn't have several years ago."
"Even in many orphan conditions, we've seen new products come to market. That can be a significant benefit for patients who have either had limited or no therapy options for them in the past. So, beginning to help employers understand how to address that 2% of their population in a way that will get an elegant response for the member, getting the right drug for the right patient, and getting it at the right cost is where a lot of our emphasis is."
#RxBenefits @RxBenefits @MarkCampbell #PharmacyBenefit #PharmacyBenefitOptimizer #PBO #PrescriptionDrugCost #HighCostDrugs
rxbenefits.com
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Dr. Mark Campbell, Chief Pharmacy Officer at RxBenefits, a prescription benefit optimizer that works with self-funded employers to help them get the best clinical and economic value from their pharmacy benefit manager relationships. As the healthcare landscape has become more complex with the rise of specialty and high-cost drugs, a significant portion of an employer's pharmacy costs can be impacted by a small population. A key challenge is managing the volatility introduced each year by changes in the health of employees and their families while also managing costs for the broader covered population.
Mark explains, "The landscape for prescription benefits has shifted a lot over the course of my career. In 1998, for example, 35% of the prescriptions were generic, and 65% were branded. There was no appreciable amount of specialties at that time. And the average cost for a plan was probably in the mid-thirties per member per month. But with the shift we've seen where generics have grown to roughly 88% of the prescriptions for most of our groups, now the remaining 12% of brand and specialty drugs make up about 85% of the cost."
"And you could narrow that even further to say that roughly 2% of the members make up about 65% to 70% of the cost of a plan. And now we're getting into conditions, diabetes, and the non-specialty realm, which is a very large influence on the overall cost for a plan. Also we are getting into specialty therapies for a variety of conditions, whether it's inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, or certain types of cancers where we have new therapies that we didn't have several years ago."
"Even in many orphan conditions, we've seen new products come to market. That can be a significant benefit for patients who have either had limited or no therapy options for them in the past. So, beginning to help employers understand how to address that 2% of their population in a way that will get an elegant response for the member, getting the right drug for the right patient, and getting it at the right cost is where a lot of our emphasis is."
#RxBenefits @RxBenefits @MarkCampbell #PharmacyBenefit #PharmacyBenefitOptimizer #PBO #PrescriptionDrugCost #HighCostDrugs
rxbenefits.com
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Dr. Vicky Demas, CEO of identifeye HEALTH, is using AI-powered diagnostic algorithms and automation to improve the accessibility and quality of retinal imaging, focusing on the early detection of diabetic retinopathy. The identifeye technology makes it easier for patients to get screened for eye conditions in primary care or retail settings. The goal is to leverage the information from retinal scans to detect other eye conditions and identify biomarkers for other systematic diseases.
Vicky explains, "In general, we leverage AI and automation to solve workflow problems to make, first and foremost the capturing of good-quality retinal imaging. It's really easy to make sure that, for example, we can remove the barriers and access for that. We don't need to be at a specialist office for a lot of the screening conditions. Very specifically too, for our first application, we're focusing on diabetic retinopathy, which is a huge problem and one where accessibility to good quality screenings and early detection or early detection is a huge problem that we're hoping to help with."
"What it comes to is not about the camera or the resolution. Still, it is really about making sure that the capturing is of good quality, high quality. I'll call it an image that can be analyzed and interpreted. It can be done with someone with very little training upfront. Also, the information that you have to retain to run an exam is low. So, if you didn't run the device and are not operating it routinely, you don't have to remember what menu I opened and where the data is. And now I'm going to go and open this. We have used consumer product development principles to bring in usability and intuitive design, and of course, all powered by AI to automate all of that work."
#identifeyeHEALTH #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PrecisionMedicine #DiabeticRetinopathy #VisionHealth #Biomarkers
identifeye.health
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Dr. Vicky Demas, CEO of identifeye HEALTH, is using AI-powered diagnostic algorithms and automation to improve the accessibility and quality of retinal imaging, focusing on the early detection of diabetic retinopathy. The identifeye technology makes it easier for patients to get screened for eye conditions in primary care or retail settings. The goal is to leverage the information from retinal scans to detect other eye conditions and identify biomarkers for other systematic diseases.
Vicky explains, "In general, we leverage AI and automation to solve workflow problems to make, first and foremost the capturing of good-quality retinal imaging. It's really easy to make sure that, for example, we can remove the barriers and access for that. We don't need to be at a specialist office for a lot of the screening conditions. Very specifically too, for our first application, we're focusing on diabetic retinopathy, which is a huge problem and one where accessibility to good quality screenings and early detection or early detection is a huge problem that we're hoping to help with."
"What it comes to is not about the camera or the resolution. Still, it is really about making sure that the capturing is of good quality, high quality. I'll call it an image that can be analyzed and interpreted. It can be done with someone with very little training upfront. Also, the information that you have to retain to run an exam is low. So, if you didn't run the device and are not operating it routinely, you don't have to remember what menu I opened and where the data is. And now I'm going to go and open this. We have used consumer product development principles to bring in usability and intuitive design, and of course, all powered by AI to automate all of that work."
#identifeyeHEALTH #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #PrecisionMedicine #DiabeticRetinopathy #VisionHealth #Biomarkers
identifeye.health
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Felicia Janovich is a founding member of the American IV Association, which advocates for safe and effective IV therapies, including hydration, vitamin infusions, and treatments to support patients with chronic conditions or undergoing chemotherapy. While there is limited research on the effectiveness of these IV therapies, AIVA is working to collect and analyze clinical data to understand better the impact these therapies might have on individuals to help with recovery and overall health.
Felicia explains, "Right now, in our space, we struggle with clear guidelines. And there's kind of misunderstanding that there's a bunch of IV cowboys out there, and they're just starting IVs, and they don't have regulations. It's just entirely untrue. The IV Association and its members bring in this amazing opportunity to collaborate, not compete, which is huge within this IV industry because it is relatively new, so we need all the data, all the information, and all the science to back it up. What AIVA has done is welcome all these other business owners who are doing the absolute best they can without having a clear-cut rule book, if you will."
"But the main thing we all share is that it's intravenous, so we supply our nutrients and medications through an IV line directly to work on the cell at the cellular level. So, there might be different variations depending on the treatment, the goals, and what the provider and that client are trying to obtain, but the similarity is it's all going through an intravenous line."
#AIVA #IVTherapy #VitaminInfusions #IntravenousTherapy
americaniv.com
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Felicia Janovich is a founding member of the American IV Association, which advocates for safe and effective IV therapies, including hydration, vitamin infusions, and treatments to support patients with chronic conditions or undergoing chemotherapy. While there is limited research on the effectiveness of these IV therapies, AIVA is working to collect and analyze clinical data to understand better the impact these therapies might have on individuals to help with recovery and overall health.
Felicia explains, "Right now, in our space, we struggle with clear guidelines. And there's kind of misunderstanding that there's a bunch of IV cowboys out there, and they're just starting IVs, and they don't have regulations. It's just entirely untrue. The IV Association and its members bring in this amazing opportunity to collaborate, not compete, which is huge within this IV industry because it is relatively new, so we need all the data, all the information, and all the science to back it up. What AIVA has done is welcome all these other business owners who are doing the absolute best they can without having a clear-cut rule book, if you will."
"But the main thing we all share is that it's intravenous, so we supply our nutrients and medications through an IV line directly to work on the cell at the cellular level. So, there might be different variations depending on the treatment, the goals, and what the provider and that client are trying to obtain, but the similarity is it's all going through an intravenous line."
#AIVA #IVTherapy #VitaminInfusions #IntravenousTherapy
americaniv.com
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Michael McFadden is the CEO of Alpha Cognition, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, ALS, and traumatic brain injury. Their drug ZUNVEYL, recently approved by the FDA, is an oral treatment for mild to moderate Alzheimer's that improves symptoms such as memory loss, mental processing speed, and mood changes. A key feature of the drug is fewer gastrointestinal side effects compared to other Alzheimer's drugs coming onto the market.
Michael explains, "ZUNVEYL is a class of medications known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. It’s the second oral compound approved by the FDA to treat Alzheimer’s disease in the last decade. So, it is a momentous accomplishment by our company, and it is an accomplishment that will serve patients and physicians well. It’s designed to treat symptoms of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease that many patients suffer from. These are things like memory loss, mental health processing speed, ability to solve problems or remember short-term and long-term things. Also, it affects or allows patients to manage changes in mood or personality that often accompany Alzheimer’s disease. So, these are drugs that are used very commonly to treat Alzheimer’s disease. We think this drug will have a lot of utility in helping patients and offering physicians a new choice."
"About 55% of patients who take a drug for Alzheimer’s disease will have some side effect that’s so significant they have to stop taking their medicine. So side effects are a primary reason that patients cannot stay on their therapy. The side effects that are most common are GI-related side effects, GI side effects, diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. We are excited about our compound because we believe if you can’t tolerate a medicine, the medicine certainly can’t be efficacious for the patients."
#AlphaCognition #Alzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #AlzheimersDrug #ZUNVEYL #Dementia
alphacognition.com
Listen to the podcast here
Michael McFadden is the CEO of Alpha Cognition, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, ALS, and traumatic brain injury. Their drug ZUNVEYL, recently approved by the FDA, is an oral treatment for mild to moderate Alzheimer's that improves symptoms such as memory loss, mental processing speed, and mood changes. A key feature of the drug is fewer gastrointestinal side effects compared to other Alzheimer's drugs coming onto the market.
Michael explains, "ZUNVEYL is a class of medications known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. It’s the second oral compound approved by the FDA to treat Alzheimer’s disease in the last decade. So, it is a momentous accomplishment by our company, and it is an accomplishment that will serve patients and physicians well. It’s designed to treat symptoms of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease that many patients suffer from. These are things like memory loss, mental health processing speed, ability to solve problems or remember short-term and long-term things. Also, it affects or allows patients to manage changes in mood or personality that often accompany Alzheimer’s disease. So, these are drugs that are used very commonly to treat Alzheimer’s disease. We think this drug will have a lot of utility in helping patients and offering physicians a new choice."
"About 55% of patients who take a drug for Alzheimer’s disease will have some side effect that’s so significant they have to stop taking their medicine. So side effects are a primary reason that patients cannot stay on their therapy. The side effects that are most common are GI-related side effects, GI side effects, diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. We are excited about our compound because we believe if you can’t tolerate a medicine, the medicine certainly can’t be efficacious for the patients."
#AlphaCognition #Alzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #AlzheimersDrug #ZUNVEYL #Dementia
alphacognition.com
Download the transcript here
George Pappas, CEO of Intraprise Health, works with various healthcare organizations across the healthcare industry and healthcare ecosystem to help address cybersecurity risks. While recent cyber attacks have raised awareness about the need for better cybersecurity measures, the complexity of healthcare IT systems creates significant challenges for comprehensive risk management. Proactive measures, including employee training, enhanced identity confirmation, and limiting access, are critical to mitigating the risk of cyber attacks.
George explains, "The net situation is that these large technology companies that serve healthcare and hospital systems and large medical practices change are clearinghouses, revenue cycle managers, and manage real-time price transparency. What medication management companies manage is so complicated, and they have so many ways that something can be attacked. As you mentioned at the beginning, the attackers are getting very clever and sharing a lot of their methods, so you have to do a comprehensive continuous review of your entire cybersecurity posture. Because if you don’t, there are invariably going to be challenges and small things that are small at the time that end up not being small and being the way that an attacker got in."
"And in the case of Change, it was a multifactor authentication problem accessing a certain system through a certain technology stack that was rather old. But these things exist in companies this size. They have tens of thousands of machines and have accumulated different companies they acquired over time with different technology systems that don’t all work together. So, the vulnerabilities are there, and they require comprehensive risk management and some candidly, more investment than we’ve seen to address fully."
"I’ll give you another example. So maybe it helps your listeners place this a little better. If you think about someone who has a home and is trying to protect their home from all the various threats or things that can happen. Well, their home insurance company requires them to have a smoke detector and carbon monoxide sensor. They get a credit on their policy. If they have a burglar alarm system, they might have a ring doorbell camera or any number of things like that. What you see across the industry is these large hospital systems, small hospital systems, doctor’s offices, and they’re doing those basic things. But here’s the issue. In that same house that I mentioned, you could have 30 windows, the roof might be a little old, you might have a ground floor, and a door that has glass could be easily broken if someone tried to break in."
#IntrapriseHealth #HealthcareCybersecurity #PatientDataProtection #CyberThreats #HITRUSTCompliance #RiskManagement #DataPrivacy
intraprisehealth.com
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George Pappas, CEO of Intraprise Health, works with various healthcare organizations across the healthcare industry and healthcare ecosystem to help address cybersecurity risks. While recent cyber attacks have raised awareness about the need for better cybersecurity measures, the complexity of healthcare IT systems creates significant challenges for comprehensive risk management. Proactive measures, including employee training, enhanced identity confirmation, and limiting access, are critical to mitigating the risk of cyber attacks.
George explains, "The net situation is that these large technology companies that serve healthcare and hospital systems and large medical practices change are clearinghouses, revenue cycle managers, and manage real-time price transparency. What medication management companies manage is so complicated, and they have so many ways that something can be attacked. As you mentioned at the beginning, the attackers are getting very clever and sharing a lot of their methods, so you have to do a comprehensive continuous review of your entire cybersecurity posture. Because if you don’t, there are invariably going to be challenges and small things that are small at the time that end up not being small and being the way that an attacker got in."
"And in the case of Change, it was a multifactor authentication problem accessing a certain system through a certain technology stack that was rather old. But these things exist in companies this size. They have tens of thousands of machines and have accumulated different companies they acquired over time with different technology systems that don’t all work together. So, the vulnerabilities are there, and they require comprehensive risk management and some candidly, more investment than we’ve seen to address fully."
"I’ll give you another example. So maybe it helps your listeners place this a little better. If you think about someone who has a home and is trying to protect their home from all the various threats or things that can happen. Well, their home insurance company requires them to have a smoke detector and carbon monoxide sensor. They get a credit on their policy. If they have a burglar alarm system, they might have a ring doorbell camera or any number of things like that. What you see across the industry is these large hospital systems, small hospital systems, doctor’s offices, and they’re doing those basic things. But here’s the issue. In that same house that I mentioned, you could have 30 windows, the roof might be a little old, you might have a ground floor, and a door that has glass could be easily broken if someone tried to break in."
#IntrapriseHealth #HealthcareCybersecurity #PatientDataProtection #CyberThreats #HITRUSTCompliance #RiskManagement #DataPrivacy
intraprisehealth.com
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Ketan Mehta, Founder and CEO of Tris Pharma, is focused on developing non-addictive pain medication. Their lead drug candidate is designed to be an effective pain drug without the respiratory-depressive and addictive side effects of traditional opioid drugs. This drug works by targeting the nociceptin receptor and has also shown promise to help curb cravings and dependence on opioids. The goal is to provide doctors and patients with a non-opioid pain medication option that can help reduce reliance on highly addictive prescription opioids.
Ketan explains, "Tris is focused on neuroscience-based products, especially CNS, at a high level. More specifically, we focused on ADHD and neurodevelopmental disorders and the products that treat them. And also, more recently, we have been more active in the pain space."
"We're developing a drug, which is currently an investigational drug in Phase three clinical trials. It's called cebranopadol. And what we have seen is that it has an efficacy just on par with your typical traditional opioid. It’s highly effective from what we have seen in more than 2,000 patients to date. But also, what we're seeing thus far is that there is no indication that it creates dependency. You can just taper off the patients, meaning you don't have to give lesser dose even after pain has subsided. And it does not give you the level of respiratory depression or failure that we see with the traditional opioid."
"Right now, we're conducting our first trials in acute pain, and then we will look at any kind of moderate to severe pain. Essentially like chronic pain, lower back pain, for example, the pain in arthritis, cancer pain, other disease conditions like fibromyalgia, or just any kind of injury that gives you pretty much any nociceptive pain that one would encounter, we expect, like diabetic peripheral neuropathy and so forth."
#TrisPharma #PainManagement #ClinicalTrial #Innovation #PainTherapy #Cebranopadol
trispharma.com
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Ketan Mehta, Founder and CEO of Tris Pharma, is focused on developing non-addictive pain medication. Their lead drug candidate is designed to be an effective pain drug without the respiratory-depressive and addictive side effects of traditional opioid drugs. This drug works by targeting the nociceptin receptor and has also shown promise to help curb cravings and dependence on opioids. The goal is to provide doctors and patients with a non-opioid pain medication option that can help reduce reliance on highly addictive prescription opioids.
Ketan explains, "Tris is focused on neuroscience-based products, especially CNS, at a high level. More specifically, we focused on ADHD and neurodevelopmental disorders and the products that treat them. And also, more recently, we have been more active in the pain space."
"We're developing a drug, which is currently an investigational drug in Phase three clinical trials. It's called cebranopadol. And what we have seen is that it has an efficacy just on par with your typical traditional opioid. It’s highly effective from what we have seen in more than 2,000 patients to date. But also, what we're seeing thus far is that there is no indication that it creates dependency. You can just taper off the patients, meaning you don't have to give lesser dose even after pain has subsided. And it does not give you the level of respiratory depression or failure that we see with the traditional opioid."
"Right now, we're conducting our first trials in acute pain, and then we will look at any kind of moderate to severe pain. Essentially like chronic pain, lower back pain, for example, the pain in arthritis, cancer pain, other disease conditions like fibromyalgia, or just any kind of injury that gives you pretty much any nociceptive pain that one would encounter, we expect, like diabetic peripheral neuropathy and so forth."
#TrisPharma #PainManagement #ClinicalTrial #Innovation #PainTherapy #Cebranopadol
trispharma.com
Download the transcript here
Beth Houck, Chief Executive Officer at SonarMD, works with payers and physician practices to provide proactive, value-based care for patients with chronic GI conditions. They use a digital platform to monitor self-reported patient symptoms and enable physicians to identify those patients that need attention. This approach aims to improve patient outcomes and reduce emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
Beth explains, "SonarMD manages patients with chronic gut health conditions, and specifically, we started with something called inflammatory bowel disease, which is the encompassing word for patients with Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. We develop a value-based contract with a payer, so somebody at risk for the cost of care of a patient, and then we bring that cost of care program to a physician's office. In collaboration with that physician, we manage a population of patients to have better outcomes for their chronic GI conditions."
"We just talk about this as a shift to proactive care from reactive care. So rather than the loudest patients being seen, we will have patients that we surface as the most important patients for them to see. So we reach out to our patients and do it very lightly with a text message or email. We tell them a little bit about the program. We talk to them about how we're doing this on behalf of their physician practice and in collaboration with them. So this isn't something that's being forced on you by a payer. We ping those patients, which is the term we use on a regular basis, to collect their reported outcomes or the symptoms they're having with their disease."
#SonarMD #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #VBC #ValuebasedCare #GI #IBD
SonarMD.com
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Beth Houck, Chief Executive Officer at SonarMD, works with payers and physician practices to provide proactive, value-based care for patients with chronic GI conditions. They use a digital platform to monitor self-reported patient symptoms and enable physicians to identify those patients that need attention. This approach aims to improve patient outcomes and reduce emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
Beth explains, "SonarMD manages patients with chronic gut health conditions, and specifically, we started with something called inflammatory bowel disease, which is the encompassing word for patients with Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. We develop a value-based contract with a payer, so somebody at risk for the cost of care of a patient, and then we bring that cost of care program to a physician's office. In collaboration with that physician, we manage a population of patients to have better outcomes for their chronic GI conditions."
"We just talk about this as a shift to proactive care from reactive care. So rather than the loudest patients being seen, we will have patients that we surface as the most important patients for them to see. So we reach out to our patients and do it very lightly with a text message or email. We tell them a little bit about the program. We talk to them about how we're doing this on behalf of their physician practice and in collaboration with them. So this isn't something that's being forced on you by a payer. We ping those patients, which is the term we use on a regular basis, to collect their reported outcomes or the symptoms they're having with their disease."
#SonarMD #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #VBC #ValuebasedCare #GI #IBD
SonarMD.com
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Dr. Chris Bouton, the Senior VP and Head of Artificial Intelligence at Certara, is exploring applying generative AI to drug discovery and development to improve efficiency and identify novel therapeutics across various use cases. The focus is on developing specialized secure AI models to integrate internal data with the Certara platform. Generative AI is particularly useful in areas with high specificity, such as antibody design and mRNA therapeutics, where modeling the underlying biology is crucial.
Chris explains, "Certara helps pharmaceutical and biotech companies throughout their process, from early basic research to regulatory filing and beyond. And we're quite a unique company in that we are not developing our own drugs but instead helping companies develop their drugs. And it's something like over 90% of all FDA approvals are projects that, in some way, shape, or form, Certara has helped with."
"Our philosophy is to start with the use case. Generative AI is an incredible novel technology. There are many different ways to apply it, but we're interested in how to turbocharge or otherwise ameliorate and create efficiencies in a wide range of the use cases that Certara works on. What we're doing is taking a look at each of those kinds of use cases, trying to identify whether generative AI is useful in those use cases. Then, build out technology-driven solutions that are a combination of gen AI plus services, plus data, plus other software for each of those use cases."
#Certara #GenerativeAI #HealthAI #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment
certara.com
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Dr. Chris Bouton, the Senior VP and Head of Artificial Intelligence at Certara, is exploring applying generative AI to drug discovery and development to improve efficiency and identify novel therapeutics across various use cases. The focus is on developing specialized secure AI models to integrate internal data with the Certara platform. Generative AI is particularly useful in areas with high specificity, such as antibody design and mRNA therapeutics, where modeling the underlying biology is crucial.
Chris explains, "Certara helps pharmaceutical and biotech companies throughout their process, from early basic research to regulatory filing and beyond. And we're quite a unique company in that we are not developing our own drugs but instead helping companies develop their drugs. And it's something like over 90% of all FDA approvals are projects that, in some way, shape, or form, Certara has helped with."
"Our philosophy is to start with the use case. Generative AI is an incredible novel technology. There are many different ways to apply it, but we're interested in how to turbocharge or otherwise ameliorate and create efficiencies in a wide range of the use cases that Certara works on. What we're doing is taking a look at each of those kinds of use cases, trying to identify whether generative AI is useful in those use cases. Then, build out technology-driven solutions that are a combination of gen AI plus services, plus data, plus other software for each of those use cases."
#Certara #GenerativeAI #HealthAI #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment
certara.com
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David Happel is President and CEO of Sagimet Biosciences, a company developing drugs to treat metabolic diseases by targeting the underlying cause of fat accumulation in the liver. The drug denifanstat limits the activity of fatty acid synthase (FASN), an enzyme that regulates fat accumulation. This approach is a fat inhibitor, not a fat burner, the focus of other MASH drugs.
David explains, "Sagimet was founded back in 2007 as a private company with a group of medicinal chemists that had a particular target in mind, and this particular target was called fatty acid synthase, or FASN. FASN is a rather ubiquitous enzyme throughout the body that functions as a regulating enzyme in many organs. When FASN becomes overactive or overexpressed, it sort of throws things out of balance and, in particular, certain cardiometabolic diseases, such as MASH and in the liver. So, this group of chemists, in order to resolve this overactivity, developed a portfolio of FASN inhibitors, led by our lead program denifanstat, that seek to target the underlying cause of MASH and, therefore, really work to limit the activity of FASN, try to normalize it essentially is what we do."
"For us and this particular molecule, it offers a differentiated approach to treating the disease. Our molecule, denifanstat, is the only fat synthesis inhibitor in development for MASH, making it rather unique. All the rest of the molecules are fat burners, fat oxidizers, and fat mobilizers, including GLPs, FGF, and THR-beta. They all function by trying to burn fat peripherally and in the liver to a degree. They rely on that fat-burning mechanism to translate into downstream reductions in inflammation and fibrosis, which is important to treating MASH, but they’ve had varying degrees of success. Our molecule targets each pathway independently: fat, inflammation, and fibrosis, and has had a rather pronounced treatment effect as a result."
#SagimetBiosciences #MASH #FattyLiverDisease #FASN #FASNInhibitor #Fibrosis #Obesity #NASH #GLP1Agonists
sagimet.com
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David Happel is President and CEO of Sagimet Biosciences, a company developing drugs to treat metabolic diseases by targeting the underlying cause of fat accumulation in the liver. The drug denifanstat limits the activity of fatty acid synthase (FASN), an enzyme that regulates fat accumulation. This approach is a fat inhibitor, not a fat burner, the focus of other MASH drugs.
David explains, "Sagimet was founded back in 2007 as a private company with a group of medicinal chemists that had a particular target in mind, and this particular target was called fatty acid synthase, or FASN. FASN is a rather ubiquitous enzyme throughout the body that functions as a regulating enzyme in many organs. When FASN becomes overactive or overexpressed, it sort of throws things out of balance and, in particular, certain cardiometabolic diseases, such as MASH and in the liver. So, this group of chemists, in order to resolve this overactivity, developed a portfolio of FASN inhibitors, led by our lead program denifanstat, that seek to target the underlying cause of MASH and, therefore, really work to limit the activity of FASN, try to normalize it essentially is what we do."
"For us and this particular molecule, it offers a differentiated approach to treating the disease. Our molecule, denifanstat, is the only fat synthesis inhibitor in development for MASH, making it rather unique. All the rest of the molecules are fat burners, fat oxidizers, and fat mobilizers, including GLPs, FGF, and THR-beta. They all function by trying to burn fat peripherally and in the liver to a degree. They rely on that fat-burning mechanism to translate into downstream reductions in inflammation and fibrosis, which is important to treating MASH, but they’ve had varying degrees of success. Our molecule targets each pathway independently: fat, inflammation, and fibrosis, and has had a rather pronounced treatment effect as a result."
#SagimetBiosciences #MASH #FattyLiverDisease #FASN #FASNInhibitor #Fibrosis #Obesity #NASH #GLP1Agonists
sagimet.com
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Dr. Gavin Magaha, Senior Director for External Affairs and Policy at Kalderos, describes the 340B drug discount program created in 1992 to help safety net healthcare providers obtain discounted drugs. Over time, this program has grown in complexity, and issues have arisen around duplicate discounts where Medicaid rebates are involved. The current 340B system makes it difficult for stakeholders to share data and lacks transparency. The Kalderos platform incorporates technology and AI and ML tools to address data sharing, validate claims, and prevent duplicate discounts.
Gavin explains, "Our platform primarily helps manufacturers. However, through the activities that we provide service for, we end up helping all stakeholders in a compliant manner or be more compliant with several different drug discount programs, primarily the intersection of the 340B and the Medicaid Drug Rebate programs. We work to help the states, the covered entities in the program, and the manufacturers. All come to a resolution of what's happening out there when you start looking at the data that's going through."
"Top of mind right now that you're hearing in the marketplace around 340B is the concept of who is a patient of a covered entity, what does it mean to be a patient of, whether it's a hospital or a federally qualified health center. The 340B statute is silent on how it defines who a patient is. A lot of the outpatient services that are taking place with hospitals are growing and reaching out into the communities to create more access to healthcare."
"And then you see this footprint of the hospitals growing and taking care of folks in the communities. And then how do you figure out who is a patient of a hospital, and are you a patient for just that one instance of care, or are you a patient of the hospital now in perpetuity? The question becomes, who's eligible for these 340B drugs? The statute, which again came around in the ’90s, doesn't really define who a patient is. It puts a burden and challenge out there for almost all stakeholders to comply with this policy."
#Kalderos #DrugDiscountManagement #340BDiscount #MedicaidDrugRebateProgram #DuplicativeClaims #CoveredEntities #NoncompliantDrugDiscounts #SafetynetProviders #DrugManufacturers
Kalderos.com
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Dr. Gavin Magaha, Senior Director for External Affairs and Policy at Kalderos, describes the 340B drug discount program created in 1992 to help safety net healthcare providers obtain discounted drugs. Over time, this program has grown in complexity, and issues have arisen around duplicate discounts where Medicaid rebates are involved. The current 340B system makes it difficult for stakeholders to share data and lacks transparency. The Kalderos platform incorporates technology and AI and ML tools to address data sharing, validate claims, and prevent duplicate discounts.
Gavin explains, "Our platform primarily helps manufacturers. However, through the activities that we provide service for, we end up helping all stakeholders in a compliant manner or be more compliant with several different drug discount programs, primarily the intersection of the 340B and the Medicaid Drug Rebate programs. We work to help the states, the covered entities in the program, and the manufacturers. All come to a resolution of what's happening out there when you start looking at the data that's going through."
"Top of mind right now that you're hearing in the marketplace around 340B is the concept of who is a patient of a covered entity, what does it mean to be a patient of, whether it's a hospital or a federally qualified health center. The 340B statute is silent on how it defines who a patient is. A lot of the outpatient services that are taking place with hospitals are growing and reaching out into the communities to create more access to healthcare."
"And then you see this footprint of the hospitals growing and taking care of folks in the communities. And then how do you figure out who is a patient of a hospital, and are you a patient for just that one instance of care, or are you a patient of the hospital now in perpetuity? The question becomes, who's eligible for these 340B drugs? The statute, which again came around in the ’90s, doesn't really define who a patient is. It puts a burden and challenge out there for almost all stakeholders to comply with this policy."
#Kalderos #DrugDiscountManagement #340BDiscount #MedicaidDrugRebateProgram #DuplicativeClaims #CoveredEntities #NoncompliantDrugDiscounts #SafetynetProviders #DrugManufacturers
Kalderos.com
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Chris Hart, Co-Founder, CEO, and President of Creyon Bio, is focused on engineering drugs rather than just discovering them through serendipity and traditional methods. Creyon is developing oligonucleotide medicines for rare and common diseases by applying AI and big data models of the molecular and genetic basis of diseases to develop safe and effective drugs more quickly.
Chris elaborates, "When we think about drug engineering versus drug discovery, we’re thinking about how we take this process that currently requires us to do trial-and-error identification of molecules that may be beneficial in the clinic to a place where we can say, can I build the right machinery, the right data, the right models, the right processes to go in and understand if I want to make this modulation within a cell, here’s the molecule that will do it and I can have confidence that it will be safe."
"In terms of drug engineering and the type of drug engineering that Creyon does, what made starting Creyon the right thing to do and why it’s the right time and the right time to do it is that the computing power does exist to crunch large numbers and do the analysis we need to do to build the right models. But what didn’t exist for us, and I don’t think it exists broadly in the industry, is the right data. So a major focus of what Creyon has been doing for the last four years has been on how we create the right data in an efficient way such that we can engineer drugs to have the properties we need them to have as drugs, which is to say safe and effective and not just bioactive."
"Our focus is oligonucleotide medicines, which generally are antisense oligos, siRNAs, and aptamers. This is a super-modality we often think about. What characterizes them is their polymeric nucleic acids that are chemically synthesized, and that’s our primary focus. The indications we’re going after are the upside of the medicines we make: they don’t constrain themselves naturally to a therapeutic area. We can think broadly about whether or not it’s an immunological disease or a neurological disease. We can use these medicines for any type of disease, and we can use them across the board regardless of whether it’s a rare or a common disease."
#CreyonBio #AIinHealthcare #BiotechInnovation #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #DrugEngineering #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #RareDiseases
creyonbio.com
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Chris Hart, Co-Founder, CEO, and President of Creyon Bio, is focused on engineering drugs rather than just discovering them through serendipity and traditional methods. Creyon is developing oligonucleotide medicines for rare and common diseases by applying AI and big data models of the molecular and genetic basis of diseases to develop safe and effective drugs more quickly.
Chris elaborates, "When we think about drug engineering versus drug discovery, we’re thinking about how we take this process that currently requires us to do trial-and-error identification of molecules that may be beneficial in the clinic to a place where we can say, can I build the right machinery, the right data, the right models, the right processes to go in and understand if I want to make this modulation within a cell, here’s the molecule that will do it and I can have confidence that it will be safe."
"In terms of drug engineering and the type of drug engineering that Creyon does, what made starting Creyon the right thing to do and why it’s the right time and the right time to do it is that the computing power does exist to crunch large numbers and do the analysis we need to do to build the right models. But what didn’t exist for us, and I don’t think it exists broadly in the industry, is the right data. So a major focus of what Creyon has been doing for the last four years has been on how we create the right data in an efficient way such that we can engineer drugs to have the properties we need them to have as drugs, which is to say safe and effective and not just bioactive."
"Our focus is oligonucleotide medicines, which generally are antisense oligos, siRNAs, and aptamers. This is a super-modality we often think about. What characterizes them is their polymeric nucleic acids that are chemically synthesized, and that’s our primary focus. The indications we’re going after are the upside of the medicines we make: they don’t constrain themselves naturally to a therapeutic area. We can think broadly about whether or not it’s an immunological disease or a neurological disease. We can use these medicines for any type of disease, and we can use them across the board regardless of whether it’s a rare or a common disease."
#CreyonBio #AIinHealthcare #BiotechInnovation #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #DrugEngineering #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #RareDiseases
creyonbio.com
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Krystyna Houser is the Founder of mBIOTA Labs, a company that develops effective and tolerable elemental diets and medical foods for treating gastrointestinal disorders such as IBS, IBD, SIBO, IMO, and Crohn's disease. While short-term liquid elemental diets have been used in the past to treat GI conditions, the formulation has been very unpalatable, resulting in high patient non-compliance. The mBIOTA clinical trials have shown the elemental diet to be more effective than antibiotics in allowing the gut to recover.
Krystyna explains, "After battling my own GI issues and successfully treating them through a combination of an elemental diet and a dietary protocol called low-fermentation eating, I became a believer in the power of functional nutrition and built mBIOTA Labs to bring these solutions along with taste and a pleasant experience to millions of people suffering with GI conditions."
"Elemental diets have been around for over 50 years. And through hundreds of clinical studies, elemental diets have been proven highly effective at managing various GI conditions. But until now, physicians were unable to employ them in treatment for fear of noncompliance due to their horrible taste. mBIOTA Elemental changes the game with its truly palatable formula. An elemental diet is a short-term liquid diet that provides comprehensive nutrition in its purest, most elemental form. It's composed of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates."
"Our formula is designed as a two- to four-week course of orally ingested therapy. Once ingested, it is easily absorbed into the first two to four feet of the small intestine with almost no digestive effort, which allows the gut to reset, recover, and starve off excess bacteria, causing distress and inflammation. Because the diet is so balanced, it is much easier and safer to follow than a juice cleanse or other diets. And after a few days or so, people feel fantastic on mBIOTA and crave it."
#mBIOTA #SIBO #GIHealth #MedicalFood #ElementalDiets #ClinicalTrial
mbiota.com
Listen to the podcast here
Krystyna Houser is the Founder of mBIOTA Labs, a company that develops effective and tolerable elemental diets and medical foods for treating gastrointestinal disorders such as IBS, IBD, SIBO, IMO, and Crohn's disease. While short-term liquid elemental diets have been used in the past to treat GI conditions, the formulation has been very unpalatable, resulting in high patient non-compliance. The mBIOTA clinical trials have shown the elemental diet to be more effective than antibiotics in allowing the gut to recover.
Krystyna explains, "After battling my own GI issues and successfully treating them through a combination of an elemental diet and a dietary protocol called low-fermentation eating, I became a believer in the power of functional nutrition and built mBIOTA Labs to bring these solutions along with taste and a pleasant experience to millions of people suffering with GI conditions."
"Elemental diets have been around for over 50 years. And through hundreds of clinical studies, elemental diets have been proven highly effective at managing various GI conditions. But until now, physicians were unable to employ them in treatment for fear of noncompliance due to their horrible taste. mBIOTA Elemental changes the game with its truly palatable formula. An elemental diet is a short-term liquid diet that provides comprehensive nutrition in its purest, most elemental form. It's composed of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates."
"Our formula is designed as a two- to four-week course of orally ingested therapy. Once ingested, it is easily absorbed into the first two to four feet of the small intestine with almost no digestive effort, which allows the gut to reset, recover, and starve off excess bacteria, causing distress and inflammation. Because the diet is so balanced, it is much easier and safer to follow than a juice cleanse or other diets. And after a few days or so, people feel fantastic on mBIOTA and crave it."
#mBIOTA #SIBO #GIHealth #MedicalFood #ElementalDiets #ClinicalTrial
mbiota.com
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Dr. Ann Beliën, Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Rejuvenate Biomed, is addressing the underlying biology of aging including mechanisms like mitochondrial health, cell-cell communication and inflammation in order to promote healthy aging. Taking a combination therapy approach, Rejuvenate is using AI-enable drug discovery to address multiple pathways that are involved in aging. Their lead drug candidate is a treatment for sarcopenia with plans to assess impact on other age-related biomarkers.
Ann explains, "The biology of aging indeed is being defined by 12 hallmarks. These 12 hallmarks are pathways where you see that the functioning is deteriorating. One of them is mitochondrial health. So, the mitochondria are there to create energy in your cells to make sure that they work to an optimal base. That’s a very important element that we need to address."
"Another very important one for us is cell-cell communication. So, for instance, in sarcopenia, one of the diseases we study, it’s very important that your muscle continues to be strong and that you don’t lose too much strength during aging. Now, for the muscle to be able to do that, it’s not only important that the muscle has enough energy but that there is also a crosstalk between the neurons that signal to your muscle that it has to contract. So, that cell-cell communication is also very important."
"Within Rejuvenate Biomed, when we develop medication for age-related diseases, we start from the hallmarks of aging. We have an AI-enabled in silico system that can map compounds that have existed for quite a while, for which we have checked if they’re safe for an older population and also for chronic application. That information about these compounds, how they exactly work, goes into our system. The system sees if now these compounds theoretically have the ability to have an impact on the hallmarks of aging. If this is the case, the system will predict a combination that can allow you to impact as many different elements as possible. With that combination, we then check in worms, little worms, so C. elegans, to check on health span."
#DrugDiscovery #Aging #AgeRelatedDiseases #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #HealthyAging #Longevity
rejuvenatebiomed.com
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Dr. Ann Beliën, Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Rejuvenate Biomed, is addressing the underlying biology of aging including mechanisms like mitochondrial health, cell-cell communication and inflammation in order to promote healthy aging. Taking a combination therapy approach, Rejuvenate is using AI-enable drug discovery to address multiple pathways that are involved in aging. Their lead drug candidate is a treatment for sarcopenia with plans to assess impact on other age-related biomarkers.
Ann explains, "The biology of aging indeed is being defined by 12 hallmarks. These 12 hallmarks are pathways where you see that the functioning is deteriorating. One of them is mitochondrial health. So, the mitochondria are there to create energy in your cells to make sure that they work to an optimal base. That’s a very important element that we need to address."
"Another very important one for us is cell-cell communication. So, for instance, in sarcopenia, one of the diseases we study, it’s very important that your muscle continues to be strong and that you don’t lose too much strength during aging. Now, for the muscle to be able to do that, it’s not only important that the muscle has enough energy but that there is also a crosstalk between the neurons that signal to your muscle that it has to contract. So, that cell-cell communication is also very important."
"Within Rejuvenate Biomed, when we develop medication for age-related diseases, we start from the hallmarks of aging. We have an AI-enabled in silico system that can map compounds that have existed for quite a while, for which we have checked if they’re safe for an older population and also for chronic application. That information about these compounds, how they exactly work, goes into our system. The system sees if now these compounds theoretically have the ability to have an impact on the hallmarks of aging. If this is the case, the system will predict a combination that can allow you to impact as many different elements as possible. With that combination, we then check in worms, little worms, so C. elegans, to check on health span."
#DrugDiscovery #Aging #AgeRelatedDiseases #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #HealthyAging #Longevity
rejuvenatebiomed.com
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Eric Olson, COO and Founder of BetterWay™ by Babson Diagnostics™, reports that traditional blood testing is often seen as inconvenient and unpleasant, causing 40% of people to avoid needed blood tests. Babson has developed a more patient-friendly approach to blood collection using a device that fits on the finger and requires a minimum amount of blood. The BetterWay service allows patients or doctors to order tests where blood is drawn at a local pharmacy and samples analyzed at a central lab, providing a quick turnaround with understandable test results.
Eric explains, "Blood testing is something that most people are very familiar with. It’s a routine part of medical care. Every time you go in for your annual visit or if you’re monitoring a disease, maybe a chronic disease, you might get tested more frequently than once a year. The experience is something that a lot of people go through, which consists of having an appointment, going into some sort of patient service center, and getting blood drawn by a professional phlebotomist. They put a needle in your vein and use tubes to pull the blood out of the vein. They fill up multiple tubes of blood that get sent to a high-throughput laboratory that looks a bit like a factory for testing."
"If you go to BetterWay.com, you can see the full menu and the prices of all the tests on that menu, so there are no surprise bills. Insurance, FSA, and HSA are accepted. However, the cash pay prices are often lower than many people pay, even with insurance, due to copays and deductibles, which are very high for many people."
"So once you’ve got an order, you go to your local retail pharmacy to get your blood collected. We’re available in pharmacies in Austin today, on all sides of Austin, and expanding beyond Austin soon. Once you arrive at the pharmacy, you tell them that you’re there for the BetterWay test. They’ll collect a pea-sized blood sample from your fingertip after putting your hand on a hand warmer. And that enables them to collect either one or two tubes of blood, depending on the tests you’ve ordered, instead of large vials of blood from a needle in your vein."
#BetterWay #BabsonDiagnostics #BloodTesting #HealthEcosystem #MedicalDeviceDevelopments
BetterWay.com
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Eric Olson, COO and Founder of BetterWay™ by Babson Diagnostics™, reports that traditional blood testing is often seen as inconvenient and unpleasant, causing 40% of people to avoid needed blood tests. Babson has developed a more patient-friendly approach to blood collection using a device that fits on the finger and requires a minimum amount of blood. The BetterWay service allows patients or doctors to order tests where blood is drawn at a local pharmacy and samples analyzed at a central lab, providing a quick turnaround with understandable test results.
Eric explains, "Blood testing is something that most people are very familiar with. It’s a routine part of medical care. Every time you go in for your annual visit or if you’re monitoring a disease, maybe a chronic disease, you might get tested more frequently than once a year. The experience is something that a lot of people go through, which consists of having an appointment, going into some sort of patient service center, and getting blood drawn by a professional phlebotomist. They put a needle in your vein and use tubes to pull the blood out of the vein. They fill up multiple tubes of blood that get sent to a high-throughput laboratory that looks a bit like a factory for testing."
"If you go to BetterWay.com, you can see the full menu and the prices of all the tests on that menu, so there are no surprise bills. Insurance, FSA, and HSA are accepted. However, the cash pay prices are often lower than many people pay, even with insurance, due to copays and deductibles, which are very high for many people."
"So once you’ve got an order, you go to your local retail pharmacy to get your blood collected. We’re available in pharmacies in Austin today, on all sides of Austin, and expanding beyond Austin soon. Once you arrive at the pharmacy, you tell them that you’re there for the BetterWay test. They’ll collect a pea-sized blood sample from your fingertip after putting your hand on a hand warmer. And that enables them to collect either one or two tubes of blood, depending on the tests you’ve ordered, instead of large vials of blood from a needle in your vein."
#BetterWay #BabsonDiagnostics #BloodTesting #HealthEcosystem #MedicalDeviceDevelopments
BetterWay.com
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Marylyn Rigby, President and CEO of Bioceptive, focuses on improving women's health technologies. Bioceptive has developed a cervical suction retractor as an alternative to the 200-year-old cervical tenaculum device used to insert IUDs and perform biopsies and other intrauterine procedures. While current procedures are extremely painful, there has been a lack of innovation in understanding women's pain because women are often described as hysterical, with little clinical data to get to the source of the pain.
Marylyn explains, "I think that also has to do with what modern medicine is based on, which is a man’s body and not a woman’s body. And because of that, it’s kind of interesting to think that a man could ever possibly understand what it would feel like to have their cervix, which they don’t even have, be pierced, essentially. It is like having your ears pierced and the traumatic experience that it causes because this is done again without any type of anesthetic. So, one of the biggest issues that we see right now, regardless of what your political stance on pro-life or pro-choice, is certainly that women need better options for contraception that are more effective."
"Science has indicated that the IUD is the most effective form of contraception and that is because of its efficacy, which is greater than 99%. You’re not looking to remember to take a pill. You’re not looking, you’re not having to have weight gain by having something inserted in your arm. It’s a one-stop shop that is incredibly effective and cost-effective. However, the number one reason that women do not get IUDs more often is because of the trauma and the pain that is associated with the tenaculum, which is required to insert the IUD."
#WomensHealth #Gynecology #FemTech #ReproductiveRights #ReproductiveHealth #WomensRights
bioceptive.com
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Marylyn Rigby, President and CEO of Bioceptive, focuses on improving women's health technologies. Bioceptive has developed a cervical suction retractor as an alternative to the 200-year-old cervical tenaculum device used to insert IUDs and perform biopsies and other intrauterine procedures. While current procedures are extremely painful, there has been a lack of innovation in understanding women's pain because women are often described as hysterical, with little clinical data to get to the source of the pain.
Marylyn explains, "I think that also has to do with what modern medicine is based on, which is a man’s body and not a woman’s body. And because of that, it’s kind of interesting to think that a man could ever possibly understand what it would feel like to have their cervix, which they don’t even have, be pierced, essentially. It is like having your ears pierced and the traumatic experience that it causes because this is done again without any type of anesthetic. So, one of the biggest issues that we see right now, regardless of what your political stance on pro-life or pro-choice, is certainly that women need better options for contraception that are more effective."
"Science has indicated that the IUD is the most effective form of contraception and that is because of its efficacy, which is greater than 99%. You’re not looking to remember to take a pill. You’re not looking, you’re not having to have weight gain by having something inserted in your arm. It’s a one-stop shop that is incredibly effective and cost-effective. However, the number one reason that women do not get IUDs more often is because of the trauma and the pain that is associated with the tenaculum, which is required to insert the IUD."
#WomensHealth #Gynecology #FemTech #ReproductiveRights #ReproductiveHealth #WomensRights
bioceptive.com
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Greg Sturmer, Co-Founder and CEO of Elysium Therapeutics, a company with expertise in reducing pain and addressing opioid use disorder and fatal overdose from fentanyl. Elysium has developed O2P, Oral Overdose Protection, a technology that aims to control the impact of opioids and reduce the risk of use disorder or a fatal overdose. SOOPR is a rescue agent designed specifically for overdoses from synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl, which can last longer and be more potent than traditional opioids.
Greg explains, "Anytime there’s an epidemic, you want to control exposure. The tricky bit in the area of pain management and the use of opioids is how do you control exposure without affecting patient care. We’ve come up with a technology that maintains the unmatched efficacy of the opioids. But when somebody takes too many pills, and we’ve actually shown this in our human study, we can reduce the exposure because we use this proprietary molecular delivery system that uses the body’s natural digestive process to control how much of the opioid gets released. That’s how we’re addressing the front end of the issue, where somebody is prescribed an opioid."
"But sadly, what happens today is several individuals progress along the road to opioid use disorder, and they end up using illicit drugs. That’s where our second program, SOOPR, comes into play. As you know, our streets in the US have been flooded with fentanyl. Fentanyl is a highly potent opioid. The cartels have gotten very wise in how to expand their market. They introduced fentanyl-laced pills because a lot more people are willing to take pills rather than inject. Well, that changed the game dramatically because when somebody overdoses orally on fentanyl, that puts them at risk of respiratory depression for hours where they stop breathing."
"Existing rescue agents like Narcan and Opvee weren’t designed for oral synthetic opioids and overdoses of those drugs. SOOPR, we believe, is the first rescue agent designed specifically for synthetic opioids. What it does is it outlasts that synthetic opioid danger zone, blocking the mu-opioid receptors and preventing that respiratory depression or rescuing somebody who’s already in respiratory depression."
#ElysiumTherapeutics #Opioids #OpioidAbuse #SyntheticOpioids #OpioidUseDisorder #PainManagement #SaferMedicines
Elysiumrx.com
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Greg Sturmer, Co-Founder and CEO of Elysium Therapeutics, a company with expertise in reducing pain and addressing opioid use disorder and fatal overdose from fentanyl. Elysium has developed O2P, Oral Overdose Protection, a technology that aims to control the impact of opioids and reduce the risk of use disorder or a fatal overdose. SOOPR is a rescue agent designed specifically for overdoses from synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl, which can last longer and be more potent than traditional opioids.
Greg explains, "Anytime there’s an epidemic, you want to control exposure. The tricky bit in the area of pain management and the use of opioids is how do you control exposure without affecting patient care. We’ve come up with a technology that maintains the unmatched efficacy of the opioids. But when somebody takes too many pills, and we’ve actually shown this in our human study, we can reduce the exposure because we use this proprietary molecular delivery system that uses the body’s natural digestive process to control how much of the opioid gets released. That’s how we’re addressing the front end of the issue, where somebody is prescribed an opioid."
"But sadly, what happens today is several individuals progress along the road to opioid use disorder, and they end up using illicit drugs. That’s where our second program, SOOPR, comes into play. As you know, our streets in the US have been flooded with fentanyl. Fentanyl is a highly potent opioid. The cartels have gotten very wise in how to expand their market. They introduced fentanyl-laced pills because a lot more people are willing to take pills rather than inject. Well, that changed the game dramatically because when somebody overdoses orally on fentanyl, that puts them at risk of respiratory depression for hours where they stop breathing."
"Existing rescue agents like Narcan and Opvee weren’t designed for oral synthetic opioids and overdoses of those drugs. SOOPR, we believe, is the first rescue agent designed specifically for synthetic opioids. What it does is it outlasts that synthetic opioid danger zone, blocking the mu-opioid receptors and preventing that respiratory depression or rescuing somebody who’s already in respiratory depression."
#ElysiumTherapeutics #Opioids #OpioidAbuse #SyntheticOpioids #OpioidUseDisorder #PainManagement #SaferMedicines
Elysiumrx.com
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Dr. Boris Reznik, Chairman and CEO of Immorta Bio, was founded to explore longevity and life extension technologies inspired by the discovery that aged cells can be reprogrammed to become younger ones. The company has a cellular rejuvenation platform that uses the patient's cells and senolytic immunotherapy to help the immune system target and remove senescent cells. These approaches aim to leverage the body's natural mechanism for maintaining health and extending the healthspan, not just lifespan.
Boris explains, "First of all, let me just touch upon aging because aging perpetually happens on a cellular level from an early age because trillions of mutations occur in our cells every single day. But the young body’s defense mechanism, such as the immune system and stem cells, effectively addresses those issues and keeps young people healthy. So everything we do is associated with the approach where we try to use young bodies’ mechanisms in dealing with all diseases and all issues associated with aging."
"As I said, young bodies have mechanisms, but all mechanisms which body uses, they have a tendency to deteriorate with age, and it starts all on cellular level. They progress from cells to tissues, from tissues to organs, from organs to systems, and, eventually, all of that results in a disease. And those diseases are what we call diseases of aging. So, actually, the disease of aging is just a specific stage of aging. So, what we created and what we focus on are the two fundamental areas of longevity technologies."
#ImmortaBio #Longevity #StemCells #Cancer #Aging #Rejuvenation
immortabio.com
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Dr. Boris Reznik, Chairman and CEO of Immorta Bio, was founded to explore longevity and life extension technologies inspired by the discovery that aged cells can be reprogrammed to become younger ones. The company has a cellular rejuvenation platform that uses the patient's cells and senolytic immunotherapy to help the immune system target and remove senescent cells. These approaches aim to leverage the body's natural mechanism for maintaining health and extending the healthspan, not just lifespan.
Boris explains, "First of all, let me just touch upon aging because aging perpetually happens on a cellular level from an early age because trillions of mutations occur in our cells every single day. But the young body’s defense mechanism, such as the immune system and stem cells, effectively addresses those issues and keeps young people healthy. So everything we do is associated with the approach where we try to use young bodies’ mechanisms in dealing with all diseases and all issues associated with aging."
"As I said, young bodies have mechanisms, but all mechanisms which body uses, they have a tendency to deteriorate with age, and it starts all on cellular level. They progress from cells to tissues, from tissues to organs, from organs to systems, and, eventually, all of that results in a disease. And those diseases are what we call diseases of aging. So, actually, the disease of aging is just a specific stage of aging. So, what we created and what we focus on are the two fundamental areas of longevity technologies."
#ImmortaBio #Longevity #StemCells #Cancer #Aging #Rejuvenation
immortabio.com
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Randy Boldyga is the CEO, President, and Founder of RXNT, which provides electronic medical records, electronic prescribing, and practice management products. One primary focus is improving patient charts using AI tools to enable providers to communicate with patients more efficiently and effectively. Using predictive analytics and virtual health assistants, this approach can improve patient outcomes by making healthcare more personalized and proactive.
Randy explains, "There are things like enhanced diagnostics, in which AI can analyze medical images such as X-rays and MRIs with high accuracy, and personalized medicine, where AI can process and interpret genetic information, helping to tailor treatments to individual patients. There are predictive analytics, operational efficiencies such as AI, and streamlining administrative tasks for their office, such as scheduling, billing, and managing patient records."
"There’s virtual health assistance where AI-powered chatbots and individual assistance can help with appointment scheduling and offer medication reminders, improving patient engagement and adherence. There’s robotic surgery, drug discovery and development, remote monitoring, enhanced patient records, and training and education. So those are all areas where AI has the potential to make healthcare more personalized, efficient, and proactive, leading to better patient outcomes in a more streamlined system."
#RXNT #PatientCharts #MedAI #PersonalizedMedicine #AI #MedTech
RXNT.com
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Randy Boldyga is the CEO, President, and Founder of RXNT, which provides electronic medical records, electronic prescribing, and practice management products. One primary focus is improving patient charts using AI tools to enable providers to communicate with patients more efficiently and effectively. Using predictive analytics and virtual health assistants, this approach can improve patient outcomes by making healthcare more personalized and proactive.
Randy explains, "There are things like enhanced diagnostics, in which AI can analyze medical images such as X-rays and MRIs with high accuracy, and personalized medicine, where AI can process and interpret genetic information, helping to tailor treatments to individual patients. There are predictive analytics, operational efficiencies such as AI, and streamlining administrative tasks for their office, such as scheduling, billing, and managing patient records."
"There’s virtual health assistance where AI-powered chatbots and individual assistance can help with appointment scheduling and offer medication reminders, improving patient engagement and adherence. There’s robotic surgery, drug discovery and development, remote monitoring, enhanced patient records, and training and education. So those are all areas where AI has the potential to make healthcare more personalized, efficient, and proactive, leading to better patient outcomes in a more streamlined system."
#RXNT #PatientCharts #MedAI #PersonalizedMedicine #AI #MedTech
RXNT.com
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Joseph Mossel, CEO and Co-Founder of Ibex Medical Analytics is developing AI-based cancer diagnostic technology to help pathologists work faster and more accurately with tissue samples. This technology is being widely adopted as an artificial pathologist that can perform tasks more efficiently and aid the pathologist in reducing error rates, which is ever more important with the shortage of pathologists and increasing demand. Partnering with pharma companies, this technology has the potential to develop algorithms that can help determine the effectiveness of specific cancer drugs, expanding the application of AI beyond improving diagnostic accuracy.
Joseph explains, "Pathology labs know how to receive a biopsy and a tissue sample and then convert it into a slide. Then, it is diagnosed by the pathologist. Our technology, not only does it help the pathologist to do their work faster, but it also is embedded within the lab workflow. You can think of the lab as the kind of a factory here, and we help all of that to be more efficient and faster. In some cases, we can actually cut down the time to diagnosis by even a few days."
"Many studies that we’ve run with pathologists found that using our AI is better than just the AI and better than pathologists not using the AI. And you’ll ask soon better by how much. That depends on the specific pathologists and the lab. But we’ve seen good labs with an error rate of around 2% to 3%. And by error, I mean really missing a cancer diagnosis, so diagnosing a cancerous case as benign. And then the absolute worst we’ve ever seen was a lab where 20% of the cases were misdiagnosed, which was a bit shocking. With a pathologist using our algorithm, the advantage of the two working together is that the algorithm and the pathologist tend to make different mistakes. Working together, we get to a level where there’s maybe a handful of mistakes in every 10,000 cases."
#IbexMedicalAnalytics #CancerDiagnostics #Cancer #DigitalPathology #Pathology #AI #AIinPathology #PatientOutcomes
ibex-ai.com
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Joseph Mossel, CEO and Co-Founder of Ibex Medical Analytics is developing AI-based cancer diagnostic technology to help pathologists work faster and more accurately with tissue samples. This technology is being widely adopted as an artificial pathologist that can perform tasks more efficiently and aid the pathologist in reducing error rates, which is ever more important with the shortage of pathologists and increasing demand. Partnering with pharma companies, this technology has the potential to develop algorithms that can help determine the effectiveness of specific cancer drugs, expanding the application of AI beyond improving diagnostic accuracy.
Joseph explains, "Pathology labs know how to receive a biopsy and a tissue sample and then convert it into a slide. Then, it is diagnosed by the pathologist. Our technology, not only does it help the pathologist to do their work faster, but it also is embedded within the lab workflow. You can think of the lab as the kind of a factory here, and we help all of that to be more efficient and faster. In some cases, we can actually cut down the time to diagnosis by even a few days."
"Many studies that we’ve run with pathologists found that using our AI is better than just the AI and better than pathologists not using the AI. And you’ll ask soon better by how much. That depends on the specific pathologists and the lab. But we’ve seen good labs with an error rate of around 2% to 3%. And by error, I mean really missing a cancer diagnosis, so diagnosing a cancerous case as benign. And then the absolute worst we’ve ever seen was a lab where 20% of the cases were misdiagnosed, which was a bit shocking. With a pathologist using our algorithm, the advantage of the two working together is that the algorithm and the pathologist tend to make different mistakes. Working together, we get to a level where there’s maybe a handful of mistakes in every 10,000 cases."
#IbexMedicalAnalytics #CancerDiagnostics #Cancer #DigitalPathology #Pathology #AI #AIinPathology #PatientOutcomes
ibex-ai.com
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Dr. Chris Heery is Chief Medical Officer at Arcellx, a company focusing on developing anito-cel, a significant advancement in CAR-T cell therapy, to treat relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (rrMM). Multiple myeloma is a rare type of blood cancer that affects plasma cells in the bone marrow and has few treatment options. Arcellx is showing promising data from clinical trials with patients with rrMM who have failed prior therapies and have received Fast Track, Orphan Drug, and Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy Designations from the FDA for anito-cel.
Chris explains, "The company was founded based on an idea that you could take a novel protein structure and modify it to be able to bind to targets on the surface of cancer cells. And over many years of work, the founders were able to demonstrate that that was possible. Over the last three or four years, Arcellx has focused more on taking what were some of those early ideas and turning them into a product that can help patients. For these last three or four years, most of our focus has been around the lead asset that we call anito-cel that treats multiple myeloma and trying to get that product through the approval process to be able to be a commercial product that can be used for patients both in the United States and the rest of the world."
"When a patient is diagnosed with multiple myeloma, in general, most patients are older. The median age of diagnosis of multiple myeloma is around 70 years old, and those plasma cells can cause damage to the normal bone marrow by crowding out the normal bone marrow."
"They can also make a lot of the protein that a normal plasma cell would make. By making a lot of that protein, those proteins can cause deposition and damage into other tissues. So, patients can arrive at the clinic with a variety of different symptoms that have to do with either decreased bone marrow activity, decreased number of normal cell populations in their blood, or damage to things like their kidneys or other end organs that you need for normal human function."
#Arcellx #CellTherapy #CARTTherapy #RRMM #MultipleMyeloma #BloodCancer #Cancer #RareDisease
arcellx.com
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Dr. Chris Heery is Chief Medical Officer at Arcellx, a company focusing on developing anito-cel, a significant advancement in CAR-T cell therapy, to treat relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (rrMM). Multiple myeloma is a rare type of blood cancer that affects plasma cells in the bone marrow and has few treatment options. Arcellx is showing promising data from clinical trials with patients with rrMM who have failed prior therapies and have received Fast Track, Orphan Drug, and Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy Designations from the FDA for anito-cel.
Chris explains, "The company was founded based on an idea that you could take a novel protein structure and modify it to be able to bind to targets on the surface of cancer cells. And over many years of work, the founders were able to demonstrate that that was possible. Over the last three or four years, Arcellx has focused more on taking what were some of those early ideas and turning them into a product that can help patients. For these last three or four years, most of our focus has been around the lead asset that we call anito-cel that treats multiple myeloma and trying to get that product through the approval process to be able to be a commercial product that can be used for patients both in the United States and the rest of the world."
"When a patient is diagnosed with multiple myeloma, in general, most patients are older. The median age of diagnosis of multiple myeloma is around 70 years old, and those plasma cells can cause damage to the normal bone marrow by crowding out the normal bone marrow."
"They can also make a lot of the protein that a normal plasma cell would make. By making a lot of that protein, those proteins can cause deposition and damage into other tissues. So, patients can arrive at the clinic with a variety of different symptoms that have to do with either decreased bone marrow activity, decreased number of normal cell populations in their blood, or damage to things like their kidneys or other end organs that you need for normal human function."
#Arcellx #CellTherapy #CARTTherapy #RRMM #MultipleMyeloma #BloodCancer #Cancer #RareDisease
arcellx.com
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Dr. Mohammed Elamir, lead physician at Aviv Clinics, offers diagnostics and treatments for brain injuries such as PTSD, stroke, and traumatic brain injury and to address cognitive decline. After comprehensive physical and mental assessment, including brain scans, patients receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy and other therapies like psychotherapy and neurocognitive training. Individualized plans are designed to get to the root causes of neurological and cognitive issues and stimulate the growth of new cells and blood flow, even for patients with long-standing conditions.
Dr. Mo explains, "Our pre-assessment testing is a lot more rigorous than your kind of annual physical. We do three to five days of testing that can involve medical evaluations with the medical doctors and advanced blood work for different biomarkers for injury or inflammation. Two very specific brain scans that I think separate our assessment from most, and one is an MRI with DTI analysis. That is a microstructure analysis of the brain. So we can look at the nerve tracks running through the brain, how well-connected, and how dense they are."
"If somebody’s approved for the treatment, they would undergo up to a 12-week treatment regimen involving hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And we can go into the details of that oxygen therapy, but in addition to that, they’ll have other appointments, whether it’s PT, psychological counseling, or neurocognitive training. And by the end of the 12 weeks, they should be feeling better, but objectively, we want to see why. We repeat the entire pre-treatment assessment at the end so we can have an objective comparison."
#AvivClinics #HBOT #Hyperbaricmedicine #PTSD #Stoke #Aging
Aviv-Clinics.com
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Dr. Mohammed Elamir, lead physician at Aviv Clinics, offers diagnostics and treatments for brain injuries such as PTSD, stroke, and traumatic brain injury and to address cognitive decline. After comprehensive physical and mental assessment, including brain scans, patients receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy and other therapies like psychotherapy and neurocognitive training. Individualized plans are designed to get to the root causes of neurological and cognitive issues and stimulate the growth of new cells and blood flow, even for patients with long-standing conditions.
Dr. Mo explains, "Our pre-assessment testing is a lot more rigorous than your kind of annual physical. We do three to five days of testing that can involve medical evaluations with the medical doctors and advanced blood work for different biomarkers for injury or inflammation. Two very specific brain scans that I think separate our assessment from most, and one is an MRI with DTI analysis. That is a microstructure analysis of the brain. So we can look at the nerve tracks running through the brain, how well-connected, and how dense they are."
"If somebody’s approved for the treatment, they would undergo up to a 12-week treatment regimen involving hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And we can go into the details of that oxygen therapy, but in addition to that, they’ll have other appointments, whether it’s PT, psychological counseling, or neurocognitive training. And by the end of the 12 weeks, they should be feeling better, but objectively, we want to see why. We repeat the entire pre-treatment assessment at the end so we can have an objective comparison."
#AvivClinics #HBOT #HyperbaricMedicine #PTSD #Stoke #Aging
Aviv-Clinics.com
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Tomer Shussman, the Co-Founder and CEO of OneStep, is at the forefront of motion intelligence and gait analysis. OneStep provides a smartphone app that monitors movement and provides real-time data about gait patterns and changes over time. The system can predict and prevent conditions like falls, provide information about overall health, and reveal early warning signs for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and other aging-related diseases. Integrating OneStep's gait analysis data with Epic electronic health records allows healthcare providers to streamline documentation and leverage gait data to provide immediate actionable feedback to patients.
Tomer explains, "When we started OneStep, we started with physical therapy and rehabilitation, particularly after knee replacements, hip replacements, and injuries of all kinds. But since then, we now have customers and partners who work with us on fall prevention, essentially identifying and quantifying the risk of falling through gait analysis. Our partners work with us on using gait as a biofeedback tool for dosing the level of chemotherapy."
"We recently launched a cognitive decline score that measures and quantifies the cognitive impact on gait in cases like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, and dementia by looking at the differences between conscious and unconscious gait. And this is just scratching the surface. These are all things that are already commercialized. We have so much more in the pipeline that we’re currently researching."
"What we’ve been able to add to it is that we have customers and partners conducting a Timed Up and Go Test through OneStep. What we’ve been able to add to it from a clinical perspective is parameters like the base width - is the patient walking on a very wide base or a very narrow base, the step length, and the step length asymmetry."
#OneStep #GaitAnalysis #FallPrevention #Gait #RTM #RemoteTherapeuticMonitoring #SeniorLivingFacilities
OneStep.co
Listen to the podcast here
Tomer Shussman, the Co-Founder and CEO of OneStep, is at the forefront of motion intelligence and gait analysis. OneStep provides a smartphone app that monitors movement and provides real-time data about gait patterns and changes over time. The system can predict and prevent conditions like falls, provide information about overall health, and reveal early warning signs for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and other aging-related diseases. Integrating OneStep's gait analysis data with Epic electronic health records allows healthcare providers to streamline documentation and leverage gait data to provide immediate actionable feedback to patients.
Tomer explains, "When we started OneStep, we started with physical therapy and rehabilitation, particularly after knee replacements, hip replacements, and injuries of all kinds. But since then, we now have customers and partners who work with us on fall prevention, essentially identifying and quantifying the risk of falling through gait analysis. Our partners work with us on using gait as a biofeedback tool for dosing the level of chemotherapy."
"We recently launched a cognitive decline score that measures and quantifies the cognitive impact on gait in cases like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, and dementia by looking at the differences between conscious and unconscious gait. And this is just scratching the surface. These are all things that are already commercialized. We have so much more in the pipeline that we’re currently researching."
"What we’ve been able to add to it is that we have customers and partners conducting a Timed Up and Go Test through OneStep. What we’ve been able to add to it from a clinical perspective is parameters like the base width - is the patient walking on a very wide base or a very narrow base, the step length, and the step length asymmetry."
#OneStep #GaitAnalysis #FallPrevention #Gait #RTM #RemoteTherapeuticMonitoring #SeniorLivingFacilities
OneStep.co
Download the transcript here
Dr. Sherif Idriss is the CEO of Elastin Biosciences, a company focused on targeting aging-related diseases by restoring elastin, a key protein in the extracellular matrix that provides elasticity and resilience to organs and tissues. They are developing small molecule therapies for diseases linked to elastin deficiency, including Williams syndrome and abdominal aortic aneurysm. As elastin degrades over time due to aging, it leads to loss of tissue structural integrity and function, contributing to numerous age-related diseases.
Sherif explains, "One of the hallmarks of aging is the loss of the extracellular matrix, which is composed of several proteins. Collagen is quite famous, but also elastin is the other major protein that is responsible for the elasticity of the different organs. For example, in our skin, the loss of elastin is associated with us looking older and having all the aging signs and wrinkles on the skin. If you imagine that there are other organs inside that we don’t visually see, then you have also the blood vessels, the lungs, a lot of the connective tissue. The extracellular matrix proteins and elastin itself are also aging in the same way and have their own form of damage one way or another. All of this contributes to aging and aging-related diseases as well."
"Another kind of disease is the category of rare diseases. In this case, we aim to target Williams syndrome, a rare disease characterized by a genetic partial deletion of around 26 genes. One of these genes is elastin itself, so some genetic material is still there, but there is not enough. We would like to try to push the elastin production up in Williams syndrome, and this would help rectify a lot of the disease issues, particularly when it comes to the cardiovascular system because Williams syndrome patients have quite a lot of issues with the cardiovascular system from birth and all through life."
#ElastinBiosciences #Aging #AgingRelatedDiseases #Elastin #WilliamsSyndrome
elastin-biosciences.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Sherif Idriss is the CEO of Elastin Biosciences, a company focused on targeting aging-related diseases by restoring elastin, a key protein in the extracellular matrix that provides elasticity and resilience to organs and tissues. They are developing small molecule therapies for diseases linked to elastin deficiency, including Williams syndrome and abdominal aortic aneurysm. As elastin degrades over time due to aging, it leads to loss of tissue structural integrity and function, contributing to numerous age-related diseases.
Sherif explains, "One of the hallmarks of aging is the loss of the extracellular matrix, which is composed of several proteins. Collagen is quite famous, but also elastin is the other major protein that is responsible for the elasticity of the different organs. For example, in our skin, the loss of elastin is associated with us looking older and having all the aging signs and wrinkles on the skin. If you imagine that there are other organs inside that we don’t visually see, then you have also the blood vessels, the lungs, a lot of the connective tissue. The extracellular matrix proteins and elastin itself are also aging in the same way and have their own form of damage one way or another. All of this contributes to aging and aging-related diseases as well."
"Another kind of disease is the category of rare diseases. In this case, we aim to target Williams syndrome, a rare disease characterized by a genetic partial deletion of around 26 genes. One of these genes is elastin itself, so some genetic material is still there, but there is not enough. We would like to try to push the elastin production up in Williams syndrome, and this would help rectify a lot of the disease issues, particularly when it comes to the cardiovascular system because Williams syndrome patients have quite a lot of issues with the cardiovascular system from birth and all through life."
#ElastinBiosciences #Aging #AgingRelatedDiseases #Elastin #WilliamsSyndrome
elastin-biosciences.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Harven DeShield is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vivacelle Bio, which is developing a nanoparticle-based treatment called VBI-S to address the underlying causes of septic shock. The treatment works by efficiently redistributing nitric oxide to help regulate blood pressure and improve organ function, reducing the need for traditional vasopressor treatments. Vivacelle is also developing a product to help address hemorrhagic shock and minimize reperfusion injury.
Harven explains, "There are seven aspects to septic shock - actually eight. So, first, you have an infection. You have to have an infection, whether it is a bacterial, virus, or fungus. And then, eventually, they give you fluids—your blood pressure drops. And so, they try to correct that by giving you fluids. And when the fluids fail, then you transition from sepsis to septic shock."
"Then, you are also dealing with the fact that they put you on vasopressors once you get into septic shock. When they put you on vasopressors, that creates another whole realm of problems, which I can get into later. But, essentially, they have some serious toxicity effects, including reducing cardiac output. It causes cardiac arrhythmia and blood clots and can even lead somebody to go into hemorrhagic shock. So, you have the infection problems, you have the relative and absolute hypovolemia problem."
"Our product, for example, works within, and I’m using phase 2a - we see results in as little as 90 minutes, in terms of, at least, correcting the blood pressure. And it really can be very severe, and time is of the essence. There used to be something they called the "golden hour”. This means you have an hour, depending on how low your blood pressure is. Now, some people call it the "platinum ten minutes".
#VivacelleBio #SepticShock #Sepsis #Hypovolemia #UrgentCareTreatment
vivicellebio.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Harven DeShield is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vivacelle Bio, which is developing a nanoparticle-based treatment called VBI-S to address the underlying causes of septic shock. The treatment works by efficiently redistributing nitric oxide to help regulate blood pressure and improve organ function, reducing the need for traditional vasopressor treatments. Vivacelle is also developing a product to help address hemorrhagic shock and minimize reperfusion injury.
Harven explains, "There are seven aspects to septic shock - actually eight. So, first, you have an infection. You have to have an infection, whether it is a bacterial, virus, or fungus. And then, eventually, they give you fluids—your blood pressure drops. And so, they try to correct that by giving you fluids. And when the fluids fail, then you transition from sepsis to septic shock."
"Then, you are also dealing with the fact that they put you on vasopressors once you get into septic shock. When they put you on vasopressors, that creates another whole realm of problems, which I can get into later. But, essentially, they have some serious toxicity effects, including reducing cardiac output. It causes cardiac arrhythmia and blood clots and can even lead somebody to go into hemorrhagic shock. So, you have the infection problems, you have the relative and absolute hypovolemia problem."
"Our product, for example, works within, and I’m using phase 2a - we see results in as little as 90 minutes, in terms of, at least, correcting the blood pressure. And it really can be very severe, and time is of the essence. There used to be something they called the "golden hour”. This means you have an hour, depending on how low your blood pressure is. Now, some people call it the "platinum ten minutes".
#VivacelleBio #SepticShock #Sepsis #Hypovolemia #UrgentCareTreatment
vivicellebio.com
Download the transcript here
Sandra Johnson, the Senior Vice President of Client Services at CliniComp, discusses the evolving landscape of electronic health records (EHRs) and the need for interoperability and customization to meet clinicians' needs. She emphasizes the importance of putting clinicians first and involving them in the software development process from the beginning to create a configurable and user-friendly system. There are multiple ways to use AI and automation to improve EHRs, including predictive analytics, automating routine tasks, and providing decision support for clinicians.
Sandra explains, "We are a 40-year-old company, so we’ve evolved a lot over the years to meet the growing needs of the healthcare industry. We originally started as a modular EMR system focused on the perinatal and critical care setting. We’ve continued to evolve over the years to offer inpatient solutions and now a full-service EHR solution suite. We continue to scale and grow to meet the evolving needs of the healthcare community and are happy to be able to provide a solution that is customized and driven by the clinicians’ viewpoint."
"Well, there are always new trends that are arising. The latest buzz is around AI, and so it’s a very complex environment with high acuity needs in the hospital setting. EHRs need to evolve to ensure that they’re continuing to offer the solutions and services needed as that landscape continues to change. So, systems that are data-driven can provide that automation to provide time savings and operational efficiencies. It’s not an easy task. It’s a very complex environment, but a strong infrastructure and architecture that can scale to meet these needs is critical."
#Clinicomp #EHRSolutions #HealthcareInnovation #FutureHIT #IntegratedEHR #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHR #EMR
clinicomp.com
Listen to the podcast here
Sandra Johnson, the Senior Vice President of Client Services at CliniComp, discusses the evolving landscape of electronic health records (EHRs) and the need for interoperability and customization to meet clinicians' needs. She emphasizes the importance of putting clinicians first and involving them in the software development process from the beginning to create a configurable and user-friendly system. There are multiple ways to use AI and automation to improve EHRs, including predictive analytics, automating routine tasks, and providing decision support for clinicians.
Sandra explains, "We are a 40-year-old company, so we’ve evolved a lot over the years to meet the growing needs of the healthcare industry. We originally started as a modular EMR system focused on the perinatal and critical care setting. We’ve continued to evolve over the years to offer inpatient solutions and now a full-service EHR solution suite. We continue to scale and grow to meet the evolving needs of the healthcare community and are happy to be able to provide a solution that is customized and driven by the clinicians’ viewpoint."
"Well, there are always new trends that are arising. The latest buzz is around AI, and so it’s a very complex environment with high acuity needs in the hospital setting. EHRs need to evolve to ensure that they’re continuing to offer the solutions and services needed as that landscape continues to change. So, systems that are data-driven can provide that automation to provide time savings and operational efficiencies. It’s not an easy task. It’s a very complex environment, but a strong infrastructure and architecture that can scale to meet these needs is critical."
#Clinicomp #EHRSolutions #HealthcareInnovation #FutureHIT #IntegratedEHR #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHR #EMR
clinicomp.com
Download the transcript here
Kathy Gunn, VP of commercial and clinical operations at Wellsense, discusses the pressure mapping system Wellsense developed to prevent pressure injuries caused by support surfaces, offloading devices, and medical equipment. The pressure mapping technology works by installing an overlay into existing support surfaces, which sends real-time pressure readings and locations to an iPad-like device at the end of the bed. This visual feedback helps healthcare providers make better clinical decisions and customize care for each patient. Without this system, driven by standard procedures, the prevention of pressure injuries is inconsistent, and there is no way to assess the effectiveness of their actions or identify failing equipment.
Kathy explains, "A whole slew of factors impact a patient’s exposure to pressure. Not only do we bring in our pressure mapping system to provide visual feedback and historical reports for root cause analysis, but we also bring in clinical specialists. We bring in these clinical specialists who are all former nurses, and we integrate them into each of our partner facilities so that they can provide ongoing education, support, and resources. We found that the collaboration and partnership we have leads to the greatest success, and we see reductions in pressure injuries anywhere from 50% to 100% with this method."
"The pressure mapping system provides visual feedback that will give healthcare providers the information they need to make better clinical decisions. Whether it’s choosing an offloading device, a pillow, a wedge, or a fluidized positioner, the nursing staff at the bedside is going to know whether they’ve chosen the right type, the right quantity, and whether they’re placing it appropriately. They will know better how to adjust the head of the bed or the foot of the bed articulation. Furthermore, they’re going to be able to assess the functionality of their support surfaces - whether it’s nearing or it’s at the end of its life, whether it’s malfunctioning, or even if it’s appropriate for the size of the patient. These are all factors that are going to impact the patient’s exposure to pressure, and pressure is what is going to eventually lead to skin breakdown."
#Wellsense #PressureInjuries #PressureMapping #PressureUlcers #PressurePrevention #WoundCare #HAPI #HospitalAcquiredPressureInjury
wellsensevu.com
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Kathy Gunn, VP of commercial and clinical operations at Wellsense, discusses the pressure mapping system Wellsense developed to prevent pressure injuries caused by support surfaces, offloading devices, and medical equipment. The pressure mapping technology works by installing an overlay into existing support surfaces, which sends real-time pressure readings and locations to an iPad-like device at the end of the bed. This visual feedback helps healthcare providers make better clinical decisions and customize care for each patient. Without this system, driven by standard procedures, the prevention of pressure injuries is inconsistent, and there is no way to assess the effectiveness of their actions or identify failing equipment.
Kathy explains, "A whole slew of factors impact a patient’s exposure to pressure. Not only do we bring in our pressure mapping system to provide visual feedback and historical reports for root cause analysis, but we also bring in clinical specialists. We bring in these clinical specialists who are all former nurses, and we integrate them into each of our partner facilities so that they can provide ongoing education, support, and resources. We found that the collaboration and partnership we have leads to the greatest success, and we see reductions in pressure injuries anywhere from 50% to 100% with this method."
"The pressure mapping system provides visual feedback that will give healthcare providers the information they need to make better clinical decisions. Whether it’s choosing an offloading device, a pillow, a wedge, or a fluidized positioner, the nursing staff at the bedside is going to know whether they’ve chosen the right type, the right quantity, and whether they’re placing it appropriately. They will know better how to adjust the head of the bed or the foot of the bed articulation. Furthermore, they’re going to be able to assess the functionality of their support surfaces - whether it’s nearing or it’s at the end of its life, whether it’s malfunctioning, or even if it’s appropriate for the size of the patient. These are all factors that are going to impact the patient’s exposure to pressure, and pressure is what is going to eventually lead to skin breakdown."
#Wellsense #PressureInjuries #PressureMapping #PressureUlcers #PressurePrevention #WoundCare #HAPI #HospitalAcquiredPressureInjury
wellsensevu.com
Download the transcript here
Jean Sachs, CEO of Living Beyond Breast Cancer, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing disparities in cancer treatment and providing resources and support for individuals diagnosed with breast cancer. LBBC is part of the No One Missed breast cancer campaign, which aims to raise awareness about the importance of biomarker testing for metastatic breast cancer to help identify specific mutations in the tumor and develop a personalized treatment plan.
Jean explains, "We are so proud at Living Beyond Breast Cancer to be part of this campaign, founded and launched by LUNGevity Foundation in 2021. So, they are an organization that focuses on lung cancer. They wanted to get the word out about the importance of biomarker testing, particularly to those with non-small cell lung cancer, which is the non-smoking kind of lung cancer. They pulled together 25 organizations, created a website, ran a big campaign for a few years, and then realized that this kind of education campaign would be so beneficial to other types of cancers. So, we were very honored to be selected as the organization that would take the lead for the breast cancer community."
"Well, there are so many biomarker tests, and yes, they are more accurate, but this is important for anyone diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. This is breast cancer that is beyond the breast. It’s in a vital organ, usually liver, lung, bone, or brain - it’s now considered an incurable disease. They have to ask their doctor if they have had a biomarker test or when they will have it because it can lead to finding specific mutations in the cancer tumor that might lead to a new treatment that they wouldn’t be eligible for unless they knew they had the mutation."
#NoOneMissed #LBBC #PersonalizedMedicine #Biomarker #BiomarkerTesting #MBC #MetastaticBreastCancer #BreastCancer #BreastCancerResources #CancerAwareness
lbbc.org
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Jean Sachs, CEO of Living Beyond Breast Cancer, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing disparities in cancer treatment and providing resources and support for individuals diagnosed with breast cancer. LBBC is part of the No One Missed breast cancer campaign, which aims to raise awareness about the importance of biomarker testing for metastatic breast cancer to help identify specific mutations in the tumor and develop a personalized treatment plan.
Jean explains, "We are so proud at Living Beyond Breast Cancer to be part of this campaign, founded and launched by LUNGevity Foundation in 2021. So, they are an organization that focuses on lung cancer. They wanted to get the word out about the importance of biomarker testing, particularly to those with non-small cell lung cancer, which is the non-smoking kind of lung cancer. They pulled together 25 organizations, created a website, ran a big campaign for a few years, and then realized that this kind of education campaign would be so beneficial to other types of cancers. So, we were very honored to be selected as the organization that would take the lead for the breast cancer community."
"Well, there are so many biomarker tests, and yes, they are more accurate, but this is important for anyone diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. This is breast cancer that is beyond the breast. It’s in a vital organ, usually liver, lung, bone, or brain - it’s now considered an incurable disease. They have to ask their doctor if they have had a biomarker test or when they will have it because it can lead to finding specific mutations in the cancer tumor that might lead to a new treatment that they wouldn’t be eligible for unless they knew they had the mutation."
#NoOneMissed #LBBC #PersonalizedMedicine #Biomarker #BiomarkerTesting #MBC #MetastaticBreastCancer #BreastCancer #BreastCancerResources #CancerAwareness
lbbc.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Monica Perez, the Scientific Chair at the Arms and Hands Lab at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University, is focused on developing drugs and strategies for treating those with spinal cord injuries. With no FDA-approved treatment, the current standard of care is surgery and physical rehabilitation, depending upon the location of the injury and cause. The AbilityLab is conducting a clinical trial with NVG-291, which targets the body's natural inhibitors for repair, regenerates neurons in the CNS, and aims to improve connections disrupted by spinal cord injury. Exercise is also a component of this treatment to improve outcomes.
Monica explains, "The experiment we’re running today at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is the first of its kind study because we’re using a medication that we have evidence in animal studies that actually can improve regeneration in the central nervous system and contribute at least to enhance recovery of function. This is NVG-291, a medication that targets the body’s natural inhibitors for repair. And that, in theory, is supposed to improve connections disrupted by a spinal cord injury."
"We are working with NervGen Pharma, a company that provides the medication. This is an injection. Our patients receive 84 injections during the trial. This is a randomized placebo-controlled trial, so they can receive either the real medication or a placebo medication, which is followed by exercise rehabilitation. So, it’s pharmacology - the medication targets the body’s natural inhibitors of repair, aiming to enhance the repair of connections that were affected by a spinal cord injury."
#SRAbilityLab #SpinalCordInjury #NervGenPharma #CNS #CentralNervousSystem #Rehabilitation
sralab.org
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Dr. Monica Perez, the Scientific Chair at the Arms and Hands Lab at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University, is focused on developing drugs and strategies for treating those with spinal cord injuries. With no FDA-approved treatment, the current standard of care is surgery and physical rehabilitation, depending upon the location of the injury and cause. The AbilityLab is conducting a clinical trial with NVG-291, which targets the body's natural inhibitors for repair, regenerates neurons in the CNS, and aims to improve connections disrupted by spinal cord injury. Exercise is also a component of this treatment to improve outcomes.
Monica explains, "The experiment we’re running today at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is the first of its kind study because we’re using a medication that we have evidence in animal studies that actually can improve regeneration in the central nervous system and contribute at least to enhance recovery of function. This is NVG-291, a medication that targets the body’s natural inhibitors for repair. And that, in theory, is supposed to improve connections disrupted by a spinal cord injury."
"We are working with NervGen Pharma, a company that provides the medication. This is an injection. Our patients receive 84 injections during the trial. This is a randomized placebo-controlled trial, so they can receive either the real medication or a placebo medication, which is followed by exercise rehabilitation. So, it’s pharmacology - the medication targets the body’s natural inhibitors of repair, aiming to enhance the repair of connections that were affected by a spinal cord injury."
#SRAbilityLab #SpinalCordInjury #NervGenPharma #CNS #CentralNervousSystem #Rehabilitation
sralab.org
Download the transcript here
Richard ‘RJ’ Kedziora, Co-Founder, CEO, and Chief People Officer at Estenda Solutions, emphasizes that usability is critical in developing successful digital therapeutics, and industry standards and interoperability are essential for data sharing and integration. A digital therapeutic can be prescribed by a physician and reimbursed by insurance companies. It is a digital health application that has undergone clinical trials and regulatory review to prevent, monitor, or treat physical or mental health issues. The future of digital therapeutics looks promising, especially with Medicare's introduction of billing codes for prescription digital therapeutics.
Richard explains, " I think of the difference between a digital health application and a digital therapeutic as the difference between supplements and medications prescribed by a physician. So as you know, there are any number of supplements on the market. Some have more evidence than less about whether or not they can prevent, treat, or monitor a specific disease condition."
"Digital therapeutics, which can be prescribed, have gone through a rigorous evidencing process of clinical trials to make sure they work and have gone through regulatory review here in the U.S. by the FDA. So, they’re an elevated category of digital health applications that have been created and can make a difference in the world."
"You would still download them from the app store. That’s still where you’ll get them, but the key differentiator is probably from a billing perspective. Not only does that digital therapeutic meet a higher evidence-based, clinically-driven evaluation, but the idea is that you, as a patient individual, aren’t paying for it and can be reimbursed by the insurance companies. That can make a real difference in how much money a company putting these out can invest in it and then sustain a business based on the digital health applications."
#Estenda #DigitalHealth #DigitalHealthApps #DigitalTherapeutics #HealthTech #HealthcareTechnology #HealthcareIT #HealthcareInnovation #ArtificialIntelligence #HealthAI #Medtech
estenda.com
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Richard ‘RJ’ Kedziora, Co-Founder, CEO, and Chief People Officer at Estenda Solutions, emphasizes that usability is critical in developing successful digital therapeutics, and industry standards and interoperability are essential for data sharing and integration. A digital therapeutic can be prescribed by a physician and reimbursed by insurance companies. It is a digital health application that has undergone clinical trials and regulatory review to prevent, monitor, or treat physical or mental health issues. The future of digital therapeutics looks promising, especially with Medicare's introduction of billing codes for prescription digital therapeutics.
Richard explains, " I think of the difference between a digital health application and a digital therapeutic as the difference between supplements and medications prescribed by a physician. So as you know, there are any number of supplements on the market. Some have more evidence than less about whether or not they can prevent, treat, or monitor a specific disease condition."
"Digital therapeutics, which can be prescribed, have gone through a rigorous evidencing process of clinical trials to make sure they work and have gone through regulatory review here in the U.S. by the FDA. So, they’re an elevated category of digital health applications that have been created and can make a difference in the world."
"You would still download them from the app store. That’s still where you’ll get them, but the key differentiator is probably from a billing perspective. Not only does that digital therapeutic meet a higher evidence-based, clinically-driven evaluation, but the idea is that you, as a patient individual, aren’t paying for it and can be reimbursed by the insurance companies. That can make a real difference in how much money a company putting these out can invest in it and then sustain a business based on the digital health applications."
#Estenda #DigitalHealth #DigitalHealthApps #DigitalTherapeutics #HealthTech #HealthcareTechnology #HealthcareIT #HealthcareInnovation #ArtificialIntelligence #HealthAI #Medtech
estenda.com
Download the transcript here
Oren Gilad, President and CEO of Aprea Therapeutics, focused on the DNA damage response pathway, specifically targeting the ATR protein. ATR is a master regulator of DNA replication and is hyperactive in cancer cells, making it a potential Achilles heel for cancer therapy. By inhibiting ATR, cancer cells can be selectively targeted, while normal cells can tolerate lower levels of ATR activity. Synthetic lethality is applied when two genetic mutations are combined, leading to cell death, specifically in cancer cells. Aprea is conducting clinical trials for their targeted treatments, focusing on solid tumors with defined genetic mutations.
Oren explains, "DDR, the DNA damage response pathway, is the broader terminology for the regulation of DNA synthesis. In order for cancer to grow, cells have to duplicate. In order for them to duplicate, they have to replicate their DNA. So what happens is that cancer cells get into this DNA replication phase very early and prematurely, causing a single-strand DNA to be exposed which then activates the ATR pathway, where in normal cells, this pathway is very tightly regulated. The normal cell is not going to enter this phase and start DNA replication before the environment is ready because it’s a very fragile phase of the cell cycle."
"Double-strand DNA is a very stable molecule. It is found in mummies, it survives heat, and it survives freezing. When a double-strand DNA molecule is opened, the exposed single-strand DNA can easily break. That’s where ATR comes into play, it protects and responds to single-strand formation. A cancer cell is hyper-sensitive to ATR inhibition, which we identify as the Achilles heel of cancer. Our work showed that normal cells can live with a reduced level of the ATR activity, so it makes it a good target for cancer therapy."
#ApreaTherapeutics #CancerTreatment #TargetedTherapy #Oncology #Cancer #SyntheticLethality #DNADamageResponsePathway
aprea.com
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Oren Gilad, President and CEO of Aprea Therapeutics, focused on the DNA damage response pathway, specifically targeting the ATR protein. ATR is a master regulator of DNA replication and is hyperactive in cancer cells, making it a potential Achilles heel for cancer therapy. By inhibiting ATR, cancer cells can be selectively targeted, while normal cells can tolerate lower levels of ATR activity. Synthetic lethality is applied when two genetic mutations are combined, leading to cell death, specifically in cancer cells. Aprea is conducting clinical trials for their targeted treatments, focusing on solid tumors with defined genetic mutations.
Oren explains, "DDR, the DNA damage response pathway, is the broader terminology for the regulation of DNA synthesis. In order for cancer to grow, cells have to duplicate. In order for them to duplicate, they have to replicate their DNA. So what happens is that cancer cells get into this DNA replication phase very early and prematurely, causing a single-strand DNA to be exposed which then activates the ATR pathway, where in normal cells, this pathway is very tightly regulated. The normal cell is not going to enter this phase and start DNA replication before the environment is ready because it’s a very fragile phase of the cell cycle."
"Double-strand DNA is a very stable molecule. It is found in mummies, it survives heat, and it survives freezing. When a double-strand DNA molecule is opened, the exposed single-strand DNA can easily break. That’s where ATR comes into play, it protects and responds to single-strand formation. A cancer cell is hyper-sensitive to ATR inhibition, which we identify as the Achilles heel of cancer. Our work showed that normal cells can live with a reduced level of the ATR activity, so it makes it a good target for cancer therapy."
#ApreaTherapeutics #CancerTreatment #TargetedTherapy #Oncology #Cancer #SyntheticLethality #DNADamageResponsePathway
aprea.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Marcy Carty, President and Chief Medical Officer of myLaurel, emphasizes the need to change the model where hospitals are the safest place for medical care. MyLaurel's acute care services include pre-hospital care to prevent emergency room visits, care-at-home to help patients get discharged earlier, and post-hospitalization care to smooth the transition. They work with primary physicians and other care providers to ensure a coordinated approach and use technology in the home to perform monitoring and diagnostics overseen by medical professionals and responders who can provide in-person and virtual visits.
Marcy explains, "In the past, our health systems have looked at volume. I was a chief medical officer at a hospital, and I remember my CEO saying, "How many heads and beds can we get?" And so the system’s really driven towards reducing risk and putting people into hospitals, assuming that it’s the best place to be cared for. At myLaurel, we challenge that and work with communities to say, "How can we change that paradigm and bring the care to someone at home where they can sleep in their own bed, where they can hold all the power in their decision-making and ensure their goals of care are really incorporated into the care plan?" We want to change the paradigm that hospitals are the safest place to be and bring that care home, where I would say most people we talk to want to be cared for."
"In general, myLaurel focuses on elderly or frail or people with complex medical conditions. What that means is our average patient is in their eighties, our average patient has about 13 medications, and our average patient has six or more chronic conditions. They generally represent the top 10% of patients for a health plan, accountable care organization, or physician group."
#myLaurel #AcuteCare #InHomeCare #HospitalatHome #ObservationatHome
mylaurelhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Marcy Carty, President and Chief Medical Officer of myLaurel, emphasizes the need to change the model where hospitals are the safest place for medical care. MyLaurel's acute care services include pre-hospital care to prevent emergency room visits, care-at-home to help patients get discharged earlier, and post-hospitalization care to smooth the transition. They work with primary physicians and other care providers to ensure a coordinated approach and use technology in the home to perform monitoring and diagnostics overseen by medical professionals and responders who can provide in-person and virtual visits.
Marcy explains, "In the past, our health systems have looked at volume. I was a chief medical officer at a hospital, and I remember my CEO saying, "How many heads and beds can we get?" And so the system’s really driven towards reducing risk and putting people into hospitals, assuming that it’s the best place to be cared for. At myLaurel, we challenge that and work with communities to say, "How can we change that paradigm and bring the care to someone at home where they can sleep in their own bed, where they can hold all the power in their decision-making and ensure their goals of care are really incorporated into the care plan?" We want to change the paradigm that hospitals are the safest place to be and bring that care home, where I would say most people we talk to want to be cared for."
"In general, myLaurel focuses on elderly or frail or people with complex medical conditions. What that means is our average patient is in their eighties, our average patient has about 13 medications, and our average patient has six or more chronic conditions. They generally represent the top 10% of patients for a health plan, accountable care organization, or physician group."
#myLaurel #AcuteCare #InHomeCare #HospitalatHome #ObservationatHome
mylaurelhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, the CEO and Founder of Biotricity, focuses on remote patient monitoring for heart health with HeartSecure, the three-channel wearable device that collects continuous ECG data. This device provides a more comprehensive view of the electrical activity of the heart compared to other wearables like smartwatches and can help identify potential cardiac issues, especially those that are intermittent and asymptomatic. Used by cardiologists and now available as a home-based diagnostic, this technology is a tool to screen those with risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, and obesity.
Waqaas explains, "When we talk about wearables, we have to understand what those wearables are collecting. A typical watch, like an Apple Watch or Samsung Watch or these kinds of devices, collects data through a PPG, which is really looking at light refraction and basically looking at your pulse rate. Based on skin tone, it will have varying results. Based on how tight you are wearing the band, it will have varying results."
"The second problem and why the cardiac issue is the number one killer and why it's the silent killer is most of these issues are intermittent, and most patients are asymptomatic. So if you don't feel the symptoms, you could take that 30-second ECG all the time, and you may never catch it because many times, these issues happen while we're sleeping. They're happening early in the morning."
"The reason people are passing away is because many of these patients are screened is because when they are put on a monitor, sometimes you'll collect data on a patient for 24 hours a day for seven days. You'll not find the issue, and suddenly, you extend the monitor to day ten, and you'll find it on day nine. So how can you hold a device or a watch continuously for 24 hours, let alone continuously for nine days? And that's your challenge. That is why wearables are great awareness drivers. They're great tools if you've already been diagnosed and you're trying to manage your condition, but incredibly, incredibly blunt instruments when it comes to figuring out what your issue is."
#Biotricity #HeartSecure #HeartHealth #Preventative #HeartDisease #HealthyHeart #SelfCare #HealthyLifeStyle #HealthTestatHome
biotricity.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, the CEO and Founder of Biotricity, focuses on remote patient monitoring for heart health with HeartSecure, the three-channel wearable device that collects continuous ECG data. This device provides a more comprehensive view of the electrical activity of the heart compared to other wearables like smartwatches and can help identify potential cardiac issues, especially those that are intermittent and asymptomatic. Used by cardiologists and now available as a home-based diagnostic, this technology is a tool to screen those with risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, and obesity.
Waqaas explains, "When we talk about wearables, we have to understand what those wearables are collecting. A typical watch, like an Apple Watch or Samsung Watch or these kinds of devices, collects data through a PPG, which is really looking at light refraction and basically looking at your pulse rate. Based on skin tone, it will have varying results. Based on how tight you are wearing the band, it will have varying results."
"The second problem and why the cardiac issue is the number one killer and why it's the silent killer is most of these issues are intermittent, and most patients are asymptomatic. So if you don't feel the symptoms, you could take that 30-second ECG all the time, and you may never catch it because many times, these issues happen while we're sleeping. They're happening early in the morning."
"The reason people are passing away is because many of these patients are screened is because when they are put on a monitor, sometimes you'll collect data on a patient for 24 hours a day for seven days. You'll not find the issue, and suddenly, you extend the monitor to day ten, and you'll find it on day nine. So how can you hold a device or a watch continuously for 24 hours, let alone continuously for nine days? And that's your challenge. That is why wearables are great awareness drivers. They're great tools if you've already been diagnosed and you're trying to manage your condition, but incredibly, incredibly blunt instruments when it comes to figuring out what your issue is."
#Biotricity #HeartSecure #HeartHealth #Preventative #HeartDisease #HealthyHeart #SelfCare #HealthyLifeStyle #HealthTestatHome
biotricity.com
Download the transcript here
Bill Padula, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics, and Dr. David Armstrong, professor of surgery and Neurological surgery, are both at the University of Southern California and are concerned about wound care and the impact of potential changes in Medicare reimbursement of skin substitutes. They discuss the importance of skin substitutes in chronic wound care and their effectiveness in reducing amputations and hospital readmissions. With current advancements in wound care, there is an emphasis on the need for education and advocacy to ensure that Medicare understands the value of skin substitutes and their potential for improving patient outcomes.
David explains, "The skin substitutes we are talking about have been really helpful over the past, maybe at least the last decade, maybe even the last two decades, and especially over the last few years. We’ve seen now in some studies from our group and others that we can not only reduce amputation, but we can also reduce hospital admission and emergency department admission for these patients. So it’s a really exciting time. And so that’s on the positive end. On the not so positive end is that there have been some changes, and I’m sure Dr. Padula can talk about this. That may limit our access to it as clinicians, which is concerning certainly for the patients that I’m having right across the hallway."
Bill elaborates, "Up until recently, Medicare hasn’t put a lot of governance on reimbursement for skin substitutes, and physicians have been using them autonomously with the patient to treat non-healing chronic wounds. We see from the data that these skin substitutes work best when applied on a patient every one to seven days in a wound clinic, like what David Armstrong runs here at the University of Southern California. Medicare wants to change the reimbursement pattern and reduce reimbursement so that it would be impossible to get reimbursed for more than ten applications of a skin substitute in twelve weeks. So, that reimbursement system makes it impossible for providers and patients to follow parameters for use and improve the likelihood of healing a chronic wound."
#SkinSubstitute #Medicare #CMS #ChronicWounds
Keck School of Medicine at USC
Listen to the podcast here
Bill Padula, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics, and Dr. David Armstrong, professor of surgery and Neurological surgery, are both at the University of Southern California and are concerned about wound care and the impact of potential changes in Medicare reimbursement of skin substitutes. They discuss the importance of skin substitutes in chronic wound care and their effectiveness in reducing amputations and hospital readmissions. With current advancements in wound care, there is an emphasis on the need for education and advocacy to ensure that Medicare understands the value of skin substitutes and their potential for improving patient outcomes.
David explains, "The skin substitutes we are talking about have been really helpful over the past, maybe at least the last decade, maybe even the last two decades, and especially over the last few years. We’ve seen now in some studies from our group and others that we can not only reduce amputation, but we can also reduce hospital admission and emergency department admission for these patients. So it’s a really exciting time. And so that’s on the positive end. On the not so positive end is that there have been some changes, and I’m sure Dr. Padula can talk about this. That may limit our access to it as clinicians, which is concerning certainly for the patients that I’m having right across the hallway."
Bill elaborates, "Up until recently, Medicare hasn’t put a lot of governance on reimbursement for skin substitutes, and physicians have been using them autonomously with the patient to treat non-healing chronic wounds. We see from the data that these skin substitutes work best when applied on a patient every one to seven days in a wound clinic, like what David Armstrong runs here at the University of Southern California. Medicare wants to change the reimbursement pattern and reduce reimbursement so that it would be impossible to get reimbursed for more than ten applications of a skin substitute in twelve weeks. So, that reimbursement system makes it impossible for providers and patients to follow parameters for use and improve the likelihood of healing a chronic wound."
#SkinSubstitute #Medicare #CMS #ChronicWounds
Keck School of Medicine at USC
Download the transcript here
Gretchen Case, Managing Partner at The Wilshire Group a boutique healthcare revenue cycle consulting company that helps healthcare clients streamline workflows and processes. They work with hospitals, physician groups, and other providers to optimize their investment in technology and improve patient outcomes. Gretchen points out the various aspects of revenue cycle management, which include insurance benefit verification, explanation of costs, and identification of financial support. The middle revenue cycle includes the codification of clinical data and coordination with insurance companies and electronic health records. The third phase is the billing and payment.
Gretchen elaborates, "Some of the automation I’ve seen over the last several years has been designed to query the documentation and come up with suggested codes, called computer-assisted coding. And there is a lot of that in play. I think it expedites things and it makes things more efficient. I don’t know of anybody who’s just flipped that button and left it behind and not continued to monitor and manage it."
"There’s also movement right now around what we call a single path. That’s just one way of saying it, but it’s about coding the professional and the technical at the same time. What does that mean? The physician’s procedure charge and the technical is what the hospital is going for that technical component of the services. And a lot of times, we share codes. So, if you’re going to be coding the physicians and getting her bill out the door correctly, you might as well be coding the hospital one at the same time. So there are definitely developments there, but I haven’t seen anything. Just completely automate it and step away."
#TheWilshireGroup #RevenueCycleManagment #RCM #Hospitals
thewilshiregroup.net
Listen to the podcast here
Gretchen Case, Managing Partner at The Wilshire Group a boutique healthcare revenue cycle consulting company that helps healthcare clients streamline workflows and processes. They work with hospitals, physician groups, and other providers to optimize their investment in technology and improve patient outcomes. Gretchen points out the various aspects of revenue cycle management, which include insurance benefit verification, explanation of costs, and identification of financial support. The middle revenue cycle includes the codification of clinical data and coordination with insurance companies and electronic health records. The third phase is the billing and payment.
Gretchen elaborates, "Some of the automation I’ve seen over the last several years has been designed to query the documentation and come up with suggested codes, called computer-assisted coding. And there is a lot of that in play. I think it expedites things and it makes things more efficient. I don’t know of anybody who’s just flipped that button and left it behind and not continued to monitor and manage it."
"There’s also movement right now around what we call a single path. That’s just one way of saying it, but it’s about coding the professional and the technical at the same time. What does that mean? The physician’s procedure charge and the technical is what the hospital is going for that technical component of the services. And a lot of times, we share codes. So, if you’re going to be coding the physicians and getting her bill out the door correctly, you might as well be coding the hospital one at the same time. So there are definitely developments there, but I haven’t seen anything. Just completely automate it and step away."
#TheWilshireGroup #RevenueCycleManagment #RCM #Hospitals
thewilshiregroup.net
Download the transcript here
Lynn Carroll, the Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox, focuses on payer-provider collaboration to mitigate risks related to the transition from a fee-for-service model to value-based care. Care coordination is critical to this model to reduce duplicative and unnecessary services and low-value providers by effectively sharing patient data. They are seeing an emphasis on high-cost categories, diagnostics, and disease management to rein in costs and improve patient outcomes.
Lynn explains, "At HSBlox, we have built a platform for payer and provider collaboration around these types of arrangements, particularly for onboarding different types of alternative payment model contracts, bringing together the care continuum to align primary care with specialty care because primary care can’t go alone in achieving success under value-based programs. A significant amount of spend, particularly under the total cost of care programs, is driven by specialty utilization."
"We have built a platform that allows for multi-participant programs that enable the sharing of data and the movement of funds across these different alternative payment models. The purpose of the platform was to provide the infrastructure that would allow these programs to flourish and accelerate the pace of the end game for value-based administration."
#alternativepaymentmodels #carecoordination #contractmodeling #healthoutcomes #patientengagement #permissioneddataexchange #populationhealth #referralmanagement #reinbursementmodels #riskbearingproviders #ValuebasedCare #VBC
HSBlox.com
Listen to the podcast here
Lynn Carroll, the Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox, focuses on payer-provider collaboration to mitigate risks related to the transition from a fee-for-service model to value-based care. Care coordination is critical to this model to reduce duplicative and unnecessary services and low-value providers by effectively sharing patient data. They are seeing an emphasis on high-cost categories, diagnostics, and disease management to rein in costs and improve patient outcomes.
Lynn explains, "At HSBlox, we have built a platform for payer and provider collaboration around these types of arrangements, particularly for onboarding different types of alternative payment model contracts, bringing together the care continuum to align primary care with specialty care because primary care can’t go alone in achieving success under value-based programs. A significant amount of spend, particularly under the total cost of care programs, is driven by specialty utilization."
"We have built a platform that allows for multi-participant programs that enable the sharing of data and the movement of funds across these different alternative payment models. The purpose of the platform was to provide the infrastructure that would allow these programs to flourish and accelerate the pace of the end game for value-based administration."
#alternativepaymentmodels #carecoordination #contractmodeling #healthoutcomes #patientengagement #permissioneddataexchange #populationhealth #referralmanagement #reinbursementmodels #riskbearingproviders #ValuebasedCare #VBC
HSBlox.com
Download the transcript here
Dave Kerwar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Inbound Health, a hospital-at-home organization that offers an advanced primary care model for patients who would typically go to the emergency department and a secondary care model for post-acute patients who would typically go to a skilled nursing facility. With virtual care enhanced by data analytics, remote sensors, and on-site visits, Inbound Health's model has shown lower readmission rates than traditional facility-based care.
Dave explains, "We help health systems launch and scale advanced care models delivered from the home. So our flagship care model is a hospital-at-home model where we’re typically taking patients who are presenting in the emergency department or have been inpatient for less than 24 hours and who could otherwise receive the totality of their hospital stay from the comfort of their home. In that model, what we do is we bring forward the care model, so basically, the care pathways for how to care for those patients."
"We bring forward a technology and analytics platform to remotely care for those patients, monitor those patients, and manage all the logistics around the care that needs to be delivered. We bring forward the virtual care team, which is made up of virtual nurses and physicians who provide the care and oversee the patient 24/7 and the in-home care. Nurses, therapists, and community paramedics go into the home."
"We have to manage a lot of the supply chain in these models. We bring forward durable medical equipment, home-based labs, home-based imaging, home infusion, transportation, and things like that. We manage the ability to provide that supply chain into home-managed care services. Often, these models are not a standard reimbursement structure with the payers, so we create that reimbursement structure with the payers on behalf of our health systems."
#InboundHealth #HospitalatHome #Medtech #DigitalHealth
inboundhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dave Kerwar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Inbound Health, a hospital-at-home organization that offers an advanced primary care model for patients who would typically go to the emergency department and a secondary care model for post-acute patients who would typically go to a skilled nursing facility. With virtual care enhanced by data analytics, remote sensors, and on-site visits, Inbound Health's model has shown lower readmission rates than traditional facility-based care.
Dave explains, "We help health systems launch and scale advanced care models delivered from the home. So our flagship care model is a hospital-at-home model where we’re typically taking patients who are presenting in the emergency department or have been inpatient for less than 24 hours and who could otherwise receive the totality of their hospital stay from the comfort of their home. In that model, what we do is we bring forward the care model, so basically, the care pathways for how to care for those patients."
"We bring forward a technology and analytics platform to remotely care for those patients, monitor those patients, and manage all the logistics around the care that needs to be delivered. We bring forward the virtual care team, which is made up of virtual nurses and physicians who provide the care and oversee the patient 24/7 and the in-home care. Nurses, therapists, and community paramedics go into the home."
"We have to manage a lot of the supply chain in these models. We bring forward durable medical equipment, home-based labs, home-based imaging, home infusion, transportation, and things like that. We manage the ability to provide that supply chain into home-managed care services. Often, these models are not a standard reimbursement structure with the payers, so we create that reimbursement structure with the payers on behalf of our health systems."
#InboundHealth #HospitalatHome #Medtech #DigitalHealth
inboundhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Michelle Clavecilla-Chan, Director of Behavioral Health at MVP Health Care, and Amanda Conway, Chief Growth Officer at Aptihealth, have partnered to expand access to mental health services for MVP customers. Aptihealth provides virtual behavioral health services that connect patients to comprehensive mental health and substance abuse support. Through their digital platform and behavioral health provider network, MVP customers have options for integrated care that remove traditional access barriers and provide virtual visits to engage this high-need population. The partnership focuses on serving complex patient populations with conditions such as psychosis, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and personality disorders with personalized care plans.
Michelle explains, "MVP provides coverage for all lines of business, including commercial Medicare, Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and Essential Plan enrollees. We provide all of the healthcare needs of our customers, and our mission is to improve our customers’ health and provide peace of mind to our customers by helping them access quality healthcare that meets their needs. Our mission is also to create healthier communities through innovation and collaboration, which is why we’re excited to partner with Aptihealth."
Amanda elaborates, "Aptihealth is a virtual behavioral health provider. We work with payers in value-based care arrangements to provide comprehensive services for behavioral health patients. We focus primarily on complex, high-acuity patient populations, which is unique to our virtual model, and we integrate within the communities that we serve to be a key stakeholder in the overall care of the patients we treat."
#MVPHealthCare #Aptihealth #MentalHealth #DigitalHealth #AccessToCare
MVPHealthCare.com
Aptihealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Michelle Clavecilla-Chan, Director of Behavioral Health at MVP Health Care, and Amanda Conway, Chief Growth Officer at Aptihealth, have partnered to expand access to mental health services for MVP customers. Aptihealth provides virtual behavioral health services that connect patients to comprehensive mental health and substance abuse support. Through their digital platform and behavioral health provider network, MVP customers have options for integrated care that remove traditional access barriers and provide virtual visits to engage this high-need population. The partnership focuses on serving complex patient populations with conditions such as psychosis, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and personality disorders with personalized care plans.
Michelle explains, "MVP provides coverage for all lines of business, including commercial Medicare, Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and Essential Plan enrollees. We provide all of the healthcare needs of our customers, and our mission is to improve our customers’ health and provide peace of mind to our customers by helping them access quality healthcare that meets their needs. Our mission is also to create healthier communities through innovation and collaboration, which is why we’re excited to partner with Aptihealth."
Amanda elaborates, "Aptihealth is a virtual behavioral health provider. We work with payers in value-based care arrangements to provide comprehensive services for behavioral health patients. We focus primarily on complex, high-acuity patient populations, which is unique to our virtual model, and we integrate within the communities that we serve to be a key stakeholder in the overall care of the patients we treat."
#MVPHealthCare #Aptihealth #MentalHealth #DigitalHealth #AccessToCare
MVPHealthCare.com
Aptihealth.com
Download the transcript here
Martin Pytela is a functional medicine expert, metabolic typing coach, and fellow podcaster. He discusses the principles of functional medicine and its focus on finding the root causes of health issues rather than just treating symptoms. Understanding metabolic behavior and how it can affect emotional well-being and overall health highlights the need to better understand the connection between diet and health conditions. Martin emphasizes the need to personalize approaches to health based on individual genetics and endocrine dominance.
Martin elaborates, "Functional medicine is a moniker developed to distinguish it from allopathic medicine in the sense that functionals are looking for root causes of things. In the typical medical setting, you are just looking at a symptom, and you address the symptom with some chemicals and let the patient manage or cope with life as is. With functional medicine, you try to find the cause of it and restore health. So, rather than treating symptoms alone, you’re trying to heal the patient."
"Early on, they were checking venous blood pH. These days, we can get the same results just by putting forward a questionnaire with 120 multiple-choice questions. And at the end of it, we’re able to tell you what your endocrine dominance is and what your metabolic dominance is. The endocrine dominance, which we identify as the thyroid, adrenal, pituitary, or ovaries in women, will drive how a person will gain weight or lose weight primarily. And then the metabolic dominance, of which we have either the autonomic or the oxidizer, one is the lipo-oxidative the other one is carbo-oxidative dominances. With that we’ll figure out how the pH of the internal body terrain is responding to the food combinations."
#MartinPytela #FunctionalMedicine #MetabolicTyping #EndocrineDominance #HolisticHealth #ThePainManifesto
Life-Enthusiast.com
Listen to the podcast here
Martin Pytela is a functional medicine expert, metabolic typing coach, and fellow podcaster. He discusses the principles of functional medicine and its focus on finding the root causes of health issues rather than just treating symptoms. Understanding metabolic behavior and how it can affect emotional well-being and overall health highlights the need to better understand the connection between diet and health conditions. Martin emphasizes the need to personalize approaches to health based on individual genetics and endocrine dominance.
Martin elaborates, "Functional medicine is a moniker developed to distinguish it from allopathic medicine in the sense that functionals are looking for root causes of things. In the typical medical setting, you are just looking at a symptom, and you address the symptom with some chemicals and let the patient manage or cope with life as is. With functional medicine, you try to find the cause of it and restore health. So, rather than treating symptoms alone, you’re trying to heal the patient."
"Early on, they were checking venous blood pH. These days, we can get the same results just by putting forward a questionnaire with 120 multiple-choice questions. And at the end of it, we’re able to tell you what your endocrine dominance is and what your metabolic dominance is. The endocrine dominance, which we identify as the thyroid, adrenal, pituitary, or ovaries in women, will drive how a person will gain weight or lose weight primarily. And then the metabolic dominance, of which we have either the autonomic or the oxidizer, one is the lipo-oxidative the other one is carbo-oxidative dominances. With that we’ll figure out how the pH of the internal body terrain is responding to the food combinations."
#MartinPytela #FunctionalMedicine #MetabolicTyping #EndocrineDominance #HolisticHealth #ThePainManifesto
Life-Enthusiast.com
Download the transcript here
Patty Hayward, general manager for healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, talks about transforming the traditional call center into one that uses AI and large language models to make it easier for patients to get help and free up call center staff to focus on value-added tasks. The technology supports call center agents in their conversations with patients and helps avoid escalations. Outbound messaging prompts patients to take action, reinforcing conversations with call centers to improve patient outcomes.
Patty explains, "Because AI has been around for a long time, we’ve had AI infused in our platform for many years. But these large language models that have come speeding into the market have enhanced how we use AI in such a great way and allowed us to more easily support patients and agents in their journeys. We in healthcare do not make these journeys easy. They’re very complex. There are a lot of things going on, and quite frankly, deployment and training of these models can be really difficult. So these large language models have helped democratize a lot of this AI so that you don’t have to have a full IT staff devoted to doing this, which I think has been great."
"Then there are things you need a human for. A human in the loop is really important in healthcare because of the complexity we discussed. So, being able to support the agents, listening to the conversation, and bringing out things like the next best actions. What should that patient be doing next? How does that go without having to read articles or have tons of tabs behind your call center product or sticky notes all over the screen? I’ve seen this in numerous call centers to help coach those agents to make sure that they’re answering calls correctly. Also, the first time the patient calls, she gets what she needs and is not transferred needlessly."
#Talkdesk #GenAI #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ContactCenter #CallCenter #ValueBasedCare #VBC #PatientExperience #MemberExperience #CustomerExperience #Providers #Payers
talkdesk.com
Listen to the podcast here
Patty Hayward, general manager for healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, talks about transforming the traditional call center into one that uses AI and large language models to make it easier for patients to get help and free up call center staff to focus on value-added tasks. The technology supports call center agents in their conversations with patients and helps avoid escalations. Outbound messaging prompts patients to take action, reinforcing conversations with call centers to improve patient outcomes.
Patty explains, "Because AI has been around for a long time, we’ve had AI infused in our platform for many years. But these large language models that have come speeding into the market have enhanced how we use AI in such a great way and allowed us to more easily support patients and agents in their journeys. We in healthcare do not make these journeys easy. They’re very complex. There are a lot of things going on, and quite frankly, deployment and training of these models can be really difficult. So these large language models have helped democratize a lot of this AI so that you don’t have to have a full IT staff devoted to doing this, which I think has been great."
"Then there are things you need a human for. A human in the loop is really important in healthcare because of the complexity we discussed. So, being able to support the agents, listening to the conversation, and bringing out things like the next best actions. What should that patient be doing next? How does that go without having to read articles or have tons of tabs behind your call center product or sticky notes all over the screen? I’ve seen this in numerous call centers to help coach those agents to make sure that they’re answering calls correctly. Also, the first time the patient calls, she gets what she needs and is not transferred needlessly."
#Talkdesk #GenAI #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ContactCenter #CallCenter #ValueBasedCare #VBC #PatientExperience #MemberExperience #CustomerExperience #Providers #Payers
talkdesk.com
Download the transcript here
AJ Tesler, an award-winning producer and director who, along with his wife Jenny, is launching Magnolia’s Guide to Adventuring, a new documentary video series created with support from Acadia Pharmaceuticals, inspired by their daughter Magnolia’s experience with the rare genetic neurodevelopmental disease Rett syndrome. We’re also joined by Dr. Cary Fu, a pediatric neurologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who emphasizes the need for early diagnosis. The video series highlights the adventures children with Rett syndrome can engage in. While Cary emphasizes the importance of safety and consulting with specialists before pursuing an adventure, AJ and Cary encourage people to recognize the capabilities of children with Rett and focus on what they can do.
AJ explains, "We made a documentary about that experience and those initial steps that we took called Magnolia’s Hope, which is available on iTunes and Amazon streaming, as well as a bunch of other places. And in that documentary, my wife so sagely presents it as we want to make sure that when there’s a cure, she’ll have stories to tell. That’s an inspiring way to think about all of this. Her story does not just have to be about Rett syndrome. It doesn’t have to be about all the things that she can’t do. It can be about all the things that you can do."
"Beyond that, it was also about finding families to come along on these adventures with us. Some of the families are adventurous and have tried these things before. Some of them have never done any of these things before. That was part of the creative vision for the entire thing, which was to show that no matter what your disability is, no matter where on the spectrum you are, as long as a doctor says that it’s okay to do these things, then, by all means, there are organizations that can help you do these things."
Cary elaborates, "I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily unusual, but I do think that what AJ and Jenny have done with their family is very inspiring. I think families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I think the important thing is I encourage all of my families with Rett syndrome to make sure not to allow the diagnosis to define them. To make sure that whatever expectations they had as a family before the diagnosis was made and before they realized that there would be potential limitations and need to make modifications, they should feel free to pursue those things that they wanted, the hopes that they wanted for their child."
#RettSyndrome #MagnoliasGuideToAdventuring" #AdventuringWithMagnolia #RettRevealed #AdaptiveSports #AdaptiveAdventures #RareDisease
RettRevealed.com
Listen to the podcast here
AJ Tesler, an award-winning producer and director who, along with his wife Jenny, is launching Magnolia’s Guide to Adventuring, a new documentary video series created with support from Acadia Pharmaceuticals, inspired by their daughter Magnolia’s experience with the rare genetic neurodevelopmental disease Rett syndrome. We’re also joined by Dr. Cary Fu, a pediatric neurologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who emphasizes the need for early diagnosis. The video series highlights the adventures children with Rett syndrome can engage in. While Cary emphasizes the importance of safety and consulting with specialists before pursuing an adventure, AJ and Cary encourage people to recognize the capabilities of children with Rett and focus on what they can do.
AJ explains, "We made a documentary about that experience and those initial steps that we took called Magnolia’s Hope, which is available on iTunes and Amazon streaming, as well as a bunch of other places. And in that documentary, my wife so sagely presents it as we want to make sure that when there’s a cure, she’ll have stories to tell. That’s an inspiring way to think about all of this. Her story does not just have to be about Rett syndrome. It doesn’t have to be about all the things that she can’t do. It can be about all the things that you can do."
"Beyond that, it was also about finding families to come along on these adventures with us. Some of the families are adventurous and have tried these things before. Some of them have never done any of these things before. That was part of the creative vision for the entire thing, which was to show that no matter what your disability is, no matter where on the spectrum you are, as long as a doctor says that it’s okay to do these things, then, by all means, there are organizations that can help you do these things."
Cary elaborates, "I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily unusual, but I do think that what AJ and Jenny have done with their family is very inspiring. I think families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I think the important thing is I encourage all of my families with Rett syndrome to make sure not to allow the diagnosis to define them. To make sure that whatever expectations they had as a family before the diagnosis was made and before they realized that there would be potential limitations and need to make modifications, they should feel free to pursue those things that they wanted, the hopes that they wanted for their child."
#RettSyndrome #MagnoliasGuideToAdventuring" #AdventuringWithMagnolia #RettRevealed #AdaptiveSports #AdaptiveAdventures #RareDisease
RettRevealed.com
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David Mazzo, President and CEO of Lisata Therapeutics, has a lead program focused on metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The Lisata CendR Platform and drug certepetide efficiently augment the effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapies in the tumor microenvironment. Based on early findings, the future of cancer treatment may involve combining existing therapies with certepetide to personalize treatment for most solid tumors.
David explains, "At Lisata, we're developing therapies to combat a challenging problem in the medical field today, which is the effective treatment of solid tumors. Solid tumors are very difficult to treat for two very simple reasons. On the one hand, these tumors generate a layer of cells around them that acts as a physical barrier. It's called the tumor stroma, and it prevents the penetration of many anti-cancer medicines into the tumor, which is why you often don't get the kind of results that one would expect."
"The other obstacle these tumors present is that they generate or express a tumor microenvironment that is immunosuppressive, which helps the tumor hide from your innate immune system. It helps it not respond very well to externally administered immunotherapies. When you combine these two challenges, you end up with a set of diseases that remains an enigma in medical science today."
"So our therapy at Lisata called certepetide, our lead product, actually combines the ability to target and penetrate tumors more effectively for co-administered anti-cancer drugs with the ability to modify the tumor microenvironment, making it more immunoreceptive and therefore more likely to respond to your immune system and immunotherapies."
#Lisata #Oncology #Cancer #SolidTumors #Immunotherapies #TumorMicroEnvironment
lisata.com
Listen to the podcast here
David Mazzo, President and CEO of Lisata Therapeutics, has a lead program focused on metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The Lisata CendR Platform and drug certepetide efficiently augment the effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapies in the tumor microenvironment. Based on early findings, the future of cancer treatment may involve combining existing therapies with certepetide to personalize treatment for most solid tumors.
David explains, "At Lisata, we're developing therapies to combat a challenging problem in the medical field today, which is the effective treatment of solid tumors. Solid tumors are very difficult to treat for two very simple reasons. On the one hand, these tumors generate a layer of cells around them that acts as a physical barrier. It's called the tumor stroma, and it prevents the penetration of many anti-cancer medicines into the tumor, which is why you often don't get the kind of results that one would expect."
"The other obstacle these tumors present is that they generate or express a tumor microenvironment that is immunosuppressive, which helps the tumor hide from your innate immune system. It helps it not respond very well to externally administered immunotherapies. When you combine these two challenges, you end up with a set of diseases that remains an enigma in medical science today."
"So our therapy at Lisata called certepetide, our lead product, actually combines the ability to target and penetrate tumors more effectively for co-administered anti-cancer drugs with the ability to modify the tumor microenvironment, making it more immunoreceptive and therefore more likely to respond to your immune system and immunotherapies."
#Lisata #Oncology #Cancer #SolidTumors #Immunotherapies #TumorMicroEnvironment
lisata.com
Download the transcript here
John Incledon, President and CEO of Hisamitsu America, the makers of Salonpas, has seen enormous growth in the acceptance of over-the-counter topical pain management options since introducing the Salonpas analgesic patch in the US market 37 years ago. This growth is partly due to television ads featuring doctors touting the benefits of Salonpas for mild to moderate nerve-related and muscle-related pain and the sampling program that aims to get doctors and patients to try out the products.
John explains, "Topical medications have only been around since the 1960s, with the introduction of the first OTC monograph by the FDA. Salonpas itself was formally introduced to the United States in 1987, so we’ve been around some 37 years or so as a brand in this country. And so, it’s been a challenge. I’ll give you a couple of fun facts: 85% of US households have a pill form of an OTC pain reliever in their house, and 30% have a topical analgesic of any sort, a cream, a roll-on, or a patch. So, there’s a great disparity there. Pills remain a modality, topicals are up and coming, and I think the horizon for them is excellent."
"Topicals work locally, at least OTC topical analgesics. You can wear patches and things intended to be systemic, but in this category and the products we’re talking about, they’re not. They’re intended basically just to work below the surface of the skin. There are pain receptors that certain actives will trigger to help minimize the pain. However, they’re not intended to get into the bloodstream, so by working locally and acting locally, they’re generally safer than systemic analgesics."
"We have basically two mechanisms of action in our products. One is anesthetic-based and uses lidocaine, and lidocaine is going to be most appropriate to the extent that you can diagnose this if your source of pain is from aggravated nerves. So if your lower back pain is tending to move outward, say, from the spine, you want to use an anesthetic to treat that, and so, a lidocaine-based product would be best."
"If it’s purely muscle-related, then you’re better off with our alternative formulas, which include menthol, methyl salicylate, and camphor. Methyl salicylate is an aspirin derivative, so it’s categorized as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory but topically applied, as opposed to systemically."
#Salonpas #Hisamitsu #GoodMedicine #ItsGoodMedicine #PainManagement #OTC #OvertheCounterDrugs #TopicalAnalgesics
us.hisamitsu
Listen to the podcast here
John Incledon, President and CEO of Hisamitsu America, the makers of Salonpas, has seen enormous growth in the acceptance of over-the-counter topical pain management options since introducing the Salonpas analgesic patch in the US market 37 years ago. This growth is partly due to television ads featuring doctors touting the benefits of Salonpas for mild to moderate nerve-related and muscle-related pain and the sampling program that aims to get doctors and patients to try out the products.
John explains, "Topical medications have only been around since the 1960s, with the introduction of the first OTC monograph by the FDA. Salonpas itself was formally introduced to the United States in 1987, so we’ve been around some 37 years or so as a brand in this country. And so, it’s been a challenge. I’ll give you a couple of fun facts: 85% of US households have a pill form of an OTC pain reliever in their house, and 30% have a topical analgesic of any sort, a cream, a roll-on, or a patch. So, there’s a great disparity there. Pills remain a modality, topicals are up and coming, and I think the horizon for them is excellent."
"Topicals work locally, at least OTC topical analgesics. You can wear patches and things intended to be systemic, but in this category and the products we’re talking about, they’re not. They’re intended basically just to work below the surface of the skin. There are pain receptors that certain actives will trigger to help minimize the pain. However, they’re not intended to get into the bloodstream, so by working locally and acting locally, they’re generally safer than systemic analgesics."
"We have basically two mechanisms of action in our products. One is anesthetic-based and uses lidocaine, and lidocaine is going to be most appropriate to the extent that you can diagnose this if your source of pain is from aggravated nerves. So if your lower back pain is tending to move outward, say, from the spine, you want to use an anesthetic to treat that, and so, a lidocaine-based product would be best."
"If it’s purely muscle-related, then you’re better off with our alternative formulas, which include menthol, methyl salicylate, and camphor. Methyl salicylate is an aspirin derivative, so it’s categorized as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory but topically applied, as opposed to systemically."
#Salonpas #Hisamitsu #GoodMedicine #ItsGoodMedicine #PainManagement #OTC #OvertheCounterDrugs #TopicalAnalgesics
us.hisamitsu
Download the transcript here
Dr. Doug Newton is the Chief Medical Officer at Rula Health, a tech-enabled provider group that offers therapy, psychiatry, care coordination, and other supportive behavioral health services with a whole-person approach. Mental health disorders are diagnosed and managed using a combination of sound clinical judgment and measurement-informed care, which involves using patient-reported data and other objective measures. Normalizing mental health and using objective measures can help doctors bring up the topic with people of all ages to develop a personalized plan to maintain good physical and psychological health.
Doug explains, "We do know that the behavioral health crisis was exacerbated by COVID. Still, unfortunately, for most demographic groupings, it was already starting before the pandemic hit. Using adolescents as an example, because I’m a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist by training, I saw this trend, so I looked at the data. We saw that was already a problem for kids, adolescents, and adults, where the rates of depression and anxiety were going up, as well as despair, as well as suicidal ideation - and, unfortunately, completion - were going up prior to COVID. It went up even further with COVID. We’re seeing, unfortunately, either continued or slightly increased in the years post-COVID as well."
"The next component is, okay, great, let’s get people to equitable and quick quality care. That’s been harder. And so I do think that telehealth has allowed us to do that. I think it’s allowed more equitable care across rural and urban areas. It’s allowed providers and patients to find one another in a way we haven’t been able to before. And that’s great. I think the next frontier is making sure that we are providing the right care, and we can measure ways of providing the right care to that person. Highly personalized outcomes-based care is the frontier that we’re going into next, and that’s going to be critical."
#RulaHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #YouthMentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MeasurementInformedCare #COVID
Rula.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Doug Newton is the Chief Medical Officer at Rula Health, a tech-enabled provider group that offers therapy, psychiatry, care coordination, and other supportive behavioral health services with a whole-person approach. Mental health disorders are diagnosed and managed using a combination of sound clinical judgment and measurement-informed care, which involves using patient-reported data and other objective measures. Normalizing mental health and using objective measures can help doctors bring up the topic with people of all ages to develop a personalized plan to maintain good physical and psychological health.
Doug explains, "We do know that the behavioral health crisis was exacerbated by COVID. Still, unfortunately, for most demographic groupings, it was already starting before the pandemic hit. Using adolescents as an example, because I’m a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist by training, I saw this trend, so I looked at the data. We saw that was already a problem for kids, adolescents, and adults, where the rates of depression and anxiety were going up, as well as despair, as well as suicidal ideation - and, unfortunately, completion - were going up prior to COVID. It went up even further with COVID. We’re seeing, unfortunately, either continued or slightly increased in the years post-COVID as well."
"The next component is, okay, great, let’s get people to equitable and quick quality care. That’s been harder. And so I do think that telehealth has allowed us to do that. I think it’s allowed more equitable care across rural and urban areas. It’s allowed providers and patients to find one another in a way we haven’t been able to before. And that’s great. I think the next frontier is making sure that we are providing the right care, and we can measure ways of providing the right care to that person. Highly personalized outcomes-based care is the frontier that we’re going into next, and that’s going to be critical."
#RulaHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #YouthMentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MeasurementInformedCare #COVID
Rula.com
Download the transcript here
Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Founder and CEO of Genomics plc, aims to use cutting-edge polygenic risk scores to identify inherited DNA mutations and genetic predispositions that could lead to common diseases. In partnership with the MassMutual life insurance company, Genomics offers a voluntary test that provides personalized risk measures and advice about conversations with clinicians. If the policyholder stays healthy longer, the insurance company will get paid more premiums before paying out to survivors. Win-win all the way around.
Peter explains, "Until a few years ago, if I had the entire DNA sequence from a 40-year-old who’s currently healthy, I’d have learned something interesting and medically actionable in maybe 1% or 2% of cases. That’s because genetics has played into medicine through diseases where there’s a single change in our DNA, called a mutation, which often stops a crucial gene from working. Think cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease. Those are conditions that are individually serious. They’re rare individually, thankfully, and actually, they’re collectively rare. And so until a few years ago, and now still very much the case, genetic testing was about looking for those needles in haystacks, those one or two single places that caused a problem."
"Now, if I have genetic information from a 40-year-old who’s healthy, I learn something medically useful in about 70% of cases. So, that massive change from 2% to 70% is because we can now measure the genetic component of risk for all of the common diseases, as I said, for heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, or prostate cancer."
"What we’ve learned is that for any one of those diseases, if we take heart disease as an example, there’s not one gene that matters for heart disease. There aren’t two genes. There are a million or more places in our DNA individual positions in our DNA, which affect someone’s risk of heart disease. And we’ve now got large enough data sets and clever enough algorithms to measure those places and combine the information to get an overall summary for someone of their genetic predisposition to heart disease."
#Genomics #Genetics #PRS #PolygenicRiskScores #DrugDiscovery #Biopharma
genomicsplc.com
Listen to the podcast here
Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Founder and CEO of Genomics plc, aims to use cutting-edge polygenic risk scores to identify inherited DNA mutations and genetic predispositions that could lead to common diseases. In partnership with the MassMutual life insurance company, Genomics offers a voluntary test that provides personalized risk measures and advice about conversations with clinicians. If the policyholder stays healthy longer, the insurance company will get paid more premiums before paying out to survivors. Win-win all the way around.
Peter explains, "Until a few years ago, if I had the entire DNA sequence from a 40-year-old who’s currently healthy, I’d have learned something interesting and medically actionable in maybe 1% or 2% of cases. That’s because genetics has played into medicine through diseases where there’s a single change in our DNA, called a mutation, which often stops a crucial gene from working. Think cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease. Those are conditions that are individually serious. They’re rare individually, thankfully, and actually, they’re collectively rare. And so until a few years ago, and now still very much the case, genetic testing was about looking for those needles in haystacks, those one or two single places that caused a problem."
"Now, if I have genetic information from a 40-year-old who’s healthy, I learn something medically useful in about 70% of cases. So, that massive change from 2% to 70% is because we can now measure the genetic component of risk for all of the common diseases, as I said, for heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, or prostate cancer."
"What we’ve learned is that for any one of those diseases, if we take heart disease as an example, there’s not one gene that matters for heart disease. There aren’t two genes. There are a million or more places in our DNA individual positions in our DNA, which affect someone’s risk of heart disease. And we’ve now got large enough data sets and clever enough algorithms to measure those places and combine the information to get an overall summary for someone of their genetic predisposition to heart disease."
#Genomics #Genetics #PRS #PolygenicRiskScores #DrugDiscovery #Biopharma
genomicsplc.com
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Oren Nissim, CEO and Co-Founder of Brook Health focuses on loneliness and its impact on individuals with chronic conditions, especially when access to support is limited. Societal stigma and guilt associated with chronic conditions often contribute to loneliness, which can include depression, lack of agency, and a sense of being alone. Brook Health provides nonjudgemental support to patients with chronic diseases using a combination of human interaction with health coaches and technology to help patients manage their conditions.
Oren elaborates, "I think that people who live at home with a condition need great support, and the reality is that they don’t always have access to great support. Even if they do have great support, they still go home and have to live with it themselves - it drives people to feel lonely. I can tell you from my personal experience that I’ve been living with diabetes for a very long period of time, and the reality is that living with a chronic condition is a very lonely thing to do."
"It’s interesting that you raise that because society, for a long period of time, has been characterizing having a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension as you’re not taking good care of yourself. "You should avoid this. You should have a better way to manage yourself." The reality is that for most people who have contracted these conditions, nobody chose to be there. And so, by virtue of that type of conversation, you end up feeling, "Oh, I’m not responsible enough. I haven’t done what I should have done. I could do better, and I should do better." Very penalizing thoughts, and society judges people in this way. And, of course, that leads to loneliness as well. Again, we don’t want to be celebrating our failures outside. It’s not easy to do."
#BrookHealth #RemotePatientMonitoring #Loneliness #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #PublicHealth #ChronicDisease #AI
Brook.ai
Listen to the podcast here
Oren Nissim, CEO and Co-Founder of Brook Health focuses on loneliness and its impact on individuals with chronic conditions, especially when access to support is limited. Societal stigma and guilt associated with chronic conditions often contribute to loneliness, which can include depression, lack of agency, and a sense of being alone. Brook Health provides nonjudgemental support to patients with chronic diseases using a combination of human interaction with health coaches and technology to help patients manage their conditions.
Oren elaborates, "I think that people who live at home with a condition need great support, and the reality is that they don’t always have access to great support. Even if they do have great support, they still go home and have to live with it themselves - it drives people to feel lonely. I can tell you from my personal experience that I’ve been living with diabetes for a very long period of time, and the reality is that living with a chronic condition is a very lonely thing to do."
"It’s interesting that you raise that because society, for a long period of time, has been characterizing having a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension as you’re not taking good care of yourself. "You should avoid this. You should have a better way to manage yourself." The reality is that for most people who have contracted these conditions, nobody chose to be there. And so, by virtue of that type of conversation, you end up feeling, "Oh, I’m not responsible enough. I haven’t done what I should have done. I could do better, and I should do better." Very penalizing thoughts, and society judges people in this way. And, of course, that leads to loneliness as well. Again, we don’t want to be celebrating our failures outside. It’s not easy to do."
#BrookHealth #RemotePatientMonitoring #Loneliness #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #PublicHealth #ChronicDisease #AI
Brook.ai
Download the transcript here
Kent Wakeford, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Form Bio, a company that provides computational solutions to scientists who are focused on cell and gene therapy to accelerate drug discovery and development, reduce costs, and ultimately make treatments more affordable for patients. Form Bio's in silico platform utilizes computational biology tools, bioinformatics, machine learning, and AI to process large amounts of open source data to provide insights to scientists to help them solve critical challenges. They are committed to supporting the rare and ultra-rare disease community and offer their tools to patient advocacy groups for free.
Kent explains, "There are a lot of bumps. The production, scaling up, and cost of gene therapies are major obstacles to their widespread success. As we’ve seen in small molecule, target identification is one of the key challenges, and there’s been a lot of breakthroughs in AI, and computational analysis that have helped scientists find those targets."
"In cell and gene therapy, it’s different. It’s a little bit easier to find the gene of interest that you want to try and work on. Still, it is harder to design and ultimately develop the gene therapy that can scale, have limited immunotoxic impact, and provide the therapeutic outcome at the right place and strength in the body."
"Training a platform is one of the most critical areas for an AI or a computational company. Our team of incredible AI scientists from some of the greatest academic labs went out and pulled together all the available data in the open-source market. And to be honest, there’s a lot, but it’s not that helpful when you’re trying to get very specific scientific outcomes."
"And so, we partnered with a number of leading academic institutions where we commissioned and paid for scientific research that produced data that we can then train models on. We looked at specific genes of interest for major therapeutic areas and then looked at all the regulatory elements to understand the different interactions. We can understand if you were to change one element of this, what happens to the rest of the therapeutic? What happens to expression, what happens to tropism, what happens to the packaging and manufacturability of that drug?"
#FormBio #AI #ML #ComputationalBiology #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #RareDiseases
formbio.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kent Wakeford, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Form Bio, a company that provides computational solutions to scientists who are focused on cell and gene therapy to accelerate drug discovery and development, reduce costs, and ultimately make treatments more affordable for patients. Form Bio's in silico platform utilizes computational biology tools, bioinformatics, machine learning, and AI to process large amounts of open source data to provide insights to scientists to help them solve critical challenges. They are committed to supporting the rare and ultra-rare disease community and offer their tools to patient advocacy groups for free.
Kent explains, "There are a lot of bumps. The production, scaling up, and cost of gene therapies are major obstacles to their widespread success. As we’ve seen in small molecule, target identification is one of the key challenges, and there’s been a lot of breakthroughs in AI, and computational analysis that have helped scientists find those targets."
"In cell and gene therapy, it’s different. It’s a little bit easier to find the gene of interest that you want to try and work on. Still, it is harder to design and ultimately develop the gene therapy that can scale, have limited immunotoxic impact, and provide the therapeutic outcome at the right place and strength in the body."
"Training a platform is one of the most critical areas for an AI or a computational company. Our team of incredible AI scientists from some of the greatest academic labs went out and pulled together all the available data in the open-source market. And to be honest, there’s a lot, but it’s not that helpful when you’re trying to get very specific scientific outcomes."
"And so, we partnered with a number of leading academic institutions where we commissioned and paid for scientific research that produced data that we can then train models on. We looked at specific genes of interest for major therapeutic areas and then looked at all the regulatory elements to understand the different interactions. We can understand if you were to change one element of this, what happens to the rest of the therapeutic? What happens to expression, what happens to tropism, what happens to the packaging and manufacturability of that drug?"
#FormBio #AI #ML #ComputationalBiology #DrugDiscovery #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #RareDiseases
formbio.com
Download the transcript here
Ram Krishnan, CEO of Valant, works with therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and nurse practitioners in the outpatient behavioral healthcare environment, which has significant unmet needs that can be addressed with technology. Scaling a mental health practice differs from other medical practices due to the frequency of visits and the need for individualized care with the most effective therapist. Virtual visits and telehealth are helping providers bridge the gap between physical and mental health, and generative AI is showing promise in diagnosing and maintaining behavioral health.
Ram explains, "This has been a market that has evolved over the last 25 years because so much has changed with our overall perception of the value and importance of mental health. This is a market that was primarily rarely covered by insurance, and employers rarely demanded coverage for their employees. Therefore, it was a cash-based business for most of its existence."
"But over the last ten years, as the stigma for mental health has started to fade, and people are more outspoken about mental health challenges that they’re facing, whether it’s celebrities or athletes, it’s just made its way to the forefront. So employers, first and foremost, have begun to demand that the payers offer their services, and that’s where it starts. Payers then, in turn, begin to look for coverage. Now you have a market that was built for cash working its way into the insurance model. Finding itself subscale, they are now looking to build to scale so that it can have the systems and structures required to be able to swim into the larger waters of the US healthcare system with the insurance and payer process. And so, you have a lot of practices that have a lot of catching up to do with respect to adopting technology, and quite frankly, just process."
#Valant #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #BehavioralHealthEHR #PracticeManagement #PatientPortal #Telehealth
Valant.io
Listen to the podcast here
Ram Krishnan, CEO of Valant, works with therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and nurse practitioners in the outpatient behavioral healthcare environment, which has significant unmet needs that can be addressed with technology. Scaling a mental health practice differs from other medical practices due to the frequency of visits and the need for individualized care with the most effective therapist. Virtual visits and telehealth are helping providers bridge the gap between physical and mental health, and generative AI is showing promise in diagnosing and maintaining behavioral health.
Ram explains, "This has been a market that has evolved over the last 25 years because so much has changed with our overall perception of the value and importance of mental health. This is a market that was primarily rarely covered by insurance, and employers rarely demanded coverage for their employees. Therefore, it was a cash-based business for most of its existence."
"But over the last ten years, as the stigma for mental health has started to fade, and people are more outspoken about mental health challenges that they’re facing, whether it’s celebrities or athletes, it’s just made its way to the forefront. So employers, first and foremost, have begun to demand that the payers offer their services, and that’s where it starts. Payers then, in turn, begin to look for coverage. Now you have a market that was built for cash working its way into the insurance model. Finding itself subscale, they are now looking to build to scale so that it can have the systems and structures required to be able to swim into the larger waters of the US healthcare system with the insurance and payer process. And so, you have a lot of practices that have a lot of catching up to do with respect to adopting technology, and quite frankly, just process."
#Valant #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #BehavioralHealthEHR #PracticeManagement #PatientPortal #Telehealth
Valant.io
Download the transcript here
Fadi Micaelian, CEO of Sparkdit, and Dr. Andrew Fang, Chief of Orthopedics at Kaiser South San Francisco, have joined together to help patients and doctors make better treatment decisions by considering trade-offs and patient preferences. The platform can help reduce bias and incorporate patient desires into care while considering comorbidities and other factors that may affect treatment decisions. Fadi and Andrew agree that collaboration between technologists and clinicians is essential for advancing the use of AI in healthcare to augment human intelligence and improve outcomes.
Fadi explains, "At Sparkdit, our mission is to teach computers to think like humans. To do so, we've taught computers to think with trade-offs. So humans universally think the same way. It doesn't matter where they're coming from. We all think the same way. Whenever we have a decision, we have a set of criteria that we take into account. We think in a certain way of each criterion, and then we apply on top of that a set of trade-offs. Trade-offs are core to the way we make decisions. Now, when you apply that to healthcare, that's not a domain that I'm an expert in. There was a set of doctors led by Dr. Fang at Kaiser who discovered and invented a new way of applying that technology to healthcare."
Andrew elaborates, "I think the potential benefits of AI are that they can augment the doctor/patient relationship. It's really important that we maintain this human connection with our patients, but is there a way that AI can help us make better decisions, achieve better outcomes, and incorporate some of the things that patients want in their care more easily?"
#Sparkdit #MedAI #AI #DigitalHealth #MedTech #Orthopedics #PatientDecisions #DecisionIntelligence
sparkdit.com
Listen to the podcast here
Fadi Micaelian, CEO of Sparkdit, and Dr. Andrew Fang, Chief of Orthopedics at Kaiser South San Francisco, have joined together to help patients and doctors make better treatment decisions by considering trade-offs and patient preferences. The platform can help reduce bias and incorporate patient desires into care while considering comorbidities and other factors that may affect treatment decisions. Fadi and Andrew agree that collaboration between technologists and clinicians is essential for advancing the use of AI in healthcare to augment human intelligence and improve outcomes.
Fadi explains, "At Sparkdit, our mission is to teach computers to think like humans. To do so, we've taught computers to think with trade-offs. So humans universally think the same way. It doesn't matter where they're coming from. We all think the same way. Whenever we have a decision, we have a set of criteria that we take into account. We think in a certain way of each criterion, and then we apply on top of that a set of trade-offs. Trade-offs are core to the way we make decisions. Now, when you apply that to healthcare, that's not a domain that I'm an expert in. There was a set of doctors led by Dr. Fang at Kaiser who discovered and invented a new way of applying that technology to healthcare."
Andrew elaborates, "I think the potential benefits of AI are that they can augment the doctor/patient relationship. It's really important that we maintain this human connection with our patients, but is there a way that AI can help us make better decisions, achieve better outcomes, and incorporate some of the things that patients want in their care more easily?"
#Sparkdit #MedAI #AI #DigitalHealth #MedTech #Orthopedics #PatientDecisions #DecisionIntelligence
sparkdit.com
Download the transcript here
Sufian Chowdhury, CEO of Kinetik, highlights how the non-emergency medical transportation industry, which has about 20,000 local transportation providers and over 400,000 drivers, plays a pivotal role in the healthcare continuum. Kinetik is bringing digital tools to this environment to provide scheduling and real-time information to an industry that currently relies on the phone. The goal is to make the system more efficient, reduce waiting times for patients and drivers, and ensure that drivers get paid promptly for these rides Medicaid covers.
Sufian explains, "These are pre-planned rides. This industry is non-digital. You have to liken the state of this industry to what the taxi industry was in the '90s. It’s a lot of telephonic communication. Not a lot of these transport companies are using technology. Because of that, the scheduling becomes very cumbersome, and some members have to request these rides three or four days in advance, not by choice but just because of the broken structure of this industry. We’re trying to fix that with Kinetik by digitizing it so that these rides can become real-time rides."
"One of the biggest challenges and how Kinetik started the genesis of Kinetik is to initially address the billing problem that transport providers were facing. They would send out claims and get paid every 60 to 90 days, yet they would have to pay their drivers every seven days. These are small businesses that struggled mightily when it came to cash flow management. So, the first problem we solved, as we entered this market about seven years ago, was to build a billing platform that allowed these transport providers to get paid on time or instantly. That was our initial goal."
#Kinetik #NonEmergencyMedicalTransportation #NEMT #DigitalHealth
kinetik.care
Listen to the podcast here
Sufian Chowdhury, CEO of Kinetik, highlights how the non-emergency medical transportation industry, which has about 20,000 local transportation providers and over 400,000 drivers, plays a pivotal role in the healthcare continuum. Kinetik is bringing digital tools to this environment to provide scheduling and real-time information to an industry that currently relies on the phone. The goal is to make the system more efficient, reduce waiting times for patients and drivers, and ensure that drivers get paid promptly for these rides Medicaid covers.
Sufian explains, "These are pre-planned rides. This industry is non-digital. You have to liken the state of this industry to what the taxi industry was in the '90s. It’s a lot of telephonic communication. Not a lot of these transport companies are using technology. Because of that, the scheduling becomes very cumbersome, and some members have to request these rides three or four days in advance, not by choice but just because of the broken structure of this industry. We’re trying to fix that with Kinetik by digitizing it so that these rides can become real-time rides."
"One of the biggest challenges and how Kinetik started the genesis of Kinetik is to initially address the billing problem that transport providers were facing. They would send out claims and get paid every 60 to 90 days, yet they would have to pay their drivers every seven days. These are small businesses that struggled mightily when it came to cash flow management. So, the first problem we solved, as we entered this market about seven years ago, was to build a billing platform that allowed these transport providers to get paid on time or instantly. That was our initial goal."
#Kinetik #NonEmergencyMedicalTransportation #NEMT #DigitalHealth
kinetik.care
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Piotr Orzechowski, CEO of Infermedica, works with health insurance companies, technology partners, public payers, and ministries of health to provide digital care navigation tools that enhance the patient experience with a healthcare provider. The highlight is the development of digital front door technology to support patients in finding appropriate care. Using an AI-powered care interface, symptoms can be evaluated, questions answered, and guidance offered for care options including self-care at home. When appropriate, AI-based decision support tools guide nurses through phone conversations to triage and determine immediate actions that should be taken.
Piotr explains, "We have developed a clinically validated symptom-checking tool powered by AI. I will explain it in a second. But most importantly, it’s curated by a team of 50 physicians. So, every single day, our group of doctors performs different tasks related to clinical validation and content updates, and using this content, we create probabilistic models that try to resemble the way doctors would triage patients."
"We’ve spent more than 12 years of joint work between our medical teams, data scientists, and algorithm developers to establish one of the most versatile and accurate probabilistic models for current primary diseases. We currently have more than 120,000 hours of doctors who work on this medical content that’s behind our technology."
"The way it works is that there are two main use cases and two main ways we provide our technology, and it’s very straightforward. The first approach is we have a patient-facing app. So when you are feeling unwell, or maybe somebody in your family is feeling unwell, we guide you through a very simple process. You can provide your demographics, basic risk factors and chief complaints, and based on that, we engage in a sequence of questions to learn more about underlying causes. So, if you ever played 20 Questions, this is more like a 20-question flow, but, of course, for medical problems. After about 10 to 15 questions, our AI engine knows enough to propose the right triage level and even the most likely conditions."
#Infermedica #DigitalHealth #DigitalHealthcare #HealthCareAI #DigitalFrontDoor #PatientEngagement #Triage #CallCenter #SymptomChecker #HealthTech
Infermedica.com
Listen to the podcast here
Piotr Orzechowski, CEO of Infermedica, works with health insurance companies, technology partners, public payers, and ministries of health to provide digital care navigation tools that enhance the patient experience with a healthcare provider. The highlight is the development of digital front door technology to support patients in finding appropriate care. Using an AI-powered care interface, symptoms can be evaluated, questions answered, and guidance offered for care options, including self-care at home. When appropriate, AI-based decision support tools guide nurses through phone conversations to triage and determine immediate actions that should be taken.
Piotr explains, "We have developed a clinically validated symptom-checking tool powered by AI. I will explain it in a second. But most importantly, it’s curated by a team of 50 physicians. So, every single day, our group of doctors performs different tasks related to clinical validation and content updates, and using this content, we create probabilistic models that try to resemble the way doctors would triage patients."
"We’ve spent more than 12 years of joint work between our medical teams, data scientists, and algorithm developers to establish one of the most versatile and accurate probabilistic models for current primary diseases. We currently have more than 120,000 hours of doctors who work on this medical content that’s behind our technology."
"The way it works is that there are two main use cases and two main ways we provide our technology, and it’s very straightforward. The first approach is we have a patient-facing app. So when you are feeling unwell, or maybe somebody in your family is feeling unwell, we guide you through a very simple process. You can provide your demographics, basic risk factors and chief complaints, and based on that, we engage in a sequence of questions to learn more about underlying causes. So, if you ever played 20 Questions, this is more like a 20-question flow, but, of course, for medical problems. After about 10 to 15 questions, our AI engine knows enough to propose the right triage level and even the most likely conditions."
#Infermedica #DigitalHealth #DigitalHealthcare #HealthCareAI #DigitalFrontDoor #PatientEngagement #Triage #CallCenter #SymptomChecker #HealthTech
Infermedica.com
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Dr. Oren Cohen, President of Clinical Pharmacology and Chief Medical Officer at Fortrea, a global CRO spun-off from Labcorp, discusses the contract research environment and how it continues to change to meet the need for increased productivity in the development and testing of new drugs, devices, and treatments. One key goal is to work in close partnership with clients to include the patient's voice in trial design to increase diversity, drive recruitment, and improve retention.
Oren explains, "I think with all the pressure the industry is under productivity pressure, that’s changed massively. It’s a very heavy responsibility because we are entrusted with developing very precious intellectual property that represents the next generation of therapeutics for patients affected by all the diseases out there, from rare diseases to cancer to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. It’s a very exciting time. I think the science is moving very quickly, and we have the good fortune to be working on some very promising and super interesting potential products."
"There’s lots of innovation in every aspect of clinical trials, from design through process and execution to analysis. So yes, all that is on the table. I would say that our preferred method of engagement is to partner with our clients to get to the best place in terms of what advances science. What is necessary from a regulatory perspective to push a product along toward approval, to show its mettle? What is best for patients and sites responsible for recruiting them?"
"It’s a natural marriage because our sponsors, the biopharmaceutical companies we serve, obviously have the best expertise for the particular molecule they’re studying. They’ve potentially discovered it, they have it in their portfolio, and they obviously know a lot about it."
#Fortrea #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #PatientVoice #ClinicalTrialDesign #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization
fortrea.com
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Dr. Oren Cohen, President of Clinical Pharmacology and Chief Medical Officer at Fortrea, a global CRO spun-off from Labcorp, discusses the contract research environment and how it continues to change to meet the need for increased productivity in the development and testing of new drugs, devices, and treatments. One key goal is to work in close partnership with clients to include the patient's voice in trial design to increase diversity, drive recruitment, and improve retention.
Oren explains, "I think with all the pressure the industry is under productivity pressure, that’s changed massively. It’s a very heavy responsibility because we are entrusted with developing very precious intellectual property that represents the next generation of therapeutics for patients affected by all the diseases out there, from rare diseases to cancer to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. It’s a very exciting time. I think the science is moving very quickly, and we have the good fortune to be working on some very promising and super interesting potential products."
"There’s lots of innovation in every aspect of clinical trials, from design through process and execution to analysis. So yes, all that is on the table. I would say that our preferred method of engagement is to partner with our clients to get to the best place in terms of what advances science. What is necessary from a regulatory perspective to push a product along toward approval, to show its mettle? What is best for patients and sites responsible for recruiting them?"
"It’s a natural marriage because our sponsors, the biopharmaceutical companies we serve, obviously have the best expertise for the particular molecule they’re studying. They’ve potentially discovered it, they have it in their portfolio, and they obviously know a lot about it."
#Fortrea #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #PatientVoice #ClinicalTrialDesign #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization
fortrea.com
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Dr. Will Chou, President and CEO of Passage Bio, is developing gene therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, with their lead product being PBFTO2, an AAV gene therapy for a specific genetic variant of frontotemporal dementia. They are also exploring the potential of raising progranulin levels to help patients with other neurodegenerative diseases. Passage Bio's gene therapy, utilizing AAV as the vector, is delivered through an ICM injection into the cisterna magna, bypassing the blood-brain barrier.
Will explains, "What we’re doing is a little unique. We are starting in the normal way gene therapies approach this, which is we have a patient population with a specific genetic deficiency. They have frontotemporal dementia caused by a mutation in the granulin gene, in the GRN gene, which means they are deficient in creating a protein called progranulin. Our gene therapy product replaces that progranulin, and by replacing what they don’t have enough of, we hope to stop the neurodegenerative decline from this disease."
"But what is interesting about progranulin is that a growing amount of research shows that progranulin and raising progranulin in general can be neuroprotective across other neurodegenerative diseases as well. We will be pursuing this progranulin-raising one-time gene therapy, not just in patients who have that specific genetic deficiency in the GRN gene. Also, in other patients, such as patients with ALS and patients with other gene deficiencies with FTD where progranulin and raising progranulin could help their neurodegeneration. So in that way, this is a unique approach to gene therapy. Usually, you have one product and can only help a limited group of patients. Here we’re looking to use the single product and try and help multiple populations of patients with neurodegenerative disease."
#PassageBio #GeneticMedicines #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #AAVs #FrontotemporalDementia #Progranulin #GRNGene
passagebbio.com
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Dr. Will Chou, President and CEO of Passage Bio, is developing gene therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, with their lead product being PBFTO2, an AAV gene therapy for a specific genetic variant of frontotemporal dementia. They are also exploring the potential of raising progranulin levels to help patients with other neurodegenerative diseases. Passage Bio's gene therapy, utilizing AAV as the vector, is delivered through an ICM injection into the cisterna magna, bypassing the blood-brain barrier.
Will explains, "What we’re doing is a little unique. We are starting in the normal way gene therapies approach this, which is we have a patient population with a specific genetic deficiency. They have frontotemporal dementia caused by a mutation in the granulin gene, in the GRN gene, which means they are deficient in creating a protein called progranulin. Our gene therapy product replaces that progranulin, and by replacing what they don’t have enough of, we hope to stop the neurodegenerative decline from this disease."
"But what is interesting about progranulin is that a growing amount of research shows that progranulin and raising progranulin in general can be neuroprotective across other neurodegenerative diseases as well. We will be pursuing this progranulin-raising one-time gene therapy, not just in patients who have that specific genetic deficiency in the GRN gene. Also, in other patients, such as patients with ALS and patients with other gene deficiencies with FTD where progranulin and raising progranulin could help their neurodegeneration. So in that way, this is a unique approach to gene therapy. Usually, you have one product and can only help a limited group of patients. Here we’re looking to use the single product and try and help multiple populations of patients with neurodegenerative disease."
#PassageBio #GeneticMedicines #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #AAVs #FrontotemporalDementia #Progranulin #GRNGene
passagebbio.com
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Ben Zimmer, CEO of Priovant Therapeutics, focuses on developing therapies for rare autoimmune diseases specifically dermatomyositis, which affects the skin, muscles, and organs, and non-infectious uveitis, a severe ocular inflammatory condition. While these conditions are symptomatically different, mechanistically, they have features in common related to the underlying pathology of the diseases. The drug in development is an oral once-daily therapy that addresses the inflammatory conditions and cytokines driving the pathology.
Ben explains, "During COVID, there was a lot of talk about the cytokine storm and these are molecules involved in immune cell signaling. So, they’re basically ways that different types of immune cells signal to each other to do different things. There’s a large variety of different cytokines and some autoimmune diseases. There are only maybe one or two cytokines or a small number that are driving the pathology of the disease."
"Both dermatomyositis and non-infectious uveitis are highly inflammatory conditions with a lot of different pathogenic cytokines, a lot of different inflammatory axes involved. And so, one of the neat things about our drug, brepocitinib, is that it works on a set category of enzymes called JAKs, and then there are four different types of JAKs, JAK1, JAK2, JAK3, and you might guess JAK4, but it’s actually called TYK2. And our drug inhibits TYK2 and JAK1. And by doing that, it suppresses the signaling of a large number of different cytokines."
"Uveitis and dermatomyositis have a number of overlapping pathogenic cytokines involved, as well as some different cytokines, but they are both suppressed through the inhibition of TYK2 and JAK1, which our drug does. So, our thesis is to find these highly inflammatory indications, highly inflammatory diseases with high morbidity, which can be expressed in many different organ systems."
#PriovantTherapeutics #RareDisease #OrphanIndication #Uveitis #NIU #Dermatomyositis #JAK1 #TYK2
priovanttx.com
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Ben Zimmer, CEO of Priovant Therapeutics, focuses on developing therapies for rare autoimmune diseases specifically dermatomyositis, which affects the skin, muscles, and organs, and non-infectious uveitis, a severe ocular inflammatory condition. While these conditions are symptomatically different, mechanistically, they have features in common related to the underlying pathology of the diseases. The drug in development is an oral once-daily therapy that addresses the inflammatory conditions and cytokines driving the pathology.
Ben explains, "During COVID, there was a lot of talk about the cytokine storm and these are molecules involved in immune cell signaling. So, they’re basically ways that different types of immune cells signal to each other to do different things. There’s a large variety of different cytokines and some autoimmune diseases. There are only maybe one or two cytokines or a small number that are driving the pathology of the disease."
"Both dermatomyositis and non-infectious uveitis are highly inflammatory conditions with a lot of different pathogenic cytokines, a lot of different inflammatory axes involved. And so, one of the neat things about our drug, brepocitinib, is that it works on a set category of enzymes called JAKs, and then there are four different types of JAKs, JAK1, JAK2, JAK3, and you might guess JAK4, but it’s actually called TYK2. And our drug inhibits TYK2 and JAK1. And by doing that, it suppresses the signaling of a large number of different cytokines."
"Uveitis and dermatomyositis have a number of overlapping pathogenic cytokines involved, as well as some different cytokines, but they are both suppressed through the inhibition of TYK2 and JAK1, which our drug does. So, our thesis is to find these highly inflammatory indications, highly inflammatory diseases with high morbidity, which can be expressed in many different organ systems."
#PriovantTherapeutics #RareDisease #OrphanIndication #Uveitis #NIU #Dermatomyositis #JAK1 #TYK2
priovanttx.com
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David Nichols, CEO of Orthobond aims to address the unmet need of medical device infection and contamination due to bacteria preventing devices from bonding to the bone or tissue. Orthobond's solution is the Ostaguard technology, which uses a molecule with a positive charge to attract and rupture bacteria. The technology is effective against common strains of bacteria and is primarily needed in the operating room, where medical devices can be exposed to bacteria before being implanted. This mechanical approach to fighting bacteria does not require a drug that can potentially create a superbug.
David explains, "Our bodies have great immune systems, and normally, it takes tens of millions of bacteria to cause an infection. However, numerous studies show that in the presence of an implant, a hip or a knee, or a pacemaker, it could take as few as 200 bacteria to cause an infection. When an implant goes in the body, it seems to overwhelm the immune system and can’t eradicate that bacteria from your body. It takes a lot fewer bacteria than we think."
"Also, that may not manifest into an immediate infection that happens during the first week of the hospital. It may be, especially for mechanical devices like hip, knees, and spinal implants, that bacteria forms into a biofilm that causes implants to get loose. So one of the bigger problems is a long-term failure of function of these implants that sometimes happens in the first, second, or third year post-surgery."
#Orthobond #Implants #MedicalDevices #OperatingRoom #Hospitals
orthobond.com
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David Nichols, CEO of Orthobond aims to address the unmet need of medical device infection and contamination due to bacteria preventing devices from bonding to the bone or tissue. Orthobond's solution is the Ostaguard technology, which uses a molecule with a positive charge to attract and rupture bacteria. The technology is effective against common strains of bacteria and is primarily needed in the operating room, where medical devices can be exposed to bacteria before being implanted. This mechanical approach to fighting bacteria does not require a drug that can potentially create a superbug.
David explains, "Our bodies have great immune systems, and normally, it takes tens of millions of bacteria to cause an infection. However, numerous studies show that in the presence of an implant, a hip or a knee, or a pacemaker, it could take as few as 200 bacteria to cause an infection. When an implant goes in the body, it seems to overwhelm the immune system and can’t eradicate that bacteria from your body. It takes a lot fewer bacteria than we think."
"Also, that may not manifest into an immediate infection that happens during the first week of the hospital. It may be, especially for mechanical devices like hip, knees, and spinal implants, that bacteria forms into a biofilm that causes implants to get loose. So one of the bigger problems is a long-term failure of function of these implants that sometimes happens in the first, second, or third year post-surgery."
#Orthobond #Implants #MedicalDevices #OperatingRoom #Hospitals
orthobond.com
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Anupam Girdhar, CEO of medical and life sciences at Ascential Technologies, provides contract manufacturing services primarily to Fortune 100 companies, focusing on solving the most complex drug development and manufacturing challenges. By aligning with customers early on to understand the scope and risks of a project, Ascential can save time and money when bringing drugs and medical devices to market. At the same time, Anupam reminds us that innovation and inefficiency are part of the process for those trying to explore the unknown.
Anupam explains, "This is where I enjoy some of the interactions we have with our customers, because if you think about fundamentally what the industry is trying to do, it is about democratizing care to the patients. We are all in the business of serving them and improving patients’ lives. A lot of these challenges that we encounter are mostly in the areas of, how do we provide access to more and more patients, as well as, how do we lower the cost fundamentally for both the companies and consumers? That’s where the challenges we encounter are mostly."
"You’ve probably heard of so many projects that were thought of as game-changing and did not do much in the world. I know when customers come to us, everybody thinks their idea is the best, and I don’t blame that. That should be the attitude, and that’s how big things happen, but they cannot close their eyes to the learning. I mean, there are times when they completely overlook what it takes to fully scale something. There are technologies that are just unfeasible, where we will try to do something that is just against what is possible based on the laws of time or how much cost it takes to get there. There are still areas where we look back into our own backgrounds and then go ahead and incorporate those in the design."
"An example is our proteomics board. In the past, and even in my experience, we’ve had more focus on genomics, and there are companies that were focused on proteomics. Still, now we have enough technology to combine things and learn multi-omic processes and so on. That just gives me so much joy to be able to now integrate things that we could not do five to ten years ago."
#AscentialTechnologies #AscentialMedicalLifeSciences #Ascential #ContractManufacturing #ManufacturingAutomation #CellTherapy #MedicalDevice
AscentialTech.com
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Anupam Girdhar, CEO of medical and life sciences at Ascential Technologies, provides contract manufacturing services primarily to Fortune 100 companies, focusing on solving the most complex drug development and manufacturing challenges. By aligning with customers early on to understand the scope and risks of a project, Ascential can save time and money when bringing drugs and medical devices to market. At the same time, Anupam reminds us that innovation and inefficiency are part of the process for those trying to explore the unknown.
Anupam explains, "This is where I enjoy some of the interactions we have with our customers, because if you think about fundamentally what the industry is trying to do, it is about democratizing care to the patients. We are all in the business of serving them and improving patients’ lives. A lot of these challenges that we encounter are mostly in the areas of, how do we provide access to more and more patients, as well as, how do we lower the cost fundamentally for both the companies and consumers? That’s where the challenges we encounter are mostly."
"You’ve probably heard of so many projects that were thought of as game-changing and did not do much in the world. I know when customers come to us, everybody thinks their idea is the best, and I don’t blame that. That should be the attitude, and that’s how big things happen, but they cannot close their eyes to the learning. I mean, there are times when they completely overlook what it takes to fully scale something. There are technologies that are just unfeasible, where we will try to do something that is just against what is possible based on the laws of time or how much cost it takes to get there. There are still areas where we look back into our own backgrounds and then go ahead and incorporate those in the design."
"An example is our proteomics board. In the past, and even in my experience, we’ve had more focus on genomics, and there are companies that were focused on proteomics. Still, now we have enough technology to combine things and learn multi-omic processes and so on. That just gives me so much joy to be able to now integrate things that we could not do five to ten years ago."
#AscentialTechnologies #AscentialMedicalLifeSciences #Ascential #ContractManufacturing #ManufacturingAutomation #CellTherapy #MedicalDevice
AscentialTech.com
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Dr. Abu Abraham, Chief Medical Officer at Cloudbreak Pharma, discusses the disease burden and gaps in care for patients with Pterygium, also known as Surfer's eye. Pterygium is an ocular surface disorder that creates a growth on the eye's surface that can cause vision problems. The condition is more prevalent in individuals over 40, but it can also affect younger populations exposed to risk factors from spending time outside in the sun and being exposed to UV light. Cloudbreak Pharma is developing CBT-001, an investigational therapy, a multi-kinase inhibitor administered as an eye drop that aims to stop the progression of Pterygium.
Abu explains, "Pterygium is a relatively common condition. It’s an ocular surface disorder. It’s a growth. The word Pterygium derives from the Greek pteryx, which means wedge-shaped. This growth is also a wedge shape that grows from the mucous membrane that overlies the white portion of a person’s eye and grows in the direction of the cornea. The cornea itself is a curved structure that’s clear, and its function is to focus light or bend light to enter the right way into the eye."
"But this can affect anybody who has exposure to UV light. A person working outdoors or even doing a lot of outdoor activities in their free time has the potential to have a Pterygium grow on their eye as one of the triggers. UV light is not the only trigger. There is the potential, possibly, that there are genetic factors. I think they have been identified but may not be fully understood, as well as the genetic factors that contribute to the growth of a Pterygium."
#CloudbreakPharma #Pterygium #SurfersEye #OcularDisease #OcularExternalDisease #PatientBurden
CloudbreakPharma.com
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Dr. Abu Abraham, Chief Medical Officer at Cloudbreak Pharma, discusses the disease burden and gaps in care for patients with Pterygium, also known as Surfer's eye. Pterygium is an ocular surface disorder that creates a growth on the eye's surface that can cause vision problems. The condition is more prevalent in individuals over 40, but it can also affect younger populations exposed to risk factors from spending time outside in the sun and being exposed to UV light. Cloudbreak Pharma is developing CBT-001, an investigational therapy, a multi-kinase inhibitor administered as an eye drop that aims to stop the progression of Pterygium.
Abu explains, "Pterygium is a relatively common condition. It’s an ocular surface disorder. It’s a growth. The word Pterygium derives from the Greek pteryx, which means wedge-shaped. This growth is also a wedge shape that grows from the mucous membrane that overlies the white portion of a person’s eye and grows in the direction of the cornea. The cornea itself is a curved structure that’s clear, and its function is to focus light or bend light to enter the right way into the eye."
"But this can affect anybody who has exposure to UV light. A person working outdoors or even doing a lot of outdoor activities in their free time has the potential to have a Pterygium grow on their eye as one of the triggers. UV light is not the only trigger. There is the potential, possibly, that there are genetic factors. I think they have been identified but may not be fully understood, as well as the genetic factors that contribute to the growth of a Pterygium."
#CloudbreakPharma #Pterygium #SurfersEye #OcularDisease #OcularExternalDisease #PatientBurden
CloudbreakPharma.com
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Fadi Micaelian, CEO of Sparkdit, teaches machines to think like humans by understanding trade-offs. AI is not good at finding nuance and capturing trade-offs, which is where Sparkdit comes in. They have developed a technology that can teach computers to make trade-offs like humans and put humans at the center of the technology rather than replacing them. Incorporating AI into patient-centered decision formats can revolutionize healthcare, improve the way doctors interact with patients, and address issues like ageism, sexism, and racism.
Fadi explains, "We have been working in AI for years. And AI is magnificent when the data is in abundance. However, we felt that AI fell short in a series of areas, and the main one is to teach machines to think like humans. Because AI, at the end of the day, does not think like humans. AI thinks like neurons. But we humans think very differently. Our thinking is universal. Whether you are an Eskimo, or you are in Paris, or you are in Russia, or whether you’re in South Africa, we all think the same way. The way we think is by trade-offs, and AI does not understand trade-offs. So we set our mission to teach machines to think like humans, by trade-offs."
"To do that, we needed to create a platform, and that platform was based on trade-offs. It was based on the way we think. We’re trying to mimic the way humans think, and that’s doing trade-off. How do we think? When we have a decision to make, we take a set of criteria into account. Then, we apply to each criterion a certain logic - how we think about that criterion. Then we overlay that with a set of trade-offs that says really what is the relative importance of the criteria, which ones are important, and which ones are not."
#Sparkdit #AI #AppliedAI #AIinHealthcare #TrainingAI
Sparkdit.com
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Fadi Micaelian, CEO of Sparkdit, teaches machines to think like humans by understanding trade-offs. AI is not good at finding nuance and capturing trade-offs, which is where Sparkdit comes in. They have developed a technology that can teach computers to make trade-offs like humans and put humans at the center of the technology rather than replacing them. Incorporating AI into patient-centered decision formats can revolutionize healthcare, improve the way doctors interact with patients, and address issues like ageism, sexism, and racism.
Fadi explains, "We have been working in AI for years. And AI is magnificent when the data is in abundance. However, we felt that AI fell short in a series of areas, and the main one is to teach machines to think like humans. Because AI, at the end of the day, does not think like humans. AI thinks like neurons. But we humans think very differently. Our thinking is universal. Whether you are an Eskimo, or you are in Paris, or you are in Russia, or whether you’re in South Africa, we all think the same way. The way we think is by trade-offs, and AI does not understand trade-offs. So we set our mission to teach machines to think like humans, by trade-offs."
"To do that, we needed to create a platform, and that platform was based on trade-offs. It was based on the way we think. We’re trying to mimic the way humans think, and that’s doing trade-off. How do we think? When we have a decision to make, we take a set of criteria into account. Then, we apply to each criterion a certain logic - how we think about that criterion. Then we overlay that with a set of trade-offs that says really what is the relative importance of the criteria, which ones are important, and which ones are not."
#Sparkdit #AI #AppliedAI #AIinHealthcare #TrainingAI
Sparkdit.com
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Sofia Elizondo, COO and Co-Founder of Brightseed, discusses the company's focus on bioactives and their potential to improve health outcomes. Bioactives are small molecules found in nature, such as plants, fungi, or bacteria, that activate human biological receptors and positively affect the body. Brightseed uses its AI platform, Forger, to identify and commercialize these bioactive compounds in foods, supplements, and over-the-counter medicine. As part of the food is medicine movement, Brightseed's goal is to make these superfoods more accessible to a broader population.
Sofia explains, "To bring us back to the source, caffeine is a small molecule. It’s a natural chemical that a seed produces. And so we take these coffee seeds, grind them up, and then extract the caffeine and other tasty flavors with water every morning."
"When we take a sip of our coffee, it’s actually very well understood what happens with caffeine. We absorb it in our stomach lining. The caffeine molecule goes into our bloodstream, goes into our brain while our blood is circulating around our body, and docks with a biological receptor called the adenosine receptor in our brain. What happens is it interacts with this receptor, and then we feel a bunch of downstream effects. We feel focus and energy, and maybe too much of an adrenaline rush sometimes."
"But this is a great example that many of us can be familiar with of the power of such a small molecule. It’s just one bioactive in one bean of one plant that can have this very precise and recognizable effect. In this case, science knows very well exactly what it does."
"In the big picture of bioactives, there are hundreds of thousands of them in plants and foods that we eat every day that we may not know or may not have cataloged. Science, in most cases, doesn’t exactly know what it does when we ingest these bioactives, at least not yet."
#Brightseed #AppliedAI #Bioactive #Nutrition #FoodisMedicine
brightseedbio.com
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Sofia Elizondo, COO and Co-Founder of Brightseed, discusses the company's focus on bioactives and their potential to improve health outcomes. Bioactives are small molecules found in nature, such as plants, fungi, or bacteria, that activate human biological receptors and positively affect the body. Brightseed uses its AI platform, Forger, to identify and commercialize these bioactive compounds in foods, supplements, and over-the-counter medicine. As part of the food is medicine movement, Brightseed's goal is to make these superfoods more accessible to a broader population.
Sofia explains, "To bring us back to the source, caffeine is a small molecule. It’s a natural chemical that a seed produces. And so we take these coffee seeds, grind them up, and then extract the caffeine and other tasty flavors with water every morning."
"When we take a sip of our coffee, it’s actually very well understood what happens with caffeine. We absorb it in our stomach lining. The caffeine molecule goes into our bloodstream, goes into our brain while our blood is circulating around our body, and docks with a biological receptor called the adenosine receptor in our brain. What happens is it interacts with this receptor, and then we feel a bunch of downstream effects. We feel focus and energy, and maybe too much of an adrenaline rush sometimes."
"But this is a great example that many of us can be familiar with of the power of such a small molecule. It’s just one bioactive in one bean of one plant that can have this very precise and recognizable effect. In this case, science knows very well exactly what it does."
"In the big picture of bioactives, there are hundreds of thousands of them in plants and foods that we eat every day that we may not know or may not have cataloged. Science, in most cases, doesn’t exactly know what it does when we ingest these bioactives, at least not yet."
#Brightseed #AppliedAI #Bioactive #Nutrition #FoodisMedicine
brightseedbio.com
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Luke Piggott, principal scientist at Debiopharm, has a unique business model in the drug discovery and development to commercialization landscape. Focusing on rare cancers, they license drugs from smaller biotechs and conduct clinical trials before out-licensing them to larger pharmaceutical companies with marketing capabilities. The use of AI is expanding biomarker discovery and the identification of potential novel mechanisms for targeted therapies. Novel-novel combinations are being explored to provide therapies with more selective profiles with fewer side effects.
Luke explains, "Rare cancers is an interesting area. I mean, it’s never an easy one to be developing in the space of rare cancers. With a business model like ours, we have the opportunity to take some of these assets that perhaps are not as, shall we say, financially attractive to investors because of the smaller market opportunity. As a privately owned company, we have the ability to develop these kinds of drugs and move them ahead with solid financial backing. And so I think that’s one of the areas that we have the opportunity where some other companies would not."
"We do see overlap there with other diseases, although they may be morphologically different than the current specific sites that are more rare than other diseases. These underlying mechanisms are consistent across the different types of cancers. Now that we’re in the era of precision medicine and going after specific key oncogenic drivers of these tumors, it does allow potential opportunities to treat them in a more similar fashion, shall we say, to the larger populations or at least re-purpose some of those drugs and try them out on these rarer diseases."
#Debiopharm #RareDiseases #RareCancers #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #BiotechInvestment
Debiopharm.com
Listen to the podcast here
Luke Piggott, principal scientist at Debiopharm, has a unique business model in the drug discovery and development to commercialization landscape. Focusing on rare cancers, they license drugs from smaller biotechs and conduct clinical trials before out-licensing them to larger pharmaceutical companies with marketing capabilities. The use of AI is expanding biomarker discovery and the identification of potential novel mechanisms for targeted therapies. Novel-novel combinations are being explored to provide therapies with more selective profiles with fewer side effects.
Luke explains, "Rare cancers is an interesting area. I mean, it’s never an easy one to be developing in the space of rare cancers. With a business model like ours, we have the opportunity to take some of these assets that perhaps are not as, shall we say, financially attractive to investors because of the smaller market opportunity. As a privately owned company, we have the ability to develop these kinds of drugs and move them ahead with solid financial backing. And so I think that’s one of the areas that we have the opportunity where some other companies would not."
"We do see overlap there with other diseases, although they may be morphologically different than the current specific sites that are more rare than other diseases. These underlying mechanisms are consistent across the different types of cancers. Now that we’re in the era of precision medicine and going after specific key oncogenic drivers of these tumors, it does allow potential opportunities to treat them in a more similar fashion, shall we say, to the larger populations or at least re-purpose some of those drugs and try them out on these rarer diseases."
#Debiopharm #RareDiseases #RareCancers #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #BiotechInvestment
Debiopharm.com
Download the transcript here
Tiara Green, President of Accessia Health, provides financial assistance for copayments, physician visits, durable medical equipment, radiology testing, and travel expenses to support individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions who cannot afford their care. They also offer educational services to help patients navigate the healthcare system and make informed decisions about their healthcare. They are reaching out to patients through physicians, pharmacies, patient advocacy organizations, and faith-based and community-based organizations. Accessia Health aims to improve overall healthcare outcomes by using online tools to reduce emergency room visits and help patients adhere to treatment plans.
Tiara explains, "Accessia Health is a national nonprofit organization. We’re a patient assistance organization that supports individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions. I think we all have been impacted or have been in the healthcare system to receive care, and we know that the cost of care is extremely high. So, our mission is to serve as a safety net for those individuals who cannot afford their care. I love our tagline, "We speak health and human," because we realize the human side of healthcare in that we’re people first, and individuals are not necessarily defined by their condition. However, we also understand what it means to navigate the healthcare system. We want to do our part to stand in the gap for them and help them with their costs so that they can focus on their healthcare journey."
"We also provide educational services. We have a webinar series, Amplify Your Voice, Control Your Care, where we want to give those individuals tools for success, helping them navigate the complex healthcare system to make informed decisions about their healthcare. So, it may be a topic on, "How do I properly communicate with my physician?" Or it can be a topic such as, "What does the Inflation Reduction Act mean for me?" However, we want to ensure that they understand their healthcare so that they can make the appropriate decisions."
#AccessiaHealth #PatientAssistance #FinancialAssistance #RareDiseases #ChronicConditions
AccessiaHealth.org
Listen to the podcast here
Tiara Green, President of Accessia Health, provides financial assistance for copayments, physician visits, durable medical equipment, radiology testing, and travel expenses to support individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions who cannot afford their care. They also offer educational services to help patients navigate the healthcare system and make informed decisions about their healthcare. They are reaching out to patients through physicians, pharmacies, patient advocacy organizations, and faith-based and community-based organizations. Accessia Health aims to improve overall healthcare outcomes by using online tools to reduce emergency room visits and help patients adhere to treatment plans.
Tiara explains, "Accessia Health is a national nonprofit organization. We’re a patient assistance organization that supports individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions. I think we all have been impacted or have been in the healthcare system to receive care, and we know that the cost of care is extremely high. So, our mission is to serve as a safety net for those individuals who cannot afford their care. I love our tagline, "We speak health and human," because we realize the human side of healthcare in that we’re people first, and individuals are not necessarily defined by their condition. However, we also understand what it means to navigate the healthcare system. We want to do our part to stand in the gap for them and help them with their costs so that they can focus on their healthcare journey."
"We also provide educational services. We have a webinar series, Amplify Your Voice, Control Your Care, where we want to give those individuals tools for success, helping them navigate the complex healthcare system to make informed decisions about their healthcare. So, it may be a topic on, "How do I properly communicate with my physician?" Or it can be a topic such as, "What does the Inflation Reduction Act mean for me?" However, we want to ensure that they understand their healthcare so that they can make the appropriate decisions."
#AccessiaHealth #PatientAssistance #FinancialAssistance #RareDiseases #ChronicConditions
AccessiaHealth.org
Download the transcript here
Roger Rivera, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Mente Suave Psychiatry, discusses the different types of bipolar disorder, the potential causes of the disease, available treatment options, and the importance of early detection and management. Roger emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to care and highlights the impact of bipolar disorder on patients' lives and society as a whole. While there are currently no biological markers for bipolar disorder, ongoing research and initiatives, including the use of AI, show promise in improving diagnosis and treatment.
Roger explains, "So rather than bipolar disorder, it should probably be called bipolar disorders just because of the different manifestations that it has. One of those manifestations could be manic episodes. Manic episodes could be described as just expansive mood, inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, more targeted flight of ideas, and all these other things, which have a very strong correlation with functional impairment. And that's just one of the variations of bipolar disorder."
"We also have bipolar II, which has more hypomanic type features. So, if we look at the diagnostic manual that we use in psychiatry, we'll see that for bipolar I, it highlights we need at least one manic episode, but we didn't need a depressive episode. Yet, when we look at bipolar II, we usually need at least one depressive episode associated with that."
#BipolarDisorder #MentalHealthAwareness #TreattheWholePatient #BipolarTreatment #PatientEngagement
mentesuavepsychiatry.com
Listen to the podcast here
Roger Rivera, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Mente Suave Psychiatry, discusses the different types of bipolar disorder, the potential causes of the disease, available treatment options, and the importance of early detection and management. Roger emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to care and highlights the impact of bipolar disorder on patients' lives and society as a whole. While there are currently no biological markers for bipolar disorder, ongoing research and initiatives, including the use of AI, show promise in improving diagnosis and treatment.
Roger explains, "So rather than bipolar disorder, it should probably be called bipolar disorders just because of the different manifestations that it has. One of those manifestations could be manic episodes. Manic episodes could be described as just expansive mood, inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, more targeted flight of ideas, and all these other things, which have a very strong correlation with functional impairment. And that's just one of the variations of bipolar disorder."
"We also have bipolar II, which has more hypomanic type features. So, if we look at the diagnostic manual that we use in psychiatry, we'll see that for bipolar I, it highlights we need at least one manic episode, but we didn't need a depressive episode. Yet, when we look at bipolar II, we usually need at least one depressive episode associated with that."
#BipolarDisorder #MentalHealthAwareness #TreattheWholePatient #BipolarTreatment #PatientEngagement
mentesuavepsychiatry.com
Download the transcript here
Punit Dhillon, Chairman and CEO of Skye Bioscience, focuses on anti-obesity and developing a drug that targets the cannabinoid receptor 1, which plays a role in signaling the body to store fat. The next generation of CB1 inhibition moves from a centrally mediated pathway to targeting CB1 receptors outside the brain. Deploying the endocannabinoid system, their lead drug candidate targets the major organs where CB1 receptors reside in fat tissue to increase mitochondrial activity and burn more fat.
Punit explains, "Skye is focused on exploring research modulating different therapeutic targets via the endocannabinoid system. Our research has narrowed in on the CB1 receptor, where we’re modulating it by focusing on this pathway of inhibition. There’s a big body of evidence, actually existing validation of this cannabinoid receptor 1 being a really important target to reduce caloric food intake and increase energy expenditure. It’s been a really important target for weight loss because of its particular relevance in that therapeutic area. So we’re advancing in a very interesting clinical pipeline and immediately a Phase 2 study that will look at that particular target. We hope that we will be able to show its relevance in the anti-obesity medication landscape."
"I feel like the current landscape of drugs that have been getting the most attention has been focused on caloric restriction. Weight loss is driven by that particular pathway of restricting the amount you eat. We are trying to shift that paradigm to the opportunity to address the underlying issues relating to weight loss so you can essentially have this aspect of targeting fat and being able to address fat metabolism. That comes back to this link to the exercise comment you made because it’s driving the underlying mitochondrial activity, which is helping to improve the thermogenesis and the conversion of that fat into thermogenic energy."
#SkyeBioscience #Obesity #EndocannabinoidSystem #WeightLossDrug #CB1Receptor #GLP1
skyebioscience.com
Listen to the podcast here
Punit Dhillon, Chairman and CEO of Skye Bioscience, focuses on anti-obesity and developing a drug that targets the cannabinoid receptor 1, which plays a role in signaling the body to store fat. The next generation of CB1 inhibition moves from a centrally mediated pathway to targeting CB1 receptors outside the brain. Deploying the endocannabinoid system, their lead drug candidate targets the major organs where CB1 receptors reside in fat tissue to increase mitochondrial activity and burn more fat.
Punit explains, "Skye is focused on exploring research modulating different therapeutic targets via the endocannabinoid system. Our research has narrowed in on the CB1 receptor, where we’re modulating it by focusing on this pathway of inhibition. There’s a big body of evidence, actually existing validation of this cannabinoid receptor 1 being a really important target to reduce caloric food intake and increase energy expenditure. It’s been a really important target for weight loss because of its particular relevance in that therapeutic area. So we’re advancing in a very interesting clinical pipeline and immediately a Phase 2 study that will look at that particular target. We hope that we will be able to show its relevance in the anti-obesity medication landscape."
"I feel like the current landscape of drugs that have been getting the most attention has been focused on caloric restriction. Weight loss is driven by that particular pathway of restricting the amount you eat. We are trying to shift that paradigm to the opportunity to address the underlying issues relating to weight loss so you can essentially have this aspect of targeting fat and being able to address fat metabolism. That comes back to this link to the exercise comment you made because it’s driving the underlying mitochondrial activity, which is helping to improve the thermogenesis and the conversion of that fat into thermogenic energy."
#SkyeBioscience #Obesity #EndocannabinoidSystem #WeightLossDrug #CB1Receptor #GLP1
skyebioscience.com
Download the transcript here
Joe Ferra, CEO of Elevation Oncology, highlights the unmet needs in gastric cancer and the potential of targeting Claudins, proteins involved in cell adhesion. The current competitive landscape of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) confirms the promise of a targeted therapy that delivers a cytotoxic drug directly to cancer cells. Targeting Claudin 18.2 with an ADC approach offers an opportunity to treat a broader range of tumors expressing a lower level of Claudin 18.2 than those currently treated by CAR-T therapy. This approach is being investigated as a single-agent drug with promise for use in combination for gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer and esophageal cancer.
Joe explains, "As you likely know, in the continuum of cancer drugs, you have chemotherapy on one end that indiscriminately kills everything it touches. On the other end, you have uber-targeted therapies looking at specific drivers of what’s driving that specific tumor. In our case at Elevation Oncology, we’re focused on what we like to call selected targeted oncology drugs so that we are using the unique characteristics of the tumor to target and meet in a targeted way attempt to kill the tumor for a better outcome for the patient."
"Gastric cancer in and of itself was an area where Claudin 18.2 is known to be highly expressed, but for gastric cancer, to your point, there’s a huge unmet need. For most patients, once they’re in second line or third line, the opportunity for drugs that are available to them today is, unfortunately for all of us, very dismal. We think there’s a significant opportunity to utilize a Claudin 18.2 antibiotic drug conjugate for overall better outcomes for patients living with gastric cancer."
"We quickly saw an ADC approach as an opportunity to treat a broader range of Claudin 18.2 expression. Now, as I’m sure you’re aware, in any target in any tumor, there’s always a range of expression for Claudin 18.2. In gastric cancer, it’s known that as much as 80% of gastric cancer expressed Claudin 18.2 at some level. With that expression, we think an ADC approach will be able to treat a broader range of expression."
#ElevationOncology #ADC #AntibodyDrugConjugate #SolidTumors #Claudin182 #Claudins #Cancer
ElevationOncology.com
Listen to the podcast here
Joe Ferra, CEO of Elevation Oncology, highlights the unmet needs in gastric cancer and the potential of targeting Claudins, proteins involved in cell adhesion. The current competitive landscape of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) confirms the promise of a targeted therapy that delivers a cytotoxic drug directly to cancer cells. Targeting Claudin 18.2 with an ADC approach offers an opportunity to treat a broader range of tumors expressing a lower level of Claudin 18.2 than those currently treated by CAR-T therapy. This approach is being investigated as a single-agent drug with promise for use in combination for gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer and esophageal cancer.
Joe explains, "As you likely know, in the continuum of cancer drugs, you have chemotherapy on one end that indiscriminately kills everything it touches. On the other end, you have uber-targeted therapies looking at specific drivers of what’s driving that specific tumor. In our case at Elevation Oncology, we’re focused on what we like to call selected targeted oncology drugs so that we are using the unique characteristics of the tumor to target and meet in a targeted way attempt to kill the tumor for a better outcome for the patient."
"Gastric cancer in and of itself was an area where Claudin 18.2 is known to be highly expressed, but for gastric cancer, to your point, there’s a huge unmet need. For most patients, once they’re in second line or third line, the opportunity for drugs that are available to them today is, unfortunately for all of us, very dismal. We think there’s a significant opportunity to utilize a Claudin 18.2 antibiotic drug conjugate for overall better outcomes for patients living with gastric cancer."
"We quickly saw an ADC approach as an opportunity to treat a broader range of Claudin 18.2 expression. Now, as I’m sure you’re aware, in any target in any tumor, there’s always a range of expression for Claudin 18.2. In gastric cancer, it’s known that as much as 80% of gastric cancer expressed Claudin 18.2 at some level. With that expression, we think an ADC approach will be able to treat a broader range of expression."
#ElevationOncology #ADC #AntibodyDrugConjugate #SolidTumors #Claudin182 #Claudins #Cancer
ElevationOncology.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Steve Goldberg, physician and Senior Clinical Advisor at DecisionRx, and Dr. Jamie Wilkey, pharmacist and expert on medication therapy optimization, explain that medications are the fourth leading cause of death in the country. They emphasize the need to consider genetic information and pharmacogenomics to design personalized medication plans to improve health outcomes. The DecisionRx solution is integrated into the pharmacist's workflow to improve medication safety, reduce avoidable costs, and enhance communication with providers, pharmacists, and patients.
Steven explains, "Our goal is to help people get more benefits from the medications that they use. A couple of starting facts. The US spends about $500 billion-plus a year on medication, and sadly, there are hundreds of thousands of ER visits, hospitalizations, and deaths that occur to people attributable to medications. There are a number of reasons for it, but relative to what we do, it is often triggered by people having genetics that make them not do well with particular medication. It’s often the regimen that they’re on has too many drugs, and that creates a problem. Finally, and potentially most importantly, they’re not taking the time or not given the time to have their medication regimen carefully reviewed by a well-trained pharmacist to help organize things for the best outcomes. And best outcomes, reduce health risks, control chronic disease, and provide treatment."
Jamie elaborates, "We also consider the genetics of people taking their medication, which has been overlooked significantly in the past. Specifically, the way our body metabolizes medication is so different based on ethnicity, background, and gender, and you can’t just tell by looking at a person how they’ll metabolize medication. We can finally understand what medication is likely to work for a person, which is unlikely to work, and what is probably going to give them a lot of terrible adverse reactions before the patient has to go home and try it."
#DecisionRx #Healthcare #MedicationTherapyOptimization #PrecisionMedicine #Pharmacogenomics #HealthcareInnovation
decisionrx.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Steve Goldberg, physician and Senior Clinical Advisor at DecisionRx, and Dr. Jamie Wilkey, pharmacist and expert on medication therapy optimization, explain that medications are the fourth leading cause of death in the country. They emphasize the need to consider genetic information and pharmacogenomics to design personalized medication plans to improve health outcomes. The DecisionRx solution is integrated into the pharmacist's workflow to improve medication safety, reduce avoidable costs, and enhance communication with providers, pharmacists, and patients.
Steven explains, "Our goal is to help people get more benefits from the medications that they use. A couple of starting facts. The US spends about $500 billion-plus a year on medication, and sadly, there are hundreds of thousands of ER visits, hospitalizations, and deaths that occur to people attributable to medications. There are a number of reasons for it, but relative to what we do, it is often triggered by people having genetics that make them not do well with particular medication. It’s often the regimen that they’re on has too many drugs, and that creates a problem. Finally, and potentially most importantly, they’re not taking the time or not given the time to have their medication regimen carefully reviewed by a well-trained pharmacist to help organize things for the best outcomes. And best outcomes, reduce health risks, control chronic disease, and provide treatment."
Jamie elaborates, "We also consider the genetics of people taking their medication, which has been overlooked significantly in the past. Specifically, the way our body metabolizes medication is so different based on ethnicity, background, and gender, and you can’t just tell by looking at a person how they’ll metabolize medication. We can finally understand what medication is likely to work for a person, which is unlikely to work, and what is probably going to give them a lot of terrible adverse reactions before the patient has to go home and try it."
#DecisionRx #Healthcare #MedicationTherapyOptimization #PrecisionMedicine #Pharmacogenomics #HealthcareInnovation
decisionrx.com
Download the transcript here
Ryne Natzke is the Chief Revenue Officer for TrustCommerce, a Sphere company that facilitates electronic payments in the healthcare industry, helping ensure security and compliance in transactions between patients and providers. Healthcare payments present unique challenges, as patients have varying preferences and are impacted by economic factors on their ability to make healthcare payments. TrustCommerce aims to make the payment process easier for patients by integrating with electronic health record systems and patient billing systems, reducing friction in healthcare payments and providing patients with more options and transparency in pricing.
Ryne explains, "Some people like paying online, and some people pay in person. There are payment plans. So what we do with our technology and our partnerships with EHRs like Epic and patient billing systems is help make sure that they can facilitate those patient financial experiences across the board and have that happen within systems they’re already using. So within MyChart, for example, or just while the patient’s checking in at the front desk. We help take that PCI compliance and security piece off the shoulders of our partners and our healthcare systems using our technology."
"Nobody really plans to have a disease like cancer, and all of a sudden, you have a whole bunch of oncology appointments or plans on getting into a car accident and showing up in the emergency room. So it’s not really a budgetable expense the same way as I’m going to save up for a Peloton or a new TV or whatever it is. So you’re kind of balancing this unknown of what the balance is and being able to line up what that patient might be able to do. Somebody might be able to pay a $2,000 bill when they receive it, and a lot of people can’t. So how can we put them on a payment plan and be empathetic of where they are within their situations while also still having all of the compliance and security pieces that come with the transactions?"
#TrustCommerce #TransparencyinPricing #HealthcareCosts #HealthcarePayments
trustcommerce.com
Listen to the podcast here
Ryne Natzke is the Chief Revenue Officer for TrustCommerce, a Sphere company that facilitates electronic payments in the healthcare industry, helping ensure security and compliance in transactions between patients and providers. Healthcare payments present unique challenges, as patients have varying preferences and are impacted by economic factors on their ability to make healthcare payments. TrustCommerce aims to make the payment process easier for patients by integrating with electronic health record systems and patient billing systems, reducing friction in healthcare payments and providing patients with more options and transparency in pricing.
Ryne explains, "Some people like paying online, and some people pay in person. There are payment plans. So what we do with our technology and our partnerships with EHRs like Epic and patient billing systems is help make sure that they can facilitate those patient financial experiences across the board and have that happen within systems they’re already using. So within MyChart, for example, or just while the patient’s checking in at the front desk. We help take that PCI compliance and security piece off the shoulders of our partners and our healthcare systems using our technology."
"Nobody really plans to have a disease like cancer, and all of a sudden, you have a whole bunch of oncology appointments or plans on getting into a car accident and showing up in the emergency room. So it’s not really a budgetable expense the same way as I’m going to save up for a Peloton or a new TV or whatever it is. So you’re kind of balancing this unknown of what the balance is and being able to line up what that patient might be able to do. Somebody might be able to pay a $2,000 bill when they receive it, and a lot of people can’t. So how can we put them on a payment plan and be empathetic of where they are within their situations while also still having all of the compliance and security pieces that come with the transactions?"
#TrustCommerce #TransparencyinPricing #HealthcareCosts #HealthcarePayments
trustcommerce.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Andrew Dold, Co-Founder of RevMed, a B2B marketplace for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) to address the problem of slow-moving or expiring inventory. This medical marketplace allows facilities to recoup lost revenue by listing medical devices for sale and offers purchasing options for smaller facilities. RevMed serves as a middleman, facilitating the interaction between facilities without taking custody of any items. The marketplace has an extensive database of millions of different SKUs and items, which are updated weekly. The goal of RevMed is to decrease the price of healthcare by getting as many facilities as possible to adopt the platform.
Andrew elaborates, "So, full disclosure, this problem came into light during my fellowship at NYU. I did a sports medicine fellowship a few years ago in New York City, and it simply started with me interacting with one of the representatives, the orthopedic representatives at my hospital. I wanted to get a few suture anchors to practice tying knots in my apartment in New York City. And he simply took me into the back supply room. On one of the shelves, he grabbed a number of different boxes, just flipped them over, looked at the expiration date, and I think they were all expired. And he handed me ten of these boxes and said, here you go. You can practice on these."
"There were brand-new implants that had simply expired on the shelf of the surgery center where I was operating in New York City. It shocked me at the time because of simply the cost of these implants. One of these boxes was in the vicinity of $800 to $1,000, and he handed me 10 of them to take home because they had expired. They were now worthless. They couldn’t be used on a patient. From that point forward, I became more aware of the problem of stale, slow-moving, and expiring inventory and the surplus of medical and surgical supplies on the shelves of hospitals and ASCs. And what a massive problem it is."
#RevMed #supplychain #healthcare #medicalequipment #healthcaresupplychain #revolutionizeprocurement #medtechmarketplace #transparenttransactions #sustainablesourcing #healthcareinnovation #medicaldevicemarketplace
revmedconnect.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Andrew Dold, Co-Founder of RevMed, a B2B marketplace for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) to address the problem of slow-moving or expiring inventory. This medical marketplace allows facilities to recoup lost revenue by listing medical devices for sale and offers purchasing options for smaller facilities. RevMed serves as a middleman, facilitating the interaction between facilities without taking custody of any items. The marketplace has an extensive database of millions of different SKUs and items, which are updated weekly. The goal of RevMed is to decrease the price of healthcare by getting as many facilities as possible to adopt the platform.
Andrew elaborates, "So, full disclosure, this problem came into light during my fellowship at NYU. I did a sports medicine fellowship a few years ago in New York City, and it simply started with me interacting with one of the representatives, the orthopedic representatives at my hospital. I wanted to get a few suture anchors to practice tying knots in my apartment in New York City. And he simply took me into the back supply room. On one of the shelves, he grabbed a number of different boxes, just flipped them over, looked at the expiration date, and I think they were all expired. And he handed me ten of these boxes and said, here you go. You can practice on these."
"There were brand-new implants that had simply expired on the shelf of the surgery center where I was operating in New York City. It shocked me at the time because of simply the cost of these implants. One of these boxes was in the vicinity of $800 to $1,000, and he handed me 10 of them to take home because they had expired. They were now worthless. They couldn’t be used on a patient. From that point forward, I became more aware of the problem of stale, slow-moving, and expiring inventory and the surplus of medical and surgical supplies on the shelves of hospitals and ASCs. And what a massive problem it is."
#RevMed #supplychain #healthcare #medicalequipment #healthcaresupplychain #revolutionizeprocurement #medtechmarketplace #transparenttransactions #sustainablesourcing #healthcareinnovation #medicaldevicemarketplace
revmedconnect.com
Download the transcript here
Ed Esquenazi, Founder and CEO of Sirenas, is exploring the chemistry of marine organisms to accelerate drug discovery. Marine-based scientific elements are still poorly understood but have the potential to produce unique and useful compounds for drug development. There are stark differences between land-based organisms and marine-based organisms, which have evolved for much longer and, therefore, offer more diverse and complex chemistry. Using AI and machine learning, Sirenas has identified cancer-killing agents, anti-infective agents, and anti-inflammatory compounds from marine organisms and is developing marine-based personal care products.
Ed explains, "We go out into the ocean, collect samples, we bring them back. We understand the different chemistry being produced in these organisms, identify and catalog it very carefully using instrumentation, and then figure out how that chemistry might impact biological systems, all with the goal of accelerating drug discovery. So the goal is to make the chemistry from marine organisms accessible to drug discovery."
"We discovered one of the most powerful antimalarials working with the Gates Foundation. We’ve also identified quite a few anti-inflammatory compounds. These are things that modulate the immune system in ways to dampen inflammation or, in some cases, actually accelerate inflammation. So, we’ve identified some of those with very interesting therapeutic paths."
"I think it’s a matter of diversity. A lot of the elements used in drug discovery traditionally have been based either on plants or bacteria, but land-based or synthetic, and they limit the diversity of the chemistry used in drug discovery. So, if you go into the ocean, you’re opening up a realm of very different components that can help accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutics."
#SirenasMD #MarineBasedDrugs #MarineOrganisms #DrugDiscovery #Algae
SirenasMD.com
Listen to the podcast here
Ed Esquenazi, Founder and CEO of Sirenas, is exploring the chemistry of marine organisms to accelerate drug discovery. Marine-based scientific elements are still poorly understood but have the potential to produce unique and useful compounds for drug development. There are stark differences between land-based organisms and marine-based organisms, which have evolved for much longer and, therefore, offer more diverse and complex chemistry. Using AI and machine learning, Sirenas has identified cancer-killing agents, anti-infective agents, and anti-inflammatory compounds from marine organisms and is developing marine-based personal care products.
Ed explains, "We go out into the ocean, collect samples, we bring them back. We understand the different chemistry being produced in these organisms, identify and catalog it very carefully using instrumentation, and then figure out how that chemistry might impact biological systems, all with the goal of accelerating drug discovery. So the goal is to make the chemistry from marine organisms accessible to drug discovery."
"We discovered one of the most powerful antimalarials working with the Gates Foundation. We’ve also identified quite a few anti-inflammatory compounds. These are things that modulate the immune system in ways to dampen inflammation or, in some cases, actually accelerate inflammation. So, we’ve identified some of those with very interesting therapeutic paths."
"I think it’s a matter of diversity. A lot of the elements used in drug discovery traditionally have been based either on plants or bacteria, but land-based or synthetic, and they limit the diversity of the chemistry used in drug discovery. So, if you go into the ocean, you’re opening up a realm of very different components that can help accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutics."
#SirenasMD #MarineBasedDrugs #MarineOrganisms #DrugDiscovery #Algae
SirenasMD.com
Download the transcript here
Kim Perry, Chief Growth Officer at emtelligent, focuses on using medical AI in the prior authorization process to structure unstructured medical text in patient records, making whole record healthcare possible. AI can be used to extract relevant information from faxed or PDF medical records, saving time and improving efficiency over existing manual processes. For payers, there is potential for medical AI to address other processes such as risk adjustment, care management, quality measures, and payment integrity in an environment still lacking interoperability and reliant on highly trained humans.
Kim explains, "For prior authorization in particular, well over 50% of our prior authorizations here in this country are manual. And that means once a prior authorization is submitted for a request for a procedure or a specialty drug, it's a cue for a clinician to review. And part of that review process is to pull a patient's record."
"Unfortunately, because of the lack of interoperability in the healthcare ecosystem, that record is often a fax and a PDF, which could be hundreds of pages. So, the clinician is tasked to manually read through that PDF to find the clinically relevant information to help them deny or approve the prior authorization. So, what they're doing here is using AI to pull out the relevant information at the time that's needed so the clinician doesn't have to manually read through all hundreds of pages looking for the needle in the haystack, if you will, of the information that they're looking for to solve that problem in that point in time."
"I think people assume that with the adoption of EMRs, everything will be digital. But again, due to the lack of interoperability or the lack of payers, in this case, getting direct access into the EMRs for the clinical data, there has to be a way to transmit the information, the relevant information. And often, as I mentioned, it's fax-based. The health systems or the providers are faxing over medical records to the payers. Today, the payers are forced to do that manual review because they haven't had the tools available to them until now to help them apply technology to that manual review process."
#emtelligent #PriorAuthorization #MedicalAI #ArtificialIntelligence #HealthcareInnovations #CMS #LLM #LargeLanguageModels #ClinicalData #EHR #FutureofHealthcare
emtelligent.com
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Kim Perry, Chief Growth Officer at emtelligent, focuses on using medical AI in the prior authorization process to structure unstructured medical text in patient records, making whole record healthcare possible. AI can be used to extract relevant information from faxed or PDF medical records, saving time and improving efficiency over existing manual processes. For payers, there is potential for medical AI to address other processes such as risk adjustment, care management, quality measures, and payment integrity in an environment still lacking interoperability and reliant on highly trained humans.
Kim explains, "For prior authorization in particular, well over 50% of our prior authorizations here in this country are manual. And that means once a prior authorization is submitted for a request for a procedure or a specialty drug, it's a cue for a clinician to review. And part of that review process is to pull a patient's record."
"Unfortunately, because of the lack of interoperability in the healthcare ecosystem, that record is often a fax and a PDF, which could be hundreds of pages. So, the clinician is tasked to manually read through that PDF to find the clinically relevant information to help them deny or approve the prior authorization. So, what they're doing here is using AI to pull out the relevant information at the time that's needed so the clinician doesn't have to manually read through all hundreds of pages looking for the needle in the haystack, if you will, of the information that they're looking for to solve that problem in that point in time."
"I think people assume that with the adoption of EMRs, everything will be digital. But again, due to the lack of interoperability or the lack of payers, in this case, getting direct access into the EMRs for the clinical data, there has to be a way to transmit the information, the relevant information. And often, as I mentioned, it's fax-based. The health systems or the providers are faxing over medical records to the payers. Today, the payers are forced to do that manual review because they haven't had the tools available to them until now to help them apply technology to that manual review process."
#emtelligent #PriorAuthorization #MedicalAI #ArtificialIntelligence #HealthcareInnovations #CMS #LLM #LargeLanguageModels #ClinicalData #EHR #FutureofHealthcare
emtelligent.com
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Nolan Townsend, CEO of Lexeo Therapeutics, and Jen Farmer, CEO of FARA, the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance, are working together to better understand and treat Friedreich's Ataxia. This rare genetic condition includes cardiomyopathy and scoliosis. Lexeo Therapeutics is studying gene therapy as a potential treatment for the cardiovascular component of the disease. The Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) plays a role in funding research, understanding the natural history of the disease, and advocating for treatments.
Nolan explains, "For most patients in Friedreich’s ataxia, cardiovascular disease becomes a very challenging component of the pathology, and it is what’s called a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy phenocopy. So, it mimics hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is a thickening of the heart wall. And that typically progresses as well, which, for many patients, ends up being the cause of mortality associated with the disease. This pathology does appear to be amenable to treatment approaches like gene therapy, and it’s one that we’re working on here at Lexeo."
Jen elaborates, "As Nolan mentioned, it’s caused by mutations in a gene called FXN, and the mutation in the gene causes a silencing of the gene. So, individuals with FA have what we call frataxin deficiency. And frataxin is a highly conserved protein that is important in lots of different cells, which is why the disease affects multiple organ systems. So, while it’s a genetic disease, it’s this protein deficiency that causes the pathology within the cell. The cells just don’t make enough energy and don’t function properly, and that’s what contributes to the underlying cause of the disease."
#FriedreichsAtaxia #CureFA #FAAwarenessMonth #FAAwarenessDay #RareDiseases
LexeoTX.com
CureFA.org
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Nolan Townsend, CEO of Lexeo Therapeutics, and Jen Farmer, CEO of FARA, the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance, are working together to better understand and treat Friedreich's Ataxia. This rare genetic condition includes cardiomyopathy and scoliosis. Lexeo Therapeutics is studying gene therapy as a potential treatment for the cardiovascular component of the disease. The Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) plays a role in funding research, understanding the natural history of the disease, and advocating for treatments.
Nolan explains, "For most patients in Friedreich’s ataxia, cardiovascular disease becomes a very challenging component of the pathology, and it is what’s called a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy phenocopy. So, it mimics hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is a thickening of the heart wall. And that typically progresses as well, which, for many patients, ends up being the cause of mortality associated with the disease. This pathology does appear to be amenable to treatment approaches like gene therapy, and it’s one that we’re working on here at Lexeo."
Jen elaborates, "As Nolan mentioned, it’s caused by mutations in a gene called FXN, and the mutation in the gene causes a silencing of the gene. So, individuals with FA have what we call frataxin deficiency. And frataxin is a highly conserved protein that is important in lots of different cells, which is why the disease affects multiple organ systems. So, while it’s a genetic disease, it’s this protein deficiency that causes the pathology within the cell. The cells just don’t make enough energy and don’t function properly, and that’s what contributes to the underlying cause of the disease."
#FriedreichsAtaxia #CureFA #FAAwarenessMonth #FAAwarenessDay #RareDiseases
LexeoTX.com
CureFA.org
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Dr. Craig Joseph, Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Global, highlights the concerns and challenges healthcare professionals face when using health IT and the clinician burnout related to the administrative burdens of electronic health records. He addresses the obstacles to integrating IT into healthcare workflows, including cost, risk aversion, and resource limitations. He identifies areas where AI can have an immediate impact in reducing errors and biases.
Craig elaborates, "In the past, we lived in a paper-based world, so it was pretty flexible. You could fill out a form or not fill out a form. You could give as much detail or as little detail. Often, especially physicians really couldn't read what they were writing anyway, so it was less important. All of that's changed now in the last 15 or 20 years since the advent of electronic health records."
"What we've seen with large language models, like Chat GPT and other modern AIs, is the ability to do a lot of things with voice now, to be able to communicate directly with a patient, not have to look at the screen to either get information or to write a progress note. Lots of physicians have complained deservedly that they have to spend pajama time, time after they put their kids to bed at night, where they're not getting paid and writing their progress notes and office visit notes."
"I think AI, like LLMs are going to really do a lot to help to rehumanize the interactions that we have. Although, there will be downsides. For that to work, there has to be a microphone in the exam room and it has to be listening to what you and the doctor are saying to one another. Folks are going to have to be comfortable with that to be able to leverage some of those things."
#NordicGlobal #AI #MedicalAI #Hospitals #HealthIT
nordicglobal.com
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Dr. Craig Joseph, Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Global, highlights the concerns and challenges healthcare professionals face when using health IT and the clinician burnout related to the administrative burdens of electronic health records. He addresses the obstacles to integrating IT into healthcare workflows, including cost, risk aversion, and resource limitations. He identifies areas where AI can have an immediate impact in reducing errors and biases.
Craig elaborates, "In the past, we lived in a paper-based world, so it was pretty flexible. You could fill out a form or not fill out a form. You could give as much detail or as little detail. Often, especially physicians really couldn't read what they were writing anyway, so it was less important. All of that's changed now in the last 15 or 20 years since the advent of electronic health records."
"What we've seen with large language models, like Chat GPT and other modern AIs, is the ability to do a lot of things with voice now, to be able to communicate directly with a patient, not have to look at the screen to either get information or to write a progress note. Lots of physicians have complained deservedly that they have to spend pajama time, time after they put their kids to bed at night, where they're not getting paid and writing their progress notes and office visit notes."
"I think AI, like LLMs are going to really do a lot to help to rehumanize the interactions that we have. Although, there will be downsides. For that to work, there has to be a microphone in the exam room and it has to be listening to what you and the doctor are saying to one another. Folks are going to have to be comfortable with that to be able to leverage some of those things."
#NordicGlobal #AI #MedicalAI #Hospitals #HealthIT
nordicglobal.com
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Mike Kelly, CEO of NervGen Pharma, discusses the company's vision to build a startup biotech focused on repairing the central nervous system, helping patients regain function, not just slowing progression. Their first product, NVG-291, is currently in clinical trials for spinal cord injury. The drug aims to promote natural repair by targeting molecules called CSPGs that inhibit nerve growth and repair. NerveGen is also developing NVG-300 for other indications such as stroke, ALS, MS, and Alzheimer's. He draws parallels between his previous experience developing the Narcan Nasal Spray for opioid overdose and the unmet medical need in spinal cord injury.
Mike explains, "We are a company focusing on a group of products, more like a platform, that will enable the nervous system to repair itself. So the vision is to build a startup biotech focused in CNS and to get our first product over the line in spinal cord injury."
"There are no drugs available. So this is something that happens in an instant and someone's life has changed forever. The patient typically will then get hospitalized, have surgery to decompress the area that's injured, and then they're on the road to recovery. The only treatment is rehabilitation and exercise, and they push themselves to remake as many connections as possible. Still, that repair typically plateaus around six to nine months after their injury. And the level of function they regained during that period is where they'll be for the rest of their lives, unfortunately."
"NVG-291 is a product that aims to promote natural repair. When you damage, say, you cut your finger or break your foot, your body repairs itself very easily. When you damage your central nervous system, your body protects itself very well and inhibits repair, actually. Our drug targets one of those mechanisms that inhibit repair, turns it off, and allows the body to repair itself naturally."
#NervGenPharma #SCI #SpinalCordInjury #SpinalNews #SpinalInjury #Paralysis #NerveRepair #CNS
NervGen.com
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Mike Kelly, CEO of NervGen Pharma, discusses the company's vision to build a startup biotech focused on repairing the central nervous system, helping patients regain function, not just slowing progression. Their first product, NVG-291, is currently in clinical trials for spinal cord injury. The drug aims to promote natural repair by targeting molecules called CSPGs that inhibit nerve growth and repair. NerveGen is also developing NVG-300 for other indications such as stroke, ALS, MS, and Alzheimer's. He draws parallels between his previous experience developing the Narcan Nasal Spray for opioid overdose and the unmet medical need in spinal cord injury.
Mike explains, "We are a company focusing on a group of products, more like a platform, that will enable the nervous system to repair itself. So the vision is to build a startup biotech focused in CNS and to get our first product over the line in spinal cord injury."
"There are no drugs available. So this is something that happens in an instant and someone's life has changed forever. The patient typically will then get hospitalized, have surgery to decompress the area that's injured, and then they're on the road to recovery. The only treatment is rehabilitation and exercise, and they push themselves to remake as many connections as possible. Still, that repair typically plateaus around six to nine months after their injury. And the level of function they regained during that period is where they'll be for the rest of their lives, unfortunately."
"NVG-291 is a product that aims to promote natural repair. When you damage, say, you cut your finger or break your foot, your body repairs itself very easily. When you damage your central nervous system, your body protects itself very well and inhibits repair, actually. Our drug targets one of those mechanisms that inhibit repair, turns it off, and allows the body to repair itself naturally."
#NervGenPharma #SCI #SpinalCordInjury #SpinalNews #SpinalInjury #Paralysis #NerveRepair #CNS
NervGen.com
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Matt Cronin, Founding Partner of House of Kaizen, discusses how patients' changing healthcare expectations are shaped by their experiences with products and services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Consumers now expect a longer-term relationship and personalized experiences with their healthcare providers. House of Kaizen emphasizes the importance of building better customer experiences in health and wellness to improve health outcomes and create more value for businesses. In the age of AI, the importance of trust and brand reputation is paramount. Healthcare providers, as the trusted source of information and a filter for web-based searches, play a crucial role in this landscape.
Matt elaborates, "We're a specialized consulting firm for recurring revenue products and services. We build loyalty and advocacy for better lifetime value through customer experience optimization. We do this for all kinds of businesses that operate on a recurring revenue model, which includes many products and services in the health and wellness space. It's a space we've been working in for over 20 years. It's an area where we see a ton of leadership but also a ton of potential in understanding a longer-term customer journey. A true relationship, as opposed to a singular point with the transaction, actually can be a real advantage and an opportunity to set yourself apart from the competitors in the market space."
"When it comes to health and wellness, we have, of course, the healthcare scenario where people have recurring relationships with their physicians, they have recurring relationships with the healthcare systems in which they operate with their insurance companies. But they also have recurring relationships with the products that they may use, like software technology or hardware technology, the news and information that they consume related to their health and wellness, as well as replenishable products like the foods, drinks, supplements, medication, all of those things can make up their portfolio of health and wellness that is a long-term relationship."
#HouseofKaizen #PatientFirst #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareMarketing
houseofkaizen.com
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Matt Cronin, Founding Partner of House of Kaizen, discusses how patients' changing healthcare expectations are shaped by their experiences with products and services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Consumers now expect a longer-term relationship and personalized experiences with their healthcare providers. House of Kaizen emphasizes the importance of building better customer experiences in health and wellness to improve health outcomes and create more value for businesses. In the age of AI, the importance of trust and brand reputation is paramount. Healthcare providers, as the trusted source of information and a filter for web-based searches, play a crucial role in this landscape.
Matt elaborates, "We're a specialized consulting firm for recurring revenue products and services. We build loyalty and advocacy for better lifetime value through customer experience optimization. We do this for all kinds of businesses that operate on a recurring revenue model, which includes many products and services in the health and wellness space. It's a space we've been working in for over 20 years. It's an area where we see a ton of leadership but also a ton of potential in understanding a longer-term customer journey. A true relationship, as opposed to a singular point with the transaction, actually can be a real advantage and an opportunity to set yourself apart from the competitors in the market space."
"When it comes to health and wellness, we have, of course, the healthcare scenario where people have recurring relationships with their physicians, they have recurring relationships with the healthcare systems in which they operate with their insurance companies. But they also have recurring relationships with the products that they may use, like software technology or hardware technology, the news and information that they consume related to their health and wellness, as well as replenishable products like the foods, drinks, supplements, medication, all of those things can make up their portfolio of health and wellness that is a long-term relationship."
#HouseofKaizen #PatientFirst #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareMarketing
houseofkaizen.com
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Dr. Mollie Leoni, Executive Vice President for Clinical Development of Kura Oncology, discusses the company's ziftomenib program, a menin inhibitor for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The company initially allowed all AML patients to participate in the clinical study, but later found that specific subtypes, such as those with NPM1 mutation or KMT2A rearrangement, were more likely to respond to the menin inhibitor. They also discovered other subtypes that were responsive, expanding the potential patient population. Understanding the role of menin and menin inhibitors in addressing abnormal gene expression and promoting healthy cell development opens the door to potential combination therapy, where menin inhibitors could be layered onto existing treatments for various cancers related to menin independence.
Mollie explains, "In oncology, we have gotten good at treating the end state, but cancer has many, many causes with a common final endpoint to the way the cells look. So, it's many, many different diseases all at once. We've learned and are learning that with better technology and a better understanding of cancer in general we can identify not just how to stop the end state but how to stop it from starting."
"That's where ziftomenib comes in. Ziftomenib addresses key mutations that when they occur, are what cause the development of cancer. So you're able to shut down the development and force the cells to develop normally rather than waiting until they're already diseased and killing them with chemotherapy or some other cytotoxic agent."
"There is a protein complex that we refer to as the menin MLL complex, which goes rogue when something unusual happens in the cell. For example, that could be an NPM1 mutation. That could be a KMT2A rearrangement. Those are two things that are well-known to happen within AML diseases. It could also be a SETD2 RUNX1 mutation. So many types of mutations could happen that could cause this machinery to go rogue within the cell. And that complex causes genes to become active at levels and at times that are abnormal."
#KuraOncology #Ziftomenib #MeninInhibitors #PrecisionMedicine #BTD #AML
KuraOncology.com
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Dr. Mollie Leoni, Executive Vice President for Clinical Development of Kura Oncology, discusses the company's ziftomenib program, a menin inhibitor for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The company initially allowed all AML patients to participate in the clinical study, but later found that specific subtypes, such as those with NPM1 mutation or KMT2A rearrangement, were more likely to respond to the menin inhibitor. They also discovered other subtypes that were responsive, expanding the potential patient population. Understanding the role of menin and menin inhibitors in addressing abnormal gene expression and promoting healthy cell development opens the door to potential combination therapy, where menin inhibitors could be layered onto existing treatments for various cancers related to menin independence.
Mollie explains, "In oncology, we have gotten good at treating the end state, but cancer has many, many causes with a common final endpoint to the way the cells look. So, it's many, many different diseases all at once. We've learned and are learning that with better technology and a better understanding of cancer in general we can identify not just how to stop the end state but how to stop it from starting."
"That's where ziftomenib comes in. Ziftomenib addresses key mutations that when they occur, are what cause the development of cancer. So you're able to shut down the development and force the cells to develop normally rather than waiting until they're already diseased and killing them with chemotherapy or some other cytotoxic agent."
"There is a protein complex that we refer to as the menin MLL complex, which goes rogue when something unusual happens in the cell. For example, that could be an NPM1 mutation. That could be a KMT2A rearrangement. Those are two things that are well-known to happen within AML diseases. It could also be a SETD2 RUNX1 mutation. So many types of mutations could happen that could cause this machinery to go rogue within the cell. And that complex causes genes to become active at levels and at times that are abnormal."
#KuraOncology #Ziftomenib #MeninInhibitors #PrecisionMedicine #BTD #AML
KuraOncology.com
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Dr. Steffen-Sebastian Bolz, Chief Scientific Officer of Swiss-based Aphaia Pharma, shines a light on the excitement around weight loss drugs due to the discovery that GLP-1 agonists and points out the shift in the perception of obesity as a root cause of various health issues. Aphaia Pharma's approach involves stimulating hormone production in the small intestine by reinvigorating the mechanism that has become dormant due to the ingestion of highly refined foods. The company is also exploring the effects of the circadian rhythm on weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.
Steffen elaborates, "What is understood now is obesity is the root cause of many sequel pathologies like type 2 diabetes, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and a whole lot of cardiovascular disease. So, the idea is that if we get obesity under control and the obesity pandemic under control, we might also lower the incidence of all the other diseases. There’s a massive rush into this field because there are already blockbuster drugs in the market, as you just said, and there are already 1 billion people worldwide who are obese and our projections predict that rapid growth of these numbers. So this is kind of the gold rush."
"Let me start with briefly outlining the mode of action of GLP-1 agonists. A common denominator of all metabolic diseases, either obesity or a related disease, is a lack of hormone output from the small intestine. What’s behind this is that the small intestine is capable of producing hormones in response to food intake."
"All these hormones act in an orchestrated fashion to allow digestion, proper immune control, and all these things. It was found that all these hormones are reduced in patients with obesity, and GLP-1 agonists replace one of those hormones, GLP-1. They do this by injecting very high doses to yield the effects we’re seeing, such as type 2 diabetes control and weight loss. But that’s just the hormone replacement therapy. That’s just one hormone out of a large portfolio, out of hundreds of hormones produced by the small intestine. And that is exactly where our thought process started."
#AphaiaPharma #Obesity #GLP1Agonists #SmallIntestine #WeightLoss
AphaiaPharma.com
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Dr. Steffen-Sebastian Bolz, Chief Scientific Officer of Swiss-based Aphaia Pharma, shines a light on the excitement around weight loss drugs due to the discovery that GLP-1 agonists and points out the shift in the perception of obesity as a root cause of various health issues. Aphaia Pharma's approach involves stimulating hormone production in the small intestine by reinvigorating the mechanism that has become dormant due to the ingestion of highly refined foods. The company is also exploring the effects of the circadian rhythm on weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.
Steffen elaborates, "What is understood now is obesity is the root cause of many sequel pathologies like type 2 diabetes, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and a whole lot of cardiovascular disease. So, the idea is that if we get obesity under control and the obesity pandemic under control, we might also lower the incidence of all the other diseases. There’s a massive rush into this field because there are already blockbuster drugs in the market, as you just said, and there are already 1 billion people worldwide who are obese and our projections predict that rapid growth of these numbers. So this is kind of the gold rush."
"Let me start with briefly outlining the mode of action of GLP-1 agonists. A common denominator of all metabolic diseases, either obesity or a related disease, is a lack of hormone output from the small intestine. What’s behind this is that the small intestine is capable of producing hormones in response to food intake."
"All these hormones act in an orchestrated fashion to allow digestion, proper immune control, and all these things. It was found that all these hormones are reduced in patients with obesity, and GLP-1 agonists replace one of those hormones, GLP-1. They do this by injecting very high doses to yield the effects we’re seeing, such as type 2 diabetes control and weight loss. But that’s just the hormone replacement therapy. That’s just one hormone out of a large portfolio, out of hundreds of hormones produced by the small intestine. And that is exactly where our thought process started."
#AphaiaPharma #Obesity #GLP1Agonists #SmallIntestine #WeightLoss
AphaiaPharma.com
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Rick Vanzura, CEO of Freight Farms, and Dr. Amber Orman, Chief Wellness Officer at Advent Health, discuss their partnership in bringing hyperlocal, sustainable food to healthcare facilities. Freight Farms uses modified shipping containers to grow crops, allowing for year-round production with minimal land and water usage. Advent Health recognized the importance of nutrition in whole-person care and saw the opportunity to provide their team members, physicians, patients, and the public with fresh, nutritious food and donate to local food pantries. The partnership has demonstrated the power of food as medicine and the potential for sustainable farming practices in healthcare settings.
Rick explains, "We grow about two and a half to three acres worth of crops out of an 8 by 40-foot shipping container. It looks like any shipping container you would see on a dock or a boat, but it's highly modified to grow food using LED lights, airflow, nutrients delivered through the farm, and controlled through software. It's really designed so you can grow 365 days a year, very clean food, with temperatures from minus 40° to 120°, and do that consistently. And again, get all of the value of it being hyperlocal and fresh and using minimal land and water."
Amber elaborates," We have a doctors’ lounge where the doctors, nurse practitioners, and some leaders eat. We also have a public-facing cafeteria, so anybody who visits the hospital can eat in the cafeteria. It's served in there. It's served in our patient meals, so we have certain meals containing the produce, so all of our salads, sandwiches, and wraps. Then we're also supplying anything extra to a local food pantry, and then they also donate to Kingdom Kids Academy in Kissimmee. We are able to sustain all of these things and donate some extra when we have it, even out to the community. It certainly provides better nutrition within a given day to those patients and team members and the people who receive the donations. It's also a way to start educating people about the benefits of eating more plants. We all need to eat more plants for better health, and so that's one of our guiding missions here."
#AdventHealth #FreightFarms #VerticalFarming #Healthcare #FoodAsMedicine #AgTech
adventhealth.com
freightfarms.com
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Rick Vanzura, CEO of Freight Farms, and Dr. Amber Orman, Chief Wellness Officer at Advent Health, discuss their partnership in bringing hyperlocal, sustainable food to healthcare facilities. Freight Farms uses modified shipping containers to grow crops, allowing for year-round production with minimal land and water usage. Advent Health recognized the importance of nutrition in whole-person care and saw the opportunity to provide their team members, physicians, patients, and the public with fresh, nutritious food and donate to local food pantries. The partnership has demonstrated the power of food as medicine and the potential for sustainable farming practices in healthcare settings.
Rick explains, "We grow about two and a half to three acres worth of crops out of an 8 by 40-foot shipping container. It looks like any shipping container you would see on a dock or a boat, but it's highly modified to grow food using LED lights, airflow, nutrients delivered through the farm, and controlled through software. It's really designed so you can grow 365 days a year, very clean food, with temperatures from minus 40° to 120°, and do that consistently. And again, get all of the value of it being hyperlocal and fresh and using minimal land and water."
Amber elaborates," We have a doctors’ lounge where the doctors, nurse practitioners, and some leaders eat. We also have a public-facing cafeteria, so anybody who visits the hospital can eat in the cafeteria. It's served in there. It's served in our patient meals, so we have certain meals containing the produce, so all of our salads, sandwiches, and wraps. Then we're also supplying anything extra to a local food pantry, and then they also donate to Kingdom Kids Academy in Kissimmee. We are able to sustain all of these things and donate some extra when we have it, even out to the community. It certainly provides better nutrition within a given day to those patients and team members and the people who receive the donations. It's also a way to start educating people about the benefits of eating more plants. We all need to eat more plants for better health, and so that's one of our guiding missions here."
#AdventHealth #FreightFarms #VerticalFarming #Healthcare #FoodAsMedicine #AgTech
adventhealth.com
freightfarms.com
Download the transcript here
Guang Qu, Co-Founder of NGGT Corporation is focused on developing gene therapy products using dual functional vector strategies. Guang highlights the importance of distinguishing between recessive and dominant mutations in rare diseases and explains how their approach differs from other gene therapy approaches. The two leading indications caused by a gene mutation that NGGT is working on are Bietti's Crystalline Dystrophy (BCD), a rare ocular disease, and phenylketonuria (PKU), a metabolic disease.
Guang explains, "For our strategies and our product development strategies, I think we are leveraging our experience in the gene therapy field. Later, I will talk more about myself, Dr. Lixin Jiang, and our team. The other thing we are leveraging is our fully integrated team in gene therapy product development, which involves R&D, research and development, CGMP manufacturers, from tox development and clinical regulatory functions and the medical teams. So with all of the teams we built up in the last couple of years, we're in very good positions in developing our gene therapy products."
"So, of the two currently leading indications, one is involved in ocular disease, what we call the BCD, Bietti's Crystalline Dystrophy. This disease is caused by a gene mutation. The gene mutation causes lipid metabolic problems. The particular gene is called the CYP4V2 gene. The mutation directly leads to the lipid metabolic process being interrupted. Therefore, lipids are precipitated in the different ocular cells, such as the cornea and the retina. That's most of the disease cell layers affected."
#AAV #GeneEditing #GeneTherapy #PKU #BCD
Listen to the podcast here
Guang Qu, Co-Founder of NGGT Corporation is focused on developing gene therapy products using dual functional vector strategies. Guang highlights the importance of distinguishing between recessive and dominant mutations in rare diseases and explains how their approach differs from other gene therapy approaches. The two leading indications caused by a gene mutation that NGGT is working on are Bietti's Crystalline Dystrophy (BCD), a rare ocular disease, and phenylketonuria (PKU), a metabolic disease.
Guang explains, "For our strategies and our product development strategies, I think we are leveraging our experience in the gene therapy field. Later, I will talk more about myself, Dr. Lixin Jiang, and our team. The other thing we are leveraging is our fully integrated team in gene therapy product development, which involves R&D, research and development, CGMP manufacturers, from tox development and clinical regulatory functions and the medical teams. So with all of the teams we built up in the last couple of years, we're in very good positions in developing our gene therapy products."
"So, of the two currently leading indications, one is involved in ocular disease, what we call the BCD, Bietti's Crystalline Dystrophy. This disease is caused by a gene mutation. The gene mutation causes lipid metabolic problems. The particular gene is called the CYP4V2 gene. The mutation directly leads to the lipid metabolic process being interrupted. Therefore, lipids are precipitated in the different ocular cells, such as the cornea and the retina. That's most of the disease cell layers affected."
#AAV #GeneEditing #GeneTherapy #PKU #BCD
Download the transcript here
Jennifer Jones-McMeans, divisional vice president of global clinical affairs at Abbott’s vascular business, and Dr. Brian DeRubertis, a doctor at the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, shine a light on peripheral artery disease and critical limb-threatening ischemia where artery blockage restricts blood flow to the lower legs. Abbott has developed the Esprit, a dissolving scaffold that opens up the artery in the blocked area and elutes a drug that slows disease progression. Their LIFE-BTK trial demonstrated success in a diverse patient population and is a significant new treatment option for CLTI.
Brian explains, "One of the things that I’ll say is our group is starting to explore doing additional efforts at patient education with our own patients, patients who have actually been diagnosed with this disease, and educating them a little bit more about what it means to have this disease, how they can be involved in the process of trying to prevent their disease from getting worse. And the reason we’re doing this is exactly what you said. Everyone knows what a heart attack is, but very few people understand that the same process that leads to clogged arteries in the heart or blocked arteries in the heart can lead to blocked arteries in the legs. Those blockages can ultimately lead to amputation. And so, the education of patients and keeping them informed about the disease process is one important part of this."
Jennifer elaborates, "This is really a landmark moment for people with this severe form of peripheral artery disease, which we’re calling CLTI. When you think of these minimally invasive procedures to treat this disease, currently in the United States, you only have plain balloon angioplasty. And this is what the LIFE BTK trial was measured against. The Esprit was measured, which is our dissolving stent, and tested against the standard of care, plain balloon angioplasty. And it’s been decades since there’s been any innovation in this, what they sometimes call the endovascular first space. The Esprit is made out of a polymer material similar to what you would think about with dissolving stitches, and it also has a drug on it."
#Abbott #CLTI #PeripheralArteryDisease #PAD #LegArteries #PlainBalloonAngioplasty #DiversityinClinicalTrials
abbott.com
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Jennifer Jones-McMeans, divisional vice president of global clinical affairs at Abbott’s vascular business, and Dr. Brian DeRubertis, a doctor at the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, shine a light on peripheral artery disease and critical limb-threatening ischemia where artery blockage restricts blood flow to the lower legs. Abbott has developed the Esprit, a dissolving scaffold that opens up the artery in the blocked area and elutes a drug that slows disease progression. Their LIFE-BTK trial demonstrated success in a diverse patient population and is a significant new treatment option for CLTI.
Brian explains, "One of the things that I’ll say is our group is starting to explore doing additional efforts at patient education with our own patients, patients who have actually been diagnosed with this disease, and educating them a little bit more about what it means to have this disease, how they can be involved in the process of trying to prevent their disease from getting worse. And the reason we’re doing this is exactly what you said. Everyone knows what a heart attack is, but very few people understand that the same process that leads to clogged arteries in the heart or blocked arteries in the heart can lead to blocked arteries in the legs. Those blockages can ultimately lead to amputation. And so, the education of patients and keeping them informed about the disease process is one important part of this."
Jennifer elaborates, "This is really a landmark moment for people with this severe form of peripheral artery disease, which we’re calling CLTI. When you think of these minimally invasive procedures to treat this disease, currently in the United States, you only have plain balloon angioplasty. And this is what the LIFE BTK trial was measured against. The Esprit was measured, which is our dissolving stent, and tested against the standard of care, plain balloon angioplasty. And it’s been decades since there’s been any innovation in this, what they sometimes call the endovascular first space. The Esprit is made out of a polymer material similar to what you would think about with dissolving stitches, and it also has a drug on it."
#Abbott #CLTI #PeripheralArteryDisease #PAD #LegArteries #PlainBalloonAngioplasty #DiversityinClinicalTrials
abbott.com
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Marcio Souza, President and CEO of Praxis Precision Medicines, discusses the challenges in treating central nervous system disorders and is focused on developing life-altering treatments for patients with essential tremor. Current treatments for epilepsy are often broad-based and not specific to the underlying cause of the disease. Praxis is using insights about genetic epilepsy to understand the underlying imbalances in the brain and develop a precision medicine approach to improve movement disorders.
Marcio explains, "For example, we have four clinical programs right now, four different molecules in the clinic, and many more to come in the future, but four at this given point in time. And one of them is for a very common movement disorder called the essential tremor, which is very common, about 2% of the US population develop this condition. And there is no real understanding of where it comes from. Incredibly debilitating for all the people living with essential tremor. But when you take a step back, and you look into the network, it overlaps with a lot of our understanding of epilepsy."
"Other times, we just start in epilepsy, and we end in epilepsy. And I think that’s good as well because there is a huge need for better drugs in epilepsy as well. So we’re using that as a gateway to either better drugs for epilepsy or new drugs in the case of certain types of epilepsy that don’t have any drugs or any treatment available at all. Or to branch out and really understand more mechanistically how to help other diseases. And we think it’s only the beginning. There’s a lot more to be done there."
#PraxisMedicines #EssentialTremor #NeurologicalDiseases #MovementDisorder #FirstinClassMechanism #AtHomeTrial
praxismedicines.com
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Marcio Souza, President and CEO of Praxis Precision Medicines, discusses the challenges in treating central nervous system disorders and is focused on developing life-altering treatments for patients with essential tremor. Current treatments for epilepsy are often broad-based and not specific to the underlying cause of the disease. Praxis is using insights about genetic epilepsy to understand the underlying imbalances in the brain and develop a precision medicine approach to improve movement disorders.
Marcio explains, "For example, we have four clinical programs right now, four different molecules in the clinic, and many more to come in the future, but four at this given point in time. And one of them is for a very common movement disorder called the essential tremor, which is very common, about 2% of the US population develop this condition. And there is no real understanding of where it comes from. Incredibly debilitating for all the people living with essential tremor. But when you take a step back, and you look into the network, it overlaps with a lot of our understanding of epilepsy."
"Other times, we just start in epilepsy, and we end in epilepsy. And I think that’s good as well because there is a huge need for better drugs in epilepsy as well. So we’re using that as a gateway to either better drugs for epilepsy or new drugs in the case of certain types of epilepsy that don’t have any drugs or any treatment available at all. Or to branch out and really understand more mechanistically how to help other diseases. And we think it’s only the beginning. There’s a lot more to be done there."
#PraxisMedicines #EssentialTremor #NeurologicalDiseases #MovementDisorder #FirstinClassMechanism #AtHomeTrial
praxismedicines.com
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Dr. John Blair, CEO of MedAllies, was created to address the lack of communication and coordination between healthcare providers and the importance of interoperability in healthcare. While healthcare has become more complicated over the years, with advancements in technology and automation, the lack of reimbursement for coordination of care has contributed to the problem of lack of interoperability. There are incentives and penalties associated with interoperability, including information blocking and the Trust Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) initiative, which aims to standardize interoperability platforms and reduce barriers to entry for healthcare organizations.
John explains, "But if you look at hospitals, you've got about 70% of the hospitals in the country connected to a national network. That means there's 30% that are not. And then, if you start to break that down and look at rural areas versus urban, there's a big disconnect. These smaller rural hospitals tend to be far less connected than the larger urban hospitals. Then, if you even break it down in the urban areas, you look at certain areas, the more marginalized communities, and again, those hospitals are less likely to be connected. So that's the real issue right now as we're trying to move with interoperability, and as we're making more and more success or having more and more success, there are still those who are falling behind."
"Well, interoperability should improve care and care for an individual, the experience for the individual, the efficiency of the individual getting their care amongst multiple providers, and also improve the efficiency for providers in terms of coordination between other providers. And it will cost money to do that. I mean, it costs money for those connections to run these platforms -- millions and millions of dollars to run these annually."
#MedAllies #HealthcareNetworks #Hospitals #Interoperability #HealthcareCosts #TEFCA
medallies.com
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Dr. John Blair, CEO of MedAllies, was created to address the lack of communication and coordination between healthcare providers and the importance of interoperability in healthcare. While healthcare has become more complicated over the years, with advancements in technology and automation, the lack of reimbursement for coordination of care has contributed to the problem of lack of interoperability. There are incentives and penalties associated with interoperability, including information blocking and the Trust Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) initiative, which aims to standardize interoperability platforms and reduce barriers to entry for healthcare organizations.
John explains, "But if you look at hospitals, you've got about 70% of the hospitals in the country connected to a national network. That means there's 30% that are not. And then, if you start to break that down and look at rural areas versus urban, there's a big disconnect. These smaller rural hospitals tend to be far less connected than the larger urban hospitals. Then, if you even break it down in the urban areas, you look at certain areas, the more marginalized communities, and again, those hospitals are less likely to be connected. So that's the real issue right now as we're trying to move with interoperability, and as we're making more and more success or having more and more success, there are still those who are falling behind."
"Well, interoperability should improve care and care for an individual, the experience for the individual, the efficiency of the individual getting their care amongst multiple providers, and also improve the efficiency for providers in terms of coordination between other providers. And it will cost money to do that. I mean, it costs money for those connections to run these platforms -- millions and millions of dollars to run these annually."
#MedAllies #HealthcareNetworks #Hospitals #Interoperability #HealthcareCosts #TEFCA
medallies.com
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Dave Mehalick, Chairman, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Coeptis Therapeutics, focuses on developing cell therapies for oncology and respiratory diseases. They aim to create a universal cell therapy that can be used for various types of cancer and move it from a later line of treatment to a frontline therapy. The company has developed a unique CAR therapy called SNAP-CAR, which utilizes off-the-shelf cells and a targeting mechanism to attack cancer cells at different points, making it difficult for the cells to mutate and evade treatment. Coeptis is conducting clinical trials using its cell generation platform, including a trial for COVID-19 patients and a trial for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients.
Dave explains, "Coeptis is a cell therapy company mainly focused on oncology, although we have recently broadened into respiratory disease. And really, the prime mission of the company would be to what we would term universalized cell therapy to make it available for the masses. Right now, cell therapy has to be very highly targeted to certain people. It’s extremely expensive. With a lot of the technologies that Coeptis has brought together under one roof, we feel it will solve a lot of those issues and make it not only available to mostly all people but also move it from a third, fourth, and fifth-line therapy for different issues, all the way up to a frontline therapy."
"We were able to license an amazing cutting-edge, next-generation CAR therapy developed at the University of Pittsburgh called SNAP-CAR. If you are familiar with CAR therapies such as CAR T, which have developed over the years, I believe it was initially founded at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, CAR T therapy has been rather successful in being able to attack previously thought of incurable cancers and create great results for patients."
"The interesting thing about a CAR T is that each CAR T is a very highly specialized cellular structure that is designed to target a very specific point on a very specific cancer. What happens with that is when you devise it, it will be used for this exact area. And what the scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and in collaboration with Coeptis now have designed is a CAR, which is the cellular CAR, the construct that is universal. What I mean by that is it’s not initially targeting anything on a cell. We’ve created the CAR that we attach to the effector cell, whether it be a natural killer or a T cell, a macrophage, etc. However, CAR does not instantly attack anything until we use a targeting mechanism. In this case, we’re utilizing monoclonal antibodies right now that fuses with the CAR and then pulls that into attack itself. So why is that important?"
#Coeptistx #Oncology #OncNews #CellTherapy #Immunotherapy #CART #CARNK #NKCells #AML #MDS #COVID
Coeptistx.com
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Dave Mehalick, Chairman, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Coeptis Therapeutics, focuses on developing cell therapies for oncology and respiratory diseases. They aim to create a universal cell therapy that can be used for various types of cancer and move it from a later line of treatment to a frontline therapy. The company has developed a unique CAR therapy called SNAP-CAR, which utilizes off-the-shelf cells and a targeting mechanism to attack cancer cells at different points, making it difficult for the cells to mutate and evade treatment. Coeptis is conducting clinical trials using its cell generation platform, including a trial for COVID-19 patients and a trial for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients.
Dave explains, "Coeptis is a cell therapy company mainly focused on oncology, although we have recently broadened into respiratory disease. And really, the prime mission of the company would be to what we would term universalized cell therapy to make it available for the masses. Right now, cell therapy has to be very highly targeted to certain people. It’s extremely expensive. With a lot of the technologies that Coeptis has brought together under one roof, we feel it will solve a lot of those issues and make it not only available to mostly all people but also move it from a third, fourth, and fifth-line therapy for different issues, all the way up to a frontline therapy."
"We were able to license an amazing cutting-edge, next-generation CAR therapy developed at the University of Pittsburgh called SNAP-CAR. If you are familiar with CAR therapies such as CAR T, which have developed over the years, I believe it was initially founded at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, CAR T therapy has been rather successful in being able to attack previously thought of incurable cancers and create great results for patients."
"The interesting thing about a CAR T is that each CAR T is a very highly specialized cellular structure that is designed to target a very specific point on a very specific cancer. What happens with that is when you devise it, it will be used for this exact area. And what the scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and in collaboration with Coeptis now have designed is a CAR, which is the cellular CAR, the construct that is universal. What I mean by that is it’s not initially targeting anything on a cell. We’ve created the CAR that we attach to the effector cell, whether it be a natural killer or a T cell, a macrophage, etc. However, CAR does not instantly attack anything until we use a targeting mechanism. In this case, we’re utilizing monoclonal antibodies right now that fuses with the CAR and then pulls that into attack itself. So why is that important?"
#Coeptistx #Oncology #OncNews #CellTherapy #Immunotherapy #CART #CARNK #NKCells #AML #MDS #COVID
coeptistx.com
Download the transcript here
Ross Bundy, President and CEO of CRISPR QC, shines a light on the current state of CRISPR gene editing technology and how the field has advanced rapidly since the discovery of CRISPR's potential to edit the human genome. The focus of CRISPR technology has primarily been on curing rare and genetic diseases, but there is also potential for targeting cancer tumors' resistance to chemotherapy and the development of customized therapies for various indications. The services offered by CRISPR QC include a unique sensor platform and data analytics capability to monitor and control the gene editing process. The company aims to create a database of information to improve the understanding and control of CRISPR chemistry. The CRISPR Chip is a new semiconductor technology that integrates carbon electronics to analyze complex biological processes.
Ross explains, "What we find is that it can be very difficult to get that chemistry to target exactly in the right place. We don’t know yet how much the right amount is. Is it too much, too much? Is too little, too little? How do we get all these correctly into the cell? How do we deliver them to the right place? Sometimes CRISPR edits in the wrong place, it can edit multiple places across the genome, the target, and a few other places we don’t want to edit, and the cell goes and repairs it, and now we’ve changed the DNA somewhere else. So we definitely don’t want that. If we’re going to edit DNA, we want to edit just the part we want, and we don’t want to change anything else. So, the challenge today is that we don’t know exactly how this chemistry works. It is still a very new field."
"We’re saying, can we open up that black box and say, here’s all the gears and all the levers, all the buttons, and the pharma companies can now then precisely control this chemistry and deliver the result that they want. So that’s what we’re able to start doing for the field. This is the maturation of a new science coming out, proving it’s capable, and now moving to an industrial process. We’re helping transition that industrial process."
#CRISPRQC #CRISPR #CRISPRCas9 #GeneEditing #CellularGeneTherapy
CRISPRQC.com
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Ross Bundy, President and CEO of CRISPR QC, shines a light on the current state of CRISPR gene editing technology and how the field has advanced rapidly since the discovery of CRISPR's potential to edit the human genome. The focus of CRISPR technology has primarily been on curing rare and genetic diseases, but there is also potential for targeting cancer tumors' resistance to chemotherapy and the development of customized therapies for various indications. The services offered by CRISPR QC include a unique sensor platform and data analytics capability to monitor and control the gene editing process. The company aims to create a database of information to improve the understanding and control of CRISPR chemistry. The CRISPR Chip is a new semiconductor technology that integrates carbon electronics to analyze complex biological processes.
Ross explains, "What we find is that it can be very difficult to get that chemistry to target exactly in the right place. We don’t know yet how much the right amount is. Is it too much, too much? Is too little, too little? How do we get all these correctly into the cell? How do we deliver them to the right place? Sometimes CRISPR edits in the wrong place, it can edit multiple places across the genome, the target, and a few other places we don’t want to edit, and the cell goes and repairs it, and now we’ve changed the DNA somewhere else. So we definitely don’t want that. If we’re going to edit DNA, we want to edit just the part we want, and we don’t want to change anything else. So, the challenge today is that we don’t know exactly how this chemistry works. It is still a very new field."
"We’re saying, can we open up that black box and say, here’s all the gears and all the levers, all the buttons, and the pharma companies can now then precisely control this chemistry and deliver the result that they want. So that’s what we’re able to start doing for the field. This is the maturation of a new science coming out, proving it’s capable, and now moving to an industrial process. We’re helping transition that industrial process."
#CRISPRQC #CRISPR #CRISPRCas9 #GeneEditing #CellularGeneTherapy
CRISPRQC.com
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Nicolas Poirier, CEO of OSE Immunotherapeutics, uses immunology and molecular engineering to develop innovative immunotherapies for oncology, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and organ transplant. The same immune cells, lymphocytes and macrophages, are involved in both immuno-oncology and immuno-inflammation, and OSE aims to re-educate these cells to recognize and eliminate cancer cells or restore immune tolerance in autoimmune diseases. He also discusses the potential of cancer vaccines in re-educating the immune system to target cancer cells, and the importance of combination therapies in improving treatment outcomes.
Nicolas explains, "There are two big families in the immune system. We have the adaptive immunity generated by lymphocytes. We have several types of lymphocytes: T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes, and so on. This is a very specific immune response that humans and other species have developed to recognize, very specifically some antigens from viruses, for tumors, and so on. We can control these cells."
"On the other side, there is innate immunity composed of macrophages, NK cells, or others, and this is a non-specific immune response that recognizes either danger signals or pathogen signals. These are mostly the elements that are implicated in many chronic inflammatory diseases. Still, there are also some elements that we can manipulate or re-educate in oncology to help the immune system globally work better. Because these lymphocytes and these macrophages, this adaptive immunity or innate immunity, work together, and all together, we can re-educate and orchestrate this immune response in a good direction."
"There's a big promise and big hope now in the field of therapeutic cancer vaccines. It's important to understand that it's therapeutic. It means we're not yet able to prevent cancer development, this might be in the future, but we use cancer vaccines to re-educate the immune system of patients that have developed a tumor. It's a therapeutic drug, and we're developing one of the most advanced therapeutic cancer vaccines in the world with the upcoming new registration phase three in lung cancer patients in second line."
#OSEImmunotherapeutics #Cancer #LungCancer #CancerVaccine #ImmuneSystem #Macrophages #Inflammation #InflammatoryDisease
ose-immuno.com
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Nicolas Poirier, CEO of OSE Immunotherapeutics, uses immunology and molecular engineering to develop innovative immunotherapies for oncology, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and organ transplant. The same immune cells, lymphocytes and macrophages, are involved in both immuno-oncology and immuno-inflammation, and OSE aims to re-educate these cells to recognize and eliminate cancer cells or restore immune tolerance in autoimmune diseases. He also discusses the potential of cancer vaccines in re-educating the immune system to target cancer cells, and the importance of combination therapies in improving treatment outcomes.
Nicolas explains, "There are two big families in the immune system. We have the adaptive immunity generated by lymphocytes. We have several types of lymphocytes: T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes, and so on. This is a very specific immune response that humans and other species have developed to recognize, very specifically some antigens from viruses, for tumors, and so on. We can control these cells."
"On the other side, there is innate immunity composed of macrophages, NK cells, or others, and this is a non-specific immune response that recognizes either danger signals or pathogen signals. These are mostly the elements that are implicated in many chronic inflammatory diseases. Still, there are also some elements that we can manipulate or re-educate in oncology to help the immune system globally work better. Because these lymphocytes and these macrophages, this adaptive immunity or innate immunity, work together, and all together, we can re-educate and orchestrate this immune response in a good direction."
"There's a big promise and big hope now in the field of therapeutic cancer vaccines. It's important to understand that it's therapeutic. It means we're not yet able to prevent cancer development, this might be in the future, but we use cancer vaccines to re-educate the immune system of patients that have developed a tumor. It's a therapeutic drug, and we're developing one of the most advanced therapeutic cancer vaccines in the world with the upcoming new registration phase three in lung cancer patients in second line."
#OSEImmunotherapeutics #Cancer #LungCancer #CancerVaccine #ImmuneSystem #Macrophages #Inflammation #InflammatoryDisease
ose-immuno.com
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Ben Casavant, Co-Founder and CEO of Tasso, focuses on making diagnostics more accessible to patients that allow collection of blood samples at home. Their customers include pharmaceutical companies conducting research and healthcare providers. Using Tasso's technology in decentralized clinical trials allows for easier recruitment, increased patient participation, and more data collection. The simplicity and ease of use of Tasso's blood collection device have resulted in positive patient responses and improved retention rates in clinical trials. They offer liquid and dried blood collection options to accommodate different lab processes and sample types.
Ben explains, "When we think about the customer bases we're serving, we're working with many different pharmaceutical companies conducting critical and life-changing research. We just announced a partnership with the Parkinson's Foundation so they can help find ways to gather information and data about patients living with Parkinson's disease. But they need that access and data from patients. By working with Tasso, we enable them to have that reach and accessibility."
"When we're working with various pharmaceutical companies. They're seeing this real need to get subjects into their trials, to ease recruitment, to help make sure they're hitting their recruitment targets. To help make sure that as a patient goes through a clinical trial, they're able to meet all the data points that are needed so that they can have a completed data set for their own submission. And broadly, in that industry, we're seeing this huge shift. It's really exciting that pharma companies, sponsors, and CROs are looking for more tools to provide patients with better access and lower the barrier, lowering the bar for people to participate in these trials."
#Tassoinc #DecentalizedClinicalTrials #DCT #ClinicalTrials #HealthTechnology #HealthTech
tassoinc.com
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Ben Casavant, Co-Founder and CEO of Tasso, focuses on making diagnostics more accessible to patients that allow collection of blood samples at home. Their customers include pharmaceutical companies conducting research and healthcare providers. Using Tasso's technology in decentralized clinical trials allows for easier recruitment, increased patient participation, and more data collection. The simplicity and ease of use of Tasso's blood collection device have resulted in positive patient responses and improved retention rates in clinical trials. They offer liquid and dried blood collection options to accommodate different lab processes and sample types.
Ben explains, "When we think about the customer bases we're serving, we're working with many different pharmaceutical companies conducting critical and life-changing research. We just announced a partnership with the Parkinson's Foundation so they can help find ways to gather information and data about patients living with Parkinson's disease. But they need that access and data from patients. By working with Tasso, we enable them to have that reach and accessibility."
"When we're working with various pharmaceutical companies. They're seeing this real need to get subjects into their trials, to ease recruitment, to help make sure they're hitting their recruitment targets. To help make sure that as a patient goes through a clinical trial, they're able to meet all the data points that are needed so that they can have a completed data set for their own submission. And broadly, in that industry, we're seeing this huge shift. It's really exciting that pharma companies, sponsors, and CROs are looking for more tools to provide patients with better access and lower the barrier, lowering the bar for people to participate in these trials."
#Tassoinc #DecentalizedClinicalTrials #DCT #ClinicalTrials #HealthTechnology #HealthTech
tassoinc.com
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Chris Darland, President and CEO of Peerbridge Health, discusses technology breakthroughs that enable early, low-cost detection of heart issues with a cardiac monitor that uses AI to analyze heart rhythms over time to detect patterns that may indicate heart failure. The device is based on ECG technology that drives the Holter monitor and delivers a full 12-lead ECG with a volumetric 3D view of the heart. The goal is to reach more patients who may not proactively seek medical attention and provide early intervention and treatment.
Chris explains, " I think the problem with the current state is largely that it's too late. And I say that to mean that 80% of all heart failure cases today are getting caught after an emergency room visit. So, it's not necessarily that we don't have the tools to find heart failure and the cardiologists and expertise to identify it, but we're not getting it in time. So if you are one of those patients who, let's say, are caught earlier or maybe unfortunately when you come through the ER, a lot of the tools are existing in the hospital. So you'll get an ultrasound, an echo, to get a view of your heart. We'll do an ECG in the hospital and potentially a cardiac MRI. There's a suite of tools available in the acute care setting that can get to this conclusion relatively quickly if you have all the tools right in front of you."
"The nice part about it is it's relatively accepted from a workflow perspective, a tool that's used quite commonly and has become exceedingly convenient over the last five to 10 years. There is a lot of innovation in a handful of companies to make it easy to wear, light, waterproof, etc. And when we think through the innovation we're working through right now, it's essentially using that tool and the output of this ambulatory cardiac monitor that we have in Peerbridge. Then doing some interesting AI advanced diagnostics on top of it to pick up patterns that were maybe lost historically or potentially missed based on signal fidelity of devices that were in the market. Then using those patterns to try to get a head start on heart failure diagnosis as well as a handful of other things we can show they do."
#PeerbridgeHealth #Cardiology #Cardiologists #ECG #HeartHealth #HeartFailure #EarlyDetection #RemotePatientMonitoring
PeerbridgeHealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Chris Darland, President and CEO of Peerbridge Health, discusses technology breakthroughs that enable early, low-cost detection of heart issues with a cardiac monitor that uses AI to analyze heart rhythms over time to detect patterns that may indicate heart failure. The device is based on ECG technology that drives the Holter monitor and delivers a full 12-lead ECG with a volumetric 3D view of the heart. The goal is to reach more patients who may not proactively seek medical attention and provide early intervention and treatment.
Chris explains, " I think the problem with the current state is largely that it's too late. And I say that to mean that 80% of all heart failure cases today are getting caught after an emergency room visit. So, it's not necessarily that we don't have the tools to find heart failure and the cardiologists and expertise to identify it, but we're not getting it in time. So if you are one of those patients who, let's say, are caught earlier or maybe unfortunately when you come through the ER, a lot of the tools are existing in the hospital. So you'll get an ultrasound, an echo, to get a view of your heart. We'll do an ECG in the hospital and potentially a cardiac MRI. There's a suite of tools available in the acute care setting that can get to this conclusion relatively quickly if you have all the tools right in front of you."
"The nice part about it is it's relatively accepted from a workflow perspective, a tool that's used quite commonly and has become exceedingly convenient over the last five to 10 years. There is a lot of innovation in a handful of companies to make it easy to wear, light, waterproof, etc. And when we think through the innovation we're working through right now, it's essentially using that tool and the output of this ambulatory cardiac monitor that we have in Peerbridge. Then doing some interesting AI advanced diagnostics on top of it to pick up patterns that were maybe lost historically or potentially missed based on signal fidelity of devices that were in the market. Then using those patterns to try to get a head start on heart failure diagnosis as well as a handful of other things we can show they do."
#PeerbridgeHealth #Cardiology #Cardiologists #ECG #HeartHealth #HeartFailure #EarlyDetection #RemotePatientMonitoring
PeerbridgeHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. David Stein, CEO and Director of Babson Diagnostics, a healthcare technology company that focuses on putting the patient at the center of the blood testing experience, recognizing the importance of blood testing in informing clinical decisions and monitoring health. They aim to redefine blood testing by eliminating the anxiety and inconvenience associated with traditional blood testing methods by offering a more accessible and convenient approach. Blood samples are collected with an innovative device from the patient's fingertip at retail pharmacy locations, and patients use a digital app and QR code system to order and track tests, and receive test results.
David explains, "Babson Diagnostics is a science-first healthcare technology company that has reimagined the end-to-end blood testing experience. In that experience, the patient and customer are the strong focus. We've all experienced times when we've had a blood test ordered for us, and we’ve felt anxious. We've tried, as much as we can, to eliminate that, both by the location where we provide the service, which is the retail pharmacy, and also through our approach, where we easily take samples from your finger, wrap it in a digital layer to make it all understandable. In the end, provide a preferred experience that is much more convenient and accessible than what you experience today."
"Probably the more important thing is how can we make it so that you don't have to get venipuncture, so that you don't have to get a needle in your arm, because for a significant part of our population, having a sharp object inserted in your body, is not something most of us like. So, in reality, between vasovagal issues and difficult veins, people are looking for a true alternative."
"People are also looking for accessibility and convenience. What we have innovated is in both aspects. One is to allow you to do broad, clinical-grade testing with a sample that's easily collected from your fingertip while also being able to get that collection done in locations near your home, such as your local supermarket or your local pharmacy. We've tried to innovate in two aspects, which is what everybody wants -- accessibility and convenience. We see that in every part of our economy and have changed the way that blood is collected so that you don’t have the anxiety of a needle going in your arm."
#BabsonDiagnostics #BloodTesting #Pharmacies #BetterWay #MedicalDevice #MedTech
BabsonDX.com
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Dr. David Stein, CEO and Director of Babson Diagnostics, a healthcare technology company that focuses on putting the patient at the center of the blood testing experience, recognizing the importance of blood testing in informing clinical decisions and monitoring health. They aim to redefine blood testing by eliminating the anxiety and inconvenience associated with traditional blood testing methods by offering a more accessible and convenient approach. Blood samples are collected with an innovative device from the patient's fingertip at retail pharmacy locations, and patients use a digital app and QR code system to order and track tests and receive test results.
David explains, "Babson Diagnostics is a science-first healthcare technology company that has reimagined the end-to-end blood testing experience. In that experience, the patient and customer are the strong focus. We've all experienced times when we've had a blood test ordered for us, and we’ve felt anxious. We've tried, as much as we can, to eliminate that, both by the location where we provide the service, which is the retail pharmacy, and also through our approach, where we easily take samples from your finger, wrap it in a digital layer to make it all understandable. In the end, provide a preferred experience that is much more convenient and accessible than what you experience today."
"Probably the more important thing is how can we make it so that you don't have to get venipuncture, so that you don't have to get a needle in your arm, because for a significant part of our population, having a sharp object inserted in your body, is not something most of us like. So, in reality, between vasovagal issues and difficult veins, people are looking for a true alternative."
"People are also looking for accessibility and convenience. What we have innovated is in both aspects. One is to allow you to do broad, clinical-grade testing with a sample that's easily collected from your fingertip while also being able to get that collection done in locations near your home, such as your local supermarket or your local pharmacy. We've tried to innovate in two aspects, which is what everybody wants -- accessibility and convenience. We see that in every part of our economy and have changed the way that blood is collected so that you don’t have the anxiety of a needle going in your arm."
#BabsonDiagnostics #BloodTesting #Pharmacies #BetterWay #MedicalDevice #MedTech
BabsonDX.com
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Joan Butters, CEO and Co-Founder of Xsolis works with health systems and health plans to automate medical necessity decisions and improve efficiency. Using data and AI, Xsolis helps clinicians make more informed decisions and reduces manual administrative work, resulting in time and cost savings and improved patient care. Addressing the challenges and pushback faced when introducing AI into healthcare, Joan emphasizes the importance of understanding the limitations and complexities of generative AI and the need for subject matter expertise in developing prompts to properly address friction points between providers and payers in the healthcare environment.
Joan explains, "More important to this audience are the administrative aspects and the impact of that back and forth on the cost of healthcare. We were very fortunate that we found a niche in what we were trying to solve for. Again, that was the medical necessity decision whether a patient required hospital-based care. And then, with that laser focus, we did a lot of research from both sides and found that there was a way to automate through the use of data and AI to solve some of those problems."
"There are definitely two areas that we have a direct impact on. As I said, one is the cost of healthcare—so big efficiency. If you think about what clinicians do when they're making a determination of hospital-based care, prior to Xsolis, those clinicians would be reading through multiple data points and not data points that were connected, which became a very manual process. With automation and artificial intelligence, our system allows that very costly staff to be much more efficient in making those determinations. Coupled with that, instead of clinicians doing administrative tasks, the automation we provide through AI and our technology frees the clinician to be back at the bedside with the patient."
#Xsolis #Healthcare #HealthcareAdministration #Workflow #RemovingWorkflowFriction #AI #MedicalNecessityDecisions #Clinicians
xsolis.com
Listen to the podcast here
Joan Butters, CEO and Co-Founder of Xsolis works with health systems and health plans to automate medical necessity decisions and improve efficiency. Using data and AI, Xsolis helps clinicians make more informed decisions and reduces manual administrative work, resulting in time and cost savings and improved patient care. Addressing the challenges and pushback faced when introducing AI into healthcare, Joan emphasizes the importance of understanding the limitations and complexities of generative AI and the need for subject matter expertise in developing prompts to properly address friction points between providers and payers in the healthcare environment.
Joan explains, "More important to this audience are the administrative aspects and the impact of that back and forth on the cost of healthcare. We were very fortunate that we found a niche in what we were trying to solve for. Again, that was the medical necessity decision whether a patient required hospital-based care. And then, with that laser focus, we did a lot of research from both sides and found that there was a way to automate through the use of data and AI to solve some of those problems."
"There are definitely two areas that we have a direct impact on. As I said, one is the cost of healthcare—so big efficiency. If you think about what clinicians do when they're making a determination of hospital-based care, prior to Xsolis, those clinicians would be reading through multiple data points and not data points that were connected, which became a very manual process. With automation and artificial intelligence, our system allows that very costly staff to be much more efficient in making those determinations. Coupled with that, instead of clinicians doing administrative tasks, the automation we provide through AI and our technology frees the clinician to be back at the bedside with the patient."
#Xsolis #Healthcare #HealthcareAdministration #Workflow #RemovingWorkflowFriction #AI #MedicalNecessityDecisions #Clinicians
xsolis.com
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Sanjeev Redkar, Co-Founder, Executive Director, and President of Apollomics, focuses on difficult-to-treat cancers, such as lung cancer, brain cancer, and leukemias, not served by immune checkpoint inhibitors. Their approach targets the thematic pathway in cancer cells responsible for their growth and proliferation. In their drug development, AI and data analysis drive precision-targeted therapies based on tumor molecular profiling. They are developing the drugs Vebreltinib and Uproleselan, which can be used as standalone treatments or in combination with other therapies to treat rare cancers.
Sanjeev explains, "There's a pathway that is very important for the growth of cancer cells. This is proliferation, motility, migration, and invasion of cancer cells, and that's the thematic pathway. This is an important receptor, which is upstream in cell signaling of these cancer cells. This is when these pathways work well, these cells grow as normal homeostasis, normal growth of cells. When this pathway is disrupted in cancer cells, they tend to grow far more than what normal cells would. That's the pathway that we are going after. These are mutations in this pathway, in the genome amplification, gene amplification, and fusions, which lead for these particular cancers to grow well. If you are able to inhibit that pathway, then you are able to impart benefit to the patient. And that's what one of our main drugs, Vebreltinib, is going after."
"As a whole, in lung cancer, even though the checkpoint inhibitors have moved the needle in terms of five-year survival rates, the needle has been moved from about 25% to about 30%, 32%, which is still much lower than say breast cancer, prostate cancer, where the five-year survival rates are close to 80%, 90%. So, how we can win the battle against lung cancer and brain cancer is really using precision-targeted therapies. These slivers of cancers that have a particular mutation, that have a particular dysregulation, and having treatments for that allow these patients a targeted approach for a longer benefit as opposed to one treatment for the entire lung cancer population. That is why we go after the so-called slivers, which put them into the rare cancers bucket."
#Apollomics #RareDiseases #Cancer #LungCancer #Leukemias #BrainCancer #RareCancers #NextGenSequencing #MolecularProfiling #CancerMolecularProfiling #TumorMolecularProfiling #AI
Apollomics.com
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Sanjeev Redkar, Co-Founder, Executive Director, and President of Apollomics, focuses on difficult-to-treat cancers, such as lung cancer, brain cancer, and leukemias, not served by immune checkpoint inhibitors. Their approach targets the thematic pathway in cancer cells responsible for their growth and proliferation. In their drug development, AI and data analysis drive precision-targeted therapies based on tumor molecular profiling. They are developing the drugs Vebreltinib and Uproleselan, which can be used as standalone treatments or in combination with other therapies to treat rare cancers.
Sanjeev explains, "There's a pathway that is very important for the growth of cancer cells. This is proliferation, motility, migration, and invasion of cancer cells, and that's the thematic pathway. This is an important receptor, which is upstream in cell signaling of these cancer cells. This is when these pathways work well, these cells grow as normal homeostasis, normal growth of cells. When this pathway is disrupted in cancer cells, they tend to grow far more than what normal cells would. That's the pathway that we are going after. These are mutations in this pathway, in the genome amplification, gene amplification, and fusions, which lead for these particular cancers to grow well. If you are able to inhibit that pathway, then you are able to impart benefit to the patient. And that's what one of our main drugs, Vebreltinib, is going after."
"As a whole, in lung cancer, even though the checkpoint inhibitors have moved the needle in terms of five-year survival rates, the needle has been moved from about 25% to about 30%, 32%, which is still much lower than say breast cancer, prostate cancer, where the five-year survival rates are close to 80%, 90%. So, how we can win the battle against lung cancer and brain cancer is really using precision-targeted therapies. These slivers of cancers that have a particular mutation, that have a particular dysregulation, and having treatments for that allow these patients a targeted approach for a longer benefit as opposed to one treatment for the entire lung cancer population. That is why we go after the so-called slivers, which put them into the rare cancers bucket."
#Apollomics #RareDiseases #Cancer #LungCancer #Leukemias #BrainCancer #RareCancers #NextGenSequencing #MolecularProfiling #CancerMolecularProfiling #TumorMolecularProfiling #AI
Apollomics.com
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Kristen Helton, CEO and Co-Founder of Herself Health, provides comprehensive primary care designed specifically for women over 65, considering the unique health challenges these women face. The emphasis is on the importance of addressing women's health beyond reproductive health and the need for tailored treatment and screening for conditions that affect women differently than men. Kristen notes the underrepresentation of women, especially older women, in clinical trials and the need for further investigation. They aim to reduce bias and improve the quality of care for older women by adopting a person-centric approach, listening to patients' concerns, and building trust.
Kristen explains, "Almost half of the burdens of disease that women experience stem from conditions that affect women differently than men. So, a lot of these diseases, cardiovascular, chronic illness, gastroenterology, and depression, affect men differently than they affect women. We're very focused on how we treat women and screen them for different diseases. We take a really comprehensive health history. Women have a lot of data that we need to understand as we're putting together the picture of their overall health."
"I mean, 65 is young old, in fact. It's just the beginning, and there are a lot of differences between 65 and 75 and 85 and 95. We're talking about decades. So I'm also remiss in grouping 65 and up even into a single category. But you hit on something super important there, and that is women are not satisfied with the answer that's just what happens as you get older. It comes back to, in essence, the quality of life. I think this is where we're seeing some real success in our approach, which is yes, we want to do all of the important preventative, physical, behavioral health care. But we also want to understand the patient's goals and what they're trying to get to and maintain."
#HerselfHealth #WomensHealth #Healthcare #ValueBasedCare #PrimaryCare
herself-health.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kristen Helton, CEO and Co-Founder of Herself Health, provides comprehensive primary care designed specifically for women over 65, considering the unique health challenges these women face. The emphasis is on the importance of addressing women's health beyond reproductive health and the need for tailored treatment and screening for conditions that affect women differently than men. Kristen notes the underrepresentation of women, especially older women, in clinical trials and the need for further investigation. They aim to reduce bias and improve the quality of care for older women by adopting a person-centric approach, listening to patients' concerns, and building trust.
Kristen explains, "Almost half of the burdens of disease that women experience stem from conditions that affect women differently than men. So, a lot of these diseases, cardiovascular, chronic illness, gastroenterology, and depression, affect men differently than they affect women. We're very focused on how we treat women and screen them for different diseases. We take a really comprehensive health history. Women have a lot of data that we need to understand as we're putting together the picture of their overall health."
"I mean, 65 is young old, in fact. It's just the beginning, and there are a lot of differences between 65 and 75 and 85 and 95. We're talking about decades. So I'm also remiss in grouping 65 and up even into a single category. But you hit on something super important there, and that is women are not satisfied with the answer that's just what happens as you get older. It comes back to, in essence, the quality of life. I think this is where we're seeing some real success in our approach, which is yes, we want to do all of the important preventative, physical, behavioral health care. But we also want to understand the patient's goals and what they're trying to get to and maintain."
#HerselfHealth #WomensHealth #Healthcare #ValueBasedCare #PrimaryCare
herself-health.com
Download the transcript here
Kristen Helton, CEO and Co-Founder of Herself Health, provides comprehensive primary care designed specifically for women over 65, considering the unique health challenges these women face. The emphasis is on the importance of addressing women's health beyond reproductive health and the need for tailored treatment and screening for conditions that affect women differently than men. Kristen notes the underrepresentation of women, especially older women, in clinical trials and the need for further investigation. They aim to reduce bias and improve the quality of care for older women by adopting a person-centric approach, listening to patients' concerns, and building trust.
Kristen explains, "Almost half of the burdens of disease that women experience stem from conditions that affect women differently than men. So, a lot of these diseases, cardiovascular, chronic illness, gastroenterology, and depression, affect men differently than they affect women. We're very focused on how we treat women and screen them for different diseases. We take a really comprehensive health history. Women have a lot of data that we need to understand as we're putting together the picture of their overall health."
"I mean, 65 is young old, in fact. It's just the beginning, and there are a lot of differences between 65 and 75 and 85 and 95. We're talking about decades. So I'm also remiss in grouping 65 and up even into a single category. But you hit on something super important there, and that is women are not satisfied with the answer that's just what happens as you get older. It comes back to, in essence, the quality of life. I think this is where we're seeing some real success in our approach, which is yes, we want to do all of the important preventative, physical, behavioral health care. But we also want to understand the patient's goals and what they're trying to get to and maintain."
#HerselfHealth #WomensHealth #Healthcare #ValueBasedCare #PrimaryCare
herself-health.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kristen Helton, CEO and Co-Founder of Herself Health, provides comprehensive primary care designed specifically for women over 65, considering the unique health challenges these women face. The emphasis is on the importance of addressing women's health beyond reproductive health and the need for tailored treatment and screening for conditions that affect women differently than men. Kristen notes the underrepresentation of women, especially older women, in clinical trials and the need for further investigation. They aim to reduce bias and improve the quality of care for older women by adopting a person-centric approach, listening to patients' concerns, and building trust.
Kristen explains, "Almost half of the burdens of disease that women experience stem from conditions that affect women differently than men. So, a lot of these diseases, cardiovascular, chronic illness, gastroenterology, and depression, affect men differently than they affect women. We're very focused on how we treat women and screen them for different diseases. We take a really comprehensive health history. Women have a lot of data that we need to understand as we're putting together the picture of their overall health."
"I mean, 65 is young old, in fact. It's just the beginning, and there are a lot of differences between 65 and 75 and 85 and 95. We're talking about decades. So I'm also remiss in grouping 65 and up even into a single category. But you hit on something super important there, and that is women are not satisfied with the answer that's just what happens as you get older. It comes back to, in essence, the quality of life. I think this is where we're seeing some real success in our approach, which is yes, we want to do all of the important preventative, physical, behavioral health care. But we also want to understand the patient's goals and what they're trying to get to and maintain."
#HerselfHealth #WomensHealth #Healthcare #ValueBasedCare #PrimaryCare
herself-health.com
Download the transcript here
Robert Towarnicki, CEO and Co-founder of SIRPant Immunotherapeutics, discusses cancer-specific immunotherapy for aggressive tumors, the role macrophages play in the immune response to cancer, and how cancer cells can shut down this response. SIRPant Immunotherapeutics aims to modify macrophages by reducing SIRPα expression, triggering them to eat cancer cells and educate other immune cells. Early evidence demonstrates potential effectiveness for various cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and solid tumors. Robert emphasizes this therapy's scalability and cost advantages compared to other cell therapies like CAR-T. He also highlights the potential for treating rare diseases and the ability of SIRPant-M to target a wide range of cancers without the need for pre-identified targets.
Robert explains, "Macrophages are a normal immune cell type in your body. They normally function to recognize foreign invaders and process them in the sense of phagocytizing or eating the foreign protein and invader, if it's a virus, a bacteria, or a cancer. Unfortunately, cancers are very good at shutting down this immune response. So, we need to modify the macrophage and re-empower it to elicit the other immune cells in the body to do their job and eliminate cancer."
"I think one of the mistakes we've seen with others working with the macrophage in this situation was the lack of appreciation for the role of SIRPα. Our inventor, Dr. Yuan Liu at Georgia State University, identified this early on through a knockout mouse, a mouse where SIRPα was genetically removed from it. With that mouse, she could discover and learn how macrophages function and react. It directed us to the whole concept of removing SIRPα from the macrophage. Now, removal alone is not enough. You also have to activate a macrophage. So, a macrophage exists in multiple states. There's an active state, and then there's an inactive state."
#SIRPant #Immunotherapy #Macrophages #Oncology #Cancer
sirpantimmunotx.com
Listen to the podcast here
Robert Towarnicki, CEO and Co-founder of SIRPant Immunotherapeutics, discusses cancer-specific immunotherapy for aggressive tumors, the role macrophages play in the immune response to cancer, and how cancer cells can shut down this response. SIRPant Immunotherapeutics aims to modify macrophages by reducing SIRPα expression, triggering them to eat cancer cells and educate other immune cells. Early evidence demonstrates potential effectiveness for various cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and solid tumors. Robert emphasizes this therapy's scalability and cost advantages compared to other cell therapies like CAR-T. He also highlights the potential for treating rare diseases and the ability of SIRPant-M to target a wide range of cancers without the need for pre-identified targets.
Robert explains, "Macrophages are a normal immune cell type in your body. They normally function to recognize foreign invaders and process them in the sense of phagocytizing or eating the foreign protein and invader, if it's a virus, a bacteria, or a cancer. Unfortunately, cancers are very good at shutting down this immune response. So, we need to modify the macrophage and re-empower it to elicit the other immune cells in the body to do their job and eliminate cancer."
"I think one of the mistakes we've seen with others working with the macrophage in this situation was the lack of appreciation for the role of SIRPα. Our inventor, Dr. Yuan Liu at Georgia State University, identified this early on through a knockout mouse, a mouse where SIRPα was genetically removed from it. With that mouse, she could discover and learn how macrophages function and react. It directed us to the whole concept of removing SIRPα from the macrophage. Now, removal alone is not enough. You also have to activate a macrophage. So, a macrophage exists in multiple states. There's an active state, and then there's an inactive state."
#SIRPant #Immunotherapy #Macrophages #Oncology #Cancer
sirpantimmunotx.com
Download the transcript here
Jeff Surges, CEO of RLDatix, offers global cloud-based solutions for risk management, compliance management, and regulatory management in healthcare. To address patient safety, Jeff emphasizes the need for a collaborative workforce, data analytics, and AI. RLDatix uses technology to automate information gathering, facilitate incident reporting, and analyze data to determine proactive actions to prevent incidents and improve safety.
Jeff explains, "The simplest analogy when I get asked this is: how does this relate to other industries? We all fly in airplanes, and we've seen in the airline industry most recently with doors coming off, the emergency exit doors, close calls, or what we'll call incidents where you need to look at the root cause. The key difference is if a plane goes down, as tragic as that is, the pilots and the crew go down. But in healthcare, if there's an incident or a procedure or an event that has occurred, it's likely only affecting the patient and the patient's family. That's not meant to say that people don't care, everybody cares, but it doesn't affect the entire circumference. What we try to do is make it automated, make it easy to use, engage with what we call a culture of safety, which starts at the very highest level, and then using data analytics, now, generative AI."
"For 20 years, an article written in our industry called To Err Is Human kicked off the energy around improving patient safety. I think the first phase of that for over ten years, 15 years, was just documenting the event after it happened. Let's document. Let's run around and automate, document, and report on it."
"Today, that's no longer the case. All of our customers and our industry want to prevent this. We use terms like highly reliable- I want to be an HRO, a highly reliable organization. We're competing on safety. Everybody wants to go to the safest place for care. We're trying to use data and analytics to both prevent and gain the insights to make sure that we can continue that not just one time. The data is telling us there are some decisions we can make in our policies and our procedures, in our staffing levels, and in our credentialing of staff to make sure that we can continue. So, going from reactive to proactive risk mitigation."
#RLDatix #ConnectedHealthcareOperations #PatientSafety #HealthTech #AI
rldatix.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jeff Surges, CEO of RLDatix, offers global cloud-based solutions for risk management, compliance management, and regulatory management in healthcare. To address patient safety, Jeff emphasizes the need for a collaborative workforce, data analytics, and AI. RLDatix uses technology to automate information gathering, facilitate incident reporting, and analyze data to determine proactive actions to prevent incidents and improve safety.
Jeff explains, "The simplest analogy when I get asked this is: how does this relate to other industries? We all fly in airplanes, and we've seen in the airline industry most recently with doors coming off, the emergency exit doors, close calls, or what we'll call incidents where you need to look at the root cause. The key difference is if a plane goes down, as tragic as that is, the pilots and the crew go down. But in healthcare, if there's an incident or a procedure or an event that has occurred, it's likely only affecting the patient and the patient's family. That's not meant to say that people don't care, everybody cares, but it doesn't affect the entire circumference. What we try to do is make it automated, make it easy to use, engage with what we call a culture of safety, which starts at the very highest level, and then using data analytics, now, generative AI."
"For 20 years, an article written in our industry called To Err Is Human kicked off the energy around improving patient safety. I think the first phase of that for over ten years, 15 years, was just documenting the event after it happened. Let's document. Let's run around and automate, document, and report on it."
"Today, that's no longer the case. All of our customers and our industry want to prevent this. We use terms like highly reliable- I want to be an HRO, a highly reliable organization. We're competing on safety. Everybody wants to go to the safest place for care. We're trying to use data and analytics to both prevent and gain the insights to make sure that we can continue that not just one time. The data is telling us there are some decisions we can make in our policies and our procedures, in our staffing levels, and in our credentialing of staff to make sure that we can continue. So, going from reactive to proactive risk mitigation."
#RLDatix #ConnectedHealthcareOperations #PatientSafety #HealthTech #AI
rldatix.com
Download the transcript here
Lou Lintereur, Chief Engineer for automated delivery systems at Medtronic Diabetes, brought his knowledge from working as an aerospace engineer at NASA to developing technology for those living with diabetes. He introduces the MiniMed 780G, a closed-loop system that combines an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) with a control algorithm that tailors itself to each patient's unique physiology and Meal Detection technology, which helps manage their blood sugar levels. Patient feedback is essential to the continuing innovation of these hybrid closed-loop tools to manage diabetes.
Lou explains, "There are two main challenges we're always trying to deal with, and they kind of compete with each other. One is just the fundamental technology, trying to get the best therapy for the patients and the best outcomes for a long, healthy life where they're feeling good. With respect to diabetes, it's about keeping your blood sugar under as tight a control as possible within a normal glucose range. So that poses the technical challenges of how to design a control system to do that with all the uncertainties of human physiology and so forth."
"But on the other side, the systems we make at Medtronic Diabetes are almost consumer products. In order to get the therapy that they need, the patient often has to contribute to the therapy. They need to indicate when they're eating, for example, and then help the system calculate how much they're eating so that they can dose the insulin properly to manage their meals better. It requires some cooperation with the patients. So, on that side of the challenge is, how do you make the system easy enough to use so that the patient can get the best outcomes possible and do as little work as possible? Because the last thing the patient wants to do is be bothered all the time having to manage their therapy."
#MedtronicDiabetes #Diabetes #ContinuousGlucoseMonitor #CGM #InsulinPump
medtronicdiabetes.com
Listen to the podcast here
Lou Lintereur, Chief Engineer for automated delivery systems at Medtronic Diabetes, brought his knowledge from working as an aerospace engineer at NASA to developing technology for those living with diabetes. He introduces the MiniMed 780G, a closed-loop system that combines an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) with a control algorithm that tailors itself to each patient's unique physiology and Meal Detection technology, which helps manage their blood sugar levels. Patient feedback is essential to the continuing innovation of these hybrid closed-loop tools to manage diabetes.
Lou explains, "There are two main challenges we're always trying to deal with, and they kind of compete with each other. One is just the fundamental technology, trying to get the best therapy for the patients and the best outcomes for a long, healthy life where they're feeling good. With respect to diabetes, it's about keeping your blood sugar under as tight a control as possible within a normal glucose range. So that poses the technical challenges of how to design a control system to do that with all the uncertainties of human physiology and so forth."
"But on the other side, the systems we make at Medtronic Diabetes are almost consumer products. In order to get the therapy that they need, the patient often has to contribute to the therapy. They need to indicate when they're eating, for example, and then help the system calculate how much they're eating so that they can dose the insulin properly to manage their meals better. It requires some cooperation with the patients. So, on that side of the challenge is, how do you make the system easy enough to use so that the patient can get the best outcomes possible and do as little work as possible? Because the last thing the patient wants to do is be bothered all the time having to manage their therapy."
#MedtronicDiabetes #Diabetes #ContinuousGlucoseMonitor #CGM #InsulinPump
medtronicdiabetes.com
Download the transcript here
Mark Galvin, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare, which was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. The rule aims to provide patients with information on pricing and out-of-pocket costs before committing to services. The lack of awareness and understanding of the rule is in part due to the vested interests of certain stakeholders, such as insurance carriers, who are financially conflicted in driving down the cost of medical claims.
Mark explains, "I'm known as a disruptive innovator, as a serial startup guy. The Transparency in Coverage rule is a rule that was added to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requiring that commercial health plan sponsors predominantly the employers that pay for the lion's share of commercial health plans are required now under that law with the new rule to provide to million members an ability to go from total opaqueness in price to total transparency in the costs of the tests and procedures and other things that they're faced with in their medical journeys."
"The mistake many of us made as consumers is that we believed our insurance carrier was a good surrogate to represent us as consumers in the marketplace. And what we never, many of us still don't realize, but many of us kind of woke up to is there's this thing called the 80/20 rule or medical loss ratio, which puts insurance carriers in a conflicted position. Their businesses are damaged financially by driving down the cost of medical claims because their revenues and premiums are tied to the amount of medical claims."
"So this is something people didn't know. And so while we put our trust in people to represent us as consumers, not realizing that it's not in their best interest to do the right things for us as consumers in terms of their normal business metrics, that it causes a huge conflict, financial conflict and perverted financial incentives in the market."
#TALONHealthtech #TransparencyinCoverage #MedicalCosts #PatientCare #AffordableCareAct #ReduceHealthcareCosts #Hospitals #MedicalBills #Healthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareReform
talonhealthtech.com
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Mark Galvin, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare, which was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. The rule aims to provide patients with information on pricing and out-of-pocket costs before committing to services. The lack of awareness and understanding of the rule is in part due to the vested interests of certain stakeholders, such as insurance carriers, who are financially conflicted in driving down the cost of medical claims.
Mark explains, "I'm known as a disruptive innovator, as a serial startup guy. The Transparency in Coverage rule is a rule that was added to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requiring that commercial health plan sponsors predominantly the employers that pay for the lion's share of commercial health plans are required now under that law with the new rule to provide to million members an ability to go from total opaqueness in price to total transparency in the costs of the tests and procedures and other things that they're faced with in their medical journeys."
"The mistake many of us made as consumers is that we believed our insurance carrier was a good surrogate to represent us as consumers in the marketplace. And what we never, many of us still don't realize, but many of us kind of woke up to is there's this thing called the 80/20 rule or medical loss ratio, which puts insurance carriers in a conflicted position. Their businesses are damaged financially by driving down the cost of medical claims because their revenues and premiums are tied to the amount of medical claims."
"So this is something people didn't know. And so while we put our trust in people to represent us as consumers, not realizing that it's not in their best interest to do the right things for us as consumers in terms of their normal business metrics, that it causes a huge conflict, financial conflict and perverted financial incentives in the market."
#TALONHealthtech #TransparencyinCoverage #MedicalCosts #PatientCare #AffordableCareAct #ReduceHealthcareCosts #Hospitals #MedicalBills #Healthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareReform
talonhealthtech.com
Listen to the podcast here
Mark Galvin, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare, which was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. The rule aims to provide patients with information on pricing and out-of-pocket costs before committing to services. The lack of awareness and understanding of the rule is in part due to the vested interests of certain stakeholders, such as insurance carriers, who are financially conflicted in driving down the cost of medical claims.
Mark explains, "I'm known as a disruptive innovator, as a serial startup guy. The Transparency in Coverage rule is a rule that was added to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requiring that commercial health plan sponsors predominantly the employers that pay for the lion's share of commercial health plans are required now under that law with the new rule to provide to million members an ability to go from total opaqueness in price to total transparency in the costs of the tests and procedures and other things that they're faced with in their medical journeys."
"The mistake many of us made as consumers is that we believed our insurance carrier was a good surrogate to represent us as consumers in the marketplace. And what we never, many of us still don't realize, but many of us kind of woke up to is there's this thing called the 80/20 rule or medical loss ratio, which puts insurance carriers in a conflicted position. Their businesses are damaged financially by driving down the cost of medical claims because their revenues and premiums are tied to the amount of medical claims."
"So this is something people didn't know. And so while we put our trust in people to represent us as consumers, not realizing that it's not in their best interest to do the right things for us as consumers in terms of their normal business metrics, that it causes a huge conflict, financial conflict and perverted financial incentives in the market."
#TALONHealthtech #TransparencyinCoverage #MedicalCosts #PatientCare #AffordableCareAct #ReduceHealthcareCosts #Hospitals #MedicalBills #Healthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareReform
talonhealthtech.com
Download the transcript here
Mark Galvin, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare, which was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. The rule aims to provide patients with information on pricing and out-of-pocket costs before committing to services. The lack of awareness and understanding of the rule is in part due to the vested interests of certain stakeholders, such as insurance carriers, who are financially conflicted in driving down the cost of medical claims.
Mark explains, "I'm known as a disruptive innovator, as a serial startup guy. The Transparency in Coverage rule is a rule that was added to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requiring that commercial health plan sponsors predominantly the employers that pay for the lion's share of commercial health plans are required now under that law with the new rule to provide to million members an ability to go from total opaqueness in price to total transparency in the costs of the tests and procedures and other things that they're faced with in their medical journeys."
"The mistake many of us made as consumers is that we believed our insurance carrier was a good surrogate to represent us as consumers in the marketplace. And what we never, many of us still don't realize, but many of us kind of woke up to is there's this thing called the 80/20 rule or medical loss ratio, which puts insurance carriers in a conflicted position. Their businesses are damaged financially by driving down the cost of medical claims because their revenues and premiums are tied to the amount of medical claims."
"So this is something people didn't know. And so while we put our trust in people to represent us as consumers, not realizing that it's not in their best interest to do the right things for us as consumers in terms of their normal business metrics, that it causes a huge conflict, financial conflict and perverted financial incentives in the market."
#TALONHealthtech #TransparencyinCoverage #MedicalCosts #PatientCare #AffordableCareAct #ReduceHealthcareCosts #Hospitals #MedicalBills #Healthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareReform
talonhealthtech.com
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Alice Lin, DCT Solutions Director in the DCT Business Department of Tigermed Consulting, a global CRO, contract research organization, that provides biopharmaceutical and medical device companies with a range of services including digital technology to conduct decentralized clinical trials. Their approach focuses on patient-centricity, efficiency, and adaptability. By utilizing digital tools such as virtual visits, wearable devices, and mobile apps, Tigermed aims to make clinical trials more accessible and convenient for patients, improving recruitment and retention rates. They also emphasize the importance of DCT in including a diverse patient population in trials, particularly for rare diseases.
Alice explains, "While our headquarters is in China, we have grown into a global team of over 10,000 employees operating across over 180 locations worldwide. We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary, making two decades of dedicated collaborations with over 2,800 customers on their product journeys. DCT stands for decentralized clinical trials, which involves applying digital technologies to conduct clinical trials. Traditionally, most clinical trial activities are conducted at clinical sites. Still, with DCT, we can conduct some or even all of the trial procedures outside of these sites using digital technology."
"Currently, the hybrid DCT model is a common thing in clinical trials. It means some of the trial procedures could be conducted outside of clinical sites, but still keep some clinical trial activities at clinical sites. In our Tigermed DCT department, we are responsible for identifying the appropriate digital technologies for using in clinical trials, whether through self-development or collaboration with the various digital technology companies. We also manage the DCT daily operations in each clinical trial from the study beginning to the study completion."
"However, we get that every investigational product and the therapeutic areas bring its own set of challenges and patient needs. So, we make it a priority to figure out what digital tools work best for each study. Our CEO, Dr. Cao, and our head of the DCT business department always say our goal is not just to do decentralized clinical trials for the sake of it. It's about giving patients and caregivers options that fit their needs. This approach means patients and caregivers get solutions that work for them, showing that we are all about being flexible to what they need. Our decentralized clinical trials are all about making things easier for patients, lightening the load for our caregivers, and making the whole trial experience better for all stakeholders involved."
#TigermedGRP #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization #DCT #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #MedTech #RemoteMonitoring
TigermedGRP.com
Listen to the podcast here
Alice Lin, DCT Solutions Director in the DCT Business Department of Tigermed Consulting, a global CRO, contract research organization, that provides biopharmaceutical and medical device companies with a range of services including digital technology to conduct decentralized clinical trials. Their approach focuses on patient-centricity, efficiency, and adaptability. By utilizing digital tools such as virtual visits, wearable devices, and mobile apps, Tigermed aims to make clinical trials more accessible and convenient for patients, improving recruitment and retention rates. They also emphasize the importance of DCT in including a diverse patient population in trials, particularly for rare diseases.
Alice explains, "While our headquarters is in China, we have grown into a global team of over 10,000 employees operating across over 180 locations worldwide. We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary, making two decades of dedicated collaborations with over 2,800 customers on their product journeys. DCT stands for decentralized clinical trials, which involves applying digital technologies to conduct clinical trials. Traditionally, most clinical trial activities are conducted at clinical sites. Still, with DCT, we can conduct some or even all of the trial procedures outside of these sites using digital technology."
"Currently, the hybrid DCT model is a common thing in clinical trials. It means some of the trial procedures could be conducted outside of clinical sites, but still keep some clinical trial activities at clinical sites. In our Tigermed DCT department, we are responsible for identifying the appropriate digital technologies for using in clinical trials, whether through self-development or collaboration with the various digital technology companies. We also manage the DCT daily operations in each clinical trial from the study beginning to the study completion."
"However, we get that every investigational product and the therapeutic areas bring its own set of challenges and patient needs. So, we make it a priority to figure out what digital tools work best for each study. Our CEO, Dr. Cao, and our head of the DCT business department always say our goal is not just to do decentralized clinical trials for the sake of it. It's about giving patients and caregivers options that fit their needs. This approach means patients and caregivers get solutions that work for them, showing that we are all about being flexible to what they need. Our decentralized clinical trials are all about making things easier for patients, lightening the load for our caregivers, and making the whole trial experience better for all stakeholders involved."
#TigermedGRP #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization #DCT #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #MedTech #RemoteMonitoring
TigermedGRP.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Marshall Fordyce, CEO and Founder of Vera Therapeutics, discusses the company's patient-centric approach to developing new medicines for autoimmune diseases. Vera is currently in Phase 3 with a molecule called Atacicept, which targets B cells in autoimmune diseases. They focus on IgA nephropathy, a rare kidney disease, and the third most common cause of kidney failure. A key concern is that declining kidney function is often misdiagnosed and not screened for because the early warning signs are so subtle.
Marshall explains, "Let me give you an example of our lead indication. So, our molecule in development is called atacicept. It targets the immune system in the specific area of B cells, and B cells are the factories of our antibodies, which we need to fight infection over our lifetime. But in patients with autoimmune disease, these B cells are overstimulated, they're overactive, and there are only a few medicines that target B cells with an appropriate balance of safety and efficacy. We had an insight that the science told us that by inhibiting two key factors in the body, BAFF and APRIL, we could normalize that overactivity of B cells and have better outcomes."
"Now traditional drug development may be long and expensive. We were very strategic in picking IgA nephropathy. This is an area that has had very little drug development over the last decade. A few small companies started to become interested in this area, and thankfully, because of patient advocacy, the FDA allowed a surrogate endpoint in Phase 3 trials, which made it more efficient to bring this molecule forward. So, there are now two drugs on the market for the first time in the last three or four years, for two new drugs in IgA nephropathy. They don't target B cells, which is really what's driving this disease. They work downstream, or they're nonspecific."
"What Vera did differently is that we thought that we could actually demonstrate that kidney function, which in these young patients is declining at an alarming rate, if we could demonstrate that kidney function doesn't decline, that would be meaningful. It would be a significant leap. We don't see that happen in "traditional" drug development often, in my view. So, I think what's different here is that we're picking an area where we think we can intervene and, in early-stage development, show a meaningful improvement in outcomes for patients."
#VeraTherapeutics #KidneyDisease #RareDisease #BCells #Immunotherapy #AutoimmuneDiseases #IgANephropathy
veratx.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Marshall Fordyce, CEO and Founder of Vera Therapeutics, discusses the company's patient-centric approach to developing new medicines for autoimmune diseases. Vera is currently in Phase 3 with a molecule called Atacicept, which targets B cells in autoimmune diseases. They focus on IgA nephropathy, a rare kidney disease, and the third most common cause of kidney failure. A key concern is that declining kidney function is often misdiagnosed and not screened for because the early warning signs are so subtle.
Marshall explains, "Let me give you an example of our lead indication. So, our molecule in development is called atacicept. It targets the immune system in the specific area of B cells, and B cells are the factories of our antibodies, which we need to fight infection over our lifetime. But in patients with autoimmune disease, these B cells are overstimulated, they're overactive, and there are only a few medicines that target B cells with an appropriate balance of safety and efficacy. We had an insight that the science told us that by inhibiting two key factors in the body, BAFF and APRIL, we could normalize that overactivity of B cells and have better outcomes."
"Now traditional drug development may be long and expensive. We were very strategic in picking IgA nephropathy. This is an area that has had very little drug development over the last decade. A few small companies started to become interested in this area, and thankfully, because of patient advocacy, the FDA allowed a surrogate endpoint in Phase 3 trials, which made it more efficient to bring this molecule forward. So, there are now two drugs on the market for the first time in the last three or four years, for two new drugs in IgA nephropathy. They don't target B cells, which is really what's driving this disease. They work downstream, or they're nonspecific."
"What Vera did differently is that we thought that we could actually demonstrate that kidney function, which in these young patients is declining at an alarming rate, if we could demonstrate that kidney function doesn't decline, that would be meaningful. It would be a significant leap. We don't see that happen in "traditional" drug development often, in my view. So, I think what's different here is that we're picking an area where we think we can intervene and, in early-stage development, show a meaningful improvement in outcomes for patients."
#VeraTherapeutics #KidneyDisease #RareDisease #BCells #Immunotherapy #AutoimmuneDiseases #IgANephropathy
veratx.com
Download the transcript here
Pascal Prigent, the CEO of GENFIT, a French biotech that has been working on liver diseases for about 20 years and has developed a compound called elafibranor for conditions such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). He highlights the high unmet medical need in ACLF, which currently has no approved treatment options and a high mortality rate. Prigent also discusses Genfit's partnership with Ipsen for the development and commercialization of elafibranor in PBC.
Pascal explains, "In reality, we don't have any approved option in ACLF, which is actually quite dramatic because you have a high mortality rate. To give you a little bit of context, people are suffering from chronic liver disease, regardless of the etiology. It can be too much alcohol consumption, it could be NASH, it could be viral hepatitis. Any kind of chronic liver disease will give us all the same journey, if you will."
"First, you have an injury to the liver. Then you have a progressive liver scar. You have the setup of fibrosis, that fibrosis becomes worse and worse. It becomes bridging fibrosis, but at some point, it will become cirrhosis. And that cirrhosis is first compensated, and then one day it can decompensate, and on that already failing organ, you have a precipitating factor."
"That precipitating factor could be an infection, binge-drinking, or drug-induced trauma. That stress on an already sick organ will get the liver to decompensate, and that decompensation of the liver will trigger additional organ decomposition, and that's what ACLF is. It's a syndrome at the very end of chronic liver diseases."
#GENFIT #LiverDisease #NASH #PBC #ACLF #LiverFailure #Hepatitis #ChronicLiverDisease #RareDisease
GENFIT.com
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Pascal Prigent, the CEO of GENFIT, a French biotech that has been working on liver diseases for about 20 years and has developed a compound called elafibranor for conditions such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). He highlights the high unmet medical need in ACLF, which currently has no approved treatment options and a high mortality rate. Prigent also discusses Genfit's partnership with Ipsen for the development and commercialization of elafibranor in PBC.
Pascal explains, "In reality, we don't have any approved option in ACLF, which is actually quite dramatic because you have a high mortality rate. To give you a little bit of context, people are suffering from chronic liver disease, regardless of the etiology. It can be too much alcohol consumption, it could be NASH, it could be viral hepatitis. Any kind of chronic liver disease will give us all the same journey, if you will."
"First, you have an injury to the liver. Then you have a progressive liver scar. You have the setup of fibrosis, that fibrosis becomes worse and worse. It becomes bridging fibrosis, but at some point, it will become cirrhosis. And that cirrhosis is first compensated, and then one day it can decompensate, and on that already failing organ, you have a precipitating factor."
"That precipitating factor could be an infection, binge-drinking, or drug-induced trauma. That stress on an already sick organ will get the liver to decompensate, and that decompensation of the liver will trigger additional organ decomposition, and that's what ACLF is. It's a syndrome at the very end of chronic liver diseases."
#GENFIT #LiverDisease #NASH #PBC #ACLF #LiverFailure #Hepatitis #ChronicLiverDisease #RareDisease
GENFIT.com
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Phil Johnston, President and CEO of Johnston Associates, and an advisor to EO Care, the market leader in providing clinically-guided cannabis use. Phil discusses the potential for research from the reclassification of cannabis from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug. With current Federal restrictions on cannabis, research has not been conducted on the potential therapeutic use for pain relief, depression, PTSD, and other conditions. With a change in classification, researchers can develop protocols, test different cannabis strains, run clinical trials, and determine dosage and form for therapies.
Phil explains, "So changing the Schedule from I to III is a game-changer because it's going to allow for research in the cannabis area in terms of dosage, what's the appropriate dosage, what kind of marijuana should be used for whatever ails you. There's a particular emphasis, of course, on pain relief and sleeplessness and depression. It appears that cannabis can have a very serious positive impact on those maladies, but we need much more research, and that's where we come in. That's what we're trying to focus on with EO Care."
"If you talk to any MD in the country, they'll tell you that they didn't learn anything about cannabis in medical school, and that was because of the Federal ban. And so there hasn't been a lot of research done. It's anecdotal at this point, such as my wife's situation, and what we need is for the Federal Government and the states to lead the way to make sure that there's funding for research and that medical schools are including that in their curricula. The research will involve what normally is involved with drugs, which is trials to determine exactly what the best treatments would be."
"Dosing is very important to figure out how much of it one needs, given whatever the specific problem is. And none of that research has been done in this country yet. Now, we're doing a sweep of international studies. It turns out that Canada, which legalized this a long time ago, has done trials and has some research, which we can adapt. However, that work has to be done, and it has to be done within medical institutions in the United States as well."
#MedicalCannabisAccessibility #MedicalCannabisClinicalResearch #MedicalCannabisCancerPatients #CannabisRescheduling #FutureofMedicalCannabis
PWJohnston.com
EOCare.com
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Phil Johnston, President and CEO of Johnston Associates, and an advisor to EO Care, the market leader in providing clinically-guided cannabis use. Phil discusses the potential for research from the reclassification of cannabis from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug. With current Federal restrictions on cannabis, research has not been conducted on the potential therapeutic use for pain relief, depression, PTSD, and other conditions. With a change in classification, researchers can develop protocols, test different cannabis strains, run clinical trials, and determine dosage and form for therapies.
Phil explains, "So changing the Schedule from I to III is a game-changer because it's going to allow for research in the cannabis area in terms of dosage, what's the appropriate dosage, what kind of marijuana should be used for whatever ails you. There's a particular emphasis, of course, on pain relief and sleeplessness and depression. It appears that cannabis can have a very serious positive impact on those maladies, but we need much more research, and that's where we come in. That's what we're trying to focus on with EO Care."
"If you talk to any MD in the country, they'll tell you that they didn't learn anything about cannabis in medical school, and that was because of the Federal ban. And so there hasn't been a lot of research done. It's anecdotal at this point, such as my wife's situation, and what we need is for the Federal Government and the states to lead the way to make sure that there's funding for research and that medical schools are including that in their curricula. The research will involve what normally is involved with drugs, which is trials to determine exactly what the best treatments would be."
"Dosing is very important to figure out how much of it one needs, given whatever the specific problem is. And none of that research has been done in this country yet. Now, we're doing a sweep of international studies. It turns out that Canada, which legalized this a long time ago, has done trials and has some research, which we can adapt. However, that work has to be done, and it has to be done within medical institutions in the United States as well."
#MedicalCannabisAccessibility #MedicalCannabisClinicalResearch #MedicalCannabisCancerPatients #CannabisRescheduling #FutureofMedicalCannabis
PWJohnston.com
EOCare.com
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Salome Juethner, Senior Medical Director, Head of Rare Genetics, and Interim Head of Rare GI at Takeda, discusses HAE, hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disorder that causes painful and unpredictable swelling attacks that can be life-threatening. Salome emphasizes the need to educate physicians to consider HAE as a potential diagnosis in children as young as two years old and underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. To treat HAE, Takeda offers Takhzyro, a medication that can be used on-demand and as a preventative therapy, administered at home through a subcutaneous injection.
Salome explains, "Hereditary angioedema, or HAE, is a rare genetic disorder with a prevalence of one in 50,000. It can cause very painful, unpredictable swelling attacks that can occur in the throat, abdomen, hands, feet, and face. And as you can imagine, a throat attack could be potentially life-threatening. There are different triggers for these attacks. Some can just be stress and that could be positive stress like a wedding or going to prom or an illness and others. It can be quite limiting when you have to live thinking if I do something, is that going to trigger an attack? The symptoms can change over time, and HAE may not necessarily look the same for each person. Typically, people with HAE are missing an important protein in their blood called a C1 inhibitor. Either they're missing it or have very low levels, and it just may not work the way it should."
"For people who have never heard of HAE, things get a lot more difficult because they rely on their physician, who may or may not be aware of this very rare disease and consider it part of the differential diagnosis. So it is not uncommon to hear patients talk about going for years before they ever got their diagnosis and that they were experiencing symptoms during that time, going to the emergency room, and maybe even being misdiagnosed with another condition until they finally saw someone who thought, oh, you know what? We should screen you for HAE."
"Screening is really just a blood test. So, you would screen for a C4 level, which would be low or normal. If you're thinking about whether this could be HAE, then you would go ahead and check a C1 inhibitor level and a functional C1 level, and then those would be low as well. It's really about educating people, though, to consider it as part of the differential diagnosis."
#Takeda #HAE #HereditaryAngioedema #RareDisease
takeda.com
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Salome Juethner, Senior Medical Director, Head of Rare Genetics, and Interim Head of Rare GI at Takeda, discusses HAE, hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disorder that causes painful and unpredictable swelling attacks that can be life-threatening. Salome emphasizes the need to educate physicians to consider HAE as a potential diagnosis in children as young as two years old and underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. To treat HAE, Takeda offers Takhzyro, a medication that can be used on-demand and as a preventative therapy, administered at home through a subcutaneous injection.
Salome explains, "Hereditary angioedema, or HAE, is a rare genetic disorder with a prevalence of one in 50,000. It can cause very painful, unpredictable swelling attacks that can occur in the throat, abdomen, hands, feet, and face. And as you can imagine, a throat attack could be potentially life-threatening. There are different triggers for these attacks. Some can just be stress and that could be positive stress like a wedding or going to prom or an illness and others. It can be quite limiting when you have to live thinking if I do something, is that going to trigger an attack? The symptoms can change over time, and HAE may not necessarily look the same for each person. Typically, people with HAE are missing an important protein in their blood called a C1 inhibitor. Either they're missing it or have very low levels, and it just may not work the way it should."
"For people who have never heard of HAE, things get a lot more difficult because they rely on their physician, who may or may not be aware of this very rare disease and consider it part of the differential diagnosis. So it is not uncommon to hear patients talk about going for years before they ever got their diagnosis and that they were experiencing symptoms during that time, going to the emergency room, and maybe even being misdiagnosed with another condition until they finally saw someone who thought, oh, you know what? We should screen you for HAE."
"Screening is really just a blood test. So, you would screen for a C4 level, which would be low or normal. If you're thinking about whether this could be HAE, then you would go ahead and check a C1 inhibitor level and a functional C1 level, and then those would be low as well. It's really about educating people, though, to consider it as part of the differential diagnosis."
#Takeda #HAE #HereditaryAngioedema #RareDisease
takeda.com
Download the transcript here
Lorie Spence and Carolyn Pritchard, Co-Founders of Bridge Medical Communications, focus on developing tools and resources to support healthcare professionals and patients in collaborating and making informed treatment decisions. They emphasize the importance of patient-centered care, participatory medicine, and patient engagement to help address therapeutic challenges and barriers that impact patient outcomes. By applying healthcare communication strategies and providing practical and functional tools for use at the point of care, they are bridging the gap between providers and patients.
Lorie explains, "Some tools we developed through Bridge Medical Communications through CONNECT really support healthcare professionals at the point of care. With the dynamic shift in the marketplace, with precision medicine and the need to engage the multidisciplinary team, we've developed tools like flow sheets that can be integrated into the EMRs to help assist and prompt through the steps of care from assessment of all the way to therapeutic onboarding and management."
Carolyn elaborates, "Connecting is ensuring that the patient's voice and that the patient is, as you mentioned, participating in their healthcare journey. So we're trying to support industry and stakeholders in developing these tools so they can collaborate with the patients. As we've mentioned, it might be a patient counseling tool, like a transition tool, these types of things provide continuity of care critical between the patient, the healthcare provider, and often, caregivers."
#BridgeMedComms #PatientsVoice #PatientCentric #HealthcareProfessionals #ParticipatoryMedicine #HealthcareCommunications
bridgemedcomms.ca
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Lorie Spence and Carolyn Pritchard, Co-Founders of Bridge Medical Communications, focus on developing tools and resources to support healthcare professionals and patients in collaborating and making informed treatment decisions. They emphasize the importance of patient-centered care, participatory medicine, and patient engagement to help address therapeutic challenges and barriers that impact patient outcomes. By applying healthcare communication strategies and providing practical and functional tools for use at the point of care, they are bridging the gap between providers and patients.
Lorie explains, "Some tools we developed through Bridge Medical Communications through CONNECT really support healthcare professionals at the point of care. With the dynamic shift in the marketplace, with precision medicine and the need to engage the multidisciplinary team, we've developed tools like flow sheets that can be integrated into the EMRs to help assist and prompt through the steps of care from assessment of all the way to therapeutic onboarding and management."
Carolyn elaborates, "Connecting is ensuring that the patient's voice and that the patient is, as you mentioned, participating in their healthcare journey. So we're trying to support industry and stakeholders in developing these tools so they can collaborate with the patients. As we've mentioned, it might be a patient counseling tool, like a transition tool, these types of things provide continuity of care critical between the patient, the healthcare provider, and often, caregivers."
#BridgeMedComms #PatientsVoice #PatientCentric #HealthcareProfessionals #ParticipatoryMedicine #HealthcareCommunications
bridgemedcomms.ca
Listen to the podcast here
Lorie Spence and Carolyn Pritchard, Co-Founders of Bridge Medical Communications, focus on developing tools and resources to support healthcare professionals and patients in collaborating and making informed treatment decisions. They emphasize the importance of patient-centered care, participatory medicine, and patient engagement to help address therapeutic challenges and barriers that impact patient outcomes. By applying healthcare communication strategies and providing practical and functional tools for use at the point of care, they are bridging the gap between providers and patients.
Lorie explains, "Some tools we developed through Bridge Medical Communications through CONNECT really support healthcare professionals at the point of care. With the dynamic shift in the marketplace, with precision medicine and the need to engage the multidisciplinary team, we've developed tools like flow sheets that can be integrated into the EMRs to help assist and prompt through the steps of care from assessment of all the way to therapeutic onboarding and management."
Carolyn elaborates, "Connecting is ensuring that the patient's voice and that the patient is, as you mentioned, participating in their healthcare journey. So we're trying to support industry and stakeholders in developing these tools so they can collaborate with the patients. As we've mentioned, it might be a patient counseling tool, like a transition tool, these types of things provide continuity of care critical between the patient, the healthcare provider, and often, caregivers."
#BridgeMedComms #PatientsVoice #PatientCentric #HealthcareProfessionals #ParticipatoryMedicine #HealthcareCommunications
bridgemedcomms.ca
Download the transcript here
Lorie Spence and Carolyn Pritchard, Co-Founders of Bridge Medical Communications, focus on developing tools and resources to support healthcare professionals and patients in collaborating and making informed treatment decisions. They emphasize the importance of patient-centered care, participatory medicine, and patient engagement to help address therapeutic challenges and barriers that impact patient outcomes. By applying healthcare communication strategies and providing practical and functional tools for use at the point of care, they are bridging the gap between providers and patients.
Lorie explains, "Some tools we developed through Bridge Medical Communications through CONNECT really support healthcare professionals at the point of care. With the dynamic shift in the marketplace, with precision medicine and the need to engage the multidisciplinary team, we've developed tools like flow sheets that can be integrated into the EMRs to help assist and prompt through the steps of care from assessment of all the way to therapeutic onboarding and management."
Carolyn elaborates, "Connecting is ensuring that the patient's voice and that the patient is, as you mentioned, participating in their healthcare journey. So we're trying to support industry and stakeholders in developing these tools so they can collaborate with the patients. As we've mentioned, it might be a patient counseling tool, like a transition tool, these types of things provide continuity of care critical between the patient, the healthcare provider, and often, caregivers."
#BridgeMedComms #PatientsVoice #PatientCentric #HealthcareProfessionals #ParticipatoryMedicine #HealthcareCommunications
bridgemedcomms.ca
Download the transcript here
John Celebi, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sensei Biotherapeutics, emphasizes the need to develop better patient selection strategies and next-generation therapeutics for cancer patients. Through their Tumor Microenvironment-Activated Biologics platform (TMAb), Sensei develops conditionally active therapeutics designed to be active only within the low-pH tumor microenvironment. Current pipeline candidates are designed to be active only within the low-pH tumor microenvironment and show potential to overcome the challenges of VISTA, a promising checkpoint target.
John explains, "As an industry, we have some tough choices. Other strategies, both within and outside of IO, have made much better progress in targeting which patients will respond and which patients won't respond to treatment. Those are decisions that we have to make as an industry to keep up."
"The second one I would point to is that we're now in a decade after the first immuno-oncology drug approval. And so, we have a whole generation of patients now that have been exposed to checkpoint therapy, and that are now many of whom resistant to checkpoint therapy. We call that acquired resistance. And so the game has really changed. It's an open question: whether the first PD-1 drugs would be approved today if all of those patients had been treated with some other checkpoint therapy prior to it raises the bar. This means new strategies are needed to treat patients with acquired resistance to immunotherapy."
"One of the interesting things about VISTA is that it does play a key role in the tumor microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment is unique because it's an environment inside the body in which cells proliferate very rapidly. That leads to a whole host of subsequent changes that affect the outcome of therapy, the fact that when cells are dividing rapidly, the pH in the area tends to drop, and it becomes more acidic. And that's directly related to the function of VISTA. It's one of the things that makes VISTA unique because VISTA is only activated as an immune checkpoint under lower pH conditions."
#SenseiBio #ImmunOncology #PatientSelection #Immunotherapy #Cancer #Tumors #ImmuneCheckpointTargets #VISTA
SenseiBio.com
Listen to the podcast here
John Celebi, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sensei Biotherapeutics, emphasizes the need to develop better patient selection strategies and next-generation therapeutics for cancer patients. Through their Tumor Microenvironment-Activated Biologics platform (TMAb), Sensei develops conditionally active therapeutics designed to be active only within the low-pH tumor microenvironment. Current pipeline candidates are designed to be active only within the low-pH tumor microenvironment and show potential to overcome the challenges of VISTA, a promising checkpoint target.
John explains, "As an industry, we have some tough choices. Other strategies, both within and outside of IO, have made much better progress in targeting which patients will respond and which patients won't respond to treatment. Those are decisions that we have to make as an industry to keep up."
"The second one I would point to is that we're now in a decade after the first immuno-oncology drug approval. And so, we have a whole generation of patients now that have been exposed to checkpoint therapy, and that are now many of whom resistant to checkpoint therapy. We call that acquired resistance. And so the game has really changed. It's an open question: whether the first PD-1 drugs would be approved today if all of those patients had been treated with some other checkpoint therapy prior to it raises the bar. This means new strategies are needed to treat patients with acquired resistance to immunotherapy."
"One of the interesting things about VISTA is that it does play a key role in the tumor microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment is unique because it's an environment inside the body in which cells proliferate very rapidly. That leads to a whole host of subsequent changes that affect the outcome of therapy, the fact that when cells are dividing rapidly, the pH in the area tends to drop, and it becomes more acidic. And that's directly related to the function of VISTA. It's one of the things that makes VISTA unique because VISTA is only activated as an immune checkpoint under lower pH conditions."
#SenseiBio #ImmunOncology #PatientSelection #Immunotherapy #Cancer #Tumors #ImmuneCheckpointTargets #VISTA
SenseiBio.com
Download the transcript here
William Hind, agency principal at Alpharmaxim, highlights that traditional methods of educating patients and physicians may not effectively drive behavior change. Applying behavioral science in healthcare communications is a way to understand the barriers to adopting new medicines and therapies and patient and provider reluctance to change. Behavioral science will become increasingly helpful for the pharmaceutical and medical tech industries to ensure that novel therapies, wearable devices, and at-home diagnostic equipment are successfully marketed to the right patients at the right time with accurate information.
William explains, "At present, there's a great deal of needed emphasis on educating people about diseases and any therapies that come forward. However, it may not be a lack of information inhibiting prescribing clinicians or patients from adopting a new medicine. It may be that it's an old habit of physicians, or it may be that the patients have accepted a regimen that they are reluctant to move away from. So it's about the need to try and discover all of the different aspects of what might be acting as a barrier in making sure that new medicines are adopted as quickly as possible."
"When it comes to behavioral change, I don’t think people realize quite what a science it is. You know, it's firmly rooted in psychology and sociology. There is clear evidence supporting its use. We use the COM-B model, a well-reputed approach to defining barriers. This is interesting because pharmaceuticals, in particular, and patient communications are all heavily dependent on the data and evidence, yet the way they communicate is usually governed by habit. We're trying to encourage people to look at what's needed to shift behaviors instead of just relying on habitual communication."
"There is a wealth of examples where behavior science is being used very successfully in consumer advertising and in the kinds of scenarios you mentioned. There's a lot of work in that area, but even there, real behavioral science is still on the fringes. It's not routinely adopted. So what we need to do is make sure that it is better understood. In pharmaceuticals, it isn't as adopted anywhere near as much as it should be or could be, especially given what's at stake."
#Alpharmaxim #BehavioralScience #PharmaMarketing #Medtech
alpharmaxim.com
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William Hind, agency principal at Alpharmaxim, highlights that traditional methods of educating patients and physicians may not effectively drive behavior change. Applying behavioral science in healthcare communications is a way to understand the barriers to adopting new medicines and therapies and patient and provider reluctance to change. Behavioral science will become increasingly helpful for the pharmaceutical and medical tech industries to ensure that novel therapies, wearable devices, and at-home diagnostic equipment are successfully marketed to the right patients at the right time with accurate information.
William explains, "At present, there's a great deal of needed emphasis on educating people about diseases and any therapies that come forward. However, it may not be a lack of information inhibiting prescribing clinicians or patients from adopting a new medicine. It may be that it's an old habit of physicians, or it may be that the patients have accepted a regimen that they are reluctant to move away from. So it's about the need to try and discover all of the different aspects of what might be acting as a barrier in making sure that new medicines are adopted as quickly as possible."
"When it comes to behavioral change, I don’t think people realize quite what a science it is. You know, it's firmly rooted in psychology and sociology. There is clear evidence supporting its use. We use the COM-B model, a well-reputed approach to defining barriers. This is interesting because pharmaceuticals, in particular, and patient communications are all heavily dependent on the data and evidence, yet the way they communicate is usually governed by habit. We're trying to encourage people to look at what's needed to shift behaviors instead of just relying on habitual communication."
"There is a wealth of examples where behavior science is being used very successfully in consumer advertising and in the kinds of scenarios you mentioned. There's a lot of work in that area, but even there, real behavioral science is still on the fringes. It's not routinely adopted. So what we need to do is make sure that it is better understood. In pharmaceuticals, it isn't as adopted anywhere near as much as it should be or could be, especially given what's at stake."
#Alpharmaxim #BehavioralScience #PharmaMarketing #Medtech
alpharmaxim.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Avantika Waring, the Chief Medical Officer at 9amHealth, provides end-to-end individualized cardiometabolic care to people with diabetes, pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity. Their focus on metabolic health includes diagnostics, medications, nutrition services, coaching, and lifestyle support in a fun, engaging and non-judgemental manner. This comprehensive virtual healthcare model extends the opportunity for patients to get the support they need to manage these chronic conditions better.
Avantika explains, "The mission behind our companies is to make high-quality, effective, and, importantly, kind care available to as many people as possible. We know that there are amazing clinicians out there, and there are patients who are super fortunate to be connected with them. But that's not everyone. There are a lot of barriers to getting access to that care, and we want to make sure that people can get access to the care that they need and that the experience is, might I say, as fun as possible for both the clinician and the patient."
"We want things to be simple for patients, and we know that most people who have a cardiometabolic condition are likely to have more than one. Sometimes, two or three. So, our goal is to make the experience as simple and streamlined as possible for the members. So if they're coming to us with a glucose issue and need labs and medication for that, but they also need coaching on their diet for heart health and cholesterol, we want to offer them all that in one experience."
#9amHealth #Diversity #Healthcare #HealthEquity #AsynchronousCare #CardiometabolicCare #MetabolicHealth #MedicationCosts2024 #DigitalHealth #EmployeeBenefits
join9am.com
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Dr. Avantika Waring, the Chief Medical Officer at 9amHealth, provides end-to-end individualized cardiometabolic care to people with diabetes, pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity. Their focus on metabolic health includes diagnostics, medications, nutrition services, coaching, and lifestyle support in a fun, engaging and non-judgemental manner. This comprehensive virtual healthcare model extends the opportunity for patients to get the support they need to manage these chronic conditions better.
Avantika explains, "The mission behind our companies is to make high-quality, effective, and, importantly, kind care available to as many people as possible. We know that there are amazing clinicians out there, and there are patients who are super fortunate to be connected with them. But that's not everyone. There are a lot of barriers to getting access to that care, and we want to make sure that people can get access to the care that they need and that the experience is, might I say, as fun as possible for both the clinician and the patient."
"We want things to be simple for patients, and we know that most people who have a cardiometabolic condition are likely to have more than one. Sometimes, two or three. So, our goal is to make the experience as simple and streamlined as possible for the members. So if they're coming to us with a glucose issue and need labs and medication for that, but they also need coaching on their diet for heart health and cholesterol, we want to offer them all that in one experience."
#9amHealth #Diversity #Healthcare #HealthEquity #AsynchronousCare #CardiometabolicCare #MetabolicHealth #MedicationCosts2024 #EmployeeBenefits #DigitalHealth
join9am.com
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Dr. John Simon, CEO and Founder of SimonMed Imaging makes various medical imaging technologies available, including X-rays, ultrasound, MRI, and PET/CT scans, which have traditionally been used for diagnosis and tracking changes. With the SimonONE whole-body MRI scan, SimonMed offers an affordable preventative screening approach that, with the assistance of AI and advancements in imaging technology, looks for abnormalities and detects subtle changes. Ideally, MRI scans will become more routine in annual exams to catch treatable conditions sooner.
John elaborates, "About 20, 25 years ago, diagnostic imaging went from a very limited specialty within the hospital setting to an often-used technology. This great technology is used in the outpatient setting. So, I founded my first outpatient radiology office over 20 years ago, and it included some of the most advanced equipment you could obtain at that time, including cardiac CT and MRI scanners, which were incredibly fast for that time. What that technology enabled us to do was to do outpatient imaging studies very quickly, less expensively, and very accurately."
"A whole-body MRI involves a series of MRI sequences, more than one, looking at the body. Typically, we look at the head, neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis. We do specialized sequences within those areas looking for aneurysms, looking for vascular changes in the body, looking at the health of the brain for not only excluding particularly cancers in the brain, for example, but also looking for early signs of Alzheimer's disease. In the neck, we look for cancers as well as other abnormalities."
"In the chest, abdomen, and pelvis, we not only look for vascular abnormalities but also for early signs of cancer and other abnormalities, including metabolic abnormalities within the liver. There is something called fatty liver disease, which is common in the US. So, the process involves a noninvasive MRI study with multiple different sequences looking at different areas within the body, and we put them all together in one visit."
#SimonMedImaging #MRI #WholeBodyScan #Diagnostics #AI #MedicalImaging #PreventativeMedicine
SimonMed.com
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Dr. John Simon, CEO and Founder of SimonMed Imaging makes various medical imaging technologies available, including X-rays, ultrasound, MRI, and PET/CT scans, which have traditionally been used for diagnosis and tracking changes. With the SimonONE whole-body MRI scan, SimonMed offers an affordable preventative screening approach that, with the assistance of AI and advancements in imaging technology, looks for abnormalities and detects subtle changes. Ideally, MRI scans will become more routine in annual exams to catch treatable conditions sooner.
John elaborates, "About 20, 25 years ago, diagnostic imaging went from a very limited specialty within the hospital setting to an often-used technology. This great technology is used in the outpatient setting. So, I founded my first outpatient radiology office over 20 years ago, and it included some of the most advanced equipment you could obtain at that time, including cardiac CT and MRI scanners, which were incredibly fast for that time. What that technology enabled us to do was to do outpatient imaging studies very quickly, less expensively, and very accurately."
"A whole-body MRI involves a series of MRI sequences, more than one, looking at the body. Typically, we look at the head, neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis. We do specialized sequences within those areas looking for aneurysms, looking for vascular changes in the body, looking at the health of the brain for not only excluding particularly cancers in the brain, for example, but also looking for early signs of Alzheimer's disease. In the neck, we look for cancers as well as other abnormalities."
"In the chest, abdomen, and pelvis, we not only look for vascular abnormalities but also for early signs of cancer and other abnormalities, including metabolic abnormalities within the liver. There is something called fatty liver disease, which is common in the US. So, the process involves a noninvasive MRI study with multiple different sequences looking at different areas within the body, and we put them all together in one visit."
#SimonMedImaging #MRI #WholeBodyScan #Diagnostics #AI #MedicalImaging #PreventativeMedicine
SimonMed.com
Download the transcript here
Alon Ben-Noon, CEO and board member of NeuroSense Therapeutics, is taking a unique approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases by targeting core pathologies and combining molecules to address various mechanisms. NeuroSense has seen positive clinical trial results for ALS using their lead compound PrimeC, which showed a reduction in disease progression. Research indicates the potential for this approach to be applied to other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Alon explains, "The main challenge is to find a therapeutic asset for a complex disease, which is still not understood well enough to date. ALS, also Alzheimer's, and I think that Parkinson's is among them as well. All of those neurodegenerative diseases are very complex and involve many mechanisms that go wrong. We try to tackle them with the therapeutic agents while we are not certain with each patient what exactly goes on. This is a huge challenge, so we need to be creative and find ways how we may be able to provide benefits to the majority of the patients, and I should be more distinct to say a benefit to some extent."
"In order to maximize the success with our therapy, we figured out that we need to target more than just one single mechanism and we need to tackle as much as we can or as many as we can. And looking at the more pertinent targets in our view and our understanding, we combine two molecules that target several mechanisms in a synergistic manner. We found molecules that can target these pathological pathways that were identified from the start. Also, it was important for us to see that they can work synergistically together on these targets."
#NeuroSense #ALS #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #NeurodegenerativeDiseases
NeuroSense-TX.com
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Alon Ben-Noon, CEO and board member of NeuroSense Therapeutics, is taking a unique approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases by targeting core pathologies and combining molecules to address various mechanisms. NeuroSense has seen positive clinical trial results for ALS using their lead compound PrimeC, which showed a reduction in disease progression. Research indicates the potential for this approach to be applied to other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Alon explains, "The main challenge is to find a therapeutic asset for a complex disease, which is still not understood well enough to date. ALS, also Alzheimer's, and I think that Parkinson's is among them as well. All of those neurodegenerative diseases are very complex and involve many mechanisms that go wrong. We try to tackle them with the therapeutic agents while we are not certain with each patient what exactly goes on. This is a huge challenge, so we need to be creative and find ways how we may be able to provide benefits to the majority of the patients, and I should be more distinct to say a benefit to some extent."
"In order to maximize the success with our therapy, we figured out that we need to target more than just one single mechanism and we need to tackle as much as we can or as many as we can. And looking at the more pertinent targets in our view and our understanding, we combine two molecules that target several mechanisms in a synergistic manner. We found molecules that can target these pathological pathways that were identified from the start. Also, it was important for us to see that they can work synergistically together on these targets."
#NeuroSense #ALS #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #NeurodegenerativeDiseases
NeuroSense-TX.com
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Dr. Kathy Reeves, President and CEO of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, works with medical schools to promote humanistic care and is responsible for the White Coat ceremony for medical students to emphasize the need for human connection in healthcare. The Foundation is also responsible for the Thank a Resident Day and the Gold Foundation Honor Society, which recognize those doctors who meet the high standards of their peers. The development of Gold Human-Centered Spaces is a scalable solution to create healthcare environments that foster humanistic interactions. The goal is to make humanism a healthcare priority and to implement practical solutions.
Kathy explains, "With that, Arnold and Sandra knew there had to be a foundation dedicated to making sure the human connection remained central in healthcare. And that's what the Gold Foundation has done and continues to do. We are the group that is responsible for the White Coat ceremony when people enter medical school to make sure medical students are aware that it's all about the person in front of them. There are a number of other programs that we do with medical schools, and we're attached to over 90% of the medical schools across the country. We work directly with these schools to help keep healthcare human."
"There is an abundance of research out there that will show you when a patient feels well cared for, they're healthier. When the interaction goes well, the healthcare professional is healthier. Those two things alone lead to lower healthcare costs, less no-show rates, less health professional turnover. So it is in some ways the epitome of value-based care, if we really value people, it's going to save money. It's going to make the society healthier."
#GoldFoundation #Humanism #Healthcare #PatientCentered #EmpowerTeams #ThankAResidentDay
gold-foundation.org
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Dr. Kathy Reeves, President and CEO of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, works with medical schools to promote humanistic care and is responsible for the White Coat ceremony for medical students to emphasize the need for human connection in healthcare. The Foundation is also responsible for the Thank a Resident Day and the Gold Foundation Honor Society, which recognize those doctors who meet the high standards of their peers. The development of Gold Human-Centered Spaces is a scalable solution to create healthcare environments that foster humanistic interactions. The goal is to make humanism a healthcare priority and to implement practical solutions.
Kathy explains, "With that, Arnold and Sandra knew there had to be a foundation dedicated to making sure the human connection remained central in healthcare. And that's what the Gold Foundation has done and continues to do. We are the group that is responsible for the White Coat ceremony when people enter medical school to make sure medical students are aware that it's all about the person in front of them. There are a number of other programs that we do with medical schools, and we're attached to over 90% of the medical schools across the country. We work directly with these schools to help keep healthcare human."
"There is an abundance of research out there that will show you when a patient feels well cared for, they're healthier. When the interaction goes well, the healthcare professional is healthier. Those two things alone lead to lower healthcare costs, less no-show rates, less health professional turnover. So it is in some ways the epitome of value-based care, if we really value people, it's going to save money. It's going to make the society healthier."
#GoldFoundation #Humanism #Healthcare #PatientCentered #EmpowerTeams #ThankAResidentDay
gold-foundation.org
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Dr. Kazu Okuda, Founder, and CEO of Universal Brain, uses neurotyping based on EEG data to better understand the different types of depression and deliver more precise treatments. To facilitate the availability of EEG data, Universal Brain has developed a next-generation EEG headset that is affordable and comfortable. The headset allows for the collection of data that can be used to analyze neural profiles of patients and tailor treatments. This precision psychiatry approach is the future of depression treatment and for identifying early warning signs of depression in the younger population.
Kazu explains, "We are using the term neurotyping to solve that kind of problem. Neurotyping is a term we use at Universal Brain, and it's a groundbreaking process of grouping individuals based on brain function measures derived from the EEG data. We'll look at specific reactions of the brain to visual and audio stimuli, which are called event-related potentials, and we are leveraging that kind of brain biomarkers and neurotype the patient based on brain function."
"By examining the functioning of the cornea or systems from attention to memory and negative bias and reward function, we aim to reduce the heterogeneity of treatment groups using the brain function biomarkers because depression has a lot of phenotypes. There is no single depression, but we call it depressions because there are tons of variations of combination of the symptoms to meet the criteria of depression. So by neurotyping patients based on brain function, we reduce the heterogeneity of depressions and lead to better outcomes."
#UniversalBrain #Neurotyping #BrainBiomarkers #Depression #PrecisionPsychiatry
universal-brain.com
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Dr. Kazu Okuda, Founder, and CEO of Universal Brain, uses neurotyping based on EEG data to better understand the different types of depression and deliver more precise treatments. To facilitate the availability of EEG data, Universal Brain has developed a next-generation EEG headset that is affordable and comfortable. The headset allows for the collection of data that can be used to analyze neural profiles of patients and tailor treatments. This precision psychiatry approach is the future of depression treatment and for identifying early warning signs of depression in the younger population.
Kazu explains, "We are using the term neurotyping to solve that kind of problem. Neurotyping is a term we use at Universal Brain, and it's a groundbreaking process of grouping individuals based on brain function measures derived from the EEG data. We'll look at specific reactions of the brain to visual and audio stimuli, which are called event-related potentials, and we are leveraging that kind of brain biomarkers and neurotype the patient based on brain function."
"By examining the functioning of the cornea or systems from attention to memory and negative bias and reward function, we aim to reduce the heterogeneity of treatment groups using the brain function biomarkers because depression has a lot of phenotypes. There is no single depression, but we call it depressions because there are tons of variations of combination of the symptoms to meet the criteria of depression. So by neurotyping patients based on brain function, we reduce the heterogeneity of depressions and lead to better outcomes."
#UniversalBrain #Neurotyping #BrainBiomarkers #Depression #PrecisionPsychiatry
universal-brain.com
Download the transcript here
Greg Sturmer, CEO and Co-Founder, and Tom Jenkins, Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder of Elysium Therapeutics, talk about their SMART Opioid O2P, which aims to address the risks of taking opioids while still delivering the analgesic efficacy of opioids. The compound is designed to be resistant to abuse through snorting or injections and includes a trypsin inhibitor that prevents the release of the opioid when multiple pills are ingested. Elysium is also developing SOOPR, an opioid overdose rescue medication that has a longer duration of action to counteract the longer-lasting effects of synthetic opioids such as Fentanyl.
Greg explains, "When we talk about our SMART opioids for pain, SMART stands for Safer Medicines that Alleviate Risks and Trauma. Our space is led by our O2P hydrocodone product candidate, and O2P stands for oral overdose protection."
"So what O2P hydrocodone is designed to do is mitigate those major risks associated with existing prescription opioids, but doing so without sacrificing their superior analgesic efficacy, especially when compared to currently marketed non-opioid alternatives and those in development. We're excited to say that we've demonstrated human proof of concept in a recent study that we announced. But what I'd like to do is have Tom step in. Again, he is the inventor of our technology. He's a PhD synthetic organic chemist out of Stanford. Tom, do you want to talk about the technology and maybe compare it to past attempts at abuse-deterrent formulation?"
Tom elaborates, "How we answer the question and how our technology works is fairly straightforward. What we've done is we've taken the opioid molecule with hydrocodone, and we can use any opioid molecule, morphine, oxycodone, or any of the prescription opioids. What we do is make a molecular modification to the drug. The key part of that is the conditional bioavailability of the drug is the fact that the drug has to see digestive enzyme, specifically trypsin, in the small intestine before it can be converted to an active drug."
#ElysiumTherapeutics #Opioids #OpioidAbuse #SyntheticOpioids #OpioidUseDisorder #PainManagement #SaferMedicines
ElysiumRX.com
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Greg Sturmer, CEO and Co-Founder, and Tom Jenkins, Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder of Elysium Therapeutics, talk about their SMART Opioid O2P, which aims to address the risks of taking opioids while still delivering the analgesic efficacy of opioids. The compound is designed to be resistant to abuse through snorting or injections and includes a trypsin inhibitor that prevents the release of the opioid when multiple pills are ingested. Elysium is also developing SOOPR, an opioid overdose rescue medication that has a longer duration of action to counteract the longer-lasting effects of synthetic opioids such as Fentanyl.
Greg explains, "When we talk about our SMART opioids for pain, SMART stands for Safer Medicines that Alleviate Risks and Trauma. Our space is led by our O2P hydrocodone product candidate, and O2P stands for oral overdose protection."
"So what O2P hydrocodone is designed to do is mitigate those major risks associated with existing prescription opioids, but doing so without sacrificing their superior analgesic efficacy, especially when compared to currently marketed non-opioid alternatives and those in development. We're excited to say that we've demonstrated human proof of concept in a recent study that we announced. But what I'd like to do is have Tom step in. Again, he is the inventor of our technology. He's a PhD synthetic organic chemist out of Stanford. Tom, do you want to talk about the technology and maybe compare it to past attempts at abuse-deterrent formulation?"
Tom elaborates, "How we answer the question and how our technology works is fairly straightforward. What we've done is we've taken the opioid molecule with hydrocodone, and we can use any opioid molecule, morphine, oxycodone, or any of the prescription opioids. What we do is make a molecular modification to the drug. The key part of that is the conditional bioavailability of the drug is the fact that the drug has to see digestive enzyme, specifically trypsin, in the small intestine before it can be converted to an active drug."
#ElysiumTherapeutics #Opioids #OpioidAbuse #SyntheticOpioids #OpioidUseDisorder #PainManagement #SaferMedicines
ElysiumRX.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Nate Favini, the first Chief Medical Officer of Pair Team, aims to connect underserved communities to high-quality, ongoing healthcare by providing medical, behavioral, and social services. Working with people who rely on Medicaid, who are experiencing homelessness and substance use disorders, and who have had recent interactions with the criminal justice system requires innovation and collaboration of government agencies, community-based organizations, and healthcare providers. With a focus on outcomes and cost, this value-based approach is reaching patients where they are, often using mobile technology and offering virtual care for tracking and improving health outcomes.
Nate explains, "In general, and specifically for the folks that we care for, value-based care means attention to the outcomes that we're delivering. For me, as a physician, that starts with the health outcomes that we deliver. So, are we improving people's health? Are we doing it on the measurable outcomes in terms of the conditions that they have, whether it's their blood sugar control for diabetes or their blood pressure if they have hypertension?"
"On the social outcomes that are drivers of people's health issues. So, are we getting you housed? Are we getting you a reliable and stable source of nutritious food? Because these are the things that make a difference in the health outcomes we're looking for."
"And then, of course, value-based care also implies attention to the cost of care. Are we delivering those outcomes at a cost that makes sense? And we've shown that we're very good at being able to achieve both of those things at the same time. At Pair Team, we have great outcomes in terms of hemoglobin A1C and blood pressure and improvements in depression. At the same time, we're offering people services that allow them to go to the emergency department and be in the hospital last. And so the real sweet spot in value-based care is if you can improve the outcomes for the folks who need it and return those investments to the system in the shape of lower spending."
#PairTeam #SDOH #HealthcareAccess #EnhancedCareManagement #DigitalHealth
pairteam.com
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Dr. Nate Favini, the first Chief Medical Officer of Pair Team, aims to connect underserved communities to high-quality, ongoing healthcare by providing medical, behavioral, and social services. Working with people who rely on Medicaid, who are experiencing homelessness and substance use disorders, and who have had recent interactions with the criminal justice system requires innovation and collaboration of government agencies, community-based organizations, and healthcare providers. With a focus on outcomes and cost, this value-based approach is reaching patients where they are, often using mobile technology and offering virtual care for tracking and improving health outcomes.
Nate explains, "In general, and specifically for the folks that we care for, value-based care means attention to the outcomes that we're delivering. For me, as a physician, that starts with the health outcomes that we deliver. So, are we improving people's health? Are we doing it on the measurable outcomes in terms of the conditions that they have, whether it's their blood sugar control for diabetes or their blood pressure if they have hypertension?"
"On the social outcomes that are drivers of people's health issues. So, are we getting you housed? Are we getting you a reliable and stable source of nutritious food? Because these are the things that make a difference in the health outcomes we're looking for."
"And then, of course, value-based care also implies attention to the cost of care. Are we delivering those outcomes at a cost that makes sense? And we've shown that we're very good at being able to achieve both of those things at the same time. At Pair Team, we have great outcomes in terms of hemoglobin A1C and blood pressure and improvements in depression. At the same time, we're offering people services that allow them to go to the emergency department and be in the hospital last. And so the real sweet spot in value-based care is if you can improve the outcomes for the folks who need it and return those investments to the system in the shape of lower spending."
#PairTeam #SDOH #HealthcareAccess #EnhancedCareManagement #DigitalHealth
pairteam.com
Download the transcript here
Daniel Barvin, VP of Operations and Patient Advocacy at Coya Therapeutics discusses the challenges of treating ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and the company's approach to developing therapies for this heterogeneous disease. Focusing on a combination modality, Coya is developing therapies effective for sporadic and genetic ALS, targeting regulatory T cells and reducing inflammation to slow disease progression. Daniel, who carries a genetic variant for ALS and FTD (Frontotemporal Dementia), emphasizes the need for resources and support for the next generation of pre-symptomatic genetic ALS patients.
Daniel explains, "Coya is based upon the discovery of Dr. Stanley Appel of Houston Methodist, that all neurodegenerative diseases, we believe, also autoimmune and a few metabolic diseases, drive an inflammatory response. The death of a motor neuron or damage to a motor neuron is an alert to the body that it should send inflammation to fix that motor neuron or beta-amyloid plaque buildup. Unfortunately, inflammation cannot fix these issues and, therefore, decides to take out a damaged part of the body. The death of the motor neuron then spurs more inflammation, and the inflammation that rises in the body eventually damages what are called regulatory T cells, the most immunomodulating cells in the body. Once regulatory T cells are damaged, inflammation becomes a persistent condition and drives further degeneration and eventually death."
"Coya is founded upon the idea that we can affect the number and efficacy of regulatory T cells. This was our first pathway to affecting change in ALS. We have now gone to a combination therapy, which will be a biologic made up of two FDA-approved drugs in our own formulation. We believe this combination can increase the efficacy and number of regulatory T cells and reduce inflammation. We believe this combination effect in such a heterogeneous disease will have more efficacy than just a single modality."
$COYA #CoyaTherapeutics #ALS #GeneticALS #PresymptomaticALS #PatientAdvocacy #RareDiseases
coyatherapeutics.com
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Daniel Barvin, VP of Operations and Patient Advocacy at Coya Therapeutics discusses the challenges of treating ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and the company's approach to developing therapies for this heterogeneous disease. Focusing on a combination modality, Coya is developing therapies effective for sporadic and genetic ALS, targeting regulatory T cells and reducing inflammation to slow disease progression. Daniel, who carries a genetic variant for ALS and FTD (Frontotemporal Dementia), emphasizes the need for resources and support for the next generation of pre-symptomatic genetic ALS patients.
Daniel explains, "Coya is based upon the discovery of Dr. Stanley Appel of Houston Methodist, that all neurodegenerative diseases, we believe, also autoimmune and a few metabolic diseases, drive an inflammatory response. The death of a motor neuron or damage to a motor neuron is an alert to the body that it should send inflammation to fix that motor neuron or beta-amyloid plaque buildup. Unfortunately, inflammation cannot fix these issues and, therefore, decides to take out a damaged part of the body. The death of the motor neuron then spurs more inflammation, and the inflammation that rises in the body eventually damages what are called regulatory T cells, the most immunomodulating cells in the body. Once regulatory T cells are damaged, inflammation becomes a persistent condition and drives further degeneration and eventually death."
"Coya is founded upon the idea that we can affect the number and efficacy of regulatory T cells. This was our first pathway to affecting change in ALS. We have now gone to a combination therapy, which will be a biologic made up of two FDA-approved drugs in our own formulation. We believe this combination can increase the efficacy and number of regulatory T cells and reduce inflammation. We believe this combination effect in such a heterogeneous disease will have more efficacy than just a single modality."
$COYA #CoyaTherapeutics #ALS #GeneticALS #PresymptomaticALS #PatientAdvocacy #RareDiseases
coyatherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Bala Hota, Senior VP and Chief Informatics Officer at Tendo, emphasizes the importance of leveraging data to improve patient care and operational performance in healthcare and overcome biases in access. Focusing on quality measures and integration of structured and unstructured data, Tendo has developed services that support providers, patients, and caregivers using multiple avenues of communication. The acquisition of MDsave allows for a marketplace that provides transparent pricing for medical services, adding to this omnichannel healthcare model.
Bala explains, "At Tendo, our vision is to be the trusted connection between patients, providers, and caregivers, using an intuitive and seamless interface to provide that optimum experience. The way we approach things is we have a number of different ways that people interact with our application and our software. We have a patient care journey application, which helps patients navigate through complex care pathways."
"We have an insights offering that uses a variety of engines to look at electronic record data and claims data to identify cohorts where there could be opportunities to provide better care, provide better documentation, and take action. Then, we have an outreach product where we can take those insights and drive them through to actions through to the patient, including self-scheduling. So this is all on a common software platform, which allows us to deploy faster and have configurability, but we're focusing on those three main areas."
"The way we come at it is from the quality perspective. If you're doing the right thing and trying to optimize the accuracy of capturing that information, the revenue will follow. One of our use cases is around hospital rankings and how you improve risk adjustment to make sure that you're getting credit for the quality you're providing and that your documentation is fully accurate. We find revenue increases as a result of that effort."
#Tendo #Healthcare #SoftwareSolutions #PatientExperiences
tendo.com
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Dr. Bala Hota, Senior VP and Chief Informatics Officer at Tendo, emphasizes the importance of leveraging data to improve patient care and operational performance in healthcare and overcome biases in access. Focusing on quality measures and integration of structured and unstructured data, Tendo has developed services that support providers, patients, and caregivers using multiple avenues of communication. The acquisition of MDsave allows for a marketplace that provides transparent pricing for medical services, adding to this omnichannel healthcare model.
Bala explains, "At Tendo, our vision is to be the trusted connection between patients, providers, and caregivers, using an intuitive and seamless interface to provide that optimum experience. The way we approach things is we have a number of different ways that people interact with our application and our software. We have a patient care journey application, which helps patients navigate through complex care pathways."
"We have an insights offering that uses a variety of engines to look at electronic record data and claims data to identify cohorts where there could be opportunities to provide better care, provide better documentation, and take action. Then, we have an outreach product where we can take those insights and drive them through to actions through to the patient, including self-scheduling. So this is all on a common software platform, which allows us to deploy faster and have configurability, but we're focusing on those three main areas."
"The way we come at it is from the quality perspective. If you're doing the right thing and trying to optimize the accuracy of capturing that information, the revenue will follow. One of our use cases is around hospital rankings and how you improve risk adjustment to make sure that you're getting credit for the quality you're providing and that your documentation is fully accurate. We find revenue increases as a result of that effort."
#Tendo #Healthcare #SoftwareSolutions #PatientExperiences
tendo.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Philip Chenette, a fertility doctor with over 20 years of experience, talks with Deepak Puri, CEO of Democracy Labs, about misunderstandings about reproductive health and the political ramifications. They discuss the role of doctors in educating patients and politicians about fertility treatments and the importance of the patient's voice and vote to protect reproductive rights.
Deepak sets the stage, "Patients often don't connect the dots. So, having a doctor explain, these are the complications, this is what's happening, this is why I cannot treat IVF for you because regulations and politicians are interfering with the process. As a physician, there's only so much I can do. But if you, as an individual, as a mother, and as a father, want to bring about change, you have to get involved and vote. So, that's where the connection happens. And Dr. Chenette articulates this really well."
Philip explains, "In the early days, it was just people who were trying, and trying, and trying at home and just couldn't get it done, couldn't accomplish the goal of conceiving a pregnancy. I was impressed by the drive that they showed. These were new techniques. Our office was brand new at the time. The ideas of using fertility techniques, of using fertility medications, and laboratory techniques to manage human embryos were all brand new at the time. But people were so driven, patients were so driven to accomplish this goal of building a family that they were willing to engage in those new techniques, and try new ideas, and push, and push, and push until they could get it done."
"As you get older, it gets harder and harder to find that good embryo. Just to illustrate that, in our data, at age 25, 1 in three of your embryos is a healthy one, a third. At age 40, that number is one in 10. At age 44, that number is one in 100. 1% of the embryos you can produce have the chromosomes it takes to produce a baby at age 44. That problem is really what we dealt with and what created the fertility world we know today, in vitro fertilization, and the busy practices that we have taking care of patients."
#DrPhilipChenette @TheDemLabs #FertilityTreatments #ReproductiveRights #IVF #WomensHealth #ReproductiveHealth #WomensRights
TheDemLabs.org
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Philip Chenette, a fertility doctor with over 20 years of experience, talks with Deepak Puri, CEO of Democracy Labs, about misunderstandings about reproductive health and the political ramifications. They discuss the role of doctors in educating patients and politicians about fertility treatments and the importance of the patient's voice and vote to protect reproductive rights.
Deepak sets the stage, "Patients often don't connect the dots. So, having a doctor explain, these are the complications, this is what's happening, this is why I cannot treat IVF for you because regulations and politicians are interfering with the process. As a physician, there's only so much I can do. But if you, as an individual, as a mother, and as a father, want to bring about change, you have to get involved and vote. So, that's where the connection happens. And Dr. Chenette articulates this really well."
Philip explains, "In the early days, it was just people who were trying, and trying, and trying at home and just couldn't get it done, couldn't accomplish the goal of conceiving a pregnancy. I was impressed by the drive that they showed. These were new techniques. Our office was brand new at the time. The ideas of using fertility techniques, of using fertility medications, and laboratory techniques to manage human embryos were all brand new at the time. But people were so driven, patients were so driven to accomplish this goal of building a family that they were willing to engage in those new techniques, and try new ideas, and push, and push, and push until they could get it done."
"As you get older, it gets harder and harder to find that good embryo. Just to illustrate that, in our data, at age 25, 1 in three of your embryos is a healthy one, a third. At age 40, that number is one in 10. At age 44, that number is one in 100. 1% of the embryos you can produce have the chromosomes it takes to produce a baby at age 44. That problem is really what we dealt with and what created the fertility world we know today, in vitro fertilization, and the busy practices that we have taking care of patients."
#DrPhilipChenette @TheDemLabs #FertilityTreatments #ReproductiveRights #IVF #WomensHealth #ReproductiveHealth #WomensRights
TheDemLabs.org
Download the transcript here
Amanda Bury, Chief Commercial Officer at Infermedica, emphasizes the need for better care navigation tools to help educate patients about care options and appropriate providers to address their concerns. AI-powered care navigation also supports clinicians by identifying patients who need in-clinic attention, those who can be helped through a telehealth visit, or those who can be given instructions about self-care at home. Amanda addresses the need for education and trust when bringing AI to healthcare and the positive impact these technologies can have on alleviating the shortage of healthcare workers.
Amanda explains, "Taking it a step further is this new wave of care navigation tools, which takes that search match a step further. It leverages more of a question-and-answer capability to help route, manage, and navigate patients to the best care choice, whether inside a hospital via a telemedicine appointment or maybe they can even self-care at home. So, care navigation tools have evolved quite a bit, and we're now at this beginning stage of AI-powered care navigation tools, making the industry that much more exciting."
"At Infermedica, we have an AI-powered tool either for health plans or health systems to take clinically validated navigation and help guide those patients and members towards the most appropriate and cost-effective care. So I always like to say, "When you were younger, did you ever do those choose your own adventures where you would go through and pick and choose what your next step was?" And that is really what these AI-powered care navigation tools are doing: they're taking and learning along the way based on the symptoms and how the patient is feeling and helping direct them to the right level of care."
#Infermedica #HealthcareAI #AI #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth
Infermedica.com
Listen to the podcast here
Amanda Bury, Chief Commercial Officer at Infermedica, emphasizes the need for better care navigation tools to help educate patients about care options and appropriate providers to address their concerns. AI-powered care navigation also supports clinicians by identifying patients who need in-clinic attention, those who can be helped through a telehealth visit, or those who can be given instructions about self-care at home. Amanda addresses the need for education and trust when bringing AI to healthcare and the positive impact these technologies can have on alleviating the shortage of healthcare workers.
Amanda explains, "Taking it a step further is this new wave of care navigation tools, which takes that search match a step further. It leverages more of a question-and-answer capability to help route, manage, and navigate patients to the best care choice, whether inside a hospital via a telemedicine appointment or maybe they can even self-care at home. So, care navigation tools have evolved quite a bit, and we're now at this beginning stage of AI-powered care navigation tools, making the industry that much more exciting."
"At Infermedica, we have an AI-powered tool either for health plans or health systems to take clinically validated navigation and help guide those patients and members towards the most appropriate and cost-effective care. So I always like to say, "When you were younger, did you ever do those choose your own adventures where you would go through and pick and choose what your next step was?" And that is really what these AI-powered care navigation tools are doing: they're taking and learning along the way based on the symptoms and how the patient is feeling and helping direct them to the right level of care."
#Infermedica #HealthcareAI #AI #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth
Infermedica.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ahzam Afzal, Co-Founder and CEO of Puzzle Healthcare, aims to reduce readmission rates to hospitals and skilled nursing facilities by focusing on discharge planning and post-acute care. High readmission rates can result in financial penalties and are often caused by the complexity of the patient's condition and social determinants of health. Puzzle is working with health systems and SNFs to implement a readmission prevention program that includes physiatry and care coordination 90 days after discharge.
Ahzam explains, "Hospital readmissions have become a focal point for our healthcare systems for several reasons. First and foremost, they are a key indicator of the quality of care being provided by these facilities. High readmission rates often suggest that patients may not be receiving the comprehensive care they need during their hospital stay or the necessary support post-discharge. This could be due to inadequate discharge planning, insufficient patient education on their conditions, or a lack of effective follow-up care."
"Additionally, readmissions place a substantial financial burden on healthcare facilities. Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals with higher than expected readmission rates for certain conditions face significant penalties including reduced Medicare reimbursements. This policy was also extended to skilled nursing facilities through the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing program, which penalizes SNF facilities based on their readmission rates starting in 2024."
#PuzzleHealthcare #ReadmissionPrevention #Hospitals #SkilledNursingFacilities #ValueBasedCare #PostAcuteCare #SDOH
puzzlehealthcare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ahzam Afzal, Co-Founder and CEO of Puzzle Healthcare, aims to reduce readmission rates to hospitals and skilled nursing facilities by focusing on discharge planning and post-acute care. High readmission rates can result in financial penalties and are often caused by the complexity of the patient's condition and social determinants of health. Puzzle is working with health systems and SNFs to implement a readmission prevention program that includes physiatry and care coordination 90 days after discharge.
Ahzam explains, "Hospital readmissions have become a focal point for our healthcare systems for several reasons. First and foremost, they are a key indicator of the quality of care being provided by these facilities. High readmission rates often suggest that patients may not be receiving the comprehensive care they need during their hospital stay or the necessary support post-discharge. This could be due to inadequate discharge planning, insufficient patient education on their conditions, or a lack of effective follow-up care."
"Additionally, readmissions place a substantial financial burden on healthcare facilities. Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals with higher than expected readmission rates for certain conditions face significant penalties including reduced Medicare reimbursements. This policy was also extended to skilled nursing facilities through the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing program, which penalizes SNF facilities based on their readmission rates starting in 2024."
#PuzzleHealthcare #ReadmissionPrevention #Hospitals #SkilledNursingFacilities #ValueBasedCare #PostAcuteCare #SDOH
puzzlehealthcare.com
Download the transcript here
JJ Mosolf, Founder and President of Academy Medtech Ventures, develops digital health solutions for use in clinical environments and at home to drive more effective rehabilitation. Addressing the brain and body by combining cognitive training with physical rehabilitation demonstrates better health outcomes and pain management. Their operating system, Cog PT, includes user-friendly tools for in-clinic assessment, AI human motion capture, and training, with a companion app for patients.
JJ explains, "We see the body and the brain as intricately connected. A lot of the literature over the past decade or so points to the brain as a vehicle for the upside, as the driving force behind what goes on from a neuromuscular standpoint. We see this less as, "Let's introduce cognition and neurocognitive training to uncover some deficiency or impairment," and more as a vehicle for training upside purposes. This connection point is typically where people struggle."
"The operating system term references every component within a clinical care instance. We recognize that it isn't just the delivery of a modality that a clinician cares about but the time that it takes to document said intervention and the ability to introduce connectivity to the home environment. We've tried to build a suite of tools to touch on each of those elements and provide the most easy-to-use and valuable service for clinicians, not just at the point of care."
"A tangible example would be the in-clinic modality side of what can be delivered as a software implementation on an iPad. It can be set up whether it's on a stand or in a patient's hands, and it fits within the workflow space. Then we've got some patient education tools and data tools to help on the workflow side, and the home remote monitoring side also rounds out the operating system. That's a core tenet of how we think about technological interventions in the rehab space."
#CognitiveTraining #AI #ComputerVision #Rehabilitation #PhysicalTherapy #Clinicians #DigitalHealth
academymedtechventures.com
Listen to the podcast here
JJ Mosolf, Founder and President of Academy Medtech Ventures, develops digital health solutions for use in clinical environments and at home to drive more effective rehabilitation. Addressing the brain and body by combining cognitive training with physical rehabilitation demonstrates better health outcomes and pain management. Their operating system, Cog PT, includes user-friendly tools for in-clinic assessment, AI human motion capture, and training, with a companion app for patients.
JJ explains, "We see the body and the brain as intricately connected. A lot of the literature over the past decade or so points to the brain as a vehicle for the upside, as the driving force behind what goes on from a neuromuscular standpoint. We see this less as, "Let's introduce cognition and neurocognitive training to uncover some deficiency or impairment," and more as a vehicle for training upside purposes. This connection point is typically where people struggle."
"The operating system term references every component within a clinical care instance. We recognize that it isn't just the delivery of a modality that a clinician cares about but the time that it takes to document said intervention and the ability to introduce connectivity to the home environment. We've tried to build a suite of tools to touch on each of those elements and provide the most easy-to-use and valuable service for clinicians, not just at the point of care."
"A tangible example would be the in-clinic modality side of what can be delivered as a software implementation on an iPad. It can be set up whether it's on a stand or in a patient's hands, and it fits within the workflow space. Then we've got some patient education tools and data tools to help on the workflow side, and the home remote monitoring side also rounds out the operating system. That's a core tenet of how we think about technological interventions in the rehab space."
#CognitiveTraining #AI #ComputerVision #Rehabilitation #PhysicalTherapy #Clinicians #DigitalHealth
academymedtechventures.com
Download the transcript here
Adam Kautzner, President of Express Scripts, highlights the role pharmacy benefit management companies play in negotiating prices with drug companies and pharmacies. They also perform health safety checks to ensure patients get the correct medications and updates, and those with multi-morbidities are checked for possible drug interactions. Overcoming the supply chain challenges during the pandemic, Express Scripts continues to develop more effective solutions to lower the cost of drugs and improve access.
Adam explains, "Unfortunately, prescription drugs are becoming even more expensive. So our role in that space is to work for employers, or potentially for health plans, that hire us to help improve, for patients, medication affordability, to improve patient outcomes, and ensure that for patients there is predictability at the pharmacy counter to navigate their pharmacy benefit."
"We're able to do that because, as the most utilized benefit, we have a bird's eye view of all the different patients' needs that they may have. We're able to look over, if you're going to multiple doctors, getting prescribed multiple drugs from multiple doctors. We can actually perform safety checks across all of that to ensure that when you're refilling a prescription or getting a new prescription everything is safe, and there aren't going to be drug interactions. We're able to ensure that you have predictability and affordability for your pharmacy benefits."
"So yes, comorbidities continue to become a broader and broader issue. I would say there are also more drugs now to treat many of those comorbidities, and some products can even treat multiple types of conditions where they've been approved for things like cardiovascular and diabetes. Those drugs that treat multiple conditions can also be helpful as well because you can actually eliminate some drugs and minimize the number of different products that you have to take."
#ExpressScripts #Evernorth #PharmacyBenefitManagement #PBM #DrugCosts
evernorth.com
ExpressScripts.com
The facts about home delivery
Listen to the podcast here
Adam Kautzner, President of Express Scripts, highlights the role pharmacy benefit management companies play in negotiating prices with drug companies and pharmacies. They also perform health safety checks to ensure patients get the correct medications and updates, and those with multi-morbidities are checked for possible drug interactions. Overcoming the supply chain challenges during the pandemic, Express Scripts continues to develop more effective solutions to lower the cost of drugs and improve access.
Adam explains, "Unfortunately, prescription drugs are becoming even more expensive. So our role in that space is to work for employers, or potentially for health plans, that hire us to help improve, for patients, medication affordability, to improve patient outcomes, and ensure that for patients there is predictability at the pharmacy counter to navigate their pharmacy benefit."
"We're able to do that because, as the most utilized benefit, we have a bird's eye view of all the different patients' needs that they may have. We're able to look over, if you're going to multiple doctors, getting prescribed multiple drugs from multiple doctors. We can actually perform safety checks across all of that to ensure that when you're refilling a prescription or getting a new prescription everything is safe, and there aren't going to be drug interactions. We're able to ensure that you have predictability and affordability for your pharmacy benefits."
"So yes, comorbidities continue to become a broader and broader issue. I would say there are also more drugs now to treat many of those comorbidities, and some products can even treat multiple types of conditions where they've been approved for things like cardiovascular and diabetes. Those drugs that treat multiple conditions can also be helpful as well because you can actually eliminate some drugs and minimize the number of different products that you have to take."
#ExpressScripts #Evernorth #PharmacyBenefitManagement #PBM #DrugCosts
evernorth.com
ExpressScripts.com
The facts about home delivery
Download the transcript here
Wayne Picker, Head of Operations at Prenuvo, discusses the use of whole-body MRI as an early detection tool to change the paradigm of healthcare from reactive to proactive. Using an optimized MRI machine, these 3D scans allow clinicians and patients to identify early signs of disease and gain insights into actionable information that can influence lifestyle changes and future testing. Prenuvo is focused on reducing the cost of whole-body MRI scans and making them affordable and accessible to reduce late-stage diagnoses dramatically.
Wayne explains, "MRI is still quite a young tool. It's only been around for the last 40 years. Traditionally, MRI has always been a slow scan technique. And so, because of that, it's usually the last test people are ever getting done. Usually, imaging starts with an X-ray. If they can't find the solution from that, they'll often go for a CT scan or an ultrasound, and usually, MRIs are the last test that people get sent for."
"This is a real shame because MRI is the most sensitive and specific scan for lots of different health conditions. So, part of forming Prenuvo was looking to change that paradigm. We were looking to use MRI as the first test. And if we image the body sooner before somebody has symptoms, then health outcomes have to be better. The direction has been using MRI, a safe imaging test to scan head to toe, looking for as many different health conditions as possible."
"One was to screen for the most conditions possible. The next one was to do it in a time-savvy way, doing the scan in less than an hour. Then the third one was to make it as reproducible as possible. We could compare the scan from one year to the next so we could come in and follow the progression or the consistency of their health conditions year-on-year, as well as with our different clinics, making sure that those scans are reproducible."
#Prenuvo #ProactiveHealthcare #WholeBodyMRI #Healthtech
Prenuvo.com
Listen to the podcast here
Wayne Picker, Head of Operations at Prenuvo, discusses the use of whole-body MRI as an early detection tool to change the paradigm of healthcare from reactive to proactive. Using an optimized MRI machine, these 3D scans allow clinicians and patients to identify early signs of disease and gain insights into actionable information that can influence lifestyle changes and future testing. Prenuvo is focused on reducing the cost of whole-body MRI scans and making them affordable and accessible to reduce late-stage diagnoses dramatically.
Wayne explains, "MRI is still quite a young tool. It's only been around for the last 40 years. Traditionally, MRI has always been a slow scan technique. And so, because of that, it's usually the last test people are ever getting done. Usually, imaging starts with an X-ray. If they can't find the solution from that, they'll often go for a CT scan or an ultrasound, and usually, MRIs are the last test that people get sent for."
"This is a real shame because MRI is the most sensitive and specific scan for lots of different health conditions. So, part of forming Prenuvo was looking to change that paradigm. We were looking to use MRI as the first test. And if we image the body sooner before somebody has symptoms, then health outcomes have to be better. The direction has been using MRI, a safe imaging test to scan head to toe, looking for as many different health conditions as possible."
"One was to screen for the most conditions possible. The next one was to do it in a time-savvy way, doing the scan in less than an hour. Then the third one was to make it as reproducible as possible. We could compare the scan from one year to the next so we could come in and follow the progression or the consistency of their health conditions year-on-year, as well as with our different clinics, making sure that those scans are reproducible."
#Prenuvo #ProactiveHealthcare #WholeBodyMRI #Healthtech
Prenuvo.com
Download the transcript here
Cynthia Pussinen, CEO of Sernova, describes their innovative cell therapy platform, the Cell Pouch System, which can deliver functional cures for chronic diseases using therapeutic cells, tissues, proteins, and other molecules. This implantable device is made of mesh that allows for vascularization, forming a pseudo-organ that can function in the body and fulfill unmet needs. The current focus is on type one diabetes, where the Cell Pouch has shown promising results, allowing patients to become insulin-independent. Other potential applications include treating hypothyroidism and hemophilia A.
Cynthia explains, "The Cell Pouch is a very flexible implantable device. It's made of two polypropylene mesh sheets, and in those mesh sheets, it has perfectly sized pores. So, the Cell Pouch is a couple of millimeters thick and about the size of a credit card."
"We take the Cell Pouch and, place it in the abdominal region of the patient and let it sit for a couple of weeks. And that is to allow vascularization. So vessels and tissues grow through those pores I mentioned a moment ago of the Cell Pouch. It creates a very healthy environment for us to put those therapeutic cells or tissues or blood factors, hormones, or proteins into that Cell Pouch a couple of weeks later after that full vascularization has happened. If we put the cells in without the vascularization happening first, the cells would die."
"After we place those therapeutic cells into the Cell Pouch, the cells in the Cell Pouch essentially form a pseudo-organ of sorts. They begin to function, fulfilling what the body was not capable of previously performing. And so in the case of our type one diabetes study, what happens is, after the Cell Pouch and cells are implanted into the patient's body, we then begin to titrate them off of insulin over the course of a couple of weeks. Then the body with the Cell Pouch and cells goes on to essentially form that pseudo-organ of sorts. We have patients now who have been insulin-independent for a number of years."
#Sernova #FunctionalCure #TypeOneDiabetes #CellTherapy #ChronicDiseases #PrecisionMedicine #Medtech
Sernova.com
Listen to the podcast here
Cynthia Pussinen, CEO of Sernova, describes their innovative cell therapy platform, the Cell Pouch System, which can deliver functional cures for chronic diseases using therapeutic cells, tissues, proteins, and other molecules. This implantable device is made of mesh that allows for vascularization, forming a pseudo-organ that can function in the body and fulfill unmet needs. The current focus is on type one diabetes, where the Cell Pouch has shown promising results, allowing patients to become insulin-independent. Other potential applications include treating hypothyroidism and hemophilia A.
Cynthia explains, "The Cell Pouch is a very flexible implantable device. It's made of two polypropylene mesh sheets, and in those mesh sheets, it has perfectly sized pores. So, the Cell Pouch is a couple of millimeters thick and about the size of a credit card."
"We take the Cell Pouch and, place it in the abdominal region of the patient and let it sit for a couple of weeks. And that is to allow vascularization. So vessels and tissues grow through those pores I mentioned a moment ago of the Cell Pouch. It creates a very healthy environment for us to put those therapeutic cells or tissues or blood factors, hormones, or proteins into that Cell Pouch a couple of weeks later after that full vascularization has happened. If we put the cells in without the vascularization happening first, the cells would die."
"After we place those therapeutic cells into the Cell Pouch, the cells in the Cell Pouch essentially form a pseudo-organ of sorts. They begin to function, fulfilling what the body was not capable of previously performing. And so in the case of our type one diabetes study, what happens is, after the Cell Pouch and cells are implanted into the patient's body, we then begin to titrate them off of insulin over the course of a couple of weeks. Then the body with the Cell Pouch and cells goes on to essentially form that pseudo-organ of sorts. We have patients now who have been insulin-independent for a number of years."
#Sernova #FunctionalCure #TypeOneDiabetes #CellTherapy #ChronicDiseases #PrecisionMedicine #Medtech
Sernova.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ben Barlow, Chief Medical Officer of Experity, has identified opportunities to leverage the power of technology in the complex urgent care environment, which requires a wide range of services. To overcome the challenges of long wait times and staffing shortages, Experity is streamlining workflows and making urgent care more efficient and patient-centered. Online scheduling, pre-visit information gathering, and access to existing electronic health records aid clinicians in treatment decisions and post-visit follow-up, resulting in improved delivery of on-demand healthcare services.
Ben explains, "We do a lot of different things. I don't think people know what we do in urgent care. We started being an alternative for patients to the emergency department, but now we've evolved into being patient-centered to where the doctor waits on the patient. And so, that's what we do in urgent care. We take care of a lot of different needs of the patients, really dictated on what the patients want us to help them with."
"I think that urgent care's strength is that we continue to think about the challenges the patients are experiencing and try to adapt to those challenges. An example is recently, when COVID hit, no one wanted to wait in lobbies. They didn't want to interact with other sick people. So urgent care ramped up its online scheduling, allowing patients to get on a waitlist online and then get texted when it was their time to come in. And so it's those kinds of things that, as challenges arise, the urgent care community is looking to address. Our major challenge right now is looking at the payer system, challenges with reimbursement, labor shortages, and things like that."
"We want to think of the patient as not just the interaction that occurs inside the clinic but also before and after because the medical community and the healthcare environment are very complicated to navigate. We feel like urgent care is the front door into the system, so we're continuing to make products and services that help our clients help patients navigate the complexities of the healthcare environment."
#Experity #UrgentCare #PatientExperience #Healthcare
experityhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ben Barlow, Chief Medical Officer of Experity, has identified opportunities to leverage the power of technology in the complex urgent care environment, which requires a wide range of services. To overcome the challenges of long wait times and staffing shortages, Experity is streamlining workflows and making urgent care more efficient and patient-centered. Online scheduling, pre-visit information gathering, and access to existing electronic health records aid clinicians in treatment decisions and post-visit follow-up, resulting in improved delivery of on-demand healthcare services.
Ben explains, "We do a lot of different things. I don't think people know what we do in urgent care. We started being an alternative for patients to the emergency department, but now we've evolved into being patient-centered to where the doctor waits on the patient. And so, that's what we do in urgent care. We take care of a lot of different needs of the patients, really dictated on what the patients want us to help them with."
"I think that urgent care's strength is that we continue to think about the challenges the patients are experiencing and try to adapt to those challenges. An example is recently, when COVID hit, no one wanted to wait in lobbies. They didn't want to interact with other sick people. So urgent care ramped up its online scheduling, allowing patients to get on a waitlist online and then get texted when it was their time to come in. And so it's those kinds of things that, as challenges arise, the urgent care community is looking to address. Our major challenge right now is looking at the payer system, challenges with reimbursement, labor shortages, and things like that."
"We want to think of the patient as not just the interaction that occurs inside the clinic but also before and after because the medical community and the healthcare environment are very complicated to navigate. We feel like urgent care is the front door into the system, so we're continuing to make products and services that help our clients help patients navigate the complexities of the healthcare environment."
#Experity #UrgentCare #PatientExperience #Healthcare
experityhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Meg Boehme, living with multiple sclerosis and a friend, discusses her reaction to receiving the diagnosis of MS, which she had suspected for many years due to little-understood symptoms. Meg highlights the importance of doctors being aware of the early indications of MS and helping patients see this as a chronic condition that can, in part, be treated with lifestyle changes and staying active. She also emphasizes the need for more affordable access to the latest treatments.
Meg explains, "Oh, yes. It is a chronic condition. What annoys me is that in the media, it's often treated as a fatal condition. And for most of us, for those who don't have the progressive form, it fortunately is not. It doesn't have to be. The diagnosis is not necessarily the end of the world."
"There are good treatments coming down the road. The key to it is keeping yourself active and keeping your own body as healthy as you can. Eating well, staying active, keeping your weight manageable, keeping your diet manageable. Don't do stupid things. That being responsible for your own body, being responsible for your own life. When you get a diagnosis of anything like this, you need to take a look and know that you need to take care of yourself."
"It's a lifesaver, quite literally. I'll go into the chorus in pain, and the pain disappears. Singing is, in all ways, the lifeblood of me. And yes, the singing, the breathing, the posture, the fact that I stand on the risers for three hours a week, that it keeps my brain active, that I have to learn the music. We sing completely acapella. We have about three weeks to learn a piece of music and then sing without looking at the music. And that my director has MS and is not sympathetic towards me. If I'm dizzy or have a problem, I can sit, but I mostly don't. I gut it out. But if I come in pain, most of the time, I don't leave in pain. It's just the thing that keeps me going, and I think the big thing is that it keeps my brain active."
#MS #MultipleSclerosis #ChronicDiseases
Listen to the podcast here
Meg Boehme, living with multiple sclerosis and a friend, discusses her reaction to receiving the diagnosis of MS, which she had suspected for many years due to little-understood symptoms. Meg highlights the importance of doctors being aware of the early indications of MS and helping patients see this as a chronic condition that can, in part, be treated with lifestyle changes and staying active. She also emphasizes the need for more affordable access to the latest treatments.
Meg explains, "Oh, yes. It is a chronic condition. What annoys me is that in the media, it's often treated as a fatal condition. And for most of us, for those who don't have the progressive form, it fortunately is not. It doesn't have to be. The diagnosis is not necessarily the end of the world."
"There are good treatments coming down the road. The key to it is keeping yourself active and keeping your own body as healthy as you can. Eating well, staying active, keeping your weight manageable, keeping your diet manageable. Don't do stupid things. That being responsible for your own body, being responsible for your own life. When you get a diagnosis of anything like this, you need to take a look and know that you need to take care of yourself."
"It's a lifesaver, quite literally. I'll go into the chorus in pain, and the pain disappears. Singing is, in all ways, the lifeblood of me. And yes, the singing, the breathing, the posture, the fact that I stand on the risers for three hours a week, that it keeps my brain active, that I have to learn the music. We sing completely acapella. We have about three weeks to learn a piece of music and then sing without looking at the music. And that my director has MS and is not sympathetic towards me. If I'm dizzy or have a problem, I can sit, but I mostly don't. I gut it out. But if I come in pain, most of the time, I don't leave in pain. It's just the thing that keeps me going, and I think the big thing is that it keeps my brain active."
#MS #MultipleSclerosis #ChronicDiseases
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Kinsey Fabrizio, now President of the Consumer Technology Association, highlights many digital health innovations in the women's health arena showcased in the recent CES 2024 event. A recent CTA study found that 45% of women currently use digital health solutions, and 75% of women in the survey face challenges obtaining healthcare services. With oversight from the FDA, medical devices and wearables are becoming increasingly accurate. With the addition of AI, they are expected to play a role in improving healthcare outcomes and access.
Kinsey explains, "CTA is a nonprofit trade association, and we represent the entire consumer technology industry. And a big part of that is digital health. We have members who are digital health companies, and we strive to help advance the industry for them. We do that through policy, research, and standards development. We're an ANSI-Accredited Standards organization, and through different events, we convene the industry together."
"We saw a lot of really exciting innovations in women's health at the CES 2024 show. Digital health is always a really big category for CES. We have hundreds of exhibitors in this category, and we do two full days of conference programming called our Digital Health Summit. And it's an opportunity for the industry to come together and talk about the exciting transformation of healthcare led by technology. But some really exciting products that we saw in the women's health space were just unique and stood out."
"That is just an example of how tech is starting to be tailored to address specific women's health issues. This isn't something I would've seen at CES 10 years ago, so it shows the evolution and advancement there. Another product that I thought was just game-changing is Cerviray, a cancer screening device by AIDOT, which utilizes a very specific technique called visual inspection with acetic acid. And it's faster, simpler, and less invasive than traditional tests like the pap smear."
#CTA #ConsumerTechnologyAssociation #EmpowerHerHealth #AIforHerHealth #EmpowHERHealth #FutureofFeminineHealth
cta.tech
Listen to the podcast here
Kinsey Fabrizio, now President of the Consumer Technology Association, highlights many digital health innovations in the women's health arena showcased in the recent CES 2024 event. A recent CTA study found that 45% of women currently use digital health solutions, and 75% of women in the survey face challenges obtaining healthcare services. With oversight from the FDA, medical devices and wearables are becoming increasingly accurate. With the addition of AI, they are expected to play a role in improving healthcare outcomes and access.
Kinsey explains, "CTA is a nonprofit trade association, and we represent the entire consumer technology industry. And a big part of that is digital health. We have members who are digital health companies, and we strive to help advance the industry for them. We do that through policy, research, and standards development. We're an ANSI-Accredited Standards organization, and through different events, we convene the industry together."
"We saw a lot of really exciting innovations in women's health at the CES 2024 show. Digital health is always a really big category for CES. We have hundreds of exhibitors in this category, and we do two full days of conference programming called our Digital Health Summit. And it's an opportunity for the industry to come together and talk about the exciting transformation of healthcare led by technology. But some really exciting products that we saw in the women's health space were just unique and stood out."
"That is just an example of how tech is starting to be tailored to address specific women's health issues. This isn't something I would've seen at CES 10 years ago, so it shows the evolution and advancement there. Another product that I thought was just game-changing is Cerviray, a cancer screening device by AIDOT, which utilizes a very specific technique called visual inspection with acetic acid. And it's faster, simpler, and less invasive than traditional tests like the pap smear."
#CTA #ConsumerTechnologyAssociation #EmpowerHerHealth #AIforHerHealth #EmpowHERHealth #FutureofFeminineHealth
cta.tech
Download the transcript here
Dahlia Attia-King, CEO of Panacea, is bringing whole exome sequencing to a broader audience and promoting the value of this data for disease prevention and making smarter lifestyle choices. She highlights the differences between whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing, noting that whole exome sequencing can be conducted more cost-effectively and provide information about the genes most likely to impact health.
Dahlia explains, "These two barriers, the physicians and the insurers, are sometimes big barriers to accessing clinical genetic testing for people, even those who need it and those who fit the current guidelines. We aim to bypass those barriers and partner with very skilled CLIA/CAP certified laboratories. We partner with trained clinical genetic counselors. We partner with physicians who understand how to utilize genetic testing, and we bring those services collectively in one very simple, user-friendly experience so that no one who wants genetic testing will struggle to get it."
"We do that and focus on whole exome because, number one, it's more cost-effective. It's actually quite a lot more expensive to sequence the entire genome. So when you focus on just the genes, you focus on the 20,000 plus genes in the genome and nothing else. But that's so valuable because the vast majority of changes or mutations in your genome that affect your susceptibility for disease happen in the exome."
"But to your point, there is also a large amount of data that can come off the exome that is interpretable. And in a lot of cases, just like you said, it's actionable, which means that information can be used to make certain targeted decisions in your healthcare so that you can essentially, in a way, get ahead of your genes or outsmart your genes because you're prepared. You know the instructions that your genes are holding and where your risks might be. That way, you can certainly better target your healthcare and take a more preventative approach as opposed to a reactionary approach, which happens in most cases in today's healthcare."
#SeekPanacea #WholeExomeSequencing #WholeGenomeSequencing #Genome #PreventativeMedicine
seekpanacea.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dahlia Attia-King, CEO of Panacea, is bringing whole exome sequencing to a broader audience and promoting the value of this data for disease prevention and making smarter lifestyle choices. She highlights the differences between whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing, noting that whole exome sequencing can be conducted more cost-effectively and provide information about the genes most likely to impact health.
Dahlia explains, "These two barriers, the physicians and the insurers, are sometimes big barriers to accessing clinical genetic testing for people, even those who need it and those who fit the current guidelines. We aim to bypass those barriers and partner with very skilled CLIA/CAP certified laboratories. We partner with trained clinical genetic counselors. We partner with physicians who understand how to utilize genetic testing, and we bring those services collectively in one very simple, user-friendly experience so that no one who wants genetic testing will struggle to get it."
"We do that and focus on whole exome because, number one, it's more cost-effective. It's actually quite a lot more expensive to sequence the entire genome. So when you focus on just the genes, you focus on the 20,000 plus genes in the genome and nothing else. But that's so valuable because the vast majority of changes or mutations in your genome that affect your susceptibility for disease happen in the exome."
"But to your point, there is also a large amount of data that can come off the exome that is interpretable. And in a lot of cases, just like you said, it's actionable, which means that information can be used to make certain targeted decisions in your healthcare so that you can essentially, in a way, get ahead of your genes or outsmart your genes because you're prepared. You know the instructions that your genes are holding and where your risks might be. That way, you can certainly better target your healthcare and take a more preventative approach as opposed to a reactionary approach, which happens in most cases in today's healthcare."
#SeekPanacea #WholeExomeSequencing #WholeGenomeSequencing #Genome #PreventativeMedicine
seekpanacea.com
Download the transcript here
Steven Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Ianacare, is in the business of supporting caregivers by working with employers, health plans, and providers to offer services that patients and their families need. Effective hospital-at-home and home non-clinical care models show a reduction in hospital readmission and cost of care. This care navigator approach allows caregivers to keep patients in their homes and reduces employee absenteeism. Working with partners, Ianacare has applied to be an approved provider in the new CMS program GUIDE, the Guiding and Improved Dementia Experience program, to expand the application of this model.
Steven explains, "This has become really critical. For one reason, good caregiving in the home keeps patients in the home and out of institutions. And that's a win-win-win for everybody. Patients prefer being in the familiar surroundings of their home. We all would prefer to age in our own homes. It's cheaper for the healthcare system. Every inpatient admission or ER visit prevented by a family care member is thousands of dollars saved in the healthcare system."
"So it's really a win-win-win. The numbers and the research out there clearly prove these caregivers' critical role. I'll cite a couple of studies. There's a UPMC study that shows when family caregivers are involved and engaged in care plans, hospital readmissions decrease by 25%. Conversely, there's a study from the Journal of American Geriatric Society when patients have caregivers who are depressed, burnt out, or tired, they experienced a 73% increase in ED utilization and $2,000 higher medical costs over six months. So, to summarize, good caregiving keeps patients in the home, and that's why this is important."
"What we've done is bring together all the layers of resources you might need at some point in the care journey into one easy-to-use experience. We have a platform accessible through a browser or smartphone, and it starts by matching you up with unlimited access to a care navigator who's your right-hand expert to not only guide you through decisions and planning but also ensure things get done."
#Ianacare #Caregivers #HospitalatHome #HospitalReadmission #CareNavigators #CMSGUIDE #AlzheimersDisease
Ianacare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Steven Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Ianacare, is in the business of supporting caregivers by working with employers, health plans, and providers to offer services that patients and their families need. Effective hospital-at-home and home non-clinical care models show a reduction in hospital readmission and cost of care. This care navigator approach allows caregivers to keep patients in their homes and reduces employee absenteeism. Working with partners, Ianacare has applied to be an approved provider in the new CMS program GUIDE, the Guiding and Improved Dementia Experience program, to expand the application of this model.
Steven explains, "This has become really critical. For one reason, good caregiving in the home keeps patients in the home and out of institutions. And that's a win-win-win for everybody. Patients prefer being in the familiar surroundings of their home. We all would prefer to age in our own homes. It's cheaper for the healthcare system. Every inpatient admission or ER visit prevented by a family care member is thousands of dollars saved in the healthcare system."
"So it's really a win-win-win. The numbers and the research out there clearly prove these caregivers' critical role. I'll cite a couple of studies. There's a UPMC study that shows when family caregivers are involved and engaged in care plans, hospital readmissions decrease by 25%. Conversely, there's a study from the Journal of American Geriatric Society when patients have caregivers who are depressed, burnt out, or tired, they experienced a 73% increase in ED utilization and $2,000 higher medical costs over six months. So, to summarize, good caregiving keeps patients in the home, and that's why this is important."
"What we've done is bring together all the layers of resources you might need at some point in the care journey into one easy-to-use experience. We have a platform accessible through a browser or smartphone, and it starts by matching you up with unlimited access to a care navigator who's your right-hand expert to not only guide you through decisions and planning but also ensure things get done."
#Ianacare #Caregivers #HospitalatHome #HospitalReadmission #CareNavigators #CMSGUIDE #AlzheimersDisease
Ianacare.com
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Stella Vnook, the Founder and President, and Bill Breitenbach, CEO of Oral Bio Life, talk about the prevalence and causes of periodontal disease and the limitations of current treatments. The Oral Bio Life PiezoGEL technology has shown effective removal of plaque and treatment of bacteria on teeth and regenerating bone for a long-term solution. Periodontal disease contributes to inflammation and infection and is showing links to other health conditions like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. In addition to human trials, success is seen in trials with veterinarians to regenerate bone in dogs.
Stella Vnook elaborates, "Dentists can identify the early warning signs, but in addition to oral hygiene, we also found, and it's supported by data, there are some people who are predisposed to just having issues with their gums and/or periodontal disease. There are genetic implications, and there are people that have comorbidities. The goal is to remove the plaque and the bacteria film. But the process is rather painful. One of the reasons why I founded this technology and this company is because of the scaling and root planing, which is quite painful."
Bill explains, "I'd like to add there's a real recognition lately from scientists around the world that inflammation is the root cause of a lot of major diseases - cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even Alzheimer's. What they're finding is that the fibrous bacteria travel from the mouth throughout the body, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, pregnancy complications, cancer, and Alzheimer's. Just recently, there's some NIH data that shows that P. gingivitis, the main pathogen for chronic gum disease, has been identified in the brain of Alzheimer's disease patients. So, it's not just about gum disease, it's about total body health, and there is a need to be taking care of that and being mindful of the downstream effects of not taking care of periodontal disease."
#OralBioLife #GumDisease #PeriodontalDisease #Inflammation #Veterinarians #BoneRegeneration
oralbiolife.com
Listen to the podcast here
Stella Vnook, the Founder and President, and Bill Breitenbach, CEO of Oral Bio Life, talk about the prevalence and causes of periodontal disease and the limitations of current treatments. The Oral Bio Life PiezoGEL technology has shown effective removal of plaque and treatment of bacteria on teeth and regenerating bone for a long-term solution. Periodontal disease contributes to inflammation and infection and is showing links to other health conditions like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. In addition to human trials, success is seen in trials with veterinarians to regenerate bone in dogs.
Stella Vnook elaborates, "Dentists can identify the early warning signs, but in addition to oral hygiene, we also found, and it's supported by data, there are some people who are predisposed to just having issues with their gums and/or periodontal disease. There are genetic implications, and there are people that have comorbidities. The goal is to remove the plaque and the bacteria film. But the process is rather painful. One of the reasons why I founded this technology and this company is because of the scaling and root planing, which is quite painful."
Bill explains, "I'd like to add there's a real recognition lately from scientists around the world that inflammation is the root cause of a lot of major diseases - cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even Alzheimer's. What they're finding is that the fibrous bacteria travel from the mouth throughout the body, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, pregnancy complications, cancer, and Alzheimer's. Just recently, there's some NIH data that shows that P. gingivitis, the main pathogen for chronic gum disease, has been identified in the brain of Alzheimer's disease patients. So, it's not just about gum disease, it's about total body health, and there is a need to be taking care of that and being mindful of the downstream effects of not taking care of periodontal disease."
#OralBioLife #GumDisease #PeriodontalDisease #Inflammation #Veterinarians #BoneRegeneration
oralbiolife.com
Download the transcript here
Chuck Rinker, CEO of PRSONAS, sees the next-generation workforce of digital healthcare components as digital personalities and avatars that will act as patient advocates and improve the communications between patients and clinicians. With an emphasis on building trust and showing empathy, these digital tools help gather accurate information and break down language and cultural barriers. Avatars can be customized for locations like hospital lobbies and purposes like clinical trial recruitment. With a background in game programming, Chuck brings a deep knowledge of how the emotional bond between gamers and avatars can be applied to building more robust patient engagement.
Chuck explains, "Since technology has been predominant in the healthcare space, we've always had to teach people how to use technology, and the barrier is communication. So, we've said, well, let's just take a different approach. We're not trying to recreate humans, and we're not trying to replace humans. We're just trying to teach all this technology, this scalable healthcare, this improvement in healthcare technology that we have, and make it so that it can communicate to us as humans. We naturally communicate as humans. We don't naturally communicate as an IT specialist, so we're trying to flip it on its head and work it the other way around."
"That was a concept we started way back in 2013. We originally built a few of these as product specialists in the pharmaceutical drug launch space. I think Genentech and Pfizer were probably the first ones to use it. It was meant to support the healthcare professionals. Okay, what's all the information you have, from prescribing information to all the complexities of a mechanism of disease and all that you have to relay over and over and over during a multiphase pharmaceutical launch? So, we built these repeatable humans to be those domain experts."
"We've learned along the way that it was a great, wonderful piece but that the patients themselves are the ones who are getting "lost in the mix." So, our units are trained to speak whatever language is used by the patient population you're targeting. They can be culturally diverse. We do Sign Language - American Sign Language and British Sign Language. So it's really about creating that advocate, breaking down that communication barrier so that every patient feels represented and welcomed and has their own patient advocate to help them through that healthcare journey."
#PRSONAS #Avatars #DigitalPersonalities #DigitalHealth #AI #PatientAdvocate #PatientEngagement #ClinicalTrials
PRSONAS.com
Listen to the podcast here
Chuck Rinker, CEO of PRSONAS, sees the next-generation workforce of digital healthcare components as digital personalities and avatars that will act as patient advocates and improve the communications between patients and clinicians. With an emphasis on building trust and showing empathy, these digital tools help gather accurate information and break down language and cultural barriers. Avatars can be customized for locations like hospital lobbies and purposes like clinical trial recruitment. With a background in game programming, Chuck brings a deep knowledge of how the emotional bond between gamers and avatars can be applied to building more robust patient engagement.
Chuck explains, "Since technology has been predominant in the healthcare space, we've always had to teach people how to use technology, and the barrier is communication. So, we've said, well, let's just take a different approach. We're not trying to recreate humans, and we're not trying to replace humans. We're just trying to teach all this technology, this scalable healthcare, this improvement in healthcare technology that we have, and make it so that it can communicate to us as humans. We naturally communicate as humans. We don't naturally communicate as an IT specialist, so we're trying to flip it on its head and work it the other way around."
"That was a concept we started way back in 2013. We originally built a few of these as product specialists in the pharmaceutical drug launch space. I think Genentech and Pfizer were probably the first ones to use it. It was meant to support the healthcare professionals. Okay, what's all the information you have, from prescribing information to all the complexities of a mechanism of disease and all that you have to relay over and over and over during a multiphase pharmaceutical launch? So, we built these repeatable humans to be those domain experts."
"We've learned along the way that it was a great, wonderful piece but that the patients themselves are the ones who are getting "lost in the mix." So, our units are trained to speak whatever language is used by the patient population you're targeting. They can be culturally diverse. We do Sign Language - American Sign Language and British Sign Language. So it's really about creating that advocate, breaking down that communication barrier so that every patient feels represented and welcomed and has their own patient advocate to help them through that healthcare journey."
#PRSONAS #Avatars #DigitalPersonalities #DigitalHealth #AI #PatientAdvocate #PatientEngagement #ClinicalTrials
PRSONAS.com
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Cody Shandraw, President and Co-Founder of Healing Realty Trust, aims to provide robust mental and behavioral health treatment facilities. The lack of infrastructure has been a significant hurdle for expanding the commercialization of drugs that require longer in-office visits and space to accommodate the needs of patients undergoing treatments. The emerging field of psychedelics for treating neurological conditions like PTSD requires clinicians to understand the physical requirements for treatment facilities to provide privacy and comfort during the extended time necessary for many of these treatments.
Cody explains, "In 2020, it was a really interesting stat that I was made aware of at one of the conferences down here in Miami. It was around a drug called Spravato, which is an intranasal ketamine drug. And they were very excited about the launch. It was in development for quite some time, and unfortunately, it didn't commercialize, I think, to their expectations. I asked one of the drug reps down here in Florida why he thought that was, and he said it was a really simple answer: the lack of infrastructure."
"It's a unique drug, and we've only seen this a couple of times. Maybe proton therapy or dialysis centers where when a new therapy is approved, you need that infrastructure to go along with that therapy. And that is what Spravato was. You actually had to be in a clinic for two hours after administration for Spravato. So it was a very unique thing. And a lot of the legacy behavioral mental health providers that would be the target market for that drug, they didn't want to disrupt normal patient inflows into their clinic. So it took a couple of years. When that drug was launched, there were less than a hundred clinics in the United States offering that. Today, there are 2,700 of those clinics, and now Spravato is a blockbuster drug."
#HealingRealtyTrust #CommercialRealEstate #BehavioralHealth #EmergingTherapies #PsychedelicAssistedTherapy #PatientAccess #HealthcareInfrastructure #ImprovingBehavioralHealth
HealingRT.com
Listen to the podcast here
Cody Shandraw, President and Co-Founder of Healing Realty Trust, aims to provide robust mental and behavioral health treatment facilities. The lack of infrastructure has been a significant hurdle for expanding the commercialization of drugs that require longer in-office visits and space to accommodate the needs of patients undergoing treatments. The emerging field of psychedelics for treating neurological conditions like PTSD requires clinicians to understand the physical requirements for treatment facilities to provide privacy and comfort during the extended time necessary for many of these treatments.
Cody explains, "In 2020, it was a really interesting stat that I was made aware of at one of the conferences down here in Miami. It was around a drug called Spravato, which is an intranasal ketamine drug. And they were very excited about the launch. It was in development for quite some time, and unfortunately, it didn't commercialize, I think, to their expectations. I asked one of the drug reps down here in Florida why he thought that was, and he said it was a really simple answer: the lack of infrastructure."
"It's a unique drug, and we've only seen this a couple of times. Maybe proton therapy or dialysis centers where when a new therapy is approved, you need that infrastructure to go along with that therapy. And that is what Spravato was. You actually had to be in a clinic for two hours after administration for Spravato. So it was a very unique thing. And a lot of the legacy behavioral mental health providers that would be the target market for that drug, they didn't want to disrupt normal patient inflows into their clinic. So it took a couple of years. When that drug was launched, there were less than a hundred clinics in the United States offering that. Today, there are 2,700 of those clinics, and now Spravato is a blockbuster drug."
#HealingRealtyTrust #CommercialRealEstate #BehavioralHealth #EmergingTherapies #PsychedelicAssistedTherapy #PatientAccess #HealthcareInfrastructure #ImprovingBehavioralHealth
HealingRT.com
Download the transcript here
Fengru Lin, Co-Founder and CEO of TurtleTree, is applying precision fermentation technology to produce high-value ingredients for food and beverages without the need for animals. This biotech company's first goal is to expand the production of lactoferrin, a protein found in small quantities in milk that has been shown to promote gut health and immunity. Finding a scalable way to produce lactoferrin will lead to adding this iron-binding element to plant-based milks and energy drinks.
Fengru explains, "A couple of years ago, I was learning how to make cheese as a hobby. It was quite a fanatic period of time. I went up to Vermont from Singapore for a couple of weeks to learn how to make cheese and I wanted to replicate this whole process back in Singapore. But in Singapore, we have no access to cows, we have no access to raw, fresh milk. So, I had to go down to Indonesia and Thailand to look for milk. In this journey, I was exposed to a lot of challenges around the dairy industry, things like contract farming, things like antibiotics, and hormones being pumped into the cows. As a result, the milk quality always suffers, the mozzarella couldn't stretch, it's not enough calcium, not enough nutrients in the milk. So, I gave up that whole idea and was still working for Google."
"So, we bootstrapped initially, brought in some scientists, did a lot of research, and filed our first patent. The technology requires getting memory cells and culturing the cells to express full-function milk, all 2,000 different ingredients in milk. We had our early success and quickly brought this technology to some of the biggest dairy companies in the world, folks like Fonterra and Abbott, and told them, "Hey, we can make milk. What do you think?"
"Very quickly they came back with feedback saying, "Well, great that you can make milk, but milk is $2 a gallon. I don't think you can get to the price point anytime soon. You should really be focused on high-value ingredients that are found in milk." So they gave us a list of half a dozen proteins and ingredients that we should look at, and at the top of the list is lactoferrin because of all these great benefits and the high price point it is today. You guys should be focused on the high-value ingredients that are low in supply across the market so you can address this accessibility problem and not try to reproduce a commodity like milk. So that's how we started and where we are today. We just got our FDA Self GRAS status in November last year, so we've started to commercialize this lactoferrin."
#TurtleTree #FunctionalFood #Lactoferrin #Protein #PrecisionFermentation #Milk #SustainableFoodProduction #Nutrition
turtletree.com
Listen to the podcast here
Fengru Lin, Co-Founder and CEO of TurtleTree, is applying precision fermentation technology to produce high-value ingredients for food and beverages without the need for animals. This biotech company's first goal is to expand the production of lactoferrin, a protein found in small quantities in milk that has been shown to promote gut health and immunity. Finding a scalable way to produce lactoferrin will lead to adding this iron-binding element to plant-based milks and energy drinks.
Fengru explains, "A couple of years ago, I was learning how to make cheese as a hobby. It was quite a fanatic period of time. I went up to Vermont from Singapore for a couple of weeks to learn how to make cheese and I wanted to replicate this whole process back in Singapore. But in Singapore, we have no access to cows, we have no access to raw, fresh milk. So, I had to go down to Indonesia and Thailand to look for milk. In this journey, I was exposed to a lot of challenges around the dairy industry, things like contract farming, things like antibiotics, and hormones being pumped into the cows. As a result, the milk quality always suffers, the mozzarella couldn't stretch, it's not enough calcium, not enough nutrients in the milk. So, I gave up that whole idea and was still working for Google."
"So, we bootstrapped initially, brought in some scientists, did a lot of research, and filed our first patent. The technology requires getting memory cells and culturing the cells to express full-function milk, all 2,000 different ingredients in milk. We had our early success and quickly brought this technology to some of the biggest dairy companies in the world, folks like Fonterra and Abbott, and told them, "Hey, we can make milk. What do you think?"
"Very quickly they came back with feedback saying, "Well, great that you can make milk, but milk is $2 a gallon. I don't think you can get to the price point anytime soon. You should really be focused on high-value ingredients that are found in milk." So they gave us a list of half a dozen proteins and ingredients that we should look at, and at the top of the list is lactoferrin because of all these great benefits and the high price point it is today. You guys should be focused on the high-value ingredients that are low in supply across the market so you can address this accessibility problem and not try to reproduce a commodity like milk. So that's how we started and where we are today. We just got our FDA Self GRAS status in November last year, so we've started to commercialize this lactoferrin."
#TurtleTree #FunctionalFood #Lactoferrin #Protein #PrecisionFermentation #Milk #SustainableFoodProduction #Nutrition
turtletree.com
Download the transcript here
Christian Lillis, Co-Founder and CEO of the Peggy Lillis Foundation is a patient advocate in the fight against C. diff infection. Clostridium difficile is an opportunistic infection of the gut that often occurs after taking antibiotics and can lead to life-threatening complications. Christian shares his personal story of losing his mother to C. diff and highlights the progress made in raising awareness and the development of new treatments for the infection. The Peggy Lillis Foundation emphasizes the importance of patient voices in shaping infectious disease policies and research and the need for community support to fight C. diff and other preventable infectious diseases.
Christian explains, "Last time we did our most recent C. diff awareness month campaign in November, it was our most successful one yet. We reached around 23 million people through a mix of earned, print, video, and podcast media and a strong social media campaign. We also had it bolstered by media partnerships with Contagion Live and Pharmacy Times. As part of our programming for the month, we held a virtual town hall, and about 200 people attended. More than half of them were C. diff patients, survivors, and family members."
"Other progress was at the end of 2022, and then in early 2023, two new therapies. Technically, they are classified as preventative by the FDA, but they are basically microbiome restoration therapies. As I said earlier, when you take antibiotics, there can be other causes. Still, when your gut microbiome, gut bacteria, and viruses get out of whack or depleted, you become very vulnerable to C. diff. And a reason why people struggle to get over C. diff is because their gut microbiome remains degraded. So these new two therapies, one is done by enema, one is given by capsule over several days, it's a really huge change for people who are battling recurrent C. diff."
#CDiff #PeggyLillisFoundation #ClostridiumDifficile #CDifficile #PatientAdvocacy #CdiffAwarenessMonth
cdiff.org
Listen to the podcast here
Christian Lillis, Co-Founder and CEO of the Peggy Lillis Foundation is a patient advocate in the fight against C. diff infection. Clostridium difficile is an opportunistic infection of the gut that often occurs after taking antibiotics and can lead to life-threatening complications. Christian shares his personal story of losing his mother to C. diff and highlights the progress made in raising awareness and the development of new treatments for the infection. The Peggy Lillis Foundation emphasizes the importance of patient voices in shaping infectious disease policies and research and the need for community support to fight C. diff and other preventable infectious diseases.
Christian explains, "Last time we did our most recent C. diff awareness month campaign in November, it was our most successful one yet. We reached around 23 million people through a mix of earned, print, video, and podcast media and a strong social media campaign. We also had it bolstered by media partnerships with Contagion Live and Pharmacy Times. As part of our programming for the month, we held a virtual town hall, and about 200 people attended. More than half of them were C. diff patients, survivors, and family members."
"Other progress was at the end of 2022, and then in early 2023, two new therapies. Technically, they are classified as preventative by the FDA, but they are basically microbiome restoration therapies. As I said earlier, when you take antibiotics, there can be other causes. Still, when your gut microbiome, gut bacteria, and viruses get out of whack or depleted, you become very vulnerable to C. diff. And a reason why people struggle to get over C. diff is because their gut microbiome remains degraded. So these new two therapies, one is done by enema, one is given by capsule over several days, it's a really huge change for people who are battling recurrent C. diff."
#CDiff #PeggyLillisFoundation #ClostridiumDifficile #CDifficile #PatientAdvocacy #CdiffAwarenessMonth
cdiff.org
Download the transcript here
Paul Hickey, President and CEO of ReShape Lifesciences, discusses the company's role in the weight loss industry. The ReShape Lap-Band® and the new ReShape Lap-Band® 2.0 FLEX are tested surgical options for weight loss and weight management and are now being joined in the market by GLP-1 agonists such as Wegovy and Ozempic. While these options are effective for different individuals, Paul emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive approach that includes diet and lifestyle changes. As a society, we have normalized obesity, and more education is needed to inform those with obesity about these effective solutions.
Paul explains, "The weight loss drugs people have been hearing about are the first step for weight loss, along with working with your physician and their team. And then as you move down, the more aggressive treatment, the ReShape products, and in particular the Lap-Band®, which has been around for over 20 years, is the first surgical step performed by a laparoscopic surgeon that goes in and helps to provide for a way to get back on the weight loss path for individuals. And then, beyond that, you have other procedures that are more aggressive that people also have to consider as they continue their journey."
"We see physicians today using the GLP-1s as combination therapy for someone who has a Lap-Band® or a gastric sleeve or a gastric bypass who may have had any one of those procedures, including a Lap-Band® for five or ten years and started to plateau or reverse on their weight loss. Those GLP-1s can be administered and prescribed for those who want to get back on the path to weight loss."
"There are a lot of differences in the type of obesity that someone has. There are a lot of differences in what treatments work better or worse for individuals. I think the side effect, part of the answer to the question is with the GLP-1s, there's going to be probably more studies to come out to show what side effects the GLP-1s have on different population sets. It is certainly being studied today, and the data out there now is part of the data used to get the drugs approved."
#ReShapeLifesciences #LapBandLife #ReShapeLapBand #LapBand #LapBandFLEX #WeightLoss #GLP1
reshapelifesciences.com
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Paul Hickey, President and CEO of ReShape Lifesciences, discusses the company's role in the weight loss industry. The ReShape Lap-Band® and the new ReShape Lap-Band® 2.0 FLEX are tested surgical options for weight loss and weight management and are now being joined in the market by GLP-1 agonists such as Wegovy and Ozempic. While these options are effective for different individuals, Paul emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive approach that includes diet and lifestyle changes. As a society, we have normalized obesity, and more education is needed to inform those with obesity about these effective solutions.
Paul explains, "The weight loss drugs people have been hearing about are the first step for weight loss, along with working with your physician and their team. And then as you move down, the more aggressive treatment, the ReShape products, and in particular the Lap-Band®, which has been around for over 20 years, is the first surgical step performed by a laparoscopic surgeon that goes in and helps to provide for a way to get back on the weight loss path for individuals. And then, beyond that, you have other procedures that are more aggressive that people also have to consider as they continue their journey."
"We see physicians today using the GLP-1s as combination therapy for someone who has a Lap-Band® or a gastric sleeve or a gastric bypass who may have had any one of those procedures, including a Lap-Band® for five or ten years and started to plateau or reverse on their weight loss. Those GLP-1s can be administered and prescribed for those who want to get back on the path to weight loss."
"There are a lot of differences in the type of obesity that someone has. There are a lot of differences in what treatments work better or worse for individuals. I think the side effect, part of the answer to the question is with the GLP-1s, there's going to be probably more studies to come out to show what side effects the GLP-1s have on different population sets. It is certainly being studied today, and the data out there now is part of the data used to get the drugs approved."
#ReShapeLifesciences #LapBandLife #ReShapeLapBand #LapBand #LapBandFLEX #WeightLoss #GLP1
reshapelifesciences.com
Download the transcript here
Matt Hollingsworth, Co-Founder of Carta Healthcare, has identified the need to change how hospitals complete clinical registries, which require information from clinical notes. Currently, nurses manually fill out the forms primarily based on their understanding of the notes from the doctors. Using AI to read through notes, extract relevant information, and enter the data into the clinical registry form saves nurses 95% of their time, improves accuracy, and highlights actionable data. This approach allows the abstractors to spend more time on complex cases and uncover overlooked medical conditions.
Matt explains, "What we do is collect data for these things called clinical registries, which are required quality submissions that hospitals have to do. And we bring AI to the table so that we can make it a not-so-manual process. Historically, the way these forms have been completed has been with just nurse time. Also, I don't think there's a word in the English language to quite correctly describe form in this particular scenario. Just to give a concrete example, if a PCI, so a stent installation via cath is performed, it takes a nurse about an hour and a half to fill out the documentation required to do the submission to the registry. It takes a really long time."
"The problem is that most of it is in the notes. So one of the questions in a registry was the patient hypertensive upon admission. And the way you figure that out is you look, in most cases, in the H&P note and read through it. It'll say somewhere in there that there's either a history of hypertension or they took a blood pressure, and now they have it, etc. And so, the nurse, to paint a picture about what this looks like here, what the nurse is doing is they have the EHR open on one screen, a form to fill out on the other, and they're reading through notes, reaching conclusions, and then filling out the form. So, most of the data needed for this whole process is in the clinical notes, not in some structured form."
"Yes, so this is how we define quality in the whole shift to value-based care. A necessary component is that you measure quality in it. And this is just how the sausage is made for doing that. The way you measure something is you collect data for it. These registries are there to collect data, and in many cases, they are procedure-based. Sometimes, it's condition-based, like there's a COVID registry or what have you. Sometimes, it's a location-based thing like this patient was admitted to this unit like a CVICU or an acute care floor."
#CartaHealth #GenAI #HealthSystems #2024MedicalPredictions #HealthTech #MedTech
Carta.Healthcare
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Matt Hollingsworth, Co-Founder of Carta Healthcare, has identified the need to change how hospitals complete clinical registries, which require information from clinical notes. Currently, nurses manually fill out the forms primarily based on their understanding of the notes from the doctors. Using AI to read through notes, extract relevant information, and enter the data into the clinical registry form saves nurses 95% of their time, improves accuracy, and highlights actionable data. This approach allows the abstractors to spend more time on complex cases and uncover overlooked medical conditions.
Matt explains, "What we do is collect data for these things called clinical registries, which are required quality submissions that hospitals have to do. And we bring AI to the table so that we can make it a not-so-manual process. Historically, the way these forms have been completed has been with just nurse time. Also, I don't think there's a word in the English language to quite correctly describe form in this particular scenario. Just to give a concrete example, if a PCI, so a stent installation via cath is performed, it takes a nurse about an hour and a half to fill out the documentation required to do the submission to the registry. It takes a really long time."
"The problem is that most of it is in the notes. So one of the questions in a registry was the patient hypertensive upon admission. And the way you figure that out is you look, in most cases, in the H&P note and read through it. It'll say somewhere in there that there's either a history of hypertension or they took a blood pressure, and now they have it, etc. And so, the nurse, to paint a picture about what this looks like here, what the nurse is doing is they have the EHR open on one screen, a form to fill out on the other, and they're reading through notes, reaching conclusions, and then filling out the form. So, most of the data needed for this whole process is in the clinical notes, not in some structured form."
"Yes, so this is how we define quality in the whole shift to value-based care. A necessary component is that you measure quality in it. And this is just how the sausage is made for doing that. The way you measure something is you collect data for it. These registries are there to collect data, and in many cases, they are procedure-based. Sometimes, it's condition-based, like there's a COVID registry or what have you. Sometimes, it's a location-based thing like this patient was admitted to this unit like a CVICU or an acute care floor."
#CartaHealth #GenAI #HealthSystems #2024MedicalPredictions #HealthTech #MedTech
Carta.Healthcare
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Dr. Doron Behar, Co-Founder and CEO of Igentify, has a vision for the future of genetic counseling, where patients get the support they need to interpret and understand genetic screening results before the tests as well as after. With a shortage of genetic counselors, the solution, in part, lies in using technology to reduce waiting times and improve the interpretation of results while allowing the counselors to handle more patients effectively. The Igentify platform aims to support end-to-end services to provide precision medicine solutions to patients to meet specific needs and identify what test results might indicate about future health.
Doron explains, "We need to first speak about the genomic revolution and the crucial role of genetic counseling in it. So, as we know, we are all currently going through the genomic revolution, which means that we are anticipating that each of us will have genomic information, the full content of the genome, inside the medical record. The genetic counselors are the ones who are responsible for interpreting for us and explaining to us what our genome is telling us about our future health."
"And particularly, the genome can identify potential risks that we might want to know about, whether it is related to reproductive health, cancer risk, or the use of drug pharmacogenomics. We can see literature saying that even recently, there were more than 5 million genetic tests sold in 2021. Less than 6,000 genetic counselors can present the information to the patients, and they are in North America. And if we compare to the world, there are only 7,500 genetic counselors globally."
"The force model will allow us to use the digital genetic assistant and send information back to the patients, creating an end-to-end solution. Very importantly, we are using advanced and sophisticated multimedia content to approach the patients either in the pre- or in the post-test scenarios. These multimedia components allow speaking with the patients about their own situation. So maintaining a very high level of personalization, even speaking different languages to the patients, is particularly important, for example, to make sure that patients understand."
#Igentify #GeneticCounseling #GeneticScreening #GeneticTesting #GeneticMedicine #DigitalHealth #PrecisionMedicine
igentify.com
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Dr. Doron Behar, Co-Founder and CEO of Igentify, has a vision for the future of genetic counseling, where patients get the support they need to interpret and understand genetic screening results before the tests as well as after. With a shortage of genetic counselors, the solution, in part, lies in using technology to reduce waiting times and improve the interpretation of results while allowing the counselors to handle more patients effectively. The Igentify platform aims to support end-to-end services to provide precision medicine solutions to patients to meet specific needs and identify what test results might indicate about future health.
Doron explains, "We need to first speak about the genomic revolution and the crucial role of genetic counseling in it. So, as we know, we are all currently going through the genomic revolution, which means that we are anticipating that each of us will have genomic information, the full content of the genome, inside the medical record. The genetic counselors are the ones who are responsible for interpreting for us and explaining to us what our genome is telling us about our future health."
"And particularly, the genome can identify potential risks that we might want to know about, whether it is related to reproductive health, cancer risk, or the use of drug pharmacogenomics. We can see literature saying that even recently, there were more than 5 million genetic tests sold in 2021. Less than 6,000 genetic counselors can present the information to the patients, and they are in North America. And if we compare to the world, there are only 7,500 genetic counselors globally."
"The force model will allow us to use the digital genetic assistant and send information back to the patients, creating an end-to-end solution. Very importantly, we are using advanced and sophisticated multimedia content to approach the patients either in the pre- or in the post-test scenarios. These multimedia components allow speaking with the patients about their own situation. So maintaining a very high level of personalization, even speaking different languages to the patients, is particularly important, for example, to make sure that patients understand."
#Igentify #GeneticCounseling #GeneticScreening #GeneticTesting #GeneticMedicine #DigitalHealth #PrecisionMedicine
igentify.com
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Dr. Steven Chen, a breast surgeon and Chief Medical Officer at ImpediMed, discusses the early detection and treatment of lymphedema, a type of swelling that often occurs after breast cancer treatments. Visual observation and measurements using a tape measure are the current, inaccurate methods of determining early warning signs. The ImpediMed SOZO device measures subtle changes in time for simple interventions such as wearing compression sleeves, now covered by Medicare, which can reverse the damage. Unaddressed, this condition can lead to severe functional problems.
Steven explains, "The whole goal of ImpediMed is to help people find this when it's in stage zero or stage one when it can be reversed. It's a very simple set of treatments when you catch it early, primarily wearing a sleeve, a compression sleeve, and/or a compression glove. And with that, you can reverse almost all the stage zeros and probably somewhere between 80% to 90% of stage ones. And so you can see that if you can catch it early, this will go away with a fairly simple set of treatments."
"As you get into stage two and stage three, you're now talking about much more aggressive treatments - things like massage, pumps, and nighttime pumps to try to get the swelling down. And usually, that just provides temporary relief. It almost never goes all the way back to the way it was. Now, there are plastic surgeons and microsurgeons who have started doing things like transplanting lymph nodes to try to get more drainage. And that could be helpful as well. But again, it's rare once you get to stage two or three to see getting back to how you were before surgery."
"In stage one, you can start to have measurement differences a little bit if you use a tape measure regularly. But as you might imagine, using a tape measure regularly takes time, but it's also somewhat hard to do. If you've ever tried to measure yourself with just a fabric tape measure, you do it two or three times in a row, and you might get two or three different measurements. So, trying to measure someone every three to six months and do it with precisely the same amount of tension is fairly difficult. But I think the real primary thing is people don't realize that this happens, and if it does happen, they can turn it around. So, patients don't complain to their doctors because they don't realize it's a consequence of their treatment."
#ImpediMed #Lymphedema #LymphedemaAwarenessMonth #LymphedemaPrevention #BreastCancerCare #BreastCancer #Survivorship
impediMed.com
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Dr. Steven Chen, a breast surgeon and Chief Medical Officer at ImpediMed, discusses the early detection and treatment of lymphedema, a type of swelling that often occurs after breast cancer treatments. Visual observation and measurements using a tape measure are the current, inaccurate methods of determining early warning signs. The ImpediMed SOZO device measures subtle changes in time for simple interventions such as wearing compression sleeves, now covered by Medicare, which can reverse the damage. Unaddressed, this condition can lead to severe functional problems.
Steven explains, "The whole goal of ImpediMed is to help people find this when it's in stage zero or stage one when it can be reversed. It's a very simple set of treatments when you catch it early, primarily wearing a sleeve, a compression sleeve, and/or a compression glove. And with that, you can reverse almost all the stage zeros and probably somewhere between 80% to 90% of stage ones. And so you can see that if you can catch it early, this will go away with a fairly simple set of treatments."
"As you get into stage two and stage three, you're now talking about much more aggressive treatments - things like massage, pumps, and nighttime pumps to try to get the swelling down. And usually, that just provides temporary relief. It almost never goes all the way back to the way it was. Now, there are plastic surgeons and microsurgeons who have started doing things like transplanting lymph nodes to try to get more drainage. And that could be helpful as well. But again, it's rare once you get to stage two or three to see getting back to how you were before surgery."
"In stage one, you can start to have measurement differences a little bit if you use a tape measure regularly. But as you might imagine, using a tape measure regularly takes time, but it's also somewhat hard to do. If you've ever tried to measure yourself with just a fabric tape measure, you do it two or three times in a row, and you might get two or three different measurements. So, trying to measure someone every three to six months and do it with precisely the same amount of tension is fairly difficult. But I think the real primary thing is people don't realize that this happens, and if it does happen, they can turn it around. So, patients don't complain to their doctors because they don't realize it's a consequence of their treatment."
#ImpediMed #Lymphedema #LymphedemaAwarenessMonth #LymphedemaPrevention #BreastCancerCare #BreastCancer #Survivorship
ImpediMed.com
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Amy Brown, CEO of Authenticx, uses conversational intelligence to analyze conversations between humans and between humans and chatbots to gain insights that can drive improvements in patient experience, operational efficiency, and faster resolution of problems in the healthcare environment. Using AI and trained professionals, the Authenticx solution can help pharmaceutical companies improve drug launches, personalize customer interactions and respond more effectively to patient needs. In clinical situations, the machine learning models help identify and address obstacles impeding more robust patient/provider/payer relationships.
Amy explains, "At Authenticx, we really target bidirectional conversations. We can take in all types of unstructured data that exist: notes, social, etc. That said, we find the most insightful and contextually rich types of data sources are the ones that represent a back-and-forth between customer and company. And in our world, we're working with very large healthcare companies, like pharmaceutical manufacturers, health insurance companies, health and hospital systems."
"They're typically having conversations with patients or caregivers, any type of healthcare consumer, they're also having conversations with other stakeholders in the healthcare system, like insurance companies talking to providers' offices, or doctors' offices talking to pharmaceutical manufacturers. We find that the research and study of that back-and-forth bidirectional communication, and doing that at scale, is incredibly insightful to the business."
"We ingest the call recordings or the chat interaction files into our platform, and we apply AI to listen for the things that matter most to healthcare companies. We've spent five years curating our own proprietary training data, where we have listeners, human listeners, who have listened to hundreds of thousands of conversations. We intentionally hired social workers, healthcare workers, nurses, people who have worked inside the healthcare system, because we found that interpreting the communication they're listening to is so crucially important to making high-quality AI."
#Authenticx #ListeningWithAI #ConversationalIntelligence #PatientExperience #AIinHealthcare
Authenticx.com
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Amy Brown, CEO of Authenticx, uses conversational intelligence to analyze conversations between humans and between humans and chatbots to gain insights that can drive improvements in patient experience, operational efficiency, and faster resolution of problems in the healthcare environment. Using AI and trained professionals, the Authenticx solution helps pharmaceutical companies improve drug launches, personalize customer interactions and respond more effectively to patient needs. In clinical situations, the machine learning models help identify and address obstacles impeding more effective patient/provider/payer relationships.
Amy explains, "At Authenticx, we really target bidirectional conversations. We can take in all types of unstructured data that exist: notes, social, etc. That said, we find the most insightful and contextually rich types of data sources are the ones that represent a back-and-forth between customer and company. And in our world, we're working with very large healthcare companies, like pharmaceutical manufacturers, health insurance companies, health and hospital systems."
"They're typically having conversations with patients or caregivers, any type of healthcare consumer, they're also having conversations with other stakeholders in the healthcare system, like insurance companies talking to providers' offices, or doctors' offices talking to pharmaceutical manufacturers. We find that the research and study of that back-and-forth bidirectional communication, and doing that at scale, is incredibly insightful to the business."
"We ingest the call recordings or the chat interaction files into our platform, and we apply AI to listen for the things that matter most to healthcare companies. We've spent five years curating our own proprietary training data, where we have listeners, human listeners, who have listened to hundreds of thousands of conversations. We intentionally hired social workers, healthcare workers, nurses, people who have worked inside the healthcare system, because we found that interpreting the communication they're listening to is so crucially important to making high-quality AI."
#Authenticx #ListeningWithAI #ConversationalIntelligence #PatientExperience #AIinHealthcare
Authenticx.com
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Dr. Marc Conant, Chief Medical Officer at Addimmune, has been working on HIV/AIDS for over 40 years and highlights the progress that has been made in developing effective HIV drugs. The mission at Addimmune is to develop a functional cure for HIV by modifying the patient's cells to enhance the immune system's ability to control the virus. This autologous cell therapy approach has been used successfully in treating leukemia and lymphoma and shows promise in suppressing HIV.
Marc explains, "I started caring for AIDS patients in 1981, and it wasn't until AGT came along in 1988, '87, '88, that we even had anything that would work. Up until that time, everyone who contracted the disease died. HIV kills about 94% of people who are infected. What we saw early on with AGT was a drug that suppressed the virus, and then we found the next drug that suppressed the virus, and then the next one, and now we have close to 40 different drugs that can suppress the virus."
"Now, there's been even a step beyond that. You all probably see on your television every night injections that can be given once every two months, and sure enough, that works and works great, so instead of taking a pill every day, you only need to see a doctor six times a year. Every two months, you go in for two injections, and you're good for two months. And compliance is better. Patients remember to take their drug because it's given to them in an injection."
"All of that, though, still requires putting in a drug. We're hoping to take the patient's cells, modify them, put them back in the patient, and have a one-and-done treatment for the rest of his life with these modified cells, which helps the patient's immune system control the virus. The virus will be suppressed. The patient will not need to take more medication. The patient will not have side effects. The patient doesn't have to remember to take his drugs, and we've got a functional cure that will control the disease."
#Addimmune #HIV #AIDS #HIVAIDS #CARTCell #CellTherapy #FunctionalCure #HIVTreatment #AutologousCellTherapy
Addimmune.com
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Dr. Marc Conant, Chief Medical Officer at Addimmune, has been working on HIV/AIDS for over 40 years and highlights the progress that has been made in developing effective HIV drugs. The mission at Addimmune is to develop a functional cure for HIV by modifying the patient's cells to enhance the immune system's ability to control the virus. This autologous cell therapy approach has been used successfully in treating leukemia and lymphoma and shows promise in suppressing HIV.
Marc explains, "I started caring for AIDS patients in 1981, and it wasn't until AGT came along in 1988, '87, '88, that we even had anything that would work. Up until that time, everyone who contracted the disease died. HIV kills about 94% of people who are infected. What we saw early on with AGT was a drug that suppressed the virus, and then we found the next drug that suppressed the virus, and then the next one, and now we have close to 40 different drugs that can suppress the virus."
"Now, there's been even a step beyond that. You all probably see on your television every night injections that can be given once every two months, and sure enough, that works and works great, so instead of taking a pill every day, you only need to see a doctor six times a year. Every two months, you go in for two injections, and you're good for two months. And compliance is better. Patients remember to take their drug because it's given to them in an injection."
"All of that, though, still requires putting in a drug. We're hoping to take the patient's cells, modify them, put them back in the patient, and have a one-and-done treatment for the rest of his life with these modified cells, which helps the patient's immune system control the virus. The virus will be suppressed. The patient will not need to take more medication. The patient will not have side effects. The patient doesn't have to remember to take his drugs, and we've got a functional cure that will control the disease."
#Addimmune #HIV #AIDS #HIVAIDS #CARTCell #CellTherapy #FunctionalCure #HIVTreatment #AutologousCellTherapy
Addimmune.com
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Dr. John Showalter, Chief Product Officer of Linus Health, shines a light on the current methods of measuring cognitive health and emphasizes the need for a more holistic approach to assessing brain health. Linus works on digital cognitive assessment tools and AI models to detect cognitive impairment and early warning signs of Alzheimer's and other dementias. These tools also consider anxiety, sleep patterns, and lifestyle factors and support personalized care plans for patients and their caregivers.
John elaborates, "Right now, we have this performance-based understanding of cognitive processing and brain health. And I'm not sure that is the best way for us to be looking at brain health because, to me, as a primary care physician and someone who's very much into a more holistic view of the individual, brain health should be much more about your ability to achieve what you want to achieve, interact with the people that you want to interact with and have a higher quality of life. But there's not a real good definition of that."
"One of the classic tests that your primary care physician would use was called the Mini Cog. It's when you were asked to remember three words, draw a clock, and then, after drawing that clock, repeat the words that you were given. We have taken that and put it on an iPad with an iPad pencil. We now analyze not only whether or not you remember the words but the pattern of speech when you said the words, the pauses, and the intonation of your speech when you were repeating the words back."
"We also have multiple clock drawings, and because of the immense amount of sensors in the iPad and the iPad pencil, we're able to look at hundreds of features captured at 120 times a second and put them through machine learning models to understand how well an individual's brain is functioning. Then that translates very accurately to understanding if they meet the clinical diagnosis for cognitive impairment or the clinical diagnosis for dementia, understanding possible functional challenges."
@LinusHealth #LinusHealth @JohnShowalterMD #CognitiveHealth #BrainHealth #Cognition #CognitiveDecline
linushealth.com
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Dr. John Showalter, Chief Product Officer of Linus Health, shines a light on the current methods of measuring cognitive health and emphasizes the need for a more holistic approach to assessing brain health. Linus works on digital cognitive assessment tools and AI models to detect cognitive impairment and early warning signs of Alzheimer's and other dementias. These tools also consider anxiety, sleep patterns, and lifestyle factors and support personalized care plans for patients and their caregivers.
John elaborates, "Right now, we have this performance-based understanding of cognitive processing and brain health. And I'm not sure that is the best way for us to be looking at brain health because, to me, as a primary care physician and someone who's very much into a more holistic view of the individual, brain health should be much more about your ability to achieve what you want to achieve, interact with the people that you want to interact with and have a higher quality of life. But there's not a real good definition of that."
"One of the classic tests that your primary care physician would use was called the Mini Cog. It's when you were asked to remember three words, draw a clock, and then, after drawing that clock, repeat the words that you were given. We have taken that and put it on an iPad with an iPad pencil. We now analyze not only whether or not you remember the words but the pattern of speech when you said the words, the pauses, and the intonation of your speech when you were repeating the words back."
"We also have multiple clock drawings, and because of the immense amount of sensors in the iPad and the iPad pencil, we're able to look at hundreds of features captured at 120 times a second and put them through machine learning models to understand how well an individual's brain is functioning. Then that translates very accurately to understanding if they meet the clinical diagnosis for cognitive impairment or the clinical diagnosis for dementia, understanding possible functional challenges."
@LinusHealth #LinusHealth @JohnShowalterMD #CognitiveHealth #BrainHealth #Cognition #CognitiveDecline
linushealth.com
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Ha Tran, Medical Head, Cell and Gene Therapy at Astellas Pharma is developing gene therapy approaches to fight neuromuscular diseases, central nervous system disorders, and ophthalmology conditions. There is strong evidence that this approach can be a way to treat and possibly cure rare diseases. Ha explains the challenges of running gene therapy trials for rare diseases and the unique patient journey required to run a successful trial.
Ha explains, "Currently, at Astellas, our platform is AAV gene therapy, which is a replacement. Additionally, in our early pipeline, we are looking at both gene therapy replacement and vectorized RNA knockdown. We also have a cell therapy division, which I also cover. For that, we’re looking at in vivo cell therapy."
"Honestly speaking, gene and cell therapy trials have their nuances since they are often a single infusion or single injection. So, the preclinical data packages and long-term follow-up plans differ from standard drug development. But the biggest nuances actually for clinical trial design are in rare diseases. The FDA just finalized its guidance for the industry in December. For a long time it was just a draft guidance, but now it's final and I found it to be quite helpful."
"There's this major need to understand the patient population, and I see this as threefold. So, understanding country-specific prevalence, the quality of the existing natural history data, and the different phenotypes to target the correct patient population. And there are major pitfalls here if you rush through the process. So you can grossly overestimate patient population if you're using averages instead of really looking into very specific data. So this can lead to slower recruitment and longer timelines once you actually start your study."
#AstellasPharma #GeneTherapy #RareDiseases #Allogeneic #ClinicalTrials #CNS #NeuromuscularDiseases
astellas.com/us/
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Ha Tran, Medical Head, Cell and Gene Therapy at Astellas Pharma is developing gene therapy approaches to fight neuromuscular diseases, central nervous system disorders, and ophthalmology conditions. There is strong evidence that this approach can be a way to treat and possibly cure rare diseases. Ha explains the challenges of running gene therapy trials for rare diseases and the unique patient journey required to run a successful trial.
Ha explains, "Currently, at Astellas, our platform is AAV gene therapy, which is a replacement. Additionally, in our early pipeline, we are looking at both gene therapy replacement and vectorized RNA knockdown. We also have a cell therapy division, which I also cover. For that, we’re looking at in vivo cell therapy."
"Honestly speaking, gene and cell therapy trials have their nuances since they are often a single infusion or single injection. So, the preclinical data packages and long-term follow-up plans differ from standard drug development. But the biggest nuances actually for clinical trial design are in rare diseases. The FDA just finalized its guidance for the industry in December. For a long time it was just a draft guidance, but now it's final and I found it to be quite helpful."
"There's this major need to understand the patient population, and I see this as threefold. So, understanding country-specific prevalence, the quality of the existing natural history data, and the different phenotypes to target the correct patient population. And there are major pitfalls here if you rush through the process. So you can grossly overestimate patient population if you're using averages instead of really looking into very specific data. So this can lead to slower recruitment and longer timelines once you actually start your study."
#AstellasPharma #GeneTherapy #RareDiseases #Allogeneic #ClinicalTrials #CNS #NeuromuscularDiseases
astellas.com/us/
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Hari Mix, Founder and CEO of Calorify, is a former elite endurance athlete and aims to bring to market an accurate, affordable measurement of calorie intake and expenditure to address metabolic health. Measuring metabolism has generally been inaccessible due to the complexity and cost of traditional testing. With an in-home kit, the mission is to help those looking to improve their energy levels, lose weight, athletes, and medical professionals working with patients with metabolic-related health challenges.
Hari elaborates, "Our mission is pretty simple, and it's also pretty complicated. Simply put, our mission is to measure the world's metabolism. We believe that the world is facing a huge set of problems related to metabolic health, and nobody is measuring the key component of that, which is how many calories people are eating and burning, in an accurate way in a real-world setting. Our goal is to bring those measurements to the world, empower individuals to understand and improve their bodies and empower institutions to find solutions to metabolic problems and diseases."
"The name of the approach is called doubly labeled water. It's been around for many decades. It was first invented in 1949. It was first done on mice in 1955, and it was first done on humans in 1982. For decades, it's long been known to be the gold standard method of measuring how many calories people eat and burn in a real-world setting. However, it's been very, very expensive, very slow, cumbersome, and so it just hasn't been accessible to regular folks. Only about 15,000 people have ever been measured; that's about one person globally per day since the technology was launched in 1982. And so we've solved a suite of problems to bring this test to the world, make it a lot faster so that people can use their results, and make it a lot cheaper so that it's possible for them to afford this testing."
"Let's take an NBA team that we're working with. We find guys on the same team with the same lean body mass and the same job description, and yet one person is burning calories twice as fast as their teammate, and you couldn't tell by looking at them. It's extraordinary the degree to which you could put the same amount of food in your body and have it be completely different from the person standing next to you."
#Calorify #MetabolicTesting #Metabolism #Calories #Diets #EnergyAvailability
Calorify.com
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Hari Mix, Founder and CEO of Calorify, is a former elite endurance athlete and aims to bring to market an accurate, affordable measurement of calorie intake and expenditure to address metabolic health. Measuring metabolism has generally been inaccessible due to the complexity and cost of traditional testing. With an in-home kit, the mission is to help those looking to improve their energy levels, lose weight, athletes, and medical professionals working with patients with metabolic-related health challenges.
Hari elaborates, "Our mission is pretty simple, and it's also pretty complicated. Simply put, our mission is to measure the world's metabolism. We believe that the world is facing a huge set of problems related to metabolic health, and nobody is measuring the key component of that, which is how many calories people are eating and burning, in an accurate way in a real-world setting. Our goal is to bring those measurements to the world, empower individuals to understand and improve their bodies and empower institutions to find solutions to metabolic problems and diseases."
"The name of the approach is called doubly labeled water. It's been around for many decades. It was first invented in 1949. It was first done on mice in 1955, and it was first done on humans in 1982. For decades, it's long been known to be the gold standard method of measuring how many calories people eat and burn in a real-world setting. However, it's been very, very expensive, very slow, cumbersome, and so it just hasn't been accessible to regular folks. Only about 15,000 people have ever been measured; that's about one person globally per day since the technology was launched in 1982. And so we've solved a suite of problems to bring this test to the world, make it a lot faster so that people can use their results, and make it a lot cheaper so that it's possible for them to afford this testing."
"Let's take an NBA team that we're working with. We find guys on the same team with the same lean body mass and the same job description, and yet one person is burning calories twice as fast as their teammate, and you couldn't tell by looking at them. It's extraordinary the degree to which you could put the same amount of food in your body and have it be completely different from the person standing next to you."
#Calorify #MetabolicTesting #Metabolism #Calories #Diets #EnergyAvailability
Calorify.com
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Larry Margolis, CEO of PersonalRX, provides medication management for patients and caregivers by delivering personalized dose packs to patients' homes with tracking functionality to inform when drugs are taken. The number of people with comorbidities is increasing, requiring complex regimens and medication reconciliation to ensure patient safety. PersonalRX works with healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers to ensure prescription, supplements, and over-the-counter drugs are used correctly.
Larry explains, "Our typical patient profile is somebody, on average, who takes nine medications. We service the market of people with five medications or more, representing roughly 12.9% of the population, about 42 million people."
"I think one of the most important tools that we use when we're looking at people who are living longer, have more complex cases and comorbidities, and are taking more medication is looking at the medical reconciliation tools that we've built. And we've spent a lot of time over the last year building and enhancing those tools."
"So there is a safety hazard that many patients and caregivers don't realize that presents when you have multiple medications, multiple prescribers, supplements, and all of those kinds of things involved. Medications can negatively interact and can be mixed up by pharmacies and patients."
"When we can align all of those things into a singular place, PersonalRX is that kind of pharmacy that has trusted supervision for medication management. Still, it improves patient safety and overall health. As complexity increases, we think it's something that becomes more and more important every day."
#PersonalRX #Pharmacy #PrescriptionDrugs #MedicationManagement #MedicationDistribution #MedicationInteractions
personalrx.com
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Larry Margolis, CEO of PersonalRX, provides medication management for patients and caregivers by delivering personalized dose packs to patients' homes with tracking functionality to inform when drugs are taken. The number of people with comorbidities is increasing, requiring complex regimens and medication reconciliation to ensure patient safety. PersonalRX works with healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers to ensure prescription, supplements, and over-the-counter drugs are used correctly.
Larry explains, "Our typical patient profile is somebody, on average, who takes nine medications. We service the market of people with five medications or more, representing roughly 12.9% of the population, about 42 million people."
"I think one of the most important tools that we use when we're looking at people who are living longer, have more complex cases and comorbidities, and are taking more medication is looking at the medical reconciliation tools that we've built. And we've spent a lot of time over the last year building and enhancing those tools."
"So there is a safety hazard that many patients and caregivers don't realize that presents when you have multiple medications, multiple prescribers, supplements, and all of those kinds of things involved. Medications can negatively interact and can be mixed up by pharmacies and patients."
"When we can align all of those things into a singular place, PersonalRX is that kind of pharmacy that has trusted supervision for medication management. Still, it improves patient safety and overall health. As complexity increases, we think it's something that becomes more and more important every day."
#PersonalRX #Pharmacy #PrescriptionDrugs #MedicationManagement #MedicationDistribution #MedicationInteractions
personalrx.com
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Wensheng Fan, CEO and Co-Founder of Spectral AI, understands that the ability to accurately determine whether a wound will heal is currently lacking in wound care. The Spectral AI predictive imaging technology uses multispectral imaging and AI to assess the viability of injured tissue and predict wound healing outcomes. The DeepView device is portable and easy to use, providing fast analysis and saving time in determining the appropriate next steps to treat acute and chronic wounds.
Wensheng explains, "Ten years ago when we were founded, we were doing bed sore early detections. Then we transitioned into burn wounds, and the latest adventure is for the diabetic foot ulcer. We see all these acute and chronic wounds, and they all need a common thing to let physicians, clinicians, and patients know whether these wounds will heal or not. That's a simple question, but so far, we don't have a good answer to it with the technology on the market."
"For example, let's use acute burn wounds. The current standard of care, per se, is actually the physicians have to wait and see, sometimes up to 21 days, to determine if a burn will heal or not. Why are they so careful? Because visually the wound changes and if it's a non-healing burn, what they need to do is clinically debride that area to take out the dead tissue so that they can put the skin substitute and other products on it to help the overall healing."
"We look at the wound from near UV lights across the visible band seen in the human eye and into the near IR lights. We capture the injured tissue's spectral signature, like a fingerprint for those non-healing tissues. We found it and then realized ten years ago that the human brain is not good enough to process that information. We introduced AI, machine learning, deep learning, and all those advanced technologies in identifying non-healing burn tissue since 2014. So far, we have achieved 92% accuracy on day one of looking at a burn wound to decide where that burn wound will never heal or if there are healing tissues that you don't need to take into surgical consideration. So, this technology will become an assistant to burn professionals and ER doctors in deciding how to process the patients during that first encounter."
#SpectralAI #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #WoundHealing #DiabeticFootUlcers #BurnInjuries
Spectral-AI.com
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Wensheng Fan, CEO and Co-Founder of Spectral AI, understands that the ability to accurately determine whether a wound will heal is currently lacking in wound care. The Spectral AI predictive imaging technology uses multispectral imaging and AI to assess the viability of injured tissue and predict wound healing outcomes. The DeepView device is portable and easy to use, providing fast analysis and saving time in determining the appropriate next steps to treat acute and chronic wounds.
Wensheng explains, "Ten years ago when we were founded, we were doing bed sore early detections. Then we transitioned into burn wounds, and the latest adventure is for the diabetic foot ulcer. We see all these acute and chronic wounds, and they all need a common thing to let physicians, clinicians, and patients know whether these wounds will heal or not. That's a simple question, but so far, we don't have a good answer to it with the technology on the market."
"For example, let's use acute burn wounds. The current standard of care, per se, is actually the physicians have to wait and see, sometimes up to 21 days, to determine if a burn will heal or not. Why are they so careful? Because visually the wound changes and if it's a non-healing burn, what they need to do is clinically debride that area to take out the dead tissue so that they can put the skin substitute and other products on it to help the overall healing."
"We look at the wound from near UV lights across the visible band seen in the human eye and into the near IR lights. We capture the injured tissue's spectral signature, like a fingerprint for those non-healing tissues. We found it and then realized ten years ago that the human brain is not good enough to process that information. We introduced AI, machine learning, deep learning, and all those advanced technologies in identifying non-healing burn tissue since 2014. So far, we have achieved 92% accuracy on day one of looking at a burn wound to decide where that burn wound will never heal or if there are healing tissues that you don't need to take into surgical consideration. So, this technology will become an assistant to burn professionals and ER doctors in deciding how to process the patients during that first encounter."
#SpectralAI #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #WoundHealing #DiabeticFootUlcers #BurnInjuries
Spectral-AI.com
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Dr. Shuba Iyengar, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Allermi, is focused on providing better care and access to allergy treatments. Allermi has developed a personalized approach to diagnosing allergies and personalizing nasal spray formulations to provide a more precise solution to those suffering from nasal congestion, coughing, sinus pain, and itchy eyes. While there are seasonal allergies, doctors are seeing an increase in allergies related to climate change, pollution, and other changes in the environment.
Shuba explains, "We want to make sure that everyone knows that allergies are a chronic problem and affect your everyday life. I have allergies, so I completely sympathize with people who have bad allergies. But when you get allergies, what's happening is the inside of your nose is getting a little bit swollen. But to some extent, in the beginning, you can kind of compensate. You can get by. So, if you can't breathe to one side, you'll breathe through the other. If you can't breathe through the side, you'll start to mouth breathe."
"As allergists and even general doctors, the toolbox we have to treat allergies is okay but not great for everyone. A lot of times, if they can see their doctor, people might get a prescription nasal spray or be advised to take an oral antihistamine or an allergy pill. They might go to the drugstore and try to buy an over-the-counter nasal spray like Flonase or Nasacort. And for a lot of people, these medicines don't quite work as well or not enough."
#Allermi #Allergies #AllergyCare #Telehealth
allermi.com
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Dr. Shuba Iyengar, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Allermi, is focused on providing better care and access to allergy treatments. Allermi has developed a personalized approach to diagnosing allergies and personalizing nasal spray formulations to provide a more precise solution to those suffering from nasal congestion, coughing, sinus pain, and itchy eyes. While there are seasonal allergies, doctors are seeing an increase in allergies related to climate change, pollution, and other changes in the environment.
Shuba explains, "We want to make sure that everyone knows that allergies are a chronic problem and affect your everyday life. I have allergies, so I completely sympathize with people who have bad allergies. But when you get allergies, what's happening is the inside of your nose is getting a little bit swollen. But to some extent, in the beginning, you can kind of compensate. You can get by. So, if you can't breathe to one side, you'll breathe through the other. If you can't breathe through the side, you'll start to mouth breathe."
"As allergists and even general doctors, the toolbox we have to treat allergies is okay but not great for everyone. A lot of times, if they can see their doctor, people might get a prescription nasal spray or be advised to take an oral antihistamine or an allergy pill. They might go to the drugstore and try to buy an over-the-counter nasal spray like Flonase or Nasacort. And for a lot of people, these medicines don't quite work as well or not enough."
#Allermi #Allergies #AllergyCare #Telehealth
allermi.com
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Joe Scalia, Vice President and Head of Commercial Market Access and Global Marketing for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, highlights the company's focus on rare diseases, particularly ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The company's goal is to find a cure for ALS and improve the quality of life for patients while raising awareness to reduce the time to diagnosis. With a patient support program, JourneyMate, the company offers resources and support for ALS patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.
Joe explains, "When it comes to neuromuscular diseases, these are one of the hardest areas to treat and for medicines to impact patient's lives. So, when you look at neuromuscular diseases like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, these are diseases that impact millions of patients across the United States, and the treatments are very hard to come across. For example, on ALS, before our medication came out, there were over 20 years and 50 failures of medications. There's a high unmet need for these patients, so companies like ours are focused on finding these medications to help support them."
"There's also a correlation with a higher rate of ALS for our veterans, and we're not sure exactly why. There's some belief that there may be some type of chemical exposure or vaccine exposure. We're not sure the reason why, but there is a higher incidence also for firefighters. So this is a population that we need to continue to help -- 20,000 to 30,000 patients who are desperately looking for additional support and potentially a cure in the future."
"It goes back to, we've been investing in ALS for over 20 years, and it's taken that long to come up with the molecules to help these patients. So, an organization like ours has been around for over 330 years. We look at fighting diseases, not looking at one year, but decades of research to hopefully find medications that will help patients. So, it takes an organization that is committed to the space."
#MTPA #RareDisease #RareDiseaseAwareness #ALS #EndALS #ALSAwareness #LouGehrigsDisease
mt-pharma-america.com
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Joe Scalia, Vice President and Head of Commercial Market Access and Global Marketing for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, highlights the company's focus on rare diseases, particularly ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The company's goal is to find a cure for ALS and improve the quality of life for patients while raising awareness to reduce the time to diagnosis. With a patient support program, JourneyMate, the company offers resources and support for ALS patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.
Joe explains, "When it comes to neuromuscular diseases, these are one of the hardest areas to treat and for medicines to impact patient's lives. So, when you look at neuromuscular diseases like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, these are diseases that impact millions of patients across the United States, and the treatments are very hard to come across. For example, on ALS, before our medication came out, there were over 20 years and 50 failures of medications. There's a high unmet need for these patients, so companies like ours are focused on finding these medications to help support them."
"There's also a correlation with a higher rate of ALS for our veterans, and we're not sure exactly why. There's some belief that there may be some type of chemical exposure or vaccine exposure. We're not sure the reason why, but there is a higher incidence also for firefighters. So this is a population that we need to continue to help -- 20,000 to 30,000 patients who are desperately looking for additional support and potentially a cure in the future."
"It goes back to, we've been investing in ALS for over 20 years, and it's taken that long to come up with the molecules to help these patients. So, an organization like ours has been around for over 330 years. We look at fighting diseases, not looking at one year, but decades of research to hopefully find medications that will help patients. So, it takes an organization that is committed to the space."
#MTPA #RareDisease #RareDiseaseAwareness #ALS #EndALS #ALSAwareness #LouGehrigsDisease
mt-pharma-america.com
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Andrea Pfeifer, Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of AC Immune, is developing vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, these vaccines target internal proteins that are misfolded and contribute to the disease. These new vaccines are active immunotherapies against the Abeta protein. Trials are showing significant progress in overcoming safety concerns and lack of strong immune response for prevention, treatment, or maintenance therapy.
Andrea elaborates, "When you speak about vaccines, you always think about infectious diseases where you have this external virus or bacteria coming in, and you develop an immune system response against this virus or this bacteria, something external. In our area, in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, we are activating the immune response of the body against an internal protein, but a misguided or misfolded protein."
"This is why it's so difficult because you have to overcome the tolerance of the immune system and tell the immune system to develop an antibody response against a pathological toxic protein, which is endogenous. This requires special technologies to have the right immune response because you want the body to make antibodies only against the pathologic or the sick proteins, the misguided proteins, and not against the healthy proteins that are part of your body."
"We believe that this vaccine, or we prefer to speak about active immunotherapy, makes the difference between the vaccine response against exogenous factors, such as viruses, and the endogenous, misguided proteins. We believe this active immunotherapy can be used in a treatment manner or for prevention. It can be used for maintenance therapy after one of these therapies, which are becoming available now, has already been used to reduce these plaques in the brain of people. This is related to a better cognitive response. So, I think we're seeing multiple applications. Of course, the reason is the advantages of these active immunotherapies."
#ACImmune #ActiveImmunotherapy #AlzheimersVaccine #ABetavaccine #Neurodegeneration #VaccineDevelopment #CNS #Alzheimers #Parkinsons
acimmune.com
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Andrea Pfeifer, Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of AC Immune, is developing vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, these vaccines target internal proteins that are misfolded and contribute to the disease. These new vaccines are active immunotherapies against the Abeta protein. Trials are showing significant progress in overcoming safety concerns and lack of strong immune response for prevention, treatment, or maintenance therapy.
Andrea elaborates, "When you speak about vaccines, you always think about infectious diseases where you have this external virus or bacteria coming in, and you develop an immune system response against this virus or this bacteria, something external. In our area, in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, we are activating the immune response of the body against an internal protein, but a misguided or misfolded protein."
"This is why it's so difficult because you have to overcome the tolerance of the immune system and tell the immune system to develop an antibody response against a pathological toxic protein, which is endogenous. This requires special technologies to have the right immune response because you want the body to make antibodies only against the pathologic or the sick proteins, the misguided proteins, and not against the healthy proteins that are part of your body."
"We believe that this vaccine, or we prefer to speak about active immunotherapy, makes the difference between the vaccine response against exogenous factors, such as viruses, and the endogenous, misguided proteins. We believe this active immunotherapy can be used in a treatment manner or for prevention. It can be used for maintenance therapy after one of these therapies, which are becoming available now, has already been used to reduce these plaques in the brain of people. This is related to a better cognitive response. So, I think we're seeing multiple applications. Of course, the reason is the advantages of these active immunotherapies."
#ACImmune #ActiveImmunotherapy #AlzheimersVaccine #ABetavaccine #Neurodegeneration #VaccineDevelopment #CNS #Alzheimers #Parkinsons
acimmune.com
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Wael Hashad, Chief Executive Officer of Longeveron, is focused on developing cell therapy for aging-related conditions such as aging frailty, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Using mesenchymal stem cells, also known as medicinal signaling cells, obtained from healthy donors 18-45, Longeveron is seeing promising results in clinical trials with improvements in brain volume and cognitive function. This approach is also being explored in the pursuit of a treatment for hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital heart disease.
Wael explains, "We believe there is a huge unmet need for bringing safe and effective products to try to slow the progression of the disease, improve the quality of life, and reduce the burden on the caregivers of such a disease. As for the aging frailty in general, as you know, with aging, there are a lot of things that affect the vascular system, muscle wasting, and all of those things that affect the quality of life during the aging years of an individual. Anything we can impact to improve the quality of life and the ability to lead a normal life in the aging years is definitely one of our goals."
"Lomecel-B was initially licensed from the University of Miami to Longeveron. It is mesenchymal stem cells. As I said, we get GMP-grade donations of bone marrow from healthy adults and volunteers aged 18 to 45. Then we take this donation, harvest them in our facility in Miami, grow the cells, and then do all the required testing and release criteria to ensure safety. It is allogeneic, meaning that it is off the shelf, that any patient can take these cells. It is not autologous cells. It is allogeneic cells, giving it a much broader application. We are able to produce enough quantities from each donation to support these patients with aging frailty, Alzheimer's, or dementia."
#Longeveron #CellTherapy #Aging #MedicinalSignalingCells #MSC #AlzheimersDisease #Dementia #AgingFrailty #RareDisease
longeveron.com
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Wael Hashad, Chief Executive Officer of Longeveron, is focused on developing cell therapy for aging-related conditions such as aging frailty, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Using mesenchymal stem cells, also known as medicinal signaling cells, obtained from healthy donors 18-45, Longeveron is seeing promising results in clinical trials with improvements in brain volume and cognitive function. This approach is also being explored in the pursuit of a treatment for hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital heart disease.
Wael explains, "We believe there is a huge unmet need for bringing safe and effective products to try to slow the progression of the disease, improve the quality of life, and reduce the burden on the caregivers of such a disease. As for the aging frailty in general, as you know, with aging, there are a lot of things that affect the vascular system, muscle wasting, and all of those things that affect the quality of life during the aging years of an individual. Anything we can impact to improve the quality of life and the ability to lead a normal life in the aging years is definitely one of our goals."
"Lomecel-B was initially licensed from the University of Miami to Longeveron. It is mesenchymal stem cells. As I said, we get GMP-grade donations of bone marrow from healthy adults and volunteers aged 18 to 45. Then we take this donation, harvest them in our facility in Miami, grow the cells, and then do all the required testing and release criteria to ensure safety. It is allogeneic, meaning that it is off the shelf, that any patient can take these cells. It is not autologous cells. It is allogeneic cells, giving it a much broader application. We are able to produce enough quantities from each donation to support these patients with aging frailty, Alzheimer's, or dementia."
#Longeveron #CellTherapy #Aging #MedicinalSignalingCells #MSC #AlzheimersDisease #Dementia #AgingFrailty #RareDisease
longeveron.com
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Joe Tucker, CEO of Enveric Biosciences, discusses the use of neuroplastogen therapies for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Enveric has developed the Psybrary, a portfolio of compounds inspired by psilocybin that bind to the serotonin receptor in the brain and induce neuroplasticity without the hallucinations. The lead candidate EB-003 is intended to be administered orally and taken regularly as a maintenance therapy.
Joe explains, "This whole neuroplastogen space was recently discovered, and it was discovered through academic research that we're looking at on the effects of these agents we call psychedelics, psilocybin being the active ingredient in magic mushrooms and a very well-known psychedelic agent. It was in looking at psilocybin and other molecules known to be psychedelic agents like ayahuasca and LSD and others that scientists realized that what's going on is you're activating a particular receptor in the brain - something called the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. So, at Enveric we thought this was a great opportunity because of some of the early work that others had done in using the actual magic mushroom."
"This is a whole new area of research and science. It is not known what shape of a molecule will induce a hallucination versus not inducing hallucination, for example, and what shape will strongly induce the neuroplasticity that we're looking for so that the brain can essentially be repaired versus not induce it. So, we had to develop our own internal artificial intelligence tool that was trained by the other molecules that had been designed previously or were naturally occurring. Then, we continued to train it as we made our thousand molecules and got our AI operating more and more intelligent."
#Enveric #Psilocybin #Hallucinogenic #MentalHealth #NeuroplastogenTherapies #NeuropsychiatricDisorders #PTSD #PostTraumaticStressDisorder
enveric.com
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Joe Tucker, CEO of Enveric Biosciences, discusses the use of neuroplastogen therapies for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Enveric has developed the Psybrary, a portfolio of compounds inspired by psilocybin that bind to the serotonin receptor in the brain and induce neuroplasticity without the hallucinations. The lead candidate EB-003 is intended to be administered orally and taken regularly as a maintenance therapy.
Joe explains, "This whole neuroplastogen space was recently discovered, and it was discovered through academic research that we're looking at the effects of these agents we call psychedelics, psilocybin being the active ingredient in magic mushrooms and a very well-known psychedelic agent. It was in looking at psilocybin and other molecules known to be psychedelic agents like ayahuasca and LSD and others that scientists realized that what's going on is you're activating a particular receptor in the brain - something called the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. So, at Enveric we thought this was a great opportunity because of some of the early work that others had done in using the actual magic mushroom."
"This is a whole new area of research and science. It is not known what shape of a molecule will induce a hallucination versus not inducing hallucination, for example, and what shape will strongly induce the neuroplasticity that we're looking for so that the brain can essentially be repaired versus not induce it. So, we had to develop our own internal artificial intelligence tool that was trained by the other molecules that had been designed previously or were naturally occurring. Then, we continued to train it as we made our thousand molecules and got our AI operating more and more intelligent."
#Enveric #Psilocybin #Hallucinogenic #MentalHealth #NeuroplastogenTherapies #NeuropsychiatricDisorders #PTSD #PostTraumaticStressDisorder
enveric.com
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Vish Charan, Divisional Vice President of Product Development at Abbott's Cardiac Rhythm Management Business, explains some of the limitations of traditional pacemakers implanted in the chest with long wires connecting the pacemaker to the heart. Abbott has developed the AVEIR DR system, a dual-chamber leadless pacemaker that uses implant-to-implant technology to send electrical impulses between the upper and lower chambers of the heart. The i2i technology allows these capsule-size devices to be implanted directly in the heart with the ability to communicate to synchronize the heart rhythm.
Vish explains, "What we can do right now, is to get a very, very small access into the veins in the leg, and from the veins in the leg with a very small access, we're able to deploy these capsule-size pacemakers directly into the heart with a long tube. We call that a catheter. But that is how they're deployed. So, you don't have a surgical pocket. You don't have a big cut open in your chest, and the device is implanted in your upper chest. All you have now is a surgical axis in your leg, and you have two capsule-sized devices, which are much smaller than two AAA batteries directly implanted in the heart."
"So, the technology involved with AVEIR DR is where you have these two capsule-sized devices directly implanted in the upper and lower chambers of the heart. The two chambers of the heart need to operate in synchrony. What we can do is that in the upper and the lower chambers of the heart, which are the atrium and the ventricle, we can sense and pace directly in those chambers."
"But the good thing and the technological advantage of this product is they communicate with each other. The communication scheme is what we call i2i technology, where we are sending electrical impulses between the upper and the lower chamber devices. These are electrical impulses that are very, very short, and very small, which cannot be felt by the person who has a device, but that is sufficient for the devices to register information between the upper and lower device and able to operate in synchrony. And this synchrony is extremely important for the person to get back to their normal heart rhythm."
#Abbott #AVEIRDR #Pacemaker #LeadlessPacemaker #DualChamberPacemaker #HeartHealth #i2i #ImplanttoImplant
AVEIRDR.com
Abbott.com
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Vish Charan, Divisional Vice President of Product Development at Abbott's Cardiac Rhythm Management Business, explains some of the limitations of traditional pacemakers implanted in the chest with long wires connecting the pacemaker to the heart. Abbott has developed the AVEIR DR system, a dual-chamber leadless pacemaker that uses implant-to-implant technology to send electrical impulses between the upper and lower chambers of the heart. The i2i technology allows these capsule-size devices to be implanted directly in the heart with the ability to communicate to synchronize the heart rhythm.
Vish explains, "What we can do right now, is to get a very, very small access into the veins in the leg, and from the veins in the leg with a very small access, we're able to deploy these capsule-size pacemakers directly into the heart with a long tube. We call that a catheter. But that is how they're deployed. So, you don't have a surgical pocket. You don't have a big cut open in your chest, and the device is implanted in your upper chest. All you have now is a surgical axis in your leg, and you have two capsule-sized devices, which are much smaller than two AAA batteries directly implanted in the heart."
"So, the technology involved with AVEIR DR is where you have these two capsule-sized devices directly implanted in the upper and lower chambers of the heart. The two chambers of the heart need to operate in synchrony. What we can do is that in the upper and the lower chambers of the heart, which are the atrium and the ventricle, we can sense and pace directly in those chambers."
"But the good thing and the technological advantage of this product is they communicate with each other. The communication scheme is what we call i2i technology, where we are sending electrical impulses between the upper and the lower chamber devices. These are electrical impulses that are very, very short, and very small, which cannot be felt by the person who has a device, but that is sufficient for the devices to register information between the upper and lower device and able to operate in synchrony. And this synchrony is extremely important for the person to get back to their normal heart rhythm."
#Abbott #AVEIRDR #Pacemaker #LeadlessPacemaker #DualChamberPacemaker #HeartHealth #i2i #ImplanttoImplant
AVEIRDR.com
Abbott.com
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Laxminarayan Bhat, Founder, President, and CEO of Reviva Pharmaceuticals, is focused on developing next-generation therapies for neurological diseases, particularly schizophrenia. Their lead candidate, brilaroxazine, acts on multiple neuro receptors to balance imbalanced neurotransmitters in the brain that are responsible for causing schizophrenia. This new molecule shows positive results in efficacy and a low discontinuation rate, indicating the drug can be used for acute and long-term maintenance therapy.
Lax elaborates, "Reviva is a late-stage pharmaceutical company. We are focused on developing next-generation therapies for diseases of neuro targets. That's our primary focus. So, currently, we are focused on CNS, inflammatory, and cardiometabolic diseases. We use chemical genomics-driven technologies to develop new chemical entities. Currently, we have two molecules in development. One is brilaroxazine, which is also called RP5063. The second molecule is RP1208. Both molecules were discovered in-house."
"For schizophrenia, there are several treatments available. Collectively there are around 13 new drugs that got approved in the last 40 years. There are still significant unmet needs in the treatment of schizophrenia because schizophrenia is not a single disease. Instead, it's a mix of multiple symptoms. So, developing new therapies that can address multiple symptom domains is quite challenging. That's what we are currently working on in our drug brilaroxazine. We believe that it ideally can treat major symptom domains with benign or fewer side effects."
"There are reports - all research-level - they're not accepted as a confirmatory test. For example, biomarkers called inflammatory biomarkers like BDNF and cytokines. There are several clinical research reports published, their links to or their association with the severity of schizophrenia. They're shown as the disease progresses the changes in these biomarkers. However, they are not validated to use as a definitive test for evaluating schizophrenia."
"Then, recently, with the advancement of AI or computer techniques, there is the voice biomarker. The way schizophrenia patients speak, in general, psychiatric patients' speech has a distinguishable pattern. That's also being used as a marker to evaluate the severity in this patient population. So, in the just-completed study, we evaluated both blood-based markers as cytokines and are currently evaluating voice biomarker. So, the data will be available soon."
#RevivaPharma #Schizophrenia #Biomarkers #VoiceBiomarker #Neurotransmitters #Dopamine #Serotonin #AI
revivapharma.com
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Laxminarayan Bhat, Founder, President, and CEO of Reviva Pharmaceuticals, is focused on developing next-generation therapies for neurological diseases, particularly schizophrenia. Their lead candidate, brilaroxazine, acts on multiple neuro receptors to balance imbalanced neurotransmitters in the brain that are responsible for causing schizophrenia. This new molecule shows positive results in efficacy and a low discontinuation rate, indicating the drug can be used for acute and long-term maintenance therapy.
Lax elaborates, "Reviva is a late-stage pharmaceutical company. We are focused on developing next-generation therapies for diseases of neuro targets. That's our primary focus. So, currently, we are focused on CNS, inflammatory, and cardiometabolic diseases. We use chemical genomics-driven technologies to develop new chemical entities. Currently, we have two molecules in development. One is brilaroxazine, which is also called RP5063. The second molecule is RP1208. Both molecules were discovered in-house."
"For schizophrenia, there are several treatments available. Collectively there are around 13 new drugs that got approved in the last 40 years. There are still significant unmet needs in the treatment of schizophrenia because schizophrenia is not a single disease. Instead, it's a mix of multiple symptoms. So, developing new therapies that can address multiple symptom domains is quite challenging. That's what we are currently working on in our drug brilaroxazine. We believe that it ideally can treat major symptom domains with benign or fewer side effects."
"There are reports - all research-level - they're not accepted as a confirmatory test. For example, biomarkers called inflammatory biomarkers like BDNF and cytokines. There are several clinical research reports published, their links to or their association with the severity of schizophrenia. They're shown as the disease progresses the changes in these biomarkers. However, they are not validated to use as a definitive test for evaluating schizophrenia."
"Then, recently, with the advancement of AI or computer techniques, there is the voice biomarker. The way schizophrenia patients speak, in general, psychiatric patients' speech has a distinguishable pattern. That's also being used as a marker to evaluate the severity in this patient population. So, in the just-completed study, we evaluated both blood-based markers as cytokines and are currently evaluating voice biomarker. So, the data will be available soon."
#RevivaPharma #Schizophrenia #Biomarkers #VoiceBiomarker #Neurotransmitters #Dopamine #Serotonin #AI
revivapharma.com
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Robert Maxwell, Founder and CEO of ClinConnect, has created a platform that simplifies the process of patients finding clinical trials, shortens enrollment times, and focuses on providing support to ensure patient retention in the trials. The platform works in collaboration with sponsors, healthcare providers, hospitals, and other stakeholders to streamline communication and more quickly identify qualified clinical trial participants from a broader universe.
Robert explains, "We make the process of not only finding the trial very, very simple, but we also shorten the enrollment times, which in the case of acute disease is distinctly important. But generally speaking, it's usually more advantageous to get into a trial more quickly than waiting unnecessarily. And so, while we don't claim to solve all clinical trial recruitment issues, we've found that our patients generally see about a 60% to 70% reduction in enrollment time by working with us and letting us be their advocate through the enrollment process."
"On the flip side, with pharmaceutical companies who are sponsoring these trials or running them directly, 70% of trials don't meet their recruitment targets. And that's profoundly problematic for them."
"So, we do not just work with the patient to get them into the trial. We will continue to advocate for them. And as we use the term, we'll hold their hand through the entire trial process. Then, we even have some post-trial services and some work we do with them after the trial. So we have found that because we don't just work with them in one kind of component of the life cycle of the trial, our retention rates are much higher as well. "
#ClinConnect #ClinicalTrials #TrialRetention #TrialRecruitment #DigitalHealth #PatientAdvocacy
clinconnect.io
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Robert Maxwell, Founder and CEO of ClinConnect, has created a platform that simplifies the process of patients finding clinical trials, shortens enrollment times, and focuses on providing support to ensure patient retention in the trials. The platform works in collaboration with sponsors, healthcare providers, hospitals, and other stakeholders to streamline communication and more quickly identify qualified clinical trial participants from a broader universe.
Robert explains, "We make the process of not only finding the trial very, very simple, but we also shorten the enrollment times, which in the case of acute disease is distinctly important. But generally speaking, it's usually more advantageous to get into a trial more quickly than waiting unnecessarily. And so, while we don't claim to solve all clinical trial recruitment issues, we've found that our patients generally see about a 60% to 70% reduction in enrollment time by working with us and letting us be their advocate through the enrollment process."
"On the flip side, with pharmaceutical companies who are sponsoring these trials or running them directly, 70% of trials don't meet their recruitment targets. And that's profoundly problematic for them."
"So, we do not just work with the patient to get them into the trial. We will continue to advocate for them. And as we use the term, we'll hold their hand through the entire trial process. Then, we even have some post-trial services and some work we do with them after the trial. So we have found that because we don't just work with them in one kind of component of the life cycle of the trial, our retention rates are much higher as well. "
#ClinConnect #ClinicalTrials #TrialRetention #TrialRecruitment #DigitalHealth #PatientAdvocacy
clinconnect.io
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Chris Paradise, VP of Research and Development at Rion, is taking an acellular approach to developing next-generation regenerative medicines to treat degenerative diseases. The proprietary Rion system PEP, purified exosome product, uses extracellular vesicles or exosomes isolated from human blood platelets to send regenerative messages to cells to stimulate faster healing. This regenerative therapeutic allows for the administration in various forms, such as nebulization for pulmonary conditions and topical application for wounds.
Chris explains, "What our focus has shifted towards at Rion is now an acellular approach, so it doesn't involve the use of cells or other components that have been proposed in the past. But we're focusing on extracellular vesicles or exosomes, and we can discuss those in more detail in a minute. But the point of emphasis is that it overcomes many of the limitations the field has previously faced. We're excited to offer reproducible, consistent, and, most importantly, accessible and affordable regenerative therapeutic with a significant impact."
"If you think about how two cells communicate with one another, one of the ways they do this is to send messages in little packages between one another, known as extracellular vesicles. It's the fundamental way that cells and tissues more broadly communicate with each other, send signals to one another, and respond to their environment. And so what you find within these vesicles is essentially what one cell is trying to say to another. And they're designed such that they're incredibly stable and designed to do exactly that, which is deliver messages to cells."
"I'll back up to the source of the material, which is human platelets. Most people are familiar with platelets as a key component of your blood. If we get an injury or a cut, the bleeding tends to stop relatively quickly. That's because platelets respond to that injury site and form a clot, which stops the bleeding. Much like the conversation about the newfound appreciation for exosomes, I've certainly gained a new appreciation for the impact platelets have, not only on the control of bleeding but, more importantly, the regenerative processes that are jump-started after that to heal the tissues."
#RionTX #RegenerativeMedicine #RegenerativeTherapeutics #Acellular #PlateletDerived #Exosomes
riontx.com
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Chris Paradise, VP of Research and Development at Rion, is taking an acellular approach to developing next-generation regenerative medicines to treat degenerative diseases. The proprietary Rion system PEP, purified exosome product, uses extracellular vesicles or exosomes isolated from human blood platelets to send regenerative messages to cells to stimulate faster healing. This regenerative therapeutic allows for the administration in various forms, such as nebulization for pulmonary conditions and topical application for wounds.
Chris explains, "What our focus has shifted towards at Rion is now an acellular approach, so it doesn't involve the use of cells or other components that have been proposed in the past. But we're focusing on extracellular vesicles or exosomes, and we can discuss those in more detail in a minute. But the point of emphasis is that it overcomes many of the limitations the field has previously faced. We're excited to offer reproducible, consistent, and, most importantly, accessible and affordable regenerative therapeutic with a significant impact."
"If you think about how two cells communicate with one another, one of the ways they do this is to send messages in little packages between one another, known as extracellular vesicles. It's the fundamental way that cells and tissues more broadly communicate with each other, send signals to one another, and respond to their environment. And so what you find within these vesicles is essentially what one cell is trying to say to another. And they're designed such that they're incredibly stable and designed to do exactly that, which is deliver messages to cells."
"I'll back up to the source of the material, which is human platelets. Most people are familiar with platelets as a key component of your blood. If we get an injury or a cut, the bleeding tends to stop relatively quickly. That's because platelets respond to that injury site and form a clot, which stops the bleeding. Much like the conversation about the newfound appreciation for exosomes, I've certainly gained a new appreciation for the impact platelets have, not only on the control of bleeding but, more importantly, the regenerative processes that are jump-started after that to heal the tissues."
#RionTX #RegenerativeMedicine #RegenerativeTherapeutics #Acellular #PlateletDerived #Exosomes
riontx.com
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Fady Boctor, President and Chief Commercial Officer of Petros Pharmaceuticals, discusses the process of transitioning drugs from prescription to over-the-counter status, which includes conducting studies to determine label comprehension. In this situation, the FDA reviews the package wording to determine if the consumer can self-select the drug safely without a physician's involvement. With a focus on men's health issues like erectile dysfunction, Petros also sees the opportunity to educate consumers, reduce healthcare costs, and potentially identify related conditions that might require further investigation.
Fady explains, "Switches had been occurring, those prescriptions to OTC switches, have been occurring since really 1974, 1975. Over the past many years, about 106 products have been switched from prescription to OTC. The common denominator among those switches is that they're relatively safe products. We're talking antihistamines, allergy medications, and smoking cessation products. These are products that are relatively safe."
"We're trying to establish a new technology platform that speaks to transience and instantaneous engagement with the product. Imagine in a retail pharmacy aisle or at home on your mobile or desktop computer, you look at the product, engage with the drug facts label, and if you are appropriate for selection, use technology that supports your appropriate self-selection. You purchase the product as an OTC non-prescription, an amazing new frontier we're excited to be a part of."
"In 2022 or 2023, we're looking at roughly a 70,000 primary care physician shortage. By 2030, that's supposed to get into the triple digits of roughly 120,000 primary care physician shortages. We're already seeing it, where the waiting lists and the time to appointment are going into the weeks and months. Sometimes, these patients in a far more educated community with WebMD and the like, easily self-diagnosable conditions, should be actionable, with prescription medication switching to OTC to help meet that consumer where they need it and when they need it."
#PetrosPharma $PTPI #STENDRA #OTCSwitch #ErectileDysfunction #Avanafil
PetrosPharma.com
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Fady Boctor, President and Chief Commercial Officer of Petros Pharmaceuticals, discusses the process of transitioning drugs from prescription to over-the-counter status, which includes conducting studies to determine label comprehension. In this situation, the FDA reviews the package wording to determine if the consumer can self-select the drug safely without a physician's involvement. With a focus on men's health issues like erectile dysfunction, Petros also sees the opportunity to educate consumers, reduce healthcare costs, and potentially identify related conditions that might require further investigation.
Fady explains, "Switches had been occurring, those prescriptions to OTC switches, have been occurring since really 1974, 1975. Over the past many years, about 106 products have been switched from prescription to OTC. The common denominator among those switches is that they're relatively safe products. We're talking antihistamines, allergy medications, and smoking cessation products. These are products that are relatively safe."
"We're trying to establish a new technology platform that speaks to transience and instantaneous engagement with the product. Imagine in a retail pharmacy aisle or at home on your mobile or desktop computer, you look at the product, engage with the drug facts label, and if you are appropriate for selection, use technology that supports your appropriate self-selection. You purchase the product as an OTC non-prescription, an amazing new frontier we're excited to be a part of."
"In 2022 or 2023, we're looking at roughly a 70,000 primary care physician shortage. By 2030, that's supposed to get into the triple digits of roughly 120,000 primary care physician shortages. We're already seeing it, where the waiting lists and the time to appointment are going into the weeks and months. Sometimes, these patients in a far more educated community with WebMD and the like, easily self-diagnosable conditions, should be actionable, with prescription medication switching to OTC to help meet that consumer where they need it and when they need it."
#PetrosPharma $PTPI #STENDRA #OTCSwitch #ErectileDysfunction #Avanafil
PetrosPharma.com
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Dr. Holly Miller, Chief Medical Officer at MedAllies, discusses the importance of data interoperability and usability to provide clinicians and patients with information that can lead to better-informed decisions. The Sequoia Data Usability Project focuses on ensuring that data is trustworthy and useable. MedAllies is involved in the related Taking Root Movement, which promotes the adoption of the Sequoia Data Usability Implementation Guide. Holly emphasizes the need for solutions to provide a friendly user interface and software design that improves the providers' workflow.
Holly explains, "Medallies offers multiple interoperable networks, ensuring the secure transmission of critical health information among healthcare constituents. It's important that the listeners understand that we've moved to a world where a lot of data is being captured electronically. To optimize clinician-patient decision-making and patients being able to make decisions for themselves, that data has to move across the healthcare environment to wherever someone is being seen for care."
"This project and Sequoia understand that for healthcare constituents to adopt and use interoperability, the data has to be usable, reliable, and trustworthy. The data usability workgroup, currently comprised of 391 organizations with 486 participants, has focused on ensuring that data received through interoperability is trustworthy and usable. The first implementation guide by this group was published about a year ago and focused on data provenance, effective use of codes, reducing duplicates, data integrity, data tagging for searchability, and the effective use of narrative captured in electronic health records."
"In many cases, it's about making the right thing to do the easy thing. And so, the system's user interface, where the data comes across into an end-user system, has to be easy to use. It has to be easy to integrate into the system that receives it and to be easy to reconcile it with the data that already exists in your system."
#MedAllies #Interoperability #TEFCA #QHINs #HealthData #DataExchange
MedAllies.com
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Dr. Holly Miller, Chief Medical Officer at MedAllies, discusses the importance of data interoperability and usability to provide clinicians and patients with information that can lead to better-informed decisions. The Sequoia Data Usability Project focuses on ensuring that data is trustworthy and useable. MedAllies is involved in the related Taking Root Movement, which promotes the adoption of the Sequoia Data Usability Implementation Guide. Holly emphasizes the need for solutions to provide a friendly user interface and software design that improves the providers' workflow.
Holly explains, "Medallies offers multiple interoperable networks, ensuring the secure transmission of critical health information among healthcare constituents. It's important that the listeners understand that we've moved to a world where a lot of data is being captured electronically. To optimize clinician-patient decision-making and patients being able to make decisions for themselves, that data has to move across the healthcare environment to wherever someone is being seen for care."
"This project and Sequoia understand that for healthcare constituents to adopt and use interoperability, the data has to be usable, reliable, and trustworthy. The data usability workgroup, currently comprised of 391 organizations with 486 participants, has focused on ensuring that data received through interoperability is trustworthy and usable. The first implementation guide by this group was published about a year ago and focused on data provenance, effective use of codes, reducing duplicates, data integrity, data tagging for searchability, and the effective use of narrative captured in electronic health records."
"In many cases, it's about making the right thing to do the easy thing. And so, the system's user interface, where the data comes across into an end-user system, has to be easy to use. It has to be easy to integrate into the system that receives it and to be easy to reconcile it with the data that already exists in your system."
#MedAllies #Interoperability #TEFCA #QHINs #HealthData #DataExchange
MedAllies.com
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Dr. Mark Lomax, CEO of PEP Health, a new way to listen to the patient's voice. PEP, the Patient Experience Platform, collects and analyzes patient comments from various digital platforms to gain insights into the quality of care provided by healthcare organizations. Using AI to interpret and understand the sentiment of the comments, the company is providing real-time data that can help organizations make better management decisions and improve patient care. The technology can also be used for risk management and early detection of problems within healthcare facilities to improve patient safety and outcomes.
Mark explains, "We've got a few arms to it, but the fundamental part of what we do is collect all the comments that patients might post anywhere on the digital landscape from social media, online review sites, doctor review platform sites. We aggregate it all together and then make sense of it so that we can listen to a whole population. We listen to the whole US, and every location, every hospital, and every clinic that sits within the US. We are listening in real time with our technology. That's exciting because then it goes onto a ton of different insights and new ways of understanding good and bad care and why there is good and bad care in different places. We do all of that because, fundamentally, we want to improve the patient experience. Our mission at PEP Health is to enable organizations and individuals to make better choices so that care gets better for patients."
"What is underpinning it is a science, a psychology science called the wisdom of crowds. We call it the wisdom of patients, and for every few that might be a bit off on the needle, most people can identify what's good and bad about healthcare, giving us the truth. It helps us zone in on what matters. This has been validated for a number of different tools now so that we know the insights we derive matter, and that's great for people when they come to use it."
#PEPHealth #PatientExperience #PatientEmpowerment #CareQuality #HealthTech #HealthAI #SocialListening
pephealth.ai
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Dr. Mark Lomax, CEO of PEP Health, a new way to listen to the patient's voice. PEP, the Patient Experience Platform, collects and analyzes patient comments from various digital platforms to gain insights into the quality of care provided by healthcare organizations. Using AI to interpret and understand the sentiment of the comments, the company is providing real-time data that can help organizations make better management decisions and improve patient care. The technology can also be used for risk management and early detection of problems within healthcare facilities to improve patient safety and outcomes.
Mark explains, "We've got a few arms to it, but the fundamental part of what we do is collect all the comments that patients might post anywhere on the digital landscape from social media, online review sites, doctor review platform sites. We aggregate it all together and then make sense of it so that we can listen to a whole population. We listen to the whole US, and every location, every hospital, and every clinic that sits within the US. We are listening in real time with our technology. That's exciting because then it goes onto a ton of different insights and new ways of understanding good and bad care and why there is good and bad care in different places. We do all of that because, fundamentally, we want to improve the patient experience. Our mission at PEP Health is to enable organizations and individuals to make better choices so that care gets better for patients."
"What is underpinning it is a science, a psychology science called the wisdom of crowds. We call it the wisdom of patients, and for every few that might be a bit off on the needle, most people can identify what's good and bad about healthcare, giving us the truth. It helps us zone in on what matters. This has been validated for a number of different tools now so that we know the insights we derive matter, and that's great for people when they come to use it."
#PEPHealth #PatientExperience #PatientEmpowerment #CareQuality #HealthTech #HealthAI #SocialListening
pephealth.ai
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Dr. Fiona Elwood, VP and Neurodegeneration Disease Area Stronghold leader at J&J Innovative Medicine discusses the challenges in developing new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases in part because of the heterogeneity of the patient population. She highlights the difficulty in defining the subsets of these diseases and identifying the right patients for clinical trials. Emphasizing the importance of early detection, J&J Innovative Medicine is developing strategies to support the move to precision medicine in treating diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to prevent patients from moving to a symptomatic stage of disease.
Fiona explains, "For example, in Alzheimer's disease, as many people know, one of the primary symptoms is dementia, but dementia is a symptom. There can be other reasons why people develop forms of dementia. Alzheimer's disease is a specific disease where now we know patients can be defined by the pathology in the patient's brain. So specifically, the patients develop amyloid plaques, extracellular clumps or plaques of the amyloid beta peptide, and intracellular, inside neurons, tangles of a protein called tau. So, it's these pathological hallmarks that characterize or define Alzheimer's disease and lead to symptoms such as dementia."
"We know that Alzheimer's, for example, starts about ten years before patients display symptoms. But we don't know exactly how quickly each person might progress or the specific subset of symptoms that each patient may be particularly susceptible to."
"Then maybe the third thing I'll call out that's been a real challenge to us has been the time course of disease and the fact that the Alzheimer's pathology can start 10, 20 years before patients show up at their doctor's office. Historically, we weren't able to detect those very earliest stages of disease. Now, because of the field's investment in different biomarker technologies, imaging technologies, digital technologies, and even highly sensitive blood-based screening technologies, we can identify patients right at the beginning of that pathological cascade."
#JNJInnovativeMedicine #Neuroscience #Neurodegeneration #AlzheimersDisease
jnj.com
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Dr. Fiona Elwood, VP and Neurodegeneration Disease Area Stronghold leader at J&J Innovative Medicine discusses the challenges in developing new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases in part because of the heterogeneity of the patient population. She highlights the difficulty in defining the subsets of these diseases and identifying the right patients for clinical trials. Emphasizing the importance of early detection, J&J Innovative Medicine is developing strategies to support the move to precision medicine in treating diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to prevent patients from moving to a symptomatic stage of disease.
Fiona explains, "For example, in Alzheimer's disease, as many people know, one of the primary symptoms is dementia, but dementia is a symptom. There can be other reasons why people develop forms of dementia. Alzheimer's disease is a specific disease where now we know patients can be defined by the pathology in the patient's brain. So specifically, the patients develop amyloid plaques, extracellular clumps or plaques of the amyloid beta peptide, and intracellular, inside neurons, tangles of a protein called tau. So, it's these pathological hallmarks that characterize or define Alzheimer's disease and lead to symptoms such as dementia."
"We know that Alzheimer's, for example, starts about ten years before patients display symptoms. But we don't know exactly how quickly each person might progress or the specific subset of symptoms that each patient may be particularly susceptible to."
"Then maybe the third thing I'll call out that's been a real challenge to us has been the time course of disease and the fact that the Alzheimer's pathology can start 10, 20 years before patients show up at their doctor's office. Historically, we weren't able to detect those very earliest stages of disease. Now, because of the field's investment in different biomarker technologies, imaging technologies, digital technologies, and even highly sensitive blood-based screening technologies, we can identify patients right at the beginning of that pathological cascade."
#JNJInnovativeMedicine #Neuroscience #Neurodegeneration #AlzheimersDisease
jnj.com
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Dr. Ping Cao, Co-Founder and CEO of BridGene Biosciences, has developed IMTAC, a platform that can identify molecule ligands for hard-to-drug targets. This platform allows for proteome-wide screening for drug candidates from a small molecule library and has identified over 4,000 protein targets providing numerous opportunities for drug development. The lead candidate, BGI-9004, is a TEAD inhibitor of multiple cancers. BridGene is also in partnership with Takeda to focus on neurodegenerative disorders.
Ping explains, "For small molecule discovery, the major challenge right now is the limited druggable space. Human proteome consists of over 20,000 proteins, and approximately 12,000 of them have been confirmed to play a role in human diseases and may become targets for precision therapy."
"However, statistics analysis shows drugs so far approved by the FDA only target less than 10% of proteins. In other words, most potential drug targets within human proteome do not have associated drugs. Those targets are called hard-to-drug targets due to their biological or structural characteristics. Also, there is less understanding of their mechanism, making them undruggable using traditional methods."
"The significance of proteome-wide screening is that it addresses two kinds of major challenges of drug discovery. One is that some protein drugs contain shadow-binding pockets. The second one is some protein drugs only form transient and temporary binding pockets in live cell environments. For these two types of drugs, by using the chemical proteome approach, we can identify ligands. The process is basically like BridGene's process called IMTAC. They consist of three main components."
#BridGeneBio #UndruggableTargets #SmallMolecules #Takeda
BridGenebio.com
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Dr. Ping Cao, Co-Founder and CEO of BridGene Biosciences, has developed IMTAC, a platform that can identify molecule ligands for hard-to-drug targets. This platform allows for proteome-wide screening for drug candidates from a small molecule library and has identified over 4,000 protein targets providing numerous opportunities for drug development. The lead candidate, BGI-9004, is a TEAD inhibitor of multiple cancers. BridGene is also in partnership with Takeda to focus on neurodegenerative disorders.
Ping explains, "For small molecule discovery, the major challenge right now is the limited druggable space. Human proteome consists of over 20,000 proteins, and approximately 12,000 of them have been confirmed to play a role in human diseases and may become targets for precision therapy."
"However, statistics analysis shows drugs so far approved by the FDA only target less than 10% of proteins. In other words, most potential drug targets within human proteome do not have associated drugs. Those targets are called hard-to-drug targets due to their biological or structural characteristics. Also, there is less understanding of their mechanism, making them undruggable using traditional methods."
"The significance of proteome-wide screening is that it addresses two kinds of major challenges of drug discovery. One is that some protein drugs contain shadow-binding pockets. The second one is some protein drugs only form transient and temporary binding pockets in live cell environments. For these two types of drugs, by using the chemical proteome approach, we can identify ligands. The process is basically like BridGene's process called IMTAC. They consist of three main components."
#BridGeneBio #UndruggableTargets #SmallMolecules #Takeda
BridGenebio.com
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Bronwyn Spira, Co-Founder, and CEO at Force Therapeutics, provides a comprehensive digital platform connecting patients to their rehab and recovery care team for musculoskeletal therapy. The platform includes personalized treatment plans and allows continuous monitoring and real-time intervention to help reduce readmissions and complications. While patients have come to expect a digital alternative, providers have become more comfortable with digital tools, recognizing their ability to engage with more patients and reduce burnout by automating repetitive tasks.
Bronwyn explains, "Force is a comprehensive tool that patients access during their recovery to get all their personalized treatment plans, which might include exercises, education, videos, outcome forms, and anything they need when they're not in the presence of their providers. The platform is almost like an extension of the patient's care team, allowing patients to provide feedback that enables real-time intervention. We've seen that this feedback loop helps reduce readmissions, lowers the cost of care, and reduces complications."
"We partner very closely with hospitals, health systems, ASCs, and large private practices to support their internal care teams of orthopedic surgeons, nurses, physical therapists, and navigators around that musculoskeletal patient's journey."
"Patients not only embrace the experience but are starting to expect it. So this is certainly a sea change and a commentary on where we are in the world today. When we started Force Therapeutics, patients started to do their travel planning, banking, and even dating online. And now it's become the norm that everything you do should have a digital component. And so patients are very engaged. Funnily enough, the stakeholder that has made the biggest turnaround in accepting digital tools is the provider side of the house. Originally, a lot of providers were very resistant and said, "Patients won't do this. We want as much care as possible to be in person."
#ForceTherapeutics #MSK #PhysicalTherapy #DigitalHealth #DigitalTherapy
forcetherapeutics.com
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Bronwyn Spira, Co-Founder, and CEO at Force Therapeutics, provides a comprehensive digital platform connecting patients to their rehab and recovery care team for musculoskeletal therapy. The platform includes personalized treatment plans and allows continuous monitoring and real-time intervention to help reduce readmissions and complications. While patients have come to expect a digital alternative, providers have become more comfortable with digital tools, recognizing their ability to engage with more patients and reduce burnout by automating repetitive tasks.
Bronwyn explains, "Force is a comprehensive tool that patients access during their recovery to get all their personalized treatment plans, which might include exercises, education, videos, outcome forms, and anything they need when they're not in the presence of their providers. The platform is almost like an extension of the patient's care team, allowing patients to provide feedback that enables real-time intervention. We've seen that this feedback loop helps reduce readmissions, lowers the cost of care, and reduces complications."
"We partner very closely with hospitals, health systems, ASCs, and large private practices to support their internal care teams of orthopedic surgeons, nurses, physical therapists, and navigators around that musculoskeletal patient's journey."
"Patients not only embrace the experience but are starting to expect it. So this is certainly a sea change and a commentary on where we are in the world today. When we started Force Therapeutics, patients started to do their travel planning, banking, and even dating online. And now it's become the norm that everything you do should have a digital component. And so patients are very engaged. Funnily enough, the stakeholder that has made the biggest turnaround in accepting digital tools is the provider side of the house. Originally, a lot of providers were very resistant and said, "Patients won't do this. We want as much care as possible to be in person."
#ForceTherapeutics #MSK #PhysicalTherapy #DigitalHealth #DigitalTherapy
forcetherapeutics.com
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Dr. Michael Gao, Co-Founder and CEO of SmarterDx, discusses the challenges hospitals face in getting paid for their services. He explains that the revenue cycle, which involves generating accurate receipts for patient care, is a complex process that requires manual work from healthcare professionals. SmarterDx is streamlining the process by using AI to scan and analyze medical data, allowing professionals to focus on making judgments based on clinically validated data to report and bill more accurately for actions taken.
Michael explains, "One of the biggest challenges in the healthcare environment today is that hospitals have a hard time getting paid to provide the services they do for sick patients. And we've all seen through COVID, and certainly, in modern-day, these organizations are operating off of 1% operating margins or even losing money year over year. I think, very fundamentally, the problem that we're trying to solve is how do we make sure that the hospital can tell a complete patient story and represent all the care they provided so that they can be paid fairly for the care they provided."
"Revenue cycle is very complicated, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating a receipt for what happened during that patient's visit to the hospital. And that receipt, we think of it as a bill, is used by insurance companies to sort of size the payment. It's also used by CMS, US News and World Report, and other organizations to figure out what happens so they can grade the quality of the care provided. From our vantage point of the revenue cycle, there are a lot of different names for different steps of the revenue cycle, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating an accurate receipt. Our company's North Star is to help revenue cycle leaders ensure that the items on that receipt are as accurate and complete as possible."
"If I were to outline a bunch of steps within the revenue cycle, there are two steps today that people do in the middle. One is clinical documentation improvement, and the other is medical coding. And for your listeners on the call who maybe haven't been a documentation improvement nurse themselves, it's an incredibly difficult job. What they're doing is opening up charts, looking through thousands of labs, medications, vital signs, notes, radiology reports, pathology reports, and they're looking for the absence of something."
#SmarterDx #HealthcareAI #RCM #ClinicalAI #Hospitals #RevenueCycle
smarterdx.com
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Dr. Michael Gao, Co-Founder and CEO of SmarterDx, discusses the challenges hospitals face in getting paid for their services. He explains that the revenue cycle, which involves generating accurate receipts for patient care, is a complex process that requires manual work from healthcare professionals. SmarterDx is streamlining the process by using AI to scan and analyze medical data, allowing professionals to focus on making judgments based on clinically validated data to report and bill more accurately for actions taken.
Michael explains, "One of the biggest challenges in the healthcare environment today is that hospitals have a hard time getting paid to provide the services they do for sick patients. And we've all seen through COVID, and certainly, in modern-day, these organizations are operating off of 1% operating margins or even losing money year over year. I think, very fundamentally, the problem that we're trying to solve is how do we make sure that the hospital can tell a complete patient story and represent all the care they provided so that they can be paid fairly for the care they provided."
"Revenue cycle is very complicated, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating a receipt for what happened during that patient's visit to the hospital. And that receipt, we think of it as a bill, is used by insurance companies to sort of size the payment. It's also used by CMS, US News and World Report, and other organizations to figure out what happens so they can grade the quality of the care provided. From our vantage point of the revenue cycle, there are a lot of different names for different steps of the revenue cycle, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating an accurate receipt. Our company's North Star is to help revenue cycle leaders ensure that the items on that receipt are as accurate and complete as possible."
"If I were to outline a bunch of steps within the revenue cycle, there are two steps today that people do in the middle. One is clinical documentation improvement, and the other is medical coding. And for your listeners on the call who maybe haven't been a documentation improvement nurse themselves, it's an incredibly difficult job. What they're doing is opening up charts, looking through thousands of labs, medications, vital signs, notes, radiology reports, pathology reports, and they're looking for the absence of something."
#SmarterDx #HealthcareAI #RCM #ClinicalAI #Hospitals #RevenueCycle
smarterdx.com
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Karen Schatten, the Associate Director of the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons, is encouraging consideration of alternative paths for continuous certification for board-certified physicians and surgeons. Since 2000, a bureaucratic process has been mandated for this ongoing education. NSPAS aims to modernize and disrupt this process by offering an alternative path for continuing education that addresses physician burnout and provides relevant training to stay current in their medical specialties.
Karen explains, "The reason why the bureaucracy persists is, despite it not being really proven and physicians really having to collectively protest it, that requirement we now know after studying it for a number of years is it is actually more expensive. It's more burdensome. It creates a lot of irrelevant administrative burdens. Those forced programs are not a great match for physicians and what they do in day-to-day practice. It's often not clinically relevant and plays a critical role in exacerbating physician burnout and loss. So, we set out to change this sort of old-school thinking. That's what we exist to do, to provide that competition and choice in that continuing certification market for physicians."
"It's the problem of the monopoly on continuous certification. So, the same organization that provides the initial board certification exams also reports to the entire world who is board certified. The problem has come into play for physicians and worsened access to care issues because if physicians refuse their part two or continuing certifications, the organization has, since about 2012, listed physicians as not certified in these databases."
"What's important to NBPAS is we've concerned ourselves with putting forth what we know works and what is evidence-based. The continuing education program that has a monopoly control over physician's livelihood has not been proven to impact patient outcomes and physician-led care. So what we've tried to do and how we've tried to forward our continuing certification pathway is to get accepted by all the major national accrediting bodies in the United States."
#NBPAS #PhysicianShortage #PhysicianBurnout #BoardCertification #MedicalCredentialing #Healthcare
NBPAS.org
Listen to the podcast here
Karen Schatten, the Associate Director of the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons, is encouraging consideration of alternative paths for continuous certification for board-certified physicians and surgeons. Since 2000, a bureaucratic process has been mandated for this ongoing education. NSPAS aims to modernize and disrupt this process by offering an alternative path for continuing education that addresses physician burnout and provides relevant training to stay current in their medical specialties.
Karen explains, "The reason why the bureaucracy persists is, despite it not being really proven and physicians really having to collectively protest it, that requirement we now know after studying it for a number of years is it is actually more expensive. It's more burdensome. It creates a lot of irrelevant administrative burdens. Those forced programs are not a great match for physicians and what they do in day-to-day practice. It's often not clinically relevant and plays a critical role in exacerbating physician burnout and loss. So, we set out to change this sort of old-school thinking. That's what we exist to do, to provide that competition and choice in that continuing certification market for physicians."
"It's the problem of the monopoly on continuous certification. So, the same organization that provides the initial board certification exams also reports to the entire world who is board certified. The problem has come into play for physicians and worsened access to care issues because if physicians refuse their part two or continuing certifications, the organization has, since about 2012, listed physicians as not certified in these databases."
"What's important to NBPAS is we've concerned ourselves with putting forth what we know works and what is evidence-based. The continuing education program that has a monopoly control over physician's livelihood has not been proven to impact patient outcomes and physician-led care. So what we've tried to do and how we've tried to forward our continuing certification pathway is to get accepted by all the major national accrediting bodies in the United States."
#NBPAS #PhysicianShortage #PhysicianBurnout #BoardCertification #MedicalCredentialing #Healthcare
NBPAS.org
Download the transcript here
Phoebe Souza is the clinical lead for mental health at OncoHealth, a digital telehealth platform focusing on personalized oncology-specific support for patients with cancer and their caregivers. Advanced care planning is how individuals can communicate their wishes for care that aligns with their values. Phoebe highlights the role of healthcare providers, including oncologists, in initiating conversations about advanced directives to ensure patients understand their options. She emphasizes all individuals over 18 should document their desires for medical care in the event they are unable to do so themselves.
Phoebe explains, "Advanced care planning, also called ACP, is an umbrella term that includes both communication skills, so conversations with loved ones and a person's medical team, as well as completing documents such as an advanced directive, and that helps a person make plans about their future healthcare. An advanced directive and a care plan serve as a roadmap for medical providers and loved ones to ensure that an individual's wishes are honored if they are seriously ill and unable to communicate what they would want in terms of care."
"I think of the ACP as being appropriate for any person with any health status over the age of 18, and as humans, we live with vulnerability. It's great to be proactive about writing down and communicating the type of care that you would want, and you would not want in certain situations. It aligns with our values, and it's an act of care and a gift for those who would be making those decisions for us. Specifically, for individuals living with a serious illness, it's critical to think about what type of care aligns with what they imagine for them and aligns with their quality-of-life goals."
"OncoHealth, more broadly, is supporting different ways to support individuals and families who are living with both the emotional and physical symptoms of cancer. One aspect of that is working to empower individuals and families to think about how to advocate for their needs and their care while receiving cancer treatment. We offer, specifically looking at our mental health team, opportunities to work closely with a mental health therapist to explore the emotional side and empower those skills for communicating their needs to their medical team."
#OncoHealth #Healthcare #AdvancedCarePlanning #ACP #PatientEmpowerment #PatientCare #MentalHealth #Oncology #Cancer
oncohealth.us
Listen to the podcast here
Phoebe Souza is the clinical lead for mental health at OncoHealth, a digital telehealth platform focusing on personalized oncology-specific support for patients with cancer and their caregivers. Advanced care planning is how individuals can communicate their wishes for care that aligns with their values. Phoebe highlights the role of healthcare providers, including oncologists, in initiating conversations about advanced directives to ensure patients understand their options. She emphasizes all individuals over 18 should document their desires for medical care in the event they are unable to do so themselves.
Phoebe explains, "Advanced care planning, also called ACP, is an umbrella term that includes both communication skills, so conversations with loved ones and a person's medical team, as well as completing documents such as an advanced directive, and that helps a person make plans about their future healthcare. An advanced directive and a care plan serve as a roadmap for medical providers and loved ones to ensure that an individual's wishes are honored if they are seriously ill and unable to communicate what they would want in terms of care."
"I think of the ACP as being appropriate for any person with any health status over the age of 18, and as humans, we live with vulnerability. It's great to be proactive about writing down and communicating the type of care that you would want, and you would not want in certain situations. It aligns with our values, and it's an act of care and a gift for those who would be making those decisions for us. Specifically, for individuals living with a serious illness, it's critical to think about what type of care aligns with what they imagine for them and aligns with their quality-of-life goals."
"OncoHealth, more broadly, is supporting different ways to support individuals and families who are living with both the emotional and physical symptoms of cancer. One aspect of that is working to empower individuals and families to think about how to advocate for their needs and their care while receiving cancer treatment. We offer, specifically looking at our mental health team, opportunities to work closely with a mental health therapist to explore the emotional side and empower those skills for communicating their needs to their medical team."
#OncoHealth #Healthcare #AdvancedCarePlanning #ACP #PatientEmpowerment #PatientCare #MentalHealth #Oncology #Cancer
oncohealth.us
Download the transcript here
Dr. Stephanie Lahr, President of Artisight, is promoting the concept of Smart Hospitals and ambient technology's role in improving healthcare delivery. Hospitals can use sensors, cameras, speakers, microphones, and screens to address the increasing complexity of patient care while allowing clinicians to focus on patient care. These technologies are designed to integrate seamlessly into the clinicians' workflow with a focus on process automation and applying AI to drive the convergence of technology and medicine.
Stephanie explains, "A Smart Hospital is a hospital that is equipped with sensors and other kinds of elements that can capture information based on what's happening in real-time and leverage that information in real-time to help automate communication, automate documentation, and send signals. So, in your own home, you might think about a smart home where your thermostat has different elements that can sense when there's no one in the house, and it will change the temperature to be more economical."
"Those kinds of things we can do in a hospital by having sensors, things like cameras, speakers, microphones, potentially temperature sensors, and other things that capture information in real-time and then can do something with that information. We can leverage technology to a greater degree in hospitals, knowing that we want to have that information, but historically, what we've done is capture that information through manual means."
"When a patient is wheeled into an operating room for a surgical case, it is a requirement currently that an individual goes over to a computer system and marks a box that says the patient has now entered the room. We need to track closely how long a patient is in an OR for a variety of quality purposes. What a Smart Hospital would do, is allow sensors, things like computer vision to capture that ambiently in the space, so when the camera senses and sees that a patient in a bed is entering an operating room, we can automate that documentation."
#Artisight #AI #VirtualNursing #SmartHospitalPlatform #SmartHospital
Artisight.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Steve Marcus, CEO of Cantex Pharmaceuticals, emphasizes the importance of the RAGE receptor in diseases like cancer and inflammation. Their lead compound, azeliragon, blocks the activation of the RAGE receptor and shows effectiveness in inhibiting cancer metastasis and enhancing the impact of radiation. Clinical trials are underway for breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, glioblastoma, and COVID-19. This approach addresses the cancer cells and the microenvironment in which they reside to reduce disease progression and alter the immune environment.
Steve explains, "RAGE is a receptor on the surface of cells that sends signals to the cell that can either enhance or harm health. When over-activated, RAGE has been implicated in a wide range of inflammatory diseases and cancers. In cancer, in particular, over-activation of RAGE has been associated with both the invasiveness of cancer, with the progression of cancer, and with metastasis of cancer."
"Azeliragon blocks the binding of anything that can activate RAGE. The molecules, the proteins that bind to RAGE, are collectively called ligands, ligands meaning something that ligates or binds to the receptor. What azeliragon does is it binds to the receptor. It binds to the portion of the receptor that accepts the ligands and, therefore, blocks the binding of all the ligands. So it's a little bit like if you imagine a lock and the key, and it's almost like putting gum inside the keyhole so the key won't fit in. It's the same type of thing whereby by binding to the receptor, none of the ligands can bind to it."
"One of the attractive things about azeliragon is that it's a capsule. It's a pill taken by mouth. Originally the drug was developed for Alzheimer's disease, and we're repurposing it as a treatment of cancer. In those early clinical trials in Alzheimer's disease, it was remarkably safe. Patients had very little, if any, side effects from the drug. It was comparable to the placebo arm of the clinical trial. The drug is taken once a day by mouth. In the early clinical trials, it was taken for as long as 18 months every day. Another attractive thing about this is that the tumor will be exposed to the drug every day because the person is taking the drug every day."
#Cantex #RAGE #RAGEReceptor #Azeliragon #PancreaticCancer #Glioblastoma #Cancer
cantex.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Steve Marcus, CEO of Cantex Pharmaceuticals, emphasizes the importance of the RAGE receptor in diseases like cancer and inflammation. Their lead compound, azeliragon, blocks the activation of the RAGE receptor and shows effectiveness in inhibiting cancer metastasis and enhancing the impact of radiation. Clinical trials are underway for breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, glioblastoma, and COVID-19. This approach addresses the cancer cells and the microenvironment in which they reside to reduce disease progression and alter the immune environment.
Steve explains, "RAGE is a receptor on the surface of cells that sends signals to the cell that can either enhance or harm health. When over-activated, RAGE has been implicated in a wide range of inflammatory diseases and cancers. In cancer, in particular, over-activation of RAGE has been associated with both the invasiveness of cancer, with the progression of cancer, and with metastasis of cancer."
"Azeliragon blocks the binding of anything that can activate RAGE. The molecules, the proteins that bind to RAGE, are collectively called ligands, ligands meaning something that ligates or binds to the receptor. What azeliragon does is it binds to the receptor. It binds to the portion of the receptor that accepts the ligands and, therefore, blocks the binding of all the ligands. So it's a little bit like if you imagine a lock and the key, and it's almost like putting gum inside the keyhole so the key won't fit in. It's the same type of thing whereby by binding to the receptor, none of the ligands can bind to it."
"One of the attractive things about azeliragon is that it's a capsule. It's a pill taken by mouth. Originally the drug was developed for Alzheimer's disease, and we're repurposing it as a treatment of cancer. In those early clinical trials in Alzheimer's disease, it was remarkably safe. Patients had very little, if any, side effects from the drug. It was comparable to the placebo arm of the clinical trial. The drug is taken once a day by mouth. In the early clinical trials, it was taken for as long as 18 months every day. Another attractive thing about this is that the tumor will be exposed to the drug every day because the person is taking the drug every day."
#Cantex #RAGE #RAGEReceptor #Azeliragon #PancreaticCancer #Glioblastoma #Cancer
cantex.com
Download the transcript here
Alex Nemiroff, General Counsel at Praxis Precision Medicines, focuses on developing life-altering treatments for pediatric patients with epilepsy, particularly those with genetic epilepsies known as Developmental Epileptic Encephalopathies- DEEs. Praxis targets specific gene mutations SCN2A and SCN8A with therapies that precisely target the source of the disease. Lead drug candidate PRAX-562 is a precision small-molecule treatment that inhibits seizure-causing activity, and PRAX-222 is a type of RNA therapy that shows potential for complete disease modification.
Alex explains, "There are a number of types of epilepsy. At Praxis, we focus on a few. We have a broader focal epilepsy program, and then we have a number of programs targeting these genetic epilepsies that are referred to as DEEs, Developmental Epileptic Encephalopathies. These are epilepsies that start in infancy, and they're tied most commonly to a mutation in a gene that is known to cause epilepsy. Specifically, we have at Praxis right now in the clinic, programs aimed at mutations in the SCN2A and SCN8A genes. So these are SCN2A DEEs and SCN8A DEEs."
"What we've tried to do, and it's been the goal of Praxis since its inception, since I got connected to this company, is to target these mutations as close to their source as possible. The name is Praxis Precision Medicines very intentionally because what we believe these medicines are doing is precisely targeting the source of the disease. Relatively speaking, as close as we can get. These are not gene therapies. What we have in our pipeline right now and in the clinic are RNA therapies, which are these antisense oligonucleotide therapies, and then also small molecules that are more precisely targeting key components of the diseases."
"This is a big part of where the problem lies because the treatments that exist today, for the most part, are not precise to the specific cause of the disease. What we see with these genetic epilepsies- and again, specifically, we're focused on SCN2A and SCNA8A – there are no treatments other than the ones that Praxis are developing that target these mutations specifically. So what a doctor has to do, and what they did in my son's case and all of these other patients' cases, is they just start throwing these broad-based anti-epileptic medications at the child, and essentially, it's a trial and error process."
#Praxis #Epilepsy #PediatricEpilepsy #SCN2A #SCN8A #CNS
praxismedicines.com
Listen to the podcast here
Alex Nemiroff, General Counsel at Praxis Precision Medicines, focuses on developing life-altering treatments for pediatric patients with epilepsy, particularly those with genetic epilepsies known as Developmental Epileptic Encephalopathies- DEEs. Praxis targets specific gene mutations SCN2A and SCN8A with therapies that precisely target the source of the disease. Lead drug candidate PRAX-562 is a precision small-molecule treatment that inhibits seizure-causing activity, and PRAX-222 is a type of RNA therapy that shows potential for complete disease modification.
Alex explains, "There are a number of types of epilepsy. At Praxis, we focus on a few. We have a broader focal epilepsy program, and then we have a number of programs targeting these genetic epilepsies that are referred to as DEEs, Developmental Epileptic Encephalopathies. These are epilepsies that start in infancy, and they're tied most commonly to a mutation in a gene that is known to cause epilepsy. Specifically, we have at Praxis right now in the clinic, programs aimed at mutations in the SCN2A and SCN8A genes. So these are SCN2A DEEs and SCN8A DEEs."
"What we've tried to do, and it's been the goal of Praxis since its inception, since I got connected to this company, is to target these mutations as close to their source as possible. The name is Praxis Precision Medicines very intentionally because what we believe these medicines are doing is precisely targeting the source of the disease. Relatively speaking, as close as we can get. These are not gene therapies. What we have in our pipeline right now and in the clinic are RNA therapies, which are these antisense oligonucleotide therapies, and then also small molecules that are more precisely targeting key components of the diseases."
"This is a big part of where the problem lies because the treatments that exist today, for the most part, are not precise to the specific cause of the disease. What we see with these genetic epilepsies- and again, specifically, we're focused on SCN2A and SCNA8A – there are no treatments other than the ones that Praxis are developing that target these mutations specifically. So what a doctor has to do, and what they did in my son's case and all of these other patients' cases, is they just start throwing these broad-based anti-epileptic medications at the child, and essentially, it's a trial and error process."
#Praxis #Epilepsy #PediatricEpilepsy #SCN2A #SCN8A #CNS
praxismedicines.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Stephanie Lahr, President of Artisight, is promoting the concept of Smart Hospitals and ambient technology's role in improving healthcare delivery. Hospitals can use sensors, cameras, speakers, microphones, and screens to address the increasing complexity of patient care while allowing clinicians to focus on patient care. These technologies are designed to integrate seamlessly into the clinicians' workflow with a focus on process automation and applying AI to drive the convergence of technology and medicine.
Stephanie explains, "A Smart Hospital is a hospital that is equipped with sensors and other kinds of elements that can capture information based on what's happening in real-time and leverage that information in real-time to help automate communication, automate documentation, and send signals. So, in your own home, you might think about a smart home where your thermostat has different elements that can sense when there's no one in the house, and it will change the temperature to be more economical."
"Those kinds of things we can do in a hospital by having sensors, things like cameras, speakers, microphones, potentially temperature sensors, and other things that capture information in real-time and then can do something with that information. We can leverage technology to a greater degree in hospitals, knowing that we want to have that information, but historically, what we've done is capture that information through manual means."
"When a patient is wheeled into an operating room for a surgical case, it is a requirement currently that an individual goes over to a computer system and marks a box that says the patient has now entered the room. We need to track closely how long a patient is in an OR for a variety of quality purposes. What a Smart Hospital would do, is allow sensors, things like computer vision to capture that ambiently in the space, so when the camera senses and sees that a patient in a bed is entering an operating room, we can automate that documentation."
#Artisight #AI #VirtualNursing #SmartHospitalPlatform #SmartHospital
Artisight.com
Listen to the podcast here
Arnon Chait, President and CEO of Cleveland Diagnostics, discusses the role diagnostics play in accurately identifying those patients most at risk for cancer. The current PSA and related tests are used to diagnose prostate cancer to determine if additional diagnostics are necessary. By identifying the stage and treatment options with a more specific blood test and AI-aided identification, doctors and patients can make better informed decisions about further testing or imaging.
Arnon elaborates, "A long time ago, in the late '80s and more in the '90s, a new test called prostate-specific antigen came to the market. It is a simple blood test, which is great and offered a glimpse at the important information for the first time. Before that, it was never available to either a PCP, to a private GP or a urologist, whether you have potentially prostate cancer or not."
"The biggest issue in the industry today, and in the clinical world especially, is what to do with the information. Because some of this information requires downstream diagnostics tests, further diagnostics are highly invasive. So now you ask how accurate they are, and what is the false positive rate? So the key thing to ask always when you have new technology is, what is the cost to the entire system of this technology?"
"We want to find and focus on technology that can look at very, very few markers, but in a correct way. Instead of, for example, looking at DNA, which is information available in your body but is very far from the disease itself. Some of it, namely information in DNA, may say something about cancer but may not. So, it's not that specific."
#ClevelandDiagnostics #CDx #ProstateCancer #ProstateCancerAwareness #IsoPSA #Diagnostics #MedTech
clevelanddx.com
Listen to the podcast here
Arnon Chait, President and CEO of Cleveland Diagnostics, discusses the role diagnostics play in accurately identifying those patients most at risk for cancer. The current PSA and related tests are used to diagnose prostate cancer to determine if additional diagnostics are necessary. By identifying the stage and treatment options with a more specific blood test and AI-aided identification, doctors and patients can make better informed decisions about further testing or imaging.
Arnon elaborates, "A long time ago, in the late '80s and more in the '90s, a new test called prostate-specific antigen came to the market. It is a simple blood test, which is great and offered a glimpse at the important information for the first time. Before that, it was never available to either a PCP, to a private GP or a urologist, whether you have potentially prostate cancer or not."
"The biggest issue in the industry today, and in the clinical world especially, is what to do with the information. Because some of this information requires downstream diagnostics tests, further diagnostics are highly invasive. So now you ask how accurate they are, and what is the false positive rate? So the key thing to ask always when you have new technology is, what is the cost to the entire system of this technology?"
"We want to find and focus on technology that can look at very, very few markers, but in a correct way. Instead of, for example, looking at DNA, which is information available in your body but is very far from the disease itself. Some of it, namely information in DNA, may say something about cancer but may not. So, it's not that specific."
#ClevelandDiagnostics #CDx #ProstateCancer #ProstateCancerAwareness #IsoPSA #Diagnostics #MedTech
clevelanddx.com
Download the transcript here
Lora Sparkman, an RN and VP and Partner of Clinical Solutions, Patient Safety, and Quality at Relias, highlights the high maternal mortality rate in the US and the factors that contribute to it. Lora emphasizes the need for standardization of definitions and a better understanding of the social determinants of health that influence the success of a pregnancy, including the need for pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy healthcare. Digital technology is bringing advancements to healthcare education and helping overcome geographic barriers to improve outcomes and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.
Lora explains, "In some cases, we're getting our hands around the real story versus some variation across states and definitions, and how death was categorized, those types of things. Putting that all behind us, there's been a lot more work and effort at the federal and national levels to standardize definitions and categories."
"There's been kind of a shift we've seen over the last couple of years, which is we've been very focused on the death rate, again, but that's kind of like, what's leading up to that? Why are we having so many deaths? We're starting to understand and see that we need to focus on pre-pregnancy health, general health, and access to healthcare during pregnancy. Severe maternal morbidity affects about 50,000 to 60,000 women each year. Those numbers are growing."
"No matter where pregnant people are getting their care, our aim and the work that we've been doing at Relias is focused on standardization of using care delivery and protocols and making sure that physicians, nurses, midwives, or anyone who is caring for pregnant people, are utilizing evidence-based guidelines, are aware of the latest evidence-based in research in areas like hypertension, and obstetric hemorrhage, and substance use disorder in pregnancy."
#Relias #Nurses #MaternalMortality #MaternalMorbidity #Pregnancy #WomensHealth #ClinicalTraining #SDOH
Relias.com
Listen to the podcast here
Lora Sparkman, an RN and VP and Partner of Clinical Solutions, Patient Safety, and Quality at Relias, highlights the high maternal mortality rate in the US and the factors that contribute to it. Lora emphasizes the need for standardization of definitions and a better understanding of the social determinants of health that influence the success of a pregnancy, including the need for pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy healthcare. Digital technology is bringing advancements to healthcare education and helping overcome geographic barriers to improve outcomes and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.
Lora explains, "In some cases, we're getting our hands around the real story versus some variation across states and definitions, and how death was categorized, those types of things. Putting that all behind us, there's been a lot more work and effort at the federal and national levels to standardize definitions and categories."
"There's been kind of a shift we've seen over the last couple of years, which is we've been very focused on the death rate, again, but that's kind of like, what's leading up to that? Why are we having so many deaths? We're starting to understand and see that we need to focus on pre-pregnancy health, general health, and access to healthcare during pregnancy. Severe maternal morbidity affects about 50,000 to 60,000 women each year. Those numbers are growing."
"No matter where pregnant people are getting their care, our aim and the work that we've been doing at Relias is focused on standardization of using care delivery and protocols and making sure that physicians, nurses, midwives, or anyone who is caring for pregnant people, are utilizing evidence-based guidelines, are aware of the latest evidence-based in research in areas like hypertension, and obstetric hemorrhage, and substance use disorder in pregnancy."
#Relias #Nurses #MaternalMortality #MaternalMorbidity #Pregnancy #WomensHealth #ClinicalTraining #SDOH
Relias.com
Download the transcript here
Mei Mei Hu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Vaxxinity, focuses on an approach to vaccines that aims to break immune tolerance to get the body to produce the antibodies to target self-antigens causing chronic conditions. Initial trials are being conducted to slow the progression or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and hypercholesterolemia. Motivating this effort is the desire to democratize health and make transformative medicines available to a larger population at a lower cost.
Mei Mei explains, "Interestingly, in 1900, the average global life expectancy was 32. Today, when you hear someone died at 79, you're like, oh my gosh, what happened? We get these two bonus lifetimes now, and those three lives total for three main reasons. The first is the Green Revolution feeding us all. The second is hygienic plumbing, and the third is vaccines. But when we think of vaccines, they're usually crying babies or kids pre-COVID. What they did was able to banish the biggest diseases of our early lives."
"What we're looking to do now at Vaxxinity is do the same thing but for the diseases plaguing us in our second and third lives. That's why we go after things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, hypercholesterolemia, which is a leading cause of heart disease. We're going after big population health things, and the best way to do them is with a vaccine approach."
"One of the main attributes of a vaccine is that it trains your body to attack pathogens or causes of disease. In our case, we're just teaching your body to produce drugs that help neutralize things like cholesterol, plaques, or CGRP, which is the culprit of migraines. That's what we mean when we talk about creating a vaccine for a chronic condition."
#Vaxxinity #Vaccine #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #ChronicDiseases #ClinicalTrials #DemocratizeHealth
vaxxinity.com
Listen to the podcast here
Mei Mei Hu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Vaxxinity, focuses on an approach to vaccines that aims to break immune tolerance to get the body to produce the antibodies to target self-antigens causing chronic conditions. Initial trials are being conducted to slow the progression or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and hypercholesterolemia. Motivating this effort is the desire to democratize health and make transformative medicines available to a larger population at a lower cost.
Mei Mei explains, "Interestingly, in 1900, the average global life expectancy was 32. Today, when you hear someone died at 79, you're like, oh my gosh, what happened? We get these two bonus lifetimes now, and those three lives total for three main reasons. The first is the Green Revolution feeding us all. The second is hygienic plumbing, and the third is vaccines. But when we think of vaccines, they're usually crying babies or kids pre-COVID. What they did was able to banish the biggest diseases of our early lives."
"What we're looking to do now at Vaxxinity is do the same thing but for the diseases plaguing us in our second and third lives. That's why we go after things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, hypercholesterolemia, which is a leading cause of heart disease. We're going after big population health things, and the best way to do them is with a vaccine approach."
"One of the main attributes of a vaccine is that it trains your body to attack pathogens or causes of disease. In our case, we're just teaching your body to produce drugs that help neutralize things like cholesterol, plaques, or CGRP, which is the culprit of migraines. That's what we mean when we talk about creating a vaccine for a chronic condition."
#Vaxxinity #Vaccine #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #ChronicDiseases #ClinicalTrials #DemocratizeHealth
vaxxinity.com
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Dr. Karlene Kerfoot, Chief Nursing Officer at symplr, points out the challenges nurses and doctors face when dealing with technology in the workplace. The disparate systems and lack of data integration make it difficult for clinicians to perform necessary duties and have moments that matter: time to provide the kind of care patients require. Karlene highlights the potential for AI and robots to alleviate some of the inefficiencies in the workflow and the need for frontline staff to be part of the decision-making process to ensure advanced technology solutions meet real needs.
Karlene explains, "We do have to deal with the technology to make it easier for people to work. For example, the nurse manager, when they want a staff and schedule, sometimes they have to go through six to eight disparate systems that don't talk to each other. So they have to go into one system and then out, and another system and out, and another system and out. So, at the end of the day, they're quite fatigued and have a lot of technology burden. They don't have time to do what they're supposed to do, which is look at the quality of work with patients and help new nurses."
"We have to run those systems by the people who use them because often, when you say to physicians, "Here's a great system." They say, "Well, that's not the way I think. That doesn't work for me." Or if you say to a nurse, "Here's a great system for you." They say, "Well, it doesn't work because we have to do all these workarounds because it doesn't really include everything we want."
"We had a little funeral for all the fax machines and put a big black curtain over them so people couldn't use them, and we said, "It's dead." And so that, in a funny way, sort of forced people to see if they could use the computer and not use paper and not use fax machines."
#symplr #MomentsThatMatter #Burnout #HealthcareTech #PatientCare #Nurses #HealthTech
symplr.com
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Dr. Karlene Kerfoot, Chief Nursing Officer at symplr, points out the challenges nurses and doctors face when dealing with technology in the workplace. The disparate systems and lack of data integration make it difficult for clinicians to perform necessary duties and have moments that matter: time to provide the kind of care patients require. Karlene highlights the potential for AI and robots to alleviate some of the inefficiencies in the workflow and the need for frontline staff to be part of the decision-making process to ensure advanced technology solutions meet real needs.
Karlene explains, "We do have to deal with the technology to make it easier for people to work. For example, the nurse manager, when they want a staff and schedule, sometimes they have to go through six to eight disparate systems that don't talk to each other. So they have to go into one system and then out, and another system and out, and another system and out. So, at the end of the day, they're quite fatigued and have a lot of technology burden. They don't have time to do what they're supposed to do, which is look at the quality of work with patients and help new nurses."
"We have to run those systems by the people who use them because often, when you say to physicians, "Here's a great system." They say, "Well, that's not the way I think. That doesn't work for me." Or if you say to a nurse, "Here's a great system for you." They say, "Well, it doesn't work because we have to do all these workarounds because it doesn't really include everything we want."
"We had a little funeral for all the fax machines and put a big black curtain over them so people couldn't use them, and we said, "It's dead." And so that, in a funny way, sort of forced people to see if they could use the computer and not use paper and not use fax machines."
#symplr #MomentsThatMatter #Burnout #HealthcareTech #PatientCare #Nurses #HealthTech
symplr.com
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Retired Brigadier General Dr. Steve Xenakis is Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association, a group of clinicians who are interested in developing and promoting the mainstream use of psychedelic and plant medicines for the treatment of mental health conditions. APPA works to educate practitioners on best practices and explores AI's potential role in identifying patients who could benefit from psychedelic therapies.
Steve explains, "This is a multidisciplinary group. As the treatments unfold, we're seeing it's multidisciplinary. We have psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, advanced nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants because it's a team approach. When we look at the best treatments and therapies, these people come together. They can collaborate in terms of not only prescribing the medications but also conducting the therapy and supporting the patients who come to them for help."
"They've come into this organization because they realize that to promote these treatments and therapies there needs to be a pathway to mainstream them into US healthcare. For many, for the past several decades, a number of practitioners have been using these medicines compounds and treatments. Still, they've had to be in the so-called underground because, since 1972, the use of MDMA and psilocybin has been illegal. And only recently have we seen ketamine be used. And there are other substances."
"As we think about it, and particularly with the momentum with MDMA and psilocybin in getting approval from the FDA, there's an interest in now bringing this out upfront and getting them into US healthcare and to go through what the processes are to get that done. That's how this organization has come together and been conceived."
#APPA #AmericanPsychedelicPractionersAssociation #MentalHealth #Psychiatry #Psychedelics #AlternativeTherapy #PTSD #MDMA #Psilocybin #AI
appa-us.org
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Retired Brigadier General Dr. Steve Xenakis is Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association, a group of clinicians who are interested in developing and promoting the mainstream use of psychedelic and plant medicines for the treatment of mental health conditions. APPA works to educate practitioners on best practices and explores AI's potential role in identifying patients who could benefit from psychedelic therapies.
Steve explains, "This is a multidisciplinary group. As the treatments unfold, we're seeing it's multidisciplinary. We have psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, advanced nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants because it's a team approach. When we look at the best treatments and therapies, these people come together. They can collaborate in terms of not only prescribing the medications but also conducting the therapy and supporting the patients who come to them for help."
"They've come into this organization because they realize that to promote these treatments and therapies there needs to be a pathway to mainstream them into US healthcare. For many, for the past several decades, a number of practitioners have been using these medicines compounds and treatments. Still, they've had to be in the so-called underground because, since 1972, the use of MDMA and psilocybin has been illegal. And only recently have we seen ketamine be used. And there are other substances."
"As we think about it, and particularly with the momentum with MDMA and psilocybin in getting approval from the FDA, there's an interest in now bringing this out upfront and getting them into US healthcare and to go through what the processes are to get that done. That's how this organization has come together and been conceived."
#APPA #AmericanPsychedelicPractionersAssociation #MentalHealth #Psychiatry #Psychedelics #AlternativeTherapy #PTSD #MDMA #Psilocybin #AI
appa-us.org
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Jeffrey Madden, Co-Founder and CEO of ADvantage Therapeutics is developing therapies for neurodegenerative conditions, particularly Alzheimer's disease. Instead of pursuing the amyloid hypothesis, ADvantage is focused on neuroinflammation as the primary driver of Alzheimer's pathology. Trials for their lead compound AD04 show promising results in slowing hippocampal volume loss and stabilizing cognition.
Jeffrey explains, "The assumption that has been in play for more than 20 years is the amyloid hypothesis. And the idea behind that is if you could clear amyloid beta, this toxic protein, you could stop or even reverse Alzheimer's. The results are in. We're reading about Biogen and Lilly, the monoclonal antibodies that do a great job of clearing amyloid but only have modest slowing of cognitive decline."
"What we offer is that the pathology of Alzheimer's is just incomplete. We take a biology of aging worldview and we know the biggest causation for Alzheimer's is aging. We know a lane of aging is chronic inflammation. We also know bad things happen in the brain with neuroinflammation. We offer that at the roots of Alzheimer's is neuroinflammation, and we train the immune system to reduce neuroinflammation in the brain."
"The dogma of the amyloid hypothesis was very much focused on this toxic protein amyloid beta. More recently, this physical biomarker of the hippocampus is becoming more in vogue for very good reason. And we're at the cutting edge using the hippocampus as a biomarker. What we're doing in our confirmation study is mirroring the predecessor trial that I referenced going back to 2014. We can't think of a more rigorous downstream biomarker than the hippocampus, and others are following suit."
#ADvantageTherapeutics #Neuroinflammation #AlzheimersDisease #AmyloidBeta #Biomarkers #Hippocampus
advantagetherapeutics.com
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Jeffrey Madden, Co-Founder and CEO of ADvantage Therapeutics is developing therapies for neurodegenerative conditions, particularly Alzheimer's disease. Instead of pursuing the amyloid hypothesis, ADvantage is focused on neuroinflammation as the primary driver of Alzheimer's pathology. Trials for their lead compound AD04 show promising results in slowing hippocampal volume loss and stabilizing cognition.
Jeffrey explains, "The assumption that has been in play for more than 20 years is the amyloid hypothesis. And the idea behind that is if you could clear amyloid beta, this toxic protein, you could stop or even reverse Alzheimer's. The results are in. We're reading about Biogen and Lilly, the monoclonal antibodies that do a great job of clearing amyloid but only have modest slowing of cognitive decline."
"What we offer is that the pathology of Alzheimer's is just incomplete. We take a biology of aging worldview and we know the biggest causation for Alzheimer's is aging. We know a lane of aging is chronic inflammation. We also know bad things happen in the brain with neuroinflammation. We offer that at the roots of Alzheimer's is neuroinflammation, and we train the immune system to reduce neuroinflammation in the brain."
"The dogma of the amyloid hypothesis was very much focused on this toxic protein amyloid beta. More recently, this physical biomarker of the hippocampus is becoming more in vogue for very good reason. And we're at the cutting edge using the hippocampus as a biomarker. What we're doing in our confirmation study is mirroring the predecessor trial that I referenced going back to 2014. We can't think of a more rigorous downstream biomarker than the hippocampus, and others are following suit."
#ADvantageTherapeutics #Neuroinflammation #AlzheimersDisease #AmyloidBeta #Biomarkers #Hippocampus
advantagetherapeutics.com
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Dr. Sam Lee, Co-CEO of Cocrystal Pharma, discusses novel antiviral therapeutics to treat norovirus. This highly contagious virus causes acute gastroenteritis, and there is no known treatment or vaccine. Cocrystal is developing a compound that targets the essential enzymes of the virus, showing promising results in inhibiting norovirus replication and showing possible use in treating human rhinovirus and enterovirus. The goal is to develop a protease inhibitor therapeutic for norovirus that can alleviate symptoms and potentially prevent infection spread in high-risk environments.
Sam explains, "Let me step back and tell you how we approach the noro antiviral drug development. So, we're focusing on what we call direct-acting antiviral therapeutics. We're targeting viral essential enzymes, and we initiated this noro program looking at the essential genes such as RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. We have really exciting hits, but we also look at the protease. Norovirus has this essential protease, which is absolutely required for viral replication."
"During the COVID time, we focused on coronavirus protease and developed the coronavirus protease inhibitors for COVID. But at the same time, we have this drug discovery platform technology that looks at various viral proteases, including norovirus, human rhinovirus, and enterovirus. The list goes on, and we recognize that computational analysis now is the people who use artificial intelligence."
"But we had a pretty good prediction that norovirus would be actually a good target, that our coronavirus inhibitors should innovate the norovirus protease. That's how we started. Then, from there, we quickly applied our platform approach and demonstrated that, in fact, our coronavirus protease inhibitors for COVID treatment actually work well against the norovirus. I just want to point out that we also evaluated the approved drugs such as Pfizer, coronavirus protease inhibitors, and Shionogi protease inhibitors. Those compounds do not have any activity against norovirus. This is where we could differentiate compounds from existing protease inhibitors. So we're very excited about this."
#CocrystalPharma #Norovirus #RNAVirus #SuperVirus #Coronavirus #HumanRhinovirus
cocrystalpharma.com
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Dr. Sam Lee, Co-CEO of Cocrystal Pharma, discusses novel antiviral therapeutics to treat norovirus. This highly contagious virus causes acute gastroenteritis, and there is no known treatment or vaccine. Cocrystal is developing a compound that targets the essential enzymes of the virus, showing promising results in inhibiting norovirus replication and showing possible use in treating human rhinovirus and enterovirus. The goal is to develop a protease inhibitor therapeutic for norovirus that can alleviate symptoms and potentially prevent infection spread in high-risk environments.
Sam explains, "Let me step back and tell you how we approach the noro antiviral drug development. So, we're focusing on what we call direct-acting antiviral therapeutics. We're targeting viral essential enzymes, and we initiated this noro program looking at the essential genes such as RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. We have really exciting hits, but we also look at the protease. Norovirus has this essential protease, which is absolutely required for viral replication."
"During the COVID time, we focused on coronavirus protease and developed the coronavirus protease inhibitors for COVID. But at the same time, we have this drug discovery platform technology that looks at various viral proteases, including norovirus, human rhinovirus, and enterovirus. The list goes on, and we recognize that computational analysis now is the people who use artificial intelligence."
"But we had a pretty good prediction that norovirus would be actually a good target, that our coronavirus inhibitors should innovate the norovirus protease. That's how we started. Then, from there, we quickly applied our platform approach and demonstrated that, in fact, our coronavirus protease inhibitors for COVID treatment actually work well against the norovirus. I just want to point out that we also evaluated the approved drugs such as Pfizer, coronavirus protease inhibitors, and Shionogi protease inhibitors. Those compounds do not have any activity against norovirus. This is where we could differentiate compounds from existing protease inhibitors. So we're very excited about this."
#CocrystalPharma #Norovirus #RNAVirus #SuperVirus #Coronavirus #HumanRhinovirus
cocrystalpharma.com
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Dr. Ruben Mesa, Executive Director, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses advancements in the treatment of myelofibrosis, chronic leukemia, a blood cancer characterized by scarring in the bone marrow. Current therapies include stem cell transplants and ruxolitinib, a drug that helps with symptoms and spleen enlargement but does not improve anemia. A new once-a-day pill, momelotinib, known as Ojaara, has been approved, effectively reducing spleen size, improving symptoms, and effectively addressing anemia.
Ruben explains, "What we've learned over time is that the origin of the disease is a chronic leukemia that occurs in the bone marrow that is driven by different changes in the genes that control the function of the bone marrow. And then there's a secondary scarring that occurs."
"Patients with myelofibrosis might be afflicted with a drop in the blood counts and have anemia or a drop in the white blood cell count or the platelet count. They may have symptoms associated with the disease, such as fatigue, night sweats, and weight loss, and they can have enlargement of the spleen, which is a filter for the blood under the rib cage. The spleen can be enlarged and give its own set of symptoms. I mentioned it's a chronic leukemia, and it can progress to being an acute leukemia that can be concerning and potentially life-threatening with even more severe changes in the blood counts."
#Ojjaarahcp #GSK #BloodCancer #Anemia #Leukemia #Myelofibrosis #MPN
atriumhealth.org
Ojjaarahcp.com
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Dr. Ruben Mesa, Executive Director, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses advancements in the treatment of myelofibrosis, chronic leukemia, a blood disease characterized by scarring in the bone marrow. Current therapies include stem cell transplants and ruxolitinib, a drug that helps with symptoms and spleen enlargement but does not improve anemia. A new once-a-day pill, momelotinib, known as Ojaara, has been approved, effectively reducing spleen size, improving symptoms, and effectively addressing anemia.
Ruben explains, "What we've learned over time is that the origin of the disease is a chronic leukemia that occurs in the bone marrow that is driven by different changes in the genes that control the function of the bone marrow. And then there's a secondary scarring that occurs."
"Patients with myelofibrosis might be afflicted with a drop in the blood counts and have anemia or a drop in the white blood cell count or the platelet count. They may have symptoms associated with the disease, such as fatigue, night sweats, and weight loss, and they can have enlargement of the spleen, which is a filter for the blood under the rib cage. The spleen can be enlarged and give its own set of symptoms. I mentioned it's a chronic leukemia, and it can progress to being an acute leukemia that can be concerning and potentially life-threatening with even more severe changes in the blood counts."
#Ojjaarahcp #GSK #BloodCancer #Anemia #Leukemia #Myelofibrosis #MPN
atriumhealth.org
Ojjaarahcp.com
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Beena Wood, Senior VP of Safety and Medical at ArisGlobal, highlights how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing patient-centricity in drug development, pointing out the factors drawing more interest in this challenge. The LifeSphere drug development platform aims to drive patient-centric guidance by providing access to real-world data and enabling patient collaboration. Beena emphasizes the importance of engaging a diverse universe of patients and leveraging AI, data analytics, and machine learning to reveal hidden insights from the data to improve drug testing and safety.
Beena explains, "Before specifically diving into how AI helps, I want to step back a bit on what the forces that drive patient-centricity are. I don't think these forces are new. They had existed, but I think they have been accelerating that patient-centricity conversation, especially with patients increasingly taking charge of their health and becoming more empowered. I think that drives the life sciences companies to focus on that and strive harder to become more patient-centric."
"I think targeted therapies are accelerating the need to have that patient-centric mindset and strategy and operational model. For that strategy to be successful, it is important to leverage the right technology to be able to listen to those patients and to have that execution of that patient-centric digital strategy. That will be critical to achieving success."
#ArisGlobal #PatientCentricity #PatientCentric #LifeSciences #Automation #AI #DrugDevelopment
arisglobal.com
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Beena Wood, Senior VP of Safety and Medical at ArisGlobal, highlights how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing patient-centricity in drug development, pointing out the factors drawing more interest in this challenge. The LifeSphere drug development platform aims to drive patient-centric guidance by providing access to real-world data and enabling patient collaboration. Beena emphasizes the importance of engaging a diverse universe of patients and leveraging AI, data analytics, and machine learning to reveal hidden insights from the data to improve drug testing and safety.
Beena explains, "Before specifically diving into how AI helps, I want to step back a bit on what the forces that drive patient-centricity are. I don't think these forces are new. They had existed, but I think they have been accelerating that patient-centricity conversation, especially with patients increasingly taking charge of their health and becoming more empowered. I think that drives the life sciences companies to focus on that and strive harder to become more patient-centric."
"I think targeted therapies are accelerating the need to have that patient-centric mindset and strategy and operational model. For that strategy to be successful, it is important to leverage the right technology to be able to listen to those patients and to have that execution of that patient-centric digital strategy. That will be critical to achieving success."
#ArisGlobal #PatientCentricity #PatientCentric #LifeSciences #Automation #AI #DrugDevelopment
arisglobal.com
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Frank Forte, CEO of AnatomyIT, provides cybersecurity, IT, and value-based healthcare services to organizations that need help making an intelligent transformation to healthcare IT. Despite the prevalence of new technology, many providers and payers still rely on paper and fax machines, and data security risks and privacy issues still need to be addressed. Frank points out the need for change management and training to integrate generative AI and automate manual tasks to improve efficiency, clinician acceptance, and patient outcomes.
Frank explains, "But look, traditionally, when people thought of IT, they thought of a help desk. That was what came to mind. Networks, routers, cables, hardware, all those things that lived in the basement or the closet. And that's how I thought of IT. I would say that most IT initiatives were not received well, specifically from people who needed it the most, like clinicians, caregivers, and nurses, where it required a change in workflow, adopting new technology, or even remembering their passwords."
"So, they didn't particularly embrace IT initiatives. And I would say it hasn't really changed. It didn't change until the Affordable Care Act and HITECH and meaningful use requirements became the norm and drove the adoption of medical records, which transformed everything in healthcare and IT. Since then, there have been enormous evolutions, from medical records, clinical charting, and care plans to automated or technology-based revenue cycle billing applications. That's evolved into patient experience and population health. Now you have analytics and generative AI."
#AnatomyIT #ITServices #ManagedIT #Cybersecurity #HIPAACompliance #DataBackup #DataBreaches #Hacking #Encryption #Malware #Phishing #Transomware
anatomyit.com
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Frank Forte, CEO of AnatomyIT, provides cybersecurity, IT, and value-based healthcare services to organizations that need help making an intelligent transformation to healthcare IT. Despite the prevalence of new technology, many providers and payers still rely on paper and fax machines, and data security risks and privacy issues still need to be addressed. Frank points out the need for change management and training to integrate generative AI and automate manual tasks to improve efficiency, clinician acceptance, and patient outcomes.
Frank explains, "But look, traditionally, when people thought of IT, they thought of a help desk. That was what came to mind. Networks, routers, cables, hardware, all those things that lived in the basement or the closet. And that's how I thought of IT. I would say that most IT initiatives were not received well, specifically from people who needed it the most, like clinicians, caregivers, and nurses, where it required a change in workflow, adopting new technology, or even remembering their passwords."
"So, they didn't particularly embrace IT initiatives. And I would say it hasn't really changed. It didn't change until the Affordable Care Act and HITECH and meaningful use requirements became the norm and drove the adoption of medical records, which transformed everything in healthcare and IT. Since then, there have been enormous evolutions, from medical records, clinical charting, and care plans to automated or technology-based revenue cycle billing applications. That's evolved into patient experience and population health. Now you have analytics and generative AI."
#AnatomyIT #ITServices #ManagedIT #Cybersecurity #HIPAACompliance #DataBackup #DataBreaches #Hacking #Encryption #Malware #Phishing #Transomware
anatomyit.com
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Dr. Barnaby Balmforth, Co-Founder and CEO of Biofidelity, has a mission to make genomic analysis simpler, faster, and more reliable for treatment decisions. Biofidelity addresses genome sequencing challenges by using a targeted approach and unique technology that allows for local testing using PCR rather than DNA sequencers. Thanks to COVID, an existing global infrastructure of PCR equipment provides an opportunity to target specific biomarkers and deliver actionable information to physicians and patients.
Barnaby explains, "The challenge as we see it is that in this modern oncology era, there is now a wide need for multi-gene genomic profiling of patients. The only solution that has been available to enable that is DNA sequencing. The media has quite widely covered how the genomics market is growing, and the cost of sequencing is shrinking. But sadly, in the clinical space, oncologists and patients are still failing to fully experience the benefits of this technology."
"It is not a simple process to perform clinical diagnostics using DNA sequencing. That has resulted in the centralization of sequencing tests in very large laboratories with all of the associated logistical challenges of getting samples to those laboratories, processing them through these complex workflows, and then returning results to the clinicians."
"We focus on delivering the clinically actionable information to physicians as quickly as possible. So, we are not forming very large whole genome sequencing tests. We are focused on what information is associated with approved therapies, what information is recommended for testing in the treatment guidelines, and what is needed to make these treatment decisions. So, we take a more focused and targeted approach."
#Biofidelity #GenomicTesting #GenomeSequencing #Biomarkers #PCRInstruments
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Dr. Barnaby Balmforth, Co-Founder and CEO of Biofidelity, has a mission to make genomic analysis simpler, faster, and more reliable for treatment decisions. Biofidelity addresses genome sequencing challenges by using a targeted approach and unique technology that allows for local testing using PCR rather than DNA sequencers. Thanks to COVID, an existing global infrastructure of PCR equipment provides an opportunity to target specific biomarkers and deliver actionable information to physicians and patients.
Barnaby explains, "The challenge as we see it is that in this modern oncology era, there is now a wide need for multi-gene genomic profiling of patients. The only solution that has been available to enable that is DNA sequencing. The media has quite widely covered how the genomics market is growing, and the cost of sequencing is shrinking. But sadly, in the clinical space, oncologists and patients are still failing to fully experience the benefits of this technology."
"It is not a simple process to perform clinical diagnostics using DNA sequencing. That has resulted in the centralization of sequencing tests in very large laboratories with all of the associated logistical challenges of getting samples to those laboratories, processing them through these complex workflows, and then returning results to the clinicians."
"We focus on delivering the clinically actionable information to physicians as quickly as possible. So, we are not forming very large whole genome sequencing tests. We are focused on what information is associated with approved therapies, what information is recommended for testing in the treatment guidelines, and what is needed to make these treatment decisions. So, we take a more focused and targeted approach."
#Biofidelity #GenomicTesting #GenomeSequencing #Biomarkers #PCRInstruments
biofidelity.com
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Devra Densmore, principal consultant at Elevate Advocacy, explains the FDA has released guidance to drive Diversity Action Plans to ensure that clinical trials are representative of affected patients. Emphasizing the need for a thoughtful and strategic approach to diversity, Devra highlights inclusivity includes accessibility and listening to patient advocates to meet the needs of marginalized communities.
Devra explains, "This is a very exciting time where, by releasing these guidance documents, the FDA is setting a standard for the expectation that industry and study sponsors have a very intentional approach to ensuring that their studies are representative. That the therapies or devices that are created are beneficial for all people affected by the conditions that those medications and devices are supposed to solve for."
"So, for me, these Diversity Action Plans are a really exciting opportunity for industry to think about what it wants to do in this space. How can it contribute to making sure that health equity is realized within the clinical development space? Are studies actually reflective of the communities that are most impacted by disease? Are medications or devices that are created actually safe and effective for the people who need to use them, especially the people who need to use them the most?"
#ElevateAdvocacy #HealthEquity #PatientFocusedDrugDevelopment #PFDD #PatientsFirst #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalResearch #DiversityActionPlan
ElevateAdvocacy.com
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Devra Densmore, principal consultant at Elevate Advocacy, explains the FDA has released guidance to drive Diversity Action Plans to ensure that clinical trials are representative of affected patients. Emphasizing the need for a thoughtful and strategic approach to diversity, Devra highlights inclusivity includes accessibility and listening to patient advocates to meet the needs of marginalized communities.
Devra explains, "This is a very exciting time where, by releasing these guidance documents, the FDA is setting a standard for the expectation that industry and study sponsors have a very intentional approach to ensuring that their studies are representative. That the therapies or devices that are created are beneficial for all people affected by the conditions that those medications and devices are supposed to solve for."
"So, for me, these Diversity Action Plans are a really exciting opportunity for industry to think about what it wants to do in this space. How can it contribute to making sure that health equity is realized within the clinical development space? Are studies actually reflective of the communities that are most impacted by disease? Are medications or devices that are created actually safe and effective for the people who need to use them, especially the people who need to use them the most?"
#ElevateAdvocacy #HealthEquity #PatientFocusedDrugDevelopment #PFDD #PatientsFirst #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalResearch #DiversityActionPlan
ElevateAdvocacy.com
Download the transcript here
Arthur Bretschneider, CEO and Co-Founder of Seniorly, a discovery platform and marketplace providing essential information to make informed decisions about senior housing options. The website brings transparency to the search process, including information about price, amenities, and care options, which have traditionally been challenging to determine. A network of senior living advisors, an AI-powered virtual advisor, and a recommendation engine all support finding the right senior housing community.
Arthur explains, "One of the things about senior living that is so complicated is frankly understanding pricing. And so, why is it complicated? There are a few factors. One is that often, people don't understand the nuances in senior housing, the sort of segmentation of different properties. So you might hear assisted living, you might hear independent living, memory care, and Alzheimer's care. There are all sorts of nuances of the different types of care that these communities can support."
"But the other piece, which is pretty challenging in this industry, is that very few senior living operators actually put their pricing online. If you are a consumer just browsing, maybe you're early researching, or maybe later on, you just want to do more on your own. For most senior living communities, you're going to have to call to get pricing, and we thought that was not a good experience. In our research, the majority of families, as they're going through this process, the number one thing that's a factor in their decision is, frankly, their budget. And if you think about any other shopping experience today, just imagine going on Amazon or Expedia or anything and being unable to see pricing unless you call. It's not a way that people are used to searching these days."
#Seniorly #SeniorLiving #HealthTechnology #SeniorLivingTechnology #SeniorCare #PricingEstimate #AI
Seniorly.com
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Arthur Bretschneider, CEO and Co-Founder of Seniorly, a discovery platform and marketplace providing essential information to make informed decisions about senior housing options. The website brings transparency to the search process, including information about price, amenities, and care options, which have traditionally been challenging to determine. A network of senior living advisors, an AI-powered virtual advisor, and a recommendation engine all support finding the right senior housing community.
Arthur explains, "One of the things about senior living that is so complicated is frankly understanding pricing. And so, why is it complicated? There are a few factors. One is that often, people don't understand the nuances in senior housing, the sort of segmentation of different properties. So you might hear assisted living, you might hear independent living, memory care, and Alzheimer's care. There are all sorts of nuances of the different types of care that these communities can support."
"But the other piece, which is pretty challenging in this industry, is that very few senior living operators actually put their pricing online. If you are a consumer just browsing, maybe you're early researching, or maybe later on, you just want to do more on your own. For most senior living communities, you're going to have to call to get pricing, and we thought that was not a good experience. In our research, the majority of families, as they're going through this process, the number one thing that's a factor in their decision is, frankly, their budget. And if you think about any other shopping experience today, just imagine going on Amazon or Expedia or anything and being unable to see pricing unless you call. It's not a way that people are used to searching these days."
#Seniorly #SeniorLiving #HealthTechnology #SeniorLivingTechnology #SeniorCare #PricingEstimate #AI
Seniorly.com
Download the transcript here
Pablo Pantaleoni, Chief Digital Officer of LifeStance Health, aims to improve access to affordable mental health services by providing digital tools to support patients throughout their treatment journey. LifeStance also focuses on supporting clinicians by streamlining administrative tasks, facilitating booking, and providing ongoing care virtually and in person. Pablo sees AI as a co-pilot tool to streamline some processes for patients and providers while emphasizing the key role of clinicians.
Pablo explains, "On top of this, we want to ensure you can meet people where they are. This means certain people, especially after COVID, prefer to visit a clinician online, and others prefer to see somebody in person. And you'll be surprised. There's a significant number of people that like to jump from one channel to the other. Our unique hybrid model allows us to meet people where they are so people can choose if they want to see somebody in person or virtually."
"I'm glad you're asking about the clinician experience because clinician and patient experience are equally as important for us. Whenever we design a solution, we co-design with clinicians and patients, but we want to ensure that we're not just throwing new tools at them. We just map their whole workflows, understand the pain points, and prototype solutions with them. Their goal is to focus on treating patients so we can help with all the admin tasks. This is the goal. And co-designing with them, I love to work closely with them when they're very open. They share their feedback. This is working for me, this is not, or this has to be integrated with this tool. And that's our day-to-day."
#LifeStanceHealth #MentalHealthMatters #LFST #MentalHealth
lifestance.com
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Pablo Pantaleoni, Chief Digital Officer of LifeStance Health, aims to improve access to affordable mental health services by providing digital tools to support patients throughout their treatment journey. LifeStance also focuses on supporting clinicians by streamlining administrative tasks, facilitating booking, and providing ongoing care virtually and in person. Pablo sees AI as a co-pilot tool to streamline some processes for patients and providers while emphasizing the key role of clinicians.
Pablo explains, "On top of this, we want to ensure you can meet people where they are. This means certain people, especially after COVID, prefer to visit a clinician online, and others prefer to see somebody in person. And you'll be surprised. There's a significant number of people that like to jump from one channel to the other. Our unique hybrid model allows us to meet people where they are so people can choose if they want to see somebody in person or virtually."
"I'm glad you're asking about the clinician experience because clinician and patient experience are equally as important for us. Whenever we design a solution, we co-design with clinicians and patients, but we want to ensure that we're not just throwing new tools at them. We just map their whole workflows, understand the pain points, and prototype solutions with them. Their goal is to focus on treating patients so we can help with all the admin tasks. This is the goal. And co-designing with them, I love to work closely with them when they're very open. They share their feedback. This is working for me, this is not, or this has to be integrated with this tool. And that's our day-to-day."
#LifeStanceHealth #MentalHealthMatters #LFST #MentalHealth
lifestance.com
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Jay Ackerman is the CEO of Reveleer, a data and analytics company that works with payers and providers to support them in quality improvement and risk adjustment in a value-based care environment. Using AI, natural language processing, and integration of diverse databases, Reveleer is reducing administrative burdens and supporting providers to make more informed decisions for patient care.
Jay explains, "In the AI world, a lot is being done to drive productivity and efficiency for payers and providers to anticipate how someone's health is shifting and changing. But for us, in the world of AI, what we're focused on and how we're trying to use AI, when we talk about quality improvement and risk adjustments, we ingest massive clinical data on each of these members, on each of these patients, we could capture thousands of pages."
"We use AI to quickly digest, organize, and mine that data to understand what has happened over time for that member and what we think could be happening as they go forward. What we're aiming to do, and what we're doing, is mining that data and presenting a very concise set of recommendations to the provider. So when that patient walks into their office, they know what gaps in care they should be paying attention to. Gaps in care that might be tied to quality scores. Gaps in care that might be tied to validating overall risk score. "
#Reveleer #ValueBasedCare #QualityImprovement #RiskAdjustment
Reveleer.com
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Jay Ackerman is the CEO of Reveleer, a data and analytics company that works with payers and providers to support them in quality improvement and risk adjustment in a value-based care environment. Using AI, natural language processing, and integration of diverse databases, Reveleer is reducing administrative burdens and supporting providers to make more informed decisions for patient care.
Jay explains, "In the AI world, a lot is being done to drive productivity and efficiency for payers and providers to anticipate how someone's health is shifting and changing. But for us, in the world of AI, what we're focused on and how we're trying to use AI, when we talk about quality improvement and risk adjustments, we ingest massive clinical data on each of these members, on each of these patients, we could capture thousands of pages."
"We use AI to quickly digest, organize, and mine that data to understand what has happened over time for that member and what we think could be happening as they go forward. What we're aiming to do, and what we're doing, is mining that data and presenting a very concise set of recommendations to the provider. So when that patient walks into their office, they know what gaps in care they should be paying attention to. Gaps in care that might be tied to quality scores. Gaps in care that might be tied to validating overall risk score. "
#Reveleer #ValueBasedCare #QualityImprovement #RiskAdjustment
Reveleer.com
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Dr. Colin Banas, Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst, defines the term clinical-grade AI as he distinguishes it from other forms of AI that may not be trained on robust clinical data. He emphasizes the need for accurate and complete data in healthcare records and the challenges of semantic interoperability and biases when working with AI models. Potential applications for clinical-grade AI include identifying insights about population healthcare, spotting clinical research trends, and addressing burnout by automating administrative tasks, allowing clinicians to focus on patient care.
Colin elaborates, "DrFirst, as many folks know, got its start as an e-prescribing company over 23 years ago. From there, it blossomed into a robust set of solutions around what I call the sweet spot for the company, which is intelligent medication management. This is all the way from writing the prescription to making sure the patient takes the prescription. The care team understands prescription lists and the way that the prescriptions may or may not be taken. And, of course, to do any of this with any level of accuracy and safety, you need data and a lot of it. Fortunately, we have two decades of working with this type of data. We have generated core expertise around medication data and all the various things you can do with it going forward."
"This is an interesting one, especially since, within the last year, we're at a major inflection point for the AI explosion. AI has been with us for quite some time. Even rudimentary things in the EHRs around clinical decision support can often be considered a form of artificial intelligence. And I want to pause there and say I dislike the term artificial intelligence. I would much rather say something like augmented intelligence or even assistive intelligence."
"But the idea behind labeling ourselves as a clinical-grade AI solution stems from what I've seen in the industry and what I've seen in the literature around what I call the five pillars of clinical-grade AI. It is an attempt to distinguish the AI we use in clinical care settings from what we're seeing all over the place right now. If I'm saying it correctly, your ChatGPTs, your Bards, even I think Elon Musk dropped a new one yesterday called GROK. And, of course, you've also seen some of the problems of using that kind of AI in clinical situations. Namely, the AI can hallucinate, the AI may or may not have been trained on robust clinical data, and the AI might not be perfectly reliable, especially if you come to trust the AI without actually checking over it."
@DrFirst #DrFirst #ClinicalGradeAI #PriceTransparency #PopulationHealth #PatientSafety #ClinicianBurnout #HealthcareCosts #HealthcareAnalytics #HealthcareTransformation #HealthcareInnovation
drfirst.com
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Dr. Colin Banas, Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst, defines the term clinical-grade AI as he distinguishes it from other forms of AI that may not be trained on robust clinical data. He emphasizes the need for accurate and complete data in healthcare records and the challenges of semantic interoperability and biases when working with AI models. Potential applications for clinical-grade AI include identifying insights about population healthcare, spotting clinical research trends, and addressing burnout by automating administrative tasks, allowing clinicians to focus on patient care.
Colin elaborates, "DrFirst, as many folks know, got its start as an e-prescribing company over 23 years ago. From there, it blossomed into a robust set of solutions around what I call the sweet spot for the company, which is intelligent medication management. This is all the way from writing the prescription to making sure the patient takes the prescription. The care team understands prescription lists and the way that the prescriptions may or may not be taken. And, of course, to do any of this with any level of accuracy and safety, you need data and a lot of it. Fortunately, we have two decades of working with this type of data. We have generated core expertise around medication data and all the various things you can do with it going forward."
"This is an interesting one, especially since, within the last year, we're at a major inflection point for the AI explosion. AI has been with us for quite some time. Even rudimentary things in the EHRs around clinical decision support can often be considered a form of artificial intelligence. And I want to pause there and say I dislike the term artificial intelligence. I would much rather say something like augmented intelligence or even assistive intelligence."
"But the idea behind labeling ourselves as a clinical-grade AI solution stems from what I've seen in the industry and what I've seen in the literature around what I call the five pillars of clinical-grade AI. It is an attempt to distinguish the AI we use in clinical care settings from what we're seeing all over the place right now. If I'm saying it correctly, your ChatGPTs, your Bards, even I think Elon Musk dropped a new one yesterday called GROK. And, of course, you've also seen some of the problems of using that kind of AI in clinical situations. Namely, the AI can hallucinate, the AI may or may not have been trained on robust clinical data, and the AI might not be perfectly reliable, especially if you come to trust the AI without actually checking over it."
@DrFirst #DrFirst #ClinicalGradeAI #PriceTransparency #PopulationHealth #PatientSafety #ClinicianBurnout #HealthcareCosts #HealthcareAnalytics #HealthcareTransformation #HealthcareInnovation
drfirst.com
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Vivian DeWoskin, Chief Commercial Officer at NeuraLight, focuses on developing solutions for diagnosing, monitoring and treating neurodegenerative diseases using oculometric data. Using computer vision and deep learning techniques, data from measuring eye position and movement can provide biomarkers for early detection and insights into neurological health. This non-invasive technology is being tested in the PALOMA study, a longitudinal study of Parkinson's patients designed to develop one biomarker as a monitoring and assessment tool.
Vivian explains, "The reason that this works or theoretically works is that there's a very well-characterized ocular motor system. We know a lot about the ocular motor system and the relationship between eye movement and different parts of the brain. When we talk about oculometrics, we're not just measuring one thing. We're talking about measuring multiple aspects of eye movement and function. Those different aspects are related to a variety of different neural pathways. So, in the context of neurodegenerative disease, we can see certain characteristic changes in how a patient's eyes move or function as a direct result of the degeneration happening in particular areas of the brain."
"The distinct signal that we can get from these different types of oculometrics, from different brain regions, gives us a really powerful tool to be able to use for a variety of purposes like we just described. For diagnosing patients early, potentially differentiating between very similar conditions or conditions that appear similar in their outward presentation of symptoms but have a different disease pathology in the brain. We're excited about this methodology for being able to offer us a variety of really exciting tools that ultimately will help us develop better therapeutics for patients and help benefit patients in the long run."
#NeuraLight #OculometricData #EyeMovement #ParkinsonsDisease #NeurologicalDiseases #DigitalBiomarkers
neuralight.ai
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Vivian DeWoskin, Chief Commercial Officer at NeuraLight, focuses on developing solutions for diagnosing, monitoring and treating neurodegenerative diseases using oculometric data. Using computer vision and deep learning techniques, data from measuring eye position and movement can provide biomarkers for early detection and insights into neurological health. This non-invasive technology is being tested in the PALOMA study, a longitudinal study of Parkinson's patients designed to develop one biomarker as a monitoring and assessment tool.
Vivian explains, "The reason that this works or theoretically works is that there's a very well-characterized ocular motor system. We know a lot about the ocular motor system and the relationship between eye movement and different parts of the brain. When we talk about oculometrics, we're not just measuring one thing. We're talking about measuring multiple aspects of eye movement and function. Those different aspects are related to a variety of different neural pathways. So, in the context of neurodegenerative disease, we can see certain characteristic changes in how a patient's eyes move or function as a direct result of the degeneration happening in particular areas of the brain."
"The distinct signal that we can get from these different types of oculometrics, from different brain regions, gives us a really powerful tool to be able to use for a variety of purposes like we just described. For diagnosing patients early, potentially differentiating between very similar conditions or conditions that appear similar in their outward presentation of symptoms but have a different disease pathology in the brain. We're excited about this methodology for being able to offer us a variety of really exciting tools that ultimately will help us develop better therapeutics for patients and help benefit patients in the long run."
#NeuraLight #OculometricData #EyeMovement #ParkinsonsDisease #NeurologicalDiseases #DigitalBiomarkers
neuralight.ai
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Ivana Naeymi-Rad, Chief Operating Officer at Intelligent Medical Objects, works with providers, payers, and life science companies to help them make sense of data. IMO specializes in data quality, cleaning paper-based data, and data interoperability in structured and unstructured formats. Sentiment analysis provides insights into the emotions of providers and patients, while AI and large language models support data entry and improve provider workflow. IMO also focuses on addressing the complexities of data in the context of drug discovery, genomics, and precision medicine.
Ivana explains, "We started with this foundational clinical interface terminology that has been a big part of the building blocks as we've expanded into this data quality platform. The terminology allows us to better understand clinical data in ways you wouldn't be able to understand by looking at it. We've worked with providers, we've worked with health systems to take their data to ingest it, and then we have a team of clinicians and informaticists processing and creating rules and policies around that data."
"A lot of the challenges that we solve are around better data entry, number one, at the point of care. Then two, a lot of the broader interoperability-related challenges around disparate data that flow into data warehouses analytics platforms further downstream. We help customers standardize, normalize, really make sense of data, and utilize their data in ways they just wouldn't be able to before because we have that deep clinical understanding."
"Unfortunately, a lot of that data is still on paper. The good news is that when it comes to us, it's already digitized. Still, I do know the pain that it takes when we hear about customers and their fax machines and the PDFs and the optical character recognition, trying to get that data in a format that is accessible and able to be cleaned. There is so much opportunity in healthcare to standardize a lot of this process. The cleanliness and the quality issues of the data today are impacting a wide variety of people across the entire data chain."
#IntelligentMedicalObjects #DigitalHealth #WomeninHealthIT #HealthTech #HealthcareData
imohealth.com
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Ivana Naeymi-Rad, Chief Operating Officer at Intelligent Medical Objects, works with providers, payers, and life science companies to help them make sense of data. IMO specializes in data quality, cleaning paper-based data, and data interoperability in structured and unstructured formats. Sentiment analysis provides insights into the emotions of providers and patients, while AI and large language models support data entry and improve provider workflow. IMO also focuses on addressing the complexities of data in the context of drug discovery, genomics, and precision medicine.
Ivana explains, "We started with this foundational clinical interface terminology that has been a big part of the building blocks as we've expanded into this data quality platform. The terminology allows us to better understand clinical data in ways you wouldn't be able to understand by looking at it. We've worked with providers, we've worked with health systems to take their data to ingest it, and then we have a team of clinicians and informaticists processing and creating rules and policies around that data."
"A lot of the challenges that we solve are around better data entry, number one, at the point of care. Then two, a lot of the broader interoperability-related challenges around disparate data that flow into data warehouses analytics platforms further downstream. We help customers standardize, normalize, really make sense of data, and utilize their data in ways they just wouldn't be able to before because we have that deep clinical understanding."
"Unfortunately, a lot of that data is still on paper. The good news is that when it comes to us, it's already digitized. Still, I do know the pain that it takes when we hear about customers and their fax machines and the PDFs and the optical character recognition, trying to get that data in a format that is accessible and able to be cleaned. There is so much opportunity in healthcare to standardize a lot of this process. The cleanliness and the quality issues of the data today are impacting a wide variety of people across the entire data chain."
#IntelligentMedicalObjects #DigitalHealth #WomeninHealthIT #HealthTech #HealthcareData
imohealth.com
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Vasu Chandrasekaran, VP of real-world data and analytics at Ontada, provides an electronic health record platform, iKnowMed, used by community oncology providers to practice evidence-based and patient-centered medicine better. They also work closely with the US Oncology Network to improve access to new therapies and clinical trials. Using real-world data to generate real-world evidence allows Ontada, in partnership with biopharma companies, to drive drug discovery and development, conduct more diverse trials, and better understand the effectiveness of treatments.
Vasu explains, "Community oncology is where most of the cancer care happens. We enable those physicians in the community to practice evidence-based and patient-centered medicine through our EHR platform. Our clinical decision support system and other workflows built into the EHR platform enable physicians to practice oncology and deliver precise care to patients in the community. That's the first thing I would say. That's one of the offerings."
"And secondly, because we are part of McKesson, we have a very close partnership with The US Oncology Network, which is the largest network of community oncology practices. We can work very closely with the physicians in The Network to understand what is working well for them in the technology and what needs to be improved. This close partnership enables us to be agile and make changes to the technology that reflects the standard of care."
"Lastly, on the life sciences side, we work with biopharma companies and use real-world data coming from the routine care delivery, the data about the patient’s health status, demographics, diagnoses, testing, treatments, etc. We use that to generate real-world evidence that can be used to help understand the real-world effectiveness of treatments, and that can be used to help accelerate new therapies to patients."
#Ontada #RealWorldData #Oncology #Cancer #CancerCare #DrugDevelopment
ontada.com
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Vasu Chandrasekaran, VP of real-world data and analytics at Ontada, provides an electronic health record platform, iKnowMed, used by community oncology providers to practice evidence-based and patient-centered medicine better. They also work closely with the US Oncology Network to improve access to new therapies and clinical trials. Using real-world data to generate real-world evidence allows Ontada, in partnership with biopharma companies, to drive drug discovery and development, conduct more diverse trials, and better understand the effectiveness of treatments.
Vasu explains, "Community oncology is where most of the cancer care happens. We enable those physicians in the community to practice evidence-based and patient-centered medicine through our EHR platform. Our clinical decision support system and other workflows built into the EHR platform enable physicians to practice oncology and deliver precise care to patients in the community. That's the first thing I would say. That's one of the offerings."
"And secondly, because we are part of McKesson, we have a very close partnership with The US Oncology Network, which is the largest network of community oncology practices. We can work very closely with the physicians in The Network to understand what is working well for them in the technology and what needs to be improved. This close partnership enables us to be agile and make changes to the technology that reflects the standard of care."
"Lastly, on the life sciences side, we work with biopharma companies and use real-world data coming from the routine care delivery, the data about the patient’s health status, demographics, diagnoses, testing, treatments, etc. We use that to generate real-world evidence that can be used to help understand the real-world effectiveness of treatments, and that can be used to help accelerate new therapies to patients."
#Ontada #RealWorldData #Oncology #Cancer #CancerCare #DrugDevelopment
ontada.com
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Arun Menawat, CEO of Profound Medical, discusses the challenges of treating prostate cancer and how traditional treatments like prostate removal or radiation often result in side effects and complications. While historically, a PSA blood test has been used for diagnosis, an MRI provides a more precise and efficient diagnostic tool. In addition, Profound is using real-time MRI-guided thermal ultrasound to precisely target and kill cancer cells while maintaining vital functions.
Arun explains, "MRI is the best way to really diagnose prostate cancer. And because you can see inside, you can see the cellular structure and that is what's important when physicians review. Our primary message is if you're using the MRI to diagnose, why would you not use that MRI also to treat the patient? Because you can see the urethra where urine is flowing. You can see the ejaculatory duct, where it merges with the urethra. You can get a very good idea of where the nerve bundles are."
"Our technology is a combination of using real-time MRI, and we use a very safe way of keeping the urethra at body temperature. Still, we use ultrasound to gently heat the tissue just to kill temperature, typically about 55° Centigrade. So think about this: Men will go into the MR, they will be asleep, they won’t feel anything. We insert a catheter right into the center of the prostate. We have water flowing through it, so the urethra that is for urine is always safe. Then we supply some ultrasound through that catheter, and the sound gets absorbed by the prostate tissue, which gently heats. The MRI that we use for imaging, also in real-time, gives us the temperature of the prostate."
#ProfoundMedical #ProstateCancer #BPH #Urology #MensHealth #MRI #ScienceandTechnology #Radiology #TULSApro
profoundmedical.com
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Arun Menawat, CEO of Profound Medical, discusses the challenges of treating prostate cancer and how traditional treatments like prostate removal or radiation often result in side effects and complications. While historically, a PSA blood test has been used for diagnosis, an MRI provides a more precise and efficient diagnostic tool. In addition, Profound is using real-time MRI-guided thermal ultrasound to precisely target and kill cancer cells while maintaining vital functions.
Arun explains, "MRI is the best way to really diagnose prostate cancer. And because you can see inside, you can see the cellular structure and that is what's important when physicians review. Our primary message is if you're using the MRI to diagnose, why would you not use that MRI also to treat the patient? Because you can see the urethra where urine is flowing. You can see the ejaculatory duct, where it merges with the urethra. You can get a very good idea of where the nerve bundles are."
"Our technology is a combination of using real-time MRI, and we use a very safe way of keeping the urethra at body temperature. Still, we use ultrasound to gently heat the tissue just to kill temperature, typically about 55° Centigrade. So think about this: Men will go into the MR, they will be asleep, they won’t feel anything. We insert a catheter right into the center of the prostate. We have water flowing through it, so the urethra that is for urine is always safe. Then we supply some ultrasound through that catheter, and the sound gets absorbed by the prostate tissue, which gently heats. The MRI that we use for imaging, also in real-time, gives us the temperature of the prostate."
#ProfoundMedical #ProstateCancer #BPH #Urology #MensHealth #MRI #ScienceandTechnology #Radiology #TULSApro
profoundmedical.com
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Dr. Michael Mbagwu, senior Medical Director at Verana Health, a real-world data company helping to accelerate clinical research using EHR data and other data to unlock insights about clinical practice patterns. The company is also addressing systematic bias in clinical trials by using real-world data and analyzing demographic information and geographic representation to get an accurate view of the obstacles patients face in getting the most advanced treatments.
Michael elaborates, "We have very secure and advanced technologies where we deliberately use clinical and other data scientists to walk through the data, ensure it's really what we want, and give insights. Big data is not big data is not big data, and the ability to unlock insights very much depends on who's the one looking through it. So, at Verana, we do it all together. We have a very multidisciplinary team that is working on all of these data sets, and we have just a great thing going on regarding the insights we're able to provide."
"First and foremost, the data itself isn't always contained in just one place. And by that, I mean yes, loosely, we have an idea of what an EHR is. That's what I, as a doc, will type in. When patients come in, they'll talk about their symptoms or something that's happened to them. We will type that and list it. So that's one part of the electronic medical record. But there are other parts."
"There's billing, there can be images, there can be MRIs. In ophthalmology we use different instruments, photographs of the retina and different scans and that sort of thing. Those aren't necessarily in the EHR. They might be something that the computer also accesses, but again, not from just one source. So, understanding what data is available and breaking down all the silos of that so that we can ingest and get a 360° view of patient journeys is something that we work very hard at Verana to do."
#VeranaHealth #DigitalHealth #RealWorldData #RWD #LifeSciences #Ophthalmology
veranahealth.com
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Dr. Michael Mbagwu, senior Medical Director at Verana Health, a real-world data company helping to accelerate clinical research using EHR data and other data to unlock insights about clinical practice patterns. The company is also addressing systematic bias in clinical trials by using real-world data and analyzing demographic information and geographic representation to get an accurate view of the obstacles patients face in getting the most advanced treatments.
Michael elaborates, "We have very secure and advanced technologies where we deliberately use clinical and other data scientists to walk through the data, ensure it's really what we want, and give insights. Big data is not big data is not big data, and the ability to unlock insights very much depends on who's the one looking through it. So, at Verana, we do it all together. We have a very multidisciplinary team that is working on all of these data sets, and we have just a great thing going on regarding the insights we're able to provide."
"First and foremost, the data itself isn't always contained in just one place. And by that, I mean yes, loosely, we have an idea of what an EHR is. That's what I, as a doc, will type in. When patients come in, they'll talk about their symptoms or something that's happened to them. We will type that and list it. So that's one part of the electronic medical record. But there are other parts."
"There's billing, there can be images, there can be MRIs. In ophthalmology we use different instruments, photographs of the retina and different scans and that sort of thing. Those aren't necessarily in the EHR. They might be something that the computer also accesses, but again, not from just one source. So, understanding what data is available and breaking down all the silos of that so that we can ingest and get a 360° view of patient journeys is something that we work very hard at Verana to do."
#VeranaHealth #DigitalHealth #RealWorldData #RWD #LifeSciences #Ophthalmology
veranahealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Todd Sachs, Chief Medical Officer at AccessHope, highlights why socioeconomic disparities in cancer mortality have widened. The key is access to screening tests, often limited by the cost and location of the testing facility. Geography also impacts access to sub-specialists with the most current information available. Todd emphasizes the importance of removing these geographic barriers and increasing collaboration between sub-specialists and community oncologists with access to National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Centers to ensure patients benefit from the latest innovations and evidence-based treatments.
Todd explains, "With the amount of information coming out, it's challenging for patients because there's more information for them to have to sort through and sift through and understand to decide what's best for them. That same amount of information is challenging for a community oncologist because I don't know how they keep up with all of the advancements and best practices. They're taking care of 20 to 30 people a day and treating a variety of different types of cancers. I think it's almost unrealistic of us to expect a community oncologist to be that jack-of-all-trades. The knowledge that we're increasing because of the advances is wonderful but also widening the gap."
"What does that mean in everyday use? We've seen that community oncologists may over-utilize a treatment, under-utilize it, or mis-utilize it because they're unaware of new guidelines or treatments. This happens much more in cancer and less likely with diabetes, hypertension, or cholesterol because the amount of information in those particular conditions or diseases is far less than what you're seeing in cancer."
"That's why we feel that at AccessHope, that complex should be reviewed by an NCI CCC expert, and that's why AccessHope was born. We were born to be, I would say, in essence, the chassis between the individual and their families to the renowned experts at these centers, regardless of where they live."
#AccessHope #Cancer #CancerCare #SDOH #HealthEquity #NCICCCExpert
myaccesshope.org
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Dr. Todd Sachs, Chief Medical Officer at AccessHope, highlights why socioeconomic disparities in cancer mortality have widened. The key is access to screening tests, often limited by the cost and location of the testing facility. Geography also impacts access to sub-specialists with the most current information available. Todd emphasizes the importance of removing these geographic barriers and increasing collaboration between sub-specialists and community oncologists with access to National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Centers to ensure patients benefit from the latest innovations and evidence-based treatments.
Todd explains, "With the amount of information coming out, it's challenging for patients because there's more information for them to have to sort through and sift through and understand to decide what's best for them. That same amount of information is challenging for a community oncologist because I don't know how they keep up with all of the advancements and best practices. They're taking care of 20 to 30 people a day and treating a variety of different types of cancers. I think it's almost unrealistic of us to expect a community oncologist to be that jack-of-all-trades. The knowledge that we're increasing because of the advances is wonderful but also widening the gap."
"What does that mean in everyday use? We've seen that community oncologists may over-utilize a treatment, under-utilize it, or mis-utilize it because they're unaware of new guidelines or treatments. This happens much more in cancer and less likely with diabetes, hypertension, or cholesterol because the amount of information in those particular conditions or diseases is far less than what you're seeing in cancer."
"That's why we feel that at AccessHope, that complex should be reviewed by an NCI CCC expert, and that's why AccessHope was born. We were born to be, I would say, in essence, the chassis between the individual and their families to the renowned experts at these centers, regardless of where they live."
#AccessHope #Cancer #CancerCare #SDOH #HealthEquity #NCICCCExperts
myaccesshope.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jim Woody, CEO and Director of 180 Life Sciences, discusses the company's vision for safer pain and inflammation management. Their earlier work on anti-TNF therapy revolutionized the treatment of conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Now 180 Life Sciences focuses on additional indications of inflammation, fibrosis, and cognitive dementia for using anti-TNFs. Jim highlights their research on the anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties of cannabinoids and the potential of synthetic cannabinoid analogs for pain management and appetite suppression.
Jim elaborates, "Many years ago, I was Chief Scientific Officer at a company called Centocore, and they were one of the first companies developing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. One of them that we developed was called anti-TNF. It was Infliximab, which was the FDA name that it received. In your body, circulating around, there are hundreds of small proteins. Those that modify the immune system are called cytokines, and most of them are good actors. One of the bad actors is what they call tumor necrosis factor. It was given that name because of some mouse studies in cancer that were done, although they turned out to be incorrect."
"My colleagues in the UK, Dr. Marc Feldmann and Dr. Ravinder Maini had data suggesting that rheumatoid arthritis inflammation and pain were driven by TNF. We were the first to treat ten patients with anti-TNF in this program, in the whole world. Now, anti-TNF is the therapy of choice for rheumatoid arthritis, which, of course, is severe inflammation of the joints."
"We also found out that TNF was driving these inflammations in Crohn's disease, Psoriasis, and in Ulcerative Colitis. We discovered all of those from Centocore, and now anti-TNF is the largest-selling class of biologics, at almost $40 billion a year. The current favorite is Humira from AbbVie, but J&J, who bought Centocore, still makes a billion dollars a year from Infliximab sales or its brand name Remicade."
#180LifeSciences #LifeSciences #CBD #Biotech #Fibrosis #AntiTNF #DupuytrensDisease #PainManagement #Inflammation
180lifesciences.com
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Dr. Jim Woody, CEO and Director of 180 Life Sciences, discusses the company's vision for safer pain and inflammation management. Their earlier work on anti-TNF therapy revolutionized the treatment of conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Now 180 Life Sciences focuses on additional indications of inflammation, fibrosis, and cognitive dementia for using anti-TNFs. Jim highlights their research on the anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties of cannabinoids and the potential of synthetic cannabinoid analogs for pain management and appetite suppression.
Jim elaborates, "Many years ago, I was Chief Scientific Officer at a company called Centocore, and they were one of the first companies developing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. One of them that we developed was called anti-TNF. It was Infliximab, which was the FDA name that it received. In your body, circulating around, there are hundreds of small proteins. Those that modify the immune system are called cytokines, and most of them are good actors. One of the bad actors is what they call tumor necrosis factor. It was given that name because of some mouse studies in cancer that were done, although they turned out to be incorrect."
"My colleagues in the UK, Dr. Marc Feldmann and Dr. Ravinder Maini had data suggesting that rheumatoid arthritis inflammation and pain were driven by TNF. We were the first to treat ten patients with anti-TNF in this program, in the whole world. Now, anti-TNF is the therapy of choice for rheumatoid arthritis, which, of course, is severe inflammation of the joints."
"We also found out that TNF was driving these inflammations in Crohn's disease, Psoriasis, and in Ulcerative Colitis. We discovered all of those from Centocore, and now anti-TNF is the largest-selling class of biologics, at almost $40 billion a year. The current favorite is Humira from AbbVie, but J&J, who bought Centocore, still makes a billion dollars a year from Infliximab sales or its brand name Remicade."
#180LifeSciences #LifeSciences #CBD #Biotech #Fibrosis #AntiTNF #DupuytrensDisease #PainManagement #Inflammation
180lifesciences.com
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John Erwin, CEO of Carenet Health, discusses their recent survey of patients and providers covered by commercial insurance companies or the government programs Medicare and Medicaid. While there is growing interest in using conversational texting and other digital tools, patients still want to talk with a human. The report reveals that Medicare/Medicaid members are more satisfied with their health plans than those covered by commercial plans, suggesting these plans can learn from government programs to improve the patient experience.
John explains, "Predominantly, we focus on two areas. One is around virtual care, so 24 hours a day, we have clinical and non-clinical teams that help support members and patients with anything and everything, from a prescription refill to "Help me talk to my doctor." So, virtual care 24 hours a day is one core business."
"Then the other one is reaching out to members and patients around activities that would make sense for them to do on their healthcare. For example, do you have a primary care physician? Do you go in and see them? Have you done all the right things your plan benefits allow you to receive? So, we are good at utilizing data to ensure that we're getting in front of the consumer so that they can get the care and support they deserve through their benefits."
"We were interested to find this out because we all are transitioning from all kinds of communication styles, be it in-person or by telephonic. The COVID opportunity changed a lot of how people are interacting. We help patients with all the different support mediums, whether text messages two-way with your doctor, speaking with a registered nurse, or talking to one of our engagement specialists. So, we're just hopeful that we get to talk to people in the right channel at the right time for them."
"What surprised us a little bit on the survey was that people still prefer to be spoken to, and they prefer the timeliness and relevance of that conversation. So, while they're happy to embrace other technologies, they still find a huge amount of comfort and support through the telephonic channel, which we do a lot of. We spoke to 20 million people last year just having a conversation about where they're heading on their health journey."
#CarenetHealth #HealthInsurance #HealthInsurers #PatientEngagement
carenethealthcare.com
Listen to the podcast here
John Erwin, CEO of Carenet Health, discusses their recent survey of patients and providers covered by commercial insurance companies or the government programs Medicare and Medicaid. While there is growing interest in using conversational texting and other digital tools, patients still want to talk with a human. The report reveals that Medicare/Medicaid members are more satisfied with their health plans than those covered by commercial plans, suggesting these plans can learn from government programs to improve the patient experience.
John explains, "Predominantly, we focus on two areas. One is around virtual care, so 24 hours a day, we have clinical and non-clinical teams that help support members and patients with anything and everything, from a prescription refill to "Help me talk to my doctor." So, virtual care 24 hours a day is one core business."
"Then the other one is reaching out to members and patients around activities that would make sense for them to do on their healthcare. For example, do you have a primary care physician? Do you go in and see them? Have you done all the right things your plan benefits allow you to receive? So, we are good at utilizing data to ensure that we're getting in front of the consumer so that they can get the care and support they deserve through their benefits."
"We were interested to find this out because we all are transitioning from all kinds of communication styles, be it in-person or by telephonic. The COVID opportunity changed a lot of how people are interacting. We help patients with all the different support mediums, whether text messages two-way with your doctor, speaking with a registered nurse, or talking to one of our engagement specialists. So, we're just hopeful that we get to talk to people in the right channel at the right time for them."
"What surprised us a little bit on the survey was that people still prefer to be spoken to, and they prefer the timeliness and relevance of that conversation. So, while they're happy to embrace other technologies, they still find a huge amount of comfort and support through the telephonic channel, which we do a lot of. We spoke to 20 million people last year just having a conversation about where they're heading on their health journey."
#CarenetHealth #HealthInsurance #HealthInsurers #PatientEngagement
carenethealthcare.com
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Dr. Lishan Aklog, CEO of Lucid Diagnostics, discusses the current diagnostic landscape for esophageal cancer and the need for early detection. The current diagnostic tool, an upper endoscopy, is an invasive procedure requiring anesthesia. The EsoGuard, a noninvasive simple cell collection procedure, uses molecular diagnostics to detect pre-cancerous cells within minutes. This test is particularly beneficial for screening those with risk factors such as chronic heartburn, being male, a smoker, or obese.
Lishan explains, "To prevent it, you have to pick it up at the pre-cancer stage because, unlike many other cancers where detecting earlier stage cancer, stage one cancer is a victory with a real potential for a cure, such as in breast cancer and colon and others, that's not the case here. You have about a 50% likelihood of dying even if you pick up esophageal cancer at the earliest stages. So, our mission and the opportunity here is to prevent about 16,000 cancer deaths a year by detecting the pre-cancerous conditions before it actually becomes cancer."
"Using modern molecular techniques, we can identify the pre-cancerous cells at their earliest stage, which is groundbreaking. There is no other cancer that can be detected in the early pre-cancer stage at the 80% levels that we're able to do with this new test called EsoGuard. It's been on the market for a few years. So, that completely changes the landscape. Now, we have the opportunity to offer a very simple, noninvasive test that can detect the pre-cancerous condition in 80% of people. It also detects the cancer in 100% of people who happen to be unfortunate enough to have that. It is great opportunity, great shift in the landscape thanks to great science."
#LucidDiagnostics #EsoGuard #UpperEndoscopy #EsophagealCancer #PreCancer
luciddx.com
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Dr. Lishan Aklog, CEO of Lucid Diagnostics, discusses the current diagnostic landscape for esophageal cancer and the need for early detection. The current diagnostic tool, an upper endoscopy, is an invasive procedure requiring anesthesia. The EsoGuard, a noninvasive simple cell collection procedure, uses molecular diagnostics to detect pre-cancerous cells within minutes. This test is particularly beneficial for screening those with risk factors such as chronic heartburn, being male, a smoker, or obese.
Lishan explains, "To prevent it, you have to pick it up at the pre-cancer stage because, unlike many other cancers where detecting earlier stage cancer, stage one cancer is a victory with a real potential for a cure, such as in breast cancer and colon and others, that's not the case here. You have about a 50% likelihood of dying even if you pick up esophageal cancer at the earliest stages. So, our mission and the opportunity here is to prevent about 16,000 cancer deaths a year by detecting the pre-cancerous conditions before it actually becomes cancer."
"Using modern molecular techniques, we can identify the pre-cancerous cells at their earliest stage, which is groundbreaking. There is no other cancer that can be detected in the early pre-cancer stage at the 80% levels that we're able to do with this new test called EsoGuard. It's been on the market for a few years. So, that completely changes the landscape. Now, we have the opportunity to offer a very simple, noninvasive test that can detect the pre-cancerous condition in 80% of people. It also detects the cancer in 100% of people who happen to be unfortunate enough to have that. It is great opportunity, great shift in the landscape thanks to great science."
#LucidDiagnostics #EsoGuard #UpperEndoscopy #EsophagealCancer #PreCancer
luciddx.com
Download the transcript here
David Young, President of R&D at Processa Pharmaceuticals, talks about the FDA's Project Optimus draft guidance on optimal dosage regimens for specific patients. Processa is modifying existing cancer-killing molecules to improve efficacy and decrease side effects by taking into account genetic factors and the benefit-risk profile of each patient. This precision medicine approach will inform clinical trial recruitment, dosing regimens and the number of patients who can be effectively helped.
David explains, "There are a couple of things that make us unique. One is that we're taking the active cancer-killing molecules on the market. It's a given drug that's approved by the FDA, and we know it kills cancer. We've taken that molecule and either changed it slightly or administered it with another drug in some way to decrease or change the drug’s metabolism and then to distribute more drug to the cancer cell."
"So, we started to learn how they look at the benefit-risk profile, and we started to develop our version of regulatory science, and that's expanded now over the last 30 years. That expansion into regulatory science now encompasses Project Optimus, which the FDA recently has put out draft guidance on in terms of optimal dosage regimens. They as well put out some documentation on the Project Optimus initiative where you go in to determine the optimal regimen for your patient. Not just any regimen, but the optimal regimen for your patients. If you get an optimal regimen for your patients, maybe that has a certain balance of efficacy and safety. You might come up with something different than we used to do five years ago in terms of the dosage regimen."
#ProcessaPharmaceuticals #ProjectOptimus #BenefitRiskProfile #Cancer #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalTrials
processapharmaceuticals.com
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David Young, President of R&D at Processa Pharmaceuticals, talks about the FDA's Project Optimus draft guidance on optimal dosage regimens for specific patients. Processa is modifying existing cancer-killing molecules to improve efficacy and decrease side effects by taking into account genetic factors and the benefit-risk profile of each patient. This precision medicine approach will inform clinical trial recruitment, dosing regimens and the number of patients who can be effectively helped.
David explains, "There are a couple of things that make us unique. One is that we're taking the active cancer-killing molecules on the market. It's a given drug that's approved by the FDA, and we know it kills cancer. We've taken that molecule and either changed it slightly or administered it with another drug in some way to decrease or change the drug’s metabolism and then to distribute more drug to the cancer cell."
"So, we started to learn how they look at the benefit-risk profile, and we started to develop our version of regulatory science, and that's expanded now over the last 30 years. That expansion into regulatory science now encompasses Project Optimus, which the FDA recently has put out draft guidance on in terms of optimal dosage regimens. They as well put out some documentation on the Project Optimus initiative where you go in to determine the optimal regimen for your patient. Not just any regimen, but the optimal regimen for your patients. If you get an optimal regimen for your patients, maybe that has a certain balance of efficacy and safety. You might come up with something different than we used to do five years ago in terms of the dosage regimen."
#ProcessaPharmaceuticals #ProjectOptimus #BenefitRiskProfile #Cancer #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalTrials
processapharmaceuticals.com
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Dr. Juan Vera, CEO of Marker Therapeutics, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company, is developing next-generation immunotherapy with a multi-tumor-specific T-cell platform to overcome limitations of current T-cell therapies with narrow target recognition. This approach, which recognizes multiple antigens within the tumor, helps prevent tumor resistance and adaptation. Marker is participating in the APOLLO trial testing this broad spectrum of target recognition in lymphoma patients who have relapsed after CAR-T CD19 therapy while also exploring acute myeloid leukemia and pancreatic cancer.
Juan explains, "Without a doubt, the earlier products that have been approved, such as mainly chimeric T-cell receptors, have validated the clinical power of T-cells in their ability to recognize and kill cancer cells. I think that no one will argue that, and this has been something that has been well evaluated, particularly in hematologic malignancies and particularly in lymphoma."
"However, there are limitations with these types of technologies, and some of the limitations now have become more and more obvious a few years after the approval of those initial drugs. One of the main limitations relies on the short-term clinical benefit observed in many cases once patients receive these therapies. That can be attributed largely to the narrow target recognition of these initial strategies."
"Our approach is different and seeks to overcome this particular limitation. The way that we seek to do so is by creating a product that is capable of recognizing multiple antigens present within the tumor. In that particular way, our therapy is capable of preventing this mechanism of tumor adaptation and tumor resistance. We hope that this multi-target approach will lead to clinical responses that will be long-sustained and durable in comparison to what we're seeing initially with these initial studies or initial drugs that have been approved in the market."
#MarkerTherapeutics #Oncology #AutologousCellTherapy #TCellTherapy #Lymphoma #Cancer
markertherapeutics.com
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Dr. Juan Vera, CEO of Marker Therapeutics, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company, is developing next-generation immunotherapy with a multi-tumor-specific T-cell platform to overcome limitations of current T-cell therapies with narrow target recognition. This approach, which recognizes multiple antigens within the tumor, helps prevent tumor resistance and adaptation. Marker is participating in the APOLLO trial testing this broad spectrum of target recognition in lymphoma patients who have relapsed after CAR-T CD19 therapy while also exploring acute myeloid leukemia and pancreatic cancer.
Juan explains, "Without a doubt, the earlier products that have been approved, such as mainly chimeric T-cell receptors, have validated the clinical power of T-cells in their ability to recognize and kill cancer cells. I think that no one will argue that, and this has been something that has been well evaluated, particularly in hematologic malignancies and particularly in lymphoma."
"However, there are limitations with these types of technologies, and some of the limitations now have become more and more obvious a few years after the approval of those initial drugs. One of the main limitations relies on the short-term clinical benefit observed in many cases once patients receive these therapies. That can be attributed largely to the narrow target recognition of these initial strategies."
"Our approach is different and seeks to overcome this particular limitation. The way that we seek to do so is by creating a product that is capable of recognizing multiple antigens present within the tumor. In that particular way, our therapy is capable of preventing this mechanism of tumor adaptation and tumor resistance. We hope that this multi-target approach will lead to clinical responses that will be long-sustained and durable in comparison to what we're seeing initially with these initial studies or initial drugs that have been approved in the market."
#MarkerTherapeutics #Oncology #AutologousCellTherapy #TCellTherapy #Lymphoma #Cancer
markertherapeutics.com
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Andreas Grill, President and CEO of DepYmed, discusses protein tyrosine phosphatase-targeted drugs, a new class of drugs. With a focus on the specific enzyme PTP1B, DepYmed discovered orally bioavailable molecules that inhibit PTP1B, targeting the signal transaction pathway. They are initially testing to treat Rett syndrome, a rare disease with no current therapy while exploring the use of PTP1B inhibitors to treat inflammatory diseases, cancer, diabetes, and neurological diseases.
Andreas elaborates, "In DepYmed, we're focused on a specific enzyme. It's PTP1B. It's part of a family of enzymes called protein tyrosine phosphatases, and, in particular, we're looking at PTP1B. It's a metabolic regulatory enzyme that regulates signal transduction between cells and how cells communicate with each other. It's been worked on in the '90s and early 2000s. A couple of companies were working on the target, and they failed in the target, mainly because they couldn't create an orally bioavailable compound that would inhibit the PTP1B enzyme itself."
"So that was one of the holy grails that we were able to find, where we were able to discover molecules that were orally bioavailable and would inhibit PTP1B. It was a game-changer when it came to the therapeutics around the target of PTP1B. Much of this work came out of Dr. Nicholas Tonks' laboratory out of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. We are in close collaboration with Nick and his team at Cold Spring Harbor, developing this new area of PTP1B inhibitors targeting the signal transaction pathway."
#DepYmed #RettSyndrome #DPM1003 #PTP1B #Phosphatases #PhosphatasesInhibitors #RareDisease
DepYmed.com
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Andreas Grill, President and CEO of DepYmed, discusses protein tyrosine phosphatase-targeted drugs, a new class of drugs. With a focus on the specific enzyme PTP1B, DepYmed discovered orally bioavailable molecules that inhibit PTP1B, targeting the signal transaction pathway. They are initially testing to treat Rett syndrome, a rare disease with no current therapy while exploring the use of PTP1B inhibitors to treat inflammatory diseases, cancer, diabetes, and neurological diseases.
Andreas elaborates, "In DepYmed, we're focused on a specific enzyme. It's PTP1B. It's part of a family of enzymes called protein tyrosine phosphatases, and, in particular, we're looking at PTP1B. It's a metabolic regulatory enzyme that regulates signal transduction between cells and how cells communicate with each other. It's been worked on in the '90s and early 2000s. A couple of companies were working on the target, and they failed in the target, mainly because they couldn't create an orally bioavailable compound that would inhibit the PTP1B enzyme itself."
"So that was one of the holy grails that we were able to find, where we were able to discover molecules that were orally bioavailable and would inhibit PTP1B. It was a game-changer when it came to the therapeutics around the target of PTP1B. Much of this work came out of Dr. Nicholas Tonks' laboratory out of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. We are in close collaboration with Nick and his team at Cold Spring Harbor, developing this new area of PTP1B inhibitors targeting the signal transaction pathway."
#DepYmed #RettSyndrome #DPM1003 #PTP1B #Phosphatases #PhosphatasesInhibitors #RareDisease
DepYmed.com
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Vin Singh, Founder and CEO of Bullfrog AI, discusses how AI is being used to improve the drug development process through a precision medicine approach that looks at a combination of genetic and non-genetic attributes to predict patient response to drugs. Bullfrog AI aims to reduce the failure rate in late-stage trials by enrolling the right patients in clinical trials. Through their partnership with the Johns Hopkins Lieber Institute for Brain Development, they use AI to analyze a unique dataset of post-mortem brains to discover new drug targets and improve clinical trial design.
Vin explains, "Bullfrog is a technology-enabled drug development company. And what we're doing is using a proprietary AI to improve the drug development process, reduce development times and costs for development, and increase access, which benefits the world."
"The pharmaceutical industry is plagued with inefficiencies. It takes 10 to 15 years and one to two billion dollars to develop drugs, and the failure rates in that drug development process are incredibly high. Our goal here is to fix that formula of failure, which will ultimately benefit patients and get them access to drugs that work for them."
"Typically, when you think of AI and machine learning, you think about training the AI to identify or predict something. Typically, the thinking is you need lots and lots of data and lots of patients. With our technology, we can do a shallow and wide analysis. What that means is shallow means not thousands or millions of patients. We can do it with hundreds of patients. Wide means it could be a lot of different types of data, including genomic data. So there might be millions of areas."
#BullfrogAI #AI #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials #LieberInstitute #JohnsHopkinsUniversity
Bullfrogai.com
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Vin Singh, Founder and CEO of Bullfrog AI, discusses how AI is being used to improve the drug development process through a precision medicine approach that looks at a combination of genetic and non-genetic attributes to predict patient response to drugs. Bullfrog AI aims to reduce the failure rate in late-stage trials by enrolling the right patients in clinical trials. Through their partnership with the Johns Hopkins Lieber Institute for Brain Development, they use AI to analyze a unique dataset of post-mortem brains to discover new drug targets and improve clinical trial design.
Vin explains, "Bullfrog is a technology-enabled drug development company. And what we're doing is using a proprietary AI to improve the drug development process, reduce development times and costs for development, and increase access, which benefits the world."
"The pharmaceutical industry is plagued with inefficiencies. It takes 10 to 15 years and one to two billion dollars to develop drugs, and the failure rates in that drug development process are incredibly high. Our goal here is to fix that formula of failure, which will ultimately benefit patients and get them access to drugs that work for them."
"Typically, when you think of AI and machine learning, you think about training the AI to identify or predict something. Typically, the thinking is you need lots and lots of data and lots of patients. With our technology, we can do a shallow and wide analysis. What that means is shallow means not thousands or millions of patients. We can do it with hundreds of patients. Wide means it could be a lot of different types of data, including genomic data. So there might be millions of areas."
#BullfrogAI #AI #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials #LieberInstitute #JohnsHopkinsUniversity
Bullfrogai.com
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Melinda Thomas, the COO and Co-Founder of Octave Bioscience is focused on delivering a new standard of care for multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. The company aims to address the unmet needs of people living with MS using blood-based biomarkers, expanded imaging, and a clinical insights program. The solution includes an app, wearable sensors, and a nurse care partner to help patients and neurologists make better-informed treatment decisions.
Melinda elaborates, "What we learned when we did about 150 interviews before we even started developing anything was, in MS specifically, there was no way to see what was going on beneath the surface. You didn't have a blood test that told you what was going on in the biology. So, we developed a blood test, 18 biomarkers analytically validated, that reveal underlying activated pathways and mechanisms that allow for accurate measurement of what's going on with their disease activity."
"The tool used today is an MRI, which shows new or worsening lesions. It shows damage has occurred. So, the biomarker helps understand whether there is more disease activity that will eventually lead to these kinds of lesions. But also, if that is the gold standard, to understand if there are new or worsening lesions. We worked very hard with clinicians saying, "Where's the gap for you right now? What's the unmet need?"
#OctaveBioscience #MS #MultipleSclerosis #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Biomarkers #BloodTests
octavebio.com
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Melinda Thomas, the COO and Co-Founder of Octave Bioscience is focused on delivering a new standard of care for multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. The company aims to address the unmet needs of people living with MS using blood-based biomarkers, expanded imaging, and a clinical insights program. The solution includes an app, wearable sensors, and a nurse care partner to help patients and neurologists make better-informed treatment decisions.
Melinda elaborates, "What we learned when we did about 150 interviews before we even started developing anything was, in MS specifically, there was no way to see what was going on beneath the surface. You didn't have a blood test that told you what was going on in the biology. So, we developed a blood test, 18 biomarkers analytically validated, that reveal underlying activated pathways and mechanisms that allow for accurate measurement of what's going on with their disease activity."
"The tool used today is an MRI, which shows new or worsening lesions. It shows damage has occurred. So, the biomarker helps understand whether there is more disease activity that will eventually lead to these kinds of lesions. But also, if that is the gold standard, to understand if there are new or worsening lesions. We worked very hard with clinicians saying, "Where's the gap for you right now? What's the unmet need?"
#OctaveBioscience #MS #MultipleSclerosis #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Biomarkers #BloodTests
octavebio.com
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Cheryl Cheng, Founder and CEO of Vive Collective, discusses the unique business model of their investment platform, which focuses on digital health and health tech addressing large problems in healthcare, such as chronic conditions and complex workflows. Cheryl emphasizes the need for seamless integration of digital health solutions into existing healthcare systems and the importance of user interface. While excited about the potential of AI and robotics in healthcare, Cheryl highlights the need to include humans in decision-making while leveraging technology to improve access and quality of care.
Cheryl explains, "We're excited to have launched this investment platform a couple of years ago, and the thesis behind it is to be very flexible in the type of capital we can deploy in the types of businesses we can invest in and build. However, they all need to stay within digital health and health tech. The idea was to give us the flexibility to add value to companies along their lifecycle. We can be a continuous investor, roll up our sleeves as former operators, and help founders build their businesses and grow organically and inorganically."
"I would say, 8 to 10 years, there has been the rise of digital health and health tech, which is more of a hybrid model for incorporating technology to facilitate or augment the delivery of care. As we all know, through COVID and the pandemic, telemedicine took off. And so there's now a new category that didn't exist, say, 20, 30 years ago. There have always been biotech and medical device investors."
"There is this, I would say, interdisciplinary investment category that is relatively new. You see a hybrid of traditional healthcare investors moving into it, as well as traditional tech investors moving into it. Our team is unique in that we have previous digital health investing experience and digital health building experience through product manufacturing, etc."
#ViveCollective #MedTechInvestment #HealthTechInvestment #HealthTech #DigitalHealth
vivecollective.com
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Cheryl Cheng, Founder and CEO of Vive Collective, discusses the unique business model of their investment platform, which focuses on digital health and health tech addressing large problems in healthcare, such as chronic conditions and complex workflows. Cheryl emphasizes the need for seamless integration of digital health solutions into existing healthcare systems and the importance of user interface. While excited about the potential of AI and robotics in healthcare, Cheryl highlights the need to include humans in decision-making while leveraging technology to improve access and quality of care.
Cheryl explains, "We're excited to have launched this investment platform a couple of years ago, and the thesis behind it is to be very flexible in the type of capital we can deploy in the types of businesses we can invest in and build. However, they all need to stay within digital health and health tech. The idea was to give us the flexibility to add value to companies along their lifecycle. We can be a continuous investor, roll up our sleeves as former operators, and help founders build their businesses and grow organically and inorganically."
"I would say, 8 to 10 years, there has been the rise of digital health and health tech, which is more of a hybrid model for incorporating technology to facilitate or augment the delivery of care. As we all know, through COVID and the pandemic, telemedicine took off. And so there's now a new category that didn't exist, say, 20, 30 years ago. There have always been biotech and medical device investors."
"There is this, I would say, interdisciplinary investment category that is relatively new. You see a hybrid of traditional healthcare investors moving into it, as well as traditional tech investors moving into it. Our team is unique in that we have previous digital health investing experience and digital health building experience through product manufacturing, etc."
#ViveCollective #MedTechInvestment #HealthTechInvestment #HealthTech #DigitalHealth
vivecollective.com
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Dejan Nenov, Founder and Chairman of Panaton Software, highlights the importance of integrating healthcare data for such purposes as ordering medical tests and recruiting patients for clinical trials. The Panaton simple integration service for healthcare services uses AI to help streamline workflow, break down data silos, and provide seamless data exchange. While standardization is desirable, flexibility is essential when creating workflows that allow people to be more efficient.
Dejan explains, "Imagine that you have just invented a fantastic new medical test, spent years doing the science and the research, and then millions of dollars doing your studies and FDA approval. So now you have a test and a lab that can perform it. Suddenly, you need to be able to offer that test to 100 different health systems, including the ability to get paid for it, either through private or insurance or Medicare."
"You realize you have to move information just to order your tests. You have to move information from your lab to the test catalog at the EPIC system, at, let's say, Kaiser or HCA. Then, you need to take data to order the test with you. And now, I've seen cases where people spend six to 12 months just doing these integrations between their lab information systems and EMR systems. We believe that should be done in two weeks, not 12 months. And we've been able to consistently do that kind of thing again rapidly and cost-effectively."
"Similarly, with patient medical records, if you're doing a clinical trial, your biggest problem is the ability to recruit patients and sites so you can get patients enrolled in your trial. That is all dependent on data and the ability to find that specific person who matches all the criteria for participating in your research. Again, information, proper medical coding, and the ability to move data from point A to point B is the gating factor."
#Panaton #HealthcareIT #DataIntegration #HealthTech #HealthcareSolutions
Panaton.com
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Dejan Nenov, Founder and Chairman of Panaton Software, highlights the importance of integrating healthcare data for such purposes as ordering medical tests and recruiting patients for clinical trials. The Panaton simple integration service for healthcare services uses AI to help streamline workflow, break down data silos, and provide seamless data exchange. While standardization is desirable, flexibility is essential when creating workflows that allow people to be more efficient.
Dejan explains, "Imagine that you have just invented a fantastic new medical test, spent years doing the science and the research, and then millions of dollars doing your studies and FDA approval. So now you have a test and a lab that can perform it. Suddenly, you need to be able to offer that test to 100 different health systems, including the ability to get paid for it, either through private or insurance or Medicare."
"You realize you have to move information just to order your tests. You have to move information from your lab to the test catalog at the EPIC system, at, let's say, Kaiser or HCA. Then, you need to take data to order the test with you. And now, I've seen cases where people spend six to 12 months just doing these integrations between their lab information systems and EMR systems. We believe that should be done in two weeks, not 12 months. And we've been able to consistently do that kind of thing again rapidly and cost-effectively."
"Similarly, with patient medical records, if you're doing a clinical trial, your biggest problem is the ability to recruit patients and sites so you can get patients enrolled in your trial. That is all dependent on data and the ability to find that specific person who matches all the criteria for participating in your research. Again, information, proper medical coding, and the ability to move data from point A to point B is the gating factor."
#Panaton #HealthcareIT #DataIntegration #HealthTech #HealthcareSolutions
Panaton.com
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Brian Smith, Chief Pharmacy Officer at Shields Health Solutions, addresses the challenges patients experience receiving specialty drugs by working with health systems to simplify the process. With a focus on measuring outcomes and improving patient care, Shields has seen a significant cure rate for hepatitis C, driven by attention to medication adherence and tracking outcomes. Recognizing the need to treat the multiple conditions patients often experience, Shields takes a patient-centric view to help these high-risk patients keep their conditions under control.
Brian explains, "We started in the areas of what people would call specialty pharmacy, such as oncology medications that people take at home, oral medications for people who have had a transplant, and injections like Humira for rheumatoid arthritis."
"But I'd say what we found over the last 12 years is a lot of medications can be challenging and difficult, and a lot of patients need help. While we focus on specialty pharmacy, I'd say we have broadened ourselves to focus on high-risk patients with a lot of needs."
"When we support our specialty patients, and I had the little quotations on my fingers here, we view them holistically. If the patient chooses, we try to support all of their medications, which helps them a lot, as well as dealing with one pharmacy, one call a month, to remind them of their refills for any and every medication they might need. It simplifies things for their providers as well, where it's a lot easier to screen for things like drug interactions and other challenges that can happen with polypharmacy."
#ShieldsRx #SpecialtyPharmacy #ElevatingSpecialtyPharmacy #RareDiseases #HepC
shieldshealthsolutions.com
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Brian Smith, Chief Pharmacy Officer at Shields Health Solutions, addresses the challenges patients experience receiving specialty drugs by working with health systems to simplify the process. With a focus on measuring outcomes and improving patient care, Shields has seen a significant cure rate for hepatitis C, driven by attention to medication adherence and tracking outcomes. Recognizing the need to treat the multiple conditions patients often experience, Shields takes a patient-centric view to help these high-risk patients keep their conditions under control.
Brian explains, "We started in the areas of what people would call specialty pharmacy, such as oncology medications that people take at home, oral medications for people who have had a transplant, and injections like Humira for rheumatoid arthritis."
"But I'd say what we found over the last 12 years is a lot of medications can be challenging and difficult, and a lot of patients need help. While we focus on specialty pharmacy, I'd say we have broadened ourselves to focus on high-risk patients with a lot of needs."
"When we support our specialty patients, and I had the little quotations on my fingers here, we view them holistically. If the patient chooses, we try to support all of their medications, which helps them a lot, as well as dealing with one pharmacy, one call a month, to remind them of their refills for any and every medication they might need. It simplifies things for their providers as well, where it's a lot easier to screen for things like drug interactions and other challenges that can happen with polypharmacy."
#ShieldsRx #SpecialtyPharmacy #ElevatingSpecialtyPharmacy #RareDiseases #HepC
shieldshealthsolutions.com
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Shelly Hoffman, Partner and Executive VP at Marbury Creative Group emphasizes that branding and messaging in the healthcare industry increasingly focus on problem-solving and emotional messaging. She highlights the value of leveraging written content, audio, video, and podcasts to disseminate information to target audiences. COVID-19 has also changed healthcare and pharma messaging to physicians and patients with a shift to safety, population health, and social determinants of health.
Shelly elaborates, "We're a brand-building marketing agency on a mission to simplify things for our clients. So whether that's from a messaging and positioning standpoint, trying to make things that can be complicated simple, or from a media and campaign standpoint, trying to make sure our clients understand results and everything from an ROI standpoint. So we do work across a lot of different services, including branding, strategy and insights, digital, social, experiential, video, and photography."
"Often, on the healthcare side and pharma side specifically, we're very focused on both a B2B and B2C standpoint. So often, it's physicians, or it might be an OR manager that's making purchase decisions. So targeting is very important, and understanding the personas of those who make decisions from a behavior standpoint. So, we try to focus a little bit more on psychographics versus even demographics because people are at different points when making that purchasing decision. But on the pharma side, we're getting pretty detailed in terms of the targeting around NPI numbers to get in front of those exact types of physicians."
#MarburyCreativeGroup #MarketingAgency #DigitalMarketing #HealthcareMarketing #HealthcareMarketingCampaigns
marburycreativegroup.com
Listen to the podcast here
Shelly Hoffman, Partner and Executive VP at Marbury Creative Group emphasizes that branding and messaging in the healthcare industry increasingly focus on problem-solving and emotional messaging. She highlights the value of leveraging written content, audio, video, and podcasts to disseminate information to target audiences. COVID-19 has also changed healthcare and pharma messaging to physicians and patients with a shift to safety, population health, and social determinants of health.
Shelly elaborates, "We're a brand-building marketing agency on a mission to simplify things for our clients. So whether that's from a messaging and positioning standpoint, trying to make things that can be complicated simple, or from a media and campaign standpoint, trying to make sure our clients understand results and everything from an ROI standpoint. So we do work across a lot of different services, including branding, strategy and insights, digital, social, experiential, video, and photography."
"Often, on the healthcare side and pharma side specifically, we're very focused on both a B2B and B2C standpoint. So often, it's physicians, or it might be an OR manager that's making purchase decisions. So targeting is very important, and understanding the personas of those who make decisions from a behavior standpoint. So, we try to focus a little bit more on psychographics versus even demographics because people are at different points when making that purchasing decision. But on the pharma side, we're getting pretty detailed in terms of the targeting around NPI numbers to get in front of those exact types of physicians."
#MarburyCreativeGroup #MarketingAgency #DigitalMarketing #HealthcareMarketing #HealthcareMarketingCampaigns
marburycreativegroup.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Margie Balfour, a psychiatrist and Chief Clinical Quality Officer at Connections Health Solutions discusses the challenges and demand for behavioral health crisis care. She highlights the implementation of the 988 Suicide and Crisis National Lifeline, which allows individuals to access mental health support by phone, text, or chat. With a focus on crisis stabilization, help from peer specialists, and face-to-face interventions, Margie emphasizes the importance of teamwork in crisis management.
Margie explains, "What 988 does is, now anyone from your phone, just like you could dial 911, you can dial 988. That connects to what used to be called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And that is a network of about 200 call centers around the country that are staffed with trained mental health counselors who can help. For a lot of crises, having someone to talk to can make people's symptoms decrease and get people connected to the care they need and help that crisis in the moment without having to send someone out. The new 988 number connects to that so that anyone can call it. But also, you can access it via text and chat, which a lot of people, especially younger people, prefer to communicate in that way. And so you can get crisis counseling that way as well."
"They're trained to provide counseling to help people develop a safety plan for what they will do the next time this happens. They can make appointments and connect people to outpatient care if that's what they need in the community. So they're able to, for those folks, bring stabilization in that process. People with higher-level needs sometimes need to speak to someone face-to-face or have someone come to where they are. They're calling for a family member, and that family member doesn't want to get on the phone, but someone needs to evaluate them, and then the crisis line can dispatch mobile crisis teams."
#ConnectionsHealthSolutions #SuicidePrevention #MentalHealth #988 #Suicide #BevioralHealthCrisisCare
connectionshs.com
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Dr. Margie Balfour, a psychiatrist and Chief Clinical Quality Officer at Connections Health Solutions, discusses the challenges and demand for behavioral health crisis care. She highlights the implementation of the 988 Suicide and Crisis National Lifeline, which allows individuals to access mental health support by phone, text, or chat. With a focus on crisis stabilization, help from peer specialists, and face-to-face interventions, Margie emphasizes the importance of teamwork in crisis management.
Margie explains, "What 988 does is, now anyone from your phone, just like you could dial 911, you can dial 988. That connects to what used to be called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And that is a network of about 200 call centers around the country that are staffed with trained mental health counselors who can help. For a lot of crises, having someone to talk to can make people's symptoms decrease and get people connected to the care they need and help that crisis in the moment without having to send someone out. The new 988 number connects to that so that anyone can call it. But also, you can access it via text and chat, which a lot of people, especially younger people, prefer to communicate in that way. And so you can get crisis counseling that way as well."
"They're trained to provide counseling to help people develop a safety plan for what they will do the next time this happens. They can make appointments and connect people to outpatient care if that's what they need in the community. So they're able to, for those folks, bring stabilization in that process. People with higher-level needs sometimes need to speak to someone face-to-face or have someone come to where they are. They're calling for a family member, and that family member doesn't want to get on the phone, but someone needs to evaluate them, and then the crisis line can dispatch mobile crisis teams."
#ConnectionsHealthSolutions #SuicidePrevention #MentalHealth #988 #Suicide #BevioralHealthCrisisCare
connectionshs.com
Download the transcript here
Chris Sullens, CEO of CentralReach, offers a range of technology solutions to support providers, therapists, educators, and parents working with individuals with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. The goal is to streamline administrative tasks, replacing paper-based procedures with digital tools and allowing professionals to spend more in-person time with clients. The digital CR Care Coordinator helps train parents to reinforce the work of the therapists, which leads to better outcomes for the child and the behavior technician.
Chris explains, "At CentralReach, our focus is providing technology and associated services to providers, therapists, special educators, and others who are working with primarily the autistic community and those with broader intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). That technology spans everything from patient-provider management systems, practice management systems, data collection on the clinical side, curriculum content assessments, as well as a host of technologies that we provide to schools and organizations that are teaching students in special education."
"We still see a lot of entire practices, frankly, that are managing schedules and managing their business, collecting data, and doing assessments that are paper-based today. There's a big shift to digitizing all aspects of a provider's business. We now have a digital assessments product, where historically, we sold books for the ABLLS and AFLS. We still sell books for those who want to use them, but the digital platform provides a lot more reporting, analytics, and trending and streamlines a lot of the process. And so, we're seeing good adoption of that."
"From my standpoint, the most valuable role technology can play is supporting the behavior analyst and supporting the behavior technician. Allow them to do their job more effectively, to reduce some of the tasks that they need to do that tend to be more back office or reporting oriented, so that they can spend more time providing care to those they're working with."
#CentralReach #ABA #BCBAs #Autism #IDD #DigitalHealth
centralreach.com
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Chris Sullens, CEO of CentralReach, offers a range of technology solutions to support providers, therapists, educators, and parents working with individuals with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. The goal is to streamline administrative tasks, replacing paper-based procedures with digital tools and allowing professionals to spend more in-person time with clients. The digital CR Care Coordinator helps train parents to reinforce the work of the therapists, which leads to better outcomes for the child and the behavior technician.
Chris explains, "At CentralReach, our focus is providing technology and associated services to providers, therapists, special educators, and others who are working with primarily the autistic community and those with broader intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). That technology spans everything from patient-provider management systems, practice management systems, data collection on the clinical side, curriculum content assessments, as well as a host of technologies that we provide to schools and organizations that are teaching students in special education."
"We still see a lot of entire practices, frankly, that are managing schedules and managing their business, collecting data, and doing assessments that are paper-based today. There's a big shift to digitizing all aspects of a provider's business. We now have a digital assessments product, where historically, we sold books for the ABLLS and AFLS. We still sell books for those who want to use them, but the digital platform provides a lot more reporting, analytics, and trending and streamlines a lot of the process. And so, we're seeing good adoption of that."
"From my standpoint, the most valuable role technology can play is supporting the behavior analyst and supporting the behavior technician. Allow them to do their job more effectively, to reduce some of the tasks that they need to do that tend to be more back office or reporting oriented, so that they can spend more time providing care to those they're working with."
#CentralReach #ABA #BCBAs #Autism #IDD #DigitalHealth
centralreach.com
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Brian Strem, President and CEO of Kiora Pharmaceuticals, is developing a small molecule drug to treat orphan retinal diseases. Their drug KIO-301 restores vision in patients with inherited retinal disease. By giving retinal ganglion cells the ability to sense light, signals can be sent to the brain to effectively see using cells that are not normally light-sensitive. These molecular photoswitches can change shape based on the presence or absence of light and allow a patient to see the direction and movement of light.
Brian explains, "It is dependent on the specific mutation. So, we know that there are certain gene mutations that a child will literally be born with immediate signs and symptoms of that disease. Whether that is immediately being blind, so being born blind, versus some of the other ones where you don't tend to get the onset of disease symptoms until the second, or third decade of life when you have difficulty seeing in the dark. Then all of a sudden, that progresses to losing peripheral vision and eventually central vision. So, it is pretty specific to the mutation as to the onset, the timing of onset, and the progression rate."
"KIO-301 is based around what chemists would call an Azobenzene. Azobenzenes are notorious for changing their shape based on different external stimuli. And in the case of our molecule, that stimulus is light within the visible spectrum. So, getting more towards, well, what does that mean, and how could we leverage that interesting chemistry? Patients who have these IRDs and specifically, we've now just wrapped up a phase 1 trial, which I can get into in a minute, for a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. In patients with RP, we know that their photoreceptors, or their rods and cones, die. That's part of that mutation that these patients are born with."
"Yet there are other cells within the retina that still are the ones that connect to the brain, and those are called the retinal ganglion cells. We know that those cells stay alive for a long time, although they undergo some changes and modifications. And what our molecule can do, KIO-301, is it goes specifically into those retinal ganglion cells that do not have living photoreceptors upstream anymore because they're dead. And what the molecule does is it gives that retinal ganglion cell the ability to sense light and to signal the brain that light is present. And then, when you take the light away, it's able to basically stop that signaling. So, in the sense that it's turning a cell that's not normally light sensitive into a light switch."
#KioraPharmaceuticals #VisionAwarenessMonth #InheritedRetinalDisease #RareDisease #OrphanRetinalDiseases
kiorapharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Brian Strem, President and CEO of Kiora Pharmaceuticals, is developing a small molecule drug to treat orphan retinal diseases. Their drug KIO-301 restores vision in patients with inherited retinal disease. By giving retinal ganglion cells the ability to sense light, signals can be sent to the brain to effectively see using cells that are not normally light-sensitive. These molecular photoswitches can change shape based on the presence or absence of light and allow a patient to see the direction and movement of light.
Brian explains, "It is dependent on the specific mutation. So, we know that there are certain gene mutations that a child will literally be born with immediate signs and symptoms of that disease. Whether that is immediately being blind, so being born blind, versus some of the other ones where you don't tend to get the onset of disease symptoms until the second, or third decade of life when you have difficulty seeing in the dark. Then all of a sudden, that progresses to losing peripheral vision and eventually central vision. So, it is pretty specific to the mutation as to the onset, the timing of onset, and the progression rate."
"KIO-301 is based around what chemists would call an Azobenzene. Azobenzenes are notorious for changing their shape based on different external stimuli. And in the case of our molecule, that stimulus is light within the visible spectrum. So, getting more towards, well, what does that mean, and how could we leverage that interesting chemistry? Patients who have these IRDs and specifically, we've now just wrapped up a phase 1 trial, which I can get into in a minute, for a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. In patients with RP, we know that their photoreceptors, or their rods and cones, die. That's part of that mutation that these patients are born with."
"Yet there are other cells within the retina that still are the ones that connect to the brain, and those are called the retinal ganglion cells. We know that those cells stay alive for a long time, although they undergo some changes and modifications. And what our molecule can do, KIO-301, is it goes specifically into those retinal ganglion cells that do not have living photoreceptors upstream anymore because they're dead. And what the molecule does is it gives that retinal ganglion cell the ability to sense light and to signal the brain that light is present. And then, when you take the light away, it's able to basically stop that signaling. So, in the sense that it's turning a cell that's not normally light sensitive into a light switch."
#KioraPharmaceuticals #VisionAwarenessMonth #InheritedRetinalDisease #RareDisease #OrphanRetinalDiseases
kiorapharma.com
Download the transcript here
Mark Litton, President and CEO of Athira Pharma, discusses advancements in treating neurodegenerative diseases, highlighting the challenges in treating these diseases. Athira's approach uses the body's natural repair mechanism to enhance the repair and protection of nerve cells. Their lead molecule, fosgonimeton, enhances the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and crosses the blood-brain barrier to effectively target neurodegeneration.
Mark explains, "At Athira, we're taking a completely novel approach where we're using the body's natural repair mechanism to help repair. We have spent many years designing molecules that enhance this mechanism. This is what we call the HGF/MET biology. This is a biology that has been known for over 30 years. It was originally discovered coming from the liver. What we know about it is that it's important in repairing, protecting, healing, and developing nerve cells."
"What we found in a lot of neurodegenerative diseases is that this repair mechanism is impaired, or it slows down as we get older. One of the keys is you've got a molecule, and it's HGF, and then it binds its receptor, the MET receptor. When it binds that receptor, that's when the cell gets activated and starts repairing. There are numerous factors that happen along the way. There are two places one could enhance the receptor. We've decided to enhance the HGF, the protein itself, to help it bind to its receptor."
#Athira #Alzheimers #Parkinsons #Dementia #ALS #AD #PD #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Neurodegeneration #NeuronalHealth #Caregivers #PatientCommunity
athira.com
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Mark Litton, President and CEO of Athira Pharma, discusses advancements in treating neurodegenerative diseases, highlighting the challenges in treating these diseases. Athira's approach uses the body's natural repair mechanism to enhance the repair and protection of nerve cells. Their lead molecule, fosgonimeton, enhances the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and crosses the blood-brain barrier to effectively target neurodegeneration.
Mark explains, "At Athira, we're taking a completely novel approach where we're using the body's natural repair mechanism to help repair. We have spent many years designing molecules that enhance this mechanism. This is what we call the HGF/MET biology. This is a biology that has been known for over 30 years. It was originally discovered coming from the liver. What we know about it is that it's important in repairing, protecting, healing, and developing nerve cells."
"What we found in a lot of neurodegenerative diseases is that this repair mechanism is impaired, or it slows down as we get older. One of the keys is you've got a molecule, and it's HGF, and then it binds its receptor, the MET receptor. When it binds that receptor, that's when the cell gets activated and starts repairing. There are numerous factors that happen along the way. There are two places one could enhance the receptor. We've decided to enhance the HGF, the protein itself, to help it bind to its receptor."
#Athira #Alzheimers #Parkinsons #Dementia #ALS #AD #PD #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Neurodegeneration #NeuronalHealth #Caregivers #PatientCommunity
athira.com
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Jim Murphy, CEO of Greenphire, discusses the company's role in addressing the financial lifecycle of clinical trials. Greenphire works with sponsors, CROs, and research sites to automate and simplify payment processes, provide patient services, and remove burdens for patients and site personnel. The aim is to improve patient retention and accelerate clinical development by streamlining processes from traditional manual methods to digital solutions that address budgeting, grant payments, and patient reimbursements.
Jim explains, "There are so many solutions that address data collection points in clinical trials. We're not one of those. We're a company focused on solving more of the business problems of clinical research. For example, we provide workflows that automate and simplify the payment processes from sponsors or CROs to investigative research sites. We provide patient convenience services that enable and support participants to maintain their journey on a clinical trial, giving them reimbursements, travel support, logistics, and even reminders of certain things they need to do."
"When Greenphire got its start, sites were paying with cash and checks, and there was a cash box at a typical research site. Somebody would have to get the key and open it up and hold the patient there for another half hour. It consumed a huge amount of time for the study team. It's something that they can do in 28 seconds now."
#Greenphire #ClinicalTrials #PatientEngagement #ClinicalResearch
greenphire.com
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Jim Murphy, CEO of Greenphire, discusses the company's role in addressing the financial lifecycle of clinical trials. Greenphire works with sponsors, CROs, and research sites to automate and simplify payment processes, provide patient services, and remove burdens for patients and site personnel. The aim is to improve patient retention and accelerate clinical development by streamlining processes from traditional manual methods to digital solutions that address budgeting, grant payments, and patient reimbursements.
Jim explains, "There are so many solutions that address data collection points in clinical trials. We're not one of those. We're a company focused on solving more of the business problems of clinical research. For example, we provide workflows that automate and simplify the payment processes from sponsors or CROs to investigative research sites. We provide patient convenience services that enable and support participants to maintain their journey on a clinical trial, giving them reimbursements, travel support, logistics, and even reminders of certain things they need to do."
"When Greenphire got its start, sites were paying with cash and checks, and there was a cash box at a typical research site. Somebody would have to get the key and open it up and hold the patient there for another half hour. It consumed a huge amount of time for the study team. It's something that they can do in 28 seconds now."
#Greenphire #ClinicalTrials #PatientEngagement #ClinicalResearch
greenphire.com
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Julia Regan, CEO and Co-Founder of RxLightning discussed the company's platform for streamlining the process of accessing specialty medications. The traditional process of getting the necessary consent and shipment of these drugs involves a significant amount of paperwork and delays in delivery. RxLightning aims to digitize and automate this process by removing the need for physical paper by using digital tools to connect all parties to ensure fast and affordable access to care. By eliminating paper-based processes, they have achieved a completion rate of 85% of applications within 24 hours.
Julia explains, "Specialty medications are always an interesting topic because, over the last 15 years, the definition of a specialty med has evolved with the new medications and molecules coming to market. So when we define specialty meds, we're talking about the high-cost medications that could treat rare diseases. Still, they also treat things like oncology, dermatology issues, GI, RA, and even allergy immunology. So, it varies across the spectrum, but these traditionally are thousands of dollars a month. Because of the cost and complexity of the medications, when providers make a diagnostic decision and determine treatment, there's just a ton of paperwork to get a patient on therapy."
"So one is access paperwork, everything from insurance coverage and cost to restrictions that the payer may have to affordability because of the cost as well. That could be everything from free drug grant programs to manufacturer programs. So RxLightning is dedicated to taking all those processes that traditionally are done on paper and are slow and making a digital experience to remove the paperwork and then connect the different parties across that patient journey to ensure expedited, fast access, and affordable access to care."
"Yes, it’s very much physical paper. We look at the specialty market for over 1,200 medications. And some of these medications could have hundreds of different types of paperwork to process and touch. So, it's complex for the provider and the patient. And when you talk about some disease states, it's not just one therapy that a patient's on. It's a combination of therapies to treat the disease to try to get a positive outcome. So, it's very overwhelming for many people involved in the process."
#RxLightning #MedAccess #SpecialityPharmacy #SpecialityMedications #RareDisease #Startup #HealthTech #PatientAccess
rxlightning.com
Listen to the podcast here
Julia Regan, CEO and Co-Founder of RxLightning discussed the company's platform for streamlining the process of accessing specialty medications. The traditional process of getting the necessary consent and shipment of these drugs involves a significant amount of paperwork and delays in delivery. RxLightning aims to digitize and automate this process by removing the need for physical paper by using digital tools to connect all parties to ensure fast and affordable access to care. By eliminating paper-based processes, they have achieved a completion rate of 85% of applications within 24 hours.
Julia explains, "Specialty medications are always an interesting topic because, over the last 15 years, the definition of a specialty med has evolved with the new medications and molecules coming to market. So when we define specialty meds, we're talking about the high-cost medications that could treat rare diseases. Still, they also treat things like oncology, dermatology issues, GI, RA, and even allergy immunology. So, it varies across the spectrum, but these traditionally are thousands of dollars a month. Because of the cost and complexity of the medications, when providers make a diagnostic decision and determine treatment, there's just a ton of paperwork to get a patient on therapy."
"So one is access paperwork, everything from insurance coverage and cost to restrictions that the payer may have to affordability because of the cost as well. That could be everything from free drug grant programs to manufacturer programs. So RxLightning is dedicated to taking all those processes that traditionally are done on paper and are slow and making a digital experience to remove the paperwork and then connect the different parties across that patient journey to ensure expedited, fast access, and affordable access to care."
"Yes, it’s very much physical paper. We look at the specialty market for over 1,200 medications. And some of these medications could have hundreds of different types of paperwork to process and touch. So, it's complex for the provider and the patient. And when you talk about some disease states, it's not just one therapy that a patient's on. It's a combination of therapies to treat the disease to try to get a positive outcome. So, it's very overwhelming for many people involved in the process."
#RxLightning #MedAccess #SpecialityPharmacy #SpecialityMedications #RareDisease #Startup #HealthTech #PatientAccess
rxlightning.com
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Mike Pattwell, principal business advisor at Edifecs and Chair of the WEDI payment models work group, emphasizes the pandemic's impact on moving away from the fee-for-service model towards a value-based care model. Improving the administration of healthcare requires automation, new workflow solutions, and better data exchange to improve patient health. He mentions three organizations, including CMMI, WEDI, and CAQH, working towards creating interoperability and seamless communication between payers and providers.
Mike explains, "We've been around for 26 years, and we've been developing solutions to help our clients, mostly payers and providers, and health systems, to operationalize and automate workflows to improve the administration side of healthcare so that they can focus on doing what they do well, which is taking care of members and patients."
"Starting at the top, it would be The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMS) and the innovation center called CMMI. They're paving the future of healthcare for both payers and providers. They're supported by many other organizations. I'll briefly discuss three that I'm directly involved with and I believe are helping to develop and evolve healthcare. I call these three organizations “silent superheroes.” They are the invisible organizations doing the hard work of creating interoperability and seamless automation between payers and providers. For decades, they've been enabling the future of healthcare."
#Edifecs #HealthInnovation #DIgitalTransformation #DigitalHealth #SDOH #Equity #HealthcareIT
edifecs.com
Listen to the podcast here
Mike Pattwell, principal business advisor at Edifecs and Chair of the WEDI payment models work group, emphasizes the pandemic's impact on moving away from the fee-for-service model towards a value-based care model. Improving the administration of healthcare requires automation, new workflow solutions, and better data exchange to improve patient health. He mentions three organizations, including CMMI, WEDI, and CAQH, working towards creating interoperability and seamless communication between payers and providers.
Mike explains, "We've been around for 26 years, and we've been developing solutions to help our clients, mostly payers and providers, and health systems, to operationalize and automate workflows to improve the administration side of healthcare so that they can focus on doing what they do well, which is taking care of members and patients."
"Starting at the top, it would be The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMS) and the innovation center called CMMI. They're paving the future of healthcare for both payers and providers. They're supported by many other organizations. I'll briefly discuss three that I'm directly involved with and I believe are helping to develop and evolve healthcare. I call these three organizations “silent superheroes.” They are the invisible organizations doing the hard work of creating interoperability and seamless automation between payers and providers. For decades, they've been enabling the future of healthcare."
#Edifecs #HealthInnovation #DIgitalTransformation #DigitalHealth #SDOH #Equity #HealthcareIT
edifecs.com
Download the transcript here
Tim Moran, President and CEO of Avertix, discusses the company's mission to revolutionize how heart attack survivors are cared for and supported. Targeting patients who have had one prior heart attack or instance of a prior acute coronary syndrome, this first-of-its-kind technology is implanted in patients to monitor for the onset of another heart attack. The device notifies the patient in real-time so they can seek care and minimize the effects of the attack. Work is underway for providing cloud connectivity to the device, allowing data to be shared with physicians and family members.
Tim explains, "So in our study, patients that had The Guardian product implanted, we were able to reduce their time to care from the onset of symptoms by almost eight times. So we got the time down on average to 1.6 hours from the onset of symptoms where they arrived at an emergency room and then ultimately could have therapeutic intervention like a stent put in, which ultimately would reperfuse them and get blood flowing again. So, it's a significant reduction in time to care."
"The other thing that was interesting is we found during our study that our device can detect silent heart attacks. So, patients that don't have any symptoms at all, and in those instances during the study, we detected 42 silent events. The patient had no symptoms. Our Guardian device, what will do when it detects a heart attack, it's going to vibrate in the patient's chest. Then, it will also give them a secondary and tertiary warning on a small handheld device that'll give them an audio-visual alert."
"So, we're building a brand-new category in cardiology right now. We're speaking to our clinicians, cardiologists, and electrophysiologists on a daily basis about our new technology. And if you look at our FDA label, it's been approved for any patient that has had one prior heart attack or any instance of a prior acute coronary syndrome. So that's a very, very large patient population."
"From there, physicians can decide within the patient population they're treating. A patient with a prior heart attack may have other comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or a smoker, which puts them at even an elevated risk for a second event. And these are the patients that we're targeting with The Guardian."
#Avertix #HeartAttack #TheGuardian #HeartAttackSurvivors #Implantable #Cardiologists #Electrophysiologists
avertix.com
Listen to the podcast here
Tim Moran, President and CEO of Avertix, discusses the company's mission to revolutionize how heart attack survivors are cared for and supported. Targeting patients who have had one prior heart attack or instance of a prior acute coronary syndrome, this first-of-its-kind technology is implanted in patients to monitor for the onset of another heart attack. The device notifies the patient in real-time so they can seek care and minimize the effects of the attack. Work is underway for providing cloud connectivity to the device, allowing data to be shared with physicians and family members.
Tim explains, "So in our study, patients that had The Guardian product implanted, we were able to reduce their time to care from the onset of symptoms by almost eight times. So we got the time down on average to 1.6 hours from the onset of symptoms where they arrived at an emergency room and then ultimately could have therapeutic intervention like a stent put in, which ultimately would reperfuse them and get blood flowing again. So, it's a significant reduction in time to care."
"The other thing that was interesting is we found during our study that our device can detect silent heart attacks. So, patients that don't have any symptoms at all, and in those instances during the study, we detected 42 silent events. The patient had no symptoms. Our Guardian device, what will do when it detects a heart attack, it's going to vibrate in the patient's chest. Then, it will also give them a secondary and tertiary warning on a small handheld device that'll give them an audio-visual alert."
"So, we're building a brand-new category in cardiology right now. We're speaking to our clinicians, cardiologists, and electrophysiologists on a daily basis about our new technology. And if you look at our FDA label, it's been approved for any patient that has had one prior heart attack or any instance of a prior acute coronary syndrome. So that's a very, very large patient population."
"From there, physicians can decide within the patient population they're treating. A patient with a prior heart attack may have other comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or a smoker, which puts them at even an elevated risk for a second event. And these are the patients that we're targeting with The Guardian."
#Avertix #HeartAttack #TheGuardian #HeartAttackSurvivors #Implantable #Cardiologists #Electrophysiologists
avertix.com
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Jason Bock, Co-Founder and CEO of CTMC, and Dr. Chris Flowers, Division Head of Cancer Medicine and Chair of Lymphoma and Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, are collaborating to accelerate the development of cancer cell therapies and manufacturing innovative cell therapies for cancer patients. CTMC is a joint venture between MD Anderson Cancer Center and National Resilience created to address the challenges of delivering autologous cell therapies at a scalable level. Jason and Chris highlight the value of face-to-face interaction in solving the complex logistics of getting a drug from the research into the clinic.
Jason explains, "We created CTMC to address the challenges of delivering autologous cell therapies to treat cancer patients. This modality is unique in that the starting material for each batch of product comes from the patient. And so, the actual manufacturing supply chain starts with the patient. We bring that into the manufacturing facility, engineer the cells, expand them, and then reinfuse those to the same patient. The clinic and manufacturing site relationship is much more connected than any other therapeutic modality. MD Anderson, being a leader in cancer cell therapy and seeing that cell therapy would be transformative for cancer treatment, we created this venture to address better the challenge of the connectedness between cell therapy, clinical trials, and manufacturing sites."
Chris elaborates, "Our group at MD Anderson had a very similar concept and idea that started a little bit later, about five years after that and looking at the same target. Throughout the last three years, our group has collaborated with CTMC and has taken the concept of that target and moved it from animal models and cell models where we were testing to see whether this was a good target and effective of killing lymphoma cells. We took this to animal models, where we tested and showed that it was effective. Then, collaborating with CTMC to go through the entire FDA regulatory process to get an IND approval to develop the manufacturing process. So, not just a targeted cell therapy that was effective in the lab, but a targeted cell therapy that could be effective and be administered to patients. That whole scale-up and manufacturing process was a collaboration that happen with CTMC."
#CTMC #MDAnderson #CellTherapy #ClinicalTrials #EndCancer #BiopharmaceuticalManufacturing
ctmc.com mdanderson.org
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Jason Bock, Co-Founder and CEO of CTMC, and Dr. Chris Flowers, Division Head of Cancer Medicine and Chair of Lymphoma and Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, are collaborating to accelerate the development of cancer cell therapies and manufacturing innovative cell therapies for cancer patients. CTMC is a joint venture between MD Anderson Cancer Center and National Resilience created to address the challenges of delivering autologous cell therapies at a scalable level. Jason and Chris highlight the value of face-to-face interaction in solving the complex logistics of getting a drug from the research into the clinic.
Jason explains, "We created CTMC to address the challenges of delivering autologous cell therapies to treat cancer patients. This modality is unique in that the starting material for each batch of product comes from the patient. And so, the actual manufacturing supply chain starts with the patient. We bring that into the manufacturing facility, engineer the cells, expand them, and then reinfuse those to the same patient. The clinic and manufacturing site relationship is much more connected than any other therapeutic modality. MD Anderson, being a leader in cancer cell therapy and seeing that cell therapy would be transformative for cancer treatment, we created this venture to address better the challenge of the connectedness between cell therapy, clinical trials, and manufacturing sites."
Chris elaborates, "Our group at MD Anderson had a very similar concept and idea that started a little bit later, about five years after that and looking at the same target. Throughout the last three years, our group has collaborated with CTMC and has taken the concept of that target and moved it from animal models and cell models where we were testing to see whether this was a good target and effective of killing lymphoma cells. We took this to animal models, where we tested and showed that it was effective. Then, collaborating with CTMC to go through the entire FDA regulatory process to get an IND approval to develop the manufacturing process. So, not just a targeted cell therapy that was effective in the lab, but a targeted cell therapy that could be effective and be administered to patients. That whole scale-up and manufacturing process was a collaboration that happen with CTMC."
#CTMC #MDAnderson #CellTherapy #ClinicalTrials #EndCancer #BiopharmaceuticalManufacturing
ctmc.com mdanderson.org
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Jay Srinivasan, CEO of Truvian Health, is on a mission to disrupt the blood testing model by making routine testing readily available and affordable with a platform that provides appropriate information for patients and physicians. The current blood testing process involves multiple tubes of blood being drawn, transportation of the blood to a lab, and waiting days for results. Truvian aims to streamline the process by placing its platform in retail clinics and physician offices where a single tube of blood can be processed on-site with results available in minutes.
Jay explains, "Our goal is to have our platform exist wherever you go. So, it could be in a retail or a corporate clinic, it could be in your physician's office labs, it could be in retail pharmacies, it could be in an arena, it could be in a mall, in a school, in a university setting, anywhere you go."
"This platform can take one tube of blood, not multiple tubes of blood because it has integrated multiple technologies that allow us to process a single tube of blood, all the results required for an annual blood test. This blood tube does not travel anywhere because the instrument is exactly where the draw would occur, and those results are available not in days but in minutes."
"The reason this is important is that today in the world, 40% of all blood orders are not being adhered to by patients like you and me because it's friction-laden even to schedule it or to get to a blood draw site to have your blood drawn. Because of that, people don't have annual and other blood draws done when they're asked to do so. More than 50% of the population in the United States is in this category. It's true even the rest of the world is walking around with some chronic condition that could have been detected early."
#TruvianHealth #BloodTesting #TruWellness #Technology #MedTech #Diagnostics #Healthcare
truvianhealth.com
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Jay Srinivasan, CEO of Truvian Health, is on a mission to disrupt the blood testing model by making routine testing readily available and affordable with a platform that provides appropriate information for patients and physicians. The current blood testing process involves multiple tubes of blood being drawn, transportation of the blood to a lab, and waiting days for results. Truvian aims to streamline the process by placing its platform in retail clinics and physician offices where a single tube of blood can be processed on-site with results available in minutes.
Jay explains, "Our goal is to have our platform exist wherever you go. So, it could be in a retail or a corporate clinic, it could be in your physician's office labs, it could be in retail pharmacies, it could be in an arena, it could be in a mall, in a school, in a university setting, anywhere you go."
"This platform can take one tube of blood, not multiple tubes of blood because it has integrated multiple technologies that allow us to process a single tube of blood, all the results required for an annual blood test. This blood tube does not travel anywhere because the instrument is exactly where the draw would occur, and those results are available not in days but in minutes."
"The reason this is important is that today in the world, 40% of all blood orders are not being adhered to by patients like you and me because it's friction-laden even to schedule it or to get to a blood draw site to have your blood drawn. Because of that, people don't have annual and other blood draws done when they're asked to do so. More than 50% of the population in the United States is in this category. It's true even the rest of the world is walking around with some chronic condition that could have been detected early."
#TruvianHealth #BloodTesting #TruWellness #Technology #MedTech #Diagnostics #Healthcare
truvianhealth.com
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Omri Shor, Co-Founder and CEO of Medisafe is driven to help patients manage their medications. Omri emphasizes that medication adherence is influenced by various factors, including access to healthcare providers, ability to refill prescriptions, side effects, and cost. Medisafe tools support patients by providing reminders, tracking medication intake, and managing drug-to-drug interactions. Partners include drug manufacturers and pharma companies that want to support patients to improve outcomes.
Omri explains, "People think medication management is one problem, but it is not. There are so many drivers and challenges behind it, and it is very personalized to the individual on one end. It's also aligned with the specific condition and the specific drug. There is no clear answer to who's more prone."
"In many cases, what we want to see is actually connected to outcomes. So, if the patient takes a medication to get to a specific outcome, they can track those outcomes in Medisafe. There are roughly 70 or 80 trackers for blood pressure, glucose levels, SpO2, sleep, moods, etc. We will then use those trackers and allow patients to share that information with HCPs healthcare professionals, whether their pharmacist, nurse, or physician, so they can share this information with the right individuals to continue supporting them."
"We have recently concluded a study that looked at healthcare utilization. We saw patients with MS and epilepsy after starting to use Medisafe. We did a pre-post analysis and found that patients with epilepsy experienced a 36% reduction in ER visits. For patients with MS, we observed a 63% reduction in ER visits. The monetary implications were roughly between $4,500 and $6,000 in cost reduction per patient annually. So, better process management yields better outcomes, which was wonderful for us to observe at Medisafe."
#Medisafe #MedicationAdherence #HealthLiteracy #DigitalHealth #MedicationManagement #DigitalCompanion
medisafe.com
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Omri Shor, Co-Founder and CEO of Medisafe is driven to help patients manage their medications. Omri emphasizes that medication adherence is influenced by various factors, including access to healthcare providers, ability to refill prescriptions, side effects, and cost. Medisafe tools support patients by providing reminders, tracking medication intake, and managing drug-to-drug interactions. Partners include drug manufacturers and pharma companies that want to support patients to improve outcomes.
Omri explains, "People think medication management is one problem, but it is not. There are so many drivers and challenges behind it, and it is very personalized to the individual on one end. It's also aligned with the specific condition and the specific drug. There is no clear answer to who's more prone."
"In many cases, what we want to see is actually connected to outcomes. So, if the patient takes a medication to get to a specific outcome, they can track those outcomes in Medisafe. There are roughly 70 or 80 trackers for blood pressure, glucose levels, SpO2, sleep, moods, etc. We will then use those trackers and allow patients to share that information with HCPs healthcare professionals, whether their pharmacist, nurse, or physician, so they can share this information with the right individuals to continue supporting them."
"We have recently concluded a study that looked at healthcare utilization. We saw patients with MS and epilepsy after starting to use Medisafe. We did a pre-post analysis and found that patients with epilepsy experienced a 36% reduction in ER visits. For patients with MS, we observed a 63% reduction in ER visits. The monetary implications were roughly between $4,500 and $6,000 in cost reduction per patient annually. So, better process management yields better outcomes, which was wonderful for us to observe at Medisafe."
#Medisafe #MedicationAdherence #HealthLiteracy #DigitalHealth #MedicationManagement #DigitalCompanion
medisafe.com
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Anthony Mack, CEO of Virpax Pharma, is developing non-addictive pain drugs focusing on repurposing existing molecules and improving the delivery platform to enhance bioavailability and sustained delivery. With an initial focus on postoperative pain management and preventing opioid tolerance, their product, Probudur, is a long-lasting local anesthetic for sustained pain control. The asset Envelta uses a molecular envelope technology to protect enkephalin as it passes through the blood-brain barrier to attach to delta receptors in the brain to control pain.
Anthony explains, "Now, in the case of the enkephalin asset, as far as tolerance is concerned, we have a product that isn't enkephalin. It's a peptide, and peptides are endogenous materials already in our bodies. Now, we can't generate enough to have pain control, so it would be nice if we could administer them. If an enkephalin can get past the blood-brain barrier, it attaches to the brain's delta receptors. There are immune receptors in the brain, too, that everybody's familiar with because they know morphine, oxycodone, Oxycontin, hydrocodone, and Vicodin. They know these actives, but the problem is that when they attach to these mu receptors, there is a potential for respiratory depression, drug-seeking behavior, and intolerance."
"Yes, that is a great collaboration we have. It's an open, what we call CRADA, or some people may call it an in-kind grant, but it's a cooperation agreement for all of our pain assets, including Envelta. But we started with the Probudur asset because the US Army wanted to study the long-acting bupivacaine in battlefield wound injuries. What they want to do is be able to inject this asset at a wound site and have the soldiers participate in their evacuation, should they need to evacuate."
"The great thing about liposomal bupivacaine in our Probudur formulation is it does not cause a motor block. What I mean by that is because local anesthetics stay numb, in this case, you're still able to function, you're still able to move your extremities. The idea here is that it would block it for 96 hours, enough time for a soldier to extract themselves without so much assistance or without the use of an opioid to block their pain."
#VirpasPharma #PainManagement #NonAddictive #PainControl
VirpaxPharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Anthony Mack, CEO of Virpax Pharma, is developing non-addictive pain drugs focusing on repurposing existing molecules and improving the delivery platform to enhance bioavailability and sustained delivery. With an initial focus on postoperative pain management and preventing opioid tolerance, their product, Probudur, is a long-lasting local anesthetic for sustained pain control. The asset Envelta uses a molecular envelope technology to protect enkephalin as it passes through the blood-brain barrier to attach to delta receptors in the brain to control pain.
Anthony explains, "Now, in the case of the enkephalin asset, as far as tolerance is concerned, we have a product that isn't enkephalin. It's a peptide, and peptides are endogenous materials already in our bodies. Now, we can't generate enough to have pain control, so it would be nice if we could administer them. If an enkephalin can get past the blood-brain barrier, it attaches to the brain's delta receptors. There are immune receptors in the brain, too, that everybody's familiar with because they know morphine, oxycodone, Oxycontin, hydrocodone, and Vicodin. They know these actives, but the problem is that when they attach to these mu receptors, there is a potential for respiratory depression, drug-seeking behavior, and intolerance."
"Yes, that is a great collaboration we have. It's an open, what we call CRADA, or some people may call it an in-kind grant, but it's a cooperation agreement for all of our pain assets, including Envelta. But we started with the Probudur asset because the US Army wanted to study the long-acting bupivacaine in battlefield wound injuries. What they want to do is be able to inject this asset at a wound site and have the soldiers participate in their evacuation, should they need to evacuate."
"The great thing about liposomal bupivacaine in our Probudur formulation is it does not cause a motor block. What I mean by that is because local anesthetics stay numb, in this case, you're still able to function, you're still able to move your extremities. The idea here is that it would block it for 96 hours, enough time for a soldier to extract themselves without so much assistance or without the use of an opioid to block their pain."
#VirpasPharma #PainManagement #NonAddictive #PainControl
VirpaxPharma.com
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Dr. Jay Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Aktiia, discusses the importance of tracking blood pressure and the challenges of managing high blood pressure. With only one in five people with high blood pressure having it under control, long-term monitoring is crucial for better understanding blood pressure trends and optimizing health. The Aktiia wearable blood pressure monitoring device uses optical signal processing to continuously monitor blood pressure without the need for action to be taken by the patient.
Jay explains, "The real danger of high blood pressure occurs over years, decades, long periods of time of having your blood pressure outside the optimal range. It is really what causes the detrimental effects to many of the different organs of our body, of our heart, brain, kidneys, eyes, aorta, and so on. And so the importance of understanding what your blood pressure is over long periods of time is really what we're focused on at Aktiia. That's why people should be aware of and track their blood pressure on a long-term basis."
"Aktiia is a Swiss company and it was founded about five years ago. The technology has been in development for two decades by the founders, co-founders in an engineering think tank out of Switzerland. And they've been pioneers of what's called optical signal processing."
"This is taking signals from LED lights and the reflection of that light from the skin or the capillary bed, the small vessels in our skin, and deducing the numeric physiologic parameters. And they started around heart rate. They were the pioneers of understanding how to take optical signals from sensors at the wrist and create heart rate calculations. This was done way back before there were smart watches or wearables. It was done back in the early 2000s. After they got good at that, they turned to blood pressure."
#Aktiia #Hypertension #HighBloodPressure #BloodPressure #MedicalDevices #Wearable #HealthTracking #Fitness
Aktiia.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Jay Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Aktiia, discusses the importance of tracking blood pressure and the challenges of managing high blood pressure. With only one in five people with high blood pressure having it under control, long-term monitoring is crucial for better understanding blood pressure trends and optimizing health. The Aktiia wearable blood pressure monitoring device uses optical signal processing to continuously monitor blood pressure without the need for action to be taken by the patient.
Jay explains, "The real danger of high blood pressure occurs over years, decades, long periods of time of having your blood pressure outside the optimal range. It is really what causes the detrimental effects to many of the different organs of our body, of our heart, brain, kidneys, eyes, aorta, and so on. And so the importance of understanding what your blood pressure is over long periods of time is really what we're focused on at Aktiia. That's why people should be aware of and track their blood pressure on a long-term basis."
"Aktiia is a Swiss company and it was founded about five years ago. The technology has been in development for two decades by the founders, co-founders in an engineering think tank out of Switzerland. And they've been pioneers of what's called optical signal processing."
"This is taking signals from LED lights and the reflection of that light from the skin or the capillary bed, the small vessels in our skin, and deducing the numeric physiologic parameters. And they started around heart rate. They were the pioneers of understanding how to take optical signals from sensors at the wrist and create heart rate calculations. This was done way back before there were smart watches or wearables. It was done back in the early 2000s. After they got good at that, they turned to blood pressure."
#Aktiia #Hypertension #HighBloodPressure #BloodPressure #MedicalDevices #Wearable #HealthTracking #Fitness
Aktiia.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Oliver Kharraz is the CEO and Founder of Zocdoc, a healthcare marketplace that helps patients find and book appointments with doctors. The platform was created to address the problem of long wait times for appointments and the lack of ability to take advantage of last-minute availability on providers' schedules. The goal is to streamline the patient experience, allow doctors to reduce administrative burdens, and improve patient engagement with easy-to-use tools for messaging, payments, and virtual visits.
Oliver explains, "As we were operating the Zocdoc marketplace, we heard from our 80,000 doctors on the platform that they had trouble engaging patients. For the ones that use Zocdoc, it was easy because we're providing them a lot of the scaffolding and infrastructure. But doctors see a lot of patients who call them, who have been coming to them for a long time, or are coming to them for the first time and don't have the tools available. The tools out there are too expensive or super clunky and make it harder to engage patients, or both. And so, 80% of the doctors we talk to don't use any of these patient engagement tools, to the detriment of these practices and patients."
"If you think about all this from a patient's perspective, they have all these different tools they need to log into. There's one tool where you can find out which doctors are in network, another tool where you find out when they're available, or maybe you have to call, another tool where you figure out what the benefits are that you have, where you have to enter your clinical information, where you have to pay. There are hundreds of logins in the journey, creating login fatigue on the patient side. As a result, they are less engaged and sometimes drop out of the funnel."
#Zocdoc #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #HealthcareProviders #Telehealth #VirtualHealth
zocdoc.com
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Dr. Oliver Kharraz is the CEO and Founder of Zocdoc, a healthcare marketplace that helps patients find and book appointments with doctors. The platform was created to address the problem of long wait times for appointments and the lack of ability to take advantage of last-minute availability on providers' schedules. The goal is to streamline the patient experience, allow doctors to reduce administrative burdens, and improve patient engagement with easy-to-use tools for messaging, payments, and virtual visits.
Oliver explains, "As we were operating the Zocdoc marketplace, we heard from our 80,000 doctors on the platform that they had trouble engaging patients. For the ones that use Zocdoc, it was easy because we're providing them a lot of the scaffolding and infrastructure. But doctors see a lot of patients who call them, who have been coming to them for a long time, or are coming to them for the first time and don't have the tools available. The tools out there are too expensive or super clunky and make it harder to engage patients, or both. And so, 80% of the doctors we talk to don't use any of these patient engagement tools, to the detriment of these practices and patients."
"If you think about all this from a patient's perspective, they have all these different tools they need to log into. There's one tool where you can find out which doctors are in network, another tool where you find out when they're available, or maybe you have to call, another tool where you figure out what the benefits are that you have, where you have to enter your clinical information, where you have to pay. There are hundreds of logins in the journey, creating login fatigue on the patient side. As a result, they are less engaged and sometimes drop out of the funnel."
#Zocdoc #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #HealthcareProviders #Telehealth #VirtualHealth
zocdoc.com
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Mark Carbone, CEO of PN Medical, highlights the growing problem since COVID-19 of respiratory health and breathing issues. The Breather is a respiratory muscle training device that improves breathlessness, endurance, stamina, blood pressure, and sleep. Used daily, this device has shown benefits for patients, athletes, and the military in training respiratory muscles and counteracting bad posture and limitations of the environment on the lungs and diaphragm. PN Medical is developing a connected version of The Breather that uses AI and sensors to monitor respiratory health and provide personalized feedback.
Mark explains, "The Breather is our flagship. That's the one we invented 43 years ago. And since then, we've moved from patient to athletics, Special Forces, and even professional singers and actors. So, at its core, it's a gym for your lungs and heart. That's the easiest way to explain it, but the whole system is a three-part system. So, it's a respiratory muscle training device at its core, and the second part is breathing protocols. We've learned these things over all these years with so many people. And then there's a mobile coaching app. If you want to go analog, you don't need the app. If you're not into that, we find so many people like to have something simple and do not want to go super high-tech. But if you want to, you can."
"We've got an over-the-counter version. It was born in the clinical realm. So respiratory therapists started way back then, speech therapists, now PTs, OTs, and skilled nursing. So, it goes across all those disciplines. It does not have to be prescribed. It can be in the acute or subacute. It's growing exponentially in home health because everything's going to the home now. Usually, you will get it when you're checking out of the hospital, and then you follow the therapy once you're out. And it's something if you want to get the best out of it, you use it for the rest of your life."
#TheBreather #BreathingDevice #BreatheBetter #RMT #RespiratoryTrainer
pnmedical.com
Listen to the podcast here
Mark Carbone, CEO of PN Medical, highlights the growing problem since COVID-19 of respiratory health and breathing issues. The Breather is a respiratory muscle training device that improves breathlessness, endurance, stamina, blood pressure, and sleep. Used daily, this device has shown benefits for patients, athletes, and the military in training respiratory muscles and counteracting bad posture and limitations of the environment on the lungs and diaphragm. PN Medical is developing a connected version of The Breather that uses AI and sensors to monitor respiratory health and provide personalized feedback.
Mark explains, "The Breather is our flagship. That's the one we invented 43 years ago. And since then, we've moved from patient to athletics, Special Forces, and even professional singers and actors. So, at its core, it's a gym for your lungs and heart. That's the easiest way to explain it, but the whole system is a three-part system. So, it's a respiratory muscle training device at its core, and the second part is breathing protocols. We've learned these things over all these years with so many people. And then there's a mobile coaching app. If you want to go analog, you don't need the app. If you're not into that, we find so many people like to have something simple and do not want to go super high-tech. But if you want to, you can."
"We've got an over-the-counter version. It was born in the clinical realm. So respiratory therapists started way back then, speech therapists, now PTs, OTs, and skilled nursing. So, it goes across all those disciplines. It does not have to be prescribed. It can be in the acute or subacute. It's growing exponentially in home health because everything's going to the home now. Usually, you will get it when you're checking out of the hospital, and then you follow the therapy once you're out. And it's something if you want to get the best out of it, you use it for the rest of your life."
#TheBreather #BreathingDevice #BreatheBetter #RMT #RespiratoryTrainer
pnmedical.com
Download the transcript here
Mark Duman, the Director of MD Healthcare Consultants in the UK, focuses on patient engagement and digital health strategy, working with established life science companies to actually put patients at the center of their activities. They are also working with start-ups to scale up their digital health services, navigate healthcare systems, and develop patient engagement strategies. The key to a patient-centric approach is working from the bottom up to find patients through local community and faith-based groups and patient advocacy groups.
Mark explains, "I'm a former pharmacist. I qualified in Aberdeen, in northern Scotland, back in 1990. I had a particular interest at that time in what we call over here pharmacy practice, the idea of supporting patients to take medicines, which, as we know, 50% of them sadly don't take as prescribed. That has been my focus throughout my career. I've worked in the National Health Service, which, as many of you will know, is the British healthcare system that is funded publicly. So I've dispensed medicines and talked to patients, and long story short, about 20 years ago, I got into the whole patient engagement side of things. No decision about us without the patient being included."
"On the life sciences side, lots of talk about patient engagement and, in many cases, lots of action, but it's often not coordinated. And it happens possibly within silos across even small businesses or small to medium biopharma. In the large ones, it's often even more diluted or siloed. We're being asked to look at where is the patient engagement strategy that joins this together. Where is the operationalization of this so that each part of the function doesn't just say it but truly engages patients and caregivers in the co-creation and co-production of their products and services?"
#DigitalHealth #PatientEngagement #Healthcare #PatientFocused
Mark.Duman@mdhealthcare.co.uk
Listen to the podcast here
Mark Duman, the Director of MD Healthcare Consultants in the UK, focuses on patient engagement and digital health strategy, working with established life science companies to actually put patients at the center of their activities. They are also working with start-ups to scale up their digital health services, navigate healthcare systems, and develop patient engagement strategies. The key to a patient-centric approach is working from the bottom up to find patients through local community and faith-based groups and patient advocacy groups.
Mark explains, "I'm a former pharmacist. I qualified in Aberdeen, in northern Scotland, back in 1990. I had a particular interest at that time in what we call over here pharmacy practice, the idea of supporting patients to take medicines, which, as we know, 50% of them sadly don't take as prescribed. That has been my focus throughout my career. I've worked in the National Health Service, which, as many of you will know, is the British healthcare system that is funded publicly. So I've dispensed medicines and talked to patients, and long story short, about 20 years ago, I got into the whole patient engagement side of things. No decision about us without the patient being included."
"On the life sciences side, lots of talk about patient engagement and, in many cases, lots of action, but it's often not coordinated. And it happens possibly within silos across even small businesses or small to medium biopharma. In the large ones, it's often even more diluted or siloed. We're being asked to look at where is the patient engagement strategy that joins this together. Where is the operationalization of this so that each part of the function doesn't just say it but truly engages patients and caregivers in the co-creation and co-production of their products and services?" #DigitalHealth #PatientEngagement #Healthcare #PatientFocused
Mark.Duman@mdhealthcare.co.uk
Download the transcript here
Derek Streat, Founder and CEO of DexCare, has created an orchestration platform that helps manage healthcare's demand and supply sides. As a data-driven intelligence company, the focus is on allocating limited resources to drive maximum productive utilization for all stakeholders. While there are often conflicting goals, using large data sets, risk models can be developed to meet the needs of patients, providers, and payers and better manage access to and cost of healthcare.
Derek explains, "For the benefit of providers, patients, and health systems, those resources must be allocated. Those precious resources, with limited time and quantity, need to be allocated in a way that makes them the most productive utilization of those resources. We all know that, again, the reason that we often have to wait a long time to get access to care. Whether it's sitting in a waiting room in an ED or waiting weeks or months to get access to a specialist, the reason that happens is often there's a misallocation or misalignment of how those resources are allocated to patients. We figured out a way to do that better so that the capacity of those resources can be extended in a way to service more patients."
"The sad reality of one of the major rate limiters in healthcare access these days is that there aren't enough skilled people around to take care of all the people that need to be taken care of. And with an aging population and people living longer and all those things, the human resources we have only go so far. This is also in the face of declining numbers, declining enrollments in medical institutions, etc. And so, you've got to have technology to help extend the capacity of doctors, nurses, and so forth, who are taking care of folks."
#DexCare #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #AccesstoCare #VirtualCare
dexcare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Derek Streat, Founder and CEO of DexCare, has created an orchestration platform that helps manage healthcare's demand and supply sides. As a data-driven intelligence company, the focus is on allocating limited resources to drive maximum productive utilization for all stakeholders. While there are often conflicting goals, using large data sets, risk models can be developed to meet the needs of patients, providers, and payers and better manage access to and cost of healthcare.
Derek explains, "For the benefit of providers, patients, and health systems, those resources must be allocated. Those precious resources, with limited time and quantity, need to be allocated in a way that makes them the most productive utilization of those resources. We all know that, again, the reason that we often have to wait a long time to get access to care. Whether it's sitting in a waiting room in an ED or waiting weeks or months to get access to a specialist, the reason that happens is often there's a misallocation or misalignment of how those resources are allocated to patients. We figured out a way to do that better so that the capacity of those resources can be extended in a way to service more patients."
"The sad reality of one of the major rate limiters in healthcare access these days is that there aren't enough skilled people around to take care of all the people that need to be taken care of. And with an aging population and people living longer and all those things, the human resources we have only go so far. This is also in the face of declining numbers, declining enrollments in medical institutions, etc. And so, you've got to have technology to help extend the capacity of doctors, nurses, and so forth, who are taking care of folks."
#DexCare #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #AccesstoCare #VirtualCare
dexcare.com
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Dr. Carol DerSarkissian, Medical Director at Ezra, is bringing AI-enhanced MRI technology to a broader market to help detect cancer earlier in vulnerable and asymptomatic populations. Using Ezra Flash and a high-speed MRI protocol, MRIs are performed quickly and enhanced to provide high-quality images at the limits of the current standard of care for review by expert radiologists. The Ezra Flash scan is a full body scan now priced at $1,350, with a goal of $500.
Carol elaborates, "The goal is early detection, which is one of our best tools in fighting cancer. Early cancer detection has about an 80% survival rate, compared to less than 20% for late-stage cancer. These statistics are from the American Cancer Society. Yet 50% of cancers are still detected at a late stage. There is a need. At Ezra, we're the first company to leverage artificial intelligence globally, AI across all three key components of the cancer screening process: one, imaging, two, analysis, and three, reporting and making it available directly to consumers."
"Right now, the Ezra scan is not covered by insurance. However, as we're moving towards making it a faster, shorter scan, that will help the insurance companies cover it. In terms of AI and mammograms, when computer-assisted detection came out, that was an AI with a smaller database. Initially, it wasn't covered by insurance, but then they saw the utility of it, and it was covered by insurance. It is a direction we're moving in as more and more data and more and more evidence is accumulated."
#CancerDetection #ProactiveScreening #AIinHealthcare #CancerScreening #FullBodyScan #WholeBodyScan #MRI #MRIScreening
ezra.com
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Dr. Carol DerSarkissian, Medical Director at Ezra, is bringing AI-enhanced MRI technology to a broader market to help detect cancer earlier in vulnerable and asymptomatic populations. Using Ezra Flash and a high-speed MRI protocol, MRIs are performed quickly and enhanced to provide high-quality images at the limits of the current standard of care for review by expert radiologists. The Ezra Flash scan is a full body scan now priced at $1,350, with a goal of $500.
Carol elaborates, "The goal is early detection, which is one of our best tools in fighting cancer. Early cancer detection has about an 80% survival rate, compared to less than 20% for late-stage cancer. These statistics are from the American Cancer Society. Yet 50% of cancers are still detected at a late stage. There is a need. At Ezra, we're the first company to leverage artificial intelligence globally, AI across all three key components of the cancer screening process: one, imaging, two, analysis, and three, reporting and making it available directly to consumers."
"Right now, the Ezra scan is not covered by insurance. However, as we're moving towards making it a faster, shorter scan, that will help the insurance companies cover it. In terms of AI and mammograms, when computer-assisted detection came out, that was an AI with a smaller database. Initially, it wasn't covered by insurance, but then they saw the utility of it, and it was covered by insurance. It is a direction we're moving in as more and more data and more and more evidence is accumulated."
#CancerDetection #ProactiveScreening #AIinHealthcare #CancerScreening #FullBodyScan #WholeBodyScan #MRI #MRIScreening
ezra.com
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Dr. Nora Zetsche, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Veta Health, a health tech company, has designed a continuous support solution for patients that includes virtual care and virtual support of in-person care. Remote monitoring includes patient-reported data, text messages, tracking from wearables and other passive sensors. Integrating existing electronic health records allows providers to incorporate the virtual data to enable clinicians to make appropriate treatment decisions.
Nora explains, "It's always tricky with these buzzwords in health tech because everyone ends up having a different interpretation of them. And so, for us, remote monitoring isn't just what came about in the pandemic, which is these reimbursement codes around remote patient monitoring. Still, it's a whole gamut of virtual care extension into patients' homes. And a part of that is how we seamlessly get information from the patient to the caring clinicians."
"And that is, for us, that remote monitoring, that on the one hand, entails the data from wearables that may be collected passively. It can contain survey data from the patient directly, patient-reported outcome data, and the interactions that clinical teams and clinical staff have with the patient as the patient is at home. This can be done asynchronously through text messages, secure messaging, and synchronously through telehealth. So it's the rest of how we get better insights into how the patients are doing in their homes or outside of clinical settings and how we better use those insights to support these patients."
"There's a huge fear of just a sea of data you have to wade through to get insight into the patients. And that's never been our intention. We don't just collect data for the sake of collecting data and then give it in raw format to the clinicians. Our software platform has analytics and workflow tools to parse through the data, figure out which data is relevant for a clinician and a given patient at a given time, and prioritize that data for the clinicians. It gives the clinicians additional context to that data."
#VetaHealth #HealthTech #RemoteMonitoring #MachineLearning #DigitalCare #VirtualCare
myvetahealth.com
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Dr. Nora Zetsche, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Veta Health, a health tech company, has designed a continuous support solution for patients that includes virtual care and virtual support of in-person care. Remote monitoring includes patient-reported data, text messages, tracking from wearables and other passive sensors. Integrating existing electronic health records allows providers to incorporate the virtual data to enable clinicians to make appropriate treatment decisions.
Nora explains, "It's always tricky with these buzzwords in health tech because everyone ends up having a different interpretation of them. And so, for us, remote monitoring isn't just what came about in the pandemic, which is these reimbursement codes around remote patient monitoring. Still, it's a whole gamut of virtual care extension into patients' homes. And a part of that is how we seamlessly get information from the patient to the caring clinicians."
"And that is, for us, that remote monitoring, that on the one hand, entails the data from wearables that may be collected passively. It can contain survey data from the patient directly, patient-reported outcome data, and the interactions that clinical teams and clinical staff have with the patient as the patient is at home. This can be done asynchronously through text messages, secure messaging, and synchronously through telehealth. So it's the rest of how we get better insights into how the patients are doing in their homes or outside of clinical settings and how we better use those insights to support these patients."
"There's a huge fear of just a sea of data you have to wade through to get insight into the patients. And that's never been our intention. We don't just collect data for the sake of collecting data and then give it in raw format to the clinicians. Our software platform has analytics and workflow tools to parse through the data, figure out which data is relevant for a clinician and a given patient at a given time, and prioritize that data for the clinicians. It gives the clinicians additional context to that data."
#VetaHealth #HealthTech #RemoteMonitoring #MachineLearning #DigitalCare #VirtualCare
myvetahealth.com
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Dror Zur, Founder and CEO of MAGENTIQ EYE, discusses the opportunities for reducing the risk of colorectal cancer through AI-assisted colonoscopies. He points out the relatively high polyp miss rate that can be due to the size of the polyp, interpretations by physicians, and limitations of the procedure room. The MAGENTIQ-Colo AI system analyzes colonoscopy videos in real time and alerts the physician to polyps with a bounding box.
Dror explains, "The procedure room is not a perfect place. There is some noise, and there are other people sometimes. There can be interference. Also, sometimes, the polyp passes through the video very fast, and even if it is not a very small polyp, it's hard to detect it. Sometimes, the point-of-view is such that it is hard to see. Sometimes, it is hidden behind a fold or something like that, and then only a very small part of it can be seen. It is hard to detect the polyp this way. There are several reasons for that."
"The system takes the video, breaks it into frames, and analyzes each frame by the AI engine of the system, detects polyps if they are there, and shows the bounding box on the video where the physician is looking. It actually doesn't change anything in the clinical workflow. The procedure stays exactly the same. You just have additional information, which is decision support information for the physician that helps them to decide if there is a polyp. It is just plug-and-play. The installation is very simple."
"This is, by the way, done by doing two colonoscopy tests, one immediately after the other with the same patient, and what is being detected in the second one is the miss rate of the first one, polyps that were not detected in the first one. It's called adenoma miss rate, the percentage of missed adenomas. The study showed a relative increase of 37% in the adenoma per colonoscopy, the average number of adenomas that are detected, and the miss rate is cut almost by half."
#MAGENTIQEYE #AIHealthcare #ColorectalHealth #ColorectalCancer #HealthScreening #MedicalInnovation #HealthTechAdvancements #PatientAdvocacy #CancerPrevention #PatientExperience #FutureofHealthcare #MedicalResearch
magentiq.com
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Dror Zur, Founder and CEO of MAGENTIQ EYE, discusses the opportunities for reducing the risk of colorectal cancer through AI-assisted colonoscopies. He points out the relatively high polyp miss rate that can be due to the size of the polyp, interpretations by physicians, and limitations of the procedure room. The MAGENTIQ-Colo AI system analyzes colonoscopy videos in real time and alerts the physician to polyps with a bounding box.
Dror explains, "The procedure room is not a perfect place. There is some noise, and there are other people sometimes. There can be interference. Also, sometimes, the polyp passes through the video very fast, and even if it is not a very small polyp, it's hard to detect it. Sometimes, the point-of-view is such that it is hard to see. Sometimes, it is hidden behind a fold or something like that, and then only a very small part of it can be seen. It is hard to detect the polyp this way. There are several reasons for that."
"The system takes the video, breaks it into frames, and analyzes each frame by the AI engine of the system, detects polyps if they are there, and shows the bounding box on the video where the physician is looking. It actually doesn't change anything in the clinical workflow. The procedure stays exactly the same. You just have additional information, which is decision support information for the physician that helps them to decide if there is a polyp. It is just plug-and-play. The installation is very simple."
"This is, by the way, done by doing two colonoscopy tests, one immediately after the other with the same patient, and what is being detected in the second one is the miss rate of the first one, polyps that were not detected in the first one. It's called adenoma miss rate, the percentage of missed adenomas. The study showed a relative increase of 37% in the adenoma per colonoscopy, the average number of adenomas that are detected, and the miss rate is cut almost by half."
#MAGENTIQEYE #AIHealthcare #ColorectalHealth #ColorectalCancer #HealthScreening #MedicalInnovation #HealthTechAdvancements #PatientAdvocacy #CancerPrevention #PatientExperience #FutureofHealthcare #MedicalResearch
magentiq.com
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Dr. Eliseo Salinas, head of Research and Development at Delix Therapeutics, is focused on developing drugs to treat central nervous system disorders by addressing synaptic density. Applying knowledge about psychoplastogens and neuroplastogens, Delix strives to increase connections between neurons in treating depression more quickly and effectively than using antidepressants.
Eliseo explains, "The term psychoplastogen was coined only a few years ago when it was realized that certain substances, like ketamine or psychedelics like psilocybin, produce those increases in synaptic density in hours, not weeks. So, those were termed psychoplastogens. More recently, it is believed that the psychedelics or psychotomimetic effects of those psychoplastogens might not be necessary for the therapeutic benefit."
"Neuroplastogens are those compounds that produce an acute increase in synaptic density in hours without producing those psychotomimetics or hallucinatory effects that the typical psychedelics produce."
"When you look at the psychoplastogens, the drugs that induce those rapid increases in synaptic density, they are not all the same. So, for example, you have one that is psilocybin, which is in the magic mushrooms. That substance produces hallucination, typical hallucinations, a trip where the person or patient has a vivid hallucinatory experience. But there are others, like ketamine, that don't produce that type of hallucination. They rarely produce hallucination. Ketamine is a dissociative agent where you feel strange or sedated and sleep for a few hours, but not typically hallucinations. And finally, the most striking difference is the effect of electroconvulsive therapy, ECT, or electroshock. In animals, electroshock does exactly the same thing as ketamine and psilocybin or LSD, producing an increase in synaptic density in hours, but it doesn't produce hallucinations or dissociations."
#DelixTherapeutics #Neuroplastogen #Psychoplastogen #Neuroplasticity #MentalHealth #Biotech #HealtheMind
DelixTherapeutics.com
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Dr. Eliseo Salinas, head of Research and Development at Delix Therapeutics, is focused on developing drugs to treat central nervous system disorders by addressing synaptic density. Applying knowledge about psychoplastogens and neuroplastogens, Delix strives to increase connections between neurons in treating depression more quickly and effectively than using antidepressants.
Eliseo explains, "The term psychoplastogen was coined only a few years ago when it was realized that certain substances, like ketamine or psychedelics like psilocybin, produce those increases in synaptic density in hours, not weeks. So, those were termed psychoplastogens. More recently, it is believed that the psychedelics or psychotomimetic effects of those psychoplastogens might not be necessary for the therapeutic benefit."
"Neuroplastogens are those compounds that produce an acute increase in synaptic density in hours without producing those psychotomimetics or hallucinatory effects that the typical psychedelics produce."
"When you look at the psychoplastogens, the drugs that induce those rapid increases in synaptic density, they are not all the same. So, for example, you have one that is psilocybin, which is in the magic mushrooms. That substance produces hallucination, typical hallucinations, a trip where the person or patient has a vivid hallucinatory experience. But there are others, like ketamine, that don't produce that type of hallucination. They rarely produce hallucination. Ketamine is a dissociative agent where you feel strange or sedated and sleep for a few hours, but not typically hallucinations. And finally, the most striking difference is the effect of electroconvulsive therapy, ECT, or electroshock. In animals, electroshock does exactly the same thing as ketamine and psilocybin or LSD, producing an increase in synaptic density in hours, but it doesn't produce hallucinations or dissociations."
#DelixTherapeutics #Neuroplastogen #Psychoplastogen #Neuroplasticity #MentalHealth #Biotech #HealtheMind
DelixTherapeutics.com
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Cindy Gaines is Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Lumeon, a clinical workflow automation company. While standard practices are often in place in a healthcare setting, leadership is often surprised at the variations in execution and the opportunities for automation. The goal is to use technology to extend the providers' practice and serve the patients in a familiar, convenient fashion.
Cindy elaborates, "As much as we think we have standardized workflows today, I will talk to leaders who are like, "Oh, this is how we do it." And when you talk to the front lines, "How do you do this work? " you find a lot more variation out there than expected by the leadership team. So, that's sometimes where the consulting part of this company comes in. Some people think we're much more standardized than we are, and that's the opportunity to take those standardized workflows and make them easier for the teams to follow. It's this gap between clinical intent and clinical execution."
"So when you think foundationally about a medical record, it meets the organization's needs but can't take care of everything by itself. That's why I believe other solutions and organizations are looking for solutions that can work in collaboration with their EMRs. That's, again, when I think about clinical workflow automation. It's about how it works as an agility layer with your EMR. Not to compete with it but to extend an EMR's capabilities. That's the opportunity people are looking for with those solutions that can extend the capability instead of competing with the capability."
"If one benefit came out of COVID, it helped people embrace this in the environment. Before COVID, I used to hear providers, when you talked about virtual care and patients actually doing things themselves, it'd be, "Oh, my patients, they're too elderly to do that. They couldn't manage this technology." COVID forced us, in many ways, to advance technology for our customers and consumers. And suddenly, you had 70 and 80-year-olds doing virtual visits, and they didn't want them to go away after COVID."
#Lumeon #AutomatedCare #CareAutomation #CareOrchestration #ClinicalWorkflowAutomation #ClinicalWorkflow #PatientExperience #DigitalTransformation
lumeon.com
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Cindy Gaines is Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Lumeon, a clinical workflow automation company. While standard practices are often in place in a healthcare setting, leadership is often surprised at the variations in execution and the opportunities for automation. The goal is to use technology to extend the providers' practice and serve the patients in a familiar, convenient fashion.
Cindy elaborates, "As much as we think we have standardized workflows today, I will talk to leaders who are like, "Oh, this is how we do it." And when you talk to the front lines, "How do you do this work? " you find a lot more variation out there than expected by the leadership team. So, that's sometimes where the consulting part of this company comes in. Some people think we're much more standardized than we are, and that's the opportunity to take those standardized workflows and make them easier for the teams to follow. It's this gap between clinical intent and clinical execution."
"So when you think foundationally about a medical record, it meets the organization's needs but can't take care of everything by itself. That's why I believe other solutions and organizations are looking for solutions that can work in collaboration with their EMRs. That's, again, when I think about clinical workflow automation. It's about how it works as an agility layer with your EMR. Not to compete with it but to extend an EMR's capabilities. That's the opportunity people are looking for with those solutions that can extend the capability instead of competing with the capability."
"If one benefit came out of COVID, it helped people embrace this in the environment. Before COVID, I used to hear providers, when you talked about virtual care and patients actually doing things themselves, it'd be, "Oh, my patients, they're too elderly to do that. They couldn't manage this technology." COVID forced us, in many ways, to advance technology for our customers and consumers. And suddenly, you had 70 and 80-year-olds doing virtual visits, and they didn't want them to go away after COVID."
#Lumeon #AutomatedCare #CareAutomation #CareOrchestration #ClinicalWorkflowAutomation #ClinicalWorkflow #PatientExperience #DigitalTransformation
lumeon.com
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Dr. Darrin Starkey, Director of Education at Trace Minerals Research, emphasizes the need for a wholesome, balanced diet and the challenges people face to get necessary nutrients from the food we eat. Of particular concern are the trace elements not present in processed foods.
Darrin explains, "We are typically familiar with macrominerals, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and sodium. But trace minerals are often overlooked and neglected because they're needed in small amounts. So, in answer to that question, they're the trace amounts of these elements that our bodies need that make up 0.01% of our makeup and yet an essential part of our health that we often don't focus on until we're in a crisis."
"But often, because of our society, we're such a reactive society today instead of being proactive. We should wait until we're in crisis before asking the questions. But often, being proactive, of being able to put and supplement these trace minerals back into our diets, is a huge point. If we look at the variety of available foods and how we can support local growers and the waters we choose to drink, we have a lot of opportunities to minimize these deficiencies. In the society in which we live, it's critical that we put these trace minerals back in on a daily basis."
"At Trace Minerals, our niche is putting these trace minerals back into all of our products. But our foundational product is our ConcenTrace Trace Mineral drops, and that's the foundational product that most people are familiar with. We want our listeners and consumers to understand that we're trying to do our part in the delivery system of these products. Because, as you well know, trace minerals don't taste good in a pure, concentrated state. They're very strong. So, we have to learn how to dilute those. And for those with sensitive taste buds, we offer them in tablet form, capsule form, and effervescent form. We're doing our part in helping the consumer find a way to deliver these daily that makes it enjoyable."
#TraceMinerals #TraceMineralsResearch #Remineralize #Supplements #PerformanceNutrition #Hydration #Immunity #HealthandWellness #Electrolytes
traceminerals.com
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Dr. Darrin Starkey, Director of Education at Trace Minerals Research, emphasizes the need for a wholesome, balanced diet and the challenges people face to get necessary nutrients from the food we eat. Of particular concern are the trace elements not present in processed foods.
Darrin explains, "We are typically familiar with macrominerals, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and sodium. But trace minerals are often overlooked and neglected because they're needed in small amounts. So, in answer to that question, they're the trace amounts of these elements that our bodies need that make up 0.01% of our makeup and yet an essential part of our health that we often don't focus on until we're in a crisis."
"But often, because of our society, we're such a reactive society today instead of being proactive. We should wait until we're in crisis before asking the questions. But often, being proactive, of being able to put and supplement these trace minerals back into our diets, is a huge point. If we look at the variety of available foods and how we can support local growers and the waters we choose to drink, we have a lot of opportunities to minimize these deficiencies. In the society in which we live, it's critical that we put these trace minerals back in on a daily basis."
"At Trace Minerals, our niche is putting these trace minerals back into all of our products. But our foundational product is our ConcenTrace Trace Mineral drops, and that's the foundational product that most people are familiar with. We want our listeners and consumers to understand that we're trying to do our part in the delivery system of these products. Because, as you well know, trace minerals don't taste good in a pure, concentrated state. They're very strong. So, we have to learn how to dilute those. And for those with sensitive taste buds, we offer them in tablet form, capsule form, and effervescent form. We're doing our part in helping the consumer find a way to deliver these daily that makes it enjoyable."
#TraceMinerals #TraceMineralsResearch #Remineralize #Supplements #PerformanceNutrition #Hydration #Immunity #HealthandWellness #Electrolytes
traceminerals.com
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Eric Mayer, CEO of New Day Diagnostics, is tapping into the trend for more user-friendly diagnostics that patients can use to test themselves for making medical decisions. While blood draw facilities and complex testing will always be a component of healthcare, as technology progresses, more at-home testing will become available. To better support patients and providers, New Day is finding less invasive ways to collect biomarker information and using AI and machine learning to refine the interpretation of test results.
Eric explains, "The business model is very straightforward. We design and develop our suite of diagnostic products that cover cancer testing, infectious disease testing, digestive disease, and women's health. We also operate a contract research laboratory and CRO services for other diagnostics developers, whether point-of-care or over-the-counter, who want to bring those products through the FDA. We help with those studies, and we help with the clinical trials. And then, we also deploy diagnostics. We operate a clinical laboratory where we can drive patient results through the tests that we deploy and have a network of distributors and sales channels to get kitted products and kitted diagnostic tests out into the field once they're approved."
"Depending on the type of test or the type of disease we're trying to detect, there are some that are just a yes-no. It's sort of a qualitative result. Either the virus or that bacteria is or is not there. Then, there's another for measuring numerous biomarkers in a blood sample. A liquid biopsy is a great example. At New Day Diagnostics, we incorporate AI and machine learning to combine advanced mathematics and science and distill it down to what we believe is a very easy-to-understand result for that physician and for that patient to understand. That is absolutely right. It doesn't help anybody if its result is just a mishmash of numbers without any clinical usefulness for what that result represents."
#NewDayDiagnostics #Diagnostics #Cancer #InfectiousDiseases #WomensHealth #GastrointestinalDiseases #Biomarkers
newdaydiagnostics.com
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Eric Mayer, CEO of New Day Diagnostics, is tapping into the trend for more user-friendly diagnostics that patients can use to test themselves for making medical decisions. While blood draw facilities and complex testing will always be a component of healthcare, as technology progresses, more at-home testing will become available. To better support patients and providers, New Day is finding less invasive ways to collect biomarker information and using AI and machine learning to refine the interpretation of test results.
Eric explains, "The business model is very straightforward. We design and develop our suite of diagnostic products that cover cancer testing, infectious disease testing, digestive disease, and women's health. We also operate a contract research laboratory and CRO services for other diagnostics developers, whether point-of-care or over-the-counter, who want to bring those products through the FDA. We help with those studies, and we help with the clinical trials. And then, we also deploy diagnostics. We operate a clinical laboratory where we can drive patient results through the tests that we deploy and have a network of distributors and sales channels to get kitted products and kitted diagnostic tests out into the field once they're approved."
"Depending on the type of test or the type of disease we're trying to detect, there are some that are just a yes-no. It's sort of a qualitative result. Either the virus or that bacteria is or is not there. Then, there's another for measuring numerous biomarkers in a blood sample. A liquid biopsy is a great example. At New Day Diagnostics, we incorporate AI and machine learning to combine advanced mathematics and science and distill it down to what we believe is a very easy-to-understand result for that physician and for that patient to understand. That is absolutely right. It doesn't help anybody if its result is just a mishmash of numbers without any clinical usefulness for what that result represents."
#NewDayDiagnostics #Diagnostics #Cancer #InfectiousDiseases #WomensHealth #GastrointestinalDiseases #Biomarkers
newdaydiagnostics.com
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Dr. Ed Chekan is certified in general surgery and is Vice President of Medical Affairs and Professional Education at Asensus Surgical, which is taking the platform of laparoscopic surgery and adding augmented intelligence technology. Laparoscopic surgery currently starts with a digital interface in a video image. Asensus is adding augmented intelligence to the video image in real-time to support the surgeon and surgical team with additional information to improve outcomes and the experience of the clinicians.
Ed explains, "We're starting with things already being done. We have a feature that is a digital measurement. This allows the surgeon, if measurement is critical to this portion of the procedure, for instance, in general surgery, we'd say five to six centimeters from the pylorus, to start a staple line in a sleeve gastrectomy. We either estimate that through different ways, or we'd have to put a tape measure inside the patient to measure that distance accurately to get that measurement. So we're doing that now digitally."
"We have a telemanipulator. Our Asensus system is currently the second telemanipulator to be approved in the US. And so, we have it in a few centers already. And that integrates into the operating room as separate arms on separate pods or platforms that can be moved around, connected to a cockpit or a console, where the surgeon sits to do the manipulating."
"Then, the video feeds feed into our Intelligent Surgical Unit or ISU, and those video images are processed and sent to the cloud. We'll store them, we could annotate them, and we can also use them to influence, in real-time, certain types of feedback based on what would be interpreted from the video image. So, someone else is watching the video. The computer is watching the video, too, to tell you things that are happening."
@AsensusSurgical #Asensus #Robotics #DigitalStrategy #Surgery #IntraoperativeClinicalIntelligence #AugmentIntelligence
asensus.com
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Dr. Ed Chekan is certified in general surgery and is Vice President of Medical Affairs and Professional Education at Asensus Surgical, which is taking the platform of laparoscopic surgery and adding augmented intelligence technology. Laparoscopic surgery currently starts with a digital interface in a video image. Asensus is adding augmented intelligence to the video image in real-time to support the surgeon and surgical team with additional information to improve outcomes and the experience of the clinicians.
Ed explains, "We're starting with things already being done. We have a feature that is a digital measurement. This allows the surgeon, if measurement is critical to this portion of the procedure, for instance, in general surgery, we'd say five to six centimeters from the pylorus, to start a staple line in a sleeve gastrectomy. We either estimate that through different ways, or we'd have to put a tape measure inside the patient to measure that distance accurately to get that measurement. So we're doing that now digitally."
"We have a telemanipulator. Our Asensus system is currently the second telemanipulator to be approved in the US. And so, we have it in a few centers already. And that integrates into the operating room as separate arms on separate pods or platforms that can be moved around, connected to a cockpit or a console, where the surgeon sits to do the manipulating."
"Then, the video feeds feed into our Intelligent Surgical Unit or ISU, and those video images are processed and sent to the cloud. We'll store them, we could annotate them, and we can also use them to influence, in real-time, certain types of feedback based on what would be interpreted from the video image. So, someone else is watching the video. The computer is watching the video, too, to tell you things that are happening."
@AsensusSurgical #Asensus #Robotics #DigitalStrategy #Surgery #IntraoperativeClinicalIntelligence #AugmentIntelligence
asensus.com
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Lynn Carroll, Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox, provides a platform to encourage collaboration between payers and providers in a value-based care system. The success of VBC is based on the perspective of the patient and the ability to personalize the interaction with their entire care team. Assessing the needs of patients and using digital tools to engage patients is bringing the benefits of value-based care to a broader audience.
Lynn explains, "On the data exchange side, this certainly gets us into the interoperability space. What we have seen is an emphasis on aligning the participants in the care team. Part of an assessment is to understand who a patient is seeing today, who they may have seen recently, or who are they not seeing anyone. But once you know the care team and that care team is in place, facilitating that data sharing component is a key part of the approach."
"We have seen an attempt after stratifying a population to know where there are high-touch patients or folks with chronic disease that can have monitoring applied. The challenge with those tools is to make sure that you engage the patient and give them the ability to understand their role in utilizing those tools. So, if you think about part of the assessment upfront, it is also to understand a given patient's motivation and/or capability to take responsibility for participating in these programs."
#CommunityHealth #Healthcare #HealthEquity #ManagedCare #PatientEngagement #ValueBasedCare #VBC #ValueBasedAdministration
hsblox.com
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Lynn Carroll, Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox, provides a platform to encourage collaboration between payers and providers in a value-based care system. The success of VBC is based on the perspective of the patient and the ability to personalize the interaction with their entire care team. Assessing the needs of patients and using digital tools to engage patients is bringing the benefits of value-based care to a broader audience.
Lynn explains, "On the data exchange side, this certainly gets us into the interoperability space. What we have seen is an emphasis on aligning the participants in the care team. Part of an assessment is to understand who a patient is seeing today, who they may have seen recently, or who are they not seeing anyone. But once you know the care team and that care team is in place, facilitating that data sharing component is a key part of the approach."
"We have seen an attempt after stratifying a population to know where there are high-touch patients or folks with chronic disease that can have monitoring applied. The challenge with those tools is to make sure that you engage the patient and give them the ability to understand their role in utilizing those tools. So, if you think about part of the assessment upfront, it is also to understand a given patient's motivation and/or capability to take responsibility for participating in these programs."
#CommunityHealth #Healthcare #HealthEquity #ManagedCare #PatientEngagement #ValueBasedCare #VBC #ValueBasedAdministration #DigitalHealth
hsblox.com
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Cassie Choi, Co-Founder of Pair Team, partners with members in the community, such as nonprofits, homeless shelters, food pantries, and primary care providers, to provide healthcare and related services to underserved communities. Drawing on available resources, Pair Team is using digital technology to connect funding sources to these stakeholders so that they can provide the help that is needed by underrepresented and often overlooked patients.
Cassie explains, "I think the issue when you look at Medicaid recipients and underserved communities is that they don't have anything at all. A lot of startups and companies aim for big high-achieving impact. That will happen, but we look at it as we have to earn the right to get there by improving the ecosystem little by little. What we do is provide this care coordination and care delivery to augment the existing systems. I think a differentiator for us, too, is that there are entities in the community that are trying to do this work, but they're really not empowered or enabled to do this."
"I think when you look at the Medicaid population or low-income populations, there are a lot of assumptions that these folks are not engaged in care, which on some level is true. It's about figuring out how to engage them, reach them and meet them where they're at, and then bring them into the care delivery system."
"For Pair Team, we've intentionally made our care accessible through text messages and phone calls. So, we don't create an app or a provider portal to log into. I even have a hard time with those. There are no telemed visits to figure out how to set up on your phone. Most people have phones. It's just they can text and make basic phone calls. And our team is trained to ask them, when do your minutes renew? How many minutes do you have? So that way you can meet them, meet their needs."
#PairTeam #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #HealthEquity #DigitalHealth #CommunityHealthWorkers #Medicaid #AtRiskPatients
pairteam.com
Listen to the podcast here
Cassie Choi, Co-Founder of Pair Team, partners with members in the community, such as nonprofits, homeless shelters, food pantries, and primary care providers, to provide healthcare and related services to underserved communities. Drawing on available resources, Pair Team is using digital technology to connect funding sources to these stakeholders so that they can provide the help that is needed by underrepresented and often overlooked patients.
Cassie explains, "I think the issue when you look at Medicaid recipients and underserved communities is that they don't have anything at all. A lot of startups and companies aim for big high-achieving impact. That will happen, but we look at it as we have to earn the right to get there by improving the ecosystem little by little. What we do is provide this care coordination and care delivery to augment the existing systems. I think a differentiator for us, too, is that there are entities in the community that are trying to do this work, but they're really not empowered or enabled to do this."
"I think when you look at the Medicaid population or low-income populations, there are a lot of assumptions that these folks are not engaged in care, which on some level is true. It's about figuring out how to engage them, reach them and meet them where they're at, and then bring them into the care delivery system."
"For Pair Team, we've intentionally made our care accessible through text messages and phone calls. So, we don't create an app or a provider portal to log into. I even have a hard time with those. There are no telemed visits to figure out how to set up on your phone. Most people have phones. It's just they can text and make basic phone calls. And our team is trained to ask them, when do your minutes renew? How many minutes do you have? So that way you can meet them, meet their needs."
#PairTeam #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #HealthEquity #DigitalHealth #CommunityHealthWorkers #Medicaid #AtRiskPatients
pairteam.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Matthew Powell, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and Chief of the Gynecological Oncology Division at Washington University. He was also a clinical investigator in the pivotal trial leading to the approval of Jemperli, a treatment for endometrial cancer. This is an immunotherapy drug that works well for certain types of endometrial cancer and is now used in more than ten different cancers, decreasing the chance of the cancer progressing.
Matthew explains, "Some syndromes certainly can cause an increased risk of endometrial cancer. One was named after Dr. Henry Lynch, who first described it called Lynch syndrome, also known as hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer syndrome because the patients are not only at risk for endometrial cancer, but they're also at risk for colon cancer. So, we see a lot of families where there's both uterine and colon cancer in the family, and that's one where that genetic risk is there."
"When it came to therapies for patients who had disease that had spread, we, over the last 70 years, have been using radiation, which doesn't work very well. It treats the areas that we treat well, but we can't treat the whole body with radiation. So that's where chemotherapy came in. Chemotherapy has been a fairly standard therapy now for over 20 years. Still, we have not made many improvements over our standard treatment of what’s called carboplatin and paclitaxel, which, again, has been around since 1995. Over the last several decades, it’s become our standard treatment for this."
#EndometrialCancer #GSK #Jemperli #Immunotherapy #GynOnc
Jemperli.com
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Dr. Matthew Powell, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and Chief of the Gynecological Oncology Division at Washington University. He was also a clinical investigator in the pivotal trial leading to the approval of Jemperli, a treatment for endometrial cancer. This is an immunotherapy drug that works well for certain types of endometrial cancer and is now used in more than ten different cancers, decreasing the chance of the cancer progressing.
Matthew explains, "Some syndromes certainly can cause an increased risk of endometrial cancer. One was named after Dr. Henry Lynch, who first described it called Lynch syndrome, also known as hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer syndrome because the patients are not only at risk for endometrial cancer, but they're also at risk for colon cancer. So, we see a lot of families where there's both uterine and colon cancer in the family, and that's one where that genetic risk is there."
"When it came to therapies for patients who had disease that had spread, we, over the last 70 years, have been using radiation, which doesn't work very well. It treats the areas that we treat well, but we can't treat the whole body with radiation. So that's where chemotherapy came in. Chemotherapy has been a fairly standard therapy now for over 20 years. Still, we have not made many improvements over our standard treatment of what’s called carboplatin and paclitaxel, which, again, has been around since 1995. Over the last several decades, it’s become our standard treatment for this."
#EndometrialCancer #GSK #Jemperli #Immunotherapy #GynOnc
Jemperli.com
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Sandesh Seth, the CEO and Chairman of Actinium Pharmaceuticals uses targeted radiotherapy to effectively destroy diseased bone marrow and allow new bone marrow to take over the immune functions. This approach offers a way for those currently unable to receive a transplant to have a chance for a transplant and potentially be cured of acute myeloid leukemia.
Sandesh explains, "What we've shown in our Phase 3 program is we could take patients with acute myeloid leukemia, one of the deadliest cancers known to man, where drugs don't work on these patients, and they live about two to three months unless they can get a bone marrow transplant. With our lead drug, Iomab-B, we've shown that we can take non-transplantable patients because they're too weak or frail, and drugs don't work on them. And they have active disease, so they live only about three months. They can't get a transplant because they're too weak. And if you give them drugs, they may die. Or if you give them the conditioning needed to wipe out their diseased bone marrow, which is the factory from where the blood cancer spreads, they can't access the transplant."
"Iomab-B takes these non-transplant patients, it targets the disease, it kills the disease in a matter of days. It destroys the diseased bone marrow so that they can go and get a new bone marrow transplant or hemopoietic stem cells, which can then take over normal blood and immune function and restore the patient to health. It enables improved access and outcomes regarding the extension of survival and even cures in several patients, which we've shown in our Phase 3 trial. We will file licensing applications to the FDA later this year to get the drug hopefully approved next year and get it into the hands of patients."
#ActiniumPharma #Radiotherapies #Radiotherapy #BloodCancer #AML #BMT #Cancer #Oncology #Hematology #BioPharma #Pharmaceuticals #OneNews #FightCancer #CancerResearch
ActiniumPharma.com
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Sandesh Seth, the CEO and Chairman of Actinium Pharmaceuticals uses targeted radiotherapy to effectively destroy diseased bone marrow and allow new bone marrow to take over the immune functions. This approach offers a way for those currently unable to receive a transplant to have a chance for a transplant and potentially be cured of acute myeloid leukemia.
Sandesh explains, "What we've shown in our Phase 3 program is we could take patients with acute myeloid leukemia, one of the deadliest cancers known to man, where drugs don't work on these patients, and they live about two to three months unless they can get a bone marrow transplant. With our lead drug, Iomab-B, we've shown that we can take non-transplantable patients because they're too weak or frail, and drugs don't work on them. And they have active disease, so they live only about three months. They can't get a transplant because they're too weak. And if you give them drugs, they may die. Or if you give them the conditioning needed to wipe out their diseased bone marrow, which is the factory from where the blood cancer spreads, they can't access the transplant."
"Iomab-B takes these non-transplant patients, it targets the disease, it kills the disease in a matter of days. It destroys the diseased bone marrow so that they can go and get a new bone marrow transplant or hemopoietic stem cells, which can then take over normal blood and immune function and restore the patient to health. It enables improved access and outcomes regarding the extension of survival and even cures in several patients, which we've shown in our Phase 3 trial. We will file licensing applications to the FDA later this year to get the drug hopefully approved next year and get it into the hands of patients."
#ActiniumPharma #Radiotherapies #Radiotherapy #BloodCancer #AML #BMT #Cancer #Oncology #Hematology #BioPharma #Pharmaceuticals #OneNews #FightCancer #CancerResearch
ActiniumPharma.com
Download the transcript here
Brian Whorley, Founder and CEO of Paytient, has created health payment accounts to help patients and their families manage medical costs. Working with employers, Paytient offers fee-free, interest-free funds to cover deductibles, out-of-pocket charges, and veterinary services. Using an employer-supplied Visa card, healthcare charges can be paid back over time based on individual circumstances.
Brian explains, "The Paytient card lives alongside your HSA. It lives alongside your FSA. It helps to preserve or protect those balances and gives people time, peace of mind, and security that no matter what happens throughout the year, they have dollars to pay for care. Folks can just swipe the Paytient card, pay the provider, and then pick up and split that transaction into a payment plan that works best for them and their family's budget. They can select the source of funds, like essentially a healthcare wallet that's always full. They can choose to repay Paytient via a linked bank account. They can do just payroll deductions. They could link an HSA or an FSA. They can link to another debit card. And essentially, we're bringing liquidity to the table and restoring access to care."
"Paytient is available as an employee benefit. We work with 1200 plus employers nationwide who provide Paytient to their employees. And so employees receive Paytient. On January 1, hundreds of employers will offer Paytient, and employees can swipe the Paytient card and pay that surprise out-of-pocket medical, dental, vision, pharmacy, and veterinary care. So, many of our folks may have vet insurance, or they may not, but they can take their furry family member to the vet, simply pay the vet, and turn that surprise $200 into 20 bucks out of their following ten checks. And they're able to take the sting out of that unexpected amount."
#Paytient #EmployeeBenefits #HRA #AffordableHealthcare #HealthEquity
Paytient.com
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Brian Whorley, Founder and CEO of Paytient, has created health payment accounts to help patients and their families manage medical costs. Working with employers, Paytient offers fee-free, interest-free funds to cover deductibles, out-of-pocket charges, and veterinary services. Using an employer-supplied Visa card, healthcare charges can be paid back over time based on individual circumstances.
Brian explains, "The Paytient card lives alongside your HSA. It lives alongside your FSA. It helps to preserve or protect those balances and gives people time, peace of mind, and security that no matter what happens throughout the year, they have dollars to pay for care. Folks can just swipe the Paytient card, pay the provider, and then pick up and split that transaction into a payment plan that works best for them and their family's budget. They can select the source of funds, like essentially a healthcare wallet that's always full. They can choose to repay Paytient via a linked bank account. They can do just payroll deductions. They could link an HSA or an FSA. They can link to another debit card. And essentially, we're bringing liquidity to the table and restoring access to care."
"Paytient is available as an employee benefit. We work with 1200 plus employers nationwide who provide Paytient to their employees. And so employees receive Paytient. On January 1, hundreds of employers will offer Paytient, and employees can swipe the Paytient card and pay that surprise out-of-pocket medical, dental, vision, pharmacy, and veterinary care. So, many of our folks may have vet insurance, or they may not, but they can take their furry family member to the vet, simply pay the vet, and turn that surprise $200 into 20 bucks out of their following ten checks. And they're able to take the sting out of that unexpected amount."
#Paytient #EmployeeBenefits #HRA #AffordableHealthcare #HealthEquity
Paytient.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Bill Kerr, Co-Founder and CEO of Avalon Healthcare Solutions, sheds light on the value of genetic data and is focused on getting the science of gene sequencing better understood. Genetic testing can identify opportunities for treatment and specific mutations that can lead to a more precise therapy. With the abundance of genetic tests available, interpreting the results correctly is the challenge.
Bill elaborates, "Our job is to get the science of lab testing adopted in the industry. We have done that by working with health plans that have to adopt coverage for the testing, to be paid for the labs that perform the testing, and then the physician experts who either define the testing when it's useful or who are ordering the testing. We live in an ecosystem where we work with all those parties to ensure that good genetic testing is adopted, that the results are understood, and that they are acted upon appropriately."
"The real issue is understanding when a test can be useful to a patient and a doctor. Just because we can sequence DNA doesn't mean we understand what it means or what to do about it. I would suggest to you that one of the reasons we have heard the phrase precision medicine for so long but have not seen as much of that get adopted is we haven't understood the link between what we see in the DNA and what we know to do about it. I'll give you a couple of examples."
"One, cancer. Cancer has been an area where we have, for some time, understood that certain genetic predispositions or even mutations can drive cancer or suggest that cancer could be worse. We have just recently had therapies that target those mutations. Now, we've got several great therapies that are tied to that. Previously, just doing the analysis may have had no real benefit to the patient or maybe later had some prognostic capability, but now actually has therapeutic relevance. That's been very important."
#AvalonHealthcare #AvalonHCS #GeneticTesting #GeneticTests #LabTests #LabTesting #ClinicalTesting #ClinicalTests #MedicalTests
avalonhcs.com
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Dr. Bill Kerr, Co-Founder and CEO of Avalon Healthcare Solutions, sheds light on the value of genetic data and is focused on getting the science of gene sequencing better understood. Genetic testing can identify opportunities for treatment and specific mutations that can lead to a more precise therapy. With the abundance of genetic tests available, interpreting the results correctly is the challenge.
Bill elaborates, "Our job is to get the science of lab testing adopted in the industry. We have done that by working with health plans that have to adopt coverage for the testing, to be paid for the labs that perform the testing, and then the physician experts who either define the testing when it's useful or who are ordering the testing. We live in an ecosystem where we work with all those parties to ensure that good genetic testing is adopted, that the results are understood, and that they are acted upon appropriately."
"The real issue is understanding when a test can be useful to a patient and a doctor. Just because we can sequence DNA doesn't mean we understand what it means or what to do about it. I would suggest to you that one of the reasons we have heard the phrase precision medicine for so long but have not seen as much of that get adopted is we haven't understood the link between what we see in the DNA and what we know to do about it. I'll give you a couple of examples."
"One, cancer. Cancer has been an area where we have, for some time, understood that certain genetic predispositions or even mutations can drive cancer or suggest that cancer could be worse. We have just recently had therapies that target those mutations. Now, we've got several great therapies that are tied to that. Previously, just doing the analysis may have had no real benefit to the patient or maybe later had some prognostic capability, but now actually has therapeutic relevance. That's been very important."
#AvalonHealthcare #AvalonHCS #GeneticTesting #GeneticTests #LabTests #LabTesting #ClinicalTesting #ClinicalTests #MedicalTests
avalonhcs.com
Download the transcript here
KimberLee Heidmann is the Executive VP of Patient Experience and Customer Success at Scout Clinical, a third-party provider of patient services for clinical trial participants and their families. As a global partner of sponsors of trials, Scout oversees travel, visas, housing and accommodations, and patient payments. Working with underserved communities and patients with rare diseases, Scout removes barriers to participation in clinical trials and supports researchers in their care of patients and trial protocols.
KimberLee elaborates, "Right now, the focus in clinical research is very much on diversity and inclusion and health equity. We're excited about that because we're passionate about that here at Scout. We're uniquely positioned to help the sponsors and the sites with those hard-to-reach patient populations. You're seeing a lot more in clinical research, especially in the rare disease space, where we're even looking at cross-border enrollment and bringing patients from underserved populations to areas where there are centers of excellence for treatment and clinical research."
"Another thing that's burdensome that we've received a lot of feedback from clinical trial sites is the requirement to use a lot of different vendors and have access to different technology. Technology has been such a wonderful thing for the clinical trial industry, and we've brought so many wonderful things to the forefront in terms of wearable devices and diaries and the DCT model, where we're trying to relieve the burden of the patients to have to go to the clinical trial site. All of these things are wonderful, and they're excellent tools for clinical research."
"But in some respects, they do add a burden to the researchers to have to, either as a sponsor or a CRO, manage all of those different aspects or for the clinical trial site to engage with all of these different tools. Then, if you carry that down into the patient, the patients and their families, participants and their families, a lot of times they are being introduced to this technology as well. Managing the full trial ecosystem can be very difficult for researchers and patients."
#ScoutClinical #ClinicalTrials #RareDiseases #PatientTravel #TrialRetention #TrialRecruitment
scoutclinical.com
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KimberLee Heidmann is the Executive VP of Patient Experience and Customer Success at Scout Clinical, a third-party provider of patient services for clinical trial participants and their families. As a global partner of sponsors of trials, Scout oversees travel, visas, housing and accommodations, and patient payments. Working with underserved communities and patients with rare diseases, Scout removes barriers to participation in clinical trials and supports researchers in their care of patients and trial protocols.
KimberLee elaborates, "Right now, the focus in clinical research is very much on diversity and inclusion and health equity. We're excited about that because we're passionate about that here at Scout. We're uniquely positioned to help the sponsors and the sites with those hard-to-reach patient populations. You're seeing a lot more in clinical research, especially in the rare disease space, where we're even looking at cross-border enrollment and bringing patients from underserved populations to areas where there are centers of excellence for treatment and clinical research."
"Another thing that's burdensome that we've received a lot of feedback from clinical trial sites is the requirement to use a lot of different vendors and have access to different technology. Technology has been such a wonderful thing for the clinical trial industry, and we've brought so many wonderful things to the forefront in terms of wearable devices and diaries and the DCT model, where we're trying to relieve the burden of the patients to have to go to the clinical trial site. All of these things are wonderful, and they're excellent tools for clinical research."
"But in some respects, they do add a burden to the researchers to have to, either as a sponsor or a CRO, manage all of those different aspects or for the clinical trial site to engage with all of these different tools. Then, if you carry that down into the patient, the patients and their families, participants and their families, a lot of times they are being introduced to this technology as well. Managing the full trial ecosystem can be very difficult for researchers and patients."
#ScoutClinical #ClinicalTrials #RareDiseases #PatientTravel #TrialRetention #TrialRecruitment
scoutclinical.com
Download the transcript here
Zach Markin, Co-Founder and CEO of HTD Health, is focused on working with clients to develop technology solutions to improve workflow, reduce the time spent on data entry, and provide patient information at the appropriate level of detail on demand. While digital infrastructure supports the integration of health records and related patient information, human interaction is critical to improving patient care and the ability of clinicians to care for a broader audience.
Zach explains, "Generally, I wouldn't try to persuade someone who thinks technology is not useful. I would not try to persuade someone to use technology. That's not a compelling way to engage with someone of that mindset. Instead, I would work to establish a more compelling value-based connection based on what that person cares about. If that's a doctor or a nurse, a health system administrator, or someone else who is likely skeptical or rightfully skeptical of yet another technology initiative, I would work to understand what the priorities that person has in the language of whatever is compelling and meaningful to them."
"It makes sense that if you're caring for a sicker population, a provider should receive more money to do that work more effectively because you need more resources. Unfortunately, what that means in practice is these provider organizations end up having competencies both in care delivery and treatment of a condition, as well as a competency and documentation of their activities and the underlying needs of the populations they're taking care of. So, everyone's in this challenge and trying to create care experiences that prioritize patients, that are centered on patients, that create a human-centered experience for the patient."
#HTDHealth #Healthcare #SaMD #SoftwareDevelopment #DigitalHealth #PatientCentric
htdhealth.com
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Zach Markin, Co-Founder and CEO of HTD Health, is focused on working with clients to develop technology solutions to improve workflow, reduce the time spent on data entry, and provide patient information at the appropriate level of detail on demand. While digital infrastructure supports the integration of health records and related patient information, human interaction is critical to improving patient care and the ability of clinicians to care for a broader audience.
Zach explains, "Generally, I wouldn't try to persuade someone who thinks technology is not useful. I would not try to persuade someone to use technology. That's not a compelling way to engage with someone of that mindset. Instead, I would work to establish a more compelling value-based connection based on what that person cares about. If that's a doctor or a nurse, a health system administrator, or someone else who is likely skeptical or rightfully skeptical of yet another technology initiative, I would work to understand what the priorities that person has in the language of whatever is compelling and meaningful to them."
"It makes sense that if you're caring for a sicker population, a provider should receive more money to do that work more effectively because you need more resources. Unfortunately, what that means in practice is these provider organizations end up having competencies both in care delivery and treatment of a condition, as well as a competency and documentation of their activities and the underlying needs of the populations they're taking care of. So, everyone's in this challenge and trying to create care experiences that prioritize patients, that are centered on patients, that create a human-centered experience for the patient."
#HTDHealth #Healthcare #SaMD #SoftwareDevelopment #DigitalHealth #PatientCentric
htdhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Kathy Ford is the Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Ronin, applying AI and deep data mining to determine relevant cohorts to develop better cancer treatment plans. Looking at patient-specific data, including genetics, comorbidities, and risk factors, allows medical oncologists and patients to predict results and more accurately anticipate and prevent adverse events. The Ronin AI-based solution also educates patients in real-time as they go through their treatment.
Kathy explains, "At Ronin, we are determined to leverage the power of all of the underutilized data in healthcare to better inform clinicians to make a more patient-specific decision faster, essentially, at the point of care. And we're starting in oncology to do so, the most complex disease. We are leveraging all the unclean and uncorrelated data, delivering it to the clinician, adding insights and intelligence, and speeding up decisions. We collaborated with MD Anderson to build the solution. So built with clinicians for clinicians. And we're also partnered with Providence Health System as well today."
"What Ronin is doing is taking hundreds and hundreds of data elements about all sorts of patients and the patient specifically that's being treated. We're looking at cohorting information, to say, patients like me, with similar data elements, so lab values, comorbidities, social determinants, and so forth, have responded best with this treatment approach. So, delivering more patient-specific information at the point of care takes the guessing out of patient treatment planning."
"Cancer is one of those diseases where we have to make the patient sicker to, ideally, make them better. And when a patient is initially diagnosed with cancer, they're often showered or hammered with a tremendous amount of information, instructions, and education. It's incredibly overwhelming. And then, once they begin their treatment, when they start to experience those adverse events, it can be very confusing and scary. Patients are often not sure what to do and are left with, is this expected? Should I be feeling this way?"
"And, what exists today, without a solution like Ronin, is the EHR portal or the phone. Neither one of those is an effective way to stay connected with your clinical team, manage your expectations, and report your outcomes and adverse events."
#AIinHealth #FutureofHealthcare #AI #PhysicianBurnout #PatientEngagement #Cancer #CancerTreatment #PrecisionOncology
projectronin.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kathy Ford is the Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Ronin, applying AI and deep data mining to determine relevant cohorts to develop better cancer treatment plans. Looking at patient-specific data, including genetics, comorbidities, and risk factors, allows medical oncologists and patients to predict results and more accurately anticipate and prevent adverse events. The Ronin AI-based solution also educates patients in real-time as they go through their treatment.
Kathy explains, "At Ronin, we are determined to leverage the power of all of the underutilized data in healthcare to better inform clinicians to make a more patient-specific decision faster, essentially, at the point of care. And we're starting in oncology to do so, the most complex disease. We are leveraging all the unclean and uncorrelated data, delivering it to the clinician, adding insights and intelligence, and speeding up decisions. We collaborated with MD Anderson to build the solution. So built with clinicians for clinicians. And we're also partnered with Providence Health System as well today."
"What Ronin is doing is taking hundreds and hundreds of data elements about all sorts of patients and the patient specifically that's being treated. We're looking at cohorting information, to say, patients like me, with similar data elements, so lab values, comorbidities, social determinants, and so forth, have responded best with this treatment approach. So, delivering more patient-specific information at the point of care takes the guessing out of patient treatment planning."
"Cancer is one of those diseases where we have to make the patient sicker to, ideally, make them better. And when a patient is initially diagnosed with cancer, they're often showered or hammered with a tremendous amount of information, instructions, and education. It's incredibly overwhelming. And then, once they begin their treatment, when they start to experience those adverse events, it can be very confusing and scary. Patients are often not sure what to do and are left with, is this expected? Should I be feeling this way?"
"And, what exists today, without a solution like Ronin, is the EHR portal or the phone. Neither one of those is an effective way to stay connected with your clinical team, manage your expectations, and report your outcomes and adverse events."
#AIinHealth #FutureofHealthcare #AI #PhysicianBurnout #PatientEngagement #Cancer #CancerTreatment #PrecisionOncology
projectronin.com
Download the transcript here
Maria Pereira Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at TISSIUM, discusses her journey to develop a biocompatible, biodegradable polymer to enable atraumatic surgical procedures for tissue repair. This new polymer technology can be used as a sealant and adhesive to replace the use of tacks and sutures to repair blood vessels, nerve damage, and meshes without the use of any penetrating or traumatic fixation.
Maria explains, "At TISSIUM, we are developing a new core technology, a new material that can be used for a traumatic tissue repair. We are leveraging a material that has been originally developed at MIT. One of the features of this material is that it can be used as a sealant or an adhesive, or even as a resin for 3D printing and drug delivery. And we can apply this material in surgery to enable surgical procedures in an atraumatic way."
"Currently, we're developing products across three main domains, including cardiovascular, where we use the material as a sealant to stop blood leaks during cardiovascular surgery. We're also operating in the space of peripheral nerve repair, where we are developing an atraumatic solution where we can basically bring nerves together without the use of any sutures or other traumatic technologies. The third space where we are currently operating is in hernia repair, where we are using our materials as an adhesive to fix meshes to the abdominal wall, and therefore avoiding the use of tacks that can induce trauma and pain."
#TISSIUM #Medtech #MedicalInnovation #TissueRepair #Sealant #Adhesive
TISSIUM.com
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Maria Pereira Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at TISSIUM, discusses her journey to develop a biocompatible, biodegradable polymer to enable atraumatic surgical procedures for tissue repair. This new polymer technology can be used as a sealant and adhesive to replace the use of tacks and sutures to repair blood vessels, nerve damage, and meshes without the use of any penetrating or traumatic fixation.
Maria explains, "At TISSIUM, we are developing a new core technology, a new material that can be used for a traumatic tissue repair. We are leveraging a material that has been originally developed at MIT. One of the features of this material is that it can be used as a sealant or an adhesive, or even as a resin for 3D printing and drug delivery. And we can apply this material in surgery to enable surgical procedures in an atraumatic way."
"Currently, we're developing products across three main domains, including cardiovascular, where we use the material as a sealant to stop blood leaks during cardiovascular surgery. We're also operating in the space of peripheral nerve repair, where we are developing an atraumatic solution where we can basically bring nerves together without the use of any sutures or other traumatic technologies. The third space where we are currently operating is in hernia repair, where we are using our materials as an adhesive to fix meshes to the abdominal wall, and therefore avoiding the use of tacks that can induce trauma and pain."
#TISSIUM #Medtech #MedicalInnovation #TissueRepair #Sealant #Adhesive
TISSIUM.com
Download the transcript here
David Esposito, President and CEO of ONL Therapeutics, is focused on back-of-the-eye diseases such as open-angle glaucoma, dry age-related macular degeneration, and retinal detachment. Their drug ONL1204 targets retina cells to block the Fas receptor to reduce damage to the eye. This small peptide is delivered via an injection in the eye to slow the progression of retinal diseases.
David elaborates, "The Fas receptor is a common pathophysiology in a number of cells of the body. Your audience may be familiar with oncology treatments, so therapies to treat cancer often try to develop a drug that activates the Fas receptor to trigger the death of those cancer cells. Those have been around for several decades, looking at fas receptors in other disease states. We have been the only ones focused in ophthalmology and eye diseases focused on the Fas receptor to protect retina cells."
"I think certainly with fas receptors in the eye, what's very interesting is that it is a common pathophysiology across a variety of diseases of the eye. In drug discovery, you typically think of a particular receptor for a specific disease state. I mentioned cancer cells before with Fas. What's interesting about the discovery work that our founder, Dr. David Zacks, did at the University of Michigan is that the Fas receptor is involved in a variety of different diseases of the eye."
"You wouldn't necessarily think the receptor could be implicated in a disease like dry age-related macular degeneration and in a different pathophysiology in glaucoma. But what’s really unique about the Fas receptor and why we see the potential of blocking the Fas receptor is that it could have a significant impact across several disease states, whether it be glaucoma, AMD, or an acute condition of retinal detachment. That's what's been most exciting and certainly garnered a lot of interest in ONL on that approach."
#ONLTherapeutics #EyeDisease #RetinalDisease #AMD #MacularDegeneration
onltherapeutics.com
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David Esposito, President and CEO of ONL Therapeutics, is focused on back-of-the-eye diseases such as open-angle glaucoma, dry age-related macular degeneration, and retinal detachment. Their drug ONL1204 targets retina cells to block the Fas receptor to reduce damage to the eye. This small peptide is delivered via an injection in the eye to slow the progression of retinal diseases.
David elaborates, "The Fas receptor is a common pathophysiology in a number of cells of the body. Your audience may be familiar with oncology treatments, so therapies to treat cancer often try to develop a drug that activates the Fas receptor to trigger the death of those cancer cells. Those have been around for several decades, looking at fas receptors in other disease states. We have been the only ones focused in ophthalmology and eye diseases focused on the Fas receptor to protect retina cells."
"I think certainly with fas receptors in the eye, what's very interesting is that it is a common pathophysiology across a variety of diseases of the eye. In drug discovery, you typically think of a particular receptor for a specific disease state. I mentioned cancer cells before with Fas. What's interesting about the discovery work that our founder, Dr. David Zacks, did at the University of Michigan is that the Fas receptor is involved in a variety of different diseases of the eye."
"You wouldn't necessarily think the receptor could be implicated in a disease like dry age-related macular degeneration and in a different pathophysiology in glaucoma. But what’s really unique about the Fas receptor and why we see the potential of blocking the Fas receptor is that it could have a significant impact across several disease states, whether it be glaucoma, AMD, or an acute condition of retinal detachment. That's what's been most exciting and certainly garnered a lot of interest in ONL on that approach."
#ONLTherapeutics #EyeDisease #RetinalDisease #AMD #MacularDegeneration
onltherapeutics.com
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Nima Ahmadi, CEO of The Wound Company, highlights the need for qualified and certified wound care experts to work with patients on a continuous basis. This kind of relationship allows the care provider to proactively manage the wound to ensure efficient healing as quickly as possible. Personalized plans are created using AI and data analysis, considering the patient's risk factors and specific details about the wound and their general health condition.
Nima explains, "We think about being in a continuous relationship with everybody who has a wound, ensuring its healing. Then, we continue to be proactive as we manage patients who are at risk of new wounds or repeat wounds so that we're doing everything we can preventatively to prevent that from happening. This is completely different than how we've approached wound care for the last few decades."
"We have certified experts, and our vision is that in ten years, every single American with a wound will have a certified wound care expert from The Wound Company assigned to their care. The expert is quarterbacking their wound care and ensuring they will heal as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. As part of that vision of assigning that coordination, we're also doing virtual and in-person, in some cases, wound care so that it's a one-stop shop experience for the patient to help them heal effectively and efficiently. And we have a tremendous amount of technology and other assets to help our clinicians do that multichannel wound care."
#WoundCare #OstomyCare #Healthcare #Telehealth #NursingShortage
thewound. co
Listen to the podcast here
Nima Ahmadi, CEO of The Wound Company, highlights the need for qualified and certified wound care experts to work with patients on a continuous basis. This kind of relationship allows the care provider to proactively manage the wound to ensure efficient healing as quickly as possible. Personalized plans are created using AI and data analysis, considering the patient's risk factors and specific details about the wound and their general health condition.
Nima explains, "We think about being in a continuous relationship with everybody who has a wound, ensuring its healing. Then, we continue to be proactive as we manage patients who are at risk of new wounds or repeat wounds so that we're doing everything we can preventatively to prevent that from happening. This is completely different than how we've approached wound care for the last few decades."
"We have certified experts, and our vision is that in ten years, every single American with a wound will have a certified wound care expert from The Wound Company assigned to their care. The expert is quarterbacking their wound care and ensuring they will heal as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. As part of that vision of assigning that coordination, we're also doing virtual and in-person, in some cases, wound care so that it's a one-stop shop experience for the patient to help them heal effectively and efficiently. And we have a tremendous amount of technology and other assets to help our clinicians do that multichannel wound care."
#WoundCare #OstomyCare #Healthcare #Telehealth #NursingShortage
thewound. co
Download the transcript here
Dr. Monique Nugent is a practicing hospitalist and an associate director for the Division of Hospital Medicine at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Massachusetts. She's also the author of Prescription for Admission: A Doctor's Guide for Navigating the Hospital, Advocating for Yourself, and Having a Better Hospitalization. Post-COVID, hospitals are dealing with workflow and getting patients in and out of the hospital as soon as possible. One big obstacle is the lack of places patients can go for rehabilitation and skilled nursing care, which is leading to more consideration of the hospital-at-home model. While this is a patient-facing book, there are insights about what healthcare providers need to understand about the patient hospital experience.
Monique explains, "Hospital-at-home is not a new concept. It's somewhat of a new concept here in the United States, but hospital-at-home has been successful around the world, and I think there's a lot of really good benefits."
"Number one, it cuts down on costs, and that's always a big issue in this country. A day in the hospital comes with costs, not just for the care, there's the cost of the building that goes into your hospitalization. There's the cost of the electricity for that building that is built into your hospitalization. So, it does drive down costs just by moving the care to a different facility, which is your home."
"I also think hospital-at-home is a big boon for the comfort of patients. Particularly our elderly patients. When they come into the hospital, often you'll see that people who struggle a little bit with their memory, who have a touch of dementia, or who have significant dementia can get very confused in the hospital. A, they're sick, B, these are new people, C, their routine is thrown off, and so that can worsen confusion and delirium."
#HospitalManagement #HospitalatHome #HospitalMedicine #Hospitalization #HospitalBasedPhysician
drmoniquenugent.com
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Dr. Monique Nugent is a practicing hospitalist and an associate director for the Division of Hospital Medicine at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Massachusetts. She's also the author of Prescription for Admission: A Doctor's Guide for Navigating the Hospital, Advocating for Yourself, and Having a Better Hospitalization. Post-COVID, hospitals are dealing with workflow and getting patients in and out of the hospital as soon as possible. One big obstacle is the lack of places patients can go for rehabilitation and skilled nursing care, which is leading to more consideration of the hospital-at-home model. While this is a patient-facing book, there are insights about what healthcare providers need to understand about the patient hospital experience.
Monique explains, "Hospital-at-home is not a new concept. It's somewhat of a new concept here in the United States, but hospital-at-home has been successful around the world, and I think there's a lot of really good benefits."
"Number one, it cuts down on costs, and that's always a big issue in this country. A day in the hospital comes with costs, not just for the care, there's the cost of the building that goes into your hospitalization. There's the cost of the electricity for that building that is built into your hospitalization. So, it does drive down costs just by moving the care to a different facility, which is your home."
"I also think hospital-at-home is a big boon for the comfort of patients. Particularly our elderly patients. When they come into the hospital, often you'll see that people who struggle a little bit with their memory, who have a touch of dementia, or who have significant dementia can get very confused in the hospital. A, they're sick, B, these are new people, C, their routine is thrown off, and so that can worsen confusion and delirium."
#HospitalManagement #HospitalatHome #HospitalMedicine #Hospitalization #HospitalBasedPhysician
drmoniquenugent.com
Download the transcript here
Ryan McQuaid, Co-Founder of PlushCare, has expanded their collaborative virtual care model to provide whole-person care, including mental health and weight management. Working with partners, PlushCare offers primary care and referrals to specialists, second opinions, and therapists in all 50 states. Their top priority is to provide personalized care in a seamless fashion to all patients, especially those in underserved and rural communities.
Ryan elaborates, "Everybody's familiar with virtual care now. And so, given it's become a much more mature market, just like anything, as the market matures, consumers' expectations increase. And so, rewind five years ago, people were okay with maybe not the greatest experience when it came to a virtual visit, but now the bar has been raised substantially. And so, just making sure that patients get a wow experience has been one of our focuses."
"I think another area is being the one-stop shop. I talked about us joining forces with Accolade and 2nd MD to be the one place that people go for their health benefits, connecting with their primary care doctor, their therapist, even a weight management expert. And so, that's an area that we're leaning into substantially to be that one-stop shop. We believe that when you look at other markets and other ecosystems, whether it's Apple's ecosystem or Google's ecosystem, that's a trend you see in other industries in verticals."
@PlushCare #PlushCare #VirtualCare #Telehealth #PreventativeCare #MentalHealth #WeightManagement
PlushCare.com
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Ryan McQuaid, Co-Founder of PlushCare, has expanded their collaborative virtual care model to provide whole-person care, including mental health and weight management. Working with partners, PlushCare offers primary care and referrals to specialists, second opinions, and therapists in all 50 states. Their top priority is to provide personalized care in a seamless fashion to all patients, especially those in underserved and rural communities.
Ryan elaborates, "Everybody's familiar with virtual care now. And so, given it's become a much more mature market, just like anything, as the market matures, consumers' expectations increase. And so, rewind five years ago, people were okay with maybe not the greatest experience when it came to a virtual visit, but now the bar has been raised substantially. And so, just making sure that patients get a wow experience has been one of our focuses."
"I think another area is being the one-stop shop. I talked about us joining forces with Accolade and 2nd MD to be the one place that people go for their health benefits, connecting with their primary care doctor, their therapist, even a weight management expert. And so, that's an area that we're leaning into substantially to be that one-stop shop. We believe that when you look at other markets and other ecosystems, whether it's Apple's ecosystem or Google's ecosystem, that's a trend you see in other industries in verticals."
@PlushCare #PlushCare #VirtualCare #Telehealth #PreventativeCare #MentalHealth #WeightManagement
PlushCare.com
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Eli Ben-Joseph, Co-Founder and CEO of Regard, works with health systems to integrate AI into their medical record systems to help doctors by highlighting issues, aiding in the diagnosis, and writing medical notes after a patient visit. With increasing doctor burnout, an emphasis on more efficient workflow supported by technology is a path to giving providers more time with patients and less time on administrative issues and on their computers.
Eli explains, "We say that it's essentially an AI co-pilot for doctors. The way that works is we have a deep integration with leading medical records, both Epic and Cerner. And when a health system partners with us they will link our software to their system. When a doctor opens up Regard, the moment they click the Regard button, our technology goes into the medical record and fetches the entire medical record data for that patient. All the labs, all the history, all the vitals."
"What we recognized when we started this company is that doctors are spending way more time today than ever before having to make sure they document in a way that they can bill for it, that it doesn't get denied by insurance. They spend a lot of time dealing with prior authorizations or requirements that they have in terms of how they write their notes, and that's where that toil exists in healthcare. So we saw an opportunity to help automate a lot of those tasks, and that's where we step in."
"So, a quick story: one of my favorite stories is one of our physicians, long time user, was working on a patient who had a stroke and she opened up Regard. And our technology went through years of data in a matter of seconds and found a note from an outpatient doctor that said that this patient has an atrial fibrillation, which is a fluttering of the heart, which it's very important to know that if you're dealing with a stroke. Because of our technology, she was able to see something that she would not have seen otherwise, that this patient had an AFib. She would've totally missed it because it was years back in piles of data. And because of that, she was able to adjust the care that she gave this patient. And that had a really positive impact on that patient's care as well."
#RegardApp #ClinicianBurnout #AI #Workflow #Doctors #Physicians #Hospitals #NoteBloat
withregard.com
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Eli Ben-Joseph, Co-Founder and CEO of Regard, works with health systems to integrate AI into their medical record systems to help doctors by highlighting issues, aiding in the diagnosis, and writing medical notes after a patient visit. With increasing doctor burnout, an emphasis on more efficient workflow supported by technology is a path to giving providers more time with patients and less time on administrative issues and on their computers.
Eli explains, "We say that it's essentially an AI co-pilot for doctors. The way that works is we have a deep integration with leading medical records, both Epic and Cerner. And when a health system partners with us they will link our software to their system. When a doctor opens up Regard, the moment they click the Regard button, our technology goes into the medical record and fetches the entire medical record data for that patient. All the labs, all the history, all the vitals."
"What we recognized when we started this company is that doctors are spending way more time today than ever before having to make sure they document in a way that they can bill for it, that it doesn't get denied by insurance. They spend a lot of time dealing with prior authorizations or requirements that they have in terms of how they write their notes, and that's where that toil exists in healthcare. So we saw an opportunity to help automate a lot of those tasks, and that's where we step in."
"So, a quick story: one of my favorite stories is one of our physicians, long time user, was working on a patient who had a stroke and she opened up Regard. And our technology went through years of data in a matter of seconds and found a note from an outpatient doctor that said that this patient has an atrial fibrillation, which is a fluttering of the heart, which it's very important to know that if you're dealing with a stroke. Because of our technology, she was able to see something that she would not have seen otherwise, that this patient had an AFib. She would've totally missed it because it was years back in piles of data. And because of that, she was able to adjust the care that she gave this patient. And that had a really positive impact on that patient's care as well."
#RegardApp #ClinicianBurnout #AI #Workflow #Doctors #Physicians #Hospitals #NoteBloat
withregard.com
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Mark McDonough, the CEO of ChromaCode, is leveraging high-definition PCR testing to overcome the limitations of conventional PCR to identify biomarkers of infectious diseases and cancer. While gene sequencing can provide valuable information, it requires more tissue, is expensive, and requires at least a week for analysis. Using HDPCR, ChromaCode has developed a lung cancer assay that looks at nine genes and 15 biomarkers, requiring less tissue, performed at a lower cost, and provides results quickly. This approach, built on a cloud-supported multiplexing platform, provides flexibility to explore other areas in oncology and transplants, looking at multiple targets per sample.
Mark explains, "With PCR today, assays look at particular biomarkers on a gene-by-gene basis. So those can be effective in lung cancer, for example, if you know you're just looking for EGFR as a biomarker or if you're looking at KRAS or ALK, a different mutation. But the problem is it's not very comprehensive, and you need a lot of tissue. So, PCR falls short because it's limited in scalability and requires a lot of tissue."
"Why this is important for the patient in terms of patient empowerment and lung cancer is when a patient gets their result back from ChromaCode and their provider using ChromaCode technology, they also are more than likely having an immunochemistry test called PD-L1 run. They're trying to determine if there is a targeted therapy, or is it best to put a patient on immunotherapy, or is there a combination of immunotherapy and chemo?"
"Having all that answer back in one to two days, as opposed to knowing what you'll get back from immunochemistry in a day and then waiting two weeks for sequencing, can be very problematic. So, we feel like we're meeting that open opportunity where sequencing is too slow and too expensive, requiring too much tissue, and PCR just isn't comprehensive enough and is very much trial and error on a one-by-one basis with our technology."
#ChromaCode #HDPCR #Diagnostics #ChromaCodeCloud #Genomics #LungCancer #GeneSequencing
chromacode.com
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Mark McDonough, the CEO of ChromaCode, is leveraging high-definition PCR testing to overcome the limitations of conventional PCR to identify biomarkers of infectious diseases and cancer. While gene sequencing can provide valuable information, it requires more tissue, is expensive, and requires at least a week for analysis. Using HDPCR, ChromaCode has developed a lung cancer assay that looks at nine genes and 15 biomarkers, requiring less tissue, performed at a lower cost, and provides results quickly. This approach, built on a cloud-supported multiplexing platform, provides flexibility to explore other areas in oncology and transplants, looking at multiple targets per sample.
Mark explains, "With PCR today, assays look at particular biomarkers on a gene-by-gene basis. So those can be effective in lung cancer, for example, if you know you're just looking for EGFR as a biomarker or if you're looking at KRAS or ALK, a different mutation. But the problem is it's not very comprehensive, and you need a lot of tissue. So, PCR falls short because it's limited in scalability and requires a lot of tissue."
"Why this is important for the patient in terms of patient empowerment and lung cancer is when a patient gets their result back from ChromaCode and their provider using ChromaCode technology, they also are more than likely having an immunochemistry test called PD-L1 run. They're trying to determine if there is a targeted therapy, or is it best to put a patient on immunotherapy, or is there a combination of immunotherapy and chemo?"
"Having all that answer back in one to two days, as opposed to knowing what you'll get back from immunochemistry in a day and then waiting two weeks for sequencing, can be very problematic. So, we feel like we're meeting that open opportunity where sequencing is too slow and too expensive, requiring too much tissue, and PCR just isn't comprehensive enough and is very much trial and error on a one-by-one basis with our technology."
#ChromaCode #HDPCR #Diagnostics #ChromaCodeCloud #Genomics #LungCancer #GeneSequencing
chromacode.com
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Priyanka Dutta-Passecker is the CEO and Founder of Healiva, a Swiss start-up focused on innovative treatments for acute and chronic wounds. Healiva begins the process by cleaning the wound using an enzyme invented by Priyanka. Depending on the severity of the wound, autologous or allogeneic cell therapy is used to make new skin to heal the wound.
Priyanka explains, "So, to give a background for when we talk about personalized cell therapies and autologous cell therapy. We take a patient here, and from the patient, we make the patient's skin. That means that we're completely personalizing and making the skin of the patient. And this is given to extremely chronic non-healing wound patients like venous leg ulcer patients or diabetic foot ulcer patients. The skin gets integrated on their ulcer and closes the ulcer. That's one of our autologous cell therapy products called Epidex."
"We do keep the primary cells when we take the hair follicle. As you may know, hair follicles are epithelial cells that we expand, and we keep the cells. And when they come back, we can make the full skin, the epidermis differentiation, within two weeks. But generally, it takes four weeks. And it's given to the patient once it's ready within four to five days."
"So, just to elaborate on what we mean by allogeneic cell therapy. So quite different from the autologous one, in allogenic cell therapy, we are taking healthy skin cells from you and me. We expand the skin cells, and we give the skin cells to the patient. What happens is that it releases growth factors which help in the healing. And there is no rejection because, of course, the cells do not stay on the wounds of the patient."
#Healiva #WoundCare #PatientCare #SwissStartups #CellTherapy #ChronicWounds #RegenerativeMedicine #Diabetes #Healthtech
healiva.com
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Priyanka Dutta-Passecker is the CEO and Founder of Healiva, a Swiss start-up focused on innovative treatments for acute and chronic wounds. Healiva begins the process by cleaning the wound using an enzyme invented by Priyanka. Depending on the severity of the wound, autologous or allogeneic cell therapy is used to make new skin to heal the wound.
Priyanka explains, "So, to give a background for when we talk about personalized cell therapies and autologous cell therapy. We take a patient here, and from the patient, we make the patient's skin. That means that we're completely personalizing and making the skin of the patient. And this is given to extremely chronic non-healing wound patients like venous leg ulcer patients or diabetic foot ulcer patients. The skin gets integrated on their ulcer and closes the ulcer. That's one of our autologous cell therapy products called Epidex."
"We do keep the primary cells when we take the hair follicle. As you may know, hair follicles are epithelial cells that we expand, and we keep the cells. And when they come back, we can make the full skin, the epidermis differentiation, within two weeks. But generally, it takes four weeks. And it's given to the patient once it's ready within four to five days."
"So, just to elaborate on what we mean by allogeneic cell therapy. So quite different from the autologous one, in allogenic cell therapy, we are taking healthy skin cells from you and me. We expand the skin cells, and we give the skin cells to the patient. What happens is that it releases growth factors which help in the healing. And there is no rejection because, of course, the cells do not stay on the wounds of the patient."
#Healiva #WoundCare #PatientCare #SwissStartups #CellTherapy #ChronicWounds #RegenerativeMedicine #Diabetes #Healthtech
healiva.com
Download the transcript here
Steve Kent is Chief Product Officer at Know Labs, which has developed a new sensor that uses noninvasive radiofrequency spectroscopy to measure molecules in the body. Their first target is to measure glucose to help those with diabetes manage their insulin use. As a sensor and diagnostics company, Know Labs is working to understand how its sensor and technology can be integrated with best-in-class insulin delivery systems to provide a portable, reliable, and affordable solution for a growing global audience.
Steve explains, "It's a big breakthrough as far as what you're able to measure by being able to penetrate deeper into the human body. Also, we can send up to 400,000 different frequencies through one sensor, whereas, with LEDs, as the example I gave earlier, you can only send something like three to five per LED. Then, you have to physically change out the entire sensor. With ours, that programmatic control allows us an unprecedented amount of new data through the sensor field."
"The sensor has a very sophisticated control unit in it. It's programmable. Today, we can connect it to laptops. It can be connected through a cable. It can be connected through WiFi or Bluetooth to any other companion device. Right now, it's very powerful in that we can have full programmable control over how the device works in the world and understand the scenarios that allow it to perform the best. The short answer is yes, it can connect to an iPhone or an Android, and then I think there are still questions we're looking to solve on the best possible patient experience. I could envision the data being shown on your phone. The device itself may also be able to provide you with a reading directly. There are still some questions to answer there as far as what is the best experience for our future customers."
@TheKnowLabs #KnowLabs #Diabetes #GlucoseMonitoring #MedicalDevices #DiabetesManagement #NoninvasiveGlucoseMonitoring
KnowLabs.co
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Steve Kent is Chief Product Officer at Know Labs, which has developed a new sensor that uses noninvasive radiofrequency spectroscopy to measure molecules in the body. Their first target is to measure glucose to help those with diabetes manage their insulin use. As a sensor and diagnostics company, Know Labs is working to understand how its sensor and technology can be integrated with best-in-class insulin delivery systems to provide a portable, reliable, and affordable solution for a growing global audience.
Steve explains, "It's a big breakthrough as far as what you're able to measure by being able to penetrate deeper into the human body. Also, we can send up to 400,000 different frequencies through one sensor, whereas, with LEDs, as the example I gave earlier, you can only send something like three to five per LED. Then, you have to physically change out the entire sensor. With ours, that programmatic control allows us an unprecedented amount of new data through the sensor field."
"The sensor has a very sophisticated control unit in it. It's programmable. Today, we can connect it to laptops. It can be connected through a cable. It can be connected through WiFi or Bluetooth to any other companion device. Right now, it's very powerful in that we can have full programmable control over how the device works in the world and understand the scenarios that allow it to perform the best. The short answer is yes, it can connect to an iPhone or an Android, and then I think there are still questions we're looking to solve on the best possible patient experience. I could envision the data being shown on your phone. The device itself may also be able to provide you with a reading directly. There are still some questions to answer there as far as what is the best experience for our future customers."
@TheKnowLabs #KnowLabs #Diabetes #GlucoseMonitoring #MedicalDevices #DiabetesManagement #NoninvasiveGlucoseMonitoring
KnowLabs.co
Download the transcript here
Dr. Tony Willoughby is the CEO of Stellus Rx, which has created a model of collaboration for the physician, patient, and pharmacist to provide a more robust system to encourage medication adherence and lifestyle changes. While clinicians may prescribe a treatment plan, pharmacists are in a position to work with patients to address their specific concerns and monitor the patient for drug interactions and possible de-prescribing strategies.
Tony explains, "What our model does is it comes alongside the physician. In that moment of the last 90 seconds of the appointment. We actually have that physician connect that patient to a pharmacist that's embedded virtually in that clinic to expand the capacity of the physician. To pick up that conversation and give space to understand what the patient's belief systems are, what their questions are, how to coordinate or optimize the medication to fit the patient's belief system and the product design of their health plan or their pharmacy benefit plan."
"Anytime you increase volume, you increase complexity. Whether that's the volume of different medication types or volume of dosing, you have more complexity in that moment. And so, our targeted population is your multi-chronic condition patients. We work primarily with primary care physicians, so think about the disease states that stay aligned with their primary care physicians the longest and what disease states are dominant within the US healthcare system. So we take care of a lot of diabetic patients, multi-chronic diabetic patients, COPD, hypertension, mental health, all the things that walk in and out of a primary care practice that has a type of complexity that goes along with that patient's regimen."
#StellusRx #Pharmacy #Pharmacist #PatientCare #MedicationAdherence #ValueBasedCare #IntegratedPharmacyCare
stellusrx.com
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Dr. Tony Willoughby is the CEO of Stellus Rx, which has created a model of collaboration for the physician, patient, and pharmacist to provide a more robust system to encourage medication adherence and lifestyle changes. While clinicians may prescribe a treatment plan, pharmacists are in a position to work with patients to address their specific concerns and monitor the patient for drug interactions and possible de-prescribing strategies.
Tony explains, "What our model does is it comes alongside the physician. In that moment of the last 90 seconds of the appointment. We actually have that physician connect that patient to a pharmacist that's embedded virtually in that clinic to expand the capacity of the physician. To pick up that conversation and give space to understand what the patient's belief systems are, what their questions are, how to coordinate or optimize the medication to fit the patient's belief system and the product design of their health plan or their pharmacy benefit plan."
"Anytime you increase volume, you increase complexity. Whether that's the volume of different medication types or volume of dosing, you have more complexity in that moment. And so, our targeted population is your multi-chronic condition patients. We work primarily with primary care physicians, so think about the disease states that stay aligned with their primary care physicians the longest and what disease states are dominant within the US healthcare system. So we take care of a lot of diabetic patients, multi-chronic diabetic patients, COPD, hypertension, mental health, all the things that walk in and out of a primary care practice that has a type of complexity that goes along with that patient's regimen."
#StellusRx #Pharmacy #Pharmacist #PatientCare #MedicationAdherence #ValueBasedCare #IntegratedPharmacyCare
stellusrx.com
Download the transcript here
Dave Hering, Chief Executive Officer and Director at Invivyd, draws on his experience with vaccines working at Pfizer and research on monoclonal antibodies to engineer targeted monoclonal antibodies to treat diseases like cancer and prevent diseases like COVID-19. Providing antibodies, particularly to immunocompromised people, overcomes the limitations of vaccines and reduces the risk of severe outcomes from diseases.
Dave elaborates, "Antibodies are made by humans. They're made in response to an antigen, a virus being introduced into the body. Frequently, the starting point for these antibodies is to take blood and serum from people infected from a disease and look for these antibodies. And so that's the starting way. We call that mining antibodies. You can get them from survivors of different diseases and then use them to generate and create antibodies that look like that."
"And so Invivyd does the same thing. We start with those. But with our technology and a partnership with a company called Adimab, we've perfected this engineering that does this affinity maturation. You can do this in yeast cells. And do it and replicate it thousands and thousands of times with minor tweaks, and see how it will perform against those viruses. And so, by running those types of experiments, you're doing more precision—making modifications and finding antibodies that now aren't just the ones that your body produces but have been optimized to neutralize the virus."
#Invivyd #COVID #COVID19 #mAbs #VVD222 #Antibodies #MonoclonalAntibodies
invivyd.com
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Dave Hering, Chief Executive Officer and Director at Invivyd, draws on his experience with vaccines working at Pfizer and research on monoclonal antibodies to engineer targeted monoclonal antibodies to treat diseases like cancer and prevent diseases like COVID-19. Providing antibodies, particularly to immunocompromised people, overcomes the limitations of vaccines and reduces the risk of severe outcomes from diseases.
Dave elaborates, "Antibodies are made by humans. They're made in response to an antigen, a virus being introduced into the body. Frequently, the starting point for these antibodies is to take blood and serum from people infected from a disease and look for these antibodies. And so that's the starting way. We call that mining antibodies. You can get them from survivors of different diseases and then use them to generate and create antibodies that look like that."
"And so Invivyd does the same thing. We start with those. But with our technology and a partnership with a company called Adimab, we've perfected this engineering that does this affinity maturation. You can do this in yeast cells. And do it and replicate it thousands and thousands of times with minor tweaks, and see how it will perform against those viruses. And so, by running those types of experiments, you're doing more precision—making modifications and finding antibodies that now aren't just the ones that your body produces but have been optimized to neutralize the virus."
#Invivyd #COVID #COVID19 #mAbs #VVD222 #Antibodies #MonoclonalAntibodies
invivyd.com
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Luká Yancopoulos is CEO of Grapevine Technologies, a COVID-inspired company determined to increase resilience in the supply chain for healthcare supplies. Disrupting the current network of manufacturers, importers, and distributors, Grapevine is connecting suppliers directly to end users. They aim to build a more resilient network of suppliers, eliminate waste and unnecessary costs for medical providers, and reduce patient charges.
Luká explains, "Not a lot has changed in the healthcare space regarding logistics and supply chain in my lifetime. So, getting things to change and getting things to budge is definitely difficult in nature. But our primary business innovation is that we seamlessly connect a data-driven network of primary suppliers directly to healthcare practices."
"When I say that Grapevine is connecting this data-driven network of primary suppliers, we're using the data made publicly available by the United States government to find actual importers or manufacturers of the medical supplies and find the companies that sell to McKesson, Henry Schein, Cardinal Health, and Medline. And we basically onboard those primary suppliers, those importers, upstream of the middleman, McKesson, and these big dinosaur distributors. And we connect those importers directly to end users."
"There's a lot that incurs additional costs between the importer and the end user when they purchase from McKesson. They have to move it to McKesson's warehouse. They then pay the McKesson labor staff. They pay the account manager. And by bypassing the middleman, you bypass with him his inefficiencies, his markups. And at Grapevine, we can offer the same products that these healthcare practices already buy at an average of 62% lower prices, which is a significant saving that can be carried forward to patients and reduce the financial burden of healthcare costs."
#GrapevineTechnologies #SupplyChain #MedicalSupplies #MedicalDevices #Healthcare #CostReduction #SupplyShortages
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Luká Yancopoulos is CEO of Grapevine Technologies, a COVID-inspired company determined to increase resilience in the supply chain for healthcare supplies. Disrupting the current network of manufacturers, importers, and distributors, Grapevine is connecting suppliers directly to end users. They aim to build a more resilient network of suppliers, eliminate waste and unnecessary costs for medical providers, and reduce patient charges.
Luká explains, "Not a lot has changed in the healthcare space regarding logistics and supply chain in my lifetime. So, getting things to change and getting things to budge is definitely difficult in nature. But our primary business innovation is that we seamlessly connect a data-driven network of primary suppliers directly to healthcare practices."
"When I say that Grapevine is connecting this data-driven network of primary suppliers, we're using the data made publicly available by the United States government to find actual importers or manufacturers of the medical supplies and find the companies that sell to McKesson, Henry Schein, Cardinal Health, and Medline. And we basically onboard those primary suppliers, those importers, upstream of the middleman, McKesson, and these big dinosaur distributors. And we connect those importers directly to end users."
"There's a lot that incurs additional costs between the importer and the end user when they purchase from McKesson. They have to move it to McKesson's warehouse. They then pay the McKesson labor staff. They pay the account manager. And by bypassing the middleman, you bypass with him his inefficiencies, his markups. And at Grapevine, we can offer the same products that these healthcare practices already buy at an average of 62% lower prices, which is a significant saving that can be carried forward to patients and reduce the financial burden of healthcare costs."
#GrapevineTechnologies #SupplyChain #MedicalSupplies #MedicalDevices #Healthcare #CostReduction #SupplyShortages
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Dr. Anupam Jena is an economist, a physician, a podcaster, and the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Healthcare Policy at the Harvard Medical School. He's also the co-author, along with Dr. Christopher Worsham, of the newly published book Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces that Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health. Anupam, also known as Dr. Bapu, combines his medical training with curiosity about cause and effect to explore explanations for failures and successes in providing healthcare and how chance occurrences affect our health. Of particular interest is the power of natural experiments to enhance understanding of the effect of a treatment or drug within a larger universe than traditional randomized clinical trials.
Bapu elaborates, "One of the benefits of these natural experiments is that they are more generalizable. They tell us what might happen in a real world because you're exactly right. If a clinical trial is performed, it may be performed in a very particular geographic area, in a very particular type of patient that is not the same as the type of person who might take that medication in the real world."
"I don't think that we should be making whole-scale treatment decisions without randomized trials. So those are the gold standard, and we need them to be there. They provide an important foundation."
"But it's also important to know that they do have some limitations because we might not be able to do a randomized trial on every population person that we care about. That's where the natural experiments come in. I think they really are complements and not substitutes because once we have a sense that this medication does work based on randomized trials, then we can do natural experiments to say, "Well, they might work better or not as well in these particular populations of people."
"So it's no surprise to people that randomness or chance does affect our health in ways that we can appreciate. For example, a child drowns in the swimming pool because, just by chance, someone gets distracted in the moment, or someone is hit by a car. Again, totally random events. In many cases, a cancer, when there are no risk factors, that's unpredictable and it's a chance event."
#RandomActsofMedicine @DrBapuPod @AnupamBJena @DoubledayBook
Random Acts of Medicine
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Dr. Anupam Jena is an economist, a physician, a podcaster, and the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Healthcare Policy at the Harvard Medical School. He's also the co-author, along with Dr. Christopher Worsham, of the newly published book Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces that Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health. Anupam, also known as Dr. Bapu, combines his medical training with curiosity about cause and effect to explore explanations for failures and successes in providing healthcare and how chance occurrences affect our health. Of particular interest is the power of natural experiments to enhance understanding of the effect of a treatment or drug within a larger universe than traditional randomized clinical trials.
Bapu elaborates, "One of the benefits of these natural experiments is that they are more generalizable. They tell us what might happen in a real world because you're exactly right. If a clinical trial is performed, it may be performed in a very particular geographic area, in a very particular type of patient that is not the same as the type of person who might take that medication in the real world."
"I don't think that we should be making whole-scale treatment decisions without randomized trials. So those are the gold standard, and we need them to be there. They provide an important foundation."
"But it's also important to know that they do have some limitations because we might not be able to do a randomized trial on every population person that we care about. That's where the natural experiments come in. I think they really are complements and not substitutes because once we have a sense that this medication does work based on randomized trials, then we can do natural experiments to say, "Well, they might work better or not as well in these particular populations of people."
"So it's no surprise to people that randomness or chance does affect our health in ways that we can appreciate. For example, a child drowns in the swimming pool because, just by chance, someone gets distracted in the moment, or someone is hit by a car. Again, totally random events. In many cases, a cancer, when there are no risk factors, that's unpredictable and it's a chance event."
#RandomActsofMedicine @DrBapuPod @AnupamBJena @DoubledayBook
Random Acts of Medicine
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Will Cantrell is the Director of Product Solutions at InteliChart, a SaaS-based service providing digital tools to providers and EHR partners. Their focus is on the workflows of staff and clinicians and the patient experience in a telehealth environment or in-person appointment. InteliChart integrates existing systems with innovative technology to facilitate scheduling, reduce clinician stress, encourage preventative care, and better manage chronic diseases.
Will explains, "We focus more on workflows for staff to move in between patient visits, initiate sessions, put patients back in waiting rooms, move them between providers, and the patient experience is our primary focus. We can spend a lot of time building that in, not just to a telehealth workflow but into the entirety of the patient journey, and trying to bring that back to the patient portal, which is the hub of engagement for us. So, the patient gets more of a seamless experience through all their touch points."
"You don't have to worry about travel time and shifting between rooms, so you have some savings there as well. The nice thing about telehealth, too, is if the patient queues up early into the waiting room, and you're early, you can grab that patient and start to have that visit with them early, at least from our dashboard. Once you go through that, you can move on to the next patient, who is early. So you have some room there to make gains and have advantages from a time savings over in-office visits."
#InteliChart #PatientEngagement #Telehealth #Telemedicine #HealthIT #HealthOutcomes
InteliChart.com
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Will Cantrell is the Director of Product Solutions at InteliChart, a SaaS-based service providing digital tools to providers and EHR partners. Their focus is on the workflows of staff and clinicians and the patient experience in a telehealth environment or in-person appointment. InteliChart integrates existing systems with innovative technology to facilitate scheduling, reduce clinician stress, encourage preventative care, and better manage chronic diseases.
Will explains, "We focus more on workflows for staff to move in between patient visits, initiate sessions, put patients back in waiting rooms, move them between providers, and the patient experience is our primary focus. We can spend a lot of time building that in, not just to a telehealth workflow but into the entirety of the patient journey, and trying to bring that back to the patient portal, which is the hub of engagement for us. So, the patient gets more of a seamless experience through all their touch points."
"You don't have to worry about travel time and shifting between rooms, so you have some savings there as well. The nice thing about telehealth, too, is if the patient queues up early into the waiting room, and you're early, you can grab that patient and start to have that visit with them early, at least from our dashboard. Once you go through that, you can move on to the next patient, who is early. So you have some room there to make gains and have advantages from a time savings over in-office visits."
#InteliChart #PatientEngagement #Telehealth #Telemedicine #HealthIT #HealthOutcomes
InteliChart.com
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Dr. Björn Mellgård, VP and Global Program Lead of rare genetics and hematology at Takeda, is passionate about finding a cure for cTTP, congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. This ultra-rare disease, caused by an enzyme deficiency, presents in early childhood and results in life-threatening blood clots. With their investigational drug TAK-755, a recombinant enzyme, the volume is very small, and the infusion takes four to five minutes and is a replacement therapy to allow patients to avoid daily symptoms and acute episodes.
Björn explains, "What happens then is that we have our coagulation system, and many people have heard about bleeding disorders, mainly probably hemophilia, where you lack certain factors which are important to make the blood clot. TTP is on the other side of the spectrum, and the deficiency we're talking about, this ADAMTS13 enzyme, is also importantly involved in blood coagulation."
"But the effect is when you don't have this enzyme present. The blood has a tendency to spontaneously form blood clots in the circulation. And these blood clots then tend to lodge in critical organs such as the brain, the heart, and the kidney, and the patients then suffer symptoms based on that."
"So, our drug then represents a recombinant enzyme. So, it's a recombinant protein that is produced in a laboratory. It's exactly the same as we have in our bodies. And this kind of replacement therapy has been used for a long time. And I mentioned hemophilia as an example where Takeda and also other companies have recombinant factor VIII in that case. So, the principle behind this treatment is to give the patient what they're missing. That's pretty straightforward in some sense."
#Takeda #cTTP #TAK755 #RecombinantEnzyme #RareDisease
Takeda.com
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Dr. Björn Mellgård, VP and Global Program Lead of rare genetics and hematology at Takeda, is passionate about finding a cure for cTTP, congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. This ultra-rare disease, caused by an enzyme deficiency, presents in early childhood and results in life-threatening blood clots. With their investigational drug TAK-755, a recombinant enzyme, the volume is very small, and the infusion takes four to five minutes and is a replacement therapy to allow patients to avoid daily symptoms and acute episodes.
Björn explains, "What happens then is that we have our coagulation system, and many people have heard about bleeding disorders, mainly probably hemophilia, where you lack certain factors which are important to make the blood clot. TTP is on the other side of the spectrum, and the deficiency we're talking about, this ADAMTS13 enzyme, is also importantly involved in blood coagulation."
"But the effect is when you don't have this enzyme present. The blood has a tendency to spontaneously form blood clots in the circulation. And these blood clots then tend to lodge in critical organs such as the brain, the heart, and the kidney, and the patients then suffer symptoms based on that."
"So, our drug then represents a recombinant enzyme. So, it's a recombinant protein that is produced in a laboratory. It's exactly the same as we have in our bodies. And this kind of replacement therapy has been used for a long time. And I mentioned hemophilia as an example where Takeda and also other companies have recombinant factor VIII in that case. So, the principle behind this treatment is to give the patient what they're missing. That's pretty straightforward in some sense."
#Takeda #cTTP #TAK755 #RecombinantEnzyme #RareDisease
Takeda.com
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Steve Taddei, Co-Founder and Lab Director of HearAdvisor created to provide unbiased, scientifically-based analysis of over-the-counter hearing aids. With recent legislation allowing hearing aids to be sold directly to consumers and online, there is a need for a clear understanding of the features and benefits of available audio-enhancing technology. Using a life-like mannequin equipped with microphones, HearAdvisor can perform repeatable experiments to test the hearing aids across several categories and rank them for different purposes.
Steve explains, "Selecting devices that we found to perform best was quite a process, and I would like to say that HearAdvisor is an independent lab. We are not owned by any hearing aid company. We're kind of three hearing technology nerds or just audiology nerds, people who love sound, acoustics, and hearing. We saw this problem, we came together, and we used as best as possible, the scientific approach to make recordings of all these devices. These recordings emulate, as best as possible, what an individual may experience in the real world."
"So, multi-talker situations where you have one, two, or three people speaking, with various types and levels of background noise. We make recordings with all the technologies, and we measure their performance through several different metrics. We don't need to get into all of them, but for example, algorithms that predict how well an individual with hearing loss might be able to hear speech in background noise."
"Then we have an industry-standard mannequin, and the mannequin's name is KEMAR. It's an acronym for the product, but this mannequin emulates the average size shape of a human head and body, and it has little microphones where the eardrums are. So it's very similar and when we make recordings from our eight-speaker array, as it's called through our mannequin KEMAR, it emulates you sitting in that environment."
#HearAdvisor #HearingHealth #PatientAccessibility #HearingAids #OTCHearingAids #OvertheCounterHearingAids
Hearadvisor.com
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Steve Taddei, Co-Founder and Lab Director of HearAdvisor created to provide unbiased, scientifically-based analysis of over-the-counter hearing aids. With recent legislation allowing hearing aids to be sold directly to consumers and online, there is a need for a clear understanding of the features and benefits of available audio-enhancing technology. Using a life-like mannequin equipped with microphones, HearAdvisor can perform repeatable experiments to test the hearing aids across several categories and rank them for different purposes.
Steve explains, "Selecting devices that we found to perform best was quite a process, and I would like to say that HearAdvisor is an independent lab. We are not owned by any hearing aid company. We're kind of three hearing technology nerds or just audiology nerds, people who love sound, acoustics, and hearing. We saw this problem, we came together, and we used as best as possible, the scientific approach to make recordings of all these devices. These recordings emulate, as best as possible, what an individual may experience in the real world."
"So, multi-talker situations where you have one, two, or three people speaking, with various types and levels of background noise. We make recordings with all the technologies, and we measure their performance through several different metrics. We don't need to get into all of them, but for example, algorithms that predict how well an individual with hearing loss might be able to hear speech in background noise."
"Then we have an industry-standard mannequin, and the mannequin's name is KEMAR. It's an acronym for the product, but this mannequin emulates the average size shape of a human head and body, and it has little microphones where the eardrums are. So it's very similar and when we make recordings from our eight-speaker array, as it's called through our mannequin KEMAR, it emulates you sitting in that environment."
#HearAdvisor #HearingHealth #PatientAccessibility #HearingAids #OTCHearingAids #OvertheCounterHearingAids
Hearadvisor.com
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Dr. Zereana Jess-Huff, Senior VP of North American Operations at United We Care, a digital behavioral health company, created Stella. This advanced generative AI solution recognizes 40 human emotions and speaks 29 languages. Accessed through mobile apps and WhatsApp, this resource is interactive and available 24/7 to address daily stress issues and clinical diagnoses. A clinician-led self-paced, asynchronous video-based clinical program is available, as is coaching and resource material.
Zereana elaborates, "Stella is designed to meet and treat you where you're at on a behavioral health spectrum because, as individuals, we move up and down the spectrum at any given point in our lives. Stella is targeted to be able to treat the wide spectrum, and the solution as a whole is a full stack solution, which again allows us to treat the user from subclinical up to hospitalization in terms of treatment."
"So we are working on avatars right now. The intention is to create human-like faces that come in a number of nationalities and different ethnicities. So essentially, you can create your own avatar for Stella based on what you're most comfortable with and what you would like your therapist to look like. Stella, again, is not a therapist, but Stella is somebody talking to you, and so we felt it was important to give Stella a face. We just wanted users to be able to relate to that face."
"As the therapist is talking and as the user is talking, AI is essentially analyzing what the user utters. We call them utterances. So based on that, the AI can tell when the patient is disengaging in session. The AI can tell when somebody's decompensating, it can recommend when a therapist should switch course. So there are so many possibilities in terms of how AI will work to give behavioral health so much more power in sessions."
#UnitedWeCare #DigitalMentalHealth #MentalHealth #DrZereana #AI #GenerativeAI
unitedwecare.com
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Dr. Zereana Jess-Huff, Senior VP of North American Operations at United We Care, a digital behavioral health company, created Stella. This advanced generative AI solution recognizes 40 human emotions and speaks 29 languages. Accessed through mobile apps and WhatsApp, this resource is interactive and available 24/7 to address daily stress issues and clinical diagnoses. A clinician-led self-paced, asynchronous video-based clinical program is available, as is coaching and resource material.
Zereana elaborates, "Stella is designed to meet and treat you where you're at on a behavioral health spectrum because, as individuals, we move up and down the spectrum at any given point in our lives. Stella is targeted to be able to treat the wide spectrum, and the solution as a whole is a full stack solution, which again allows us to treat the user from subclinical up to hospitalization in terms of treatment."
"So we are working on avatars right now. The intention is to create human-like faces that come in a number of nationalities and different ethnicities. So essentially, you can create your own avatar for Stella based on what you're most comfortable with and what you would like your therapist to look like. Stella, again, is not a therapist, but Stella is somebody talking to you, and so we felt it was important to give Stella a face. We just wanted users to be able to relate to that face."
"As the therapist is talking and as the user is talking, AI is essentially analyzing what the user utters. We call them utterances. So based on that, the AI can tell when the patient is disengaging in session. The AI can tell when somebody's decompensating, it can recommend when a therapist should switch course. So there are so many possibilities in terms of how AI will work to give behavioral health so much more power in sessions."
#UnitedWeCare #DigitalMentalHealth #MentalHealth #DrZereana #AI #GenerativeAI
unitedwecare.com
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Dr. Fahar Merchant, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of Medicenna Therapeutics, talks about the role cytokines play in managing the immune system, activating the system, or dampening the immune response depending on the circumstances. When the system is out of balance, pathogens and cancers can attack, or autoimmune diseases can occur. MDNA11 is an engineered cytokine or superkine which can be used to effectively deliver drugs to treat a range of solid tumors. in addition, MDNA11 is being fused with a checkpoint inhibitor to both stimulate the immune system and reverse the exhaustion of cancer-fighting immune cells.
Fahar elaborates, "Engineered cytokines, or superkines, essentially have been designed so that these molecules are much more effective, they're much safer to administer, and therefore have better outcomes than naturally occurring cytokines. So naturally occurring cytokines tend to be rather small. They clear the kidneys very, very quickly, so they're not in the bloodstream for long enough."
"The other thing is that some of these cytokines can be very toxic when administered in large quantities. Scientists at Stanford University looked at these cytokines. We'll talk about three cytokines, interleukin-2, interleukin-4, and interleukin-13, and thus engineered them in such a way that they can be much more effective, more potent, but at the same time much safer as well. So that's why we call them engineered. That's why we call them superkines because they are much more potent, much more powerful, than our own naturally occurring cytokines floating in our bloodstream."
#Medicenna #Oncology #Cancer #Superkines #Cytokines #IL2 #immunotherapy
Medicenna.com
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Dr. Fahar Merchant, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of Medicenna Therapeutics, talks about the role cytokines play in managing the immune system, activating the system, or dampening the immune response depending on the circumstances. When the system is out of balance, pathogens and cancers can attack, or autoimmune diseases can occur. MDNA11 is an engineered cytokine or superkine which can be used to effectively deliver drugs to treat a range of solid tumors. in addition, MDNA11 is being fused with a checkpoint inhibitor to both stimulate the immune system and reverse the exhaustion of cancer-fighting immune cells.
Fahar elaborates, "Engineered cytokines, or superkines, essentially have been designed so that these molecules are much more effective, they're much safer to administer, and therefore have better outcomes than naturally occurring cytokines. So naturally occurring cytokines tend to be rather small. They clear the kidneys very, very quickly, so they're not in the bloodstream for long enough."
"The other thing is that some of these cytokines can be very toxic when administered in large quantities. Scientists at Stanford University looked at these cytokines. We'll talk about three cytokines, interleukin-2, interleukin-4, and interleukin-13, and thus engineered them in such a way that they can be much more effective, more potent, but at the same time much safer as well. So that's why we call them engineered. That's why we call them superkines because they are much more potent, much more powerful, than our own naturally occurring cytokines floating in our bloodstream."
#Medicenna #Oncology #Cancer #Superkines #Cytokines #IL2 #Immunotherapy
Medicenna.com
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Dr. Sachin Dev is a former physician and previous Gartner analyst, currently overseeing innovation and transformation in RGP's healthcare practice. Sachin points to the changes during the pandemic that were required for telehealth solutions to meet the needs of patients and providers. The technology necessary to build these systems into hybrid environments must take advantage of generative AI and automation with a focus on value-based care.
Sachin explains, "When we look at it from our technology standpoint, we have seen some significant development in the technology. When we look at all the different innovations, especially in the healthcare industry, both on the payer and provider side, in the last two or three years since the pandemic, we have come along very well from a technology standpoint."
"But, one thing that is lacking is the adoption. That's where, again, there's a big delta when we look at what kind of technology we have available today as to how that technology is utilized to improve patient care. There are a number of reasons why we lag from an adoption standpoint because, obviously, there's some financial pressure across our organizations."
"When we look at our healthcare system, many organizations still have some sort of legacy tools or technology that they're currently using. It's a pretty big lift for the organizations to be able to get to a point where they're able to utilize all these new buzzwords or the high technology such as ChatGPT, generative AI, automation, hyper-automation in a way where they can translate the value of that technology in terms of patient care. Again, that has a significant impact on how that technology can be leveraged and utilized to further improve our patient care and the patient experience."
#DigitalTransformation #RevenueCycleManagement #PatientExperience #HealthInnovation #HealthcareLeaders
rgp.com
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Dr. Sachin Dev is a former physician and previous Gartner analyst, currently overseeing innovation and transformation in RGP's healthcare practice. Sachin points to the changes during the pandemic that were required for telehealth solutions to meet the needs of patients and providers. The technology necessary to build these systems into hybrid environments must take advantage of generative AI and automation with a focus on value-based care.
Sachin explains, "When we look at it from our technology standpoint, we have seen some significant development in the technology. When we look at all the different innovations, especially in the healthcare industry, both on the payer and provider side, in the last two or three years since the pandemic, we have come along very well from a technology standpoint."
"But, one thing that is lacking is the adoption. That's where, again, there's a big delta when we look at what kind of technology we have available today as to how that technology is utilized to improve patient care. There are a number of reasons why we lag from an adoption standpoint because, obviously, there's some financial pressure across our organizations."
"When we look at our healthcare system, many organizations still have some sort of legacy tools or technology that they're currently using. It's a pretty big lift for the organizations to be able to get to a point where they're able to utilize all these new buzzwords or the high technology such as ChatGPT, generative AI, automation, hyper-automation in a way where they can translate the value of that technology in terms of patient care. Again, that has a significant impact on how that technology can be leveraged and utilized to further improve our patient care and the patient experience."
#DigitalTransformation #RevenueCycleManagement #PatientExperience #HealthInnovation #HealthcareLeaders
rgp.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Paulo Garcia, CEO and Co-Founder of Kytopen, is developing systems to refine the types of payloads, including RNA, DNA, and CRISPR-Cas RMP, that can be delivered to primary T cells, primary Natural Killer cells, and CD34 stem cells. To maximize the number of successfully engineered cells, the Flowfect Discovery technology, using a non-viral approach, automates the process of cell engineering and gene delivery into cells while dramatically reducing the time to produce the cells.
Paulo explains, "One of the key differentiating aspects of our technology is that we are using a continuous fluid flow format for the engineering of our cells. This fluid flow contributes to the delivery of these payloads to the different cells. And to put it into perspective, the flow rates that we use are quite large. They are in the tens of milliliters per minute. And if you translate that into a throughput of cells, you're talking about being able to process anywhere between 1 to 2 billion cells in 30 seconds. And these are large quantities of cells that have the possibility of being able to be then used not only in an autologous setting but also in an allogeneic setting in which many cells have to be administered to the patients in the different doses that are required."
"No technology currently processes at the high-volume rates we're talking about. And generally, what is done today is a batch process. There are non-viral techniques, and there are viral techniques, but what is required is for these cells to be introduced into a bioreactor divide, let them grow to the relevant numbers, and then they can be administered to the patients. And with a process that leverages the throughput of the Flowfect technology that Kytopen is developing, you can really reduce the time these processes take. And that is the vein-to-vein time, and reduce it to numbers that are measured in days as opposed to in weeks or months."
"Right now, our goal is to shrink the time that it takes from discovery to process development and into clinical manufacturing with the Flowfect technology that leverages different types of energy, mechanical energy, electrical energy, and buffer chemistry to give the best outcome and chance of the cells to be engineered and modified for the therapeutic applications of our partners."
#Kytopen #CellTherapy #ClinicalManufacturing #CellEngineering
Kytopen.com
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Dr. Paulo Garcia, CEO and Co-Founder of Kytopen, is developing systems to refine the types of payloads, including RNA, DNA, and CRISPR-Cas RMP, that can be delivered to primary T cells, primary Natural Killer cells, and CD34 stem cells. To maximize the number of successfully engineered cells, the Flowfect Discovery technology, using a non-viral approach, automates the process of cell engineering and gene delivery into cells while dramatically reducing the time to produce the cells.
Paulo explains, "One of the key differentiating aspects of our technology is that we are using a continuous fluid flow format for the engineering of our cells. This fluid flow contributes to the delivery of these payloads to the different cells. And to put it into perspective, the flow rates that we use are quite large. They are in the tens of milliliters per minute. And if you translate that into a throughput of cells, you're talking about being able to process anywhere between 1 to 2 billion cells in 30 seconds. And these are large quantities of cells that have the possibility of being able to be then used not only in an autologous setting but also in an allogeneic setting in which many cells have to be administered to the patients in the different doses that are required."
"No technology currently processes at the high-volume rates we're talking about. And generally, what is done today is a batch process. There are non-viral techniques, and there are viral techniques, but what is required is for these cells to be introduced into a bioreactor divide, let them grow to the relevant numbers, and then they can be administered to the patients. And with a process that leverages the throughput of the Flowfect technology that Kytopen is developing, you can really reduce the time these processes take. And that is the vein-to-vein time, and reduce it to numbers that are measured in days as opposed to in weeks or months."
"Right now, our goal is to shrink the time that it takes from discovery to process development and into clinical manufacturing with the Flowfect technology that leverages different types of energy, mechanical energy, electrical energy, and buffer chemistry to give the best outcome and chance of the cells to be engineered and modified for the therapeutic applications of our partners."
#Kytopen #CellTherapy #ClinicalManufacturing #CellEngineering
Kytopen.com
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Tuvik Beker, CEO, and Ranit Aharonov, CTO of Pangea Biomed, have designed ENLIGHT, a computational platform driving precision oncology that matches cancer tumors with available therapies. Drawing on an understanding of synthetic mortality and synthetic rescue, this approach focuses on how the interaction between genes increases or decreases the tumor cell's fitness and the likely response to a drug. Determining which populations might benefit most from a drug opens the door to new treatments for common and rare diseases.
Tuvik explains, "When we match therapies to patients, just according to the pure genetic characteristics of the tumor, sometimes we miss potential therapies, and sometimes we give patients therapies that do not work very effectively. To solve that, we developed ENLIGHT, which looks at the broader characteristics of the tumor, not just at the target gene, but multiple interactions, and that way, we can find potential therapies that are missed by the current guidelines and common biomarkers."
Ranit elaborates, "So when we search for these interactions between genes, we look at a lot of available cancer data. We have a large database of a lot of cell lines that were treated and human tumors, and we know the survival of the patients and so on, but we don't need to know anything about what drugs they got. Our algorithms allow us, by looking at a lot of correlations between different activations of genes and survival and what happens to cells, we are able to find what are the pairs in the entire genome of genes that their co-activation affects the fitness or the tumor survival. And by knowing this, you can think of it as a sort of vulnerability map of tumors."
"One of the things I haven't yet described and I think wouldn't have happened without this revolution is that we can now move a step further. When we look at a patient's tumor, we don't necessarily need to measure the RNA expression or the activation of genes directly. We can look at the tumor through a microscope using standard histopathology slides, the ones with the bluish and pinkish coloring that have been used for decades and are really available everywhere."
#PrecisionsMedicine #Oncology #PrecisionOncology #RareDisease #Biotech #Startup #AI #MachineLearning
pangeabiomed.com
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Tuvik Beker, CEO, and Ranit Aharonov, CTO of Pangea Biomed, have designed ENLIGHT, a computational platform driving precision oncology that matches cancer tumors with available therapies. Drawing on an understanding of synthetic mortality and synthetic rescue, this approach focuses on how the interaction between genes increases or decreases the tumor cell's fitness and the likely response to a drug. Determining which populations might benefit most from a drug opens the door to new treatments for common and rare diseases.
Tuvik explains, "When we match therapies to patients, just according to the pure genetic characteristics of the tumor, sometimes we miss potential therapies, and sometimes we give patients therapies that do not work very effectively. To solve that, we developed ENLIGHT, which looks at the broader characteristics of the tumor, not just at the target gene, but multiple interactions, and that way, we can find potential therapies that are missed by the current guidelines and common biomarkers."
Ranit elaborates, "So when we search for these interactions between genes, we look at a lot of available cancer data. We have a large database of a lot of cell lines that were treated and human tumors, and we know the survival of the patients and so on, but we don't need to know anything about what drugs they got. Our algorithms allow us, by looking at a lot of correlations between different activations of genes and survival and what happens to cells, we are able to find what are the pairs in the entire genome of genes that their co-activation affects the fitness or the tumor survival. And by knowing this, you can think of it as a sort of vulnerability map of tumors."
"One of the things I haven't yet described and I think wouldn't have happened without this revolution is that we can now move a step further. When we look at a patient's tumor, we don't necessarily need to measure the RNA expression or the activation of genes directly. We can look at the tumor through a microscope using standard histopathology slides, the ones with the bluish and pinkish coloring that have been used for decades and are really available everywhere."
#PrecisionsMedicine #Oncology #PrecisionOncology #RareDisease #Biotech #Startup #AI #MachineLearning
pangeabiomed.com
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Gloria Caulfield is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Tavistock and Executive Director of the Lake Nona Institute, which is part of the Lake Nona Life Sciences Innovation and Wellness Community. Lake Nona is a planned city within Orlando, Florida, that is focused on the health and well-being of the citizens who live and work there. One of the key economic drivers is the health and life sciences innovation cluster which includes the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, a VA Medical Center, and the Nemours Children's Hospital, a state-of-the-art pediatric healthcare system.
Gloria explains, "There is no question that it's a collaborative community when you're building something this new and this unique. We have leaders of these institutions that have come from all different parts of the country to bring their careers here to focus on building this new ecosystem. It fosters a spirit of collaboration, which starts with Tavistock. Tavistock as the developer, we chair research councils and CEO councils and communication councils, and just a wide range of things to bring key leaders together just for that purpose."
"One that I'll mention that's unique is the Lake Nona Performance Center, and the Lake Nona Performance Center is a medically integrated fitness facility. Again, going back to my initial comment that this whole community was built and designed with people, optimizing health and human potential is really at the forefront of our focus. This performance center is a nexus of multiple things. There's clinical care delivery, there's fitness services, there's sports performance, there's mind/body practices, all under one roof."
"This community is the sum of the parts. We have these big anchor organizations, which I've mentioned. We have innovation centers. One of those is the leAD Accelerator. It's a joint venture between Tavistock Group, which owns Lake Nona, and the Adi Dassler family, the founders of Adidas. It was set up and explicitly designed to support some of the best young companies in the health and sports tech arena."
#LakeNona #Healthcare #Innovation #Community #LifeSciences #Wellness #SportsMedicine #HealthcareInvesting
Tavistock.com
Listen to the podcast here
Gloria Caulfield is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Tavistock and Executive Director of the Lake Nona Institute, which is part of the Lake Nona Life Sciences Innovation and Wellness Community. Lake Nona is a planned city within Orlando, Florida, that is focused on the health and well-being of the citizens who live and work there. One of the key economic drivers is the health and life sciences innovation cluster which includes the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, a VA Medical Center, and the Nemours Children's Hospital, a state-of-the-art pediatric healthcare system.
Gloria explains, "There is no question that it's a collaborative community when you're building something this new and this unique. We have leaders of these institutions that have come from all different parts of the country to bring their careers here to focus on building this new ecosystem. It fosters a spirit of collaboration, which starts with Tavistock. Tavistock as the developer, we chair research councils and CEO councils and communication councils, and just a wide range of things to bring key leaders together just for that purpose."
"One that I'll mention that's unique is the Lake Nona Performance Center, and the Lake Nona Performance Center is a medically integrated fitness facility. Again, going back to my initial comment that this whole community was built and designed with people, optimizing health and human potential is really at the forefront of our focus. This performance center is a nexus of multiple things. There's clinical care delivery, there's fitness services, there's sports performance, there's mind/body practices, all under one roof."
"This community is the sum of the parts. We have these big anchor organizations, which I've mentioned. We have innovation centers. One of those is the leAD Accelerator. It's a joint venture between Tavistock Group, which owns Lake Nona, and the Adi Dassler family, the founders of Adidas. It was set up and explicitly designed to support some of the best young companies in the health and sports tech arena."
#LakeNona #Healthcare #Innovation #Community #LifeSciences #Wellness #SportsMedicine #HealthcareInvesting
Tavistock.com
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James McCullough, CEO of Renalytix, is focused on preventive care for those most likely to get chronic kidney disease. Diagnostics and risk assessment of patients earlier in the disease cycle emphasize maintaining kidney health rather than managing complications from late-stage kidney disease and kidney failure. Using a machine-learning algorithm to look at blood-based biomarkers and EMR data, the KidneyIntelX system provides the clinician with a risk score and guidelines for treatment.
James elaborates, "There are five stages of kidney disease. We're focused on the early stages, so stages 1 through 3, before the majority of damage is done to the kidney. When you have therapeutic intervention, lifestyle intervention, you get specialist involvement, you have a pretty good shot at slowing or stopping the progression of the disease into the later stages, stages 4 and 5, where your options start to become limited."
"With KidneyIntelX now, for the first time, we can start to see risk assessment taking place at the front end of the chronic disease with the primary care doctor. If you score high by KidneyIntelX, you are roughly 20 times more likely to experience significant kidney function decline over the next five years versus if you score low by KidneyIntelX. The stratification, for the first time, becomes a very powerful tool that we can implement very simply at the primary care level, where most people with early-stage kidney disease and diabetes are being seen."
"This is an advanced prognosis. Prognosis is the key to controlling chronic disease, especially widespread chronic disease because you can't treat everybody. We know that probably close to half the people with kidney disease and diabetes aren't progressing over the next few years. The real question becomes because there are so many people with diabetes and kidney disease. and healthcare resources are limited, who do you treat? Who should you be concerned about now to be able to give drug treatments, specialist referrals, and significant lifestyle modifications?"
@Renalytix #KidneyDisease #KidneyHealth #DIgitalHealth #AI #MachineLearning #Diagnostics
renalytix.com
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James McCullough, CEO of Renalytix, is focused on preventive care for those most likely to get chronic kidney disease. Diagnostics and risk assessment of patients earlier in the disease cycle emphasize maintaining kidney health rather than managing complications from late-stage kidney disease and kidney failure. Using a machine-learning algorithm to look at blood-based biomarkers and EMR data, the KidneyIntelX system provides the clinician with a risk score and guidelines for treatment.
James elaborates, "There are five stages of kidney disease. We're focused on the early stages, so stages 1 through 3, before the majority of damage is done to the kidney. When you have therapeutic intervention, lifestyle intervention, you get specialist involvement, you have a pretty good shot at slowing or stopping the progression of the disease into the later stages, stages 4 and 5, where your options start to become limited."
"With KidneyIntelX now, for the first time, we can start to see risk assessment taking place at the front end of the chronic disease with the primary care doctor. If you score high by KidneyIntelX, you are roughly 20 times more likely to experience significant kidney function decline over the next five years versus if you score low by KidneyIntelX. The stratification, for the first time, becomes a very powerful tool that we can implement very simply at the primary care level, where most people with early-stage kidney disease and diabetes are being seen."
"This is an advanced prognosis. Prognosis is the key to controlling chronic disease, especially widespread chronic disease because you can't treat everybody. We know that probably close to half the people with kidney disease and diabetes aren't progressing over the next few years. The real question becomes because there are so many people with diabetes and kidney disease. and healthcare resources are limited, who do you treat? Who should you be concerned about now to be able to give drug treatments, specialist referrals, and significant lifestyle modifications?"
@Renalytix #KidneyDisease #KidneyHealth #DIgitalHealth #AI #MachineLearning #Diagnostics
renalytix.com
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Yarone Goren, Co-Founder and COO of SteadyMD powers telehealth for providers by providing the clinician workforce licensed in the states where the patients are located. Supported by behind-the-scenes clinical operations and patient interface, clinicians can give virtual care in addition to performing their traditional roles. With the growth in the demand for telemedicine, this solution provides a path for clinicians and digital health companies to meet the needs of patients for primary and disease-specific care and to manage chronic conditions on demand.
Yarone explains, "What we do for a lot of our customers is provide the clinician workforce, the doctors, the nurses, the therapists, licensed, kind of a crazy Venn diagram of licensure across all the states where they need it. We do clinical operations, meaning we work closely with clinicians to schedule them to ensure that they appear for their scheduled shifts, train them on all the technology they need to use, and ensure that they meet all the clinical quality measures and SLAs."
"Then the last piece is product and technology. Someone needs to provide the interfaces for the patients to sign up, to fill out their intake form, see their patient portal, and to schedule a follow-up appointment. We do a lot of that. We also do a lot of the product and tech for the clinicians, making it easy for them to do their job and efficiently handle visits across a handful of programs and modalities in all the states where they're licensed."
"The challenge is to bring our expertise to the fore, support them in the way they need, and also help influence their product plans, product roadmap, and strategic thinking about this stuff. And it's definitely tricky to navigate. We also have a lot of customers. We do a lot of work in online urgent care, in condition-specific care, in online primary care, in lab ordering, lab order review and approval, and in online therapy as well. There are little differences in texture in all of those, but it's probably split pretty evenly. Folks come to us to design, build, and launch something from scratch, and then there are those who come to us and want help scaling and expanding."
#Telehealth #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #VirtualHealth #VirtualCare #HealthcareInnovation #PoweringTelehealth
steadymd.com
Listen to the podcast here
Yarone Goren, Co-Founder and COO of SteadyMD powers telehealth for providers by providing the clinician workforce licensed in the states where the patients are located. Supported by behind-the-scenes clinical operations and patient interface, clinicians can give virtual care in addition to performing their traditional roles. With the growth in the demand for telemedicine, this solution provides a path for clinicians and digital health companies to meet the needs of patients for primary and disease-specific care and to manage chronic conditions on demand.
Yarone explains, "What we do for a lot of our customers is provide the clinician workforce, the doctors, the nurses, the therapists, licensed, kind of a crazy Venn diagram of licensure across all the states where they need it. We do clinical operations, meaning we work closely with clinicians to schedule them to ensure that they appear for their scheduled shifts, train them on all the technology they need to use, and ensure that they meet all the clinical quality measures and SLAs."
"Then the last piece is product and technology. Someone needs to provide the interfaces for the patients to sign up, to fill out their intake form, see their patient portal, and to schedule a follow-up appointment. We do a lot of that. We also do a lot of the product and tech for the clinicians, making it easy for them to do their job and efficiently handle visits across a handful of programs and modalities in all the states where they're licensed."
"The challenge is to bring our expertise to the fore, support them in the way they need, and also help influence their product plans, product roadmap, and strategic thinking about this stuff. And it's definitely tricky to navigate. We also have a lot of customers. We do a lot of work in online urgent care, in condition-specific care, in online primary care, in lab ordering, lab order review and approval, and in online therapy as well. There are little differences in texture in all of those, but it's probably split pretty evenly. Folks come to us to design, build, and launch something from scratch, and then there are those who come to us and want help scaling and expanding."
#Telehealth #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #VirtualHealth #VirtualCare #HealthcareInnovation #PoweringTelehealth
steadymd.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Tariq Arshad is the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Qualigen Therapeutics, addressing multiple types of RAS-driven cancers. While researchers understand RAS's role in tumorgenesis and have identified which cancers are RAS-driven, RAS has been considered an undruggable target. With a pan-RAS approach inhibiting KRAS, HRAS and NRAS, the three isoforms of RAS, Qualigen is identifying drug candidates showing strong anti-tumor efficacy.
Tariq elaborates, "That was so difficult to do because when you look at the KRAS protein itself, it's a complicated, three-dimensional structure that constantly changes. The opening, or the aperture, where a small molecule can attach and inhibit the G12C moiety or specifically the cysteine amino acid, which is targeted by these inhibitors, it appears for a very, very short period of time. It's nothing short of a miracle of bioengineering, and specifically medicinal chemistry that we've been able to identify these inhibitors that can target that subcomponent, that very small aperture within the overall KRAS protein, without, as you're saying, impacting the function of the overall protein."
"The field is moving towards understanding why this lack of durability exists and is trying to understand whether it's due to the emergence of other mutations, whether it's due to the emergence of wild-type RAS, or whether it's due to other factors. One of the theories that is emerging behind the emergence of this KRAS resistance is the fact that there are other RAS isoforms that exist in the same tumor. They allow a mechanism in which the tumorigenesis can bypass KRAS, even though it's inhibited, and signal into the cell to convert it into a cancer cell. It now becomes important for us to understand how we can address that potential mechanism of resistance."
#QualigenInc #RAS #KRAS #RASDrivenCancer #Cancer
QualigenInc.com
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Dr. Tariq Arshad is the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Qualigen Therapeutics, addressing multiple types of RAS-driven cancers. While researchers understand RAS's role in tumorgenesis and have identified which cancers are RAS-driven, RAS has been considered an undruggable target. With a pan-RAS approach inhibiting KRAS, HRAS and NRAS, the three isoforms of RAS, Qualigen is identifying drug candidates showing strong anti-tumor efficacy.
Tariq elaborates, "That was so difficult to do because when you look at the KRAS protein itself, it's a complicated, three-dimensional structure that constantly changes. The opening, or the aperture, where a small molecule can attach and inhibit the G12C moiety or specifically the cysteine amino acid, which is targeted by these inhibitors, it appears for a very, very short period of time. It's nothing short of a miracle of bioengineering, and specifically medicinal chemistry that we've been able to identify these inhibitors that can target that subcomponent, that very small aperture within the overall KRAS protein, without, as you're saying, impacting the function of the overall protein."
"The field is moving towards understanding why this lack of durability exists and is trying to understand whether it's due to the emergence of other mutations, whether it's due to the emergence of wild-type RAS, or whether it's due to other factors. One of the theories that is emerging behind the emergence of this KRAS resistance is the fact that there are other RAS isoforms that exist in the same tumor. They allow a mechanism in which the tumorigenesis can bypass KRAS, even though it's inhibited, and signal into the cell to convert it into a cancer cell. It now becomes important for us to understand how we can address that potential mechanism of resistance."
#QualigenInc #RAS #KRAS #RASDrivenCancer #Cancer
QualigenInc.com
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Patty Hayward, General Manager, Healthcare and Life Sciences at Talkdesk, is addressing staff burnout due to the increased demand for patient support and rising patient expectations to get questions answered, appointments scheduled, and issues resolved. Through AI, chatbots, and automation of basic tasks, staff can spend more time with patients to address complex problems. While some patients still like to talk to a live person on the phone, the use of technology allows for real-time responses to many concerns through a patient portal or contact center that has access to patient EMR including history and current medical condition.
Patty explains, "People come into healthcare specifically because they want to help people. Healthcare is very personal, and so when you don't have the time and space and resources often to deliver that empathetic experience to really help people, that can lead to a real high level of burnout feeling, a lot of frustration, and you're not having that job satisfaction that you got into healthcare for."
"Everyone can use Amazon. You can do the same thing here with certain aspects that are simple. So it's a matter of those low-hanging fruit, those things that are easy, getting people used to that, getting them used to being able to go to that as a first step as opposed to the phone and calling someone first."
"But then also, okay, if they want to go voice, let's create chatbots that are on the phone that are voice virtual agents that allow us to have a conversation on the phone. Because sometimes it doesn't matter how many times you push people toward the computer, a lot of people are still going to call you."
@Talkdesk #Talkdesk #EmployeeBurnout #PatientJourney #ContactCenter #PatientPortal #DigitalHealth #HealthcareIT #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #Healthcare #AI
talkdesk.com
Listen to the podcast here
Patty Hayward, General Manager, Healthcare and Life Sciences at Talkdesk, is addressing staff burnout due to the increased demand for patient support and rising patient expectations to get questions answered, appointments scheduled, and issues resolved. Through AI, chatbots, and automation of basic tasks, staff can spend more time with patients to address complex problems. While some patients still like to talk to a live person on the phone, the use of technology allows for real-time responses to many concerns through a patient portal or contact center that has access to patient EMR including history and current medical condition.
Patty explains, "People come into healthcare specifically because they want to help people. Healthcare is very personal, and so when you don't have the time and space and resources often to deliver that empathetic experience to really help people, that can lead to a real high level of burnout feeling, a lot of frustration, and you're not having that job satisfaction that you got into healthcare for."
"Everyone can use Amazon. You can do the same thing here with certain aspects that are simple. So it's a matter of those low-hanging fruit, those things that are easy, getting people used to that, getting them used to being able to go to that as a first step as opposed to the phone and calling someone first."
"But then also, okay, if they want to go voice, let's create chatbots that are on the phone that are voice virtual agents that allow us to have a conversation on the phone. Because sometimes it doesn't matter how many times you push people toward the computer, a lot of people are still going to call you."
@Talkdesk #Talkdesk #EmployeeBurnout #PatientJourney #ContactCenter #PatientPortal #DigitalHealth #HealthcareIT #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #Healthcare #AI
talkdesk.com
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James Graham is the CEO of Recce Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company focused on the global antibiotic-resistant patient population. This new class of synthetic antibiotics takes a broad-spectrum approach to kill bacterial infections, which continue to mutate, rendering existing antibiotics ineffective. The founding inventor of Recce is Dr. Graham Melrose, the grandfather of James, who has grown this idea into one of the top-performing biotech stocks in Australia.
James explains, "As you may know, by my accent, I’m an Australian. I think Australia found the first penicillin, which worked well for everyone around the world for a number of years. But it’s time for a new penicillin, penicillin 2.0, or one entirely synthetic, not reliant on existing natural processes. And that’s what we’ve fundamentally started with, beginning with the end in mind that is Recce antibiotics. So I really say the challenge, the silent pandemic is right upon us. You only have to look at the AMR resistance rates. I think raising at about 10% each year, certainly in certain antibiotic or indication groups. If we don’t do something, we’re just going to have these useless drugs that no one will pay the price for anyway. The business model will be broken, and everybody will be out of options. It’s really the pandemic before us."
"I hinted that R327 is synthetic. It’s entirely synthetic when all existing antibiotics to date are naturally derived. So the way antibiotics and bacteria have always worked is that you find something in nature by way of the antibiotic. The bacteria are too smart. They evolve too quickly, and let’s begin with the end in mind and create something that will work against all types of bacteria, gram-positive gram-negative in their hypercellular mutated forms, and keep on working with repeated use."
"And in the case of my origins with Recce, the inventor, Dr. Graham Melrose, is actually my grandfather. He turned 90 years old about a little over a month ago, and he's the guy who was the head of Johnson & Johnson Australasia for about a decade. He is the foundational inventor of this compound. And he and I started this company. He's the inventor. I just gave him a bit of money, and off we went. That's the easy part. He started identifying the ideal compound in his garage in Perth in Western Australia. If anyone knows where that is, it's actually the most isolated city in the world."
@ReccePharma #AntimicrobialResistance #AMR #SuperBugs #Sepsis #UTIs #Urosepsis #SyntheticAntiInfective #Antibiotics #AustraliaBioTech
recce.com.au
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James Graham is the CEO of Recce Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company focused on the global antibiotic-resistant patient population. This new class of synthetic antibiotics takes a broad-spectrum approach to kill bacterial infections, which continue to mutate, rendering existing antibiotics ineffective. The founding inventor of Recce is Dr. Graham Melrose, the grandfather of James, who has grown this idea into one of the top-performing biotech stocks in Australia.
James explains, "As you may know, by my accent, I’m an Australian. I think Australia found the first penicillin, which worked well for everyone around the world for a number of years. But it’s time for a new penicillin, penicillin 2.0, or one entirely synthetic, not reliant on existing natural processes. And that’s what we’ve fundamentally started with, beginning with the end in mind that is Recce antibiotics. So I really say the challenge, the silent pandemic is right upon us. You only have to look at the AMR resistance rates. I think raising at about 10% each year, certainly in certain antibiotic or indication groups. If we don’t do something, we’re just going to have these useless drugs that no one will pay the price for anyway. The business model will be broken, and everybody will be out of options. It’s really the pandemic before us."
"I hinted that R327 is synthetic. It’s entirely synthetic when all existing antibiotics to date are naturally derived. So the way antibiotics and bacteria have always worked is that you find something in nature by way of the antibiotic. The bacteria are too smart. They evolve too quickly, and let’s begin with the end in mind and create something that will work against all types of bacteria, gram-positive gram-negative in their hypercellular mutated forms, and keep on working with repeated use."
"And in the case of my origins with Recce, the inventor, Dr. Graham Melrose, is actually my grandfather. He turned 90 years old about a little over a month ago, and he's the guy who was the head of Johnson & Johnson Australasia for about a decade. He is the foundational inventor of this compound. And he and I started this company. He's the inventor. I just gave him a bit of money, and off we went. That's the easy part. He started identifying the ideal compound in his garage in Perth in Western Australia. If anyone knows where that is, it's actually the most isolated city in the world."
@ReccePharma #AntimicrobialResistance #AMR #SuperBugs #Sepsis #UTIs #Urosepsis #SyntheticAntiInfective #Antibiotics #AustraliaBioTech
recce.com.au
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Jennifer Jones-McMeans, Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott, discusses Abbott's new diversity initiative to help address mistrust and societal barriers that underrepresented populations face in receiving healthcare and participating in clinical trials. Through partnerships, clinical research coordinators from diverse backgrounds working in smaller institutions are trained to work with these populations. Norton Health with the Institute for Health Equity is putting funding and infrastructure in place to build a research program model for historically Black colleges and universities to attract more diverse participation in trials and build more vital research institutions.
Jennifer explains, "I had a good conversation with a physician today from the New York area, and we talked about one barrier that is translation. We discussed that the clinical trial this individual is working on did not have the resources for translation services. And so, if you think about something as simple as that, it means that patients who are non-English speaking, their family members, and researchers cannot even approach them because they may not have the translated material. That's one very simple barrier. We can go back to also time - patient time is critical. If you think about individuals who are working and who have family obligations, how do we actually reduce the barrier of time?"
"Well, this is where when we think about race and ethnicity, race is not biologic. Remember, it's a social construct. Ethnicity is a social construct. Yes, if you look geographically, we're 99.9% similar when it comes to human genomes. Who I am as an African-American female, I may have far more genetic similarities to someone who is not of African descent. We first have to dispel that. Yes, there can be genetic elements. We do know that geographically you may see a higher frequency of certain genetic associations and whatnot. But I think it becomes less about this because genetics and race are not biologic."
"When you think about who do I need to include? You have to bring in this whole concept of social determinants of health, or also concepts where people, cultures, groups, individuals are impressed not only by the biology but what their surroundings are."
#Abbott #ClinicalTrials #DiversityinClinicalTrials #DiversityResearch #Healthcare #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth
Abbott.com
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Jennifer Jones-McMeans, Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott, discusses Abbot's new diversity initiative to help address mistrust and societal barriers that underrepresented populations face in receiving healthcare and participating in clinical trials. Through partnerships, clinical research coordinators from diverse backgrounds working in smaller institutions are trained to work with these populations. Norton Health with the Institute for Health Equity is putting funding and infrastructure in place to build a research program model for historically Black colleges and universities to attract more diverse participation in trials and build more vital research institutions.
Jennifer explains, "I had a good conversation with a physician today from the New York area, and we talked about one barrier that is translation. We discussed that the clinical trial this individual is working on did not have the resources for translation services. And so, if you think about something as simple as that, it means that patients who are non-English speaking, their family members, and researchers cannot even approach them because they may not have the translated material. That's one very simple barrier. We can go back to also time - patient time is critical. If you think about individuals who are working and who have family obligations, how do we actually reduce the barrier of time?"
"Well, this is where when we think about race and ethnicity, race is not biologic. Remember, it's a social construct. Ethnicity is a social construct. Yes, if you look geographically, we're 99.9% similar when it comes to human genomes. Who I am as an African-American female, I may have far more genetic similarities to someone who is not of African descent. We first have to dispel that. Yes, there can be genetic elements. We do know that geographically you may see a higher frequency of certain genetic associations and whatnot. But I think it becomes less about this because genetics and race are not biologic."
"When you think about who do I need to include? You have to bring in this whole concept of social determinants of health, or also concepts where people, cultures, groups, individuals are impressed not only by the biology but what their surroundings are."
#Abbott #ClinicalTrials #DiversityinClinicalTrials #DiversityResearch #Healthcare #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth
Abbott.com
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Que Dallara, Executive Vice President and President of the Diabetes Operating Unit at Medtronic, is enthusiastic about the MiniMed 780G system, a recently FDA approved solution for people with type 1 diabetes. This system has a continuous glucose monitor, insulin pump, and mobile app that connects with CareLink, which allows the physician and family members to follow the patient as well. This automated insulin delivery eliminates the need to count carbs and calibrates to each individual's eating habits for more accurate dosing.
Que explains, "It's the first of its kind that has automated adjustments and corrections to insulin delivery without needing the patient to do anything. The existing systems on the market have automated basal delivery, which helps to some degree, but we've introduced this concept of meal detection technology. It can figure out that you're having a meal. For example, if you're undercounting your carbs, it can notice that you're actually having a meal and then provide order corrections so that you don't go too high. It can do that in a safe way without increasing the risk of hypoglycemia."
"So it's very difficult with a CGM alone and with just the patient to make all these decisions throughout the day. What the MiniMed 780G does is automates all of that. There's a CGM, and with the specific algorithm that we have on the 780G. It knows when you're going low, when you're going high, how much insulin on board, the rate of change of all of this, when you might have under-counted carbs, when you may have missed a bolus. And it helps you make the decision automatically. You don't have to be involved. It's truly a hands-off system."
@Medtronic #MiniMed780G #Diabetes #Type1Diabete #TypeOneDiabetes #CGM #ContinuousGlucoseMonitoring #MealDetection
medtronicdiabetes.com
Listen to the podcast here
Que Dallara, Executive Vice President and President of the Diabetes Operating Unit at Medtronic, is enthusiastic about the MiniMed 780G system, a recently FDA approved solution for people with type 1 diabetes. This system has a continuous glucose monitor, insulin pump, and mobile app that connects with CareLink, which allows the physician and family members to follow the patient as well. This automated insulin delivery eliminates the need to count carbs and calibrates to each individual's eating habits for more accurate dosing.
Que explains, "It's the first of its kind that has automated adjustments and corrections to insulin delivery without needing the patient to do anything. The existing systems on the market have automated basal delivery, which helps to some degree, but we've introduced this concept of meal detection technology. It can figure out that you're having a meal. For example, if you're undercounting your carbs, it can notice that you're actually having a meal and then provide order corrections so that you don't go too high. It can do that in a safe way without increasing the risk of hypoglycemia."
"So it's very difficult with a CGM alone and with just the patient to make all these decisions throughout the day. What the MiniMed 780G does is automates all of that. There's a CGM, and with the specific algorithm that we have on the 780G. It knows when you're going low, when you're going high, how much insulin on board, the rate of change of all of this, when you might have under-counted carbs, when you may have missed a bolus. And it helps you make the decision automatically. You don't have to be involved. It's truly a hands-off system."
@Medtronic #MiniMed780G #Diabetes #Type1Diabete #TypeOneDiabetes #CGM #ContinuousGlucoseMonitoring #MealDetection
medtronicdiabetes.com
Download the transcript here
Joe Todisco, CEO of CorMedix, is developing a product that has broad spectrum activity against bacteria and fungus to impact the safety of receiving hemodialysis through a central venous catheter. With the recent acceptance by the FDA of the submission for DefenCath, CorMedix is hopeful of obtaining FDA approval for this therapeutic to prevent bloodstream infections. Since the active ingredient is not an antibiotic, the drug does not further the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Joe explains, "The lead indication for the product is for the reduction in risk associated with catheter-related bloodstream infections in hemodialysis patients undergoing hemodialysis with a central venous catheter, CVC. Catheter-related bloodstream infections, or CRBSIs, are one of the most severe adverse consequences associated with getting hemodialysis through a CVC. The incidence rate in the general population is about 25% to 33%, and they can be fatal up to 25% of the time. So it's a critical unmet medical need. There is no current FDA approved therapeutic for the prevention of bloodstream infection in this patient population or any population, and we're hopeful to obtain FDA approval as a first-in-class therapy."
"DefenCath is what's called a catheter lock solution. As I said, it's investigational. It has not received FDA approval yet. But it is designed to sit in the catheter between dialysis sessions or times that a catheter is accessed. We're pursuing our initial approval for the hemodialysis patient population. Still, the hope is to expand the label post-approval into some other therapeutic areas where patients have high levels of infection and high rates of catheterization. But the product sits in the catheter in between dialysis sessions. It's a combination of heparin, which is an anticoagulant, and our proprietary molecule, Taurolidine. Taurolidine is a molecule with the unique properties of being a non-antibiotic antimicrobial with broad-spectrum activity."
#CorMedix #CRBSI #CLABSI #Dialysis #Infections #BloodstreamInfections #HealthcareInnovation
cormedix.com
Listen to the podcast here
Joe Todisco, CEO of CorMedix, is developing a product that has broad spectrum activity against bacteria and fungus to impact the safety of receiving hemodialysis through a central venous catheter. With the recent acceptance by the FDA of the submission for DefenCath, CorMedix is hopeful of obtaining FDA approval for this therapeutic to prevent bloodstream infections. Since the active ingredient is not an antibiotic, the drug does not further the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Joe explains, "The lead indication for the product is for the reduction in risk associated with catheter-related bloodstream infections in hemodialysis patients undergoing hemodialysis with a central venous catheter, CVC. Catheter-related bloodstream infections, or CRBSIs, are one of the most severe adverse consequences associated with getting hemodialysis through a CVC. The incidence rate in the general population is about 25% to 33%, and they can be fatal up to 25% of the time. So it's a critical unmet medical need. There is no current FDA approved therapeutic for the prevention of bloodstream infection in this patient population or any population, and we're hopeful to obtain FDA approval as a first-in-class therapy."
"DefenCath is what's called a catheter lock solution. As I said, it's investigational. It has not received FDA approval yet. But it is designed to sit in the catheter between dialysis sessions or times that a catheter is accessed. We're pursuing our initial approval for the hemodialysis patient population. Still, the hope is to expand the label post-approval into some other therapeutic areas where patients have high levels of infection and high rates of catheterization. But the product sits in the catheter in between dialysis sessions. It's a combination of heparin, which is an anticoagulant, and our proprietary molecule, Taurolidine. Taurolidine is a molecule with the unique properties of being a non-antibiotic antimicrobial with broad-spectrum activity."
#CorMedix #CRBSI #CLABSI #Dialysis #Infections #BloodstreamInfections #HealthcareInnovation
cormedix.com
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Jeff Hackman, CEO of Comera Life Sciences, recognizes the need to find a more efficient, patient-friendly solution for receiving biologics rather than being administered by IV therapy. Using the SQore platform, a proprietary technology, Comera is reformulating IV biologics to Sub-Q utilizing small molecule chemistry and an understanding of excipients. Seven out of ten global medicines are biologics, and most are administered by IV, providing a tremendous opportunity to expand access to biologics using Sub-Q technology.
Jeff elaborates, "Our mission is to transform these biologic therapies into a different form, a subcutaneous form. That form takes on the ability of these patients to administer these medicines for themselves, at home, at school, and at work. So really, what the summary of this mission is, through the freedom of self-injectable care, we hope that these patients can live a life without the burden of this therapy and the ability to be able to make their lives more livable."
"Excipients have been around for decades. They often fail to reduce the viscosity necessary to get these high-potency biologics into these small spaces, these small syringes, as you said. Our technology, which is called the SQore platform, allows this to happen more often, and it's such a significant impact that we have had multiple partnerships and collaborations with large pharma over the years to work with them to be able to do this."
"The issue you have around the science and the platform is that by taking and putting large molecules like this and these biologics into small spaces that are very potent, these biologics and antibodies stick together. So what our technology does is it's viscosity-reducing. That viscosity, you can think about it as when you put these biologics into a small syringe, they almost look like oil or glue."
"The ability to be able to stabilize these and to be able to get them to flow around each other and to be injected at these high potency levels is what our SQore platform does."
#ComeraLifeSciences #Biologics #IVInfusion #Subcutaneous #SubQ #Immunotherapy #SQore #Excipients
Comeralifesciences.com
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Jeff Hackman, CEO of Comera Life Sciences, recognizes the need to find a more efficient, patient-friendly solution for receiving biologics rather than being administered by IV therapy. Using the SQore platform, a proprietary technology, Comera is reformulating IV biologics to Sub-Q utilizing small molecule chemistry and an understanding of excipients. Seven out of ten global medicines are biologics, and most are administered by IV, providing a tremendous opportunity to expand access to biologics using Sub-Q technology.
Jeff elaborates, "Our mission is to transform these biologic therapies into a different form, a subcutaneous form. That form takes on the ability of these patients to administer these medicines for themselves, at home, at school, and at work. So really, what the summary of this mission is, through the freedom of self-injectable care, we hope that these patients can live a life without the burden of this therapy and the ability to be able to make their lives more livable."
"Excipients have been around for decades. They often fail to reduce the viscosity necessary to get these high-potency biologics into these small spaces, these small syringes, as you said. Our technology, which is called the SQore platform, allows this to happen more often, and it's such a significant impact that we have had multiple partnerships and collaborations with large pharma over the years to work with them to be able to do this."
"The issue you have around the science and the platform is that by taking and putting large molecules like this and these biologics into small spaces that are very potent, these biologics and antibodies stick together. So what our technology does is it's viscosity-reducing. That viscosity, you can think about it as when you put these biologics into a small syringe, they almost look like oil or glue."
"The ability to be able to stabilize these and to be able to get them to flow around each other and to be injected at these high potency levels is what our SQore platform does."
#ComeraLifeSciences #Biologics #IVInfusion #Subcutaneous #SubQ #Immunotherapy #SQore #Excipients
Comeralifesciences.com
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Allison Jacob, Senior Medical Director at Adaptive Biotechnologies, uses their technology to decode the genetic language of the immune system and develop clinical diagnostics and therapeutics for hematologic malignancies. With a focus on the adaptive immune system and the receptors of B and T cells, the platform is used to identify, monitor and precisely quantify tumor cells over time. In the past, MRD stood for minimal residual disease, but due to more accurate testing, the goal now is measurable residual disease, MRD, negativity.
Allison explains, "The clonoSEQ technology essentially looks at rearrangements in the DNA of proteins that are expressed on B cells, and we're harnessing something that the immune system created for us. So, unlike other genes that we talk about in cancer, let's say like BRCA1, where you have a normal version of that and a mutated version of that, B-cell receptors are constantly having to shuffle and create new gDNA sequences, again, to be able to recognize these foreign invaders."
"What that means is that within this very small region of DNA, let's say 150 to 200 base pairs, there's a diversity upwards of 10-12. So, when we talk about clonoSEQ as a clinical diagnostic, what that means is that these sequences are unique and are expressed by that tumor cell and its progeny and can be used essentially as a barcode to track and quantify that tumor over time."
"I think one of the most important aspects we spoke to a little bit ago is having a deeper understanding of how and if the patient is responding to therapy. So even if a patient is in a complete response, we know that if they're MRD positive, they have a higher likelihood of relapse. So, identifying patients with the best prognosis, complete response, and MRD negative can be very helpful in understanding what's coming."
#AdaptiveBiotechnologies #PrecisionDiagnostics #PatientEmpowerment #MRD #Myeloma #clonoSEQ #Immunosequencing
AdaptiveBiotech.com
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Allison Jacob, Senior Medical Director at Adaptive Biotechnologies, uses their technology to decode the genetic language of the immune system and develop clinical diagnostics and therapeutics for hematologic malignancies. With a focus on the adaptive immune system and the receptors of B and T cells, the platform is used to identify, monitor and precisely quantify tumor cells over time. In the past, MRD stood for minimal residual disease, but due to more accurate testing, the goal now is measurable residual disease, MRD, negativity.
Allison explains, "The clonoSEQ technology essentially looks at rearrangements in the DNA of proteins that are expressed on B cells, and we're harnessing something that the immune system created for us. So, unlike other genes that we talk about in cancer, let's say like BRCA1, where you have a normal version of that and a mutated version of that, B-cell receptors are constantly having to shuffle and create new gDNA sequences, again, to be able to recognize these foreign invaders."
"What that means is that within this very small region of DNA, let's say 150 to 200 base pairs, there's a diversity upwards of 10-12. So, when we talk about clonoSEQ as a clinical diagnostic, what that means is that these sequences are unique and are expressed by that tumor cell and its progeny and can be used essentially as a barcode to track and quantify that tumor over time."
"I think one of the most important aspects we spoke to a little bit ago is having a deeper understanding of how and if the patient is responding to therapy. So even if a patient is in a complete response, we know that if they're MRD positive, they have a higher likelihood of relapse. So, identifying patients with the best prognosis, complete response, and MRD negative can be very helpful in understanding what's coming."
#AdaptiveBiotechnologies #PrecisionDiagnostics #PatientEmpowerment #MRD #Myeloma #clonoSEQ #Immunosequencing
AdaptiveBiotech.com
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Alicia Staley is the VP of Patient Engagement at Medidata and working to bring more technology and software solutions to clinical research. With a focus on creating patient-centric clinical trials, Alicia emphasizes the value of digital tools to drive diversity of participation and retention. As a cancer survivor and patient advocate, Alicia has deep insights into how clinical trials are run and who participates.
Alicia explains, "I think the entire industry is still responding to what life looks like post-COVID. However, in particular, in clinical research, this gravitation toward more digital tools to support clinical research is still very much at the forefront. Topics like decentralized clinical trials and patient portals, patient registries, and ways to support the patient through the clinical journey using digital tools, sensors, and wearables are very much at the forefront of the conversations we're having today. Clearly there is an interest in going in that direction. And I think we learned during the pandemic that these tools are great resources for expanding the potential participation in clinical research to essentially a broader audience of participants."
"It took the pandemic for the industry to realize that these tools are valuable resources. I think there had been historically quite a bit of hesitancy to embrace technical solutions like eConsent, eCOA, ePRO, or any of the eSource tools. And I think the pandemic made us realize that these tools are here, they're here to stay, and they work very, very well. But our hand was never forced in the way it was during the pandemic."
#Medidata #DecentralizedTrials #Diversity #ClinicalTrials #LifeSciences #PatientExperience
Medidata.com
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Alicia Staley is the VP of Patient Engagement at Medidata and working to bring more technology and software solutions to clinical research. With a focus on creating patient-centric clinical trials, Alicia emphasizes the value of digital tools to drive diversity of participation and retention. As a cancer survivor and patient advocate, Alicia has deep insights into how clinical trials are run and who participates.
Alicia explains, "I think the entire industry is still responding to what life looks like post-COVID. However, in particular, in clinical research, this gravitation toward more digital tools to support clinical research is still very much at the forefront. Topics like decentralized clinical trials and patient portals, patient registries, and ways to support the patient through the clinical journey using digital tools, sensors, and wearables are very much at the forefront of the conversations we're having today. Clearly there is an interest in going in that direction. And I think we learned during the pandemic that these tools are great resources for expanding the potential participation in clinical research to essentially a broader audience of participants."
"It took the pandemic for the industry to realize that these tools are valuable resources. I think there had been historically quite a bit of hesitancy to embrace technical solutions like eConsent, eCOA, ePRO, or any of the eSource tools. And I think the pandemic made us realize that these tools are here, they're here to stay, and they work very, very well. But our hand was never forced in the way it was during the pandemic."
#Medidata #DecentralizedTrials #Diversity #ClinicalTrials #LifeSciences #PatientExperience
Medidata.com
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Dr. Holly Urban, the Vice President of Clinical Product Design at CliniComp, understands the need for a positive user experience for clinicians to use electronic health record software effectively. Clinician burnout is often blamed on the documentation burden and the time it takes to enter patient data. With a shift to a focus on the quality of the notes rather than the length, CliniComp is designing systems that aid in medical decisions and is considering ways to use natural language processing and generative AI to change how notes are created.
Holly explains, "One of the challenges is that today's electronic health records, in my view, are very transactional focused. They allow you to place an order. A physician can write an order to have medications given to a patient, they can write a note where they document what happened in a patient visit or the results of a procedure, and they can get lab results."
"But it's very transactional. We haven't yet achieved that ideal state where the electronic health record is helping the providers and other clinicians make decisions. A lot of the struggle has been around workflows that aren't supporting what they need to do and not getting to that third rail of advanced clinical decision support to help providers make better decisions based on their electronic health records."
#CliniComp #EHR #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHRSoftware #ClinicianBurnout #HealthcareTech #HealthcareTechnology #HealthInnovation
clinicomp.com
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Dr. Holly Urban, the Vice President of Clinical Product Design at CliniComp, understands the need for a positive user experience for clinicians to use electronic health record software effectively. Clinician burnout is often blamed on the documentation burden and the time it takes to enter patient data. With a shift to a focus on the quality of the notes rather than the length, CliniComp is designing systems that aid in medical decisions and is considering ways to use natural language processing and generative AI to change how notes are created.
Holly explains, "One of the challenges is that today's electronic health records, in my view, are very transactional focused. They allow you to place an order. A physician can write an order to have medications given to a patient, they can write a note where they document what happened in a patient visit or the results of a procedure, and they can get lab results."
"But it's very transactional. We haven't yet achieved that ideal state where the electronic health record is helping the providers and other clinicians make decisions. A lot of the struggle has been around workflows that aren't supporting what they need to do and not getting to that third rail of advanced clinical decision support to help providers make better decisions based on their electronic health records."
#CliniComp #EHR #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHRSoftware #ClinicianBurnout #HealthcareTech #HealthcareTechnology #HealthInnovation
clinicomp.com
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Ashley Perry, Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer at Socially Determined, highlights the problems created by the Medicaid redetermination process. Building on their SocialScape social risk intelligence platform, Socially Determined is providing a new risk score that will help state Medicaid agencies and Managed Care Organizations identify and prioritize members needing help navigating the redetermination.
Ashley explains, "As many of your listeners will know, on April 1st of this year, we started redetermining eligibility for the 95 million Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide. And that's a year-long process during which we expect that up to 15 million of them may be disenrolled from the program. So far, we've seen that as of June 16th, we've had about 1.3 million Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide disenrolled across the 22 states that have reported data to date."
"What's notable about that, though, is on average across those 22 states, 74% of those who've been disenrolled have been disenrolled for procedural reasons. This means one of two things: either number one, they did not return the paperwork period, or number two they did, but they did not include some of the required documentation. So overall, a very high percentage of those who've been disenrolled to date are not necessarily no longer eligible for the program but have not been able to navigate that recertification process on their own."
"We've done that for the entire United States community level across a number of different domains, so things like the food landscape and the housing environment. We've also done it for hundreds of millions of Americans at the individual level for similar domains. And so all of that data and insights around the SDOH and social risk factors that influence healthcare utilization costs, outcomes and equity was built into our social state platform. We've been working with organizations to use that data to inform their strategies for years."
@SocDetermined #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #Redetermination #Medicaid #MCO #HealthEquity #SocialRisk #DataAnalytics
SociallyDetermined.com
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Ashley Perry, Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer at Socially Determined, highlights the problems created by the Medicaid redetermination process. Building on their SocialScape social risk intelligence platform, Socially Determined is providing a new risk score that will help state Medicaid agencies and Managed Care Organizations identify and prioritize members needing help navigating the redetermination.
Ashley explains, "As many of your listeners will know, on April 1st of this year, we started redetermining eligibility for the 95 million Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide. And that's a year-long process during which we expect that up to 15 million of them may be disenrolled from the program. So far, we've seen that as of June 16th, we've had about 1.3 million Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide disenrolled across the 22 states that have reported data to date."
"What's notable about that, though, is on average across those 22 states, 74% of those who've been disenrolled have been disenrolled for procedural reasons. This means one of two things: either number one, they did not return the paperwork period, or number two they did, but they did not include some of the required documentation. So overall, a very high percentage of those who've been disenrolled to date are not necessarily no longer eligible for the program but have not been able to navigate that recertification process on their own."
"We've done that for the entire United States community level across a number of different domains, so things like the food landscape and the housing environment. We've also done it for hundreds of millions of Americans at the individual level for similar domains. And so all of that data and insights around the SDOH and social risk factors that influence healthcare utilization costs, outcomes and equity was built into our social state platform. We've been working with organizations to use that data to inform their strategies for years."
@SocDetermined #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #Redetermination #Medicaid #MCO #HealthEquity #SocialRisk #DataAnalytics
SociallyDetermined.com
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Lauralea Tanner, Chief Growth Officer at Acclara, describes the revenue cycle management critical decision points for hospitals, health systems, payers, and patients. In the hospital setting, there are lab tests, radiology, anesthesiology, surgeons, and other clinicians, all providing services that require proper coding and billing for collection. With many opportunities for errors and patient confusion, call center technology to handle questions, AI to address mundane coding tasks, and other technologies allow the professionals to take complex patient questions.
Lauralea explains, "So revenue cycle management really starts when the hospital or health system engages with the patient. So it starts with that patient intake process, or what we call patient registration or scheduling process, and then when they present at the hospital or the doctor's office for services."
"At that point, then it falls into clinical care. The patient is seen, and they're treated. After the patient leaves, that is really where the hefty part of revenue cycle management kicks in. You have doctors that have to document charges. They have to dictate what they've done to treat the patient. They have to get all of that clinical documentation in place before it goes to coding, then to billing and collections."
"A lot is still paper-based. The submission of claims, the follow-up, even the remittance advice that the hospital gets back from the payers is largely electronic. But you still have some of these smaller payers that do send paper, and it is very much a challenge to try to deal with that."
#Acclara #DigitalHealth #HealthcareReform #HealthTech #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM
Acclara.com
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Lauralea Tanner, Chief Growth Officer at Acclara, describes the revenue cycle management critical decision points for hospitals, health systems, payers, and patients. In the hospital setting, there are lab tests, radiology, anesthesiology, surgeons, and other clinicians, all providing services that require proper coding and billing for collection. With many opportunities for errors and patient confusion, call center technology to handle questions, AI to address mundane coding tasks, and other technologies allow the professionals to take complex patient questions.
Lauralea explains, "So revenue cycle management really starts when the hospital or health system engages with the patient. So it starts with that patient intake process, or what we call patient registration or scheduling process, and then when they present at the hospital or the doctor's office for services."
"At that point, then it falls into clinical care. The patient is seen, and they're treated. After the patient leaves, that is really where the hefty part of revenue cycle management kicks in. You have doctors that have to document charges. They have to dictate what they've done to treat the patient. They have to get all of that clinical documentation in place before it goes to coding, then to billing and collections."
"A lot is still paper-based. The submission of claims, the follow-up, even the remittance advice that the hospital gets back from the payers is largely electronic. But you still have some of these smaller payers that do send paper, and it is very much a challenge to try to deal with that."
#Acclara #DigitalHealth #HealthcareReform #HealthTech #RevenueCycleManagement #RCM
Acclara.com
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Maya Ber Lerner, Co-Founder and CEO of Chiefy, is focused on the complications and waste involved in the workflow related to surgery and the operating room. Realizing the root of the problem is communication between all participants in an operation, Chiefy is applying technology and AI to improve communication for these cross-functional teams. While collaboration tools have become well-accepted in other industries, the hospital environment has been slow to take advantage of these tools to benefit all stakeholders, including the patient.
Maya explains, "The most important thing about our approach, and it just happened naturally, is that we focus on the surgeons and the nurses and the anesthesia teams and the other stakeholders, and we build a solution that would add value to them personally. And that was the first question I asked because my background is in team collaboration for software development and cloud infrastructure. It sounds completely out there and not related to what I do today. Still, it's a similar problem of cross-functional teams trying to collaborate and do iterative tasks together."
"I believe this approach brings something radically different from looking at the same problem that I just talked about and saying, "Oh, we have a problem of waste in this surgical workflow, so we need better software to document all the supplies we're using." It's more about how you give people work tools that they can use in their own workflow, which would create, as a side effect, benefits in efficiency, quality, and patient safety."
"The first thing we've been able to immediately show is a statistically significant reduction of 35% in last-minute requests. And these are things like miscommunications about the patient's position, trays being used in the operating room, equipment that should not have been open and was open, and things like that."
#Chiefy #SurgerySuccess #OperatingRoom #OR #ORTeam #SurgicalTeam #PatientSafetyFirst #SurgicalInnovation #SafeSurgery #TeamworkinMedicine #ClinicalWorkflow #AI
chiefyteam.com
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Maya Ber Lerner, Co-Founder and CEO of Chiefy, is focused on the complications and waste involved in the workflow related to surgery and the operating room. Realizing the root of the problem is communication between all participants in an operation, Chiefy is applying technology and AI to improve communication for these cross-functional teams. While collaboration tools have become well-accepted in other industries, the hospital environment has been slow to take advantage of these tools to benefit all stakeholders, including the patient.
Maya explains, "The most important thing about our approach, and it just happened naturally, is that we focus on the surgeons and the nurses and the anesthesia teams and the other stakeholders, and we build a solution that would add value to them personally. And that was the first question I asked because my background is in team collaboration for software development and cloud infrastructure. It sounds completely out there and not related to what I do today. Still, it's a similar problem of cross-functional teams trying to collaborate and do iterative tasks together."
"I believe this approach brings something radically different from looking at the same problem that I just talked about and saying, "Oh, we have a problem of waste in this surgical workflow, so we need better software to document all the supplies we're using." It's more about how you give people work tools that they can use in their own workflow, which would create, as a side effect, benefits in efficiency, quality, and patient safety."
"The first thing we've been able to immediately show is a statistically significant reduction of 35% in last-minute requests. And these are things like miscommunications about the patient's position, trays being used in the operating room, equipment that should not have been open and was open, and things like that."
#Chiefy #SurgerySuccess #OperatingRoom #OR #ORTeam #SurgicalTeam #PatientSafetyFirst #SurgicalInnovation #SafeSurgery #TeamworkinMedicine #ClinicalWorkflow #AI
chiefyteam.com
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John Mulcahy, President and CEO of SiteOne Therapeutics, is developing new therapies to treat hypersensitivity disorders. Their approach focuses on targeting specific voltage-gated sodium channels. Their drug candidates are designed to treat acute pain, as well as hypersensitivity developed as a result of chronic pain. They have recently received an NIH HEAL grant to explore their drug candidate that targets one subtype of the sodium channel as a non-opioid therapeutic potential for treating different pain conditions.
John explains, "At SiteOne, we're focused on a family of targets known as the voltage-gated sodium ion channels. These are proteins, ion channels, that are involved in transmitting pain signals from the site of an injury, like earlier we said, the skin or a joint, to the central nervous system, so to your spinal cord, to your brain. At SiteOne, we're basically focused on drugs that potentially dampen those signals. It kind of tunes down that pain signal before it ever reaches the central nervous system. So it's a very different approach compared to either the NSAIDs or the opioids."
"We're very excited to partner with NIH and the National Institute on Drug Abuse on this program. A little bit of background on the HEAL Initiative. So HEAL stands for Helping End Addiction Long-term, and it's a major federal initiative with multiple agencies involved. The goal is to aggressively advance scientific solutions to the opioid crisis."
#SiteOneTherapeutics #OpioidCrisis #Opioids #NonOpioidMedications #Pain #PainManagement #HEALInitiative
siteonetherapeutics.com
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John Mulcahy, President and CEO of SiteOne Therapeutics, is developing new therapies to treat hypersensitivity disorders. Their approach focuses on targeting specific voltage-gated sodium channels. Their drug candidates are designed to treat acute pain, as well as hypersensitivity developed as a result of chronic pain. They have recently received an NIH HEAL grant to explore their drug candidate that targets one subtype of the sodium channel as a non-opioid therapeutic potential for treating different pain conditions.
John explains, "At SiteOne, we're focused on a family of targets known as the voltage-gated sodium ion channels. These are proteins, ion channels, that are involved in transmitting pain signals from the site of an injury, like earlier we said, the skin or a joint, to the central nervous system, so to your spinal cord, to your brain. At SiteOne, we're basically focused on drugs that potentially dampen those signals. It kind of tunes down that pain signal before it ever reaches the central nervous system. So it's a very different approach compared to either the NSAIDs or the opioids."
"We're very excited to partner with NIH and the National Institute on Drug Abuse on this program. A little bit of background on the HEAL Initiative. So HEAL stands for Helping End Addiction Long-term, and it's a major federal initiative with multiple agencies involved. The goal is to aggressively advance scientific solutions to the opioid crisis."
#SiteOneTherapeutics #OpioidCrisis #Opioids #NonOpioidMedications #Pain #PainManagement #HEALInitiative
siteonetherapeutics.com
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Dr. Ahmed Hamdy, CEO and Co-Founder of Vincerx, is focused on targeting a specific antigen found on cancer cells. With a unique enzyme, it is effective with solid tumors and hematological malignancies, releasing a kinesin spindle protein inhibitor that inhibits the division of cancer cells. Their first bioconjugate VIP236 targets a specific molecule expressed on several metastatic tumors.
Ahmed explains, "At Vincerx, we have a very exciting pipeline that's designed to solve a lot of problems with the current treatments for cancer therapies. In today's world, cancer continues growing exponentially. And thankfully, there are a lot of treatments out there for different types of cancer. Yet, the current treatments come with quite a bit of morbidities. Throughout my career, the morbidity of medicine has been something that I've always been concerned about, especially for patients and their caregivers. At Vincerx, we have very exciting, unique types of treatments that can be paradigm-shifting from a safety perspective and efficacy perspective."
"For solid tumors, we have a compound that's currently in dose escalation phase 1 trial that is designed for advanced metastatic tumors, where we target a specific antigen that is found on the cancer cells themselves. And with a unique enzyme, it cleaves what we're describing as a warhead or the substance that can kill the cancer cell, which is an optimized camptothecin. And the word optimize means it's a well-known topoisomerase inhibitor designed to allow for very rapid permeability or intake by the cancer cell, with very low pumping out."
#VincerxPharma #VIP236 #VIP943 #ADCs #Bioconjugates #Cancer #SolidTumors #Biotech #PrecisionMedicine
Vincerx.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ahmed Hamdy, CEO and Co-Founder of Vincerx, is focused on targeting a specific antigen found on cancer cells. With a unique enzyme, it is effective with solid tumors and hematological malignancies, releasing a kinesin spindle protein inhibitor that inhibits the division of cancer cells. Their first bioconjugate VIP236 targets a specific molecule expressed on several metastatic tumors.
Ahmed explains, "At Vincerx, we have a very exciting pipeline that's designed to solve a lot of problems with the current treatments for cancer therapies. In today's world, cancer continues growing exponentially. And thankfully, there are a lot of treatments out there for different types of cancer. Yet, the current treatments come with quite a bit of morbidities. Throughout my career, the morbidity of medicine has been something that I've always been concerned about, especially for patients and their caregivers. At Vincerx, we have very exciting, unique types of treatments that can be paradigm-shifting from a safety perspective and efficacy perspective."
"For solid tumors, we have a compound that's currently in dose escalation phase 1 trial that is designed for advanced metastatic tumors, where we target a specific antigen that is found on the cancer cells themselves. And with a unique enzyme, it cleaves what we're describing as a warhead or the substance that can kill the cancer cell, which is an optimized camptothecin. And the word optimize means it's a well-known topoisomerase inhibitor designed to allow for very rapid permeability or intake by the cancer cell, with very low pumping out."
#VincerxPharma #VIP236 #VIP943 #ADCs #Bioconjugates #Cancer #SolidTumors #Biotech #PrecisionMedicine
Vincerx.com
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Nasha Fitter, CEO and Co-Founder of the FOXG1 Research Foundation and Vice President of Rare and Neurological Diseases at Ciitizen. Nasha describes the characteristics of the ultra-rare disease FOXG1 Syndrome and the global network that has been built to gain a better understanding of this neurological condition. Using real-world evidence, machine learning, AI, and genetic testing are showing a path to finding a treatment.
Nasha explains, "My daughter, Amara, was diagnosed at nine months of age. She began having hundreds of seizures a day. And at that point, there was information known about the FOXG1 gene. It's a really important gene for brain development. But no one was studying the syndrome and how to find a cure for it. So, I and a group of other parents, like-minded parents who, refused to just take that this is the way it is. Our children have this condition, and that's it. We started this foundation."
"We've done a lot of work to get the entire world of FOXG1 to work together and then to collect patient data. That leads to my work at Ciitizen, to have all patients join the same platform, take the same surveys, and collect electronic medical records. We extract their data, so it's all on one platform. Again, that helps us understand this disease, which is critical when the population's so small."
"In-person studies, which is how we collect data today, as the medical community, don't work for ultra-rare diseases. So we have to find other ways. And that's where real-world evidence comes in."
"We use machine learning and AI at Ciitizen when we're looking at something as simple as extracting data from an unstructured medical record. When you look in medical records, the part that's really interesting is the clinic notes, and they're totally unstructured. They're paragraphs. So can we start using machine learning and AI to go through these paragraphs and actually extract relevant data points to scale up our ability to understand how the disease has progressed?"
#FOXG1 #FOXG1ResearchFoundation #Ciitizen #GeneTherapy #RealWorldEvidence #RareDisease #GeneticTesting
FOXG1Research.org
Ciitizen.com
Listen to the podcast here
Nasha Fitter, CEO and Co-Founder of the FOXG1 Research Foundation and Vice President of Rare and Neurological Diseases at Ciitizen. Nasha describes the characteristics of the ultra-rare disease FOXG1 Syndrome and the global network that has been built to gain a better understanding of this neurological condition. Using real-world evidence, machine learning, AI, and genetic testing are showing a path to finding a treatment.
Nasha explains, "My daughter, Amara, was diagnosed at nine months of age. She began having hundreds of seizures a day. And at that point, there was information known about the FOXG1 gene. It's a really important gene for brain development. But no one was studying the syndrome and how to find a cure for it. So, I and a group of other parents, like-minded parents who, refused to just take that this is the way it is. Our children have this condition, and that's it. We started this foundation."
"We've done a lot of work to get the entire world of FOXG1 to work together and then to collect patient data. That leads to my work at Ciitizen, to have all patients join the same platform, take the same surveys, and collect electronic medical records. We extract their data, so it's all on one platform. Again, that helps us understand this disease, which is critical when the population's so small."
"In-person studies, which is how we collect data today, as the medical community, don't work for ultra-rare diseases. So we have to find other ways. And that's where real-world evidence comes in."
"We use machine learning and AI at Ciitizen when we're looking at something as simple as extracting data from an unstructured medical record. When you look in medical records, the part that's really interesting is the clinic notes, and they're totally unstructured. They're paragraphs. So can we start using machine learning and AI to go through these paragraphs and actually extract relevant data points to scale up our ability to understand how the disease has progressed?"
#FOXG1 #FOXG1ResearchFoundation #Ciitizen #GeneTherapy #RealWorldEvidence #RareDisease #GeneticTesting
FOXG1Research.org
Ciitizen.com
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David Dodd is Chairman, President, and CEO of GeoVax, which is working on vaccines that overcome restrictions of mRNA vaccines to provide longer-term, more robust protection, particularly for people who do not respond well to primary antibody stimulation. There is a strong response from T cells from this vaccine which can be stored in a non-refrigerated freeze-dried form allowing for greater access in more regions of the world.
David explains, "We are targeting those individuals who have compromised immune systems. This is a category of approximately 15 million individuals in the United States and almost 250 million worldwide, who, as a result of the conditions of their body or maybe even the therapies they may be on, or other conditions. Their body does not respond appropriately or well to the existing approved vaccines for COVID-19 or to the monoclonal antibodies. It's not that the other products have no value - it's that the individuals' bodies have been depleted of the ability to mount the proper response."
"We also include what is known as the nucleocapsid protein, which is highly conserved across viruses. It's always there, and it induces a very strong T cell response which drives memory in vaccines or in the human body from an immune standpoint. So, it is memory durability and also that it enables people whose bodies may have been depleted in order to mount an antibody response. They now can rely upon their T cells system or their cellular immune system to give them a protective element to reduce the severity, hospitalization, and risk of death."
#GeoVax #Vaccines #VaccineFatigue #Biodefense #COVID #VaccineAccess #VaccinePreparedness #TCells
GeoVax.com
Listen to the podcast here
David Dodd is Chairman, President, and CEO of GeoVax, which is working on vaccines that overcome restrictions of mRNA vaccines to provide longer-term, more robust protection, particularly for people who do not respond well to primary antibody stimulation. There is a strong response from T cells from this vaccine which can be stored in a non-refrigerated freeze-dried form allowing for greater access in more regions of the world.
David explains, "We are targeting those individuals who have compromised immune systems. This is a category of approximately 15 million individuals in the United States and almost 250 million worldwide, who, as a result of the conditions of their body or maybe even the therapies they may be on, or other conditions. Their body does not respond appropriately or well to the existing approved vaccines for COVID-19 or to the monoclonal antibodies. It's not that the other products have no value - it's that the individuals' bodies have been depleted of the ability to mount the proper response."
"We also include what is known as the nucleocapsid protein, which is highly conserved across viruses. It's always there, and it induces a very strong T cell response which drives memory in vaccines or in the human body from an immune standpoint. So, it is memory durability and also that it enables people whose bodies may have been depleted in order to mount an antibody response. They now can rely upon their T cells system or their cellular immune system to give them a protective element to reduce the severity, hospitalization, and risk of death."
#GeoVax #Vaccines #VaccineFatigue #Biodefense #COVID #VaccineAccess #VaccinePreparedness #TCells
GeoVax.com
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Chris Hoyt, CEO of KeifeRx, talks about the oral medication being developed that uses tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and autophagy to remove unwanted proteins. Research done by Georgetown University on leukemia, led by Dr. Charbel Moussa, found that lower doses of drugs like nilotinib and bosutinib could cross the blood-brain barrier and remove toxic proteins on an intracellular basis. This research has been used to develop treatments for neurodegenerative conditions with promising results in reducing cognitive decline.
Chris explains, "Essentially, the way TKIs work in the body, and particularly in the case of the neurodegenerative conditions that we're using them to treat at KeifeRx, is they trigger a mechanism called autophagy, which essentially is the cell's garbage disposal mechanism. What we're doing with TKIs is using that mechanism to remove toxic proteins. TKIs have mostly been used historically in cancer, and particularly in leukemia. The classic use would be in cancer to try to remove as much of the tumors as you can in leukemia. In that environment, use a fairly high dose of TKIs to trigger that effect. What KeifeRx has done through work at Georgetown University is find ways to utilize that same mechanism of action in the brain."
"So over the course of a few years of initial work, we came to the conclusion that these drugs, in the case of specifically nilotinib and bosutinib, which are the two drugs where we have the use patent in neurodegeneration, that at much lower doses than what you see in cancer, these drugs can cross the blood-brain barrier and look to remove toxic proteins on an intracellular basis. So, it was a classic hunch, for lack of a better term, that Dr. Moussa had that he then carried out rigorous work over three years to first prove in animal models and then eventually through a series of small phase I and phase II trials at Georgetown."
@KeifeRx_Thera #KeifeRx #Alzheimers #TKI #Autophagy #ALS #LewyBodyDementia
KeifeRx.com
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Chris Hoyt, CEO of KeifeRx, talks about the oral medication being developed that uses tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and autophagy to remove unwanted proteins. Research done by Georgetown University on leukemia, led by Dr. Charbel Moussa, found that lower doses of drugs like nilotinib and bosutinib could cross the blood-brain barrier and remove toxic proteins on an intracellular basis. This research has been used to develop treatments for neurodegenerative conditions with promising results in reducing cognitive decline.
Chris explains, "Essentially, the way TKIs work in the body, and particularly in the case of the neurodegenerative conditions that we're using them to treat at KeifeRx, is they trigger a mechanism called autophagy, which essentially is the cell's garbage disposal mechanism. What we're doing with TKIs is using that mechanism to remove toxic proteins. TKIs have mostly been used historically in cancer, and particularly in leukemia. The classic use would be in cancer to try to remove as much of the tumors as you can in leukemia. In that environment, use a fairly high dose of TKIs to trigger that effect. What KeifeRx has done through work at Georgetown University is find ways to utilize that same mechanism of action in the brain."
"So over the course of a few years of initial work, we came to the conclusion that these drugs, in the case of specifically nilotinib and bosutinib, which are the two drugs where we have the use patent in neurodegeneration, that at much lower doses than what you see in cancer, these drugs can cross the blood-brain barrier and look to remove toxic proteins on an intracellular basis. So, it was a classic hunch, for lack of a better term, that Dr. Moussa had that he then carried out rigorous work over three years to first prove in animal models and then eventually through a series of small phase I and phase II trials at Georgetown."
@KeifeRx_Thera #KeifeRx #Alzheimers #TKI #Autophagy #ALS #LewyBodyDementia
KeifeRx.com
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Simon Allen is the CEO and Director of Anebulo Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on finding an effective treatment for acute cannabinoid intoxication or ACI, particularly in an emergency department setting. ACI is a condition where an individual has consumed or smoked too much cannabis or products that contain THC or synthetic cannabis and is experiencing symptoms of psychosis, anxiety, elevated heart rate, or is unresponsive. Their drug ANEB-001 is designed to address the cause of the symptoms without the need for traditional methods like benzodiazepines and beta blockers, which have their risks.
Simon explains, "What we are seeing is individuals taking these high-potency edibles, for example, and also smoking and vaping. These are other forms that can create ACI outcomes. And essentially, they're out for several hours, if not overnight, in the hospital. This can get as serious as the escalation to a psychiatric ward if the individual is so psychotic, agitated, and anxious that the emergency department can't handle it or chooses not to handle it and pushes it to the psychiatric ward. And those expenses are in the tens of thousands of dollars to the healthcare system. Not only that, there are extremely poor patient outcomes."
"What's important is that these molecules, the synthetic ones, are, unfortunately extremely strong binders to the CB1 receptor and do more to stimulate effectively. And very, very small doses of these synthetic cannabinoids can create very poor patient outcomes simply because they're much tighter binders to the CB1 receptor compared to THC. And when they do bind to that receptor, they're much more active. And so the street names like K2 and Spice are examples."
@AnebuloP #AnebuloPharmaceuticals #ACI #AcuteCannabinoidIntoxication #Cannabis #Overdose
Anebulo.com
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Simon Allen is the CEO and Director of Anebulo Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on finding an effective treatment for acute cannabinoid intoxication or ACI, particularly in an emergency department setting. ACI is a condition where an individual has consumed or smoked too much cannabis or products that contain THC or synthetic cannabis and is experiencing symptoms of psychosis, anxiety, elevated heart rate, or is unresponsive. Their drug ANEB-001 is designed to address the cause of the symptoms without the need for traditional methods like benzodiazepines and beta blockers, which have their risks.
Simon explains, "What we are seeing is individuals taking these high-potency edibles, for example, and also smoking and vaping. These are other forms that can create ACI outcomes. And essentially, they're out for several hours, if not overnight, in the hospital. This can get as serious as the escalation to a psychiatric ward if the individual is so psychotic, agitated, and anxious that the emergency department can't handle it or chooses not to handle it and pushes it to the psychiatric ward. And those expenses are in the tens of thousands of dollars to the healthcare system. Not only that, there are extremely poor patient outcomes."
"What's important is that these molecules, the synthetic ones, are, unfortunately extremely strong binders to the CB1 receptor and do more to stimulate effectively. And very, very small doses of these synthetic cannabinoids can create very poor patient outcomes simply because they're much tighter binders to the CB1 receptor compared to THC. And when they do bind to that receptor, they're much more active. And so the street names like K2 and Spice are examples."
@AnebuloP #AnebuloPharmaceuticals #ACI #AcuteCannabinoidIntoxication #Cannabis #Overdose
Anebulo.com
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Nancy Lurker, CEO and Board Director of EyePoint Pharmaceuticals, aims to prevent the progression of blindness by developing technology that addresses retinal eye diseases. These back of the eye diseases are age-related and an increasing threat to populations worldwide. Current treatments require regular injections in the eye. The micro inserts developed by EyePoint will allow the drug to work for six months, allowing patients more flexibility to maintain their vision.
Nancy explains, "We know that if you look at the current eye treatments on the market today, wet AMD, retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema, and diabetic retinopathy, all of those are running close to $30 to $40 billion being spent to help to treat these terrible eye diseases which may lead to blindness."
"So, what causes these diseases? There's a genetic component at times, but also age plays a factor. And then, of course, diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy can be caused for patients who have diabetes. So. what happens is you get a proliferation of tiny, tiny micro capillaries in the eye and, in some cases, just general atrophy of these retinal epithelia. These cells help to allow you to see. And what happens is when you start to get this proliferative growth that goes on and leakage of fluid and cells into the back of the eye, it completely obstructs your vision, which grows over time."
"The vast majority of patients have to get another injection every month or every other month to slow the progression or stop it. And if you miss a visit, that fluid will come right back, and remember, the fluid is very, very bad for the eye. And we can see in the large databases, it's the medical claims data from patients, millions of these patients, we can see that even though they go in and get their eyes injected, you miss visits. Why? Life happens."
@EyePointPharma #EyePointPharma #Ophthalmology #RetinalEyeDiseases #WetAMD #RetinalVeinOcclusion #DiabeticMacularEdema #DiabeticRetinopathy
eyepointpharma.com
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Nancy Lurker, CEO and Board Director of EyePoint Pharmaceuticals, aims to prevent the progression of blindness by developing technology that addresses retinal eye diseases. These back of the eye diseases are age-related and an increasing threat to populations worldwide. Current treatments require regular injections in the eye. The micro inserts developed by EyePoint will allow the drug to work for six months, allowing patients more flexibility to maintain their vision.
Nancy explains, "We know that if you look at the current eye treatments on the market today, wet AMD, retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema, and diabetic retinopathy, all of those are running close to $30 to $40 billion being spent to help to treat these terrible eye diseases which may lead to blindness."
"So, what causes these diseases? There's a genetic component at times, but also age plays a factor. And then, of course, diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy can be caused for patients who have diabetes. So. what happens is you get a proliferation of tiny, tiny micro capillaries in the eye and, in some cases, just general atrophy of these retinal epithelia. These cells help to allow you to see. And what happens is when you start to get this proliferative growth that goes on and leakage of fluid and cells into the back of the eye, it completely obstructs your vision, which grows over time."
"The vast majority of patients have to get another injection every month or every other month to slow the progression or stop it. And if you miss a visit, that fluid will come right back, and remember, the fluid is very, very bad for the eye. And we can see in the large databases, it's the medical claims data from patients, millions of these patients, we can see that even though they go in and get their eyes injected, you miss visits. Why? Life happens."
@EyePointPharma #EyePointPharma #Ophthalmology #RetinalEyeDiseases #WetAMD #RetinalVeinOcclusion #DiabeticMacularEdema #DiabeticRetinopathy
eyepointpharma.com
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Dr. Gavin Samuels, Chief Business Officer at CinRx, a holding company currently with six portfolio companies, each focused on developing one drug. Providing these companies with the right resources at the right time makes for more efficient use of resources and can speed up drug development. Their strength is understanding challenges and opportunities approximately a year before an IND is filed to help shepherd the drug through the IND-enabling study and through clinical development.
Gavin elaborates, "The disease areas that we're involved in, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, inflammatory diseases, these are problems that present a real challenge to patients and a real challenge to society and a real challenge to humanity. We want to try and address those problems by bringing innovative drugs and developing them as quickly and efficiently as possible and bringing to the patient."
"The criteria we use is that it has to fit a specific unmet medical need. We have to have a large group of patients that are involved in the disease, that have the disease, and we want to make sure that we can make a meaningful difference to the way that the disease is treated as well as the quality of life for the patient. So we don't want incremental improvements. We're looking for drugs that are going to make step changes in the quality of life of the patients we are trying to bring the medicine to."
#CinRx #CinRxSuperHighway #TransformationalMedicines #DrugDevelopment #Obesity #TypeOneDiabetes #T1D #Hypertension #Gastroparesis #IrritableBowelSyndrome #SolidTumors #Oncology #NeurodegenerativeDiseases
cinrx.com
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Dr. Gavin Samuels, Chief Business Officer at CinRx, a holding company currently with six portfolio companies, each focused on developing one drug. Providing these companies with the right resources at the right time makes for more efficient use of resources and can speed up drug development. Their strength is understanding challenges and opportunities approximately a year before an IND is filed to help shepherd the drug through the IND-enabling study and through clinical development.
Gavin elaborates, "The disease areas that we're involved in, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, inflammatory diseases, these are problems that present a real challenge to patients and a real challenge to society and a real challenge to humanity. We want to try and address those problems by bringing innovative drugs and developing them as quickly and efficiently as possible and bringing to the patient."
"The criteria we use is that it has to fit a specific unmet medical need. We have to have a large group of patients that are involved in the disease, that have the disease, and we want to make sure that we can make a meaningful difference to the way that the disease is treated as well as the quality of life for the patient. So we don't want incremental improvements. We're looking for drugs that are going to make step changes in the quality of life of the patients we are trying to bring the medicine to."
#CinRx #CinRxSuperHighway #TransformationalMedicines #DrugDevelopment #Obesity #TypeOneDiabetes #T1D #Hypertension #Gastroparesis #IrritableBowelSyndrome #SolidTumors #Oncology #NeurodegenerativeDiseases
cinrx.com
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Jennifer Quinn, Head of global pricing and health economics and outcomes research at Debiopharm, emphasizes the importance of reimbursement, not just regulatory approval, for a drug to be available to patients. With patient-centered outcomes research, drug developers can use data for risk-benefit assessment relevant to regulators that reflect how patients consider the risks and whether they will undergo a procedure.
Jennifer explains, "My team really tries to make sure that, when we're thinking about a clinical development program, we make sure we're capturing those value markers throughout from a very early stage. That is so that when someone out-licenses it and becomes our partner, they have the data they need not just to get through regulatory approval but to have the drug reimbursed and made available to patients."
"It's so important that patients have not just the agency in their care, but we understand how treatments are impacting patients -- impacting their lives, impacting how they feel, impacting their activities of daily living. I think that is what patient-centered outcomes research encompasses: patient preference, patient functioning, and patient feeling. If we don't do that, we are not patient-centric in our drug development because we're missing this crucial part. A drug might shrink a tumor this much, or it might give you this many fewer bleeds if you're a hemophilia patient, but what does that mean to the patient? How does that impact them?"
@DebiopharmNews #Debiopharm #DrugDevelopment #Biotech #PatientCare #PatientCenteredOutcomesResearch
Debiopharm.com
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Jennifer Quinn, Head of global pricing and health economics and outcomes research at Debiopharm, emphasizes the importance of reimbursement, not just regulatory approval, for a drug to be available to patients. With patient-centered outcomes research, drug developers can use data for risk-benefit assessment relevant to regulators that reflect how patients consider the risks and whether they will undergo a procedure.
Jennifer explains, "My team really tries to make sure that, when we're thinking about a clinical development program, we make sure we're capturing those value markers throughout from a very early stage. That is so that when someone out-licenses it and becomes our partner, they have the data they need not just to get through regulatory approval but to have the drug reimbursed and made available to patients."
"It's so important that patients have not just the agency in their care, but we understand how treatments are impacting patients -- impacting their lives, impacting how they feel, impacting their activities of daily living. I think that is what patient-centered outcomes research encompasses: patient preference, patient functioning, and patient feeling. If we don't do that, we are not patient-centric in our drug development because we're missing this crucial part. A drug might shrink a tumor this much, or it might give you this many fewer bleeds if you're a hemophilia patient, but what does that mean to the patient? How does that impact them?"
@DebiopharmNews #Debiopharm #DrugDevelopment #Biotech #PatientCare #PatientCenteredOutcomesResearch
Debiopharm.com
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Ohad Arazi, CEO of Clarius, a medical imaging startup with a mission to bring accurate, easy-to-use, AI-assisted, and affordable hand-held ultrasound tools to a broad range of medical professionals. Traditional ultrasound is costly, stationary, and requires specialized training. The portable Clarius device communicates with an iPad or an Android or iOS phone. The ultrasound produces highly nuanced grayscale real-time images that, with the help of artificial intelligence, can be used safely in a wider point-of-care environment to make informed decisions.
Ohad explains, "We're all about bringing together high-performance ultrasound imaging, cloud data, and artificial intelligence into this powerful ecosystem that improves patient care enabled by medical imaging in every setting. The key differentiation is that handheld ultrasound is not about replacing legacy systems in places where they're already well entrenched, like radiology or cardiology. It is rather about bringing medical imaging to new care settings and putting it in the hands of new practitioners that may not have had access to an ultrasound before."
"We can even extend that outside of the walls of the hospital into the ambulance. Powered by AI, we have a feature called Auto Preset AI, which, as the EMT roam through the patient's body, looking for trauma, our AI will automatically adapt the view of that image to optimize it for the organ the EMT is looking at. This lowers that threshold for knowledge to enable them to make a more informed decision. For example, to see that there might be stenosis in the carotid and they should radio the hospital and get the thrombectomy lab ready because there's a stroke patient on hand."
#Clarius #MedTech #Ultrasound #MedicalImaging #AI #DigitalHealth #HandheldUltrasound
clarius.com
clarius.com/2023-state-of-ultrasound-report/
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Ohad Arazi, CEO of Clarius, a medical imaging startup with a mission to bring accurate, easy-to-use, AI-assisted, and affordable hand-held ultrasound tools to a broad range of medical professionals. Traditional ultrasound is costly, stationary, and requires specialized training. The portable Clarius device communicates with an iPad or an Android or iOS phone. The ultrasound produces highly nuanced grayscale real-time images that, with the help of artificial intelligence, can be used safely in a wider point-of-care environment to make informed decisions.
Ohad explains, "We're all about bringing together high-performance ultrasound imaging, cloud data, and artificial intelligence into this powerful ecosystem that improves patient care enabled by medical imaging in every setting. The key differentiation is that handheld ultrasound is not about replacing legacy systems in places where they're already well entrenched, like radiology or cardiology. It is rather about bringing medical imaging to new care settings and putting it in the hands of new practitioners that may not have had access to an ultrasound before."
"We can even extend that outside of the walls of the hospital into the ambulance. Powered by AI, we have a feature called Auto Preset AI, which, as the EMT roam through the patient's body, looking for trauma, our AI will automatically adapt the view of that image to optimize it for the organ the EMT is looking at. This lowers that threshold for knowledge to enable them to make a more informed decision. For example, to see that there might be stenosis in the carotid and they should radio the hospital and get the thrombectomy lab ready because there's a stroke patient on hand."
#Clarius #MedTech #Ultrasound #MedicalImaging #AI #DigitalHealth #HandheldUltrasound
clarius.com
clarius.com/2023-state-of-ultrasound-report/
Download the transcript here
Alina Czekai, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Cohere Health, points out the need to transform the often painful prior authorization process. The traditional approach takes a piecemeal view of requests and provides a yes or no response. The Cohere view looks at the process as a multidimensional challenge that requires understanding the entirety of care and leveraging technology and AI to help guide behavior toward what is most clinically appropriate.
Alina explains, "You can think of it as an authorization for a credit card. Ensuring that what is going to be done or what medication or devices are going to be ordered is actually going to be paid for. The process and payments in the healthcare system today have become so complex. It's complex not only for the health plan that's administering payments for care but also for physicians and their staff. Most importantly, it's a confusing and stressful process for patients."
"We believe that prior authorization is a process that can be automated, that should be automated and is really an opportunity in the patient journey to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page. We also think that tools like prior authorization can really be leveraged to understand what's next in a patient's care journey."
"We have a joke at Cohere. None of us were super excited to get in the prior auth business, but we were super excited to get in the business of totally changing a part of the healthcare system that is so antiquated. Prior authorization, for years, has relied on fax. We're not trying to put the fax machine totally out of business, but we think that we can really automate this important process and make access to care even faster for patients."
#CohereHealth #PriorAuthorization #CMS #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech
CohereHealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Alina Czekai, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Cohere Health, points out the need to transform the often painful prior authorization process. The traditional approach takes a piecemeal view of requests and provides a yes or no response. The Cohere view looks at the process as a multidimensional challenge that requires understanding the entirety of care and leveraging technology and AI to help guide behavior toward what is most clinically appropriate.
Alina explains, "You can think of it as an authorization for a credit card. Ensuring that what is going to be done or what medication or devices are going to be ordered is actually going to be paid for. The process and payments in the healthcare system today have become so complex. It's complex not only for the health plan that's administering payments for care but also for physicians and their staff. Most importantly, it's a confusing and stressful process for patients."
"We believe that prior authorization is a process that can be automated, that should be automated and is really an opportunity in the patient journey to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page. We also think that tools like prior authorization can really be leveraged to understand what's next in a patient's care journey."
"We have a joke at Cohere. None of us were super excited to get in the prior auth business, but we were super excited to get in the business of totally changing a part of the healthcare system that is so antiquated. Prior authorization, for years, has relied on fax. We're not trying to put the fax machine totally out of business, but we think that we can really automate this important process and make access to care even faster for patients."
#CohereHealth #PriorAuthorization #CMS #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech
CohereHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Jared Crapo, Head of Product and Technology at Kalderos, focuses on drug discounts paid by drug manufacturers to pharmacy benefit managers, commercial or government payers, and healthcare providers. Congress created the 340B Drug Discount Program and the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program to support healthcare for underserved patients. While these programs have dramatically grown, so too have the complexities and confusion about discounts and disagreements about payments.
Jared explains, "The 340B program was created by Congress, and it's a subsidy from drug manufacturers to underserved healthcare providers. The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program is a similar program created by Congress that is a source of financial support for state Medicaid agencies, also provided by drug manufacturers. So drug manufacturers give a discount to state Medicaid agencies for drugs prescribed to Medicaid patients."
"One way to think about it is there's a lot of information asymmetry, which means some stakeholders have access to a lot more data than other stakeholders. And without a shared common understanding of which discounts are available, which discounts are compliant, and which ones aren't, it's really difficult for these various stakeholders to understand what their obligations are and what they should be doing. That leads to the dysfunction that you've mentioned."
"What Kalderos does to reduce this dysfunction is compile and curate data from dozens of different sources, to try and create a common understanding of what actually happened on a particular prescription. This is so that all stakeholders have access to the same information, which then reduces the disagreements about what should actually happen from a discount and a rebate perspective."
@KalderosInc #DrugDiscountPrograms #340BDrugDiscountProgram #MedicaidDrugRebateProgram #MDRP
kalderos.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jared Crapo, Head of Product and Technology at Kalderos, focuses on drug discounts paid by drug manufacturers to pharmacy benefit managers, commercial or government payers, and healthcare providers. Congress created the 340B Drug Discount Program and the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program to support healthcare for underserved patients. While these programs have dramatically grown, so too have the complexities and confusion about discounts and disagreements about payments.
Jared explains, "The 340B program was created by Congress, and it's a subsidy from drug manufacturers to underserved healthcare providers. The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program is a similar program created by Congress that is a source of financial support for state Medicaid agencies, also provided by drug manufacturers. So drug manufacturers give a discount to state Medicaid agencies for drugs prescribed to Medicaid patients."
"One way to think about it is there's a lot of information asymmetry, which means some stakeholders have access to a lot more data than other stakeholders. And without a shared common understanding of which discounts are available, which discounts are compliant, and which ones aren't, it's really difficult for these various stakeholders to understand what their obligations are and what they should be doing. That leads to the dysfunction that you've mentioned."
"What Kalderos does to reduce this dysfunction is compile and curate data from dozens of different sources, to try and create a common understanding of what actually happened on a particular prescription. This is so that all stakeholders have access to the same information, which then reduces the disagreements about what should actually happen from a discount and a rebate perspective."
@KalderosInc #DrugDiscountPrograms #340BDrugDiscountProgram #MedicaidDrugRebateProgram #MDRP
kalderos.com
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Jessica Ackerman, the Vice President for Strategic Partnerships and Impact at Responsum Health, is focused on the insights that patients can provide drug companies and other people newly diagnosed or suffering from a chronic condition. Responsum is a digital-based educational community providing accurate scientific information, peer support, access to clinical trials, and a path by which drug companies can get real-world data.
Jessica explains, "Every disease focus that we have started has come from a partnership, some vested interest, from either a commercial sponsor or a pharmaceutical company, to build this robust community. Their interest is to gain the patient's voice and get insights, market research data, and real-world data from patients and family members to understand their gaps in care. So we have created a number of communities, like kidney disease CKD. We have glaucoma. We have pulmonary fibrosis, which is considered a rare disease, so we are in the rare disease and orphan disease space as well."
"We also have a long COVID community. That's a newer one that was met purely out of need. Patients diagnosed with long COVID undergo a lot of stigma and have trouble finding resources that are credible. We also have a menopause community that has many, many women who are feeling empowered to figure out what's going on for a lot of unmet needs as well. We have a number of communities, and we're always willing and able to build new communities. Part of what we're doing here is building new communities."
#Responsum #PatientExperience #PatientEmpowerment #DigitalHealth #PatientEducation #LongCOVID #HealthEquity #ClinicalTrials #HealthLiteracy #RareDisease
ResponsumHealth.com
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Jessica Ackerman, the Vice President for Strategic Partnerships and Impact at Responsum Health, is focused on the insights that patients can provide drug companies and other people newly diagnosed or suffering from a chronic condition. Responsum is a digital-based educational community providing accurate scientific information, peer support, access to clinical trials, and a path by which drug companies can get real-world data.
Jessica explains, "Every disease focus that we have started has come from a partnership, some vested interest, from either a commercial sponsor or a pharmaceutical company, to build this robust community. Their interest is to gain the patient's voice and get insights, market research data, and real-world data from patients and family members to understand their gaps in care. So we have created a number of communities, like kidney disease CKD. We have glaucoma. We have pulmonary fibrosis, which is considered a rare disease, so we are in the rare disease and orphan disease space as well."
"We also have a long COVID community. That's a newer one that was met purely out of need. Patients diagnosed with long COVID undergo a lot of stigma and have trouble finding resources that are credible. We also have a menopause community that has many, many women who are feeling empowered to figure out what's going on for a lot of unmet needs as well. We have a number of communities, and we're always willing and able to build new communities. Part of what we're doing here is building new communities."
#Responsum #PatientExperience #PatientEmpowerment #DigitalHealth #PatientEducation #LongCOVID #HealthEquity #ClinicalTrials #HealthLiteracy #RareDisease
ResponsumHealth.com
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Dr. Phil Wagner, Founder and CEO of Sparta Science, is developing a movement health intelligence solution to better understand the overall health of a patient and their risk of injury. They are interweaving movement ability and balance ability to analyze meaningful biomarkers to ensure top performance and safe mobility. From his experience as a sports trainer, Phil warns about making assumptions about performance at any age.
Phil explains, "We do a balance assessment to assess that movement health, and it takes about 20 seconds on each side, and that will actually generate about a million data points on our device. This feeds into software that uses machine learning to compare you against yourself but also around others in a similar cohort, whether that's similar ages or sex at birth. So, being able to compare yourself against your own previous baselines and assessments, but also compare yourself for norms against others."
"We're working with the military on a TBI biomarker, traumatic brain injury because movement is interwoven into all those different types of conditions. So, the biomarkers that are created are really based on those conditions you're trying to improve, maybe performance for an athlete, or it may be avoiding some sort of setback, like a fall. The biomarkers that are of interest really depend on the population. Still, because balance is such a global application, it really has the opportunity to create biomarkers in several different areas, depending on the population."
"On the other side, we've seen hospitals assign fall risk to individuals just based on their age. I spoke with a hospital CEO the other day who found that anybody over 65 gets yellow booties. They're automatically a fall risk when they are checked into the hospital. He encountered a woman walking around in these yellow booties at his hospital, and he told her to get back in her room because she was a fall risk. She ran back to her room. So, this is the idea that we're using age as a primary marker and assuming that we have these movement limitations that may or may not exist."
#SpartaScience #MovementHealth #MovementHealthIntelligence #BigData #DigitalHealthTech #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #MachineLearning
SpartaScience.com
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Dr. Phil Wagner, Founder and CEO of Sparta Science, is developing a movement health intelligence solution to better understand the overall health of a patient and their risk of injury. They are interweaving movement ability and balance ability to analyze meaningful biomarkers to ensure top performance and safe mobility. From his experience as a sports trainer, Phil warns about making assumptions about performance at any age.
Phil explains, "We do a balance assessment to assess that movement health, and it takes about 20 seconds on each side, and that will actually generate about a million data points on our device. This feeds into software that uses machine learning to compare you against yourself but also around others in a similar cohort, whether that's similar ages or sex at birth. So, being able to compare yourself against your own previous baselines and assessments, but also compare yourself for norms against others."
"We're working with the military on a TBI biomarker, traumatic brain injury because movement is interwoven into all those different types of conditions. So, the biomarkers that are created are really based on those conditions you're trying to improve, maybe performance for an athlete, or it may be avoiding some sort of setback, like a fall. The biomarkers that are of interest really depend on the population. Still, because balance is such a global application, it really has the opportunity to create biomarkers in several different areas, depending on the population."
"On the other side, we've seen hospitals assign fall risk to individuals just based on their age. I spoke with a hospital CEO the other day who found that anybody over 65 gets yellow booties. They're automatically a fall risk when they are checked into the hospital. He encountered a woman walking around in these yellow booties at his hospital, and he told her to get back in her room because she was a fall risk. She ran back to her room. So, this is the idea that we're using age as a primary marker and assuming that we have these movement limitations that may or may not exist."
#SpartaScience #MovementHealth #MovementHealthIntelligence #BigData #DigitalHealthTech #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #MachineLearning
SpartaScience.com
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Dr. Clark Chang is a cornea and keratoconus, KC, specialist at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and the Director of Global Medical Affairs at Glaukos. Keratoconus is a disease of the eye where tissue thins and gradually bulges outward into a cone-like shape. While changes in the cornea are small, vision becomes very blurry, and the underlying cause may be overlooked. Glaukos has introduced the iLink procedure, a minimally invasive outpatient procedure to slow or halt the progression of this disease and help patients preserve their vision.
Clark explains, "It is associated with age, but it's in the different group of people than most of your audience is thinking. We're very familiar with conditions like age-related macular degeneration. Everybody knows that because it's very impactful to one's vision, and the fear of loss of vision has frequently been rated as one of the top one or two biggest fears in a person's life. Most diseases are age-related in that they can occur with time. This disease more commonly occurs during puberty or in younger patients."
"In order to be able to diagnose this condition, especially at an early stage when there is an extremely small amount of change in the alteration in the shape of the cornea, you really need sophisticated diagnostic technology that we usually call topographer or tomographer. Basically, it maps out the shape of the cornea, either just at the front or front and back of your cornea. Being able to, in a more sensitive way, figure out whether or not there's any small amount of area that's becoming misshapen more than what a normal cornea or tissue would look like."
#Glaukos #Keratoconus #iLink #CornealCrossinglinking #EyeHealth #KCAwareness #LivingwithKeratoconus #EyeDisease #Cornea
glaukos.com
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Dr. Clark Chang is a cornea and keratoconus, KC, specialist at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and the Director of Global Medical Affairs at Glaukos. Keratoconus is a disease of the eye where tissue thins and gradually bulges outward into a cone-like shape. While changes in the cornea are small, vision becomes very blurry, and the underlying cause may be overlooked. Glaukos has introduced the iLink procedure, a minimally invasive outpatient procedure to slow or halt the progression of this disease and help patients preserve their vision.
Clark explains, "It is associated with age, but it's in the different group of people than most of your audience is thinking. We're very familiar with conditions like age-related macular degeneration. Everybody knows that because it's very impactful to one's vision, and the fear of loss of vision has frequently been rated as one of the top one or two biggest fears in a person's life. Most diseases are age-related in that they can occur with time. This disease more commonly occurs during puberty or in younger patients."
"In order to be able to diagnose this condition, especially at an early stage when there is an extremely small amount of change in the alteration in the shape of the cornea, you really need sophisticated diagnostic technology that we usually call topographer or tomographer. Basically, it maps out the shape of the cornea, either just at the front or front and back of your cornea. Being able to, in a more sensitive way, figure out whether or not there's any small amount of area that's becoming misshapen more than what a normal cornea or tissue would look like."
#Glaukos #Keratoconus #iLink #CornealCrossinglinking #EyeHealth #KCAwareness #LivingwithKeratoconus #EyeDisease #Cornea
glaukos.com
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Dr. Antonin (Tony) de Fougerolles, CEO of Evox Therapeutics, highlights that exosomes, small nanoparticles, are produced by every cell in the body. They contain RNA and proteins that the cell decides to put into the exosome, and they're secreted out into the environment and act as a way that cells communicate with each other. Evox is excited about using exosome therapeutics to load genetic medicines such as RNA interference, small RNA drugs, gene therapy, or genome editing into exosomes and effectively delivering them inside cells. This approach provides a new way to treat rare diseases with an underlying genetic cause.
Tony elaborates, "Exosomes were first discovered or noticed in the scientific literature in the '80s and the early '90s, and at first were thought really just to be vesicles that cells excreted full of what people at the time thought was garbage, things the cell didn't need. In more recent times, in the last 10, 15 years, it's become clear that these exosomes can in some cases serve a function in terms of helping, as I say, cells communicate and sense their environment."
"It wasn't until one of our co-founders, Professor Matthew Wood, used exosomes as a deliberate vehicle. He had the idea, "Well, cells are constantly producing these exosomes. What they put into them is not at all random, it's very directed, and can we make use of that knowledge to actually proactively engineer drugs into these exosomes and then use the exosome's natural ability to deliver cargos inside cells? Can we use that to actually deliver drugs of our interest?"
#EvoxTherapeutics #RareDisease #Exosomes #RareGeneticDiseases #ExtracellularVesicles #RNATherapeutics #Biotech #GeneTherapy #GeneEditing #ProteinTherapeutics #Innovation
EvoxTherapeutics.com
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Dr. Antonin (Tony) de Fougerolles, CEO of Evox Therapeutics, highlights that exosomes, small nanoparticles, are produced by every cell in the body. They contain RNA and proteins that the cell decides to put into the exosome, and they're secreted out into the environment and act as a way that cells communicate with each other. Evox is excited about using exosome therapeutics to load genetic medicines such as RNA interference, small RNA drugs, gene therapy, or genome editing into exosomes and effectively delivering them inside cells. This approach provides a new way to treat rare diseases with an underlying genetic cause.
Tony elaborates, "Exosomes were first discovered or noticed in the scientific literature in the '80s and the early '90s, and at first were thought really just to be vesicles that cells excreted full of what people at the time thought was garbage, things the cell didn't need. In more recent times, in the last 10, 15 years, it's become clear that these exosomes can in some cases serve a function in terms of helping, as I say, cells communicate and sense their environment."
"It wasn't until one of our co-founders, Professor Matthew Wood, used exosomes as a deliberate vehicle. He had the idea, "Well, cells are constantly producing these exosomes. What they put into them is not at all random, it's very directed, and can we make use of that knowledge to actually proactively engineer drugs into these exosomes and then use the exosome's natural ability to deliver cargos inside cells? Can we use that to actually deliver drugs of our interest?"
#EvoxTherapeutics #RareDisease #Exosomes #RareGeneticDiseases #ExtracellularVesicles #RNATherapeutics #Biotech #GeneTherapy #GeneEditing #ProteinTherapeutics #Innovation
EvoxTherapeutics.com
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Dr. Eugene Chan, Chairman and Co-Founder of Abpro, talks about the next generation of antibody therapies that can target more than one target to activate the immune system in the fight against cancer. Abpro is also working on a prophylactic antibody therapy to help prevent immunocompromised patients from getting COVID.
Eugene explains, "Abpro has developed the antibodies, in a lot of these cases, to be able to target more than one target. This basically activates the immune system more so that whatever you're targeting is cleared more rapidly from the body. This applies to the cases of cancer that we are focused on, and we've basically developed these antibodies called bispecific antibodies - bi for targeting two different sites. These antibodies essentially have more and greater activity than conventional antibodies."
"We developed a program and antibodies that bind to HER2+, which is one of the molecular markers on breast and gastric cancers. This particular therapy brings the immune system, the body's own natural immune system, to these cancer cells in a very active manner, which then allows it to get cleared from the body much sooner than the other mono-specific therapies that are currently out there."
"Monoclonal antibodies are the body's own natural defense system for a lot of diseases. The ability to take these and augment and make them better is really the way to go because, ultimately, the body is already accustomed to these types of molecules. So we know to some degree they're safe. When compared to things like chemotherapy or even radiotherapy, these things are going to be much safer because they naturally exist in some way, shape or form in the body when you're fighting a disease or when your body's exposed to a new antigen or some sort of new threat. We're taking this approach and enhancing the body's ability to fight cancer and infection by augmenting the structure of these molecules."
#Abpro #Antibodies #MonoclonalAntibodies #Cancer #Tumors #COVID #HER2+
abpro.com
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Dr. Eugene Chan, Chairman and Co-Founder of Abpro, talks about the next generation of antibody therapies that can target more than one target to activate the immune system in the fight against cancer. Abpro is also working on a prophylactic antibody therapy to help prevent immunocompromised patients from getting COVID.
Eugene explains, "Abpro has developed the antibodies, in a lot of these cases, to be able to target more than one target. This basically activates the immune system more so that whatever you're targeting is cleared more rapidly from the body. This applies to the cases of cancer that we are focused on, and we've basically developed these antibodies called bispecific antibodies - bi for targeting two different sites. These antibodies essentially have more and greater activity than conventional antibodies."
"We developed a program and antibodies that bind to HER2+, which is one of the molecular markers on breast and gastric cancers. This particular therapy brings the immune system, the body's own natural immune system, to these cancer cells in a very active manner, which then allows it to get cleared from the body much sooner than the other mono-specific therapies that are currently out there."
"Monoclonal antibodies are the body's own natural defense system for a lot of diseases. The ability to take these and augment and make them better is really the way to go because, ultimately, the body is already accustomed to these types of molecules. So we know to some degree they're safe. When compared to things like chemotherapy or even radiotherapy, these things are going to be much safer because they naturally exist in some way, shape or form in the body when you're fighting a disease or when your body's exposed to a new antigen or some sort of new threat. We're taking this approach and enhancing the body's ability to fight cancer and infection by augmenting the structure of these molecules."
#Abpro #Antibodies #MonoclonalAntibodies #Cancer #Tumors #COVID #HER2+
abpro.com
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Dr. Edith Perez, Chief Medical Officer at Bolt Biotherapeutics, describes the innovative approach Bolt is taking to bring together the precision of antibodies against the tumor with the power of the innate and adaptive immune system by activating the immune system at the tumor site. This approach can minimize side effects from systematic activation of the immune system and reinforce long-term anti-tumor efficacy.
Edith explains, "The myeloid cells are a wide range of cells in the body, and initially, the myeloid cells can start attacking the tumors right away. But as important, or even more importantly, is that they secrete the cytokines and chemokines to teach the T-cells to essentially develop an immunological memory to be able to fight these foreign bodies for a long time."
"First of all, there are the abnormalities of the tumor themselves, and we target those with monoclonal antibodies. Then we actually link that with what we call a non-cleavable and non-cell permeable linker. Again, the idea is to bring the activation of the immune system right at the site of the tumor, which could be dramatic for humans."
"So these monoclonal antibodies essentially find the tumor cells because the tumor cells are circulating, they're in the body, so they latch onto these proteins in the membrane and with our compound, with our Boltbody compounds. What we have here is the attachment of the monoclonal antibodies with what we call the linker payload. The payload is really the activation factor of the immune system. We bring that activation of the immune system, tied into the monoclonal antibody, to the site of the tumor. That way, we can be very precise related to where the activity of the compound will occur."
@BoltBio #BoltBio #ISAC #Immunotherapy #Oncology #Tumors #ImmuneSystem
boltbio.com
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Dr. Edith Perez, Chief Medical Officer at Bolt Biotherapeutics, describes the innovative approach Bolt is taking to bring together the precision of antibodies against the tumor with the power of the innate and adaptive immune system by activating the immune system at the tumor site. This approach can minimize side effects from systematic activation of the immune system and reinforce long-term anti-tumor efficacy.
Edith explains, "The myeloid cells are a wide range of cells in the body, and initially, the myeloid cells can start attacking the tumors right away. But as important, or even more importantly, is that they secrete the cytokines and chemokines to teach the T-cells to essentially develop an immunological memory to be able to fight these foreign bodies for a long time."
"First of all, there are the abnormalities of the tumor themselves, and we target those with monoclonal antibodies. Then we actually link that with what we call a non-cleavable and non-cell permeable linker. Again, the idea is to bring the activation of the immune system right at the site of the tumor, which could be dramatic for humans."
"So these monoclonal antibodies essentially find the tumor cells because the tumor cells are circulating, they're in the body, so they latch onto these proteins in the membrane and with our compound, with our Boltbody compounds. What we have here is the attachment of the monoclonal antibodies with what we call the linker payload. The payload is really the activation factor of the immune system. We bring that activation of the immune system, tied into the monoclonal antibody, to the site of the tumor. That way, we can be very precise related to where the activity of the compound will occur."
@BoltBio #BoltBio #ISAC #Immunotherapy #Oncology #Tumors #ImmuneSystem
boltbio.com
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Dr. Romain Micol, CEO, and Dr. Tom VanCott, Chief Scientific Officer, at Combined Therapeutics, are excited about the opportunities to design mRNA vaccines that target specific tissue cells to restrict protein expression and have stronger potency in the fight against infectious disease and cancer. They have designed their vaccine platform to keep the vaccine antigen expression at the injection site, protecting the liver, kidney, and heart.
Romain explains, "So mRNA vaccines are highly effective both for infectious diseases and, more recently, to treat cancer. It's an ideal technology that is relatively easy to make and to manufacture. It could be very rapid and can get expression in vivo where protein would be folded properly. We can currently use the mRNA vaccine to deliver multiple materials to prevent infectious diseases and also cure cancer."
"The main challenge we see at Combined Therapeutics, both for vaccines for infectious disease and for cancer treatment, is in their biodistribution and potency. Our platform at Combined Therapeutics is a proprietary technology that enables us to focus protein expression in specific tissue cells and prevent off-target expression in selected cell tissue. At the moment, our R&D program covers both oncology and infectious disease."
Thomas elaborates, "What we've done here at Combined Therapeutics is we're taking advantage of something called micro RNAs. Now, what are micro RNAs? A lot of people don't know about them, but they're really just small RNA molecules that are naturally present throughout the body. They're actually fairly small molecules. They're about 22 nucleotides in size."
"But what's really important is that they're distributed differentially throughout the body. So, if you look at the lungs or the heart or the muscles, you'll see a different array of micro RNAs that are expressed in each one of those tissues, and that is exactly what we take advantage of. What we do in our mRNA is engineer into it what we call these blockers. And what's a blocker? A blocker is really a binding site for the micro RNA."
@Combined_tx #CombinedTherapeutics #mRNA #Vaccines #Cancer #Oncology #InfectiousDisease
combinedtx.com
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Dr. Romain Micol, CEO, and Dr. Tom VanCott, Chief Scientific Officer, at Combined Therapeutics, are excited about the opportunities to design mRNA vaccines that target specific tissue cells to restrict protein expression and have stronger potency in the fight against infectious disease and cancer. They have designed their vaccine platform to keep the vaccine antigen expression at the injection site, protecting the liver, kidney, and heart.
Romain explains, "So mRNA vaccines are highly effective both for infectious diseases and, more recently, to treat cancer. It's an ideal technology that is relatively easy to make and to manufacture. It could be very rapid and can get expression in vivo where protein would be folded properly. We can currently use the mRNA vaccine to deliver multiple materials to prevent infectious diseases and also cure cancer."
"The main challenge we see at Combined Therapeutics, both for vaccines for infectious disease and for cancer treatment, is in their biodistribution and potency. Our platform at Combined Therapeutics is a proprietary technology that enables us to focus protein expression in specific tissue cells and prevent off-target expression in selected cell tissue. At the moment, our R&D program covers both oncology and infectious disease."
Thomas elaborates, "What we've done here at Combined Therapeutics is we're taking advantage of something called micro RNAs. Now, what are micro RNAs? A lot of people don't know about them, but they're really just small RNA molecules that are naturally present throughout the body. They're actually fairly small molecules. They're about 22 nucleotides in size."
"But what's really important is that they're distributed differentially throughout the body. So, if you look at the lungs or the heart or the muscles, you'll see a different array of micro RNAs that are expressed in each one of those tissues, and that is exactly what we take advantage of. What we do in our mRNA is engineer into it what we call these blockers. And what's a blocker? A blocker is really a binding site for the micro RNA."
@Combined_tx #CombinedTherapeutics #mRNA #Vaccines #Cancer #Oncology #InfectiousDisease
combinedtx.com
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Nick Hedges is the CEO of Raintree Systems, a provider of software-as-a-relationship to help therapy and rehab companies enhance their patient engagement, provide access to an electronic medical record system, and improve revenue cycle management. Using predictive models and a digital approach to billing and reimbursement, Raintree is reducing the friction for patients, providers, and payers.
Nick explains, "A lot of people describe software these days as delivered primarily through the internet as software-as-a-service. However, service doesn't really tell you the full story about how we interact with our clients. We see our software as being a partnership. We work very closely with our clients to make sure that it delivers exactly what they need, and we build our product in unison with our clients. That's why we call it software-as-a-relationship."
"Healthcare, in general, is quite far behind in terms of the digital patient experience or the digital consumer experience. One of the things that Raintree seeks to do is to be at the forefront of that within healthcare and bring some of the capabilities that you see in other industries like financial services and automotive and so on to the healthcare industry because that's what consumers who are patients want. They want a more digital experience."
"The revenue cycle side of things is a really important aspect, both for the therapy provider and the patient. What we try to do is to reduce the friction to the maximum amount for both sides because it's very complicated. It's an arcane system when it comes to how provider reimbursements work. And frankly, neither the patient nor the therapist, wants to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how their healthcare plan matches with the needs that they have for their healthcare. So what we do is automate a lot of that process."
@RaintreeSystems #PhysicalTherapy #TherapyRehab #OccupationalTherapy #PediatricTherapy #SpeechTherapy
raintreeinc.com
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Nick Hedges is the CEO of Raintree Systems, a provider of software-as-a-relationship to help therapy and rehab companies enhance their patient engagement, provide access to an electronic medical record system, and improve revenue cycle management. Using predictive models and a digital approach to billing and reimbursement, Raintree is reducing the friction for patients, providers, and payers.
Nick explains, "A lot of people describe software these days as delivered primarily through the internet as software-as-a-service. However, service doesn't really tell you the full story about how we interact with our clients. We see our software as being a partnership. We work very closely with our clients to make sure that it delivers exactly what they need, and we build our product in unison with our clients. That's why we call it software-as-a-relationship."
"Healthcare, in general, is quite far behind in terms of the digital patient experience or the digital consumer experience. One of the things that Raintree seeks to do is to be at the forefront of that within healthcare and bring some of the capabilities that you see in other industries like financial services and automotive and so on to the healthcare industry because that's what consumers who are patients want. They want a more digital experience."
"The revenue cycle side of things is a really important aspect, both for the therapy provider and the patient. What we try to do is to reduce the friction to the maximum amount for both sides because it's very complicated. It's an arcane system when it comes to how provider reimbursements work. And frankly, neither the patient nor the therapist, wants to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how their healthcare plan matches with the needs that they have for their healthcare. So what we do is automate a lot of that process."
@RaintreeSystems #PhysicalTherapy #TherapyRehab #OccupationalTherapy #PediatricTherapy #SpeechTherapy
raintreeinc.com
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Whitney Stewart, the Director of Clinical Project Management at Curebase, and Megan Coder, the Chief Policy Officer of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, have worked together on a white paper Setting the Stage for a Fit-For-Purpose DTx Evidentiary Standard. The goal is to outline foundational principles that, in some cases, are unique to the digital therapeutics category. Their focus is on baseline expectations related to procedures and the type, quality, and timing of clinical trials necessary to evaluate and widely implement DTx therapies.
Megan explains, "Given some of their development pathways and processes, given how they're regulated as a medical device and not a drug, we've really started talking with Curebase and some of our other members. We are looking at, and we recognize that, these digital therapeutic products have great value to patient care. They can be used alongside or sometimes even in place of some of these traditional therapies. But what became evident to us pretty quickly is that these therapies really don't sit in line with all of the evidentiary standards that exist for the current existing treatments and therapies."
"We wanted to talk about this idea of a fit-for-purpose standard that can pull in some of the aspects from traditional therapies into this evaluation framework. This is so a patient, clinician, payer, and policymaker can understand, "Oh, this is what this therapy does, this is how I know it's going to be successful, and this is how I know what the impact is going to be for my patient population."
Whitney elaborates, "The future implications include a better understanding of the clinical evidence dossier, which just means more effective and fair evaluations of the technologies. So, do they need to conduct the same trials and generate the same evidence as pharmaceuticals? No, I think we all are aligned with that. Do they need to go through the same processes as high-risk medical devices? No, they probably don't. Most of them are fairly low-risk. So we've been talking about it just to get everybody on the same page and with the same kind of evaluation criteria so that everyone knows exactly what sufficient looks like."
#DigitalTherapeuticsAlliance #Curebase #DTx #DigitalTherapeutics #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #DTxTrials #ClinicalResearch #ClinicalTrials
DTxalliance.org
curebase.com
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Whitney Stewart, the Director of Clinical Project Management at Curebase, and Megan Coder, the Chief Policy Officer of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, have worked together on a white paper Setting the Stage for a Fit-For-Purpose DTx Evidentiary Standard. The goal is to outline foundational principles that, in some cases, are unique to the digital therapeutics category. Their focus is on baseline expectations related to procedures and the type, quality, and timing of clinical trials necessary to evaluate and widely implement DTx therapies.
Megan explains, "Given some of their development pathways and processes, given how they're regulated as a medical device and not a drug, we've really started talking with Curebase and some of our other members. We are looking at, and we recognize that, these digital therapeutic products have great value to patient care. They can be used alongside or sometimes even in place of some of these traditional therapies. But what became evident to us pretty quickly is that these therapies really don't sit in line with all of the evidentiary standards that exist for the current existing treatments and therapies."
"We wanted to talk about this idea of a fit-for-purpose standard that can pull in some of the aspects from traditional therapies into this evaluation framework. This is so a patient, clinician, payer, and policymaker can understand, "Oh, this is what this therapy does, this is how I know it's going to be successful, and this is how I know what the impact is going to be for my patient population."
Whitney elaborates, "The future implications include a better understanding of the clinical evidence dossier, which just means more effective and fair evaluations of the technologies. So, do they need to conduct the same trials and generate the same evidence as pharmaceuticals? No, I think we all are aligned with that. Do they need to go through the same processes as high-risk medical devices? No, they probably don't. Most of them are fairly low-risk. So we've been talking about it just to get everybody on the same page and with the same kind of evaluation criteria so that everyone knows exactly what sufficient looks like."
#DigitalTherapeuticsAlliance #Curebase #DTx #DigitalTherapeutics #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #DTxTrials #ClinicalResearch #ClinicalTrials
DTxAlliance.org
curebase.com
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Karen Smith is the Founder of Catie's Cause, a nonprofit charity dedicated to building awareness about the safe use of over-the-counter pain medications. After the death of her daughter Catie from liver failure due to overuse of Tylenol, Karen founded this organization to shine a light on the unintended and intentional side effects of easy access to these medicines.
Karen explains, "The research shows that there are four main groups of individuals who are impacted by acetaminophen poisoning. Young adults definitely are a large group, oftentimes because they're on their own and they don't realize the dangers of medication. Some of them do begin to abuse it and they take it way too regularly. Sadly, about 50% of the deaths are from suicide, so obviously intended, but 50% of them are unintended. So young adults are a big group."
"Another group is young children because parents tend to freak out when their little ones get a headache, and they overmedicate. The third group impacted are the elderly because they have difficulty reading the warning labels or are taking a lot of other medications, and their liver may already be compromised by that."
"And then the last group are those with limited access to healthcare. That's primarily because they don't have someone to warn them about what could happen if they overuse that medication. Instead of going to a doctor, they tend to go to the pharmacy and pick up whatever's on the shelf."
#CatiesCause #AcetaminophenPoisoning #AcetaminophenDangers #KnowYourMedications #LiverSafety #DrugSafety #Tylenol #SouthRampartPharma #DoIt4Catie #PaintTherapy
catiescause.org
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Karen Smith is the Founder of Catie's Cause, a nonprofit charity dedicated to building awareness about the safe use of over-the-counter pain medications. After the death of her daughter Catie from liver failure due to overuse of Tylenol, Karen founded this organization to shine a light on the unintended and intentional side effects of easy access to these medicines.
Karen explains, "The research shows that there are four main groups of individuals who are impacted by acetaminophen poisoning. Young adults definitely are a large group, oftentimes because they're on their own and they don't realize the dangers of medication. Some of them do begin to abuse it and they take it way too regularly. Sadly, about 50% of the deaths are from suicide, so obviously intended, but 50% of them are unintended. So young adults are a big group."
"Another group is young children because parents tend to freak out when their little ones get a headache, and they overmedicate. The third group impacted are the elderly because they have difficulty reading the warning labels or are taking a lot of other medications, and their liver may already be compromised by that."
"And then the last group are those with limited access to healthcare. That's primarily because they don't have someone to warn them about what could happen if they overuse that medication. Instead of going to a doctor, they tend to go to the pharmacy and pick up whatever's on the shelf."
#CatiesCause #AcetaminophenPoisoning #AcetaminophenDangers #KnowYourMedications #LiverSafety #DrugSafety #Tylenol #SouthRampartPharma #DoIt4Catie #PaintTherapy
catiescause.org
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Dr. Jing Wang is the Dean and Professor at Florida State University College of Nursing and is focused on bringing a high-tech, high-touch approach to patient care in the education of nurses. The idea is to leverage technology and digital health tools to support nurses so that they can spend more quality time with patients. The newest generation of students are digital natives, and one goal is to help them use that knowledge to smooth the transition for the less technology savvy.
Jing explains, "I think it's all about how technology is introduced into the learning in our current nursing education and health profession education. That is critically important. That's what we are doing here at Florida State University College of Nursing. We would like to do it in the right way, to introduce technology as a tool to enhance care and facilitate care versus this is a fancy technology, we must use it. I think that's core, and that's the attitude that we are hoping our graduating students will have."
"We have launched a new Institute on Digital Health and Innovation. It's very exciting that we are launching our first design sprint. We're bringing students all together for them to work 24 non-stop to focus on solutions with people who build homes, people who design homes, people who take care of seniors, and people who focus on wellness. This includes doctors, nurses, and social workers. How can we design this home that is a future aging-in-place home that would consider all of the aspects for our seniors or adults who would like age-in-place?"
#FSUResearch #FSUNursing #DigitalHealth #AginginPlace #DigitalPrecisionHealth #Nurses
Nursing.FSU.edu
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Dr. Jing Wang is the Dean and Professor at Florida State University College of Nursing and is focused on bringing a high-tech, high-touch approach to patient care in the education of nurses. The idea is to leverage technology and digital health tools to support nurses so that they can spend more quality time with patients. The newest generation of students are digital natives, and one goal is to help them use that knowledge to smooth the transition for the less technology savvy.
Jing explains, "I think it's all about how technology is introduced into the learning in our current nursing education and health profession education. That is critically important. That's what we are doing here at Florida State University College of Nursing. We would like to do it in the right way, to introduce technology as a tool to enhance care and facilitate care versus this is a fancy technology, we must use it. I think that's core, and that's the attitude that we are hoping our graduating students will have."
"We have launched a new Institute on Digital Health and Innovation. It's very exciting that we are launching our first design sprint. We're bringing students all together for them to work 24 non-stop to focus on solutions with people who build homes, people who design homes, people who take care of seniors, and people who focus on wellness. This includes doctors, nurses, and social workers. How can we design this home that is a future aging-in-place home that would consider all of the aspects for our seniors or adults who would like age-in-place?"
#FSUResearch #FSUNursing #DigitalHealth #AginginPlace #DigitalPrecisionHealth #Nurses
Nursing.FSU.edu
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Dr. Deb Ondrasik is a pediatrician based in Massachusetts, and the topic today is the CACNA1A Foundation and its work on raising awareness about developmental disabilities. Deb's daughter was diagnosed in 2015 as one of eight children worldwide with a CACNA1A gene mutation causing epileptic encephalopathy. This is a story about the need for whole genome sequencing to determine the root cause of childhood developmental delays and the value of this information for developing a treatment plan.
Deb explains, "CACNA1A is a genetic mutation that's a group of diseases that can present in a number of different ways. It's mutations along a gene that affects the calcium channels and the neurons, and it's on chromosome 19. And so, there are numerous hundreds of different point mutations that could present a little differently. But kiddos can have anything from developmental delays to autism to epileptic encephalopathy, which my daughter has. Also, there are other conditions like hemiplegic migraines. And so, it is a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders that can be presenting."
"I work as a general pediatrician. I see a lot of kids that have delays and significant delays or autism or epilepsy. And oftentimes, the families are told that that's the diagnosis. Your child has epilepsy, and we're going to give them some meds and see if we can control it. Or, if your child has autism, we're going to get them into therapy, which is partly correct. Medication is super helpful, and therapy is super helpful. But I think what's really important is to try to find the root cause of the symptoms, which are epilepsy, autism delays. And oftentimes, for some reason, pediatricians and even neurologists don't always go ahead and do the genetic testing."
@CACNA1A #CACNA1AFoundation #CureCACNA1A #RareDiseases #RareDiseaseAwareness #CACNA1AAwareness #PatientAdvocacy #CACNA1AResearch #Epilepsy #IntellectualDisabilities #CerebellarAtrophy #CongenitalAtaxia #CaregiverSupport #WholeGenomeSequencing
CACNA1A.org
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Dr. Deb Ondrasik is a pediatrician based in Massachusetts, and the topic today is the CACNA1A Foundation and its work on raising awareness about developmental disabilities. Deb's daughter was diagnosed in 2015 as one of eight children worldwide with a CACNA1A gene mutation causing epileptic encephalopathy. This is a story about the need for whole genome sequencing to determine the root cause of childhood developmental delays and the value of this information for developing a treatment plan.
Deb explains, "CACNA1A is a genetic mutation that's a group of diseases that can present in a number of different ways. It's mutations along a gene that affects the calcium channels and the neurons, and it's on chromosome 19. And so, there are numerous hundreds of different point mutations that could present a little differently. But kiddos can have anything from developmental delays to autism to epileptic encephalopathy, which my daughter has. Also, there are other conditions like hemiplegic migraines. And so, it is a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders that can be presenting."
"I work as a general pediatrician. I see a lot of kids that have delays and significant delays or autism or epilepsy. And oftentimes, the families are told that that's the diagnosis. Your child has epilepsy, and we're going to give them some meds and see if we can control it. Or, if your child has autism, we're going to get them into therapy, which is partly correct. Medication is super helpful, and therapy is super helpful. But I think what's really important is to try to find the root cause of the symptoms, which are epilepsy, autism delays. And oftentimes, for some reason, pediatricians and even neurologists don't always go ahead and do the genetic testing."
#CACNA1AFoundation #CureCACNA1A #RareDiseases #RareDiseaseAwareness #CACNA1AAwareness #PatientAdvocacy #CACNA1AResearch #Epilepsy #IntellectualDisabilities #CerebellarAtrophy #CongenitalAtaxia #CaregiverSupport #WholeGenomeSequencing
CACNA1A.org
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Heather Ridenoure, Center of Excellence Segment Leader, and Maeve Ruggieri, the Director of Product at Contigo Health, shine a light on the challenge of employee substance use disorder and the resources available for care. This chronic disease can be caused by adverse childhood events, genetic predisposition, stress, and environmental factors. Contigo addresses any substance that can be abused through their Centers for Excellence program with virtual care and in-person care options where participation is voluntary and can be accessed 24/7.
Heather explains, "As far as how frequently this occurs, the newest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control said one in seven people have a substance use disorder. That's new data, and that's been increasing by 30% since the pandemic, which is pretty significant. So, this is one of the reasons we struck out on a journey to try to address some of these issues."
Maeve elaborates, "As Heather mentioned, substance use disorder being a chronic disease, is something that causes clinically significant impairment. So that may or may not be visible to an employer in the workplace. Their employees may seem like they are high performers or be high performers and not be showing the stereotypical signs of substance use disorder, things that we may see from TV or movies, like erratic behavior, things even down to missing deadlines."
"But what's so important is having the member be ready to participate themselves. This program is rooted in shared decision-making between the member and the providers, and our team at Contigo, who's doing a lot of care and case management and support. And if the member is not ready to participate, to explore recovery and manage their substance use disorder, then it's not time yet."
#ContigoHealth #SubstanceUseDisorder #HealthPlans #HealthBenefits
ContigoHealth.com
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Heather Ridenoure, Center of Excellence Segment Leader, and Maeve Ruggieri, the Director of Product at Contigo Health, shine a light on the challenge of employee substance use disorder and the resources available for care. This chronic disease can be caused by adverse childhood events, genetic predisposition, stress, and environmental factors. Contigo addresses any substance that can be abused through their Centers for Excellence program with virtual care and in-person care options where participation is voluntary and can be accessed 24/7.
Heather explains, "As far as how frequently this occurs, the newest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control said one in seven people have a substance use disorder. That's new data, and that's been increasing by 30% since the pandemic, which is pretty significant. So, this is one of the reasons we struck out on a journey to try to address some of these issues."
Maeve elaborates, "As Heather mentioned, substance use disorder being a chronic disease, is something that causes clinically significant impairment. So that may or may not be visible to an employer in the workplace. Their employees may seem like they are high performers or be high performers and not be showing the stereotypical signs of substance use disorder, things that we may see from TV or movies, like erratic behavior, things even down to missing deadlines."
"But what's so important is having the member be ready to participate themselves. This program is rooted in shared decision-making between the member and the providers, and our team at Contigo, who's doing a lot of care and case management and support. And if the member is not ready to participate, to explore recovery and manage their substance use disorder, then it's not time yet."
#ContigoHealth #SubstanceUseDisorder #HealthPlans #HealthBenefits
ContigoHealth.com
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Kyle Filkins and Kris Napper were both born with SMA, spinal muscular atrophy. Meeting as kids at The Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp, they have developed a friendship and a documentary. After beginning the use of the drug Evrysdi, their rare genetic disease stopped progressing, and the oral form of this medication allowed them to avoid spinal injections. Now in their thirties, Kris and Kyle are advocating for the community of those with SMA, working on their documentary, and looking forward to more adventures.
Kris explains, "Just shortly before Evrysdi was released and made available, there was another drug called Spinraza that was the first treatment ever for our disability. It was a spinal injection, which poses some complications as far as it's a procedure with some risk. It can be painful, and there's the risk of hitting nerves and causing damage. It's not the most fun thing to go through, but it was beneficial. So I was doing that."
"So for young children, just being diagnosed can be life-changing because you can stop that progression before it really hits. For us, we've already had significant progression. Still, hopefully, this will stop it where it is, and we'll be able to continue our lives for the foreseeable future, a lot better and longer than originally anticipated."
Kyle elaborates, "Before I was on any type of therapy, I would go to bed one day able to do something, and I'd wake up the day after not being able to do that. And it would never come back. And it's pretty great to be able to go to bed and sleep securely knowing that what I did today I can, for the most part, probably do tomorrow. It's definitely life-changing. That's for sure."
"There's been a lot of people interested in this story. Kind of piggybacking here on what Napper said, at the outset, it was really kind of just a budget film and like, "Oh, maybe they'll do cool activities and make jokes and stuff." But then with the advent of this therapy and specifically Evrysdi, that's really changed the outlook of the scope of the film, and for the better, as Napper said."
@KKtheFilm #SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #MuscularDystrophy #RareDisease #Evrysdi
KrisandKyletheFilm.com
SnappyClothing.com
Evrysdi.com
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Kyle Filkins and Kris Napper were both born with SMA, spinal muscular atrophy. Meeting as kids at The Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp, they have developed a friendship and a documentary. After beginning the use of the drug Evrysdi, their rare genetic disease stopped progressing, and the oral form of this medication allowed them to avoid spinal injections. Now in their thirties, Kris and Kyle are advocating for the community of those with SMA, working on their documentary, and looking forward to more adventures.
Kris explains, "Just shortly before Evrysdi was released and made available, there was another drug called Spinraza that was the first treatment ever for our disability. It was a spinal injection, which poses some complications as far as it's a procedure with some risk. It can be painful, and there's the risk of hitting nerves and causing damage. It's not the most fun thing to go through, but it was beneficial. So I was doing that."
"So for young children, just being diagnosed can be life-changing because you can stop that progression before it really hits. For us, we've already had significant progression. Still, hopefully, this will stop it where it is, and we'll be able to continue our lives for the foreseeable future, a lot better and longer than originally anticipated."
Kyle elaborates, "Before I was on any type of therapy, I would go to bed one day able to do something, and I'd wake up the day after not being able to do that. And it would never come back. And it's pretty great to be able to go to bed and sleep securely knowing that what I did today I can, for the most part, probably do tomorrow. It's definitely life-changing. That's for sure."
"There's been a lot of people interested in this story. Kind of piggybacking here on what Napper said, at the outset, it was really kind of just a budget film and like, "Oh, maybe they'll do cool activities and make jokes and stuff." But then with the advent of this therapy and specifically Evrysdi, that's really changed the outlook of the scope of the film, and for the better, as Napper said."
@KKtheFilm #SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #MuscularDystrophy #RareDisease #Evrysdi
KrisandKyletheFilm.com
SnappyClothing.com
Evrysdi.com
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Marlena Del Hierro VP of partnerships and commercial strategy at Seniorly, which is a resource for families looking for senior living options and seniors planning ahead. The Best of Senior Living Awards determined by Seniorly highlights the best 150 communities around the country based on feedback from families, senior living advisors, licensing reviews, and media searches that might reveal something problematic or terrific about a facility.
Marlena explains, "We have an algorithm that then shares the top five to seven options for your loved one. So that's a unique piece, because of the data and the technology that we're constantly gathering from a variety of sources to help these families make the best decision for their loved ones."
"The reason why we're doing these awards is that we should be pushing the envelope. The Baby Boomers are fundamentally challenging these senior living communities. And the awards are just a sense of preparing us for more of a modern era in senior living."
@Seniorly #SeniorLiving #BabyBoomers #IndependentLiving #AssistedLiving #FinancialPlanning
Seniorly.com
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Marlena Del Hierro VP of partnerships and commercial strategy at Seniorly, which is a resource for families looking for senior living options and seniors planning ahead. The Best of Senior Living Awards determined by Seniorly highlights the best 150 communities around the country based on feedback from families, senior living advisors, licensing reviews, and media searches that might reveal something problematic or terrific about a facility.
Marlena explains, "We have an algorithm that then shares the top five to seven options for your loved one. So that's a unique piece, because of the data and the technology that we're constantly gathering from a variety of sources to help these families make the best decision for their loved ones."
"The reason why we're doing these awards is that we should be pushing the envelope. The Baby Boomers are fundamentally challenging these senior living communities. And the awards are just a sense of preparing us for more of a modern era in senior living."
@Seniorly #SeniorLiving #BabyBoomers #IndependentLiving #AssistedLiving #FinancialPlanning
Seniorly.com
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Dr. Steve Marcus, CEO of Cantex Pharmaceuticals, is developing drugs based on Azeliragon that might slow the metastasis of cancer and extend the survival rate for patients with brain and other cancers. This drug has been shown to suppress the RAGE receptor, which is expressed on the surface of cancer cells and some immune cells. When RAGE is over-activated, as it is in several cancers and inflammatory diseases, it can cause pathology.
Steve elaborates, "Azeliragon inhibits something abbreviated as RAGE, the receptor for advanced glycation end products. Originally, it was thought that RAGE is very important for the progression of Alzheimer's disease. And because of that, a company called vTv Therapeutics initiated large-scale clinical trials of Azeliragon for Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately, those trials failed to show effectiveness of the drug in Alzheimer's disease, but did demonstrate very robust safety. The drug is given once a day and was given to patients for periods up to 18 months, and it was very well tolerated."
"At the same time, over the last several years, there has been extensive literature indicating that this receptor, RAGE, plays a role in the progression of cancer, both brain cancers, as well as cancers outside of the central nervous system. And with that information, I approached vTv Therapeutics after their clinical trial failed to show efficacy, and I proposed licensing the product and taking it into cancer indications."
#CantexPharma #GBM #Glioblastoma #BrainMetastasis #RAGEReceptor #Cancer
Cantex.com
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Dr. Steve Marcus, CEO of Cantex Pharmaceuticals, is developing drugs based on Azeliragon that might slow the metastasis of cancer and extend the survival rate for patients with brain and other cancers. This drug has been shown to suppress the RAGE receptor, which is expressed on the surface of cancer cells and some immune cells. When RAGE is over-activated, as it is in several cancers and inflammatory diseases, it can cause pathology.
Steve elaborates, "Azeliragon inhibits something abbreviated as RAGE, the receptor for advanced glycation end products. Originally, it was thought that RAGE is very important for the progression of Alzheimer's disease. And because of that, a company called vTv Therapeutics initiated large-scale clinical trials of Azeliragon for Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately, those trials failed to show effectiveness of the drug in Alzheimer's disease, but did demonstrate very robust safety. The drug is given once a day and was given to patients for periods up to 18 months, and it was very well tolerated."
"At the same time, over the last several years, there has been extensive literature indicating that this receptor, RAGE, plays a role in the progression of cancer, both brain cancers, as well as cancers outside of the central nervous system. And with that information, I approached vTv Therapeutics after their clinical trial failed to show efficacy, and I proposed licensing the product and taking it into cancer indications."
#CantexPharma #GBM #Glioblastoma #BrainMetastasis #RAGEReceptor #Cancer
Cantex.com
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Dr. Spyros Papapetropoulos is the President and CEO of Bionomics, a biotech company focused on central nervous system disorders, particularly social anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Social anxiety is a disease primarily of adolescents and young adults, and the social isolation during COVID contributed to a rise in the number of people experiencing this condition. The Bionomics drug in development is BNC210, a therapeutic that can be taken on schedule an hour before conducting an activity likely to induce anxiety.
Spyros elaborates, "Social anxiety disorder is actually known as social phobia, and it's very different, because everyday interactions cause significant anxieties. And they're very situational, so you become very self-conscious. You feel embarrassed and have a fear of being scrutinized or judged negatively by others. It is considered a very, very important chronic mental health condition that, if left untreated, leads to comorbid depression, even suicidality, and addiction down the road."
"BNC210 acts on nicotinic receptors. These are receptors that are expressed or found in areas of the brain. The alpha-7 nicotinic receptors are found primarily in areas that control emotions, so in areas that are considered brain anxiety generators. I don't know how much your audience has heard about the amygdala, but the amygdala is considered one of the most important areas, also responsible for fight or flight, for instance. And it's an area of the brain that has received a lot of attention. So BNC210 binds to the alpha-7 receptors found in the amygdala and reduces the activity or the activation of the amygdala, which is abnormally high in anxiety-related disorders."
#Bionomics #SocialAnxietyDisorder #SocialPhobia #CNSDisorders #PTSD
bionomics.com
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Dr. Spyros Papapetropoulos is the President and CEO of Bionomics, a biotech company focused on central nervous system disorders, particularly social anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Social anxiety is a disease primarily of adolescents and young adults, and the social isolation during COVID contributed to a rise in the number of people experiencing this condition. The Bionomics drug in development is BNC210, a therapeutic that can be taken on schedule an hour before conducting an activity likely to induce anxiety.
Spyros elaborates, "Social anxiety disorder is actually known as social phobia, and it's very different, because everyday interactions cause significant anxieties. And they're very situational, so you become very self-conscious. You feel embarrassed and have a fear of being scrutinized or judged negatively by others. It is considered a very, very important chronic mental health condition that, if left untreated, leads to comorbid depression, even suicidality, and addiction down the road."
"BNC210 acts on nicotinic receptors. These are receptors that are expressed or found in areas of the brain. The alpha-7 nicotinic receptors are found primarily in areas that control emotions, so in areas that are considered brain anxiety generators. I don't know how much your audience has heard about the amygdala, but the amygdala is considered one of the most important areas, also responsible for fight or flight, for instance. And it's an area of the brain that has received a lot of attention. So BNC210 binds to the alpha-7 receptors found in the amygdala and reduces the activity or the activation of the amygdala, which is abnormally high in anxiety-related disorders."
#Bionomics #SocialAnxietyDisorder #SocialPhobia #CNSDisorders #PTSD #COVID
bionomics.com
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Matt D'Onofrio, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer at Evoke Pharma, is developing a treatment to help patients with diabetic gastroparesis. This little-known disease is thought to be due to damage to the vagus nerve, interrupting the communication between the brain and gut, and stopping the stomach from functioning normally. Current treatments are a pill required to move through the stomach. Evoke has developed a nasal spray to treat the condition that bypasses the stomach and provides predictable relief.
Matt explains, "We developed a product called GIMOTI, or nasal metoclopramide. The interest behind doing so is to completely bypass the stomach to get a dose on board for patients. The unpredictable nature of the stomach makes dosing with pills very unpredictable. We know that a number of patients who take oral treatments don't find efficacy. We believe that's, in part, because of the stomach's problems itself."
"By developing the nasal format, or GIMOTI, we are able to avoid that unpredictable issue and get the product on board directly by spraying it into the nose and getting absorption straight through the thin membrane in your nostrils, getting the product into the bloodstream from there. We found that this is very helpful for patients who do have issues with any absorption problems. We also found it helpful for patients who are nauseated and vomiting because you can't vomit up a nasal spray. There have been a number of different things we found as the product has come on the market that's been helpful for it."
#EVOK #Evoke #FightGastroparesis #DGPAwareness #DiabeticGastroparesis
evokepharma.com
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Matt D'Onofrio, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer at Evoke Pharma, is developing a treatment to help patients with diabetic gastroparesis. This little-known disease is thought to be due to damage to the vagus nerve, interrupting the communication between the brain and gut, stopping the stomach from functioning normally. Current treatments are a pill required to move through the stomach. Evoke has developed a nasal spray to treat the condition that bypasses the stomach and provides predictable relief.
Matt explains, "We developed a product called GIMOTI, or nasal metoclopramide. The interest behind doing so is to completely bypass the stomach to get a dose on board for patients. The unpredictable nature of the stomach makes dosing with pills very unpredictable. We know that a number of patients who take oral treatments don't find efficacy. We believe that's, in part, because of the stomach's problems itself."
"By developing the nasal format, or GIMOTI, we are able to avoid that unpredictable issue and get the product on board directly by spraying it into the nose and getting absorption straight through the thin membrane in your nostrils, getting the product into the bloodstream from there. We found that this is very helpful for patients who do have issues with any absorption problems. We also found it helpful for patients who are nauseated and vomiting because you can't vomit up a nasal spray. There have been a number of different things we found as the product has come on the market that's been helpful for it."
#EVOK #Evoke #FightGastroparesis #DGPAwareness #DiabeticGastroparesis
evokepharma.com
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Jared Bauer is the CEO of IONIQ Sciences which is exploring new ways to detect cancer at an earlier stage using non-invasive bioimpedance-based technology. This approach is not looking for the presence of cancer cells but rather changes in the interstitial fluid. Using a low level of electric current, the IONIQ AI-enhanced technology can identify where in the body the cancer is.
Jared explains, "It's a bioimpedance-based technology, and the way the system works is we inject a very low level of electrical current, not enough for you to feel. You can't even recognize that it's there. Still, we inject electrical current using DC power, direct current. If you just think physics 101, electricity 101, whatever you want to call it, DC power, the path of least resistance, and that electricity is going to go through the interstitial fluid. Then we pull that back out with an EKG electrode on the other side. And we're scanning that interstitial fluid over distances, allowing us to see that immune response."
"When someone doesn't have cancer, the ions or that electricity is going to flow freely. When someone does have cancer, a malignancy is present, and we see that cytokine storm, the changes in the chemokines, and the changes in the protein matrix. All of the interstitial fluid gets jumbled up, and those ions don't move as smoothly through. So over the course of a 20-minute, non-invasive test, just electrical current, it's all digital, we pull 10,000-plus data points from our scan, and we analyze that using our proprietary algorithm to give you an answer of malignant or benign."
#IONIQSciences #EarlyDetectionofCancer #Cancer #LungCancer #Bioimpedance #CancerScreening
ioniqsciences.com
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Jared Bauer is the CEO of IONIQ Sciences which is exploring new ways to detect cancer at an earlier stage using non-invasive bioimpedance-based technology. This approach is not looking for the presence of cancer cells but rather changes in the interstitial fluid. Using a low level of electric current, the IONIQ AI-enhanced technology can identify where in the body the cancer is.
Jared explains, "It's a bioimpedance-based technology, and the way the system works is we inject a very low level of electrical current, not enough for you to feel. You can't even recognize that it's there. Still, we inject electrical current using DC power, direct current. If you just think physics 101, electricity 101, whatever you want to call it, DC power, the path of least resistance, and that electricity is going to go through the interstitial fluid. Then we pull that back out with an EKG electrode on the other side. And we're scanning that interstitial fluid over distances, allowing us to see that immune response."
"When someone doesn't have cancer, the ions or that electricity is going to flow freely. When someone does have cancer, a malignancy is present, and we see that cytokine storm, the changes in the chemokines, and the changes in the protein matrix. All of the interstitial fluid gets jumbled up, and those ions don't move as smoothly through. So over the course of a 20-minute, non-invasive test, just electrical current, it's all digital, we pull 10,000-plus data points from our scan, and we analyze that using our proprietary algorithm to give you an answer of malignant or benign."
#IONIQSciences #EarlyDetectionofCancer #Cancer #LungCancer #Bioimpedance #CancerScreening
ioniqsciences.com
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Colin LeClair, CEO of Connections Health Solutions, shares his concerns about the lack of resources for people needing behavioral health crisis care and solutions for urgent and emergency psychiatric services in a facility-based setting. With a community-based approach, Connections partners with hospitals, care facilities, service providers, and law enforcement to better understand patients dealing with complex behavioral challenges and provide new alternatives for care.
Colin elaborates, "Right now, we have two of the largest crisis facilities, as we call them, in Arizona, one in Tucson and one in Phoenix. And those services include emergency psychiatric services, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Crisis stabilization services for patients who need a few days to recover and get back on their medication regimen and for whom we can prepare a care plan. In addition, there is an observation unit, a 23-hour observation unit for patients who are very acute and require immediate stabilization in a very unrestricted environment to get them back on their feet and on the path to recovery. The facilities look like small hospitals. We operate in about 20,000 to 40,000 square feet. We see about one thousand patients a month in each of our facilities."
"We take a lot of pride in saying that we never say no to a patient. And so the crisis is very self-defined. A patient who's in crisis may be having an anxiety attack, they may be new to the neighborhood, and they don't have a primary care physician or a primary psychiatric medical home. They just need a prescription refill. Or it could be somebody having a psychotic episode. We will treat anyone who comes to us."
"On the higher acuity end of the spectrum, about 60% of our patients arrive with first responders. They're often picked up in the community by first responders. And we're trying to be a better alternative for police and for the patient than going to an emergency department where treatment is not designed around a psychiatric patient or potentially jail. And so, again, 60% of our patients come to us involuntarily. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we are able to convert more than half of those patients to voluntary status. In other words, they agree to engage in their own treatment, and that's a very, very difficult thing to do."
#ConnectionsHealthSolutions #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek #MentalHealthisImportant #CrisisSupport #SelfCare #MentalHealth #MentalHealthMatters #988
ConnectionsHS.com
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Colin LeClair, CEO of Connections Health Solutions, shares his concerns about the lack of resources for people needing behavioral health crisis care and solutions for urgent and emergency psychiatric services in a facility-based setting. With a community-based approach, Connections partners with hospitals, care facilities, service providers, and law enforcement to better understand patients dealing with complex behavioral challenges and provide new alternatives for care.
Colin elaborates, "Right now, we have two of the largest crisis facilities, as we call them, in Arizona, one in Tucson and one in Phoenix. And those services include emergency psychiatric services, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Crisis stabilization services for patients who need a few days to recover and get back on their medication regimen and for whom we can prepare a care plan. In addition, there is an observation unit, a 23-hour observation unit for patients who are very acute and require immediate stabilization in a very unrestricted environment to get them back on their feet and on the path to recovery. The facilities look like small hospitals. We operate in about 20,000 to 40,000 square feet. We see about one thousand patients a month in each of our facilities."
"We take a lot of pride in saying that we never say no to a patient. And so the crisis is very self-defined. A patient who's in crisis may be having an anxiety attack, they may be new to the neighborhood, and they don't have a primary care physician or a primary psychiatric medical home. They just need a prescription refill. Or it could be somebody having a psychotic episode. We will treat anyone who comes to us."
"On the higher acuity end of the spectrum, about 60% of our patients arrive with first responders. They're often picked up in the community by first responders. And we're trying to be a better alternative for police and for the patient than going to an emergency department where treatment is not designed around a psychiatric patient or potentially jail. And so, again, 60% of our patients come to us involuntarily. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we are able to convert more than half of those patients to voluntary status. In other words, they agree to engage in their own treatment, and that's a very, very difficult thing to do."
#ConnectionsHealthSolutions #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek #MentalHealthisImportant #CrisisSupport #SelfCare #MentalHealth #MentalHealthMatters #988
ConnectionsHS.com
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Dr. Shankar Musunuri is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ocugen, which is a biotechnology company focused on vaccines for public health, gene therapies targeting rare diseases in the retinal space, and cell therapies for regenerative medicine applications in cartilage repair. One key opportunity is to develop an inhalation vaccine that would be durable and efficient at preventing and controlling transmission of COVID and able to be combined with a flu vaccine.
Shankar explains, "There is a linkage if you take some of these vaccines and gene therapies. Some of the processes we use to make gene therapies can also use similar processes for vaccines. So there is a shared science, a shared manufacturing platform, and shared expertise. And then if you take the biotech itself, cream-of-the-cream in the pharmaceutical industry, they work in cell and gene therapies and vaccines, very complex science."
"If you have a mucosal vaccine, which will create antibodies in the respiratory tract and control where the virus enters, it can neutralize it. And also, if you have neutralizing antibodies in your respiratory tract where the virus enters, you'll not only neutralize what is entering, it'll prevent transmission or control transmission of the disease."
"If we can move COVID into this annual booster, just like flu, we thought we could provide solutions for COVID, flu, and combination. So, imagine yourself walking into a CVS, and what Ocugen wants to do is provide solutions for customers. If you want only flu, you'll get your flu inhalation vaccine. You want only COVID, and you'll get that. If you want a combo, you're going to get a combo. So we created three different vaccines, COVID, flu and combination, using our inhalation technology and novel vector platform."
#Ocugen #Vaccines #InhalationVaccines #InhaledVaccines #COVID #Flu
ocugen.com
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Dr. Shankar Musunuri is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ocugen, which is a biotechnology company focused on vaccines for public health, gene therapies targeting rare diseases in the retinal space, and cell therapies for regenerative medicine applications in cartilage repair. One key opportunity is to develop an inhalation vaccine that would be durable and efficient at preventing and controlling transmission of COVID and able to be combined with a flu vaccine.
Shankar explains, "There is a linkage if you take some of these vaccines and gene therapies. Some of the processes we use to make gene therapies can also use similar processes for vaccines. So there is a shared science, a shared manufacturing platform, and shared expertise. And then if you take the biotech itself, cream-of-the-cream in the pharmaceutical industry, they work in cell and gene therapies and vaccines, very complex science."
"If you have a mucosal vaccine, which will create antibodies in the respiratory tract and control where the virus enters, it can neutralize it. And also, if you have neutralizing antibodies in your respiratory tract where the virus enters, you'll not only neutralize what is entering, it'll prevent transmission or control transmission of the disease."
"If we can move COVID into this annual booster, just like flu, we thought we could provide solutions for COVID, flu, and combination. So, imagine yourself walking into a CVS, and what Ocugen wants to do is provide solutions for customers. If you want only flu, you'll get your flu inhalation vaccine. You want only COVID, and you'll get that. If you want a combo, you're going to get a combo. So we created three different vaccines, COVID, flu and combination, using our inhalation technology and novel vector platform."
#Ocugen #Vaccines #InhalationVaccines #InhaledVaccines #COVID #Flu
ocugen.com
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Steve Glover, Co-founder and CEO of ZyVersa Therapeutics, focuses on rare kidney diseases and diseases with an inflammation component. Inflammasomes, the first response in the innate immune system, create an inflammation cascade. The ZyVersa approach targets multiple inflammasomes to address diseases caused by the malfunction of this response.
Steve explains, "Inflammation drives a lot of different diseases. And as we get into this a little bit more today, it's everything from kidney disease such as rare diseases such as FSGS and Alport syndrome and diabetic kidney disease all have an inflammation component. And in addition to that, when you look at diseases like Alzheimer's or MS, or Parkinson's, they're inflammation driven as well. So there is a connection between the two disease classes."
"I've been in the industry a long time, and every so often the industry finds a new interesting discovery, and inflammasomes are clearly one of those new discoveries. In fact, one of the things I talk about quite a bit is that ten years ago, there were about two or so publications that were available on inflammasomes. Now there are over 20,000 publications available on inflammasomes. And this whole concept of inflammation driving certain diseases has become an area of an immense amount of research and development of products that can inhibit the inflammation you don't want in the human body."
"When inflammasomes go into overdrive and are left uninhibited, they can cause a lot of damage to organs and cells in the body. And so, for example, they drive a lot of different diseases, everything from cancers to diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, and a whole host of CNS diseases, as well as non-CNS diseases, that are driven by this inflammasome activation. So it's really important to find a way to inhibit those cytokines by inhibiting the inflammasome."
#ZyVersa $ZVSA #RareDisease #InflammatoryDiseases #KidneyDisease #RenalDisease #FSGS #FocalSegmentalGlomerulosclerosis #AlportSyndrome #DiabeticKidneyDisease #Inflammasomes
ZyVersa.com
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Steve Glover, Co-founder and CEO of ZyVersa Therapeutics, focuses on rare kidney diseases and diseases with an inflammation component. Inflammasomes, the first response in the innate immune system, create an inflammation cascade. The ZyVersa approach targets multiple inflammasomes to address diseases caused by the malfunction of this response.
Steve explains, "Inflammation drives a lot of different diseases. And as we get into this a little bit more today, it's everything from kidney disease such as rare diseases such as FSGS and Alport syndrome and diabetic kidney disease all have an inflammation component. And in addition to that, when you look at diseases like Alzheimer's or MS, or Parkinson's, they're inflammation driven as well. So there is a connection between the two disease classes."
"I've been in the industry a long time, and every so often the industry finds a new interesting discovery, and inflammasomes are clearly one of those new discoveries. In fact, one of the things I talk about quite a bit is that ten years ago, there were about two or so publications that were available on inflammasomes. Now there are over 20,000 publications available on inflammasomes. And this whole concept of inflammation driving certain diseases has become an area of an immense amount of research and development of products that can inhibit the inflammation you don't want in the human body."
"When inflammasomes go into overdrive and are left uninhibited, they can cause a lot of damage to organs and cells in the body. And so, for example, they drive a lot of different diseases, everything from cancers to diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, and a whole host of CNS diseases, as well as non-CNS diseases, that are driven by this inflammasome activation. So it's really important to find a way to inhibit those cytokines by inhibiting the inflammasome."
#ZyVersa $ZVSA #RareDisease #InflammatoryDiseases #KidneyDisease #RenalDisease #FSGS #FocalSegmentalGlomerulosclerosis #AlportSyndrome #DiabeticKidneyDisease #Inflammasomes
ZyVersa.com
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Carly Newton is an apheresis expert at Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies, a medical device company that manufactures and designs systems that collect blood components and cells. Their software provides management tools to optimize procedures and help physicians better manage care. The largest patient group treated with red blood cell exchange are those with sickle cell disease and benefit from the Terumo iron-neutral therapy over a simple transfusion.
Carly explains, "We've also got software technologies that many of our blood banks use and they're designed to get the most from blood donors when they go and present at a blood bank. So, for instance, instead of a blood donor just donating a bag of whole blood, our software can actually look at the starting counts of these donors and recommend what the blood donation center should collect from that donor to get the optimal cells from that patient."
"The main goal of any transfusion therapy with sickle cell disease is to increase the oxygenation of the blood. There are different types of transfusion therapy and this is where we spend a lot of time educating physicians and patients on the different types of transfusion therapy. So probably the most common type of transfusion therapy for sickle cell patients in the US at the moment is something we call simple transfusions. And that's really sickle cell patients going into the hospital once or twice a month and having red cell infusions. The purpose of that is to increase the amount of healthy donor cells in these patients and increase oxygenation. "
#Terumobct #RedBloodCellExchange #RBCX #SickleCellDisease #BloodBanks
Terumobct.com
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Carly Newton is an apheresis expert at Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies, a medical device company that manufactures and designs systems that collect blood components and cells. Their software provides management tools to optimize procedures and help physicians better manage care. The largest patient group treated with red blood cell exchange are those with sickle cell disease and benefit from the Terumo iron-neutral therapy over a simple transfusion.
Carly explains, "We've also got software technologies that many of our blood banks use and they're designed to get the most from blood donors when they go and present at a blood bank. So, for instance, instead of a blood donor just donating a bag of whole blood, our software can actually look at the starting counts of these donors and recommend what the blood donation center should collect from that donor to get the optimal cells from that patient."
"The main goal of any transfusion therapy with sickle cell disease is to increase the oxygenation of the blood. There are different types of transfusion therapy and this is where we spend a lot of time educating physicians and patients on the different types of transfusion therapy. So probably the most common type of transfusion therapy for sickle cell patients in the US at the moment is something we call simple transfusions. And that's really sickle cell patients going into the hospital once or twice a month and having red cell infusions. The purpose of that is to increase the amount of healthy donor cells in these patients and increase oxygenation. "
#Terumobct #RedBloodCellExchange #RBCX #SickleCellDisease #BloodBanks
Terumobct.com
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Dr. Daniel Karlin, Chief Medical Officer at MindMed, is bringing an updated approach to developing an LSD-based drug to treat anxiety and depression. Instead of developing a psychiatric medicine to be taken every day, MindMed is changing the paradigm to a session-based therapy that uses psychedelic drugs and therapists to improve psychiatric health. As a trained psychiatrist, Dan works at the intersection of psychiatry and neuroscience with this psychedelic-assisted therapeutic approach to brain health.
Dan elaborates, "For quite some time, I think it feels like psychiatry hasn't been meeting people there. Treatments have been more focused on symptomatic resolution and these sorts of things, and visits with psychiatrists can feel too short and it can be really hard to find and afford psychotherapy. I think that what people are responding to about LSD and other drugs like it and their therapeutic potential is the sense that they offer something more than what people are able to access today. That there's real hope that these are drugs that can help people get at the real reasons they feel the way they feel and come to understand themselves better and their role in the world."
"There's another school of thought that the mechanism of these drugs is largely neurobiological and that the perceptual experience may not even be necessary. Of course, anytime we start to do binaries in biology, we're probably wrong. And it's probably some of both. And we operate under that hypothesis too, that the mechanism by which these drugs cause a psychedelic experience is very well explicated. The mechanism by which they cause lasting change isn't."
@MindMedco #MNMD $MNMD #PsychedelicMedicines #PsychedelicTherapy #LSD #Psychedelics #MentalHealth #BrainHealth #PsychiatricHealth
mindmed.co
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Dr. Daniel Karlin, Chief Medical Officer at MindMed, is bringing an updated approach to developing an LSD-based drug to treat anxiety and depression. Instead of developing a psychiatric medicine to be taken every day, MindMed is changing the paradigm to a session-based therapy that uses psychedelic drugs and therapists to improve psychiatric health. As a trained psychiatrist, Dan works at the intersection of psychiatry and neuroscience with this psychedelic-assisted therapeutic approach to brain health.
Dan elaborates, "For quite some time, I think it feels like psychiatry hasn't been meeting people there. Treatments have been more focused on symptomatic resolution and these sorts of things, and visits with psychiatrists can feel too short and it can be really hard to find and afford psychotherapy. I think that what people are responding to about LSD and other drugs like it and their therapeutic potential is the sense that they offer something more than what people are able to access today. That there's real hope that these are drugs that can help people get at the real reasons they feel the way they feel and come to understand themselves better and their role in the world."
"There's another school of thought that the mechanism of these drugs is largely neurobiological and that the perceptual experience may not even be necessary. Of course, anytime we start to do binaries in biology, we're probably wrong. And it's probably some of both. And we operate under that hypothesis too, that the mechanism by which these drugs cause a psychedelic experience is very well explicated. The mechanism by which they cause lasting change isn't."
@MindMedco #MNMD $MNMD #PsychedelicMedicines #PsychedelicTherapy #LSD #Psychedelics #MentalHealth #BrainHealth #PsychiatricHealth
mindmed.co
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Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and Founder of Biotricity, shines a light on the need for better data about heart rhythm throughout the day, not just for a limited time. Biotricity has developed a non-invasive, cost-effective, available over-the-counter monitor that provides patients and cardiologists with a new level of understanding of heart activity and enhances diagnosis and disease management.
Waqaas explains, "I'll take a step back to try to explain the problem that we were trying to solve. Dexcom created a continuous glucose monitor, saying that there are these data points that are in between when you're pricking your finger and collecting your information, which is quite valuable and insightful."
"In the continuous heart monitoring world, or in the heart world, patients don't really have anything. You have an implantable loop recorder, which records your ECG continuously. But you have to be a high-risk patient, it's a very high cost to get that implanted, and when it comes to a non-invasive solution, you have a 30-second ECG. If we look at the criteria, the patient issues are asymptomatic. They happen while you're sleeping. If it's a 30-second or 3-minute ECG and you're sleeping and don't feel the symptom, you're not waking up to collect that information. And even if you were, by the time you wake up and get the device, that information is gone."
#Biotricity #Cardiology #Cardiovascular #HeartDisease #Wearables #ContinuousHeartMonitoring
biotricity.com
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Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and Founder of Biotricity, shines a light on the need for better data about heart rhythm throughout the day, not just for a limited time. Biotricity has developed a non-invasive, cost-effective, available over-the-counter monitor that provides patients and cardiologists with a new level of understanding of heart activity and enhances diagnosis and disease management.
Waqaas explains, "I'll take a step back to try to explain the problem that we were trying to solve. Dexcom created a continuous glucose monitor, saying that there are these data points that are in between when you're pricking your finger and collecting your information, which is quite valuable and insightful."
"In the continuous heart monitoring world, or in the heart world, patients don't really have anything. You have an implantable loop recorder, which records your ECG continuously. But you have to be a high-risk patient, it's a very high cost to get that implanted, and when it comes to a non-invasive solution, you have a 30-second ECG. If we look at the criteria, the patient issues are asymptomatic. They happen while you're sleeping. If it's a 30-second or 3-minute ECG and you're sleeping and don't feel the symptom, you're not waking up to collect that information. And even if you were, by the time you wake up and get the device, that information is gone."
#Biotricity #Cardiology #Cardiovascular #HeartDisease #Wearables #ContinuousHeartMonitoring
biotricity.com
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Dr. Eddilisa Martin is the CEO and Founder of M & B Sciences, which has created the Neighborhood Trials online platform and app available in the Apple Store and the Google Store. Their mission is to drive more diversity in clinical trial participation by providing accessible information to patients, providers, and caregivers looking for therapies and opportunities for trials.
Eddilisa explains, "When we talk about diversity, people most often think of race and ethnicity. And that's very, very important. But diversity means having representation across a whole spectrum of things. So whether that's age, whether it's your sexual preference, whether you live in the country versus the city, whether you have lots of comorbidities, lots of illnesses in conjunction with the disease that's being tested, or whether that's the only thing you have. There are a whole host of things that we're talking about when we say diversity."
"But you hear people talk about their hesitancy to be a guinea pig. And so it really does help people to understand that things have changed from the way they used to be. People hear horror stories from years and years ago, but they don't realize all of the protections that are in place for patients now. So the FDA committee has oversight. There are all of these safety committees that are involved in every single clinical trial. There's a safety committee that's looking at results as they are going, so they're not waiting until the end of the trial and seeing if there are different side effects that are popping up. They're measuring that on an ongoing, continuous basis."
#NeighborhoodTrials #ClinicalTrials #DecentalizedClinicalTrials #DiversityinClinicalTrials
NeighborhoodTrials.com
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Dr. Eddilisa Martin is the CEO and Founder of M & B Sciences, which has created the Neighborhood Trials online platform and app available in the Apple Store and the Google Store. Their mission is to drive more diversity in clinical trial participation by providing accessible information to patients, providers, and caregivers looking for therapies and opportunities for trials.
Eddilisa explains, "When we talk about diversity, people most often think of race and ethnicity. And that's very, very important. But diversity means having representation across a whole spectrum of things. So whether that's age, whether it's your sexual preference, whether you live in the country versus the city, whether you have lots of comorbidities, lots of illnesses in conjunction with the disease that's being tested, or whether that's the only thing you have. There are a whole host of things that we're talking about when we say diversity."
"But you hear people talk about their hesitancy to be a guinea pig. And so it really does help people to understand that things have changed from the way they used to be. People hear horror stories from years and years ago, but they don't realize all of the protections that are in place for patients now. So the FDA committee has oversight. There are all of these safety committees that are involved in every single clinical trial. There's a safety committee that's looking at results as they are going, so they're not waiting until the end of the trial and seeing if there are different side effects that are popping up. They're measuring that on an ongoing, continuous basis."
#NeighborhoodTrials #ClinicalTrials #DecentalizedClinicalTrials #DiversityinClinicalTrials
NeighborhoodTrials.com
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Eric Shaff is the President and CEO of Seres Therapeutics, which is focused on the gut microbiome in order to develop bacteria as an oral treatment for bloodstream infections, cancer, and immune system diseases. The first therapy is SER-109 for recurrent C. diff infection an orphan disease with inadequate solutions for patients. The starting point for Seres is that the health of the microbiome is the starting point for preventing infections from occurring.
Eric explains, "The real susceptibility of someone getting C. diff is not just the bad actor bacteria. But really the susceptibility of the microbiome and an injury to the microbiome, and susceptibility to infection. Typically what happens is if people get antibiotic therapy, which can be very effective in knocking back or killing all bacteria, it creates a significant niche in the microbiome, or an injury. There is what we call a race to repair, so either a patient will naturally repair and restore their microbiome, or C. diff may infiltrate, which can lead to an infection and a recurrence."
"Typically, if a patient is going to have a recurrence, it happens quickly. If they get C. diff, they take antibiotics, and the hope is that C. diff will not infiltrate to cause an occurrence. If it does, then people typically recur quickly. What happens following antibiotic therapy, is we treat patients with an oral regimen of SER-109, which is a consortium of bacteria in spore form you put in the capsule. That was the approach we took to our phase 3 study, where we had an 88% reduction in recurrence, which is a significant impact for patients suffering from this terrible disease."
@SeresTX #SeresTherapeutics #Microbiome #OralMicrobiomeTherapy #Cdiff #RecurrentCdiff #AMR #AntimicrobialResistance #InfectionProtection
serestherapeutics.com
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Eric Shaff is the President and CEO of Seres Therapeutics, which is focused on the gut microbiome in order to develop bacteria as an oral treatment for bloodstream infections, cancer, and immune system diseases. The first therapy is SER-109 for recurrent C. diff infection an orphan disease with inadequate solutions for patients. The starting point for Seres is that the health of the microbiome is the starting point for preventing infections from occurring.
Eric explains, "The real susceptibility of someone getting C. diff is not just the bad actor bacteria. But really the susceptibility of the microbiome and an injury to the microbiome, and susceptibility to infection. Typically what happens is if people get antibiotic therapy, which can be very effective in knocking back or killing all bacteria, it creates a significant niche in the microbiome, or an injury. There is what we call a race to repair, so either a patient will naturally repair and restore their microbiome, or C. diff may infiltrate, which can lead to an infection and a recurrence."
"Typically, if a patient is going to have a recurrence, it happens quickly. If they get C. diff, they take antibiotics, and the hope is that C. diff will not infiltrate to cause an occurrence. If it does, then people typically recur quickly. What happens following antibiotic therapy, is we treat patients with an oral regimen of SER-109, which is a consortium of bacteria in spore form you put in the capsule. That was the approach we took to our phase 3 study, where we had an 88% reduction in recurrence, which is a significant impact for patients suffering from this terrible disease."
@SeresTX #SeresTherapeutics #Microbiome #OralMicrobiomeTherapy #Cdiff #RecurrentCdiff #AMR #AntimicrobialResistance #InfectionProtection
serestherapeutics.com
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Ashley Perry is the Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer at Socially Determined, a social risk analytics and solutions company working with payers, providers, and life science companies. Their Socialscope risk and data analytics platform helps organizations understand social determinants of health, identify and manage risk and advance equity for the populations they serve. These organizations are able to be data-driven and action-oriented to mitigate community and individual-level risk.
Ashley explains, "The evidence is very clear from a multitude of sources that up to 80% of healthcare utilization, cost, outcomes, and, importantly also, equity are driven by non-clinical factors or non-medical cost drivers. That includes all aspects of everyday life. So, you think about factors like food insecurity and housing instability, transportation barriers, and health literacy challenges. We see consistently in the data that we look at every day the impact these factors have on those utilization costs and outcome measures. Our customers are ultimately focused on population health and the overall health and well-being of the communities and populations they serve."
"Socialscape is a platform that assesses both community-level SDOH risk exposure for the entire United States as well as individual-level social risk factor scores for millions of adult Americans. Importantly, we do that across different domains. For example, on the community side, we look at factors like the economic climate, the housing environment, and the digital landscape. On the individual patient or member side, we look at factors like food insecurity, housing instability, and transportation barriers."
"Across all of those different domains, we're able to quantify risk using a standardized one-to-five scale. One indicates little to no risk, five indicates severe risk. It empowers the organizations that we work with to be able to identify the contours and concentration of community-level risk for the markets that they're serving. As well as identify the segments of their overall population that they bear the risk for that face elevated risk across those different social domains."
@SocDetermined #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #ACOREACH #HealthEquity #SocialRisk #Data #DataAnalytics
sociallydetermined.com
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Ashley Perry is the Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer at Socially Determined, a social risk analytics and solutions company working with payers, providers, and life science companies. Their Socialscope risk and data analytics platform helps organizations understand social determinants of health, identify and manage risk and advance equity for the populations they serve. These organizations are able to be data-driven and action-oriented to mitigate community and individual-level risk.
Ashley explains, "The evidence is very clear from a multitude of sources that up to 80% of healthcare utilization, cost, outcomes, and, importantly also, equity are driven by non-clinical factors or non-medical cost drivers. That includes all aspects of everyday life. So, you think about factors like food insecurity and housing instability, transportation barriers, and health literacy challenges. We see consistently in the data that we look at every day the impact these factors have on those utilization costs and outcome measures. Our customers are ultimately focused on population health and the overall health and well-being of the communities and populations they serve."
"Socialscape is a platform that assesses both community-level SDOH risk exposure for the entire United States as well as individual-level social risk factor scores for millions of adult Americans. Importantly, we do that across different domains. For example, on the community side, we look at factors like the economic climate, the housing environment, and the digital landscape. On the individual patient or member side, we look at factors like food insecurity, housing instability, and transportation barriers."
"Across all of those different domains, we're able to quantify risk using a standardized one-to-five scale. One indicates little to no risk, five indicates severe risk. It empowers the organizations that we work with to be able to identify the contours and concentration of community-level risk for the markets that they're serving. As well as identify the segments of their overall population that they bear the risk for that face elevated risk across those different social domains."
@SocDetermined #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #ACOREACH #HealthEquity #SocialRisk #Data #DataAnalytics
sociallydetermined.com
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Rich Pascoe, CEO of Zevra Therapeutics, is working with a team with deep experience developing drugs and getting them approved by the FDA. Having developed multiple prodrugs for pain and ADHD, Zevra is now developing rare disease therapies with an initial focus on Niemann Pick Disease Type C and idiopathic hypersomnia.
Rich explains, "Our lead product is a drug called arimoclomol. It's intended for the treatment of Niemann Pick Type C disease, or NPC for short. Niemann Pick primarily affects children. It's a lysosomal storage disorder condition, meaning patients lack the ability to break down certain things, including cholesterol. As a result, they develop a myriad of symptoms that ultimately lead to, in most cases, the patient's death. The issues they deal with revolve around loss of ambulation and the ability to swallow, and it affects their cognitive function. It's a progressive disease, and oftentimes, it can advance very rapidly."
"A little history on arimoclomol. The drug was previously in the hands of a company out of Denmark. We acquired the asset last year from that company along with some of the individuals at the company that are critical for the success of the product going forward."
"In that setting, Orphazyme, the company that had the drug before us, had submitted it for approval here in the US with the FDA. The FDA rejected that approval request based on a number of factors that we have subsequently been working to address. We believe that given our track record as a company of being able to work with the FDA to get drugs approved, in some cases under some very challenging circumstances, that we are well-equipped to handle and manage this submission."
@Zevratx #ZevraTherapeutics #RareDisease #RareSleepDisorders #NiemannPickDiseaseC #IdiopathicHypersomnia
zevra.com
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Rich Pascoe, CEO of Zevra Therapeutics, is working with a team with deep experience developing drugs and getting them approved by the FDA. Having developed multiple prodrugs for pain and ADHD, Zevra is now developing rare disease therapies with an initial focus on Niemann Pick Disease Type C and idiopathic hypersomnia.
Rich explains, "Our lead product is a drug called arimoclomol. It's intended for the treatment of Niemann Pick Type C disease, or NPC for short. Niemann Pick primarily affects children. It's a lysosomal storage disorder condition, meaning patients lack the ability to break down certain things, including cholesterol. As a result, they develop a myriad of symptoms that ultimately lead to, in most cases, the patient's death. The issues they deal with revolve around loss of ambulation and the ability to swallow, and it affects their cognitive function. It's a progressive disease, and oftentimes, it can advance very rapidly."
"A little history on arimoclomol. The drug was previously in the hands of a company out of Denmark. We acquired the asset last year from that company along with some of the individuals at the company that are critical for the success of the product going forward."
"In that setting, Orphazyme, the company that had the drug before us, had submitted it for approval here in the US with the FDA. The FDA rejected that approval request based on a number of factors that we have subsequently been working to address. We believe that given our track record as a company of being able to work with the FDA to get drugs approved, in some cases under some very challenging circumstances, that we are well-equipped to handle and manage this submission."
@Zevratx #ZevraTherapeutics #RareDisease #RareSleepDisorders #NiemannPickDiseaseC #IdiopathicHypersomnia
zevra.com
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Steve Reed, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of HDT Bio, has spent his life focusing on tropical diseases and points out how the cost of developing and manufacturing vaccines determines access for a global population. HDT Bio was founded to develop more cost-effective technology to induce broader immune responses to various diseases. Their advanced RNA platform AMPLIFY is a technology applied to developing mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases and a therapeutic vaccine to help prevent recurrence and prolong survival from cancer.
Steve elaborates, "COVID was something that came up right after we founded the company, and so the National Institute of Health asked us and funded us to develop a novel platform that could complement the platforms already in place for mRNA vaccines. Other indications that are incredibly important include other viruses. They're always coming up, and they're always mutating. But you probably read in the news about fungal infections on the increase in the United States and other countries."
"The AMPLIFY technology is an RNA platform that expands in a limited way once it's introduced into the cell and then enables you to use a much lower amount of RNA. So that's significant in terms of cost, as well as safety. And then to be able to deliver the RNA, you have to protect it into a formulation, and the formulation we've developed is one that can be mass-produced at low cost and is very safe."
"Back in the '90s and 2000s, when molecular biology, and monoclonal antibodies, those technologies became widely used and understood, we all naively thought that the road to a parasitic disease vaccine would be relatively straightforward. And in some ways, while the technology has enabled such vaccines, the practical limitations have stopped progress or severely limited it."
#Vaccination #Vaccines #HealthForAll #COVID #mRNA #RNA #InfectiousDiseases #Cancer
HDT.bio
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Steve Reed, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of HDT Bio, has spent his life focusing on tropical diseases and points out how the cost of developing and manufacturing vaccines determines access for a global population. HDT Bio was founded to develop more cost-effective technology to induce broader immune responses to various diseases. Their advanced RNA platform AMPLIFY is a technology applied to developing mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases and a therapeutic vaccine to help prevent recurrence and prolong survival from cancer.
Steve elaborates, "COVID was something that came up right after we founded the company, and so the National Institute of Health asked us and funded us to develop a novel platform that could complement the platforms already in place for mRNA vaccines. Other indications that are incredibly important include other viruses. They're always coming up, and they're always mutating. But you probably read in the news about fungal infections on the increase in the United States and other countries."
"The AMPLIFY technology is an RNA platform that expands in a limited way once it's introduced into the cell and then enables you to use a much lower amount of RNA. So that's significant in terms of cost, as well as safety. And then to be able to deliver the RNA, you have to protect it into a formulation, and the formulation we've developed is one that can be mass-produced at low cost and is very safe."
"Back in the '90s and 2000s, when molecular biology, and monoclonal antibodies, those technologies became widely used and understood, we all naively thought that the road to a parasitic disease vaccine would be relatively straightforward. And in some ways, while the technology has enabled such vaccines, the practical limitations have stopped progress or severely limited it."
#Vaccination #Vaccines #HealthForAll #COVID #mRNA #RNA #InfectiousDiseases #Cancer
HDT.bio
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Jeff Liter is the CEO and Founder of Luminary Therapeutics, which is using gamma delta cells in their approach to CART-T cell therapy because of the ability of these cells to infiltrate solid tumors. With a multi-targeting system, Luminary has demonstrated promise treating multiple types of solid tumors, blood tumors, and autoimmune diseases. Their goal is to create a scalable model to manufacture allogeneic cells to drive down the cost and availability of effective cell therapies.
Jeff explains, "We're focused primarily on three big challenges in the CAR-T industry. The first is the overall manufacturing approach and cost. The second is why do CAR-Ts, to date, not work in solid tumors. And then finally, the third is antigen escape and relapse of patients currently being treated by CAR-T therapies."
"We have moved into coming back to the manufacturing area. We have moved into an allogeneic platform, which for your listeners, if they're not familiar with that term, means that we can make multiple products from one healthy donor. And we do that in a very special way, using gamma delta cells and preserving both subsets of the gamma delta cells. Then we also add some immune cloaking with our non-viral gene engineering, and that makes us very unique on the allogeneic front."
"If you look at those 800 companies, probably 80, 85% of them use what's called alpha beta normal white blood T cells. A fair number of companies, maybe 7% to 8%, use NK cells. And then there's a new group using a different kind of subset of cells called IPSC. But in the gamma delta, there are only 12 to maybe 15 companies. So we're very differentiated on that front from the 800. And then, as I noted, we are the only company to have both Vdelta1 and Vdelta2 subsets in our final product."
#LuminaryTherapeutics #CARTCellTherapy #CARTTherapies #Allogeneic #Autologous #CellTherapy #GammaDeltaCells #SolidTumors #Cancer #BloodCancers #AutoimmuneDiseases
luminarytx.com
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Jeff Liter is the CEO and Founder of Luminary Therapeutics, which is using gamma delta cells in their approach to CART-T cell therapy because of the ability of these cells to infiltrate solid tumors. With a multi-targeting system, Luminary has demonstrated promise treating multiple types of solid tumors, blood tumors, and autoimmune diseases. Their goal is to create a scalable model to manufacture allogeneic cells to drive down the cost and availability of effective cell therapies.
Jeff explains, "We're focused primarily on three big challenges in the CAR-T industry. The first is the overall manufacturing approach and cost. The second is why do CAR-Ts, to date, not work in solid tumors. And then finally, the third is antigen escape and relapse of patients currently being treated by CAR-T therapies."
"We have moved into coming back to the manufacturing area. We have moved into an allogeneic platform, which for your listeners, if they're not familiar with that term, means that we can make multiple products from one healthy donor. And we do that in a very special way, using gamma delta cells and preserving both subsets of the gamma delta cells. Then we also add some immune cloaking with our non-viral gene engineering, and that makes us very unique on the allogeneic front."
"If you look at those 800 companies, probably 80, 85% of them use what's called alpha beta normal white blood T cells. A fair number of companies, maybe 7% to 8%, use NK cells. And then there's a new group using a different kind of subset of cells called IPSC. But in the gamma delta, there are only 12 to maybe 15 companies. So we're very differentiated on that front from the 800. And then, as I noted, we are the only company to have both Vdelta1 and Vdelta2 subsets in our final product."
#LuminaryTherapeutics #CARTCellTherapy #CARTTherapies #Allogeneic #Autologous #CellTherapy #GammaDeltaCells #SolidTumors #Cancer #BloodCancers #AutoimmuneDiseases
luminarytx.com
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Joe Tucker, the CEO of Enveric Biosciences, is discovering, developing and testing psychedelic-inspired therapies for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Current treatments target receptors in the brain to increase the concentration of serotonin in the brain by going through classic neurotransmitter pathways. The Enveric Psybrary portfolio and PsyAI drive drug discovery to create new molecules that synthesize chemistry and how nature makes molecules to target new receptors.
Joe elaborates, "This one's completely different. This one is actually going through a receptor that's never been targeted before, 5-HT2A. And it's an adjunct to psychotherapy at this point. The leading molecules are an adjunct to psychotherapy. Although there's some interesting new work, including stuff that we're working on, no one has yet been able to separate those two in humans. But that's where we'd like to go next, is to separate them. But right now, it's really this 5-HT2A receptor, this induction of hallucination. No one else is doing that. No other molecules out there do that as part of a treatment program."
"The issues with those classic psychedelics are, as you can imagine, they weren't designed as mental health treatment molecules. They came about for other reasons. And so they have a lot of side effects or safety issues that really make them suboptimal for patient use. So psychedelic-inspired says, let's take what we can learn from here. If you target the 5-HT2A receptor, you can induce some interesting effects in the patient, but can we then modify the molecules so they have better attributes?"
"And in doing so, we also realized we're breaking new ground. I mean, we're making hundreds and hundreds of new molecules in an area where a handful of molecules had existed before. Five molecules, ten molecules, is what everyone else has looked at. We realized we were in this completely new field, and we had to come up with a way to identify prospectively which of these new molecules were going to be likely good drug candidates for various mental health indications."
@Enveric_Bio #EnvericBiosciences #MentalHealth #Psilocybin #Anxiety #Depression #PsychedelicInspiredTherapeutic #PsychedelicBasedTherapeutic #Psychedelics
enveric.com
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Joe Tucker, the CEO of Enveric Biosciences, is discovering, developing and testing psychedelic-inspired therapies for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Current treatments target receptors in the brain to increase the concentration of serotonin in the brain by going through classic neurotransmitter pathways. The Enveric Psybrary portfolio and PsyAI drive drug discovery to create new molecules that synthesize chemistry and how nature makes molecules to target new receptors.
Joe elaborates, "This one's completely different. This one is actually going through a receptor that's never been targeted before, 5-HT2A. And it's an adjunct to psychotherapy at this point. The leading molecules are an adjunct to psychotherapy. Although there's some interesting new work, including stuff that we're working on, no one has yet been able to separate those two in humans. But that's where we'd like to go next, is to separate them. But right now, it's really this 5-HT2A receptor, this induction of hallucination. No one else is doing that. No other molecules out there do that as part of a treatment program."
"The issues with those classic psychedelics are, as you can imagine, they weren't designed as mental health treatment molecules. They came about for other reasons. And so they have a lot of side effects or safety issues that really make them suboptimal for patient use. So psychedelic-inspired says, let's take what we can learn from here. If you target the 5-HT2A receptor, you can induce some interesting effects in the patient, but can we then modify the molecules so they have better attributes?"
"And in doing so, we also realized we're breaking new ground. I mean, we're making hundreds and hundreds of new molecules in an area where a handful of molecules had existed before. Five molecules, ten molecules, is what everyone else has looked at. We realized we were in this completely new field, and we had to come up with a way to identify prospectively which of these new molecules were going to be likely good drug candidates for various mental health indications."
@Enveric_Bio #EnvericBiosciences #MentalHealth #Psilocybin #Anxiety #Depression #PsychedelicInspiredTherapeutic #PsychedelicBasedTherapeutic #Psychedelics
enveric.com
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Dr. Joshua Schiffman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Peel Therapeutics and has taken the understanding of the natural resistance to cancer by elephants to develop PEEL-224 to attack tumors. Using a plant toxin and modifying existing approaches, Peel has created a drug that increases the amount of the drug that gets to the cancer cells with reduced side effects.
Joshua explains, "Peel is actually the Hebrew word for elephant. So that's why we call ourselves Peel Therapeutics. My Co-Founder, Dr. Avi Schroeder, is from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel. While we were working on the elephant drug, we realized, you know what, it's more than just elephants. Looking around nature, we understand that evolution has had hundreds of millions of years to perfect, in some cases, perfect cancer-fighting protein or peptide or anti-inflammatory molecule. Our lead drug, which we call PEEL-224, actually works really well targeting the DNA repair mechanism in cancer cells."
"This DNA repair mechanism is called topoisomerase 1. And by blocking it, we're able to actually ensure that cancer cells essentially self-destruct. At Peel, we say that we like to engineer nature better than evolution intended. So, in the case of PEEL-224, we've taken this plant toxin, it's called camptothecin. It comes from an ancient Chinese tree called the Happy Tree, and we've modified it so that it can avoid chemoresistance. So, in other words, you give this drug to the patient, which goes to the tumor, and the tumor cell can't spit it out anymore. And we're seeing remarkable early results in mice and now have begun a clinical trial."
@peel_tx #PeelTherapeutics #PeopleofPeel #Cancer #Inflammation #PEEL224 #Nature #Biotech #NaturesMoleculesIntoMedicine
peeltx.com
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Dr. Joshua Schiffman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Peel Therapeutics and has taken the understanding of the natural resistance to cancer by elephants to develop PEEL-224 to attack tumors. Using a plant toxin and modifying existing approaches, Peel has created a drug that increases the amount of the drug that gets to the cancer cells with reduced side effects.
Joshua explains, "Peel is actually the Hebrew word for elephant. So that's why we call ourselves Peel Therapeutics. My Co-Founder, Dr. Avi Schroeder, is from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel. While we were working on the elephant drug, we realized, you know what, it's more than just elephants. Looking around nature, we understand that evolution has had hundreds of millions of years to perfect, in some cases, perfect cancer-fighting protein or peptide or anti-inflammatory molecule. Our lead drug, which we call PEEL-224, actually works really well targeting the DNA repair mechanism in cancer cells."
"This DNA repair mechanism is called topoisomerase 1. And by blocking it, we're able to actually ensure that cancer cells essentially self-destruct. At Peel, we say that we like to engineer nature better than evolution intended. So, in the case of PEEL-224, we've taken this plant toxin, it's called camptothecin. It comes from an ancient Chinese tree called the Happy Tree, and we've modified it so that it can avoid chemoresistance. So, in other words, you give this drug to the patient, which goes to the tumor, and the tumor cell can't spit it out anymore. And we're seeing remarkable early results in mice and now have begun a clinical trial."
@peel_tx #PeelTherapeutics #PeopleofPeel #Cancer #Inflammation #PEEL224 #Nature #Biotech #NaturesMoleculesIntoMedicine
peeltx.com
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Cristina Varner is the life science Practice Leader at Newfront, a technology-focused insurance broker. While digital health and telemedicine companies have robust technology infrastructure, they tend to be less medically focused and unaware of insurance requirements to cover bodily injury, financial injury, data breaches, cyber liability, and state regulatory requirements. Wearables and data collected by them are adding issues of privacy, security, and data accuracy.
Cristina elaborates, "I'm not going to say I'm surprised because a lot of the founders of these companies come from technology backgrounds, from tech companies. And so insurance just is not, and risk management is just not top of mind for many of them. And so we're not surprised. They're moving very quickly. I think when COVID came to be, digital health definitely exploded. And during the COVID period is when we started to recognize where some companies were lacking in risk management infrastructure. And I think that many of the companies we see now are much better positioned from a risk management perspective and also are more aware."
"There are more customers and patients with wearables that are recognizing that their privacy and their security are important. I don't think historically, a lot of owners of wearables ever really considered those types of concerns. But now there's a lot more scrutiny in this area. And the other issue that comes up in tandem with privacy and security is data accuracy. If your data is not accurate on your wearable, for example, and it allows a patient to make a decision based on inaccurate data, which can result again in potential bodily injury to the patient."
@NewfrontHQ #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #Insurance #Wearables #RiskInsurance
Newfront.com
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Cristina Varner is the life science Practice Leader at Newfront, a technology-focused insurance broker. While digital health and telemedicine companies have robust technology infrastructure, they tend to be less medically focused and unaware of insurance requirements to cover bodily injury, financial injury, data breaches, cyber liability, and state regulatory requirements. Wearables and data collected by them are adding issues of privacy, security, and data accuracy.
Cristina elaborates, "I'm not going to say I'm surprised because a lot of the founders of these companies come from technology backgrounds, from tech companies. And so insurance just is not, and risk management is just not top of mind for many of them. And so we're not surprised. They're moving very quickly. I think when COVID came to be, digital health definitely exploded. And during the COVID period is when we started to recognize where some companies were lacking in risk management infrastructure. And I think that many of the companies we see now are much better positioned from a risk management perspective and also are more aware."
"There are more customers and patients with wearables that are recognizing that their privacy and their security are important. I don't think historically, a lot of owners of wearables ever really considered those types of concerns. But now there's a lot more scrutiny in this area. And the other issue that comes up in tandem with privacy and security is data accuracy. If your data is not accurate on your wearable, for example, and it allows a patient to make a decision based on inaccurate data, which can result again in potential bodily injury to the patient."
@NewfrontHQ #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #Insurance #Wearables #RiskInsurance
Newfront.com
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Seli Fakorzi, Director of Mental Health Operations at TimelyCare, and Gaurang Choksi, CEO and Founder of Violet, join me to discuss their partnership to bring comprehensive healthcare to college students from all socioeconomic backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, and physical abilities. Training healthcare providers with the tools to understand different communities allows clinicians to learn new ways to be more inclusive and build trusted relationships with patients.
Seli explains, "Providing quality, equitable access to care is a foundational mission for Timely. We are aware that students from underserved and underrepresented populations many times possess unique barriers to care, and that has made seeking help increasingly difficult. Breaking down those barriers in as many areas as possible has been our goal. Forming this relationship and partnership with Violet will help in those areas."
Gaurang elaborates, "I'll briefly share exactly how we get to understand how a clinician is doing, and then I'll share more about how we educate. At Violet, when a clinician joins us, we go through a process called benchmarking their cultural competence. We take a look at five pillars of information, including who is that specific person, what communities their family or they belong to, we look at what are the communities they feel really confident serving. That's a clinical measure called self-efficacy that we've pulled in."
"Then we also look at what are the communities they want to work with, the communities they've studied about and the communities they have worked with, using claims data and their voices. Then using all this information, we get to have clarity on is that specific provider doing well working with the BIPOC or LGBQ or TGNC communities."
#TimelyCare #JoinViolet #Healthcare #VirtualCare #LGBTQHealth #TGNCHealth #BIPOCHealth #MentalHealth #HealthDisparities #HealthEquity #MinorityMentalHealth
timelycare.com joinviolet.com
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Seli Fakorzi, Director of Mental Health Operations at TimelyCare, and Gaurang Choksi, CEO and Founder of Violet, join me to discuss their partnership to bring comprehensive healthcare to college students from all socioeconomic backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, and physical abilities. Training healthcare providers with the tools to understand different communities allows clinicians to learn new ways to be more inclusive and build trusted relationships with patients.
Seli explains, "Providing quality, equitable access to care is a foundational mission for Timely. We are aware that students from underserved and underrepresented populations many times possess unique barriers to care, and that has made seeking help increasingly difficult. Breaking down those barriers in as many areas as possible has been our goal. Forming this relationship and partnership with Violet will help in those areas."
Gaurang elaborates, "I'll briefly share exactly how we get to understand how a clinician is doing, and then I'll share more about how we educate. At Violet, when a clinician joins us, we go through a process called benchmarking their cultural competence. We take a look at five pillars of information, including who is that specific person, what communities their family or they belong to, we look at what are the communities they feel really confident serving. That's a clinical measure called self-efficacy that we've pulled in."
"Then we also look at what are the communities they want to work with, the communities they've studied about and the communities they have worked with, using claims data and their voices. Then using all this information, we get to have clarity on is that specific provider doing well working with the BIPOC or LGBQ or TGNC communities."
#TimelyCare #JoinViolet #Healthcare #VirtualCare #LGBTQHealth #TGNCHealth #BIPOCHealth #MentalHealth #HealthDisparities #HealthEquity #MinorityMentalHealth
timelycare.com joinviolet.com
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Michael Axt, the Chief Member Empowerment Officer at Zelis, is focused on helping healthcare payers and clinicians provide more information to patients about expected costs for procedures and visits to providers and hospitals. A recent survey conducted with Hanover Research revealed insights about patients' challenges in understanding healthcare billing and correcting errors. Driven by the move to transparency, Zelis acquired Sapphire to offer the Sapphire Digital solution to enable patients to better understand insurance benefits and the correct amount the patient owes.
Michael explains, "We found some interesting insights. Over 40 percent of the consumers in our study indicated that they were significantly frustrated in trying to find the right person to resolve an error. So they might have found an error, but they didn't know how to do anything about it. For those individuals, it took a month or more for nearly half of our respondents. For 70 percent of them they spent over two hours of their own time trying to work to correct this."
"To the extent that there's greater clarity for the member or the patients in understanding the bill and what they owe, they're more likely to pay it more promptly. So we all know that cash flow is a challenge, and collections on patient liabilities are frankly atrociously low in the healthcare space."
"For the health insurance companies and payers, there are options as well. Obliviously improving the member experience helps to improve retention and reduce churn in the plans. Also, if they're bringing tools that help to accelerate payment to the provider, it has opportunities for them to improve their relationships with their provider networks, which is a huge strategic asset for the health insurance companies."
@ZelisHealthcare #Healthcare #PaymentIntegrity #HealthcareCosts #ConsumerBilling #PriceTransparency #HealthcareBilling #MedicalBillingErrors
zelis.com
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Michael Axt, the Chief Member Empowerment Officer at Zelis, is focused on helping healthcare payers and clinicians provide more information to patients about expected costs for procedures and visits to providers and hospitals. A recent survey conducted with Hanover Research revealed insights about patients' challenges in understanding healthcare billing and correcting errors. Driven by the move to transparency, Zelis acquired Sapphire to offer the Sapphire Digital solution to enable patients to better understand insurance benefits and the correct amount the patient owes.
Michael explains, "We found some interesting insights. Over 40 percent of the consumers in our study indicated that they were significantly frustrated in trying to find the right person to resolve an error. So they might have found an error, but they didn't know how to do anything about it. For those individuals, it took a month or more for nearly half of our respondents. For 70 percent of them they spent over two hours of their own time trying to work to correct this."
"To the extent that there's greater clarity for the member or the patients in understanding the bill and what they owe, they're more likely to pay it more promptly. So we all know that cash flow is a challenge, and collections on patient liabilities are frankly atrociously low in the healthcare space."
"For the health insurance companies and payers, there are options as well. Obliviously improving the member experience helps to improve retention and reduce churn in the plans. Also, if they're bringing tools that help to accelerate payment to the provider, it has opportunities for them to improve their relationships with their provider networks, which is a huge strategic asset for the health insurance companies."
@ZelisHealthcare #Healthcare #PaymentIntegrity #HealthcareCosts #ConsumerBilling #PriceTransparency #HealthcareBilling #MedicalBillingErrors
zelis.com
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Patricia Panzarino, otherwise known as Pidgie, was born with spinal muscular atrophy, SMA, a severe progressive neuromuscular disease. As a singer and songwriter and one of the oldest women living with SMA, Pidgie is celebrating the release of her new album, Just Breathe. Her experience of successfully taking Evrysdi from Genentech has given her more energy and enthusiasm.
Pidgie elaborates, "They didn't know as much when I was born. I was six months old and did not achieve the milestone of crawling properly. My mom took me to the doctor. I had an older sister who had it as well. She was 12 years older than me, so they said, "Here we go again." They called it Amyotonia back then. But as far as a solid diagnosis of blood tests and DNA and stuff, truthfully, that was three years ago. But SMA used to be diagnosed clinically. So I knew I had it, but it was a different way to diagnose it."
"Before the medication, you're talking 61 years of lifestyle—great parents kept me active. My father adapted things for me to participate more fully. For example, we had a boat that you could sleep on with a flying bridge, and he took a Hoyer lift that you use to transfer, put it on the flying bridge, and hoisted me up, so I could pilot this 31-foot boat. I was kept very active, taking vitamins and eating healthily. I never really did drugs or got really into alcohol. I just tried to keep a healthy balance and positivity until the medication. Now I'm still doing all of that because that really helps. You can't take it and just party and not eat well and stay up late and not sleep."
#PidgieMusic #Pidgie #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #SMA #NeuromuscularDisease #Evrysdi
PidgieMusic.com
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Patricia Panzarino, otherwise known as Pidgie, was born with spinal muscular atrophy, SMA, a severe progressive neuromuscular disease. As a singer and songwriter and one of the oldest women living with SMA, Pidgie is celebrating the release of her new album, Just Breathe. Her experience of successfully taking Evrysdi from Genentech has given her more energy and enthusiasm.
Pidgie elaborates, "They didn't know as much when I was born. I was six months old and did not achieve the milestone of crawling properly. My mom took me to the doctor. I had an older sister who had it as well. She was 12 years older than me, so they said, "Here we go again." They called it Amyotonia back then. But as far as a solid diagnosis of blood tests and DNA and stuff, truthfully, that was three years ago. But SMA used to be diagnosed clinically. So I knew I had it, but it was a different way to diagnose it."
"Before the medication, you're talking 61 years of lifestyle—great parents kept me active. My father adapted things for me to participate more fully. For example, we had a boat that you could sleep on with a flying bridge, and he took a Hoyer lift that you use to transfer, put it on the flying bridge, and hoisted me up, so I could pilot this 31-foot boat. I was kept very active, taking vitamins and eating healthily. I never really did drugs or got really into alcohol. I just tried to keep a healthy balance and positivity until the medication. Now I'm still doing all of that because that really helps. You can't take it and just party and not eat well and stay up late and not sleep."
#PidgieMusic #Pidgie #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #SMA #NeuromuscularDisease #Evrysdi
PidgieMusic.com
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Dr. Myron Czuczman is the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Citius Pharmaceuticals, which is developing an advanced treatment for cutaneous T cell lymphoma, CTCL, a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The original version of their drug ONTAK has been reformulated, and I/ONTAK is now in clinical trials to confirm efficacy in controlling severe itching and improving the quality of life for patients.
Myron explains, "This is a protein, a fusion protein, of interleukin-2, the whole molecule that has been fused with diphtheria toxin. With respect to any of the cells like the cells we're talking about, CTCL, it actually binds to the IL-2 receptor, internalizes, and in that manner, kills the tumor cells."
"The agent ONTAK was taken off the market, and this new version, I/ONTAK or E7777, is a reformulation. It's more purified and it's about one and a half to two times more bioactive than the original ONTAK. From the clinical trials which led to our submission of the BLA recently, we've looked at the safety and efficacy, and it's consistent with the original formulation. There are no new safety issues, and it has good activity in patients, even heavily pretreated patients."
"The issue here is, unfortunately, this disease, the relapsed/refractory CTCL, is incurable. The only time one has a chance to cure it is if you get it early, if you have young patients that have what we call an HLA compatible donor. In a very small number of patients, an allogeneic stem cell transplant could be curative. But the vast majority of these patients, who are elderly, are not candidates for allogeneic transplant. So, unfortunately, these are incurable individuals with bad diseases."
@CitiusPharma #Cancer #Lymphoma #RareDisease #Immunotherapy $CTXR
citiuspharma.com
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Dr. Myron Czuczman is the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Citius Pharmaceuticals, which is developing an advanced treatment for cutaneous T cell lymphoma, CTCL, a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The original version of their drug ONTAK has been reformulated, and I/ONTAK is now in clinical trials to confirm efficacy in controlling severe itching and improving the quality of life for patients.
Myron explains, "This is a protein, a fusion protein, of interleukin-2, the whole molecule that has been fused with diphtheria toxin. With respect to any of the cells like the cells we're talking about, CTCL, it actually binds to the IL-2 receptor, internalizes, and in that manner, kills the tumor cells."
"The agent ONTAK was taken off the market, and this new version, I/ONTAK or E7777, is a reformulation. It's more purified and it's about one and a half to two times more bioactive than the original ONTAK. From the clinical trials which led to our submission of the BLA recently, we've looked at the safety and efficacy, and it's consistent with the original formulation. There are no new safety issues, and it has good activity in patients, even heavily pretreated patients."
"The issue here is, unfortunately, this disease, the relapsed/refractory CTCL, is incurable. The only time one has a chance to cure it is if you get it early, if you have young patients that have what we call an HLA compatible donor. In a very small number of patients, an allogeneic stem cell transplant could be curative. But the vast majority of these patients, who are elderly, are not candidates for allogeneic transplant. So, unfortunately, these are incurable individuals with bad diseases."
@CitiusPharma #Cancer #Lymphoma #RareDisease #Immunotherapy $CTXR
citiuspharma.com
Download the transcript here
Brian Pepin is the CEO of Rune Labs, and Aura Oslapas is a woman with Parkinson's who helped create the underlying software for Rune's StrivePD platform. With a focus on precision neurology and a mission to collect relevant data, Rune has refined Aura's work to create an app that allows patients to manage their everyday life better. By combining digital data with logged information, the platform provides a customized plan for each patient to manage unique symptoms.
Aura explains, "I've been working in the design world for 40 years. I was someone who, early on in my Parkinson's journey, was sensitive to the medication and developing side effects pretty early on and was having challenges describing what was going on to the neurologist. I got a lot of nodding but not necessarily understanding. So personally, I wanted to better track and learn from the interplay of the medications with my symptoms and the side effects I was experiencing."
Brian elaborates, "So especially through the work that we've done with Apple and getting the FDA approval with them around turning the Apple Watch into a Parkinson's symptom monitor, we're able to get this wonderful time series picture of what's going on when a patient is at home in their own environment. This gives us a look at how that relates to different medications that they're taking, or different therapies that they're on, or some of these different environmental effects, mood, exercise, and diet that can really affect somebody's quality of life."
@Rune_Labs #ParkinsonsDisease #PrecisionNeurology #PrecisionMedicine #StrivePD #DigitalHealth
runelabs.io
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Brian Pepin is the CEO of Rune Labs, and Aura Oslapas is a woman with Parkinson's who helped create the underlying software for Rune's StrivePD platform. With a focus on precision neurology and a mission to collect relevant data, Rune has refined Aura's work to create an app that allows patients to manage their everyday life better. By combining digital data with logged information, the platform provides a customized plan for each patient to manage unique symptoms.
Aura explains, "I've been working in the design world for 40 years. I was someone who, early on in my Parkinson's journey, was sensitive to the medication and developing side effects pretty early on and was having challenges describing what was going on to the neurologist. I got a lot of nodding but not necessarily understanding. So personally, I wanted to better track and learn from the interplay of the medications with my symptoms and the side effects I was experiencing."
Brian elaborates, "So especially through the work that we've done with Apple and getting the FDA approval with them around turning the Apple Watch into a Parkinson's symptom monitor, we're able to get this wonderful time series picture of what's going on when a patient is at home in their own environment. This gives us a look at how that relates to different medications that they're taking, or different therapies that they're on, or some of these different environmental effects, mood, exercise, and diet that can really affect somebody's quality of life."
@Rune_Labs #ParkinsonsDisease #PrecisionNeurology #PrecisionMedicine #StrivePD #DigitalHealth
runelabs.io
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Ryne Natzke, Chief Revenue Officer for Sphere, works with healthcare providers to facilitate patient payments using technology to smooth the process. Medical debt is increasing, and reports are that nearly half of Americans can not afford an unexpected $500 medical expense without stress to their budgets. Transparency of costs and adding flexibility to patients for payments are key to reducing the impact of preventative and unexpected medical costs.
Ryan explains, "The thing about medical debt also is that it, by definition, is almost always unexpected. You don't plan to go to the emergency room or do anything like that, and this is beyond just having insurance. This is debt that a patient owes after insurance already takes care of their side. So, it's impacting a large number of Americans and has a really big impact on their day-to-day lives and day-to-day finances."
"The two things that come to mind for me are transparency and flexibility. As we talked about at the beginning, a lot of it is the unknown and for the most part, is also unexpected. Giving patients information about what they owe and why ahead of time, before the care has been delivered before the claim is adjudicated and the final bill becomes due, is important, before it's too late to change behaviors. So, if you can help somebody budget, or if you could help somebody prepare for what's going to be coming down the line, it allows them to make more informed decisions."
@SphereCommerce #MedicalDebt #HealthcarePriceTransparency #MedicalInsurance #Patients
SphereCommerce.com
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Ryne Natzke, Chief Revenue Officer for Sphere, works with healthcare providers to facilitate patient payments using technology to smooth the process. Medical debt is increasing, and reports are that nearly half of Americans can not afford an unexpected $500 medical expense without stress to their budgets. Transparency of costs and adding flexibility to patients for payments are key to reducing the impact of preventative and unexpected medical costs.
Ryan explains, "The thing about medical debt also is that it, by definition, is almost always unexpected. You don't plan to go to the emergency room or do anything like that, and this is beyond just having insurance. This is debt that a patient owes after insurance already takes care of their side. So, it's impacting a large number of Americans and has a really big impact on their day-to-day lives and day-to-day finances."
"The two things that come to mind for me are transparency and flexibility. As we talked about at the beginning, a lot of it is the unknown and for the most part, is also unexpected. Giving patients information about what they owe and why ahead of time, before the care has been delivered before the claim is adjudicated and the final bill becomes due, is important, before it's too late to change behaviors. So, if you can help somebody budget, or if you could help somebody prepare for what's going to be coming down the line, it allows them to make more informed decisions."
@SphereCommerce #MedicalDebt #HealthcarePriceTransparency #MedicalInsurance #Patients
SphereCommerce.com
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Kat Kwiatkowski, the Senior VP of Clinical Development at Strata Oncology, has tested over 60,000 patients and used their clinical outcome data to build advanced multivariate biomarkers to better predict patient response to approved cancer treatments. Using molecular profiling data, Strata has created an immunotherapy response score leveraging DNA components and the immune gene expression components to better capture the variability and response to PD-L1 therapies.
Kat explains, "People with the same cancer, meaning if they have breast or lung cancer, can have different forms of the disease. So responses to treatment can and do vary. Prior to 2012, the most popular treatment option for patients with advanced cancer was chemotherapy, which is extremely toxic. And due to rapid advancements in molecular and biotechnology, we're now able to do a few things better."
"One, we're better at identifying cancers earlier, when our chances for cures are the highest. Second, we're better at characterizing the tumors, to understand what makes them vulnerable. Three, with that information, we can then build drugs to target those specific vulnerabilities. And finally, we can now also better comprehend the interaction between drug and patient, to understand which types of patients at the molecular level will respond to or have increased side effects. This personalization really provides us with an extraordinary opportunity to improve patient outcomes."
#StrataOncology #ImmunoOncology #PrecisionOncology #MolecularProfiling #RealWorldData
strataoncology.com
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Kat Kwiatkowski, the Senior VP of Clinical Development at Strata Oncology, has tested over 60,000 patients and used their clinical outcome data to build advanced multivariate biomarkers to better predict patient response to approved cancer treatments. Using molecular profiling data, Strata has created an immunotherapy response score leveraging DNA components and the immune gene expression components to better capture the variability and response to PD-L1 therapies.
Kat explains, "People with the same cancer, meaning if they have breast or lung cancer, can have different forms of the disease. So responses to treatment can and do vary. Prior to 2012, the most popular treatment option for patients with advanced cancer was chemotherapy, which is extremely toxic. And due to rapid advancements in molecular and biotechnology, we're now able to do a few things better."
"One, we're better at identifying cancers earlier, when our chances for cures are the highest. Second, we're better at characterizing the tumors, to understand what makes them vulnerable. Three, with that information, we can then build drugs to target those specific vulnerabilities. And finally, we can now also better comprehend the interaction between drug and patient, to understand which types of patients at the molecular level will respond to or have increased side effects. This personalization really provides us with an extraordinary opportunity to improve patient outcomes."
#StrataOncology #ImmunoOncology #PrecisionOncology #MolecularProfiling #RealWorldData
strataoncology.com
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Dr. Leonard Ganz is the Chief Medical Officer and Divisional Vice President of Medical Affairs for Abbott's Cardiac Rhythm Management Division. Traditional pacemakers include a pulse generator that is connected to the inside of the heart with insulated wires. These leads relay the electrical activity that goes between the pacemaker and the heart muscle. The Abbott Aveir VR is a single-chambered leadless pacemaker with improved battery longevity that is implanted inside the heart and eliminates the risks from leads.
Len explains, "There are different types of slow heart rhythms that people develop. Most commonly, people develop slow heart rhythms as they get older, but there are situations in which younger people develop slow heart rhythms as well. And at the most fundamental level, a pacemaker has to sense the intrinsic heartbeat, or heart rhythm, and then stimulate or pace the heart if the intrinsic heart rhythm isn't adequate or isn't as fast as the physician would like it to be."
"Over the five or six decades that we've had implantable pacemakers, there've been many, many advancements. Pacemakers are fully programmable in terms of heart rates and other features. We've gone from pacemakers that sense and pace in a single heart chamber to pacemakers that sense in two heart chambers and then even three heart chambers. So there have been tremendous advances over these years. One of the most important advances in recent years has been the development of what we call a leadless pacemaker."
#AbbottCardio #Pacemaker #ImplantablePacemakers #LeadlessPacemakers #HeartMuscle
abbott.com
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Dr. Leonard Ganz is the Chief Medical Officer and Divisional Vice President of Medical Affairs for Abbott's Cardiac Rhythm Management Division. Traditional pacemakers include a pulse generator that is connected to the inside of the heart with insulated wires. These leads relay the electrical activity that goes between the pacemaker and the heart muscle. The Abbott Aveir VR is a single-chambered leadless pacemaker with improved battery longevity that is implanted inside the heart and eliminates the risks from leads.
Len explains, "There are different types of slow heart rhythms that people develop. Most commonly, people develop slow heart rhythms as they get older, but there are situations in which younger people develop slow heart rhythms as well. And at the most fundamental level, a pacemaker has to sense the intrinsic heartbeat, or heart rhythm, and then stimulate or pace the heart if the intrinsic heart rhythm isn't adequate or isn't as fast as the physician would like it to be."
"Over the five or six decades that we've had implantable pacemakers, there've been many, many advancements. Pacemakers are fully programmable in terms of heart rates and other features. We've gone from pacemakers that sense and pace in a single heart chamber to pacemakers that sense in two heart chambers and then even three heart chambers. So there have been tremendous advances over these years. One of the most important advances in recent years has been the development of what we call a leadless pacemaker."
#AbbottCardio #Pacemaker #ImplantablePacemakers #LeadlessPacemakers #HeartMuscle
abbott.com
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Robert Kim, the Chief Technology Officer at Presidio, works with providers, hospitals, payers, medical device companies, and digital health start-ups to refine and update the telemedicine model. Utilizing wearable and real-time data along with traditional medical data sources, Presidio is creating enterprise virtual care platforms that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, voice recognition, and data analytics to improve productivity and benefit patients, clinicians, and researchers.
Rob explains, "One of the things, and the keys to what we're trying to do in utilizing various different AI and ML techniques, is to increase that productivity. So you talk about generating emails, or you talk about taking notes, all of those things that we can do, utilizing natural language processing, which is really just components of technology that we would be deploying."
"Utilizing that data for a patient to be able to just track their own wellbeing, especially from a preventative care perspective, is very important. But the ability to then combine that wearable data in order to be able to get real-time access to what is pulse ox and what does the current EKG look like? Things of that sort really allow us then to combine that data with other outside data sources in order to be able to do much better prediction and forecasting around the potential for some sort of outbreak or the probability of somebody coming down with certain diseases. And in fact, a lot of the work that we're doing with a couple of our startups is to be able to do that across a much wider spectrum platform."
#DigitalHealth #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ML #MachineLearning #Telehealth #Telemedicine #VirtualCare #Wearables #MedicalDevices #Medtech #PrecisionMedicine
presidio.com
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Robert Kim, the Chief Technology Officer at Presidio, works with providers, hospitals, payers, medical device companies, and digital health start-ups to refine and update the telemedicine model. Utilizing wearable and real-time data along with traditional medical data sources, Presidio is creating enterprise virtual care platforms that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, voice recognition, and data analytics to improve productivity and benefit patients, clinicians, and researchers.
Rob explains, "One of the things, and the keys to what we're trying to do in utilizing various different AI and ML techniques, is to increase that productivity. So you talk about generating emails, or you talk about taking notes, all of those things that we can do, utilizing natural language processing, which is really just components of technology that we would be deploying."
"Utilizing that data for a patient to be able to just track their own wellbeing, especially from a preventative care perspective, is very important. But the ability to then combine that wearable data in order to be able to get real-time access to what is pulse ox and what does the current EKG look like? Things of that sort really allow us then to combine that data with other outside data sources in order to be able to do much better prediction and forecasting around the potential for some sort of outbreak or the probability of somebody coming down with certain diseases. And in fact, a lot of the work that we're doing with a couple of our startups is to be able to do that across a much wider spectrum platform."
#DigitalHealth #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ML #MachineLearning #Telehealth #Telemedicine #VirtualCare #Wearables #MedicalDevices #Medtech #PrecisionMedicine
presidio.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Peter Small Chief Medical Officer at Hyfe AI is doing for cough what the thermometer did for fever by allowing people to monitor their cough to identify underlying medical conditions. Using acoustic AI, Hyfe is able to measure cough rates and patterns and identify early warning signs of diseases. Hyfe is leading the way in acoustic epidemiology to better understand the determinants and distribution of disease.
Peter explains, "Sound is extremely interesting because AI requires very data-rich signals, and so it's not surprising that in health, the early applications of AI have been in x-ray interpretations and dermatology in images. The next wave will be in sound because sound is equally rich. So there's a lot of information, for example, in the pattern of cough or the sounds of cough, and that's our focus. We're an acoustic health company."
"Cough is interesting because it's not like blood pressure. There's no 120/80. There's a cough that's normal for you and normal for me. I just happen to have a bad, chronic cough. I cough 40 times, 80 times a day, that's normal. But if I go up to 800 coughs a day, as I did when I got COVID, that's an important red flag."
@hyfeapp #AI #Healthcare #Cough #DigitalHealth #ClinicalTrials #Innovation #AcousticHealth #AcousticEpidemiology
hyfe.ai
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Dr. Peter Small Chief Medical Officer at Hyfe AI is doing for cough what the thermometer did for fever by allowing people to monitor their cough to identify underlying medical conditions. Using acoustic AI, Hyfe is able to measure cough rates and patterns and identify early warning signs of diseases. Hyfe is leading the way in acoustic epidemiology to better understand the determinants and distribution of disease.
Peter explains, "Sound is extremely interesting because AI requires very data-rich signals, and so it's not surprising that in health, the early applications of AI have been in x-ray interpretations and dermatology in images. The next wave will be in sound because sound is equally rich. So there's a lot of information, for example, in the pattern of cough or the sounds of cough, and that's our focus. We're an acoustic health company."
"Cough is interesting because it's not like blood pressure. There's no 120/80. There's a cough that's normal for you and normal for me. I just happen to have a bad, chronic cough. I cough 40 times, 80 times a day, that's normal. But if I go up to 800 coughs a day, as I did when I got COVID, that's an important red flag."
@hyfeapp #AI #Healthcare #Cough #DigitalHealth #ClinicalTrials #Innovation #AcousticHealth #AcousticEpidemiology
hyfe.ai
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Benjamin Lightburn, Co-Founder and CEO of Filament Health points out that up until now, research with psychedelics has been done with synthetically prepared psychedelic substances. Filament is making a product through natural extraction that results in a medicine containing psilocybin plus over a dozen other active compounds from the magic mushrooms. This natural process does not require any toxic chemicals and can be distributed through non-medical distribution channels to treat a variety of mental health indications.
Benjamin explains, "The psychedelics that have been showing a lot of promise recently in modern well-controlled clinical trials are being used for various mental health indications. Depression and PTSD are the ones that are most clinically advanced. But there's lots of very promising research in other areas, such as anxiety, substance use disorders, in particular alcohol use disorder, as well as in the areas of chronic pain, phantom limb pain, fibromyalgia, and things like that. Again, the list of indications for which psychedelic compounds can potentially be efficacious is still not yet known, and it is growing all the time as more research comes out."
"Psychedelic medicine is always combined with therapy, so it's referred to as psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. And this means that you'll typically visit a professional, like a psychiatrist, for a number of preparatory sessions before your psychedelic experience. And then, on the day of your psychedelic experience, you actually consume the drug. In our case, we produce oral capsules, which look just like any other capsule, but there are other routes of administration as well."
@FilamentHealth #PsychedelicTherapy #NaturalMedicine #Psilocybin #Mushrooms #MagicMushrooms #Microdosing
Filament.Health
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Benjamin Lightburn, Co-Founder and CEO of Filament Health points out that up until now, research with psychedelics has been done with synthetically prepared psychedelic substances. Filament is making a product through natural extraction that results in a medicine containing psilocybin plus over a dozen other active compounds from the magic mushrooms. This natural process does not require any toxic chemicals and can be distributed through non-medical distribution channels to treat a variety of mental health indications.
Benjamin explains, "The psychedelics that have been showing a lot of promise recently in modern well-controlled clinical trials are being used for various mental health indications. Depression and PTSD are the ones that are most clinically advanced. But there's lots of very promising research in other areas, such as anxiety, substance use disorders, in particular alcohol use disorder, as well as in the areas of chronic pain, phantom limb pain, fibromyalgia, and things like that. Again, the list of indications for which psychedelic compounds can potentially be efficacious is still not yet known, and it is growing all the time as more research comes out."
"Psychedelic medicine is always combined with therapy, so it's referred to as psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. And this means that you'll typically visit a professional, like a psychiatrist, for a number of preparatory sessions before your psychedelic experience. And then, on the day of your psychedelic experience, you actually consume the drug. In our case, we produce oral capsules, which look just like any other capsule, but there are other routes of administration as well."
@FilamentHealth #PsychedelicTherapy #NaturalMedicine #Psilocybin #Mushrooms #MagicMushrooms #Microdosing
Filament.Health
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Melanie Smith, Senior Manager of learning and developing at Air Methods, was a US Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot. She now trains clinicians, emergency medicine experts, pilots, first responders, mechanics, and corporate officials to respond to critical care needs, natural disasters, and accidents. The training program includes hands-on exercises with a high-fidelity manikin that talks back and can throw up, gamification, and virtual reality to provide an immersive experience in different situations.
Melanie elaborates, "I flew Black Hawks in the Army for 12 years. Five of those years were spent in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and earthquake relief in Pakistan. After 12 years of service, I decided to get out of the military and join the civilian world. I still needed to serve my community. Instead of a life of service in the military, I wanted to serve my local community. So I joined Air Methods, and it really fulfilled that desire to help. I flew the line in Air Methods for 12 years, mostly North Carolina, flying all over the nation. Then I came to corporate Air Methods and decided to get into teaching."
"Typically, to get into these roles, you have to have had some varied experience so that you're ready for it. Clinicians have to have an emergency room setting, emergency medicine, and maybe some ICU so that they can take care of every type of patient we would pick up. And then the pilots typically have a varied background as well. Maybe they were military, or maybe they flew all over the world. We have pilots from across the board. Maybe they flew in the jungle or in Alaska in the winter environment. We put all of our past experiences together and need it for every mission that we do now."
#AirMethods #CriticalCare #ClinicalEducation #VR #CECredits #HealthcareCE #NursingCE #ParamedicCE #ClinicalCE #FlightClinician #CAPCE #CABRN #ClinicalSkills #ProfessionalDevelopment #DigitalHealth #RuralHealthcare
AirMethods.com
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Melanie Smith, Senior Manager of learning and developing at Air Methods, was a US Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot. She now trains clinicians, emergency medicine experts, pilots, first responders, mechanics, and corporate officials to respond to critical care needs, natural disasters, and accidents. The training program includes hands-on exercises with a high-fidelity manikin that talks back and can throw up, gamification, and virtual reality to provide an immersive experience in different situations.
Melanie elaborates, "I flew Black Hawks in the Army for 12 years. Five of those years were spent in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and earthquake relief in Pakistan. After 12 years of service, I decided to get out of the military and join the civilian world. I still needed to serve my community. Instead of a life of service in the military, I wanted to serve my local community. So I joined Air Methods, and it really fulfilled that desire to help. I flew the line in Air Methods for 12 years, mostly North Carolina, flying all over the nation. Then I came to corporate Air Methods and decided to get into teaching."
"Typically, to get into these roles, you have to have had some varied experience so that you're ready for it. Clinicians have to have an emergency room setting, emergency medicine, and maybe some ICU so that they can take care of every type of patient we would pick up. And then the pilots typically have a varied background as well. Maybe they were military, or maybe they flew all over the world. We have pilots from across the board. Maybe they flew in the jungle or in Alaska in the winter environment. We put all of our past experiences together and need it for every mission that we do now."
#AirMethods #CriticalCare #ClinicalEducation #VR #CECredits #HealthcareCE #NursingCE #ParamedicCE #ClinicalCE #FlightClinician #CAPCE #CABRN #ClinicalSkills #ProfessionalDevelopment #DigitalHealth #RuralHealthcare
AirMethods.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Bethany Doran, the CEO of Enabled Health, is using a healthcare model that identifies patients at high risk of hospitalization or who need help managing a chronic condition. With a focus on predominantly older patients, Enabled Health works with community partners and senior living facilities to allow patients access to remote monitoring systems, digital tools, and on-site visits.
Bethany explains, "Our goal is to meet them where they are spiritually, holistically, and geographically and be able to provide them with the equipment to enable access to telemedicine and support their health. But also, to meet them in person, in some cases, and just be a good steward and guide to them on their healthcare journey."
"We spend a good amount of time just listening to their medical history, how they've been doing, any challenges, and reconciling any medications they have. Then we also provide them with equipment to enable telemedicine and telemonitoring. They have a tablet that can either link to wifi, or in some cases, it's cellular, but allows the patient to engage in telemedicine as well for those times that we can't be in-person."
"Going in-person to the assisted living facilities we work with, we'll go once per month in person and set them up for telemedicine for the rest of their visits. But we think it's really important to maintain our relationships with patients, just serving as a partner in health. Not relying only on telemedicine or telemonitoring and thinking that will fix everything about a patient's health, but be there as a true partner and use that as a tool to expand instead access for patients."
#Telehealth #Telemedicine #ChronicDiseases #HealthEquity #RuralHealthcare #DigitalHealth #ChronicCareManagement #RemotePatientMonitoring
enabled.healthcare
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Dr. Bethany Doran, the CEO of Enabled Health, is using a healthcare model that identifies patients at high risk of hospitalization or who need help managing a chronic condition. With a focus on predominantly older patients, Enabled Health works with community partners and senior living facilities to allow patients access to remote monitoring systems, digital tools, and on-site visits.
Bethany explains, "Our goal is to meet them where they are spiritually, holistically, and geographically and be able to provide them with the equipment to enable access to telemedicine and support their health. But also, to meet them in person, in some cases, and just be a good steward and guide to them on their healthcare journey."
"We spend a good amount of time just listening to their medical history, how they've been doing, any challenges, and reconciling any medications they have. Then we also provide them with equipment to enable telemedicine and telemonitoring. They have a tablet that can either link to wifi, or in some cases, it's cellular, but allows the patient to engage in telemedicine as well for those times that we can't be in-person."
"Going in-person to the assisted living facilities we work with, we'll go once per month in person and set them up for telemedicine for the rest of their visits. But we think it's really important to maintain our relationships with patients, just serving as a partner in health. Not relying only on telemedicine or telemonitoring and thinking that will fix everything about a patient's health, but be there as a true partner and use that as a tool to expand instead access for patients."
#Telehealth #Telemedicine #ChronicDiseases #HealthEquity #RuralHealthcare #DigitalHealth #ChronicCareManagement #RemotePatientMonitoring
enabled.healthcare
Download the transcript here
David Bearss the Co-Founder, CEO and President of Halia Therapeutics, points out that despite traditional thinking, chronic inflammation is not just an unresolved acute inflammatory response. It has been discovered that a different pathway leads to the activation of this inflammatory response in diseases with components of chronic inflammation, such as Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, COPD, psoriasis, IBD, and cancer. Their potential drug target is the NLRP3 inflammasome which has been identified as being associated with the activation of inflammation.
David explains, "We've gotten better and better at trying to narrow down on how we can block these inflammatory responses. But there's just been, in the past few years, a real explosion in our knowledge of what the root drivers of chronic inflammation are. At Halia, we're focused on trying to take out the root cause, not some of the downstream effects or the signaling molecules, but take out the responsible thing, the machine inside the cell that's activated, that's propagating these signals. If we can turn that off, we think we can get to the root cause of what's driving these problems and all these different diseases."
"It's just in the past few years that we've discovered that there are these cellular machines that get formed under the right conditions that help propagate or signal this inflammatory response. We call those machines inflammasomes, and there are five that we know of. There are probably a few more that are what we call non-canonical inflammasomes. But the inflammasomes have been a really hot area of research in lots of different diseases to try to understand how these protein complexes get formed inside cells and how they stay stuck on in chronic inflammation."
@Halia_Tx #ChronicInflammation #Immunity #Neuroscience #AlzheimersDisease #InflammatoryDisease #DrugDevelopment #Biotech
haliatherapeutics.com
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David Bearss the Co-Founder, CEO and President of Halia Therapeutics, points out that despite traditional thinking, chronic inflammation is not just an unresolved acute inflammatory response. It has been discovered that a different pathway leads to the activation of this inflammatory response in diseases with components of chronic inflammation, such as Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, COPD, psoriasis, IBD, and cancer. Their potential drug target is the NLRP3 inflammasome which has been identified as being associated with the activation of inflammation.
David explains, "We've gotten better and better at trying to narrow down on how we can block these inflammatory responses. But there's just been, in the past few years, a real explosion in our knowledge of what the root drivers of chronic inflammation are. At Halia, we're focused on trying to take out the root cause, not some of the downstream effects or the signaling molecules, but take out the responsible thing, the machine inside the cell that's activated, that's propagating these signals. If we can turn that off, we think we can get to the root cause of what's driving these problems and all these different diseases."
"It's just in the past few years that we've discovered that there are these cellular machines that get formed under the right conditions that help propagate or signal this inflammatory response. We call those machines inflammasomes, and there are five that we know of. There are probably a few more that are what we call non-canonical inflammasomes. But the inflammasomes have been a really hot area of research in lots of different diseases to try to understand how these protein complexes get formed inside cells and how they stay stuck on in chronic inflammation."
@Halia_Tx #ChronicInflammation #Immunity #Neuroscience #AlzheimersDisease #InflammatoryDisease #DrugDevelopment #Biotech
haliatherapeutics.com
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Dr. Tina Albertson is the Chief Medical Officer and Head of Development at Lyell, using cell therapy to fight solid tumors through epigenetic and genetic reprogramming methods. Tumors have their own mechanisms for suppressing the immune system. These are the types of pathways Lyell is targeting with their engineering to find ways to counter the exhaustion that the T cells exhibit so that T cells can stay functional and kill the solid tumor cells.
Tina explains, "Our cell therapies are from the patient's own cells, so these are what we call autologous cell therapies. We take the cells from the patient and bring them, in our case to Seattle, to our manufacturing facility. We both genetically and epigenetically reprogram them during manufacturing so that the cells will be resistant to the suppressive microenvironment of the solid tumors."
" I think most people are familiar with the concept of stem cells, which can self-renew as well as make cells that are functional and can differentiate. So when we reprogram them, we make them more stem-like, and this allows us to infuse cells into the patient that should be more persistent and more functional."
"The second product we're also testing in trials is tumor infiltrating lymphocytes or TILs. This is a product where you need a piece of their cancer or their tumor and extract the T cells from the tumor itself. That requires surgery, then a piece of tissue is also sent to our manufacturing facility. Those T cells are extracted and expanded. That takes a little bit longer. But similarly, once those are expanded to the right cell number, we send them back to the site to be reinfused into the patient."
#Lyell #CellTherapy #SolidTumors #Oncology #Cancer #TCells #TCellExhaustion #AutologousCellTherapy
lyell.com
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Dr. Tina Albertson is the Chief Medical Officer and Head of Development at Lyell, using cell therapy to fight solid tumors through epigenetic and genetic reprogramming methods. Tumors have their own mechanisms for suppressing the immune system. These are the types of pathways Lyell is targeting with their engineering to find ways to counter the exhaustion that the T cells exhibit so that T cells can stay functional and kill the solid tumor cells.
Tina explains, "Our cell therapies are from the patient's own cells, so these are what we call autologous cell therapies. We take the cells from the patient and bring them, in our case to Seattle, to our manufacturing facility. We both genetically and epigenetically reprogram them during manufacturing so that the cells will be resistant to the suppressive microenvironment of the solid tumors."
" I think most people are familiar with the concept of stem cells, which can self-renew as well as make cells that are functional and can differentiate. So when we reprogram them, we make them more stem-like, and this allows us to infuse cells into the patient that should be more persistent and more functional."
"The second product we're also testing in trials is tumor infiltrating lymphocytes or TILs. This is a product where you need a piece of their cancer or their tumor and extract the T cells from the tumor itself. That requires surgery, then a piece of tissue is also sent to our manufacturing facility. Those T cells are extracted and expanded. That takes a little bit longer. But similarly, once those are expanded to the right cell number, we send them back to the site to be reinfused into the patient."
#Lyell #CellTherapy #SolidTumors #Oncology #Cancer #TCells #TCellExhaustion #AutologousCellTherapy
lyell.com
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Sam Lee is the Co-CEO and President of Cocrystal Pharma, focused on pandemic viruses and seasonal influenza to develop a drug that is cross-spectrum with a high barrier to drug resistance. Using computational data, as well as high-resolution X-ray data, their platform allows options for newly emerging viruses that also address potency and combination treatment options.
Sam explains, "We just completed the Phase I study. In the Phase I study, we demonstrated the favorable safety and tolerability of this compound, CC-42344. We designed this compound for pandemic and seasonal influenza A infection. Particularly, this compound is highly sensitive to the avian influenza strain, potentially an emerging pandemic strain."
"I think with antiviral drug development, you always have to think about three important things. One is the cross-spectrum, which covers the existing viruses. For example, in the influenza case, influenza H1N1, H2, and H3. And beyond seasonal influenza viruses are pandemic viruses, H5 and H7, and potentially emerging avian flu. So we want to cover all these viruses. That's a really important goal."
"Once you achieve good potency and cross-spectrum activity, then you want to solve the pharmacology. It's going to be a once-a-day drug with the excellent drug resistance. Drug resistance is a really key contribution using our platform approach. "
@CocrystalPharma $COCP #PandemicFlu #CC42344 #SeasonalInfluenzaA #Flu #Pandemic
CocrystalPharma.com
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Sam Lee is the Co-CEO and President of Cocrystal Pharma, focused on pandemic viruses and seasonal influenza to develop a drug that is cross-spectrum with a high barrier to drug resistance. Using computational data, as well as high-resolution X-ray data, their platform allows options for newly emerging viruses that also address potency and combination treatment options.
Sam explains, "We just completed the Phase I study. In the Phase I study, we demonstrated the favorable safety and tolerability of this compound, CC-42344. We designed this compound for pandemic and seasonal influenza A infection. Particularly, this compound is highly sensitive to the avian influenza strain, potentially an emerging pandemic strain."
"I think with antiviral drug development, you always have to think about three important things. One is the cross-spectrum, which covers the existing viruses. For example, in the influenza case, influenza H1N1, H2, and H3. And beyond seasonal influenza viruses are pandemic viruses, H5 and H7, and potentially emerging avian flu. So we want to cover all these viruses. That's a really important goal."
"Once you achieve good potency and cross-spectrum activity, then you want to solve the pharmacology. It's going to be a once-a-day drug with the excellent drug resistance. Drug resistance is a really key contribution using our platform approach. "
@CocrystalPharma $COCP #PandemicFlu #CC42344 #SeasonalInfluenzaA #Flu #Pandemic
CocrystalPharma.com
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Gabriel Mecklenburg is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Hinge Health, the leading digital clinic for back, joint, and muscle pain. Hinge provides personalized physical therapy plans by pairing digital and advanced motion-tracking technology with clinical care teams, including doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and board-certified health coaches. Recognizing the value of in-person care, Hinge is rolling out an in-home option to meet the needs of a wide variety of patients.
Gabriel explains, "Now, with Hinge Health, it's a digital program, and it's something that you can immediately access from the convenience of your home. You're getting an assessment of your condition right then and there. You can get started on clinically proven exercise therapy, education, coaching, PT type therapies immediately. It's a personalized, highly-tailored program for each individual, which, again, is very similar for a market-wide experience."
"We're excited to branch into what we call hybrid care, combining the best of both worlds of in-person and digital care. Our physical therapy house call service is a fully-integrated digital and in-person care experience for back, joint, and muscle health."
"The reason why we're pursuing this is that many Americans of all ages prefer to have an option of in-person visits alongside the digital health experience. In particular, for the kinds of conditions that we are tackling, in-person evaluations for joint and muscle pain can substantially enhance the experience and the quality of downstream digital care."
#HingeHealth #MSK #Musculoskeletal #DigitalHealth #PT #PhysicalTherapy #HealthandWellness #ChronicPain #HybridPT #VirtualPT #HomeHealthcare #HomeHealth
hingehealth.com
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Gabriel Mecklenburg is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Hinge Health, the leading digital clinic for back, joint, and muscle pain. Hinge provides personalized physical therapy plans by pairing digital and advanced motion-tracking technology with clinical care teams, including doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and board-certified health coaches. Recognizing the value of in-person care, Hinge is rolling out an in-home option to meet the needs of a wide variety of patients.
Gabriel explains, "Now, with Hinge Health, it's a digital program, and it's something that you can immediately access from the convenience of your home. You're getting an assessment of your condition right then and there. You can get started on clinically proven exercise therapy, education, coaching, PT type therapies immediately. It's a personalized, highly-tailored program for each individual, which, again, is very similar for a market-wide experience."
"We're excited to branch into what we call hybrid care, combining the best of both worlds of in-person and digital care. Our physical therapy house call service is a fully-integrated digital and in-person care experience for back, joint, and muscle health."
"The reason why we're pursuing this is that many Americans of all ages prefer to have an option of in-person visits alongside the digital health experience. In particular, for the kinds of conditions that we are tackling, in-person evaluations for joint and muscle pain can substantially enhance the experience and the quality of downstream digital care."
#HingeHealth #MSK #Musculoskeletal #DigitalHealth #PT #PhysicalTherapy #HealthandWellness #ChronicPain #HybridPT #VirtualPT #HomeHealthcare #HomeHealth
hingehealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Paul Lammers, the Chief Executive Officer at Triumvira Immunologics, is developing personalized medicine to treat solid tumors using an autologous approach to arm the patient-derived cells with a vector that identifies and kills individual cancer cells. At the forefront of the next generation of immune-oncology, Triumvira uses the Cocoon Platform made by Lonza to automate this process in a closed system to grow and harvest the cells. The ultimate goal is to have this technology available at the point of care in regional cancer centers to allow this cell therapy to be used by more cancer patients.
Paul elaborates, "The challenge with T cell therapy has been can we also use cell therapy to treat solid tumors? And that's where we feel that with our technology, known as TAC, T Cell Antigen Coupler comes in. We truly think we have an opportunity here, so we feel we are developing first-in-class medications based on that new T cell engineer platform, the TAC. We hope to have an opportunity to focus on different types of targets in solid tumors that will address high unmet needs in cancers like gastric cancer and colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer, and ovarian and endometrial."
"Our first program is in the clinic targeting HER2, which is a well-known target, especially for breast cancer and also gastric cancer. But we're expanding that. In the second half of this year, we're starting a first clinical trial targeting claudin 18.2, which is an exciting new upcoming target in different solid tumors, especially for gastric, pancreatic, and gastroesophageal cancer. Followed then in the next two years by new targets known as GUCY2C, which is a great target for colorectal cancer, and GPC3, a target for primary liver cancer. So it's an exciting time to build a broad and strong pipeline based on that TAC technology platform."
#Triumvira #TCells #TCellTherapy #TAC #Cancer #SolidTumorCancer #CellTherapy #BreastCancer #GastricCancer
Triumvira.com
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Dr. Paul Lammers, the Chief Executive Officer at Triumvira Immunologics, is developing personalized medicine to treat solid tumors using an autologous approach to arm the patient-derived cells with a vector that identifies and kills individual cancer cells. At the forefront of the next generation of immune-oncology, Triumvira uses the Cocoon Platform made by Lonza to automate this process in a closed system to grow and harvest the cells. The ultimate goal is to have this technology available at the point of care in regional cancer centers to allow this cell therapy to be used by more cancer patients.
Paul elaborates, "The challenge with T cell therapy has been can we also use cell therapy to treat solid tumors? And that's where we feel that with our technology, known as TAC, T Cell Antigen Coupler comes in. We truly think we have an opportunity here, so we feel we are developing first-in-class medications based on that new T cell engineer platform, the TAC. We hope to have an opportunity to focus on different types of targets in solid tumors that will address high unmet needs in cancers like gastric cancer and colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer, and ovarian and endometrial."
"Our first program is in the clinic targeting HER2, which is a well-known target, especially for breast cancer and also gastric cancer. But we're expanding that. In the second half of this year, we're starting a first clinical trial targeting claudin 18.2, which is an exciting new upcoming target in different solid tumors, especially for gastric, pancreatic, and gastroesophageal cancer. Followed then in the next two years by new targets known as GUCY2C, which is a great target for colorectal cancer, and GPC3, a target for primary liver cancer. So it's an exciting time to build a broad and strong pipeline based on that TAC technology platform."
#Triumvira #TCells #TCellTherapy #TAC #Cancer #SolidTumorCancer #CellTherapy #BreastCancer #GastricCancer
Triumvira.com
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Tomer Shussman, CEO of OneStep, is combining in-person physical therapy and in-person care with remote care to provide more accessible healthcare, improve clinical outcomes, and enable clinicians to generate additional revenue streams. The OneStep smartphone app continuously monitors how patients move and analyzes over 40 different gait parameters. Working with providers, such as physical therapy clinics and orthopedic surgeons, OneStep has entered into the orthotic and prosthetic fields, translating these parameters into actual clinical insights.
Tomer explains, "So the main two or three things we've launched in the last year was one, a fall risk model. So we are now able to tell the user whether they are at a fall risk. I think we're the first ones in the world that have a model that makes sense in the sense that we're not just telling you, "Hey. you are at a high risk of falling," but we're telling you, "The system has recognized that some of your gait parameters have shifted in a way that is associated with a higher risk of falling. So we see that you're taking 10% narrower steps and 15% shorter steps. You're spending a bit too much time on your left leg, and this all has been associated with a fall risk."
"We have developed similar programs for amputees in the field of prosthetics, supporting the fine-tuning of the prosthetics and making sure they're installed properly. We've done similar things for upper body and lower back pain, where providers use OneStep to help triage patients and understand which patients can be transitioned to remote care and which patients can't. This is what OneStep has been focused on in the last year."
@DigitalOneStep #OneStep #GaitAnalysis #FallRiskAssessment #HealthTech #RTM #ChoosePT #PhysicalTherapy #Telehealth #HealthCareInnovation #Prosthetics #Amputees
onestep.co
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Tomer Shussman, CEO of OneStep, is combining in-person physical therapy and in-person care with remote care to provide more accessible healthcare, improve clinical outcomes, and enable clinicians to generate additional revenue streams. The OneStep smartphone app continuously monitors how patients move and analyzes over 40 different gait parameters. Working with providers, such as physical therapy clinics and orthopedic surgeons, OneStep has entered into the orthotic and prosthetic fields, translating these parameters into actual clinical insights.
Tomer explains, "So the main two or three things we've launched in the last year was one, a fall risk model. So we are now able to tell the user whether they are at a fall risk. I think we're the first ones in the world that have a model that makes sense in the sense that we're not just telling you, "Hey. you are at a high risk of falling," but we're telling you, "The system has recognized that some of your gait parameters have shifted in a way that is associated with a higher risk of falling. So we see that you're taking 10% narrower steps and 15% shorter steps. You're spending a bit too much time on your left leg, and this all has been associated with a fall risk."
"We have developed similar programs for amputees in the field of prosthetics, supporting the fine-tuning of the prosthetics and making sure they're installed properly. We've done similar things for upper body and lower back pain, where providers use OneStep to help triage patients and understand which patients can be transitioned to remote care and which patients can't. This is what OneStep has been focused on in the last year."
@DigitalOneStep #OneStep #GaitAnalysis #FallRiskAssessment #HealthTech #RTM #ChoosePT #PhysicalTherapy #Telehealth #HealthCareInnovation #Prosthetics #Amputees
onestep.co
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Angie Franks is the CEO of ABOUT Healthcare, focusing on care orchestration for patients needing acute, post-acute, and transitional care. ABOUT works with healthcare systems to use technology to replace many phone calls and manual work to allow for a smoother process of identifying appropriate and available facilities. This approach also impacts networks of referral sources, making it easier for health systems to build stronger relationships with consistent processes and standards.
Angie explains, "When we're talking about a physician seeking the right setting of care for the patient, that process is filled with friction. It's filled with friction because when they're calling and contacting a facility, calling an inpatient facility to see if they can accept another patient, the people that are answering those calls don't have the information that they need at their fingertips to be able to make the decision."
"When we come in and help health systems put in place the right technology, what we're doing is changing the workflow. We put in place some best practices in terms of operational processes. Then we enable that with technology to structure a decision-making process so that the people that receive that call have all of the information they need to be able to make a decision and execute on that decision. This takes what can be a multi-hour process and turn that into something that is 15 to 30 minutes."
@ABOUT_est2005 #ABOUTHealth #CareOrchestration #PatientFlow #PatientOutcomes #CareNavigation #PatientTransfers #PatientAccess
abouthealthcare.com
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Angie Franks is the CEO of ABOUT Healthcare, focusing on care orchestration for patients needing acute, post-acute, and transitional care. ABOUT works with healthcare systems to use technology to replace many phone calls and manual work to allow for a smoother process of identifying appropriate and available facilities. This approach also impacts networks of referral sources, making it easier for health systems to build stronger relationships with consistent processes and standards.
Angie explains, "When we're talking about a physician seeking the right setting of care for the patient, that process is filled with friction. It's filled with friction because when they're calling and contacting a facility, calling an inpatient facility to see if they can accept another patient, the people that are answering those calls don't have the information that they need at their fingertips to be able to make the decision."
"When we come in and help health systems put in place the right technology, what we're doing is changing the workflow. We put in place some best practices in terms of operational processes. Then we enable that with technology to structure a decision-making process so that the people that receive that call have all of the information they need to be able to make a decision and execute on that decision. This takes what can be a multi-hour process and turn that into something that is 15 to 30 minutes."
@ABOUT_est2005 #ABOUTHealth #CareOrchestration #PatientFlow #PatientOutcomes #CareNavigation #PatientTransfers #PatientAccess
abouthealthcare.com
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Lauren Ohlsson is the lead of industry solutions for pharmaceutical and healthcare at VDX.tv, which partners with pharmaceutical marketing teams, healthcare advertisers, and media agencies to create video content that drives engagement with patients and healthcare personnel. They create custom interactive video ad units seen across Connected TVs, desktop computers, and mobile devices and targeted to the desired patients or providers. Using QR codes on CTV and OTT ads allows viewers to scan the code to get additional information quickly.
Lauren explains, "One of the specific propositions we add is that we focus on CTV and then extend that reach to the household after that. It's a unique way to start these conversations around the household because often there are caretakers, family members, and a lot of people involved in medical decisions, so that's one of the facets of what VDX.tv can do."
"We can do everything by targeting medical professionals by their NPI numbers. So if there's a specific chart list of doctors or medical professionals to reach, we can help do that. And then, we can target by conditions, so whether or not somebody has the probability of potentially having a medical condition, we can also reach them."
"The environment is unique because we can target potential and prospective patients and healthcare providers via CTV. And then, to have the conversation with the household, we're able to follow up on desktops. So if you're engaging in health content, we'll take health.com, for example, you can see our ads, our video ads, in that environment as well, and then the same on a mobile device."
"We know in pharma, the marketing teams are very focused on an omnichannel approach. We have an advantage in that we can reach people on their TVs, and then also on their mobile and desktop devices to make sure that we're distributing appropriate content to the right audiences."
#VDXtv #DTCAds #HCPAds #HealthCarePersonnelAds #CTV #OTT #PharmaceuticalAds #HealthcareAds #MobileAds #PatientEngagement
VDX.tv
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Lauren Ohlsson is the lead of industry solutions for pharmaceutical and healthcare at VDX.tv, which partners with pharmaceutical marketing teams, healthcare advertisers, and media agencies to create video content that drives engagement with patients and healthcare personnel. They create custom interactive video ad units seen across Connected TVs, desktop computers, and mobile devices and targeted to the desired patients or providers. Using QR codes on CTV and OTT ads allows viewers to scan the code to get additional information quickly.
Lauren explains, "One of the specific propositions we add is that we focus on CTV and then extend that reach to the household after that. It's a unique way to start these conversations around the household because often there are caretakers, family members, and a lot of people involved in medical decisions, so that's one of the facets of what VDX.tv can do."
"We can do everything by targeting medical professionals by their NPI numbers. So if there's a specific chart list of doctors or medical professionals to reach, we can help do that. And then, we can target by conditions, so whether or not somebody has the probability of potentially having a medical condition, we can also reach them."
"The environment is unique because we can target potential and prospective patients and healthcare providers via CTV. And then, to have the conversation with the household, we're able to follow up on desktops. So if you're engaging in health content, we'll take health.com, for example, you can see our ads, our video ads, in that environment as well, and then the same on a mobile device."
"We know in pharma, the marketing teams are very focused on an omnichannel approach. We have an advantage in that we can reach people on their TVs, and then also on their mobile and desktop devices to make sure that we're distributing appropriate content to the right audiences."
#VDXtv #DTCAds #HCPAds #HealthCarePersonnelAds #CTV #OTT #PharmaceuticalAds #HealthcareAds #MobileAds #PatientEngagement
VDX.tv
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Shane Bishop, the Founder and Chief Pharmacy Officer of Custom Health, aims for true medication adherence by providing multiple drugs in multi-dose strips in a manner that strongly encourages patients to stick with their medication regimen. Pharmacists and clinicians communicating with patients on a regular basis using a digital device gain a better understanding of side effects and other reasons people are not taking their medicine. A fully integrated medication management system makes an enormous difference in the quality of life, particularly for complex patients who require a wide variety of drugs.
Shane elaborates, "Now, where we differentiate ourselves from others that are trying to accomplish the same type of thing to drive medication adherence through different packaging formats, we have a medication dispensing device that sits in a patient home where it drives medication adherence by beeping, whistling and flashing at the time of administration."
"The patient touches the screen and out pops one of those multi-dose strip packages and relays that information live back to our pharmacies in our network, the pharmacies we own and operate, and our clinical pharmacist team where we have up to 500 clinical pharmacists at any given time to look at the data. We also drive patient-reported outcome data."
"Our device also connects to the peripheral devices via Bluetooth connection. We can actually look at the vital information driven from glucometers, blood pressure monitors, and weight scales."
#CustomHealth #HealthCare #DigitalHealth #MedicationAdherence #Pharmacy #HomeBasedCare #Technology
customhealth.com
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Shane Bishop, the Founder and Chief Pharmacy Officer of Custom Health, aims for true medication adherence by providing multiple drugs in multi-dose strips in a manner that strongly encourages patients to stick with their medication regimen. Pharmacists and clinicians communicating with patients on a regular basis using a digital device gain a better understanding of side effects and other reasons people are not taking their medicine. A fully integrated medication management system makes an enormous difference in the quality of life, particularly for complex patients who require a wide variety of drugs.
Shane elaborates, "Now, where we differentiate ourselves from others that are trying to accomplish the same type of thing to drive medication adherence through different packaging formats, we have a medication dispensing device that sits in a patient home where it drives medication adherence by beeping, whistling and flashing at the time of administration."
"The patient touches the screen and out pops one of those multi-dose strip packages and relays that information live back to our pharmacies in our network, the pharmacies we own and operate, and our clinical pharmacist team where we have up to 500 clinical pharmacists at any given time to look at the data. We also drive patient-reported outcome data."
"Our device also connects to the peripheral devices via Bluetooth connection. We can actually look at the vital information driven from glucometers, blood pressure monitors, and weight scales."
#CustomHealth #HealthCare #DigitalHealth #MedicationAdherence #Pharmacy #HomeBasedCare #Technology
customhealth.com
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Maria Zannes, Founder and CEO of bioAffinity Technologies, has developed a noninvasive diagnostic test to screen for early-stage lung cancer. The test uses porphyrin to label cells to find cell populations with cancer cells. Using mucus from the lungs, this is a second test for people who are at high risk, giving them a chance to avoid more invasive procedures to determine their risk level and if they have lung cancer.
Maria explains, "The combination of being able to determine that cancer is present in the lungs with our test, coupled with the noninvasive nature of the test itself really spoke to me. Having a test for early detection of lung cancer where the treatment can be so much more effective and people can live so much longer and healthier lives is compelling."
"It's very simple for the patient and the doctor. The patient would go in, let's say they had a positive low-dose CT, they weren't sure, and the physician would then give the patient a small box. It's a 5x5 box with a little collection cup inside. We have a patient coach, an individual who calls the patient, and helps them to provide a sample, often early in the morning. People out of a shower start to cough up a little bit of mucus."
"The results tell the physician whether the patient is at high risk or has lung cancer or does not, but also gives them a numerical score, so the physician himself or herself has a little bit more to go on than just a yes or no answer."
@bioAffinity #LungCancer #CancerDiagnostic #Medtech #Biotech #CancerTreatment #CancerDiagnosis
bioaffinitytech.com
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Maria Zannes, Founder and CEO of bioAffinity Technologies, has developed a noninvasive diagnostic test to screen for early-stage lung cancer. The test uses porphyrin to label cells to find cell populations with cancer cells. Using mucus from the lungs, this is a second test for people who are at high risk, giving them a chance to avoid more invasive procedures to determine their risk level and if they have lung cancer.
Maria explains, "The combination of being able to determine that cancer is present in the lungs with our test, coupled with the noninvasive nature of the test itself really spoke to me. Having a test for early detection of lung cancer where the treatment can be so much more effective and people can live so much longer and healthier lives is compelling."
"It's very simple for the patient and the doctor. The patient would go in, let's say they had a positive low-dose CT, they weren't sure, and the physician would then give the patient a small box. It's a 5x5 box with a little collection cup inside. We have a patient coach, an individual who calls the patient, and helps them to provide a sample, often early in the morning. People out of a shower start to cough up a little bit of mucus."
"The results tell the physician whether the patient is at high risk or has lung cancer or does not, but also gives them a numerical score, so the physician himself or herself has a little bit more to go on than just a yes or no answer."
@bioAffinity #LungCancer #CancerDiagnostic #Medtech #Biotech #CancerTreatment #CancerDiagnosis
bioaffinitytech.com
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Dr. Robert Risinger is the Chief Medical Officer for Neuroscience at BioXcel Therapeutics, identifying molecules that have off-target indications to address unmet neurological diseases. The initial focus is on acute agitation and the molecules that will address this agitation in patients with bipolar and schizophrenia. Their fast-acting sublingual film formulation is an advancement over the current regime of intramuscular injections. The drug is also being studied for agitation related to Alzheimer's disease and at-home use to reduce the number of people who go to the emergency room for untreated agitation.
Rob explains, "For example, the medication, the active pharmaceutical ingredient dexmedetomidine, was used, for years, as an IV anesthetic. At very high doses, it can produce a level of sleep or sedation so patients can undergo surgery and medical procedures. But our algorithms identified the fact that this may affect the core causal mechanism, this kind of fight or flight reaction, that we believe is responsible for causing agitation in humans and, specifically, in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia."
"The molecule itself has physical-chemical properties that allow it to get into the body quickly. We can use, essentially, very, very low doses compared to what is typically given for anesthesia purposes. So we tested this out systematically and came up with a new form and formulation, a sublingual film with mucoadhesive properties. And that allows us to diminish the agitation in patients experiencing these symptoms. The molecule itself has physical-chemical properties that allow it to get into the body quickly. We can use, essentially, very, very low doses compared to what is typically given for anesthesia purposes. So we tested this out systematically and came up with a new form and formulation, a sublingual film with mucoadhesive properties. And that allows us to diminish the agitation in patients experiencing these symptoms."
@BioXcel #Neuroscience #Schizophrenia #BipolarDisorder #AlzheimersDisease #Agitation #AcuteAgitation
bioXcelTherapeutics.com
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Dr. Robert Risinger is the Chief Medical Officer for Neuroscience at BioXcel Therapeutics, identifying molecules that have off-target indications to address unmet neurological diseases. The initial focus is on acute agitation and the molecules that will address this agitation in patients with bipolar and schizophrenia. Their fast-acting sublingual film formulation is an advancement over the current regime of intramuscular injections. The drug is also being studied for agitation related to Alzheimer's disease and at-home use to reduce the number of people who go to the emergency room for untreated agitation.
Rob explains, "For example, the medication, the active pharmaceutical ingredient dexmedetomidine, was used, for years, as an IV anesthetic. At very high doses, it can produce a level of sleep or sedation so patients can undergo surgery and medical procedures. But our algorithms identified the fact that this may affect the core causal mechanism, this kind of fight or flight reaction, that we believe is responsible for causing agitation in humans and, specifically, in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia."
"The molecule itself has physical-chemical properties that allow it to get into the body quickly. We can use, essentially, very, very low doses compared to what is typically given for anesthesia purposes. So we tested this out systematically and came up with a new form and formulation, a sublingual film with mucoadhesive properties. And that allows us to diminish the agitation in patients experiencing these symptoms. The molecule itself has physical-chemical properties that allow it to get into the body quickly. We can use, essentially, very, very low doses compared to what is typically given for anesthesia purposes. So we tested this out systematically and came up with a new form and formulation, a sublingual film with mucoadhesive properties. And that allows us to diminish the agitation in patients experiencing these symptoms."
@BioXcel #Neuroscience #Schizophrenia #BipolarDisorder #AlzheimersDisease #Agitation #AcuteAgitation
bioXcelTherapeutics.com
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Neal Koller is the CEO of Alphyn Biologics, which focuses on improving therapy for skin diseases. Their first topical drug treats both atopic dermatitis and atopic dermatitis with secondary infection. The goal is to treat the recognized immune component of the disease and the bacterial component. Those most affected by this disease are ages 2 to 11 though it is a lifelong recurring problem with only a multi-drug treatment regimen available.
Neal explains, "I think we've got three advantages. First, the plant material that we're using is the microbial and small molecule defense liquid of the plant, and so it's got a number of different bioactive compounds. One advantage for us is in our drug product, we have multiple bioactive compounds, which target a disease, in our case, atopic dermatitis, in different ways. So we have multiple ways we can attack and treat the disease. That's unique and different, having multiple ways, versus a standard drug generally only has one bioactive compound and one way to treat a disease."
"The second advantage is that by using the plant-derived material in the way in which we're using it, we've had a faster path, and faster progress through our work to get to human clinical trials. That's primarily because our material, our drug substance, has a very, very strong safety profile."
"Then the third advantage so far, unless, of course, the FDA changes this, is that because our drug product is plant-derived, there isn't a generic drug approval path. You, at the moment, still can't go into the lab, mix up some chemistry experiments, keep it simple, and say, "My chemistry is similar to Alphyn's chemistry, so please give me approval."
#AlphynBiologics #AtopicDermatitis #Dermatology #SkinDisease
AlphynBiologics.com
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Neal Koller is the CEO of Alphyn Biologics, which focuses on improving therapy for skin diseases. Their first topical drug treats both atopic dermatitis and atopic dermatitis with secondary infection. The goal is to treat the recognized immune component of the disease and the bacterial component. Those most affected by this disease are ages 2 to 11 though it is a lifelong recurring problem with only a multi-drug treatment regimen available.
Neal explains, "I think we've got three advantages. First, the plant material that we're using is the microbial and small molecule defense liquid of the plant, and so it's got a number of different bioactive compounds. One advantage for us is in our drug product, we have multiple bioactive compounds, which target a disease, in our case, atopic dermatitis, in different ways. So we have multiple ways we can attack and treat the disease. That's unique and different, having multiple ways, versus a standard drug generally only has one bioactive compound and one way to treat a disease."
"The second advantage is that by using the plant-derived material in the way in which we're using it, we've had a faster path, and faster progress through our work to get to human clinical trials. That's primarily because our material, our drug substance, has a very, very strong safety profile."
"Then the third advantage so far, unless, of course, the FDA changes this, is that because our drug product is plant-derived, there isn't a generic drug approval path. You, at the moment, still can't go into the lab, mix up some chemistry experiments, keep it simple, and say, "My chemistry is similar to Alphyn's chemistry, so please give me approval."
#AlphynBiologics #AtopicDermatitis #Dermatology #SkinDisease
AlphynBiologics.com
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Brett Furst, President of HHS Technology Group, is carrying on the mission of efforts started at the beginning of the COVID outbreak to collaboratively share data to provide insights to those doing research, drug development, and addressing the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations. Maintaining this world's largest COVID database, HTG allows research on complex social determinants of health and how to address health equity.
Brett explains, "So we were proud to take it on and be chosen by the consortium. Today we have the largest COVID research database in the world, with over 65 billion records. It touches almost 100% of our population in the United States. We're looking at all encounters from claims and clinical data, but also other more important for predictive modeling like social determinant data. We're trying to be more thoughtful about what's the next thing that's going to hit us out of the blue. We cannot be caught so flat-footed as we were in 2020."
"There are concerns about long-term effects on those with Alzheimer's or other types of dementia, COPD, and breathing. I think what we all learned during this collaborative is that it didn't deflate everybody's competitive advantage and that sometimes regulations and rules can keep the market from actually advancing."
@HHSTechnologyGroup #HHSTechGroup #HealthTech #HealthCare #COVID #LongCOVID #Pandemic #HealthData #HealthEquity #SDOH
hhstechgroup.com
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Brett Furst, President of HHS Technology Group, is carrying on the mission of efforts started at the beginning of the COVID outbreak to collaboratively share data to provide insights to those doing research, drug development, and addressing the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations. Maintaining this world's largest COVID database, HTG allows research on complex social determinants of health and how to address health equity.
Brett explains, "So we were proud to take it on and be chosen by the consortium. Today we have the largest COVID research database in the world, with over 65 billion records. It touches almost 100% of our population in the United States. We're looking at all encounters from claims and clinical data, but also other more important for predictive modeling like social determinant data. We're trying to be more thoughtful about what's the next thing that's going to hit us out of the blue. We cannot be caught so flat-footed as we were in 2020."
"There are concerns about long-term effects on those with Alzheimer's or other types of dementia, COPD, and breathing. I think what we all learned during this collaborative is that it didn't deflate everybody's competitive advantage and that sometimes regulations and rules can keep the market from actually advancing."
@HHSTechnologyGroup #HHSTechGroup #HealthTech #HealthCare #COVID #LongCOVID #Pandemic #HealthData #HealthEquity #SDOH
hhstechgroup.com
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Dr. Allen Davidoff is the Founder and CEO of XORTX Therapeutics, testing the benefit of a therapeutic for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, a rare progressive kidney disease with a clear genetic connection. Evidence suggests that lowering the activity of the xanthine oxidase enzyme in the kidney and lowering uric acid production via this enzyme is critical to developing a therapy that can benefit these patients.
Allen explains, "In terms of real therapies that slow the progression of kidney disease, there are very few. And so, to take the example of the rare disease, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, one drug is currently approved. It was approved in 2018, that's a drug called tolvaptan, but it's only really used in about 5% of individuals. So that leaves this rare disease population largely underserved despite the fact that there's an approved drug."
"The drug that we're developing is oxypurinol. It is a xanthine oxidase inhibitor that has been studied extensively over a number of years. It is arguably the single best-tolerated xanthine oxidase inhibitor that's never been to market. We've started with that drug and reformulated it in a proprietary way to deliver it so that it will reach circulating blood concentrations that can inhibit the xanthine oxidase enzyme by 90% or more."
@XORTXinc #ADPKD #PKD #ProgressiveKidneyDisease #KidneyHealth #RareDisease
XORTX.com
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Dr. Allen Davidoff is the Founder and CEO of XORTX Therapeutics, testing the benefit of a therapeutic for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, a rare progressive kidney disease with a clear genetic connection. Evidence suggests that lowering the activity of the xanthine oxidase enzyme in the kidney and lowering uric acid production via this enzyme is critical to developing a therapy that can benefit these patients.
Allen explains, "In terms of real therapies that slow the progression of kidney disease, there are very few. And so, to take the example of the rare disease, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, one drug is currently approved. It was approved in 2018, that's a drug called tolvaptan, but it's only really used in about 5% of individuals. So that leaves this rare disease population largely underserved despite the fact that there's an approved drug."
"The drug that we're developing is oxypurinol. It is a xanthine oxidase inhibitor that has been studied extensively over a number of years. It is arguably the single best-tolerated xanthine oxidase inhibitor that's never been to market. We've started with that drug and reformulated it in a proprietary way to deliver it so that it will reach circulating blood concentrations that can inhibit the xanthine oxidase enzyme by 90% or more."
@XORTXinc #ADPKD #PKD #ProgressiveKidneyDisease #KidneyHealth #RareDisease
XORTX.com
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Lisa Yanez is the CEO of Aerami Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the rare cardiopulmonary disease pulmonary arterial hypertension. Early studies show that using this smart breath-activated inhalation delivery system to administer AER901, inhaled Imatinib reduces side effects and requires less frequent administration by those suffering from PAH.
Lisa explains, "Our company is focused on a rare disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension. There was a drug that was an oral drug that was studied before, but due to the side effects, that trial ceased. That said, if you look at the efficacy of that drug, it was one of the best-performing drugs ever for these patients. It didn't just help with symptoms. It also helped the underlying cause of the disease. What our company has decided to do is take a very intelligent inhaled patient-proven device and couple it with this product to generate the best of both worlds. What we're trying to do is helping patients live longer, but our mission is also helping patients live better."
"One of the reasons I've fallen in love with this particular condition is because it mostly impacts women of childbearing age. They go about two years not knowing what's wrong with them. They have shortness of breath, they have a lot of fatigue, they're very dizzy, and sometimes they pass out. They go to all these different doctors, and typically it does take two years, and people think they're crazy."
"Then, once they're diagnosed, there are 15 approved therapies. Even then, there's only a five to seven-year time span in terms of survival. And so, there's a lot more that needs to be done with these particular patients."
@AeramiTx #Aerami #Cardiopulmonary #RareDisease #PulmonaryArterialHypertension #PulmonaryHypertension #PAH #PH #HeartDisease #LungDisease #AER901 #InhaledTherapeutics #AER601
aerami.com
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Lisa Yanez is the CEO of Aerami Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the rare cardiopulmonary disease pulmonary arterial hypertension. Early studies show that using this smart breath-activated inhalation delivery system to administer AER901, inhaled Imatinib reduces side effects and requires less frequent administration by those suffering from PAH.
Lisa explains, "Our company is focused on a rare disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension. There was a drug that was an oral drug that was studied before, but due to the side effects, that trial ceased. That said, if you look at the efficacy of that drug, it was one of the best-performing drugs ever for these patients. It didn't just help with symptoms. It also helped the underlying cause of the disease. What our company has decided to do is take a very intelligent inhaled patient-proven device and couple it with this product to generate the best of both worlds. What we're trying to do is helping patients live longer, but our mission is also helping patients live better."
"One of the reasons I've fallen in love with this particular condition is because it mostly impacts women of childbearing age. They go about two years not knowing what's wrong with them. They have shortness of breath, they have a lot of fatigue, they're very dizzy, and sometimes they pass out. They go to all these different doctors, and typically it does take two years, and people think they're crazy."
"Then, once they're diagnosed, there are 15 approved therapies. Even then, there's only a five to seven-year time span in terms of survival. And so, there's a lot more that needs to be done with these particular patients."
@AeramiTx #Aerami #Cardiopulmonary #RareDisease #PulmonaryArterialHypertension #PulmonaryHypertension #PAH #PH #HeartDisease #LungDisease #AER901 #InhaledTherapeutics #AER601
aerami.com
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Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge and supporting the activities related to the observation of Rare Disease Day on February 28. Clincierge is focused on coordinating logistical, financial, caregiving, and translation services to facilitate participation in clinical trials by patients with rare diseases. With a personalized, local approach, they support sponsors of research in the recruitment and retention of patients by removing obstacles and reducing stress.
Scott explains, "The intent is to provide an energy and a focal point that enables rare disease advocacy work to progress on the local, national, and international levels. The intent of improving access to treatment and medical representation for the many individuals who struggle with a rare disease and include their families who support and care for them. Since it was created in 2008, Rare Disease Day has played a critical part in building an international rare disease community that is multi-disease, global, and diverse but truly united in its purpose of expanding access for these unique patients."
"From what we've observed in the rare disease space, there hasn't been a great effect by technology. Monitoring can happen, but a lot of the observational reviews that have to happen during the visit are only able to happen with going to the site. During the pandemic, as you mentioned, we were asked in some instances to move the healthcare provider to the home of the rare disease patient so that they didn't have to travel, especially if it was a patient who was immunocompromised. And if that wasn't possible, there were also instances where the sponsor budgeted for private jet travel so that an immunocompromised patient could visit the site."
@Clincierge #RareDiseaseDay #ShowYourStripes #RareDiseases #ClinicalTrials
clincierge.com
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Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge and supporting the activities related to the observation of Rare Disease Day on February 28. Clincierge is focused on coordinating logistical, financial, caregiving, and translation services to facilitate participation in clinical trials by patients with rare diseases. With a personalized, local approach, they support sponsors of research in the recruitment and retention of patients by removing obstacles and reducing stress.
Scott explains, "The intent is to provide an energy and a focal point that enables rare disease advocacy work to progress on the local, national, and international levels. The intent of improving access to treatment and medical representation for the many individuals who struggle with a rare disease and include their families who support and care for them. Since it was created in 2008, Rare Disease Day has played a critical part in building an international rare disease community that is multi-disease, global, and diverse but truly united in its purpose of expanding access for these unique patients."
"From what we've observed in the rare disease space, there hasn't been a great effect by technology. Monitoring can happen, but a lot of the observational reviews that have to happen during the visit are only able to happen with going to the site. During the pandemic, as you mentioned, we were asked in some instances to move the healthcare provider to the home of the rare disease patient so that they didn't have to travel, especially if it was a patient who was immunocompromised. And if that wasn't possible, there were also instances where the sponsor budgeted for private jet travel so that an immunocompromised patient could visit the site."
@Clincierge #RareDiseaseDay #ShowYourStripes #RareDiseases #ClinicalTrials
clincierge.com
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Sandy Macrae, CEO of Sangamo Therapeutics, talks about the promise and limitations of genomic medicine to find the most effective and affordable treatments for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their CAR-Treg cell therapy platform allows T cells to be tracked throughout the body and activated to release chemicals and signals to reduce inflammation. Small molecule oral pills will always be used to treat diseases and vaccines to prevent them. The goal of genomic medicine is to eradicate the disease.
Sandy explains, "We co-opted what's a very natural process and attached a whole series of things to it. The zinc finger gets us to the right bit of the DNA, and then we can either cut the DNA. We can turn it down, turn it off, replace a base, or replace a chunk of it. That's the advantage of the zinc fingers. It's natural. It's small. It's easily delivered and has a whole range of functions that allows us to choose the right tool for the right disease."
"But there's going to be a growing space for diseases where there is a clear genetic influence or genetic participation in the disease, where a simple injection of a virus that takes the editing technology to the DNA can change the patient's course of their disease. I'm thinking of Sickle Cell Disease, where patients who were going into the hospital 10, 12, or 15 times a year are now not having any of those painful episodes. I'm thinking of Hemophilia, where they used to have to inject two or three times a week and have bleeding episodes, and they can now walk free and not worry about their bleeding."
"But really, the excitement within Sangamo is the next-generation projects, the Tregs that we just spoke about, and a whole platform of brain-active conscription factors that we're working on."
@SangamoTx #GenomicMedicine #GeneTherapy #CellTherapy #ZincFingers #Tregs #Tcells
sangamo.com
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Sandy Macrae, CEO of Sangamo Therapeutics, talks about the promise and limitations of genomic medicine to find the most effective and affordable treatments for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their CAR-Treg cell therapy platform allows T cells to be tracked throughout the body and activated to release chemicals and signals to reduce inflammation. Small molecule oral pills will always be used to treat diseases and vaccines to prevent them. The goal of genomic medicine is to eradicate the disease.
Sandy explains, "We co-opted what's a very natural process and attached a whole series of things to it. The zinc finger gets us to the right bit of the DNA, and then we can either cut the DNA. We can turn it down, turn it off, replace a base, or replace a chunk of it. That's the advantage of the zinc fingers. It's natural. It's small. It's easily delivered and has a whole range of functions that allows us to choose the right tool for the right disease."
"But there's going to be a growing space for diseases where there is a clear genetic influence or genetic participation in the disease, where a simple injection of a virus that takes the editing technology to the DNA can change the patient's course of their disease. I'm thinking of Sickle Cell Disease, where patients who were going into the hospital 10, 12, or 15 times a year are now not having any of those painful episodes. I'm thinking of Hemophilia, where they used to have to inject two or three times a week and have bleeding episodes, and they can now walk free and not worry about their bleeding."
"But really, the excitement within Sangamo is the next-generation projects, the Tregs that we just spoke about, and a whole platform of brain-active conscription factors that we're working on."
@SangamoTx #GenomicMedicine #GeneTherapy #CellTherapy #ZincFingers #Tregs #Tcells
sangamo.com
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Professor Arik Eisenkraft is the VP of Clinical and Regulation at Biobeat, which has developed a short-term disposable chest patch that collects and transmits vital signs data to a cloud-based platform. They have also developed a rechargeable wrist device that collects the same kind of data and is designed for long-term use at home, in care centers, or for clinical trials. Using the optical technique photoplethysmography, they collect reflected light from the tissue not using the light that goes through the tissue, allowing for these form factors.
Arik explains, “I can tell you that specifically at Biobeat, we had several very exciting clinical studies in which, for example, we managed to show that we can detect unique patterns of flu two days before people started to feel ill. That's amazing because now it can help you direct treatments or use all kinds of measures like isolation, as we saw early in the COVID pandemic.”
“Biobeat is using an optical method, photoplethysmography, or PPG, which is widely used in all the past oximeters. I think that everyone now knows that because of COVID. We developed our own in-house sensor and the algorithms that are related to it. With most devices, you can measure pulse and blood oxygen saturation.”
“With our device, we get a much stronger and clean signal. And by that, we can now track not only these two parameters but actually a total of 13 different parameters, including cuffless blood pressure, cardiac output, stroke volume, respiratory rate, temperature, all the five basic parameters that nurses have to collect wherever the patient is, whether in the hospital or the clinic or at home.”
@BiobeatT #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #MedicalDevice #Wearables #AI #Cardio #Noninvasive #HospitalatHome #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #Healthcare #Medtech #PatientExperience #BloodPressure #CardiacOutput #StrokeVolume #HealthcareInnovation #Health #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionMedicine
bio-beat.com
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Professor Arik Eisenkraft is the VP of Clinical and Regulation at Biobeat, which has developed a short-term disposable chest patch that collects and transmits vital signs data to a cloud-based platform. They have also developed a rechargeable wrist device that collects the same kind of data and is designed for long-term use at home, in care centers, or for clinical trials. Using the optical technique photoplethysmography, they collect reflected light from the tissue not using the light that goes through the tissue, allowing for these form factors.
Arik explains, “I can tell you that specifically at Biobeat, we had several very exciting clinical studies in which, for example, we managed to show that we can detect unique patterns of flu two days before people started to feel ill. That's amazing because now it can help you direct treatments or use all kinds of measures like isolation, as we saw early in the COVID pandemic.”
“Biobeat is using an optical method, photoplethysmography, or PPG, which is widely used in all the past oximeters. I think that everyone now knows that because of COVID. We developed our own in-house sensor and the algorithms that are related to it. With most devices, you can measure pulse and blood oxygen saturation.”
“With our device, we get a much stronger and clean signal. And by that, we can now track not only these two parameters but actually a total of 13 different parameters, including cuffless blood pressure, cardiac output, stroke volume, respiratory rate, temperature, all the five basic parameters that nurses have to collect wherever the patient is, whether in the hospital or in the clinic or at home.”
@BiobeatT #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #MedicalDevice #Wearables #AI #Cardio #Noninvasive #HospitalatHome #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #Healthcare #Medtech #PatientExperience #BloodPressure #CardiacOutput #StrokeVolume #HealthcareInnovation #Health #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionMedicine
bio-beat.com
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Dr. Rakesh Suri, President and Chief Medical Officer at Fountain Life, reflects on the impact COVID has had on our understanding that, as a society, we are only as safe as the least protected member in our global community. He emphasizes the need to diagnose pre-symptomatic and symptomatic conditions and the long-term value of advanced diagnostics to address individual and population health needs.
Rakesh elaborates, "It's leveraging the latest science, shortening the preclinical latency gap between new diagnostic tests, which we know are scientifically impactful. Yet, it takes 10 to 15 years to become embedded in mainstream clinical practice. Fast-forwarding those things, curating them in a thoughtful manner so that not everybody gets the same suite of tests, but they're actually tailored for age, gender, and other types of, what we say, comorbidities or other sorts of things that are going on in people's lives."
"We understand, through our decades of research, that fixing the heart valve, if it's leaking, it’s way too late. The heart never recovers despite the fact that they now have a normal heart valve. The same is true with any disease process in the body. If we wait until a disease manifests itself symptomatically, with symptoms, whether it's a heart attack or metastatic cancer or dementia or osteoarthritis, debilitating or arthritic conditions, we know that we oftentimes can never restore a normal human performance and normal human healthspan."
#FountainLife #PreventativeMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #EarlyDetection #FunctionalHealth #ProactiveCare #Healthcare #DiseasePrevention #Longevity #Healthspan
FountainLife.com
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Dr. Rakesh Suri, President and Chief Medical Officer at Fountain Life, reflects on the impact COVID has had on our understanding that, as a society, we are only as safe as the least protected member in our global community. He emphasizes the need to diagnose pre-symptomatic and symptomatic conditions and the long-term value of advanced diagnostics to address individual and population health needs.
Rakesh elaborates, "It's leveraging the latest science, shortening the preclinical latency gap between new diagnostic tests, which we know are scientifically impactful. Yet, it takes 10 to 15 years to become embedded in mainstream clinical practice. Fast-forwarding those things, curating them in a thoughtful manner so that not everybody gets the same suite of tests, but they're actually tailored for age, gender, and other types of, what we say, comorbidities or other sorts of things that are going on in people's lives."
"We understand, through our decades of research, that fixing the heart valve, if it's leaking, it’s way too late. The heart never recovers despite the fact that they now have a normal heart valve. The same is true with any disease process in the body. If we wait until a disease manifests itself symptomatically, with symptoms, whether it's a heart attack or metastatic cancer or dementia or osteoarthritis, debilitating or arthritic conditions, we know that we oftentimes can never restore a normal human performance and normal human healthspan."
#FountainLife #PreventativeMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #EarlyDetection #FunctionalHealth #ProactiveCare #Healthcare #DiseasePrevention #Longevity #Healthspan
FountainLife.com
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Anat Cohen-Dayag is the President and CEO of Compugen, which uses its computational discovery platform to identify new drug targets allowing them to develop new treatments based on these new targets. While most immunotherapies are based on proteins PD-1 or PD-L1, Compugen has discovered two other proteins involved in stimulating the immune system response against cancer.
Anat elaborates, "In 2009, we discovered the protein called TIGIT. We discovered it computationally, and we sent it to publication back-to-back with Genentech. And this is the protein that is being now developed by Compugen and by others, Genentech being the leader in this field with phase three studies in the clinic. Their phase two data showed improvement for patients with non-small cell cancer."
"Following this TIGIT discovery, we decided that we're not going to compete in the TIGIT space, per se, but that we would like to focus the company on a different type of family of proteins, and we discovered PVRIG. And PVRIG is, again, a protein that we believe has a role in stimulating the immune system response against the cancer. But it is not working only alone. It is a pathway that is working in parallel and in complement to TIGIT and to PD-1."
#Compugen #TIGIT #PVRIG #ImmunoOncology #OvarianCancer #ColonCancer #MachineLearning #ML
cgen.com
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Anat Cohen-Dayag is the President and CEO of Compugen, which uses its computational discovery platform to identify new drug targets allowing them to develop new treatments based on these new targets. While most immunotherapies are based on proteins PD-1 or PD-L1, Compugen has discovered two other proteins involved in stimulating the immune system response against cancer.
Anat elaborates, "In 2009, we discovered the protein called TIGIT. We discovered it computationally, and we sent it to publication back-to-back with Genentech. And this is the protein that is being now developed by Compugen and by others, Genentech being the leader in this field with phase three studies in the clinic. Their phase two data showed improvement for patients with non-small cell cancer."
"Following this TIGIT discovery, we decided that we're not going to compete in the TIGIT space, per se, but that we would like to focus the company on a different type of family of proteins, and we discovered PVRIG. And PVRIG is, again, a protein that we believe has a role in stimulating the immune system response against the cancer. But it is not working only alone. It is a pathway that is working in parallel and in complement to TIGIT and to PD-1."
#Compugen #TIGIT #PVRIG #ImmunoOncology #OvarianCancer #ColonCancer #MachineLearning #ML
cgen.com
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Wally Gomaa, the Co-Founder of SimplePay Health, provides employer-sponsored health insurance plans that bring price certainty to patients. The plan aligns lower costs with higher quality care, giving the individual transparency about the best providers in their community and out-of-pocket cost, which motivates them to choose higher quality care.
Wally explains, "If you think about what we're doing, we are simplifying the payment model and the plan design model not only to create a better experience. Health insurance is the most complicated industry on the planet. We're using insurance simplification to naturally self-motivate individuals to choose higher-quality providers on their own by getting rid of the complexity of the plan design. Giving the patient member, the plan participant, whatever name we're going to give it, a price out-of-pocket for every covered service before they go."
"We make our model available on a national level in partnership with Aetna and their TPA company Meritain. And partnering with a Fortune four organization of their size and scope allows us to have legs and reach anywhere we want to in the country."
"The result is not only better affordability, but more importantly, we're getting individuals connected with the best providers in their community and extending the quantity and quality of people's lives. We do find ourselves on the mission of being the life preservation company. We want to get people the best care that extends the quality and the quantity of their lives. And we use insurance simplification to be able to get there. "
#SimplePayHealth #HealthInsurance #HealthcareInsurance #PriceTransparency #QualityTransparency #EmployerSponsoredHealthInsurance
simplepayhealth.com
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Wally Gomaa, the Co-Founder of SimplePay Health, provides employer-sponsored health insurance plans that bring price certainty to patients. The plan aligns lower costs with higher quality care, giving the individual transparency about the best providers in their community and out-of-pocket cost, which motivates them to choose higher quality care.
Wally explains, "If you think about what we're doing, we are simplifying the payment model and the plan design model not only to create a better experience. Health insurance is the most complicated industry on the planet. We're using insurance simplification to naturally self-motivate individuals to choose higher-quality providers on their own by getting rid of the complexity of the plan design. Giving the patient member, the plan participant, whatever name we're going to give it, a price out-of-pocket for every covered service before they go."
"We make our model available on a national level in partnership with Aetna and their TPA company Meritain. And partnering with a Fortune four organization of their size and scope allows us to have legs and reach anywhere we want to in the country."
"The result is not only better affordability, but more importantly, we're getting individuals connected with the best providers in their community and extending the quantity and quality of people's lives. We do find ourselves on the mission of being the life preservation company. We want to get people the best care that extends the quality and the quantity of their lives. And we use insurance simplification to be able to get there. "
#SimplePayHealth #HealthInsurance #HealthcareInsurance #PriceTransparency #QualityTransparency #EmployerSponsoredHealthInsurance
simplepayhealth.com
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Dr. Joslyn Kirby is the President of the HS Foundation, which focuses on improving the lives of those who suffer from Hidradenitis Suppurativa, a skin condition caused by an overactive immune system. Generally people with this condition are misdiagnosed with skin infections and treated with ineffective antibiotics. As a member of the DermTech Scientific Board, Joslyn sees the promise of this non-invasive technology to make a diagnosis for someone with the disease or help make a precise therapeutic selection.
Joslyn explains, "This condition is not new. It's just that we've gotten better at giving it a name. It's gotten a lot more attention, which it deserves because it's so devastating to some patients but mildly annoying to others. Still, either way, it's impactful to people's quality of life. So being able to find it is number one. Number two, give it a name. And then, number three, really pursue treatments that are going to be more effective than just antibiotic courses now and again."
"The nice thing about the DermTech technology is that it is non-invasive, and people with HS are already going through so much discomfort because of the inflammation of this condition. I really like a technology like this where I can promise them I don't have to hurt you to help you, but to be able to get clues from what's happening in the skin cells to help. We can either make the diagnosis for somebody who's been struggling or, to help make a therapeutic selection, to take an injection that deals with one part of the immune system rather than a pill that might affect a different part of the immune system. To be able to look at what is happening within these cells at a molecular level, I think, would really help both patients and physicians. So I'm looking forward to what we can do with this technology."
@HSOrg #HSFoundation #HidradenitisSuppurativa #HS #DermTechStratum #SmartSticker #PrecisionMedicine #PrecisionDermatology
HS-foundation.org
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Dr. Joslyn Kirby is the President of the HS Foundation, which focuses on improving the lives of those who suffer from Hidradenitis Suppurativa, a skin condition caused by an overactive immune system. Generally people with this condition are misdiagnosed with skin infections and treated with ineffective antibiotics. As a member of the DermTech Scientific Board, Joslyn sees the promise of this non-invasive technology to make a diagnosis for someone with the disease or help make a precise therapeutic selection.
Joslyn explains, "This condition is not new. It's just that we've gotten better at giving it a name. It's gotten a lot more attention, which it deserves because it's so devastating to some patients but mildly annoying to others. Still, either way, it's impactful to people's quality of life. So being able to find it is number one. Number two, give it a name. And then, number three, really pursue treatments that are going to be more effective than just antibiotic courses now and again."
"The nice thing about the DermTech technology is that it is non-invasive, and people with HS are already going through so much discomfort because of the inflammation of this condition. I really like a technology like this where I can promise them I don't have to hurt you to help you, but to be able to get clues from what's happening in the skin cells to help. We can either make the diagnosis for somebody who's been struggling or, to help make a therapeutic selection, to take an injection that deals with one part of the immune system rather than a pill that might affect a different part of the immune system. To be able to look at what is happening within these cells at a molecular level, I think, would really help both patients and physicians. So I'm looking forward to what we can do with this technology."
@HSOrg #HSFoundation #HidradenitisSuppurativa #HS #DermTechStratum #SmartSticker #PrecisionMedicine #PrecisionDermatology
HS-foundation.org
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Shelley Davis, MSN, RNC, CCM, is the VP of Clinical Strategy at Lightbeam Health Solutions expert in moving from the traditional fee-for-service model to a value-based care system. Working alongside providers, Lightbeam is identifying opportunities to provide education and better care to underserved communities with less administrative burden. As part of the ACO Reach model, providers must develop annual health equity plans to identify gaps in access for the most at-risk patients.
Shelley explains, "We look at population health management as a way to identify patients, identify members, identify those at the greatest risk to fall through the gaps, those that have the most complex conditions. We offer solutions through patient and provider engagement tools, leveraging technology to be successful in value-based contracts. We are continuing to offer new services as we evolve as a company to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the next generation of value-based contracts."
"What we've done at Lightbeam and certainly other population health vendors are doing or should be doing is leveraging analytics, identifying those opportunities to surface those patients who are experiencing or those most at-risk members. Then developing initiatives around that, identifying those who are facing transportation barriers, those living in a food desert, those most likely to have utility instability. You can partner with a community-based organizations, you can develop organizational initiatives, and you can address educational gaps to make sure that they're getting the care that they deserve."
#LightbeamHealthSolutions #PopHealth #PopulationHealth #ACOReach #CareDelivery #HealthEquity #RiskBearing #PatientOutcomes #SDoH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth
lightbeamhealth.com
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Shelley Davis, MSN, RNC, CCM, is the VP of Clinical Strategy at Lightbeam Health Solutions expert in moving from the traditional fee-for-service model to a value-based care system. Working alongside providers, Lightbeam is identifying opportunities to provide education and better care to underserved communities with less administrative burden. As part of the ACO Reach model, providers must develop annual health equity plans to identify gaps in access for the most at-risk patients.
Shelley explains, "We look at population health management as a way to identify patients, identify members, identify those at the greatest risk to fall through the gaps, those that have the most complex conditions. We offer solutions through patient and provider engagement tools, leveraging technology to be successful in value-based contracts. We are continuing to offer new services as we evolve as a company to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the next generation of value-based contracts."
"What we've done at Lightbeam and certainly other population health vendors are doing or should be doing is leveraging analytics, identifying those opportunities to surface those patients who are experiencing or those most at-risk members. Then developing initiatives around that, identifying those who are facing transportation barriers, those living in a food desert, those most likely to have utility instability. You can partner with a community-based organizations, you can develop organizational initiatives, and you can address educational gaps to make sure that they're getting the care that they deserve."
#LightbeamHealthSolutions #PopHealth #PopulationHealth #ACOReach #CareDelivery #HealthEquity #RiskBearing #PatientOutcomes #SDoH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth
lightbeamhealth.com
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Dr. Adam Mendelsohn, the CEO of Vivani Medical, seeks to enable people to receive the maximum potential benefits from medicines while minimizing the associated burden with taking those medicines. Drug implants overcome forgetfulness, procrastination, and other human behavior that impacts medication adherence. They anticipate expanding partnerships with various drug molecules and indications around their nano portal drug delivery technology.
Adam elaborates, "When these medicines are evaluated in randomized clinical trial settings, they produce fantastic results. But these results don't translate into the real world in the way that they possibly could, and the primary reason for this is, as Charles Everett Koop, former US Surgeon General, once said, "Drugs don't work in people that don't take them." So, we are aiming to address this by developing miniature subdermal implants that can provide steady therapeutic doses over many months, guaranteeing medication adherence for these patients and, hopefully, improving real-world outcomes for chronic diseases."
"The underlying technology we've demonstrated works with peptide therapeutics and some of the larger protein-based therapeutics. These are larger hydrophilic molecules that some of the other implant technologies have not been shown to be compatible with. We do believe that the technology could work with smaller hydrophobic molecules as well."
"Down the road, we anticipate developing a portfolio of drug implants that can address adherence across a wide range of chronic diseases. But we have been pretty focused on a few different peptides and one in particular that we are preparing to begin a phase II clinical study early next year with around the type 2 diabetes indication. But the underlying technology is a platform that we think does have broad applicability."
#VivaniMedical #MedicationAdherence #DrugImplants #ChronicDiseases #Type2Diabetes
Vivani.com
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Dr. Adam Mendelsohn, the CEO of Vivani Medical, seeks to enable people to receive the maximum potential benefits from medicines while minimizing the associated burden with taking those medicines. Drug implants overcome forgetfulness, procrastination, and other human behavior that impacts medication adherence. They anticipate expanding partnerships with various drug molecules and indications around their nano portal drug delivery technology.
Adam elaborates, "When these medicines are evaluated in randomized clinical trial settings, they produce fantastic results. But these results don't translate into the real world in the way that they possibly could, and the primary reason for this is, as Charles Everett Koop, former US Surgeon General, once said, "Drugs don't work in people that don't take them." So, we are aiming to address this by developing miniature subdermal implants that can provide steady therapeutic doses over many months, guaranteeing medication adherence for these patients and, hopefully, improving real-world outcomes for chronic diseases."
"The underlying technology we've demonstrated works with peptide therapeutics and some of the larger protein-based therapeutics. These are larger hydrophilic molecules that some of the other implant technologies have not been shown to be compatible with. We do believe that the technology could work with smaller hydrophobic molecules as well."
"Down the road, we anticipate developing a portfolio of drug implants that can address adherence across a wide range of chronic diseases. But we have been pretty focused on a few different peptides and one in particular that we are preparing to begin a phase II clinical study early next year with around the type 2 diabetes indication. But the underlying technology is a platform that we think does have broad applicability."
#VivaniMedical #MedicationAdherence #DrugImplants #ChronicDiseases #Type2Diabetes
Vivani.com
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Dr. Alejandro Dorenbaum is the Chief Medical Officer of Reneo Pharmaceuticals, developing treatments for primary mitochondrial myopathy, a type of rare metabolic muscle disease. Now with genetic testing, there are special panels devoted to diagnosing PMM that can provide quick results for an accurate diagnosis. Unfortunately, no treatment options are currently available, and physicians only treat the complications. REN001, a drug developed by another pharmaceutical company, is being tested in clinical trials to address muscle strength.
Alejandro explains, "The myopathies and, specifically, our lead program is in primary mitochondrial myopathy. Primary mitochondrial myopathies are a group of diseases where genes that code for proteins involved in mitochondrial function are affected. So these patients can have defects both in the nuclear genes of the muscle cells or in the mitochondrial genes, and then there are defects in the ability to manage fats in the cell as a source of energy."
"We then did a Phase 1 trial in patients with PMM and treated patients in an open-label fashion for 12 weeks. We used several measurements to see if the drug could potentially work in these patients. One of the measurements we used was a twelve-minute walk test. This is a test where you ask the patient to walk as fast as they can for twelve minutes and you measure the distance they walk."
"Now, people may have heard about the six-minute walk test as one that is used frequently, but we use the twelve-minute walk test because, remember, these patients have a problem in the metabolism of the fats. And the fats are usually metabolized when you move, late in the onset of exercise. When you first exercise, you use phosphocreatine, and then you use glycogen. It's only around five to six minutes into exercise that you start using oxidative phosphorylation, which is the mechanism by which you break down fats as a source of energy. So that's why we did a twelve-minute walk test. And interestingly, we saw increases in the distance patients can walk during the twelve-minute walk test."
#ReneoPharmaceuticals #MitochondrialDisease #Mitochondria #RareDisease #Myopathies #MetabolicMuscleDisease
reneopharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Alejandro Dorenbaum is the Chief Medical Officer of Reneo Pharmaceuticals, developing treatments for primary mitochondrial myopathy, a type of rare metabolic muscle disease. Now with genetic testing, there are special panels devoted to diagnosing PMM that can provide quick results for an accurate diagnosis. Unfortunately, no treatment options are currently available, and physicians only treat the complications. REN001, a drug developed by another pharmaceutical company, is being tested in clinical trials to address muscle strength.
Alejandro explains, "The myopathies and, specifically, our lead program is in primary mitochondrial myopathy. Primary mitochondrial myopathies are a group of diseases where genes that code for proteins involved in mitochondrial function are affected. So these patients can have defects both in the nuclear genes of the muscle cells or in the mitochondrial genes, and then there are defects in the ability to manage fats in the cell as a source of energy."
"We then did a Phase 1 trial in patients with PMM and treated patients in an open-label fashion for 12 weeks. We used several measurements to see if the drug could potentially work in these patients. One of the measurements we used was a twelve-minute walk test. This is a test where you ask the patient to walk as fast as they can for twelve minutes and you measure the distance they walk."
"Now, people may have heard about the six-minute walk test as one that is used frequently, but we use the twelve-minute walk test because, remember, these patients have a problem in the metabolism of the fats. And the fats are usually metabolized when you move, late in the onset of exercise. When you first exercise, you use phosphocreatine, and then you use glycogen. It's only around five to six minutes into exercise that you start using oxidative phosphorylation, which is the mechanism by which you break down fats as a source of energy. So that's why we did a twelve-minute walk test. And interestingly, we saw increases in the distance patients can walk during the twelve-minute walk test."
#ReneoPharmaceuticals #MitochondrialDisease #Mitochondria #RareDisease #Myopathies #MetabolicMuscleDisease
reneopharma.com
Download the transcript here
Bronwyn Spira, CEO and Co-Founder at Force Therapeutics, allows provider groups, physical therapists, doctors, and nurses to reach out to patients no matter where they are, using virtual tools to expand access to care. Experience during the pandemic demonstrated that patients of all ages are eager to use digital means to address pain and recovery issues on their own time. Virtual orthopedic care also enables providers to be more efficient and helps to address staff shortages and burnout.
Bronwyn explains, "Physical therapy that's involved in treating orthopedic conditions is a much healthier way, and a non-opioid dependent way, of combating pain. But also the solution lies in understanding the data."
"A lot of the work that we've done has been around how our patients that are prescribed opioids are recovering differently from those who have an opioid-sparing pain protocol. Once you have that data, you can actually make a broader change to best-practice protocols. And, of course, that has an outsized impact on opioid dependence in a community."
"This can reach any patient, including patients in rural communities, patients who cannot afford their copays or their commuting costs, and even patients with mobility issues. Virtual care, when constructed in a way that's validated and delivered by the provider organization, overcomes many barriers to access to care but also provides better digital care in many cases."
#HealthEquity #HealthDisparities #DigitalHealth #DigitalCare #VirtualCare #PatientOutcomes #PhysicalTherapy #OrthopedicCare #Orthopedics #SDoH #Opioids #PatientEngagement #Telemedicine
forcetherapeutics.com
Listen to the podcast here
Bronwyn Spira, CEO and Co-Founder at Force Therapeutics, allows provider groups, physical therapists, doctors, and nurses to reach out to patients no matter where they are, using virtual tools to expand access to care. Experience during the pandemic demonstrated that patients of all ages are eager to use digital means to address pain and recovery issues on their own time. Virtual orthopedic care also enables providers to be more efficient and helps to address staff shortages and burnout.
Bronwyn explains, "Physical therapy that's involved in treating orthopedic conditions is a much healthier way, and a non-opioid dependent way, of combating pain. But also the solution lies in understanding the data."
"A lot of the work that we've done has been around how our patients that are prescribed opioids are recovering differently from those who have an opioid-sparing pain protocol. Once you have that data, you can actually make a broader change to best-practice protocols. And, of course, that has an outsized impact on opioid dependence in a community."
"This can reach any patient, including patients in rural communities, patients who cannot afford their copays or their commuting costs, and even patients with mobility issues. Virtual care, when constructed in a way that's validated and delivered by the provider organization, overcomes many barriers to access to care but also provides better digital care in many cases."
#HealthEquity #HealthDisparities #DigitalHealth #DigitalCare #VirtualCare #PatientOutcomes #PhysicalTherapy #OrthopedicCare #Orthopedics #SDoH #Opioids #PatientEngagement #Telemedicine
forcetherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Akihiro Ko is the CEO and Co-Founder of Elixirgen Therapeutics, which was founded with the mission of treating patients using RNA technology. Their c-srRNA, controllable self-replicating RNA, technology is being applied to telomere biology disorders where patients have inherited short telomeres and a failure to develop bone marrow. Elixirgen is looking to restore the ability to create blood cells in patients suffering from this rare disease.
Akihiro explains, "We are harnessing the tremendous potential of our controlled self-replicating RNA technology to redefine stem cell therapies for patients using the ZSCAN4 gene. We are working on potentially groundbreaking treatments for difficult-to-treat, rare, and genetic diseases, starting with the hematopoietic system and then going out into more indications."
"And our unique technology is that it is controllable in that it is optimized for expression at 30-35 ℃ and inactivated at temperatures at and above 37 ℃. And what that enables us to do is basically tune the expression of this self-replicating RNA. What is great is that self-replicating RNA has been known for its very long and also basically strong expression. However, it has been uncontrolled. So, we bring that control with this unique temperature-controlled system."
"So telomere biology disorders are a group of known diseases, and they are defined by these patients having inherited short telomeres and accelerated shortening of those telomeres over time. It is a rare disease, and the most common issue for the patients is that by the age of 30, around 80% of them develop bone marrow failure, which is a very serious condition."
"What this bone marrow failure entails is that their hematopoiesis, their ability to create new blood cells from their bone marrow, decreases over time. The reason for that is that the telomeres in their hematopoietic stem cells are shorter, and this reduces their ability to do so."
@ElixirgenTx #CellTherapy #RareDiseases #Telomeres #TelomereBiologyDisorders #RNATechnology
Elixirgentherapeutics.com
Listen to the podcast here
Akihiro Ko is the CEO and Co-Founder of Elixirgen Therapeutics, which was founded with the mission of treating patients using RNA technology. Their c-srRNA, controllable self-replicating RNA, technology is being applied to telomere biology disorders where patients have inherited short telomeres and a failure to develop bone marrow. Elixirgen is looking to restore the ability to create blood cells in patients suffering from this rare disease.
Akihiro explains, "We are harnessing the tremendous potential of our controlled self-replicating RNA technology to redefine stem cell therapies for patients using the ZSCAN4 gene. We are working on potentially groundbreaking treatments for difficult-to-treat, rare, and genetic diseases, starting with the hematopoietic system and then going out into more indications."
"And our unique technology is that it is controllable in that it is optimized for expression at 30-35 ℃ and inactivated at temperatures at and above 37 ℃. And what that enables us to do is basically tune the expression of this self-replicating RNA. What is great is that self-replicating RNA has been known for its very long and also basically strong expression. However, it has been uncontrolled. So, we bring that control with this unique temperature-controlled system."
"So telomere biology disorders are a group of known diseases, and they are defined by these patients having inherited short telomeres and accelerated shortening of those telomeres over time. It is a rare disease, and the most common issue for the patients is that by the age of 30, around 80% of them develop bone marrow failure, which is a very serious condition."
"What this bone marrow failure entails is that their hematopoiesis, their ability to create new blood cells from their bone marrow, decreases over time. The reason for that is that the telomeres in their hematopoietic stem cells are shorter, and this reduces their ability to do so."
@ElixirgenTx #CellTherapy #RareDiseases #Telomeres #TelomereBiologyDisorders #RNATechnology
Elixirgentherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Rich Parker, MD Chief Medical Officer at Arcadia, is working with large healthcare providers to provide data analytics to address the needs of large populations of patients and very specific groups facing unique challenges. The goal is to get the signal-to-noise ratio correct as quickly as possible to, for example, efficiently develop successful COVID vaccinations and identify which patients need help first in an emergency. More refined stratification of patients is also revealing at-risk patients who may have been missed in earlier analyses of social determinants of health.
Rich explains, "So the data comes from so many disparate sources that we need companies like Arcadia that aggregate data to do the work. The data is coming from claims from payers, the data is coming from electronic health records, data is coming from public sources, and data is coming from manufacturers of vaccines. So all that data has to be put together, aggregated, cleaned up, and then made usable for interpreting for clinical trials to determine whether a new vaccine is safe and effective."
"Every function within a hospital, every ambulatory healthcare function, it's all data-driven. And then, if we move over into the research world, and research often takes place within healthcare entities. Some of our customers, which are academic medical centers, have large research arms. They are involved with the National Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control. So there's a lot of overlap between healthcare organizations, industry, the federal government, and state departments of health. We all have the same goals in mind, which is improving the health of the population. And all of those endeavors are data-driven."
@ArcadiaHealthIT #HealthOutcomes #PopHealth #PopulationHealth #SDoH #DataAnalytics #DataPlatform
arcadia.io
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Rich Parker, MD Chief Medical Officer at Arcadia, is working with large healthcare providers to provide data analytics to address the needs of large populations of patients and very specific groups facing unique challenges. The goal is to get the signal-to-noise ratio correct as quickly as possible to, for example, efficiently develop successful COVID vaccinations and identify which patients need help first in an emergency. More refined stratification of patients is also revealing at-risk patients who may have been missed in earlier analyses of social determinants of health.
Rich explains, "So the data comes from so many disparate sources that we need companies like Arcadia that aggregate data to do the work. The data is coming from claims from payers, the data is coming from electronic health records, data is coming from public sources, and data is coming from manufacturers of vaccines. So all that data has to be put together, aggregated, cleaned up, and then made usable for interpreting for clinical trials to determine whether a new vaccine is safe and effective."
"Every function within a hospital, every ambulatory healthcare function, it's all data-driven. And then, if we move over into the research world, and research often takes place within healthcare entities. Some of our customers, which are academic medical centers, have large research arms. They are involved with the National Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control. So there's a lot of overlap between healthcare organizations, industry, the federal government, and state departments of health. We all have the same goals in mind, which is improving the health of the population. And all of those endeavors are data-driven."
@ArcadiaHealthIT #HealthOutcomes #PopHealth #PopulationHealth #SDoH #DataAnalytics #DataPlatform
arcadia.io
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Tuvik Beker CEO of Pangea Biomed is looking for more accurate biomarkers for oncology to better determine who might benefit from a specific drug. Their ENLIGHT platform is a pan-cancer, pan-treatment response predictor and can be used to find the best patient populations to give a new drug. They are also working with bio-pharma companies on improving the identification of novel targets through better biomarkers, better patient stratification, and combination therapy optimization.
Tuvik elaborates, "Rather than looking at the genome and looking for abnormalities in gene coding, those rare fusions, or actionable mutations, what Pangea is doing is looking at the way genes are activated in the tumor."
"And this turns out to be a much, much more common abnormality in cancer tumor cells. So almost any tumor cell that you would examine, you would find hundreds and even thousands of genes that are normally encoded. So they have no mutations, they are wild-type genes, and yet they are abnormally expressed in the tumor compared with normal tissue. And the question is, of course, how do we harness this common abnormality of expression into effective therapies? So, there is where our technological uniqueness comes in."
"And that's really what we are hoping for in the long run because ENLIGHT is not only a way to say generally, qualitatively, whether a particular drug would be good or not. It can actually rank and compare different therapies in a way that gives the treating physician a very clear map of what the available treatments are and what should be considered or is the ultimate decision a clinical one. So we are just dealing with treatment elimination but in a very informed manner."
@BekerTuvik @PangeaBiomed #PrecisionMedicine #Oncology #PrecisionOncology #Biotech #Startup
pangeabiomed.com
Listen to the podcast here
Tuvik Beker CEO of Pangea Biomed is looking for more accurate biomarkers for oncology to better determine who might benefit from a specific drug. Their ENLIGHT platform is a pan-cancer, pan-treatment response predictor and can be used to find the best patient populations to give a new drug. They are also working with bio-pharma companies on improving the identification of novel targets through better biomarkers, better patient stratification, and combination therapy optimization.
Tuvik elaborates, "Rather than looking at the genome and looking for abnormalities in gene coding, those rare fusions, or actionable mutations, what Pangea is doing is looking at the way genes are activated in the tumor."
"And this turns out to be a much, much more common abnormality in cancer tumor cells. So almost any tumor cell that you would examine, you would find hundreds and even thousands of genes that are normally encoded. So they have no mutations, they are wild-type genes, and yet they are abnormally expressed in the tumor compared with normal tissue. And the question is, of course, how do we harness this common abnormality of expression into effective therapies? So, there is where our technological uniqueness comes in."
"And that's really what we are hoping for in the long run because ENLIGHT is not only a way to say generally, qualitatively, whether a particular drug would be good or not. It can actually rank and compare different therapies in a way that gives the treating physician a very clear map of what the available treatments are and what should be considered or is the ultimate decision a clinical one. So we are just dealing with treatment elimination but in a very informed manner."
@BekerTuvik @PangeaBiomed #PrecisionMedicine #Oncology #PrecisionOncology #Biotech #Startup
pangeabiomed.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ira Spector is the CEO and Co-Founder of SFA Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company leading the way as a fourth-generation microbiome company to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The first microbiome companies focused on fecal transplants, while the next innovation was probiotics. The third generation took the understanding of the bacteria in the GI microbiome to derive bacteria for each patient. SFA is asking what the bacteria make and their physiological function in order to synthetically make those substances as an effective small molecule drug.
Ira explains, "The immune system in the human body is regulated up and down by messengers called cytokines. And long before cytokine storm and COVID came about, we were researching how to control these signals in the body. In particular, what we found is that there are cytokines related to these autoimmune diseases. It turns out that when you do a review across a range of autoimmune diseases, you find the same four or five cytokines related to those diseases over and over and over again. And what we have found are substances normally made in the GI by bacteria that can be turned into drugs that regulate or modulate these immune system signals and return the immune system to normal."
"We believe that these have the potential to be used to treat a range of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Our analogy is just as insulin was revolutionary for Type 1 diabetics because they couldn't make sufficient insulin themselves, that patients with these diseases often lack the ability to make these substances. By providing them exogenously as a drug, we can take their immune system back to normal and reduce the inflammation associated with these autoimmune diseases."
@TherapeuticsSfa #SFATherapeutics #Microbiome #AutoimmuneDisease #Inflammation #Psoriasis #ImmuneSystem
sfatherapeutics.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ira Spector is the CEO and Co-Founder of SFA Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company leading the way as a fourth-generation microbiome company to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The first microbiome companies focused on fecal transplants, while the next innovation was probiotics. The third generation took the understanding of the bacteria in the GI microbiome to derive bacteria for each patient. SFA is asking what the bacteria make and their physiological function in order to synthetically make those substances as an effective small molecule drug.
Ira explains, "The immune system in the human body is regulated up and down by messengers called cytokines. And long before cytokine storm and COVID came about, we were researching how to control these signals in the body. In particular, what we found is that there are cytokines related to these autoimmune diseases. It turns out that when you do a review across a range of autoimmune diseases, you find the same four or five cytokines related to those diseases over and over and over again. And what we have found are substances normally made in the GI by bacteria that can be turned into drugs that regulate or modulate these immune system signals and return the immune system to normal."
"We believe that these have the potential to be used to treat a range of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Our analogy is just as insulin was revolutionary for Type 1 diabetics because they couldn't make sufficient insulin themselves, that patients with these diseases often lack the ability to make these substances. By providing them exogenously as a drug, we can take their immune system back to normal and reduce the inflammation associated with these autoimmune diseases."
@TherapeuticsSfa #SFATherapeutics #Microbiome #AutoimmuneDisease #Inflammation #Psoriasis #ImmuneSystem
sfatherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jula Inrig is the Chief Medical Officer of Travere Therapeutics and is eager to find innovative treatments for rare kidney diseases, which can be challenging to diagnose and have limited therapeutic options. In clinical trials, their lead candidate, sparsentan, reduces proteinuria significantly in patients with IgA Nephropathy and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Travere is working with the U.S. Preventive Task Force to encourage earlier diagnosis and screening for these often silent diseases.
Jula explains, "We've mapped out a path to get therapies approved for trying to avoid really what is one of the most detrimental complications of kidney disease, which is kidney failure, where you essentially wind up on dialysis. This is a treatment option where patients need to go into a clinic and be hooked up to a machine which cleans their blood three times a week. Or the other option is transplantation. One of the things that we have worked on is a molecule called sparsentan to try and avoid kidney failure."
"Sparsentan is an investigational product candidate. It is a single molecule that doesn't suppress the immune system, which I think for a lot of our patients that's very important. It blocks two hormones that are in the path of causing damage within the kidney. What we have found with sparsentan is it reduces the pressure within the kidney, and it causes some remodeling within the kidney that reduces leakage of protein. When you leak protein within your kidney, that causes the kidney to then not clear toxins and then ultimately to progress faster causing kidney failure."
@TravereRare #TravereTherapeutics #RareDiseases #RareKidneyDisease #KidneyDisease #EarlyDiagnosis
Travere.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Jula Inrig is the Chief Medical Officer of Travere Therapeutics and is eager to find innovative treatments for rare kidney diseases, which can be challenging to diagnose and have limited therapeutic options. In clinical trials, their lead candidate, sparsentan, reduces proteinuria significantly in patients with IgA Nephropathy and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Travere is working with the U.S. Preventive Task Force to encourage earlier diagnosis and screening for these often silent diseases.
Jula explains, "We've mapped out a path to get therapies approved for trying to avoid really what is one of the most detrimental complications of kidney disease, which is kidney failure, where you essentially wind up on dialysis. This is a treatment option where patients need to go into a clinic and be hooked up to a machine which cleans their blood three times a week. Or the other option is transplantation. One of the things that we have worked on is a molecule called sparsentan to try and avoid kidney failure."
"Sparsentan is an investigational product candidate. It is a single molecule that doesn't suppress the immune system, which I think for a lot of our patients that's very important. It blocks two hormones that are in the path of causing damage within the kidney. What we have found with sparsentan is it reduces the pressure within the kidney, and it causes some remodeling within the kidney that reduces leakage of protein. When you leak protein within your kidney, that causes the kidney to then not clear toxins and then ultimately to progress faster causing kidney failure."
@TravereRare #TravereTherapeutics #RareDiseases #RareKidneyDisease #KidneyDisease
Travere.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jula Inrig is the Chief Medical Officer of Travere Therapeutics and is eager to find innovative treatments for rare kidney diseases, which can be challenging to diagnose and have limited therapeutic options. In clinical trials, their lead candidate, sparsentan, reduces proteinuria significantly in patients with IgA Nephropathy and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), delaying kidney failure. Travere is working with the U.S. Preventive Task Force to encourage earlier diagnosis and screening for these often silent diseases.
Jula explains, "We've mapped out a path to get therapies approved for trying to avoid really what is one of the most detrimental complications of kidney disease, which is kidney failure, where you essentially wind up on dialysis. This is a treatment option where patients need to go into a clinic and be hooked up to a machine which cleans their blood three times a week. Or the other option is transplantation. One of the things that we have worked on is a molecule called sparsentan to try and avoid kidney failure."
"Sparsentan is an investigational product candidate. It is a single molecule that doesn't suppress the immune system, which I think for a lot of our patients that's very important. It blocks two hormones that are in the path of causing damage within the kidney. What we have found with sparsentan is it reduces the pressure within the kidney, and it causes some remodeling within the kidney that reduces leakage of protein. When you leak protein within your kidney, that causes the kidney to then not clear toxins and then ultimately to progress faster causing kidney failure."
@TravereRare #TravereTherapeutics #RareDiseases #RareKidneyDisease #KidneyDisease
Travere.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Lyle Berkowitz, CEO of KeyCare Medical, is listening to consumer feedback and helping health systems provide more virtual care options, particularly for routine types of care. At the same time, KeyCare is working with providers on a strategy that enables them to come up with a plan to care for patients with higher complexity that requires them to be seen in the office. The key to success is the systems integration and data sharing that is possible with this virtual care approach.
Lyle explains, "I think virtualists and virtual care technology need to be different in various ways from traditional office-based care, in a good way. It needs to focus on a more routine set of problems. It needs to be done in a highly efficient manner to be convenient and less expensive while maintaining quality."
"So with KeyCare, we are providing access to a tech-enabled virtual care workforce to health systems, and we're doing it all on Epic. So we have our own instance of Epic that we're staffing with virtualists. We're mainly working with health systems who also have Epic so that they can feel they've got a partner that is able to work cohesively with them."
"In terms of partnering with health systems, the competition is usually third parties who've developed their own proprietary telehealth-focused technology. That, unfortunately, doesn't integrate well with respect to both workflow or data sharing in health systems. That's why we decided to work with Epic because they have a very mature electronic health record system. They now have a mature telehealth system, and they have a level of interoperability between Epic sites that is unseen anywhere else."
#KeyCareMedical #DigitalHealth #VirtualHealthCare #Telehealth #Virtualists #Epic
keycare.org
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Lyle Berkowitz, CEO of KeyCare Medical, is listening to consumer feedback and helping health systems provide more virtual care options, particularly for routine types of care. At the same time, KeyCare is working with providers on a strategy that enables them to come up with a plan to care for patients with higher complexity that requires them to be seen in the office. The key to success is the systems integration and data sharing that is possible with this virtual care approach.
Lyle explains, "I think virtualists and virtual care technology need to be different in various ways from traditional office-based care, in a good way. It needs to focus on a more routine set of problems. It needs to be done in a highly efficient manner to be convenient and less expensive while maintaining quality."
"So with KeyCare, we are providing access to a tech-enabled virtual care workforce to health systems, and we're doing it all on Epic. So we have our own instance of Epic that we're staffing with virtualists. We're mainly working with health systems who also have Epic so that they can feel they've got a partner that is able to work cohesively with them."
"In terms of partnering with health systems, the competition is usually third parties who've developed their own proprietary telehealth-focused technology. That, unfortunately, doesn't integrate well with respect to both workflow or data sharing in health systems. That's why we decided to work with Epic because they have a very mature electronic health record system. They now have a mature telehealth system, and they have a level of interoperability between Epic sites that is unseen anywhere else."
#KeyCareMedical #DigitalHealth #VirtualHealthCare #Telehealth #Virtualists #Epic
keycare.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Leslie Soiles is the Chief Audiologist at HearingLife, which provides hearing care through professionals who conduct hearing assessments at physical locations and make recommendations for the appropriate way to treat hearing loss. With advancements in nanotechnology and the availability of over-the-counter hearing aids, there are more opportunities to address hearing loss. Still, there are many issues to be aware of when using those devices.
Leslie explains, "Over-the-counter hearing aids are designed for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Over-the-counter hearing aids don't require a hearing test to be performed, so if somebody thinks that they might be a candidate for OTC, over-the-counter hearing aids, I really do recommend that they first start with that hearing test to make sure that their need falls within the standard of what an over-the-counter hearing aid is designed for."
"In HearingLife, we recommend people start at age 60, and that provides that baseline measurement. As those statistics that I mentioned earlier indicate, going forward from that point, the likelihood of hearing loss is very high. And so, if you can just start monitoring the status of your hearing because it does progress slowly. Having an annual hearing test starting at age 60 gives you that yardstick to measure as you go forward so that you aren't surprised by it."
"For the first time ever, we have patients that have normal hearing, but they love the Bluetooth streaming capability that current hearing aids have. And so, I've had people with normal hearing saying, "Hey, I wish I could wear hearing aids too." That was unheard of before."
@HearingLife #HearingLife #HearingHealth #Audiology #HearingAids #OTCHearingAids
hearinglife.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Leslie Soiles is the Chief Audiologist at HearingLife, which provides hearing care through professionals who conduct hearing assessments at physical locations and make recommendations for the appropriate way to treat hearing loss. With advancements in nanotechnology and the availability of over-the-counter hearing aids, there are more opportunities to address hearing loss. Still, there are many issues to be aware of when using those devices.
Leslie explains, "Over-the-counter hearing aids are designed for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Over-the-counter hearing aids don't require a hearing test to be performed, so if somebody thinks that they might be a candidate for OTC, over-the-counter hearing aids, I really do recommend that they first start with that hearing test to make sure that their need falls within the standard of what an over-the-counter hearing aid is designed for."
"In HearingLife, we recommend people start at age 60, and that provides that baseline measurement. As those statistics that I mentioned earlier indicate, going forward from that point, the likelihood of hearing loss is very high. And so, if you can just start monitoring the status of your hearing because it does progress slowly. Having an annual hearing test starting at age 60 gives you that yardstick to measure as you go forward so that you aren't surprised by it."
"For the first time ever, we have patients that have normal hearing, but they love the Bluetooth streaming capability that current hearing aids have. And so, I've had people with normal hearing saying, "Hey, I wish I could wear hearing aids too." That was unheard of before."
@HearingLife #HearingLife #HearingHealth #Audiology #HearingAids #OTCHearingAids
hearinglife.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Sherry McAllister is a practicing chiropractor and President of the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress which recently commissioned a Harris Poll about physical and mental health. One of the most concerning findings was that the link between physical and mental pain was strongest in survey participants 35-44 years old. Geographic location was also a factor, as was the sharp difference in how men and women respond to pain. Treating the mind and the body is essential for good health, and F4CP promotes guidelines that emphasize that non-pharmaceutical options for pain treatment should be the first choice, not the last resort.
Sherry explains, "What we learned was that half of the US adults, just about 44%, actually reported that they had experienced physical pain that they believe was worsened due to mental or emotional pain. We now know there's a link between mental health and physical pain. It's been well-established in the healthcare community. Still, the past two years have really broadened the public's understanding of this association and how managing one condition without treating the other can be counterproductive."
"I think we need to identify and we need to manage all the root causes of conditions that really create havoc in the bone, the nervous system, the muscle, and the mind. And I think when we look back at that Harris Poll, it'll hopefully remind us and inspire healthcare professionals that they can approach every patient holistically to help them achieve their optimal goal. And that's kind of where I sit. If you want to learn more about mental-physical health connections, we have a fantastic book. It's called Depression, Dopamine, and Drug-Free Interventions: How Chiropractic Care Is Supporting Mental Health, and we can share that with you."
@F4CP #ThinkChiropractic #ChiropracticCare #Chiropractor #MentalHealth #PhysicalPain
Find Sherry's podcast, Adjusted Reality, where you get your podcasts
F4CP.org
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Dr. Sherry McAllister is a practicing chiropractor and President of the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress which recently commissioned a Harris Poll about physical and mental health. One of the most concerning findings was that the link between physical and mental pain was strongest in survey participants 35-44 years old. Geographic location was also a factor, as was the sharp difference in how men and women respond to pain. Treating the mind and the body is essential for good health, and F4CP promotes guidelines that emphasize that non-pharmaceutical options for pain treatment should be the first choice, not the last resort.
Sherry explains, "What we learned was that half of the US adults, just about 44%, actually reported that they had experienced physical pain that they believe was worsened due to mental or emotional pain. We now know there's a link between mental health and physical pain. It's been well-established in the healthcare community. Still, the past two years have really broadened the public's understanding of this association and how managing one condition without treating the other can be counterproductive."
"I think we need to identify and we need to manage all the root causes of conditions that really create havoc in the bone, the nervous system, the muscle, and the mind. And I think when we look back at that Harris Poll, it'll hopefully remind us and inspire healthcare professionals that they can approach every patient holistically to help them achieve their optimal goal. And that's kind of where I sit. If you want to learn more about mental-physical health connections, we have a fantastic book. It's called Depression, Dopamine, and Drug-Free Interventions: How Chiropractic Care Is Supporting Mental Health, and we can share that with you."
@F4CP #ThinkChiropractic #ChiropracticCare #Chiropractor #MentalHealth #PhysicalPain
Find Sherry's podcast, Adjusted Reality, where you get your podcasts
F4CP.org
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Mehdi Maghsoodnia is the CEO of 1health and is determined to bring advanced diagnostic medical tests to a broader audience to enable more patients to benefit from precision medicine advancements. Too often, patients are put on costly drugs that are not effective. Using data from advanced testing allows clinicians to diagnose conditions more accurately and to determine the best treatment approach.
Mehdi elaborates, "Where we focus is really more on how do we make these advanced diagnostic tests cheaper and faster, so we can introduce more accurate, clean data into that care pathway. You want to know very quickly, very accurately, all that you need to know about the specifics of the patient, the specifics of their genetics, and the specifics of the potential tumor type, interaction with drugs, and so on and so forth. Those are the types of information we are trying to deliver into the care decision pathway very quickly."
"That data set is building up very rapidly because we've been sequencing patients, and we've been tracking the impact of the drug on those patients. Now, those databases are coming to the clinical market. They're not there today everywhere, so unfortunately, you might get the best pharmacogenomic results in some of the advanced institutions in urban areas, like San Francisco and New York, but you don't get it everywhere."
"Part of our push on the pharmacogenomic side is to make sure that it's available and accessible by everybody. Health equity is a big issue right now. We are making sure that the test is not only affordable, but it's easy to order, and it's easy to include in the healthcare pathway for every patient at every point in the care system."
@ihealthio #1health #PrecisionMedicine #AdvancedDiagnostics #DiagnosticTesting #CancerDetection #Pharmacogenomic
1health.io
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Mehdi Maghsoodnia is the CEO of 1health and is determined to bring advanced diagnostic medical tests to a broader audience to enable more patients to benefit from precision medicine advancements. Too often, patients are put on costly drugs that are not effective. Using data from advanced testing allows clinicians to diagnose conditions more accurately and to determine the best treatment approach.
Mehdi elaborates, "Where we focus is really more on how do we make these advanced diagnostic tests cheaper and faster, so we can introduce more accurate, clean data into that care pathway. You want to know very quickly, very accurately, all that you need to know about the specifics of the patient, the specifics of their genetics, and the specifics of the potential tumor type, interaction with drugs, and so on and so forth. Those are the types of information we are trying to deliver into the care decision pathway very quickly."
"That data set is building up very rapidly because we've been sequencing patients, and we've been tracking the impact of the drug on those patients. Now, those databases are coming to the clinical market. They're not there today everywhere, so unfortunately, you might get the best pharmacogenomic results in some of the advanced institutions in urban areas, like San Francisco and New York, but you don't get it everywhere."
"Part of our push on the pharmacogenomic side is to make sure that it's available and accessible by everybody. Health equity is a big issue right now. We are making sure that the test is not only affordable, but it's easy to order, and it's easy to include in the healthcare pathway for every patient at every point in the care system."
@ihealthio #1health #PrecisionMedicine #AdvancedDiagnostics #DiagnosticTesting #CancerDetection #Pharmacogenomic
1health.io
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Anatoly Postilnik, VP of Global Healthcare Consulting at First Line Software, is building software solutions and bringing data management, data analytics, and systems analysis to healthcare organizations. Original EHR systems were implemented to replicate paper flow and siloed data collection. As they move from paper-based to digital data, these organizations need to integrate diverse databases to manage the supply of resources and demand for patient care. Payers and providers also face changes in procedures and behavior to drive down costs and improve efficiency.
Anatoly explains, "Clinician burnout is a really big topic. No matter what you start talking about, you end up talking about clinician burnout. Essentially yes, the demand and supply predictability factors into optimizing their workflow, simplifying their workflow, and eventually reducing provider burnout. But it also helps the organization to be more effective, so this is positive from multiple ends of not just people having better lives as practitioners. But providers practice better when they're in better institutions."
"We know one organization that has 250,000 types of reports, not just reports, 250,000 types of reports. Close to 500 network shares are being populated by these reports on a daily basis. The organization has a team of people who generate these reports on a daily basis, and the turnaround for generating this report is sometimes six months. Now, how many of these reports are duplicates, and how many of these reports are conflicting? And every time somebody generates a report, maybe there already is a report."
#FirstLineSoftware #HealthRecords #HealthData #DataIntegration #DataAnalytics #DIsasterResourceManagement #ClinicianBurnout #DataGovernance #EHR
firstlinesoftware.com
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Anatoly Postilnik, VP of Global Healthcare Consulting at First Line Software, is building software solutions and bringing data management, data analytics, and systems analysis to healthcare organizations. Original EHR systems were implemented to replicate paper flow and siloed data collection. As they move from paper-based to digital data, these organizations need to integrate diverse databases to manage the supply of resources and demand for patient care. Payers and providers also face changes in procedures and behavior to drive down costs and improve efficiency.
Anatoly explains, "Clinician burnout is a really big topic. No matter what you start talking about, you end up talking about clinician burnout. Essentially yes, the demand and supply predictability factors into optimizing their workflow, simplifying their workflow, and eventually reducing provider burnout. But it also helps the organization to be more effective, so this is positive from multiple ends of not just people having better lives as practitioners. But providers practice better when they're in better institutions."
"We know one organization that has 250,000 types of reports, not just reports, 250,000 types of reports. Close to 500 network shares are being populated by these reports on a daily basis. The organization has a team of people who generate these reports on a daily basis, and the turnaround for generating this report is sometimes six months. Now, how many of these reports are duplicates, and how many of these reports are conflicting? And every time somebody generates a report, maybe there already is a report."
#FirstLineSoftware #HealthRecords #HealthData #DataIntegration #DataAnalytics #DIsasterResourceManagement #ClinicianBurnout #DataGovernance #EHR
firstlinesoftware.com
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Lawrence Margolis is the CEO of PersonalRX, which is changing the model for how pharmacies provide prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs and advice about usage. With a personal care coordinator, PersonalRX provides each patient with a personalized experience that ensures prompt delivery of drugs, reminders to take those medications, and alerts to possible negative drug interactions.
Lawrence explains, "We send out a 30-day supply. We send that 30-day supply out ahead of time so that we never want anybody to worry 'where's my medicine?' If they do, then we failed our job, frankly. So we get it there a few days before they're going to need it."
"When we package medication, we package them in individual dose packs. Everybody gets packs in a roll that are marked breakfast, lunch, dinner, or time of day, 8:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 5:00 PM, bedtime. So when somebody is looking at their pack, if they see that breakfast is still there at noon, they clearly did not take their medication. So it keeps them on track a whole lot more. It's like those pill boxes that everybody has where it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or various times of the day."
"The difference with adherence is that you have to make sure people are packing them correctly. Most people don't. They typically make a mistake. I believe if you look behind anybody's dresser, you're going to see some pills behind their dresser or on the floor that they missed. I think adherence is an important factor and an advantage to having a medication dose pack. Reminding them to take them and that it's time to take their breakfast medication is a help. But in terms of adherence, knowing that you took the medication or seeing that you skipped it is a very important aspect."
#PersonalRX #AgingInPlace #Seniors #MedicationAdherence #Healthcare #PrescriptionDrugs #Pharmacies #Pharmacists #MedicationDosePack #DigitalPharmacy
personalrx.com
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Lawrence Margolis is the CEO of PersonalRX, which is changing the model for how pharmacies provide prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs and advice about usage. With a personal care coordinator, PersonalRX provides each patient with a personalized experience that ensures prompt delivery of drugs, reminders to take those medications, and alerts to possible negative drug interactions.
Lawrence explains, "We send out a 30-day supply. We send that 30-day supply out ahead of time so that we never want anybody to worry 'where's my medicine?' If they do, then we failed our job, frankly. So we get it there a few days before they're going to need it."
"When we package medication, we package them in individual dose packs. Everybody gets packs in a roll that are marked breakfast, lunch, dinner, or time of day, 8:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 5:00 PM, bedtime. So when somebody is looking at their pack, if they see that breakfast is still there at noon, they clearly did not take their medication. So it keeps them on track a whole lot more. It's like those pill boxes that everybody has where it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or various times of the day."
"The difference with adherence is that you have to make sure people are packing them correctly. Most people don't. They typically make a mistake. I believe if you look behind anybody's dresser, you're going to see some pills behind their dresser or on the floor that they missed. I think adherence is an important factor and an advantage to having a medication dose pack. Reminding them to take them and that it's time to take their breakfast medication is a help. But in terms of adherence, knowing that you took the medication or seeing that you skipped it is a very important aspect."
#PersonalRX #AgingInPlace #Seniors #MedicationAdherence #Healthcare #PrescriptionDrugs #Pharmacies #Pharmacists #MedicationDosePack #DigitalPharmacy
personalrx.com
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Chris Brickler, CEO and Co-Founder of MyndVR, is looking at VR to disrupt senior living care to promote wellness and engagement. MyndVR has designed lightweight immersive glasses to create a virtual reality experience for seniors, reimagining the traditional VR gaming experience. The MyndVR care tablet drives the glasses and connects to the MyndVR network allowing the senior and caregiver to access one of the largest private catalogs of senior-friendly immersive experiences. In addition to entertainment, the experience has been shown to significantly help achieve a patient's physical, occupational, and speech therapy goals.
Chris elaborates, "We've essentially reimagined virtual reality away from all of the hype around the gaming movement, and really leveraging the tools of virtual reality and gamifying different types of therapies as well. So we're going to be disrupting the way therapy is done with seniors, and that's very exciting."
"One example is that he was perfectly healthy from a cognitive point of view. She was suffering late-stage Alzheimer's. She didn't remember what his name was or what she had for breakfast that day."
"She was attentive enough to have a conversation with me. I asked them, "Where would you like to travel?" He said Paris was where they had their honeymoon and subsequent family vacations. I asked her, "Would you like to go to Paris with this VR headset?" And you hand it to her, and it is very comfortable and calming, and she feels it and then puts it on."
"I took her right to the Eiffel Tower, and literally within 15 seconds, she was completely present. She was talking about her family vacations, and she was talking about the people in her family. She was talking about her husband, her husband's name."
@Mynd_Health #DigitalHealth #DigitalTheraputics #SeniorLiving #SeniorCare #Aging #AgingAdults #CognitiveHealth #VR #VirtualRealtiy #VirtualRealtiyTherapy #MentalHealth, #CognitiveManagment #ImmersiveTherapy #VRhealth #VRtherapy #VRwellness, #VRforSeniors
MyndVR.com
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Chris Brickler, CEO and Co-Founder of MyndVR, is looking at VR to disrupt senior living care to promote wellness and engagement. MyndVR has designed lightweight immersive glasses to create a virtual reality experience for seniors, reimagining the traditional VR gaming experience. The MyndVR care tablet drives the glasses and connects to the MyndVR network allowing the senior and caregiver to access one of the largest private catalogs of senior-friendly immersive experiences. In addition to entertainment, the experience has been shown to significantly help achieve a patient's physical, occupational, and speech therapy goals.
Chris elaborates, "We've essentially reimagined virtual reality away from all of the hype around the gaming movement, and really leveraging the tools of virtual reality and gamifying different types of therapies as well. So we're going to be disrupting the way therapy is done with seniors, and that's very exciting."
"One example is that he was perfectly healthy from a cognitive point of view. She was suffering late-stage Alzheimer's. She didn't remember what his name was or what she had for breakfast that day."
"She was attentive enough to have a conversation with me. I asked them, "Where would you like to travel?" He said Paris was where they had their honeymoon and subsequent family vacations. I asked her, "Would you like to go to Paris with this VR headset?" And you hand it to her, and it is very comfortable and calming, and she feels it and then puts it on."
"I took her right to the Eiffel Tower, and literally within 15 seconds, she was completely present. She was talking about her family vacations, and she was talking about the people in her family. She was talking about her husband, her husband's name."
@Mynd_Health #DigitalHealth #DigitalTheraputics #SeniorLiving #SeniorCare #Aging #AgingAdults #CognitiveHealth #VR #VirtualRealtiy #VirtualRealtiyTherapy #MentalHealth, #CognitiveManagment #ImmersiveTherapy #VRhealth #VRtherapy #VRwellness, #VRforSeniors
MyndVR.com
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Charlie Noel is the Executive Director at Northwestern Health Sciences University's Institute for Integrative Care, which is working to transform healthcare from a disease-focused model to a holistic approach. The Institute provides practical tools to help healthcare organizations move to an integrative care model while encouraging multidisciplinary groups and community engagement to provide care for the whole person.
Charlie explains, "The traditional hierarchy structure of mainstream healthcare limits the input from some professionals. So that means we should also be bringing in some of these other disciplines and also building an environment where we embrace emerging mainstream and complementary healthcare to eliminate the silos in care delivery and enhance outcomes."
"The Institute is collaboratively working with organizations and communities to build systems where all people benefit from integrative care. We want to meet people, organizations, and systems where they're at and then be able to develop plans to help them move towards integrative care and look at it through this whole-person lens. And the way that we've broken it down is into three different domains."
"But even more important is how do we now reimagine healthcare curriculum to where we can also incorporate these different pieces? We have some integrative care competencies that we are interweaving through the curriculum so that whenever people graduate, they have a better understanding of what integrated care is."
@NWHealthU #IntegrativeCare #HealthcareLeaders #CIH #SDoH #HolisticCare #CommunityEngagement #WholePersonCare
nwhealth.edu
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Charlie Noel is the Executive Director at Northwestern Health Sciences University's Institute for Integrative Care, which is working to transform healthcare from a disease-focused model to a holistic approach. The Institute provides practical tools to help healthcare organizations move to an integrative care model while encouraging multidisciplinary groups and community engagement to provide care for the whole person.
Charlie explains, "The traditional hierarchy structure of mainstream healthcare limits the input from some professionals. So that means we should also be bringing in some of these other disciplines and also building an environment where we embrace emerging mainstream and complementary healthcare to eliminate the silos in care delivery and enhance outcomes."
"The Institute is collaboratively working with organizations and communities to build systems where all people benefit from integrative care. We want to meet people, organizations, and systems where they're at and then be able to develop plans to help them move towards integrative care and look at it through this whole-person lens. And the way that we've broken it down is into three different domains."
"But even more important is how do we now reimagine healthcare curriculum to where we can also incorporate these different pieces? We have some integrative care competencies that we are interweaving through the curriculum so that whenever people graduate, they have a better understanding of what integrated care is."
@NWHealthU #IntegrativeCare #HealthcareLeaders #CIH #SDoH #HolisticCare #CommunityEngagement #WholePersonCare
nwhealth.edu
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Dr. Calum Yacoubian, the Director of NLP Healthcare Strategy for IQVIA, is applying clinical natural language processing to take complex, unstructured healthcare data and turn it into structured and searchable information. In a value-based care environment, clinical NLP can augment manual work by nurses, clinical coders, and clinicians to identify relevant, often unstructured information at the right time for specific patients, and payers to undergo chart review for risk adjustment.
Calum explains, "Within healthcare, data and information are hugely fragmented. There was a HIMSS report in 2020 that said the average healthcare system in the U.S. has 15 disparate EMR systems it is pulling data from. Going back to your first question, the 360-degree view of a patient is about using as much data as available to understand patients and the populations they exist in. If it's difficult to access and make the most of the data. That's the first and probably one of the biggest barriers that we have in healthcare, this disparate data that exists in the ecosystem, and the multiple different formats that it exists in."
"In the healthcare setting, huge amounts of clinical information is in text form, either dictated and transcribed or typed directly by clinicians into the free text boxes. These have become the kind of dumping ground for much clinically relevant information in a clinical setting. When we think of that data, clinical NLP, which is specifically my focus, we are able to look into that data to understand the nuance of that information and to pull out information and data in a structured format in a way the provider or the nurse or the physician or one of the other allied health professionals intended when they were interviewing the patient and documenting it in the medical record."
@IQVIA_global #IQVIA #ClinicalNLP #NLP #NaturalLanguageProcessing #RiskAssessment #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #ML #MachineLearning #Healthcare #HealthcareData #ValueBasedCare #PrecisionMedicine #PopulationHealth #SDoH #RareDiseases
IQVIA.com
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Dr. Calum Yacoubian, the Director of NLP Healthcare Strategy for IQVIA, is applying clinical natural language processing to take complex, unstructured healthcare data and turn it into structured and searchable information. In a value-based care environment, clinical NLP can augment manual work by nurses, clinical coders, and clinicians to identify relevant, often unstructured information at the right time for specific patients, and payers to undergo chart review for risk adjustment.
Calum explains, "Within healthcare, data and information are hugely fragmented. There was a HIMSS report in 2020 that said the average healthcare system in the U.S. has 15 disparate EMR systems it is pulling data from. Going back to your first question, the 360-degree view of a patient is about using as much data as available to understand patients and the populations they exist in. If it's difficult to access and make the most of the data. That's the first and probably one of the biggest barriers that we have in healthcare, this disparate data that exists in the ecosystem, and the multiple different formats that it exists in."
"In the healthcare setting, huge amounts of clinical information is in text form, either dictated and transcribed or typed directly by clinicians into the free text boxes. These have become the kind of dumping ground for much clinically relevant information in a clinical setting. When we think of that data, clinical NLP, which is specifically my focus, we are able to look into that data to understand the nuance of that information and to pull out information and data in a structured format in a way the provider or the nurse or the physician or one of the other allied health professionals intended when they were interviewing the patient and documenting it in the medical record."
@IQVIA_global #IQVIA #ClinicalNLP #NLP #NaturalLanguageProcessing #RiskAssessment #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #ML #MachineLearning #Healthcare #HealthcareData #ValueBasedCare #PrecisionMedicine #PopulationHealth #SDoH #RareDiseases
IQVIA.com
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Angela Fox is Head of Analytics at Bright.md which is an asynchronous telehealth solution bringing an audio-only virtual visit option to providers for them to treat patients with common low-acuity conditions. Staffing challenges, clinician burnout and increasing demand from an aging population are driving the acceptance of creative solutions to provide cost-effective, timely healthcare for patients.
Angela explains, "Through a patient's health system portal, they can get online and take a clinical interview. Then they answer several clinical questions about what care they're looking for, what care they're seeking that day. Then that's sent to a provider at their health system in an easy-to-review chart note. So the provider can review the chart note, make a diagnosis, and a treatment plan. This all happens completely within the electronic medical record."
"One of the key elements that we also include in our reporting is provider variation. And that kind of information about how productive providers are, which providers are treating more quickly, which providers need a little more time, can really help spark conversations within a health system and help them think about how to deploy their staff in the best possible way, how to be most efficient, how to make sure the quality is top notch."
@Brightmd_Health #AsynchronousCare #Telehealth #DataAnalytics #ProviderBurnout
Bright.md
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Angela Fox is Head of Analytics at Bright.md which is an asynchronous telehealth solution bringing an audio-only virtual visit option to providers for them to treat patients with common low-acuity conditions. Staffing challenges, clinician burnout and increasing demand from an aging population are driving the acceptance of creative solutions to provide cost-effective, timely healthcare for patients.
Angela explains, "Through a patient's health system portal, they can get online and take a clinical interview. Then they answer several clinical questions about what care they're looking for, what care they're seeking that day. Then that's sent to a provider at their health system in an easy-to-review chart note. So the provider can review the chart note, make a diagnosis, and a treatment plan. This all happens completely within the electronic medical record."
"One of the key elements that we also include in our reporting is provider variation. And that kind of information about how productive providers are, which providers are treating more quickly, which providers need a little more time, can really help spark conversations within a health system and help them think about how to deploy their staff in the best possible way, how to be most efficient, how to make sure the quality is top notch."
@Brightmd_Health #AsynchronousCare #Telehealth #DataAnalytics #ProviderBurnout
Bright.md
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Matthew Hedberg is the VP General Manager of Professional Services at Semcasting a data-as-a-service company working with health insurers, agents, CCOs, PPOs, hospital networks, and pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. Carrying a SOC 2 Type II certification, Semcasting is helping clients determine how to use the information they have and enhance that data to incorporate it into a digital program for patient outreach and education of targeted audiences.
Matthew explains, "There are significant timelines as well. Even if we are scoped to receive data for a particular project from a particular brand, it may take weeks or months to get the necessary additional approvals to receive certain levels of patient or member information for a particular project. This is just as an additional layer of safety and concern to make sure that patient data is protected and isn't circulating around amongst any players who aren't required to see it."
"One of the more specific tactical tools we developed back in 2018 was the idea of utilizing IP addresses as an advertising efficiency to reach patients, utilizing publication by Wi-Fi within the particular physician offices. What we realized, especially when we're looking at recruiting for clinical trials, is that this decision is necessarily incredibly complex to understand, even if a patient is wonderfully adept at researching their own healthcare condition. So, what we decided to attempt in there was how can we provide a certain message about the availability of a particular treatment to a patient but also allow them to do so in a window where they may be able to have a conversation with the physician about all of the complexities that may surround this particular decision."
@Semcasting #DigitalAds #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #TargetingPatients #PharmaceuticalAds #RareDiseases
semcasting.com
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Matthew Hedberg is the VP General Manager of Professional Services at Semcasting a data-as-a-service company working with health insurers, agents, CCOs, PPOs, hospital networks, and pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. Carrying a SOC 2 Type II certification, Semcasting is helping clients determine how to use the information they have and enhance that data to incorporate it into a digital program for patient outreach and education of targeted audiences.
Matthew explains, "There are significant timelines as well. Even if we are scoped to receive data for a particular project from a particular brand, it may take weeks or months to get the necessary additional approvals to receive certain levels of patient or member information for a particular project. This is just as an additional layer of safety and concern to make sure that patient data is protected and isn't circulating around amongst any players who aren't required to see it."
"One of the more specific tactical tools we developed back in 2018 was the idea of utilizing IP addresses as an advertising efficiency to reach patients, utilizing publication by Wi-Fi within the particular physician offices. What we realized, especially when we're looking at recruiting for clinical trials, is that this decision is necessarily incredibly complex to understand, even if a patient is wonderfully adept at researching their own healthcare condition. So, what we decided to attempt in there was how can we provide a certain message about the availability of a particular treatment to a patient but also allow them to do so in a window where they may be able to have a conversation with the physician about all of the complexities that may surround this particular decision."
@Semcasting #DigitalAds #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #TargetingPatients #PharmaceuticalAds #RareDiseases
semcasting.com
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Dr. Tadd Lazarus is the Chief Medical Officer at Pictor, working on innovative diagnostic tests to provide answers to complicated clinical questions concerning the status of a patient's level of antibodies. From one specimen, their test can determine if the antibodies have been produced as a result of vaccinations or boosters and if the patient had the disease being tested for. Their mission is to help patients determine if they have effective antibody levels and are able to have the kind of response that will be protected them over time.
Tadd explains, "We develop innovative diagnostic solutions to enable more informed clinical decisions both in human and animal health. Specifically, we have a highly multiplexed platform that really changes the way antibodies are detected. As we know from COVID, antibodies are proteins that our body manufactures in response to infectious agents, except we detect them differently. We detect antibodies in an incredibly focused and what we call highly multiplexed manner, so that we have an incredibly sensitive and specific test. But moreover, it's able to detect multiple antibodies that the body produces for multiple infectious agents at one time. That's a very big change."
"One of the reasons why it is important to determine if vaccinations and boosters are effective is that there are antibodies that can be administered to patients intravenously if those patients are determined not to have a clinically significant antibody response to vaccinations/boosters and/or infection. And those formulations are getting tweaked now for more predominant strains, so making sure that they're covered. So there's something that we can do about that for the immunosuppressed, the elderly, and the immunocompromised, who are not showing a healthy and protective antibody response."
@PictorLtd #pictor #PictArray #IVD #Biotech #Innovative #HumanHealth #COVID #Antibodies #AntibodyTest #ImmuneSystem
PictorDX.com
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Dr. Tadd Lazarus is the Chief Medical Officer at Pictor, working on innovative diagnostic tests to provide answers to complicated clinical questions concerning the status of a patient's level of antibodies. From one specimen, their test can determine if the antibodies have been produced as a result of vaccinations or boosters and if the patient had the disease being tested for. Their mission is to help patients determine if they have effective antibody levels and are able to have the kind of response that will be protected them over time.
Tadd explains, "We develop innovative diagnostic solutions to enable more informed clinical decisions both in human and animal health. Specifically, we have a highly multiplexed platform that really changes the way antibodies are detected. As we know from COVID, antibodies are proteins that our body manufactures in response to infectious agents, except we detect them differently. We detect antibodies in an incredibly focused and what we call highly multiplexed manner, so that we have an incredibly sensitive and specific test. But moreover, it's able to detect multiple antibodies that the body produces for multiple infectious agents at one time. That's a very big change."
"One of the reasons why it is important to determine if vaccinations and boosters are effective is that there are antibodies that can be administered to patients intravenously if those patients are determined not to have a clinically significant antibody response to vaccinations/boosters and/or infection. And those formulations are getting tweaked now for more predominant strains, so making sure that they're covered. So there's something that we can do about that for the immunosuppressed, the elderly, and the immunocompromised, who are not showing a healthy and protective antibody response."
@PictorLtd #pictor #PictArray #IVD #Biotech #Innovative #HumanHealth #COVID #Antibodies #AntibodyTest #ImmuneSystem
PictorDX.com
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David Harel is the Co-Founder and CEO of CytoReason, providing researchers and drug developers with a complex database and predictive computational disease models to conduct synthetic clinical trials. Their mission is to integrate all the information available on a specific disease in a particular population to support faster and more efficient drug development.
David explains, "Computational disease models are the core technology that we've developed, and it is a method to incorporate all the available information, specifically omics and molecular data, that is available in one disease, in one place, in a way that is useful. But people who have been involved in the molecular data space for a while know that the integration of multiple data types and multiple data sets is very difficult, and it needs to be done in a certain context. The context in which we are incorporating the data is allowing the users to run those synthetic trials on their own or using our teams."
"One of the features that we have is the ability to run synthetic basket trials. So, take one drug, assuming the drug you want to evaluate, and run it across multiple indications in these dozens of indications. To conduct that with human subjects is prohibitive for cost and ethical reasons. And the same way, when we are conducting synthetic umbrella trials, where we're taking a specific patient population, and we are evaluating the efficacy of many different compounds in a specific patient population. Again, this would be very difficult to conduct in a clinical setting with human subjects. These are things that synthetic in silico trials allow you to do that clinical endeavors would not."
@CytoReason #DiseaseModels #ComputationalDiseaseModels #SyntheticClinicalTrials #ClinicalTrials #ComputationalBiology #DrugDevelopment #DrugDiscovery #AI #RareDiseases
CytoReason.com
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David Harel is the Co-Founder and CEO of CytoReason, providing researchers and drug developers with a complex database and predictive computational disease models to conduct synthetic clinical trials. Their mission is to integrate all the information available on a specific disease in a particular population to support faster and more efficient drug development.
David explains, "Computational disease models are the core technology that we've developed, and it is a method to incorporate all the available information, specifically omics and molecular data, that is available in one disease, in one place, in a way that is useful. But people who have been involved in the molecular data space for a while know that the integration of multiple data types and multiple data sets is very difficult, and it needs to be done in a certain context. The context in which we are incorporating the data is allowing the users to run those synthetic trials on their own or using our teams."
"One of the features that we have is the ability to run synthetic basket trials. So, take one drug, assuming the drug you want to evaluate, and run it across multiple indications in these dozens of indications. To conduct that with human subjects is prohibitive for cost and ethical reasons. And the same way, when we are conducting synthetic umbrella trials, where we're taking a specific patient population, and we are evaluating the efficacy of many different compounds in a specific patient population. Again, this would be very difficult to conduct in a clinical setting with human subjects. These are things that synthetic in silico trials allow you to do that clinical endeavors would not."
@CytoReason #DiseaseModels #ComputationalDiseaseModels #SyntheticClinicalTrials #ClinicalTrials #ComputationalBiology #DrugDevelopment #DrugDiscovery #AI #RareDiseases
CytoReason.com
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Tom Dugan is the President of Integrum, which is transforming the lives of amputees through a unique orthopedic implant that enables them to attach their prosthesis, their prosthetic leg, or any other type of prosthesis, directly to the musculoskeletal system. These bone-anchored prostheses dramatically improve the lives of amputees with the additional benefit of osseoperception, where they can feel the type of surface they are walking on.
Tom explains, "What we do is an alternative to the socket. We have a surgical implant, and it's a fixture that is implanted into the canal of the patient's femur. And if you're familiar with dental implants, that's probably a good analogy because the dental implant was founded by a professor in Sweden called Per-Ingvar Brånemark. And Professor Brånemark, back in the '50s, was doing research in rabbits, and he implanted titanium fixtures into the rabbits that had some optical technology so you could see what happens with the bone in terms of healing."
"What happened is Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark, along with some other people including his son, Rickard, who's our CEO -- Rickard's a surgeon and an engineer and a Ph.D.-- took that core technology and adapted it to orthopedic use so they could deal with some of these issues the patients were having with their socket prosthesis. So it's an alternative to using a socket."
"With socket prosthesis, the patient is essentially supporting themselves with their soft tissue and muscle, the stump of their leg. With our system, there's now a direct connection between the prosthesis, the prosthetic leg, and the patient's musculoskeletal system. And because of that, the patient will get additional benefits such as things like osseoperception, where they can actually feel the type of surface that they're walking on, whether it'd be grass or carpet, or tile. They can feel where their leg is in space, which is something you really don't get when you're wearing a socket prosthesis."
#Integrum #Amputee #AmputeeLife #BoneAnchoredProstheses #OPRAImplantSystem #OrthopedicSurgery #Osseointegration #Prosthetics #Orthopedics #OrthoTrauma #ImplantTechnology #MedTech
Integrum.se
Listen to the podcast here
Tom Dugan is the President of Integrum, which is transforming the lives of amputees through a unique orthopedic implant that enables them to attach their prosthesis, their prosthetic leg, or any other type of prosthesis, directly to the musculoskeletal system. These bone-anchored prostheses dramatically improve the lives of amputees with the additional benefit of osseoperception, where they can feel the type of surface they are walking on.
Tom explains, "What we do is an alternative to the socket. We have a surgical implant, and it's a fixture that is implanted into the canal of the patient's femur. And if you're familiar with dental implants, that's probably a good analogy because the dental implant was founded by a professor in Sweden called Per-Ingvar Brånemark. And Professor Brånemark, back in the '50s, was doing research in rabbits, and he implanted titanium fixtures into the rabbits that had some optical technology so you could see what happens with the bone in terms of healing."
"What happened is Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark, along with some other people including his son, Rickard, who's our CEO -- Rickard's a surgeon and an engineer and a Ph.D.-- took that core technology and adapted it to orthopedic use so they could deal with some of these issues the patients were having with their socket prosthesis. So it's an alternative to using a socket."
"With socket prosthesis, the patient is essentially supporting themselves with their soft tissue and muscle, the stump of their leg. With our system, there's now a direct connection between the prosthesis, the prosthetic leg, and the patient's musculoskeletal system. And because of that, the patient will get additional benefits such as things like osseoperception, where they can actually feel the type of surface that they're walking on, whether it'd be grass or carpet, or tile. They can feel where their leg is in space, which is something you really don't get when you're wearing a socket prosthesis."
#Integrum #Amputee #AmputeeLife #BoneAnchoredProstheses #OPRAImplantSystem #OrthopedicSurgery #Osseointegration #Prosthetics #Orthopedics #OrthoTrauma #ImplantTechnology #MedTech
Integrum.se
Download the transcript here
Dr. Tram Tran, the Chief Medical Officer at Glympse Bio, is taking the knowledge about the mechanistic roles protease play in many diseases to develop an injectable biosensor to measure protease activity rather than just a one-time measurement of the amount of protein in the blood. The platform uses machine learning to analyze different protease levels and the protease activity over time to come up with a classifier and differentiate between disease activity and not disease activity.
Tram explains, "So, a couple of years ago, though, I think recognizing that having an injectable platform and then having the patient urinate and check the urine for the level of protease activity might be a little bit more complicated than what would be ideal in the clinic for the patient. We actually were able to switch over to a blood-based test, where we are able to measure the patient's disease activity via protease activity via a simple blood test. And so, I think that was really a remarkable change over the past couple of years."
"We've been working on a couple of different diseases and better understanding how to measure and understand diseases and protease activity through a simple blood test now. So, I think that's really important. This ex vivo platform development was a key change. We presented data last year on NASH, which is a very common disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. And this year, we're talking more about liver cancer or hepatocellular carcinoma."
@GlympseBio #Diagnostic #Biosensor #LiverDisease #HCC #HepatocellularCarcinoma #ProteinActivity #Protease
GlympseBio.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Tram Tran, the Chief Medical Officer at Glympse Bio, is taking the knowledge about the mechanistic roles protease play in many diseases to develop an injectable biosensor to measure protease activity rather than just a one-time measurement of the amount of protein in the blood. The platform uses machine learning to analyze different protease levels and the protease activity over time to come up with a classifier and differentiate between disease activity and not disease activity.
Tram explains, "So, a couple of years ago, though, I think recognizing that having an injectable platform and then having the patient urinate and check the urine for the level of protease activity might be a little bit more complicated than what would be ideal in the clinic for the patient. We actually were able to switch over to a blood-based test, where we are able to measure the patient's disease activity via protease activity via a simple blood test. And so, I think that was really a remarkable change over the past couple of years."
"We've been working on a couple of different diseases and better understanding how to measure and understand diseases and protease activity through a simple blood test now. So, I think that's really important. This ex vivo platform development was a key change. We presented data last year on NASH, which is a very common disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. And this year, we're talking more about liver cancer or hepatocellular carcinoma."
@GlympseBio #Diagnostic #Biosensor #LiverDisease #HCC #HepatocellularCarcinoma #ProteinActivity #Protease
GlympseBio.com
Download the transcript here
David Vivero is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Amino Health. He brings his experience from Zillow to make Amino a convenient site where employer-based healthcare plan members can find information about their healthcare options, make appointments, and access understandable cost estimations. The Transparency in Coverage Rule says that beginning January 1, 2023, every health insurer in the U.S. has to ensure that their members have access to the price of at least 500 services inside their health plan. That will become all services by January 1, 2024.
David explains, "Our clients are the sponsors of these health plans, these employers, the labor unions, and the health plans themselves. And the reason they partner with Amino is that we're provably able to support their members and help them make the right choice at three times the rate than if they didn't have Amino. This is part of the reason that there is this push for greater transparency so that people make better decisions. That's what we do. The savings we create for a member and the reduction in infections and readmissions for a member are very good for their employers, labor unions, states, municipalities, and health plans."
"One of the things that makes Amino so unique is that we started as a direct-to-consumer website, akin to what we did at Zillow. And I was not a healthcare maven coming into this. I really benefited from having this tabula rasa completely open-minded about dealing with these fundamental questions of how to help someone navigate healthcare."
@AminoHealth #AminoHealth #HealthcarePriceTransparency #TransparencyinCoverage #DigitalHealth #HealthcareNavigation #Healthcare
partners.amino.com
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David Vivero is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Amino Health. He brings his experience from Zillow to make Amino a convenient site where employer-based healthcare plan members can find information about their healthcare options, make appointments, and access understandable cost estimations. The Transparency in Coverage Rule says that beginning January 1, 2023, every health insurer in the U.S. has to ensure that their members have access to the price of at least 500 services inside their health plan. That will become all services by January 1, 2024.
David explains, "Our clients are the sponsors of these health plans, these employers, the labor unions, and the health plans themselves. And the reason they partner with Amino is that we're provably able to support their members and help them make the right choice at three times the rate than if they didn't have Amino. This is part of the reason that there is this push for greater transparency so that people make better decisions. That's what we do. The savings we create for a member and the reduction in infections and readmissions for a member are very good for their employers, labor unions, states, municipalities, and health plans."
"One of the things that makes Amino so unique is that we started as a direct-to-consumer website, akin to what we did at Zillow. And I was not a healthcare maven coming into this. I really benefited from having this tabula rasa completely open-minded about dealing with these fundamental questions of how to help someone navigate healthcare."
@AminoHealth #AminoHealth #HealthcarePriceTransparency #TransparencyinCoverage #DigitalHealth #HealthcareNavigation #Healthcare
partners.amino.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Shrujal Baxi is a medical oncologist and the Chief Medical Officer at Iterative Health pioneer in precision medicine technologies for gastroenterology. The Iterative SKOUT polyp detection tool provides algorithmic assistance to physicians during a colonoscopy to improve the ability to detect and remove polyps. With colon cancer getting diagnosed at a younger age, it is increasingly important to detect polyps as early as possible.
Shrujal explains, "I think there's a lot of science in the space for detection of precancerous tumors throughout the body. In colon cancer currently, it's still very anatomic, which is we look for polyps, we look for abnormalities, dysplasia, we look for things that we can see on the end of the camera that's a colonoscopy. We flag them, and we try to remove them. Now, many of those lesions may never have gone on to become cancer. Part of this is our learning, over time, that there are certain polyps or certain lesions that are more likely to become cancerous, and can we target our interventions and only resect those."
"What we found is that in studies, and these are out there, when physicians do colonoscopies in the morning versus when they're done in the afternoon, there's more polyp detection in the morning than in the afternoon. And we can postulate why that might be, but it suggests that pattern recognition requires a level of sort concentration that is still a human-dependent process."
"By having AI in the background running alongside the physician's interpretation, if the physician found every one of those polyps on their own, that's great. If the physician happens to have tired eyes by the end of the day, the polyp detection tool is there to make sure that doesn't get missed. It's not meant to replace the physician. It's meant to be there to sort of be an extra set of flags, so to speak."
@IterativeScopes #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Gastroenterology #Colonoscopy #ColonCancer #PatientCentricity #PrecisionMedicine
iterative.health
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Shrujal Baxi is a medical oncologist and the Chief Medical Officer at Iterative Health pioneer in precision medicine technologies for gastroenterology. The Iterative SKOUT polyp detection tool provides algorithmic assistance to physicians during a colonoscopy to improve the ability to detect and remove polyps. With colon cancer getting diagnosed at a younger age, it is increasingly important to detect polyps as early as possible.
Shrujal explains, "I think there's a lot of science in the space for detection of precancerous tumors throughout the body. In colon cancer currently, it's still very anatomic, which is we look for polyps, we look for abnormalities, dysplasia, we look for things that we can see on the end of the camera that's a colonoscopy. We flag them, and we try to remove them. Now, many of those lesions may never have gone on to become cancer. Part of this is our learning, over time, that there are certain polyps or certain lesions that are more likely to become cancerous, and can we target our interventions and only resect those."
"What we found is that in studies, and these are out there, when physicians do colonoscopies in the morning versus when they're done in the afternoon, there's more polyp detection in the morning than in the afternoon. And we can postulate why that might be, but it suggests that pattern recognition requires a level of sort concentration that is still a human-dependent process."
"By having AI in the background running alongside the physician's interpretation, if the physician found every one of those polyps on their own, that's great. If the physician happens to have tired eyes by the end of the day, the polyp detection tool is there to make sure that doesn't get missed. It's not meant to replace the physician. It's meant to be there to sort of be an extra set of flags, so to speak."
@IterativeScopes #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Gastroenterology #Colonoscopy #ColonCancer #PatientCentricity #PrecisionMedicine
iterative.health
Download the transcript here
Teodora Pavkovic is a youth psychologist and Director of Community Engagement at Linewize, whose mission is to protect every child's digital journey and to keep students safe at school, at home, and everywhere in between as they engage with the online world. The pandemic changed how students learn and socialize. The increased use of online devices, social media, and suspect websites impacted the mental health and well-being of students, and changed the responsibilities of teachers and parents to ensure safe digital behavior.
Teodora explains, "On the one hand, we are a technology company. We provide tech-based solutions in the form of filtering, classroom management, of safety monitoring. And then, more recently, a well-being assessment tool as well. And then the second piece, which is particularly relevant for me and for my work, is that community support and education. So really making sure that the staff and the parents, and the students themselves are educated around all the topics within the online safety and digital wellness realm."
"I don't think that we can talk about the youth mental health crisis and children's well-being without also really talking about that online digital component. The two are just inextricably linked at this point."
@Linewize #Linewize #MentalHealth #StudentSafety #DigitalWellness #OnlineSafety #Cybersecurity #Students
Linewize.com
Listen to the podcast here
Teodora Pavkovic is a youth psychologist and Director of Community Engagement at Linewize, whose mission is to protect every child's digital journey and to keep students safe at school, at home, and everywhere in between as they engage with the online world. The pandemic changed how students learn and socialize. The increased use of online devices, social media, and suspect websites impacted the mental health and well-being of students, and changed the responsibilities of teachers and parents to ensure safe digital behavior.
Teodora explains, "On the one hand, we are a technology company. We provide tech-based solutions in the form of filtering, classroom management, of safety monitoring. And then, more recently, a well-being assessment tool as well. And then the second piece, which is particularly relevant for me and for my work, is that community support and education. So really making sure that the staff and the parents, and the students themselves are educated around all the topics within the online safety and digital wellness realm."
"I don't think that we can talk about the youth mental health crisis and children's well-being without also really talking about that online digital component. The two are just inextricably linked at this point."
@Linewize #Linewize #MentalHealth #StudentSafety #DigitalWellness #OnlineSafety #Cybersecurity #Students
Linewize.com
Download the transcript here
Lisbeth Votruba, Chief Clinical Officer at AvaSure, reflects on the challenges for nurses and hospitals in these times of nursing shortages, burnout, and expedited retirements. The AvaSure solutions provide virtual nursing, safety monitoring, and expert virtual nursing to monitor critically ill and high-acuity patients. Experienced nurses and those trained as virtual nurses embrace this solution as a way to care for patients while supporting the efficient use of hospital resources for bedside care.
Lisbeth explains, "The first model that I'll talk about is the Telesitter® solution, which supports nurses indirectly. This involves using mobile devices or sometimes fixed cameras with really amazing audio in patient rooms. We are using that to keep patients safe, prevent falls, prevent elopement. This also was used to protect nurses from COVID because patients were ripping off their oxygen masks because they were confused and reminding them to put their masks back on again."
"Prior to this revolution in virtual patient monitoring in the hospital setting, the only thing that hospitals could think to do was assign one-to-one what they called "sitters" to confused or at-risk patients. So 5% of the hospital census would have a staff member, not a nurse, a nursing assistant sitting 24/7, watching them and trying to keep them safe physically. The Telesitter® solution allows one remote, trained staff member to monitor 12 to 16 patients, interacting with them, talking to them, and sometimes needing to use alarms to keep them safe. That frees up that bedside staff to be back out helping the rest of the care unit."
@AvaSure #VirtualNurse #VirtualCare #NurseLeaders #RegisteredNurse #AcuteCare #Nurses #Telesitter #Hospitals #DigitalHealth
AvaSure.com
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Lisbeth Votruba, Chief Clinical Officer at AvaSure, reflects on the challenges for nurses and hospitals in these times of nursing shortages, burnout, and expedited retirements. The AvaSure solutions provide virtual nursing, safety monitoring, and expert virtual nursing to monitor critically ill and high-acuity patients. Experienced nurses and those trained as virtual nurses embrace this solution as a way to care for patients while supporting the efficient use of hospital resources for bedside care.
Lisbeth explains, "The first model that I'll talk about is the Telesitter® solution, which supports nurses indirectly. This involves using mobile devices or sometimes fixed cameras with really amazing audio in patient rooms. We are using that to keep patients safe, prevent falls, prevent elopement. This also was used to protect nurses from COVID because patients were ripping off their oxygen masks because they were confused and reminding them to put their masks back on again."
"Prior to this revolution in virtual patient monitoring in the hospital setting, the only thing that hospitals could think to do was assign one-to-one what they called "sitters" to confused or at-risk patients. So 5% of the hospital census would have a staff member, not a nurse, a nursing assistant sitting 24/7, watching them and trying to keep them safe physically. The Telesitter® solution allows one remote, trained staff member to monitor 12 to 16 patients, interacting with them, talking to them, and sometimes needing to use alarms to keep them safe. That frees up that bedside staff to be back out helping the rest of the care unit."
@AvaSure #VirtualNurse #VirtualCare #NurseLeaders #RegisteredNurse #AcuteCare #Nurses #Telesitter #Hospitals #DigitalHealth
AvaSure.com
Download the transcript here
Rayne Guest, the Founder and CEO of ArrowClean, raises the alarm about the lack of effectiveness of traditional disinfectants to eliminate superbugs and other contaminants. Some of the most vulnerable people are in hospitals where patients and staff are exposed to germs, many of which are not treatable. ArrowClean is bringing a hypoallergenic, environmentally safe solution to the disinfectant industry.
Rayne explains, "We have hand sanitizers that take forever to work. Nobody's using them properly. We have people that are not disinfecting properly. They're not letting disinfectants sit long enough on surfaces to kill bugs. Most disinfectants don't kill superbugs because there are different types of pathogens. And a lot of disinfectants also cause harm to human and environmental health. So, it's kind of like we're stacking the cards against ourselves in a lot of ways."
"We have a patented device that creates hundreds of gallons of disinfectant and cleaner in a day. It has that capability. The products that come out of the device are hypoallergenic, and they kill germs really fast. A lot of products and disinfectants are out on the market, and you actually have to keep them wet on the surface for 10 minutes for them to work, for them to kill the germs that they say they kill."
#ArrowClean #Superbugs #Disinfectant #Hospitals
ArrowClean.com
Listen to the podcast here
Rayne Guest, the Founder and CEO of ArrowClean, raises the alarm about the lack of effectiveness of traditional disinfectants to eliminate superbugs and other contaminants. Some of the most vulnerable people are in hospitals where patients and staff are exposed to germs, many of which are not treatable. ArrowClean is bringing a hypoallergenic, environmentally safe solution to the disinfectant industry.
Rayne explains, "We have hand sanitizers that take forever to work. Nobody's using them properly. We have people that are not disinfecting properly. They're not letting disinfectants sit long enough on surfaces to kill bugs. Most disinfectants don't kill superbugs because there are different types of pathogens. And a lot of disinfectants also cause harm to human and environmental health. So, it's kind of like we're stacking the cards against ourselves in a lot of ways."
"We have a patented device that creates hundreds of gallons of disinfectant and cleaner in a day. It has that capability. The products that come out of the device are hypoallergenic, and they kill germs really fast. A lot of products and disinfectants are out on the market, and you actually have to keep them wet on the surface for 10 minutes for them to work, for them to kill the germs that they say they kill."
#ArrowClean #Superbugs #Disinfectant #Hospitals
ArrowClean.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Mark Sumeray is the Chief Medical Officer of Amolyt Pharma, focusing on rare diseases that affect the endocrine system, the hormonal system that regulates essential body functions. Despite the surgeon's best efforts, the parathyroid glands may be damaged or removed when operating on the thyroid gland creating permanent hypoparathyroidism. As a result, the body does not produce sufficient levels of the parathyroid hormone, which regulates the level of calcium in the blood. Current treatment includes large doses of calcium tablets and vitamin D, which does not address disabling symptoms and long-term complications for the kidney, heart, and brain.
Mark explains, "If you have a deficiency of a hormone, in this case, the parathyroid hormone, then the most obvious thing to do is to replace the missing hormone by giving the hormone or something very similar to the hormone to the patient. So instead of the glands producing the hormone as they should do in the normal situation, in this case, we give something that acts like parathyroid hormone by injection."
"The company has a peptide, which is a type of chemical that is made up of building blocks of amino acids that looks very similar to parathyroid hormone, the missing hormone, but has some important differences to it. It's been specifically synthesized or created by chemists to mimic the action of the natural hormone, and it is given by injection every day to patients. And then, as I mentioned right at the beginning, it's currently in early-stage clinical trials."
@AmolytPharma #Hypoparathyroidism #RareEndocrine #TherapeuticPeptides #Endocrine #RareDisease #Acromegaly #Endocrinology
amolytpharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Mark Sumeray is the Chief Medical Officer of Amolyt Pharma, focusing on rare diseases that affect the endocrine system, the hormonal system that regulates essential body functions. Despite the surgeon's best efforts, the parathyroid glands may be damaged or removed when operating on the thyroid gland creating permanent hypoparathyroidism. As a result, the body does not produce sufficient levels of the parathyroid hormone, which regulates the level of calcium in the blood. Current treatment includes large doses of calcium tablets and vitamin D, which does not address disabling symptoms and long-term complications for the kidney, heart, and brain.
Mark explains, "If you have a deficiency of a hormone, in this case, the parathyroid hormone, then the most obvious thing to do is to replace the missing hormone by giving the hormone or something very similar to the hormone to the patient. So instead of the glands producing the hormone as they should do in the normal situation, in this case, we give something that acts like parathyroid hormone by injection."
"The company has a peptide, which is a type of chemical that is made up of building blocks of amino acids that looks very similar to parathyroid hormone, the missing hormone, but has some important differences to it. It's been specifically synthesized or created by chemists to mimic the action of the natural hormone, and it is given by injection every day to patients. And then, as I mentioned right at the beginning, it's currently in early-stage clinical trials."
@AmolytPharma #Hypoparathyroidism #RareEndocrine #TherapeuticPeptides #Endocrine #RareDisease #Acromegaly #Endocrinology
amolytpharma.com
Download the transcript here
Rick Hawkins, CEO and Chairman of Lumos Pharma, is developing an oral compound to treat idiopathic pediatric growth hormone deficiency. Currently, the only treatment for this condition is an injection of recombinant growth hormone. The small molecule drug LUM-201 increases the amplitude of the 23-25 peak releases of growth hormone during the day and night and stays within the normal physiology of the endocrine feedback loop.
Rick explains, "Although we are a drug that we're starting with pediatric growth hormone deficiency, there are actually 11 different diseases of growth hormone deficiency. PGHD happens to be one of the largest ones, which is why we are starting there. In addition to the fact that the burden of care, kids taking lots of injections for that period of time, having an oral alternative is a huge step up in not just compliance and ease of use, but the overall burden of care improves dramatically."
"First of all, this is another one of those examples in the pharmaceutical industry where Big Pharma puts a drug on the shelf, and, once again, it takes maybe one individual or a small group of people to understand that this is the drug that really needs to be taken outside the traditional walls of the pharmaceutical industry. In this case, it was Merck. Merck developed this small molecule as an indication in diseases or the symptoms of aging."
"The drug essentially did what it was supposed to do. However, the FDA essentially said you have no regulatory pathway. These are symptoms of aging and really not a disease. So, they put the drug on the shelf."
@Lumos_Pharma #GrowthDeficiencies #GrowthHormoneDeficiency #GrowthDisorders #RareEndocrineDiseases #OraGrowtHTrials #RareDiseases
Lumos-Pharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Rick Hawkins, CEO and Chairman of Lumos Pharma, is developing an oral compound to treat idiopathic pediatric growth hormone deficiency. Currently, the only treatment for this condition is an injection of recombinant growth hormone. The small molecule drug LUM-201 increases the amplitude of the 23-25 peak releases of growth hormone during the day and night and stays within the normal physiology of the endocrine feedback loop.
Rick explains, "Although we are a drug that we're starting with pediatric growth hormone deficiency, there are actually 11 different diseases of growth hormone deficiency. PGHD happens to be one of the largest ones, which is why we are starting there. In addition to the fact that the burden of care, kids taking lots of injections for that period of time, having an oral alternative is a huge step up in not just compliance and ease of use, but the overall burden of care improves dramatically."
"First of all, this is another one of those examples in the pharmaceutical industry where Big Pharma puts a drug on the shelf, and, once again, it takes maybe one individual or a small group of people to understand that this is the drug that really needs to be taken outside the traditional walls of the pharmaceutical industry. In this case, it was Merck. Merck developed this small molecule as an indication in diseases or the symptoms of aging."
"The drug essentially did what it was supposed to do. However, the FDA essentially said you have no regulatory pathway. These are symptoms of aging and really not a disease. So, they put the drug on the shelf."
@Lumos_Pharma #GrowthDeficiencies #GrowthHormoneDeficiency #GrowthDisorders #RareEndocrineDiseases #OraGrowtHTrials #RareDiseases
Lumos-Pharma.com
Download the transcript here
Ophir Tanz is the Founder and CEO of Pearl, a company utilizing AI to revolutionize the dental industry. Their FDA-cleared product can detect nine different dental conditions. The diagnostic assistance device analyzes radiography images in real-time to identify pathology, existing restorations, and natural anatomy. Their Second Opinion tool is designed to be used by the practitioner to design a precise course of treatment that the patient understands.
Ophir elaborates, "We think dentistry is particularly ripe for the infusion of AI and particularly what we do, which is a form of AI called computer vision, into the category. So first off, dentists capture more x-rays and radiography than any other form of medicine does on an annual basis. And if you look at the levels of concurrence across different practitioners and how they're detecting pathology, you have a disease like interproximal caries or periapical radiolucency or calculus. These are very, very easy to miss, especially at the early stages. So, if you're able to provide a level of assistance and point out areas of interest chairside in a patient-facing manner, that tends to dramatically increase the quality and precision, and accuracy of the diagnosis."
"Computers are able to identify something like 1,000 shades of gray. I think humans are able to identify something like 30 to 50 shades of gray. So it's just much, much more sensitive. And obviously, given that it is a machine, it is entirely consistent and precise in the kind of output that it reveals. We're not going to magically identify anything that is just fundamentally not visible in a radiograph. It's not magic. We are identifying elements that are visible in the radiograph but with a lot of sensitivity."
@Hello_Pearl #Dentristry #Dentist #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ComputerVision #DentalCare
hellopearl.com
Listen to the podcast here
Ophir Tanz is the Founder and CEO of Pearl, a company utilizing AI to revolutionize the dental industry. Their FDA-cleared product can detect nine different dental conditions. The diagnostic assistance device analyzes radiography images in real-time to identify pathology, existing restorations, and natural anatomy. Their Second Opinion tool is designed to be used by the practitioner to design a precise course of treatment that the patient understands.
Ophir elaborates, "We think dentistry is particularly ripe for the infusion of AI and particularly what we do, which is a form of AI called computer vision, into the category. So first off, dentists capture more x-rays and radiography than any other form of medicine does on an annual basis. And if you look at the levels of concurrence across different practitioners and how they're detecting pathology, you have a disease like interproximal caries or periapical radiolucency or calculus. These are very, very easy to miss, especially at the early stages. So, if you're able to provide a level of assistance and point out areas of interest chairside in a patient-facing manner, that tends to dramatically increase the quality and precision, and accuracy of the diagnosis."
"Computers are able to identify something like 1,000 shades of gray. I think humans are able to identify something like 30 to 50 shades of gray. So it's just much, much more sensitive. And obviously, given that it is a machine, it is entirely consistent and precise in the kind of output that it reveals. We're not going to magically identify anything that is just fundamentally not visible in a radiograph. It's not magic. We are identifying elements that are visible in the radiograph but with a lot of sensitivity."
@Hello_Pearl #Dentristry #Dentist #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ComputerVision #DentalCare
hellopearl.com
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Nicole Broadhurst, CEO and Founder of Tennessee Health Advocates, is an expert on the world of independent Health Advocates, including clinical, cancer, rare disease advocacy, and medical billing and health insurance. She emphasizes the risks patients face when they do not understand how their health insurance works and the role an independent advisor can play in sorting out details and solving problems.
Nicole explains, "I would say the top risk for patient financial safety is that most patients don't understand their health insurance and the associated cost-sharing responsibilities. The words seem very simple, and we hear a lot about the deductible, coinsurance, copay, maximum out-of-pocket, and the total cost of coverage, which includes your maximum financial risk. Most people don't understand exactly how that all works."
"The second one, I would say, is not understanding how to utilize our healthcare options. A lot of people don't understand when it's appropriate to use their health insurance or if it would be beneficial for them to waive their insurance benefit and pay cash instead. Also, they don't know, and they don't understand what facilities to choose and what providers or their real options are."
#tennesseehealthadvocates #medicalbills #healthinsurance #reviewyourbills #understandyourbills #reviewyourmedicalbills #billingerrors #medicalbillingprofessional
TennesseeHealthAdvocates.com
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Nicole Broadhurst, CEO and Founder of Tennessee Health Advocates, is an expert on the world of independent Health Advocates, including clinical, cancer, rare disease advocacy, and medical billing and health insurance. She emphasizes the risks patients face when they do not understand how their health insurance works and the role an independent advisor can play in sorting out details and solving problems.
Nicole explains, "I would say the top risk for patient financial safety is that most patients don't understand their health insurance and the associated cost-sharing responsibilities. The words seem very simple, and we hear a lot about the deductible, coinsurance, copay, maximum out-of-pocket, and the total cost of coverage, which includes your maximum financial risk. Most people don't understand exactly how that all works."
"The second one, I would say, is not understanding how to utilize our healthcare options. A lot of people don't understand when it's appropriate to use their health insurance or if it would be beneficial for them to waive their insurance benefit and pay cash instead. Also, they don't know, and they don't understand what facilities to choose and what providers or their real options are."
#tennesseehealthadvocates #medicalbills #healthinsurance #reviewyourbills #understandyourbills #reviewyourmedicalbills #billingerrors #medicalbillingprofessional
TennesseeHealthAdvocates.com
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Dr. David Huang is Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer at Peptilogics and working to change the approach for treating and reducing reinfection rates of periprosthetic joint infection, PJI. Their lead highly charged peptide PLG0206 has been shown to be broad spectrum and active against multi-drug resistant bacteria, common causes of PJI. Peptilogics' AI/ML platform is accelerating peptide discovery to reach better clinical candidates in therapeutic areas such as rare diseases, immuno-oncology, and immunology.
David explains, "Peptilogics' approach to changing the treatment paradigm for treating PJI is by treating PJI directly at the site of infection. Instead of administering an antibiotic systemically or by mouth, as mentioned earlier, Peptilogics has an engineered cationic peptide and an irrigation solution that can be administered directly to the site of infection in the wound cavity of the knee, for example. The knee does not have a great blood supply. Therefore, antibiotics given intravenously or by mouth have a difficult time getting to the site of infection in the knee."
"Peptilogics' lead peptide called PLG0206 is an engineered cationic antibacterial peptide, which has orphan drug QIDP, which stands for qualified infectious disease product, and fast track designation from the FDA. And the way that PLG works is by its novel mechanism of action. It selectively binds to and disrupts the integrity of the bacterial membrane by altering the physical characteristics of the membrane, leading to a rapid loss of the bacterial cell membrane potential that results in cell death."
@Peptilogics #Peptilogics #PJI #PeriprostheticJointInfection #Peptides
Peptilogics.com
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Dr. David Huang is Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer at Peptilogics and working to change the approach for treating and reducing reinfection rates of periprosthetic joint infection, PJI. Their lead highly charged peptide PLG0206 has been shown to be broad spectrum and active against multi-drug resistant bacteria, common causes of PJI. Peptilogics' AI/ML platform is accelerating peptide discovery to reach better clinical candidates in therapeutic areas such as rare diseases, immuno-oncology, and immunology.
David explains, "Peptilogics' approach to changing the treatment paradigm for treating PJI is by treating PJI directly at the site of infection. Instead of administering an antibiotic systemically or by mouth, as mentioned earlier, Peptilogics has an engineered cationic peptide and an irrigation solution that can be administered directly to the site of infection in the wound cavity of the knee, for example. The knee does not have a great blood supply. Therefore, antibiotics given intravenously or by mouth have a difficult time getting to the site of infection in the knee."
"Peptilogics' lead peptide called PLG0206 is an engineered cationic antibacterial peptide, which has orphan drug QIDP, which stands for qualified infectious disease product, and fast track designation from the FDA. And the way that PLG works is by its novel mechanism of action. It selectively binds to and disrupts the integrity of the bacterial membrane by altering the physical characteristics of the membrane, leading to a rapid loss of the bacterial cell membrane potential that results in cell death."
@Peptilogics #Peptilogics #PJI #PeriprostheticJointInfection #Peptides
Peptilogics.com
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Virginia Halsey, Vice President of Product Management at FDB, First Databank, is focused on helping pharmacists use drug interaction information, drug alerts and dosage data in smarter, more efficient ways. WIth patient safety in mind, FDB is arming pharmacists with relevant content to determine the clinical impact of a specific drug on a specific patient.
Virginia elaborates, "First Databank is drug content, but a very specific niche of drug content in that it is structured in such a way that it's built into the workflow of other systems. So, for instance, if a patient goes into a retail pharmacy, the pharmacist behind the counter is using their system to basically fill the prescription, adjudicate the claim, and so forth. But that drug content that's within their system comes from First Databank. Content that describes the products that are available, the pricing, and most importantly, clinical information about the drug, such as what's the appropriate dose or what are the drug interactions."
"It's saving time, and it's addressing cognitive overload. So yes, the pharmacist can read this list of potential safety issues and interpret it, but there are a couple of problems. One is that then you have to take that time to sort through and think about the alternatives, maybe look something up. The other is, then, you get a lack of standardization because one pharmacist may come to one conclusion. Another may come to another conclusion instead of having standardized practice protocols and alternatives."
@FDB_US #FirstDatabank #Pharmacy #Healthtech #Pharmacists #MedicationGuidance #HIT
fdbhealth.com
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Virginia Halsey, Vice President of Product Management at FDB, First Databank, is focused on helping pharmacists use drug interaction information, drug alerts and dosage data in smarter, more efficient ways. WIth patient safety in mind, FDB is arming pharmacists with relevant content to determine the clinical impact of a specific drug on a specific patient.
Virginia elaborates, "First Databank is drug content, but a very specific niche of drug content in that it is structured in such a way that it's built into the workflow of other systems. So, for instance, if a patient goes into a retail pharmacy, the pharmacist behind the counter is using their system to basically fill the prescription, adjudicate the claim, and so forth. But that drug content that's within their system comes from First Databank. Content that describes the products that are available, the pricing, and most importantly, clinical information about the drug, such as what's the appropriate dose or what are the drug interactions."
"It's saving time, and it's addressing cognitive overload. So yes, the pharmacist can read this list of potential safety issues and interpret it, but there are a couple of problems. One is that then you have to take that time to sort through and think about the alternatives, maybe look something up. The other is, then, you get a lack of standardization because one pharmacist may come to one conclusion. Another may come to another conclusion instead of having standardized practice protocols and alternatives."
@FDB_US #FirstDatabank #Pharmacy #Healthtech #Pharmacists #MedicationGuidance #HIT
fdbhealth.com
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Dr. Jason Cohen, Senior Director of Clinical Solutions at Qventus, is addressing the problems that hospitals face regarding discharging patients. Much of care planning starts during hospitalization or at the last minute, so patients and caregivers are often left confused about the next appropriate care environment. Qventus is deploying AI to build a model with hundreds of different data points to predict highly-individualized discharge plans. This benefits patients, hospitals, and care teams by keeping track of progress, identifying bottlenecks, and making necessary adjustments to the care plan.
Jason elaborates, "We look at patients, for example, who get an early discharge plan, which we define as being an estimated date of discharge and a disposition where they're likely to go. Those patients that have their care team aligned around that early plan by the second midnight in the hospital experience have significantly fewer excess days in the hospital. They're more likely to leave on time and get to their next most appropriate care environment, whether that's a skilled facility, rehab, home with home help, et cetera. And then on the other side of that, again, is that tension with the dynamically changing nature of that patient's health, and things can change from day to day."
"Our solution has multiple different components, which hopefully we'll get into, but one of the core parts is our AI machine learning model that is able to help care teams align on that early discharge plan as soon as possible. And in the case of our models, the majority of patients, we're able to populate that plan directly into the EHR so that there's transparency across all those teams after the first midnight in the hospital."
@Qventus #Qventus #HospitalDischargePlanning #HospitalDischarge #AI #BigData #Hospitals
Qventus.com
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Dr. Jason Cohen, Senior Director of Clinical Solutions at Qventus, is addressing the problems that hospitals face regarding discharging patients. Much of care planning starts during hospitalization or at the last minute, so patients and caregivers are often left confused about the next appropriate care environment. Qventus is deploying AI to build a model with hundreds of different data points to predict highly-individualized discharge plans. This benefits patients, hospitals, and care teams by keeping track of progress, identifying bottlenecks, and making necessary adjustments to the care plan.
Jason elaborates, "We look at patients, for example, who get an early discharge plan, which we define as being an estimated date of discharge and a disposition where they're likely to go. Those patients that have their care team aligned around that early plan by the second midnight in the hospital experience have significantly fewer excess days in the hospital. They're more likely to leave on time and get to their next most appropriate care environment, whether that's a skilled facility, rehab, home with home help, et cetera. And then on the other side of that, again, is that tension with the dynamically changing nature of that patient's health, and things can change from day to day."
"Our solution has multiple different components, which hopefully we'll get into, but one of the core parts is our AI machine learning model that is able to help care teams align on that early discharge plan as soon as possible. And in the case of our models, the majority of patients, we're able to populate that plan directly into the EHR so that there's transparency across all those teams after the first midnight in the hospital."
@Qventus #Qventus #HospitalDischargePlanning #HospitalDischarge #Hospitals #AI #BigData
Qventus.com
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Robert Hoffman President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at Kintara Therapeutics, is developing a drug to treat glioblastoma, the most common and deadliest form of brain tumor. The only drug temozolomide, TMZ, was approved in 1999 and the overall survival rate is very limited. The Kintara drug VAL-083 crosses the blood-brain barrier and is also showing promise for pediatric brain tumors and some ovarian cancers.
Robert explains, "The mechanism of VAL-083 differs from other key chemotherapeutic agents, including TMZ. It induces interstrand cross-links at guanine N07, causing DNA double-strand break and cancer cell death. If you compare that to TMZ, it only induces a single-strand DNA break at N07, and the tumor cells can repair them. That's really an important distinction of our mechanism of action. So, we're really, really excited."
"So, I could imagine once it's approved, physicians would potentially combine it with TMZ, potentially which still may happen. Or Avastin, potentially. So, yes, there is a possibility for that. We're looking at, coincidentally, ovarian cancer with VAL-083 with some PARP inhibitors. So, there are other potential combinations that we're looking at down the road, as well."
"Another underserved area is pediatric brain tumors. We're looking at DIPG, which is a pediatric indication, as well as medulloblastoma"
@Kintara_Thera #Kintara #GBM #Glioblastoma #Cancer #BrainCancer #BrainTumor
kintara.com
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Robert Hoffman President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at Kintara Therapeutics, is developing a drug to treat glioblastoma, the most common and deadliest form of brain tumor. The only drug temozolomide, TMZ, was approved in 1999 and the overall survival rate is very limited. The Kintara drug VAL-083 crosses the blood-brain barrier and is also showing promise for pediatric brain tumors and some ovarian cancers.
Robert explains, "The mechanism of VAL-083 differs from other key chemotherapeutic agents, including TMZ. It induces interstrand cross-links at guanine N07, causing DNA double-strand break and cancer cell death. If you compare that to TMZ, it only induces a single-strand DNA break at N07, and the tumor cells can repair them. That's really an important distinction of our mechanism of action. So, we're really, really excited."
"So, I could imagine once it's approved, physicians would potentially combine it with TMZ, potentially which still may happen. Or Avastin, potentially. So, yes, there is a possibility for that. We're looking at, coincidentally, ovarian cancer with VAL-083 with some PARP inhibitors. So, there are other potential combinations that we're looking at down the road, as well."
"Another underserved area is pediatric brain tumors. We're looking at DIPG, which is a pediatric indication, as well as medulloblastoma"
@Kintara_Thera #Kintara #GBM #Glioblastoma #Cancer #BrainCancer #BrainTumor
kintara.com
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Dr. Sean Bohen, President and CEO of Olema Oncology, is looking for a better endocrine option, alone or in the context of a CDK 4/6 inhibitor, to treat ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. Their oral pill OP-1250 does not have chemotherapy-like side effects and could be better tolerated than chemotherapy to aggressively target and turn off the estrogen receptor.
Sean explains, "In that respect, I'd say the estrogen receptor is probably one of the most validated therapeutic, molecular therapeutic targets in cancer, with tamoxifen first being approved in 1977. That said, that progress here has been relatively slow. Tamoxifen, approved in 1977, is not a complete antagonist. It turns on the receptor in some contexts, and turns it off in others. Fulvestrant is a complete antagonist. It has to be injected. That was approved in the early 2000s, and here in 2022, we're still working on getting a better estrogen-receptor targeting therapy."
"What happens, as is often the case in cancers, is that the ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer cell co-ops that normal growth and proliferation signal to promote an abnormal growth and proliferation of the cancerous cells. So that's why we are able to go back and try to turn that signal off and help treat the cancer, prevent progression and, sometimes, cause regression of the tumors by turning off that inappropriately-used estrogen receptor signal."
"We are currently treating three cohorts, 50 patients with measurable tumors, 15 patients without measurable tumors. In the context of ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, that is usually bone-only involvement. Then we also have an interesting property with OP-1250. It crosses the blood-brain barrier, so which raises the possibility of being able to treat brain metastases. We have a cohort of 15 central nervous system metastasis patients that we are working on enrolling right now."
#OlemaOncology #Oncology #BreastCancer #WomensHealth #SERD #CERAN
olema.com
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Dr. Sean Bohen, President and CEO of Olema Oncology, is looking for a better endocrine option, alone or in the context of a CDK 4/6 inhibitor, to treat ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. Their oral pill OP-1250 does not have chemotherapy-like side effects and could be better tolerated than chemotherapy to aggressively target and turn off the estrogen receptor.
Sean explains, "In that respect, I'd say the estrogen receptor is probably one of the most validated therapeutic, molecular therapeutic targets in cancer, with tamoxifen first being approved in 1977. That said, that progress here has been relatively slow. Tamoxifen, approved in 1977, is not a complete antagonist. It turns on the receptor in some contexts, and turns it off in others. Fulvestrant is a complete antagonist. It has to be injected. That was approved in the early 2000s, and here in 2022, we're still working on getting a better estrogen-receptor targeting therapy."
"What happens, as is often the case in cancers, is that the ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer cell co-ops that normal growth and proliferation signal to promote an abnormal growth and proliferation of the cancerous cells. So that's why we are able to go back and try to turn that signal off and help treat the cancer, prevent progression and, sometimes, cause regression of the tumors by turning off that inappropriately-used estrogen receptor signal."
"We are currently treating three cohorts, 50 patients with measurable tumors, 15 patients without measurable tumors. In the context of ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, that is usually bone-only involvement. Then we also have an interesting property with OP-1250. It crosses the blood-brain barrier, so which raises the possibility of being able to treat brain metastases. We have a cohort of 15 central nervous system metastasis patients that we are working on enrolling right now."
#OlemaOncology #Oncology #BreastCancer #WomensHealth #SERD #CERAN
olema.com
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Dr. Tim O'Connell is a practicing radiologist and CEO and Co-Founder of Emtelligent, a medical natural language processing company. Their software converts unstructured text in medical documents into structured data to allow a variety of clients to get access to information that in the past has not been available.
Tim explains, "The problem was that the NLP engine just wasn't good enough. If there was a family history item, it would misidentify it as belonging to the patient. Sometimes it would get negation wrong, and it would miss important terms or have a hard time dealing with ambiguous words or acronyms. I knew that the premise was correct. As a clinician, I needed better access to patient data, and I needed access to the unstructured data, but I needed a better NLP engine in order to get it."
"What we've done is really brought together medical experts and NLP experts and built a system that understands the very unique medical language. Just to take one example, you take something as simple as the word PT. It could mean patient. It could mean physiotherapy. It could mean physiotherapist. It could mean prothrombin time. It could mean posterior tibial, referring to a tendon or a blood vessel. So, dealing with these very special and unique problems, you need to do it on a medical basis."
@emtelhealth #Emtelligent #NLP #MNLP #MedicalNaturalLanguageProcessing #UnstructuredText
emtelligent.com
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Dr. Tim O'Connell is a practicing radiologist and CEO and Co-Founder of Emtelligent, a medical natural language processing company. Their software converts unstructured text in medical documents into structured data to allow a variety of clients to get access to information that in the past has not been available.
Tim explains, "The problem was that the NLP engine just wasn't good enough. If there was a family history item, it would misidentify it as belonging to the patient. Sometimes it would get negation wrong, and it would miss important terms or have a hard time dealing with ambiguous words or acronyms. I knew that the premise was correct. As a clinician, I needed better access to patient data, and I needed access to the unstructured data, but I needed a better NLP engine in order to get it."
"What we've done is really brought together medical experts and NLP experts and built a system that understands the very unique medical language. Just to take one example, you take something as simple as the word PT. It could mean patient. It could mean physiotherapy. It could mean physiotherapist. It could mean prothrombin time. It could mean posterior tibial, referring to a tendon or a blood vessel. So, dealing with these very special and unique problems, you need to do it on a medical basis."
@emtelhealth #Emtelligent #NLP #MNLP #MedicalNaturalLanguageProcessing #UnstructuredText
emtelligent.com
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Marcus Dorstel Head of Operations at Turquoise Health, is part of a team of engineers and healthcare experts focused on the price transparency data that started coming out in 2021 on the hospital side and in July 2022 on the payer side. These prices were previously kept secret and in data silos so that the full picture of costs was not possible. Their aim is to support the No Surprises Act, which requires providers to create a good faith estimate of all medical services ahead of actual service.
Marcus explains, "At Turquoise Health, ultimately, we want to simplify the way healthcare gets paid. I think we're all keenly aware of the complexities of the healthcare space, a lot of that around the payment structure and even just what the price of healthcare is. And so, we're a startup focused on price transparency in the healthcare space and helping all parties within the healthcare ecosystem really simplify those payments and bring more transparency into healthcare."
"Hospitals are certainly taking a look at their prices compared to their competitors. There's a chance to see if you're contracting with a major national carrier and what they're paying your competitor down the street. We're already seeing that this data is being used by both hospitals and also by the payers in these contract negotiations."
@TurquoiseHC #TurquoiseHealth #PriceTransparency #Healthcare #NoSurprisesAct #GoodFaithEstimate #Hospitals #HealthcareCosts #MedicalBills
turquoise.health
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Marcus Dorstel Head of Operations at Turquoise Health, is part of a team of engineers and healthcare experts focused on the price transparency data that started coming out in 2021 on the hospital side and in July 2022 on the payer side. These prices were previously kept secret and in data silos so that the full picture of costs was not possible. Their aim is to support the No Surprises Act, which requires providers to create a good faith estimate of all medical services ahead of actual service.
Marcus explains, "At Turquoise Health, ultimately, we want to simplify the way healthcare gets paid. I think we're all keenly aware of the complexities of the healthcare space, a lot of that around the payment structure and even just what the price of healthcare is. And so, we're a startup focused on price transparency in the healthcare space and helping all parties within the healthcare ecosystem really simplify those payments and bring more transparency into healthcare."
"Hospitals are certainly taking a look at their prices compared to their competitors. There's a chance to see if you're contracting with a major national carrier and what they're paying your competitor down the street. We're already seeing that this data is being used by both hospitals and also by the payers in these contract negotiations."
@TurquoiseHC #TurquoiseHealth #PriceTransparency #Healthcare #NoSurprisesAct #GoodFaithEstimate #Hospitals #HealthcareCosts #MedicalBills
turquoise.health
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Nate Maslak is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ribbon Health, which is a healthcare data platform to power patient care decisions, including price transparency for all services. Their unique technological approach incorporates data from across the entire healthcare ecosystem. It uses predictive analytics, AI, and machine learning to determine accurate information while allowing patients to contribute data back into the system.
Nate explains, "The overall technology focuses on being able to provide the right information on a provider at the right moment in time, so whenever/wherever somebody's seeking care. And the number of problems that exist in provider data is shocking, and sometimes I feel like they are infinite. So just starting with something as basic as the provider directory, so phone numbers, addresses. What is the specialty of this provider?"
"That information out there today is about 45% accurate, which is terrifying because that doesn't even start to hit on some other elements that are hard to get across. So Ribbon helps solve that. We're also then enabling other solutions to be able to show which insurance plan a given provider accepts down to the plan name and network level. And then, we layer on provider performance and cost-effectiveness, and price transparency."
@RibbonHealthAPI #RibbonHealth #Healthcare #DigitalHealth #MedicalBills #AffordableHealthcare #PriceTransparency #HealthcareProviders #Healthtech #MachineLearning #AI #EmpoweringPatients
RibbonHealth.com
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Nate Maslak is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ribbon Health, which is a healthcare data platform to power patient care decisions, including price transparency for all services. Their unique technological approach incorporates data from across the entire healthcare ecosystem. It uses predictive analytics, AI, and machine learning to determine accurate information while allowing patients to contribute data back into the system.
Nate explains, "The overall technology focuses on being able to provide the right information on a provider at the right moment in time, so whenever/wherever somebody's seeking care. And the number of problems that exist in provider data is shocking, and sometimes I feel like they are infinite. So just starting with something as basic as the provider directory, so phone numbers, addresses. What is the specialty of this provider?"
"That information out there today is about 45% accurate, which is terrifying because that doesn't even start to hit on some other elements that are hard to get across. So Ribbon helps solve that. We're also then enabling other solutions to be able to show which insurance plan a given provider accepts down to the plan name and network level. And then, we layer on provider performance and cost-effectiveness, and price transparency."
@RibbonHealthAPI #RibbonHealth #Healthcare #DigitalHealth #MedicalBills #AffordableHealthcare #PriceTransparency #HealthcareProviders #Healthtech #MachineLearning #AI #EmpoweringPatients
RibbonHealth.com
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Keri Yale, Head of Patient Centricity and Engagement at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, brings a deep understanding of the need for pharmaceutical companies to be patient-centric in their culture and focus, including all the employees who do not deal directly with patients. Patient engagement is defined as engaging and listening to patients while integrating their input into the design of clinical trials and developing products and resources for patients and doctors.
Keri elaborates, "I was just thinking recently about how much the work that I've done over the past two decades has come full circle to the work that I just mentioned that I do today. I started at BI in sales. I was working in Los Angeles, and it was the height of the AIDS epidemic. I was calling on AIDS service organizations because we had HIV/AIDS medications, and I was meeting a number of people who were truly inspirational. One of those people who inspired me the most was the director at the time of an organization called Being Alive. And he was the first of many advocates that taught me how much I didn't know."
"We knew there were pockets of excellence, and we knew there were a number of people working in this way, but we wanted to make it across all employees, even those working in IT or HR or finance. We set up an approach where each leader is responsible for having a patient-centricity plan. These plans identify objectives and activities, and they should look very different because we want them to be authentic to the nature of their work. I think it also shows that our leadership recognizes that being patient-focused is everyone's job."
@boehringerus #BoehringerIngelheim #PatientEngagement #PatientCentricity #PatientInput #PatientAmbassador #PatientPartner
boehringer-ingelheim.com
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Dr. Shafiq Rab is the Chief Digital Officer and System Chief Information Officer at Tufts Medicine and an advocate for cloud-based health ecosystems. Healthcare is one of the last industries that has not moved into the cloud to integrate the entire ecosystem of patient data, clinical trial updates, provider information, and payer processes and allow for research and advanced analytics. The cloud provides the flexibility to scale operations and reduce costs related to physical space and administration. While it is hard to get the variety of electronic health record databases and applications to work together, it is even harder to get the humans involved to adjust to new technologies in the workplace.
Shafiq explains, "So in the world that we live in, where everybody wants an Amazon-like experience, healthcare has to go a little forward. On paper, things are still a little less efficient. To make that happen, there are three stages that everybody has to go through. One is digitizing everything, then digitalization, and finally, digital transformation, which is a cultural thing."
"Why into the cloud? That ecosystem means all the applications that you want to use to deliver healthcare. You have it in a place in the cloud because the cloud has the computing power. It allows you to compute things faster and quicker. In the world of healthcare, the consumer consumes on a phone, on an iPhone or Android, at the edge, which is known as edge computing. The connectivity depends upon the strength of the internet and the interoperability between the different systems. So, if you do not have an ecosystem up in the cloud with your major electronic health record, it becomes hard to deliver that information."
"We also benefited by decreasing the number of portals for our patients, for our consumers. We now have one app. Before, we had about 84 different portals and different ways of getting the information, and it was not in one place. So the North Star is how to make it easier and more welcoming, the access to care for the consumers and the communities we serve. Simultaneously, making it also easier for care providers to provide the care, and the employees who work here, and the vendors who are part of the ecosystem, because that's how we complete the ring of healthcare."
@TuftsMedicine @CIOSHAFIQ #TuftsMedicine #DrShafiqRab #AWS #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #HealthTech #Cloud #EHR #DigitalTransformation #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealthEcosystem #PatientExperience
tuftsmedicine.org
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Dr. Shafiq Rab is the Chief Digital Officer and System Chief Information Officer at Tufts Medicine and an advocate for cloud-based health ecosystems. Healthcare is one of the last industries that has not moved into the cloud to integrate the entire ecosystem of patient data, clinical trial updates, provider information, and payer processes and allow for research and advanced analytics. The cloud provides the flexibility to scale operations and reduce costs related to physical space and administration. While it is hard to get the variety of electronic health record databases and applications to work together, it is even harder to get the humans involved to adjust to new technologies in the workplace.
Shafiq explains, "So in the world that we live in, where everybody wants an Amazon-like experience, healthcare has to go a little forward. On paper, things are still a little less efficient. To make that happen, there are three stages that everybody has to go through. One is digitizing everything, then digitalization, and finally, digital transformation, which is a cultural thing."
"Why into the cloud? That ecosystem means all the applications that you want to use to deliver healthcare. You have it in a place in the cloud because the cloud has the computing power. It allows you to compute things faster and quicker. In the world of healthcare, the consumer consumes on a phone, on an iPhone or Android, at the edge, which is known as edge computing. The connectivity depends upon the strength of the internet and the interoperability between the different systems. So, if you do not have an ecosystem up in the cloud with your major electronic health record, it becomes hard to deliver that information."
"We also benefited by decreasing the number of portals for our patients, for our consumers. We now have one app. Before, we had about 84 different portals and different ways of getting the information, and it was not in one place. So the North Star is how to make it easier and more welcoming, the access to care for the consumers and the communities we serve. Simultaneously, making it also easier for care providers to provide the care, and the employees who work here, and the vendors who are part of the ecosystem, because that's how we complete the ring of healthcare."
@TuftsMedicine @CIOSHAFIQ #TuftsMedicine #DrShafiqRab #AWS #DigitalHealth #HealthIT #HealthTech #Cloud #EHR #DigitalTransformation #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealthEcosystem #PatientExperience
tuftsmedicine.org
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Dr. Harvey Kaufman is the Senior Medical Director at Quest Diagnostics and Director of the Quest Diagnostics Health Trends Research, and he raises the alarm about the impact of delayed diagnostic testing for cancer due to the disruption of the COVID restrictions. While progress has been made on more effective treatments, early-stage cancer diagnoses significantly contributed to the 32% decline in cancer deaths between 1991 to 2019. The delay in cancer screening can turn one public health crisis caused by the pandemic into another crisis, with more advanced-stage cancers requiring more aggressive therapy and having worse outcomes. Quest Diagnostics is the leading provider of diagnostic testing services and information in the United States and a leader in cancer diagnoses and testing.
Harvey explains, "We looked at people who had missed testing for diabetes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis, and a host of other conditions, including cancer. And we showed that in the early months of the pandemic, particularly March, April, and May of 2020 when a lot of healthcare was shut down other than for caring for COVID-19-affected individuals. During that early period, it was hard to get care because everyone was in essence, shut down. And sure enough, there were dramatic declines in people who were diagnosed with a host of conditions, including cancer."
"Now, there was a study done in Japan, clearly different patients, clearly different approach. And they found virtually the same thing that in the early part of 2020, there was a 30% decline in newly identified patients with cancer. And that in early 2021, there was a 17% decline, matching our data, confirming that different approaches and different countries had the same impact from the pandemic."
#QuestDiagnostics #CancerDiagnostics #CancerScreening #COVID #Pandemic #CancerDeaths
questdiagnostics.com
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Dr. Harvey Kaufman is the Senior Medical Director at Quest Diagnostics and Director of the Quest Diagnostics Health Trends Research, and he raises the alarm about the impact of delayed diagnostic testing for cancer due to the disruption of the COVID restrictions. While progress has been made on more effective treatments, early-stage cancer diagnoses significantly contributed to the 32% decline in cancer deaths between 1991 to 2019. The delay in cancer screening can turn one public health crisis caused by the pandemic into another crisis, with more advanced-stage cancers requiring more aggressive therapy and having worse outcomes. Quest Diagnostics is the leading provider of diagnostic testing services and information in the United States and a leader in cancer diagnoses and testing.
Harvey explains, "We looked at people who had missed testing for diabetes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis, and a host of other conditions, including cancer. And we showed that in the early months of the pandemic, particularly March, April, and May of 2020 when a lot of healthcare was shut down other than for caring for COVID-19-affected individuals. During that early period, it was hard to get care because everyone was in essence, shut down. And sure enough, there were dramatic declines in people who were diagnosed with a host of conditions, including cancer."
"Now, there was a study done in Japan, clearly different patients, clearly different approach. And they found virtually the same thing that in the early part of 2020, there was a 30% decline in newly identified patients with cancer. And that in early 2021, there was a 17% decline, matching our data, confirming that different approaches and different countries had the same impact from the pandemic."
#QuestDiagnostics #CancerDiagnostics #CancerScreening #COVID #Pandemic #CancerDeaths
questdiagnostics.com
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Dr. Charlotte Jones-Burton is the Senior Vice President of Product Development and Strategy at Chinook Therapeutics, which is on a mission to change the course of kidney care by discovering and developing precision therapies to maintain kidney function in people who have rare, severe chronic kidney diseases.
Charlotte explains, "Our lead clinical program is atrasentan, a highly potent and selective endothelial receptor inhibitor. We believe that it's going to be a best-in-class molecule that's going to target the endothelin pathway. And the condition for which we are developing it is IgA nephropathy. Now, IgA nephropathy is an autoimmune disease that attacks the kidneys, and it affects how our blood is filtered in the small blood vessels of the kidneys that I spoke about. And what happens with IgA nephropathy is that immune complexes can deposit in the kidney and really damage those filtering units inside the kidneys. And when this happens, individuals can have symptoms such as protein spilling into their kidneys. And we know that proteinuria, as we call that, is a strong risk factor for those who will then develop end-stage kidney disease, which means that they may need dialysis or a kidney transplantation to survive."
"Now, we know that there are few treatments that are available, and that's why it's really important for patients to also ask the question if there are any clinical trials. And we at Chinook Therapeutics are enrolling patients into clinical trials who have IgA nephropathy. We also are enrolling patients into our AFFINITY clinical trial if they have FSGS, which is also a type of kidney disease, Alport syndrome, or diabetic kidney disease."
#ChinookTherapeutics #KidneyDisease #ChronicKidneyDisease #Atrasentan #BIO1301 #PrecisionMedicine #Nephrology #ClinicalTrials #IGAN #RareDisease
chinooktx.com
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Dr. Charlotte Jones-Burton is the Senior Vice President of Product Development and Strategy at Chinook Therapeutics, which is on a mission to change the course of kidney care by discovering and developing precision therapies to maintain kidney function in people who have rare, severe chronic kidney diseases.
Charlotte explains, "Our lead clinical program is atrasentan, a highly potent and selective endothelial receptor inhibitor. We believe that it's going to be a best-in-class molecule that's going to target the endothelin pathway. And the condition for which we are developing it is IgA nephropathy. Now, IgA nephropathy is an autoimmune disease that attacks the kidneys, and it affects how our blood is filtered in the small blood vessels of the kidneys that I spoke about. And what happens with IgA nephropathy is that immune complexes can deposit in the kidney and really damage those filtering units inside the kidneys. And when this happens, individuals can have symptoms such as protein spilling into their kidneys. And we know that proteinuria, as we call that, is a strong risk factor for those who will then develop end-stage kidney disease, which means that they may need dialysis or a kidney transplantation to survive."
"Now, we know that there are few treatments that are available, and that's why it's really important for patients to also ask the question if there are any clinical trials. And we at Chinook Therapeutics are enrolling patients into clinical trials who have IgA nephropathy. We also are enrolling patients into our AFFINITY clinical trial if they have FSGS, which is also a type of kidney disease, Alport syndrome, or diabetic kidney disease."
#ChinookTherapeutics #KidneyDisease #ChronicKidneyDisease #Atrasentan #BIO1301 #PrecisionMedicine #Nephrology #ClinicalTrials #IGAN #RareDisease
chinooktx.com
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Dr. Sonia Chopra, endodontist and Founder of Ballantyne Endodontics is an expert on alleviating tooth pain. Sonia points out the advantages of using the Sonendo GentleWave procedure to change outcomes and expectations of root canal pain. Not only is this procedure more effective and faster, but it also requires just one dental appointment instead of multiple visits, freeing up resources to handle more patients and respond more quickly to emergencies.
Sonia elaborates, "It's really important to understand our world of endo because we deal with tooth pain. And I would say about 80%, a good majority of patients seek us, dentists, out when they have pain, so having that deep understanding of tooth pain is really important. Plus, we are the specialty that saves teeth, and in my opinion, just based on my own experience and being born without eight teeth, saving teeth has really become a very important topic for me."
"I started my practice back in 2008 before GentleWave came onto the scene. I implemented GentleWave back in 2018, and so I've been working with this technology for about four years. And what I can honestly say is that it has allowed me to provide my patients with an elevated experience, elevated cleansing of the tooth, and just an overall better experience altogether."
"I also noticed a decrease in the amount of pain my patients were having aftercare. I wasn't having patients call my practice so often afterward. I would call them on the post-op call, and they would be fine, and then that was the end of the story. I didn't have patients calling me after the fact saying, "Hey, I'm still pretty sore. I think I need an antibiotic." Those conversations started to dwindle drastically, and I think that's a huge benefit of the technology."
#Endodontics #Endodontist #RootCanalTherapy #RootCanal #Sonendo #GentleWave #GentleWaveProcedure
BallantyneEndo.com
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Dr. Sonia Chopra, endodontist and Founder of Ballantyne Endodontics is an expert on alleviating tooth pain. Sonia points out the advantages of using the Sonendo GentleWave procedure to change outcomes and expectations of root canal pain. Not only is this procedure more effective and faster, but it also requires just one dental appointment instead of multiple visits, freeing up resources to handle more patients and respond more quickly to emergencies.
Sonia elaborates, "It's really important to understand our world of endo because we deal with tooth pain. And I would say about 80%, a good majority of patients seek us, dentists, out when they have pain, so having that deep understanding of tooth pain is really important. Plus, we are the specialty that saves teeth, and in my opinion, just based on my own experience and being born without eight teeth, saving teeth has really become a very important topic for me."
"I started my practice back in 2008 before GentleWave came onto the scene. I implemented GentleWave back in 2018, and so I've been working with this technology for about four years. And what I can honestly say is that it has allowed me to provide my patients with an elevated experience, elevated cleansing of the tooth, and just an overall better experience altogether."
"I also noticed a decrease in the amount of pain my patients were having aftercare. I wasn't having patients call my practice so often afterward. I would call them on the post-op call, and they would be fine, and then that was the end of the story. I didn't have patients calling me after the fact saying, "Hey, I'm still pretty sore. I think I need an antibiotic." Those conversations started to dwindle drastically, and I think that's a huge benefit of the technology."
#Endodontics #Endodontist #RootCanalTherapy #RootCanal #Sonendo #GentleWave #GentleWaveProcedure
BallantyneEndo.com
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Gregg Church is the President of 4medica, a 24-year-old company that is in the business of aggregating datasets to create an accurate longitudinal view of a patient's health record. The number of different legacy systems that were not initially designed for interoperability is only part of the problem. In the current environment, there is an average 20% duplication rate creating confusion for care providers and payers and potentially causing harm to the patient.
Gregg elaborates, "It's going to depend on the organization and how much effort they place into it. But when we look at data coming in from different disparate systems and silos, believe it or not, most of what we see is still double-digit, meaning it's above the 10% duplication rate. We've seen use cases that get up closer to 25%, 30%, especially in the commercial lab and laboratory arena because they deal with so many different outside systems. You've got practices on their own EMRs. You've got other laboratories that may use that lab for reference testing."
"Imagine coming into the ER, and maybe you're unconscious because you've been in a car accident. You're at one of the facilities that maybe has a 20% duplication rate, not because there's no effort to try to maintain, it's just the sheer volume of records that are created on a daily basis. So, in this case, one in five patients is at risk of having their records commingled on another patient's record or with another patient's record. If you're unconscious and you're not able to verify things about your identity or even things about your healthcare background and medications, you may be incorrectly treated. You may be prescribed the wrong medication."
@4medica #4medica #DataIntegrity #InteroperabilityRule #AccesstoMedicalRecords #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHR #EMR
4medica.com
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Gregg Church is the President of 4medica, a 24-year-old company that is in the business of aggregating datasets to create an accurate longitudinal view of a patient's health record. The number of different legacy systems that were not initially designed for interoperability is only part of the problem. In the current environment, there is an average 20% duplication rate creating confusion for care providers and payers and potentially causing harm to the patient.
Gregg elaborates, "It's going to depend on the organization and how much effort they place into it. But when we look at data coming in from different disparate systems and silos, believe it or not, most of what we see is still double-digit, meaning it's above the 10% duplication rate. We've seen use cases that get up closer to 25%, 30%, especially in the commercial lab and laboratory arena because they deal with so many different outside systems. You've got practices on their own EMRs. You've got other laboratories that may use that lab for reference testing."
"Imagine coming into the ER, and maybe you're unconscious because you've been in a car accident. You're at one of the facilities that maybe has a 20% duplication rate, not because there's no effort to try to maintain, it's just the sheer volume of records that are created on a daily basis. So, in this case, one in five patients is at risk of having their records commingled on another patient's record or with another patient's record. If you're unconscious and you're not able to verify things about your identity or even things about your healthcare background and medications, you may be incorrectly treated. You may be prescribed the wrong medication."
@4medica #4medica #DataIntegrity #InteroperabilityRule #AccesstoMedicalRecords #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHR #EMR
4medica.com
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Dr. Kent Smith, the Chief Executive Officer at Sleep Dallas, raises concerns about the impact of sleep disorders and untreated sleep apnea. He emphasizes that physicians don't always ask patients about the quality of their sleep and that dentists have more time with patients to explore the underlying reasons for inadequate deep sleep.
Kent explains, "I think many in healthcare aren't aware that poor sleep or ineffective sleep or lack of sleep, or unhealthy sleep, can have a severe impact on someone's health. I mean, just cutting the number of hours of sleep can increase cardiovascular disease."
"So then, when you start talking about unhealthy sleep, yes it can lead to diabetes, sudden cardiac death, high blood pressure, depression, and acid reflux. The body needs oxygen. And if the body's not getting oxygen during sleep, then all kinds of bad things can happen."
"I ask every one of my patients, how many hours of sleep do you get? What time do you go to sleep, and what time do you wake up? It's amazing how many only get five or six hours. And it's just routine. And they wonder why they have the health problems they do. So at least we educate them, but I'm afraid sometimes it's too late, and they've already had their first heart attack, or they've already got type two diabetes."
#SleepDallas #SleepPhysicians #SleepApnea #SleepDisorders #APAPDevice #AutoPAP #InspireSolution
sleepdallas.com
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Dr. Kent Smith, the Chief Executive Officer at Sleep Dallas, raises concerns about the impact of sleep disorders and untreated sleep apnea. He emphasizes that physicians don't always ask patients about the quality of their sleep and that dentists have more time with patients to explore the underlying reasons for inadequate deep sleep.
Kent explains, "I think many in healthcare aren't aware that poor sleep or ineffective sleep or lack of sleep, or unhealthy sleep, can have a severe impact on someone's health. I mean, just cutting the number of hours of sleep can increase cardiovascular disease."
"So then, when you start talking about unhealthy sleep, yes it can lead to diabetes, sudden cardiac death, high blood pressure, depression, and acid reflux. The body needs oxygen. And if the body's not getting oxygen during sleep, then all kinds of bad things can happen."
"I ask every one of my patients, how many hours of sleep do you get? What time do you go to sleep, and what time do you wake up? It's amazing how many only get five or six hours. And it's just routine. And they wonder why they have the health problems they do. So at least we educate them, but I'm afraid sometimes it's too late, and they've already had their first heart attack, or they've already got type two diabetes."
#SleepDallas #SleepPhysicians #SleepApnea #SleepDisorders #APAPDevice #AutoPAP #InspireSolution
sleepdallas.com
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Dr. Tomasz George, Chief Scientific Officer of Virax Biolabs, has developed a novel test process that assesses adaptive immune responses to viruses. This information can inform decisions by patients and doctors on how to most effectively produce an immune response and boost personal protection from the next virus outbreak. An app delivers data about how an individual might respond to a virus and sends notices of specific viruses in a geographic location, along with links to diet and lifestyle suggestions.
Tomasz explains, "We also distribute and sell other viral testing products that look at viruses at different stages of infection and also your immunity at different stages. We intend to provide a subscription service in the next few months that actually allows you to test for these viruses on an ongoing basis, depending on which new viruses are at the moment. And this allows you to determine whether you would expect to cope with these viruses or not if you came in contact with them."
"We have a number of different avenues for selling our tests. We sell direct to consumers because it's a very informative test for people in general population groups. We also are looking to sell to governments, healthcare organizations, and pharma groups who will use our tests in different ways for population health management and management of governmental strategies. And also, for healthcare groups to identify patients who are most at risk and for pharma groups who can help to optimize the population that they study for things like drugs and vaccines by identifying patients who might respond better or worse to specific viruses."
@ViraxBiolabs #ViraxBiolabs #VRAX #ViraxCare #InfectiousDiseases #HealthTech #MedTech #BioTech #RealTimePCRDetection #RTPCR #PCRTest #AntibodyTest #BiomarkerTesting #COVID19
ViraxBiolabs.com
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Dr. Tomasz George, Chief Scientific Officer of Virax Biolabs, has developed a novel test process that assesses adaptive immune responses to viruses. This information can inform decisions by patients and doctors on how to most effectively produce an immune response and boost personal protection from the next virus outbreak. An app delivers data about how an individual might respond to a virus and sends notices of specific viruses in a geographic location, along with links to diet and lifestyle suggestions.
Tomasz explains, "We also distribute and sell other viral testing products that look at viruses at different stages of infection and also your immunity at different stages. We intend to provide a subscription service in the next few months that actually allows you to test for these viruses on an ongoing basis, depending on which new viruses are at the moment. And this allows you to determine whether you would expect to cope with these viruses or not if you came in contact with them."
"We have a number of different avenues for selling our tests. We sell direct to consumers because it's a very informative test for people in general population groups. We also are looking to sell to governments, healthcare organizations, and pharma groups who will use our tests in different ways for population health management and management of governmental strategies. And also, for healthcare groups to identify patients who are most at risk and for pharma groups who can help to optimize the population that they study for things like drugs and vaccines by identifying patients who might respond better or worse to specific viruses."
@ViraxBiolabs #ViraxBiolabs #VRAX #ViraxCare #InfectiousDiseases #HealthTech #MedTech #BioTech #RealTimePCRDetection #RTPCR #PCRTest #AntibodyTest #BiomarkerTesting #COVID19
ViraxBiolabs.com
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Asaf Zviran is the CEO, CSO, and Co-Founder of C2i Genomics which is both a technology company and a diagnostic company. C2i is providing a decentralized, cloud-based platform that allows global genomic labs, health centers, and pharma companies to do whole-genome sequencing on cancer patient tissue or blood. This technology uses the genomic data to determine the best options for treatment and to monitor treatment response.
Asaf explains, "The way that we look at the cancer detection is in a holistic way. We're actually detecting huge amounts of features across the genome in a very, very sensitive and accurate manner. Many clinical trials have been showing that the C2i whole-genome approach is much more sensitive and accurate than any other technology that is currently in development."
"Whole-genome, I think is a new category in medical genomics in general. Whole-genome allows us to very comprehensively extract everything, all of the variants, all of the genomic changes, in the patient blood. And then the challenge again is how to use this very comprehensive information to create insight, to create applications. This is exactly what C2i is doing. Basically, we are building out clinically validated software applications that can take the whole-genome data, the whole data from the apps that are working with us, and allow very sophisticated AI signal processing to detect cancer, to monitor treatment response, to predict recurrence."
"And we are doing that on a global scale. I can tell you that besides our CLIA-equipped lab in the US, we are working in partnership to deliver these services to other health systems in the US. We are a clinical-approved product in Europe, and starting to do clinical testing and working extensively in Europe. We also have a very strong distribution in the Middle East and Asia. So Israel, Singapore, India, and now going into a new location in Asia."
#C2iGenomics #WholeGenome #WholeGenomeSequencing #PrecisionMedicine #Cancer #Tumors #AI #MedicalGenomics
C2i-Genomics.com
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Asaf Zviran is the CEO, CSO, and Co-Founder of C2i Genomics which is both a technology company and a diagnostic company. C2i is providing a decentralized, cloud-based platform that allows global genomic labs, health centers, and pharma companies to do whole-genome sequencing on cancer patient tissue or blood. This technology uses the genomic data to determine the best options for treatment and to monitor treatment response.
Asaf explains, "The way that we look at the cancer detection is in a holistic way. We're actually detecting huge amounts of features across the genome in a very, very sensitive and accurate manner. Many clinical trials have been showing that the C2i whole-genome approach is much more sensitive and accurate than any other technology that is currently in development."
"Whole-genome, I think is a new category in medical genomics in general. Whole-genome allows us to very comprehensively extract everything, all of the variants, all of the genomic changes, in the patient blood. And then the challenge again is how to use this very comprehensive information to create insight, to create applications. This is exactly what C2i is doing. Basically, we are building out clinically validated software applications that can take the whole-genome data, the whole data from the apps that are working with us, and allow very sophisticated AI signal processing to detect cancer, to monitor treatment response, to predict recurrence."
"And we are doing that on a global scale. I can tell you that besides our CLIA-equipped lab in the US, we are working in partnership to deliver these services to other health systems in the US. We are a clinical-approved product in Europe, and starting to do clinical testing and working extensively in Europe. We also have a very strong distribution in the Middle East and Asia. So Israel, Singapore, India, and now going into a new location in Asia."
#C2iGenomics #WholeGenome #WholeGenomeSequencing #PrecisionMedicine #Cancer #Tumors #AI #MedicalGenomics
C2i-Genomics.com
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Dr. Noura Abul-Husn is the VP of Genomic Health, and Amy Sturm the Director of Population Health Genomics at 23andMe. With over 13 million customers, 23andMe has built a database that can provide customized and personalized genetic information to individuals that can indicate health predispositions. This kind of information can lead to strategies to reduce the risk of diseases, manage diseases more appropriately, and even prevent diseases.
Noura explains, "Well, 23andMe has been delivering results that could lead to critical healthcare decisions, as you said, for a long time now. And the way people are using that today is typically to bring that information to their trusted healthcare provider to find out what next steps they ought to take based on that information. It could be information that indicates they're at a higher risk for cancer, for example, or for high cholesterol. I think in most cases, we do deliver, from the 23andMe side, information about what that result means for the person, for their health, for their potential risks. And then, they can take action based on that and based on shared decision-making, hopefully, with their healthcare providers."
Amy elaborates, "All doctors want to do the best thing for their patients, but they are honestly limited in many ways. Time, potential lack of reimbursement for having a genetic counseling type conversation, lack of education, and ongoing education to make sure that they are remaining cutting-edge in any genetics or genetics expertise. That's why we're really excited about the acquisition of Lemonade Health to build out genomic healthcare more broadly under 23andMe. As Noura said, 23andMe has been giving back really important health-related genomic risk results for years that really do need to be taken seriously to prevent diseases like heart disease and cancer."
#23andMe #DNATest #GeneticTesting #WelcomeToYou #PrecisionMedicine
23andMe.com
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Dr. Noura Abul-Husn is the VP of Genomic Health, and Amy Sturm the Director of Population Health Genomics at 23andMe. With over 13 million customers, 23andMe has built a database that can provide customized and personalized genetic information to individuals that can indicate health predispositions. This kind of information can lead to strategies to reduce the risk of diseases, manage diseases more appropriately, and even prevent diseases.
Noura explains, "Well, 23andMe has been delivering results that could lead to critical healthcare decisions, as you said, for a long time now. And the way people are using that today is typically to bring that information to their trusted healthcare provider to find out what next steps they ought to take based on that information. It could be information that indicates they're at a higher risk for cancer, for example, or for high cholesterol. I think in most cases, we do deliver, from the 23andMe side, information about what that result means for the person, for their health, for their potential risks. And then, they can take action based on that and based on shared decision-making, hopefully, with their healthcare providers."
Amy elaborates, "All doctors want to do the best thing for their patients, but they are honestly limited in many ways. Time, potential lack of reimbursement for having a genetic counseling type conversation, lack of education, and ongoing education to make sure that they are remaining cutting-edge in any genetics or genetics expertise. That's why we're really excited about the acquisition of Lemonade Health to build out genomic healthcare more broadly under 23andMe. As Noura said, 23andMe has been giving back really important health-related genomic risk results for years that really do need to be taken seriously to prevent diseases like heart disease and cancer."
#23andMe #DNATest #GeneticTesting #WelcomeToYou #PrecisionMedicine
23andMe.com
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Dr. Jamie Colbert is the Senior Vice President of Care Delivery at Memora Health, a technology company automating manual tasks and administrative functions that take up so much time for healthcare providers. It is creating an environment that promotes interoperability with existing electronic medical record systems and other sources of patient data to improve patient care and provide guidance for patients to self-manage their complex conditions.
Jamie explains, "In terms of the support that patients are receiving, Memora is really helping to provide a lot of additional support that you just couldn't get from having to rely on manual phone calls from your provider's office because providers just don't have the time. The providers are overwhelmed, and they're trying to get through their day and just see the patients that are in front of them in the office. But with Memora, you can automate a lot of those check-ins and support such that you, as a provider team, know that your patients are still well cared for and supported. You don't have to worry about carving out the time during your day to make those phone calls and check in and see how those patients are doing."
"And only those patient questions and symptoms that are concerning would be the ones that would actually go directly to the provider and still require the provider to then message the patient themselves. What we've seen is that it's generally, anywhere from 50% to two-thirds of the patient messages and questions that are coming in today can be safely handled through Memora's AI. And that's a significant burden that's being lifted from providers. When they get home at the end of the day, they're not spending nearly as much time going through all of those messages because Memora was able to answer many of those messages for them."
@MemoraHealth @jcolbertMD #MemoraHealth #CareDelivery #DigitalHealth
memorahealth.com
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Dr. Jamie Colbert is the Senior Vice President of Care Delivery at Memora Health, a technology company automating manual tasks and administrative functions that take up so much time for healthcare providers. It is creating an environment that promotes interoperability with existing electronic medical record systems and other sources of patient data to improve patient care and provide guidance for patients to self-manage their complex conditions.
Jamie explains, "In terms of the support that patients are receiving, Memora is really helping to provide a lot of additional support that you just couldn't get from having to rely on manual phone calls from your provider's office because providers just don't have the time. The providers are overwhelmed, and they're trying to get through their day and just see the patients that are in front of them in the office. But with Memora, you can automate a lot of those check-ins and support such that you, as a provider team, know that your patients are still well cared for and supported. You don't have to worry about carving out the time during your day to make those phone calls and check in and see how those patients are doing."
"And only those patient questions and symptoms that are concerning would be the ones that would actually go directly to the provider and still require the provider to then message the patient themselves. What we've seen is that it's generally, anywhere from 50% to two-thirds of the patient messages and questions that are coming in today can be safely handled through Memora's AI. And that's a significant burden that's being lifted from providers. When they get home at the end of the day, they're not spending nearly as much time going through all of those messages because Memora was able to answer many of those messages for them."
@MemoraHealth @jcolbertMD #MemoraHealth #CareDelivery #DigitalHealth
memorahealth.com
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Christian Lillis, the Executive Director of the Peggy Lillis Foundation -PLF - is on a mission to raise awareness about the highly contagious disease Clostridium difficile and to get C. diff recognized as a nationally notifiable disease. The Foundation also provides a nutrition and lifestyle guide to give patients the ability to know what to eat to prevent recurrence and help prevent C. diff and other infections.
Chris explains, "We've had some polls done that show about a third of Americans have heard of C. diff. They've heard the term. That doesn't necessarily mean that they understand it. Just because we hear a lot of things doesn't mean we have great knowledge about them. So, I'll address just a little bit about the disease itself, so people have a sense of it. C. diff is the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in healthcare settings. There are about half a million infections every year, and at this point, there are about 25 to 30,000 deaths each year. And something that I find remarkable is that in 2011, C. diff was considered the 17th leading cause of death for people 65 years and older. So, it has a huge impact, causing a lot of harm, a lot of death."
"The guide contains a wealth of information about foods that you can probably tolerate during an acute infection, as well as the foods that promote a healthy gut microbiome. That includes a lot of probiotic-rich foods, fiber-rich foods, and prebiotic-rich foods. And then something that we're particularly excited about is that the guide contains 30 recipes that are grouped into what is most likely to be tolerated and what foods will help restore the microbiome. And all of those recipes were developed or adapted by people who have battled C. diff based on what they found most helpful."
#PeggyFoundation #Cdiff #ClostridiumDifficile #Microbiome #PatientAdvocacy #CdiffAwarenessMonth
peggyfoundation.org
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Christian Lillis is the Executive Director of the Peggy Lillis Foundation -PLF - is on a mission to raise awareness about the highly contagious disease Clostridium difficile and to get C. diff recognized as a nationally notifiable disease. The Foundation is also providing a nutrition and lifestyle guide to give patients the ability to know what to eat to prevent recurrence and help prevent C. diff and other infections.
Chris explains, "We've had some polls done that show about a third of Americans have heard of C. diff. They've heard the term. That doesn't necessarily mean that they understand it. Just because we hear a lot of things doesn't mean we have great knowledge about them. So, I'll address just a little bit about the disease itself, so people have a sense of it. C. diff is the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in healthcare settings. There are about half a million infections every year, and at this point, there are about 25 to 30,000 deaths each year. And something that I find remarkable is that in 2011, C. diff was considered the 17th leading cause of death for people 65 years and older. So, it has a huge impact, causing a lot of harm, a lot of death."
"The guide contains a wealth of information about foods that you can probably tolerate during an acute infection, as well as the foods that promote a healthy gut microbiome. That includes a lot of probiotic-rich foods, fiber-rich foods, and prebiotic-rich foods. And then something that we're particularly excited about is that the guide contains 30 recipes that are grouped into what is most likely to be tolerated and what foods will help restore the microbiome. And all of those recipes were developed or adapted by people who have battled C. diff based on what they found most helpful."
#PeggyFoundation #Cdiff #ClostridiumDifficile #Microbiome #PatientAdvocacy #CdiffAwarenessMonth
peggyfoundation.org
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Jim Pursley is the President of Hinge Health, which offers a digital musculoskeletal solution to help individuals alleviate pain, avoid surgery, and reduce the need for opioids for acute and chronic pain. Hinge is also shining a light on those struggling with neurological and mental health challenges and how those conditions are exacerbating chronic pain and driving abuse of opioids.
Jim elaborates, "We have developed a solution that offers virtual physical therapy. It's the elegant integration of hardware, software, and clinical services delivered by exceptional clinicians, physical therapists, health coaches, orthopedic surgeons, dieticians, registered nurses, et cetera. We use sensor technology and advanced computer vision, as well as the Hinge Health software, to deliver physical therapy remotely and virtually in the convenience of somebody's home or wherever they find most convenient."
"Low-income populations, for example, are 40% more likely to use opioids for MSK pain relief than high-income groups. At the same time, 25% of people earning less than $30,000 a year rely on opioids for pain or relief, compared to just 17% of people making over $90,000 a year. So, it gives you some sense if you're living in rural America, if you're in a lower income bracket, people of color, just lack of accessibility to clinically validated alternatives, lead people to opioids. So first and foremost, we have to address the accessibility issue and close that accessibility gap for those at-risk populations."
@HingeHealth #MSK #Musculoskeletal #DigitalHealth #AcutePain #ChronicPain #PainRelief #OpioidCrisis #NationalRuralHealthDay
hingehealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jim Pursley is the President of Hinge Health, which offers a digital musculoskeletal solution to help individuals alleviate pain, avoid surgery, and reduce the need for opioids for acute and chronic pain. Hinge is also shining a light on those struggling with neurological and mental health challenges and how those conditions are exacerbating chronic pain and driving abuse of opioids.
Jim elaborates, "We have developed a solution that offers virtual physical therapy. It's the elegant integration of hardware, software, and clinical services delivered by exceptional clinicians, physical therapists, health coaches, orthopedic surgeons, dieticians, registered nurses, et cetera. We use sensor technology and advanced computer vision, as well as the Hinge Health software, to deliver physical therapy remotely and virtually in the convenience of somebody's home or wherever they find most convenient."
"Low-income populations, for example, are 40% more likely to use opioids for MSK pain relief than high-income groups. At the same time, 25% of people earning less than $30,000 a year rely on opioids for pain or relief, compared to just 17% of people making over $90,000 a year. So, it gives you some sense if you're living in rural America, if you're in a lower income bracket, people of color, just lack of accessibility to clinically validated alternatives, lead people to opioids. So first and foremost, we have to address the accessibility issue and close that accessibility gap for those at-risk populations."
@HingeHealth #MSK #Musculoskeletal #DigitalHealth #AcutePain #ChronicPain #PainRelief #OpioidCrisis #NationalRuralHealthDay
hingehealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Arthur Suckow is the Co-Founder and CEO of DTx Pharma, in search of an approach to administering sRNA therapeutics using a solution of fatty acids, which every cell in the body has a mechanism to take up. Leveraging those mechanisms, receptors, and transporters, the DTx concept is to trick the cells into bringing the sRNA molecules in so they can repress the expression of disease-causing genes.
Arthur explains, "Well, the one that everyone is familiar with now because it's on the front page of the news almost every day are mRNA modalities where you put a gene essentially back into cells. The poster child for that is putting the spike protein in to generate a vaccine response. But that's not what we do. We actually inhibit the expression of disease-causing genes. When you have an extra copy or a mutant protein that mucks up cellular function, we try to inhibit the expression of those genes. And those are called sRNA or antisense therapeutics. We specifically focus on the flavor called siRNA as our kind of modality of choice."
"The bigger challenge and the challenge that DTx is trying to take on is to enable this class of therapeutics beyond the liver to other tissues. We focus on the peripheral nervous system, muscle, brain, etc. Where they're most effective from a disease perspective is if you have expression of a gene or the expression of a mutation. We usually think dominant gain of function is kind of our bread and butter. So those kinds of lesions are where these are particularly effective."
@DTxPharma #RNATherapeutics #mRNA #siRNA #sRNA #FattyAcidMolecules #DominantGainofFunction #RareDisease #CharcotMarieTooth #SanDiego
dtxpharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Arthur Suckow is the Co-Founder and CEO of DTx Pharma, in search of an approach to administering sRNA therapeutics using a solution of fatty acids, which every cell in the body has a mechanism to take up. Leveraging those mechanisms, receptors, and transporters, the DTx concept is to trick the cells into bringing the sRNA molecules in so they can repress the expression of disease-causing genes.
Arthur explains, "Well, the one that everyone is familiar with now because it's on the front page of the news almost every day are mRNA modalities where you put a gene essentially back into cells. The poster child for that is putting the spike protein in to generate a vaccine response. But that's not what we do. We actually inhibit the expression of disease-causing genes. When you have an extra copy or a mutant protein that mucks up cellular function, we try to inhibit the expression of those genes. And those are called sRNA or antisense therapeutics. We specifically focus on the flavor called siRNA as our kind of modality of choice."
"The bigger challenge and the challenge that DTx is trying to take on is to enable this class of therapeutics beyond the liver to other tissues. We focus on the peripheral nervous system, muscle, brain, etc. Where they're most effective from a disease perspective is if you have expression of a gene or the expression of a mutation. We usually think dominant gain of function is kind of our bread and butter. So those kinds of lesions are where these are particularly effective."
@DTxPharma #RNATherapeutics #mRNA #siRNA #sRNA #FattyAcidMolecules #DominantGainofFunction #RareDisease #CharcotMarieTooth #SanDiego
dtxpharma.com
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Dr. Carl Cameron is the Chief Medical Officer at MVP Health Care, a health services company in the northeast, developing innovative solutions for Medicare enrollees to help them get the care they need by thinking of patients as consumers. Using Care Guides, MVP is solving problems and clarifying benefits for consumers to keep them healthy and out of the hospital.
Carl explains, "One thing we did in trying to understand the customers, the potential customers of the health plan, is we tried to put our biases behind us. We then tried to think in advance about what the customers' needs were. We went out, and we did a large survey of over 1,000 potential customers to really try to understand, for a health plan that they were going to join, or potentially going to join, what are the most important things that they would consider, and what were their fears about changing health plans."
"Through our Care Guide, we proactively call each customer and connect with each customer ahead of time to encourage them right from the outstart. Before you even join the plan, you have these great benefits that are available to you. We want you to have them, and we want to help you get them."
"It's reinforced by many of the doctors that we've worked with in Vermont through UVMHN that support the plan and are working with us to have this wonderful experience for the customers."
@MVPHealthCare #CareManagement #Medicare #MedicareAdvantage #SeniorHealth #COVIDBooster
mvphealthcare.com
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Dr. Carl Cameron is the Chief Medical Officer at MVP Health Care, a health services company in the northeast, developing innovative solutions for Medicare enrollees to help them get the care they need by thinking of patients as consumers. Using Care Guides, MVP is solving problems and clarifying benefits for consumers to keep them healthy and out of the hospital.
Carl explains, "One thing we did in trying to understand the customers, the potential customers of the health plan, is we tried to put our biases behind us. We then tried to think in advance about what the customers' needs were. We went out, and we did a large survey of over 1,000 potential customers to really try to understand, for a health plan that they were going to join, or potentially going to join, what are the most important things that they would consider, and what were their fears about changing health plans."
"Through our Care Guide, we proactively call each customer and connect with each customer ahead of time to encourage them right from the outstart. Before you even join the plan, you have these great benefits that are available to you. We want you to have them, and we want to help you get them."
"It's reinforced by many of the doctors that we've worked with in Vermont through UVMHN that support the plan and are working with us to have this wonderful experience for the customers."
@MVPHealthCare #CareManagement #Medicare #MedicareAdvantage #SeniorHealth #COVIDBooster
mvphealthcare.com
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Dr. Ray Lee is the CEO of Teclison, focused on overcoming the limitations of existing immunotherapy for treating liver cancer in part caused by the fact that the liver is a highly immunotolerant organ. The key is to make the tumor a low-oxygen environment and delivering a drug that only works on the tumor.
Ray elaborates, "First, let me explain what the TATE represents. It stands for the Trans-arterial TEC-001 Embolization. TEC-001 is the pipeline compound we've been trying to develop. This compound is a so-called prodrug. In other words, by itself, it has a low activity. But once in the low-oxygen environment, the drug is going to be activated. What we're trying to develop is to create a very innovative way to convert the tumor into an environment with low oxygen. And this low-oxygen environment is exclusive within the tumor but not in the normal liver nor in the systemic organs."
"So once they have this catheter in place, they will inject our drugs, the TEC-001, directly through the catheter into the tumor and then follow by the embolization. And what I mean by embolization is injecting a special kind of material, like a block in the tumor vessel, and cutting off the blood flow. So that means the tumor is no longer able to receive any blood, so they are not getting enough nutrients or oxygen, which makes the tumor be in a very low-oxygen environment. And that is how our drug is going to be almost immediately activated within the tumor after the embolization procedure, and that's how it works."
#Teclison #LiverCancer #Cancer #SolidTumors #Immunotherapy #CancerImmunotherapy #LiverMetastasis #LungCancer #ColorectalCancer
Teclison.com
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Dr. Ray Lee is the CEO of Teclison, focused on overcoming the limitations of existing immunotherapy for treating liver cancer in part caused by the fact that the liver is a highly immunotolerant organ. The key is to make the tumor a low-oxygen environment and delivering a drug that only works on the tumor.
Ray elaborates, "First, let me explain what the TATE represents. It stands for the Trans-arterial TEC-001 Embolization. TEC-001 is the pipeline compound we've been trying to develop. This compound is a so-called prodrug. In other words, by itself, it has a low activity. But once in the low-oxygen environment, the drug is going to be activated. What we're trying to develop is to create a very innovative way to convert the tumor into an environment with low oxygen. And this low-oxygen environment is exclusive within the tumor but not in the normal liver nor in the systemic organs."
"So once they have this catheter in place, they will inject our drugs, the TEC-001, directly through the catheter into the tumor and then follow by the embolization. And what I mean by embolization is injecting a special kind of material, like a block in the tumor vessel, and cutting off the blood flow. So that means the tumor is no longer able to receive any blood, so they are not getting enough nutrients or oxygen, which makes the tumor be in a very low-oxygen environment. And that is how our drug is going to be almost immediately activated within the tumor after the embolization procedure, and that's how it works."
#Teclison #LiverCancer #Cancer #SolidTumors #Immunotherapy #CancerImmunotherapy #LiverMetastasis #LungCancer #ColorectalCancer
Teclison.com
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Clark Lagemann is the CEO of Avidon Health, developing technologies for healthcare providers and payers in order to deliver personalized health improvement plans for employees. Health coaches deploy digital tools to address the challenges of substance abuse and stress in order to find the root causes of problems and find paths to behavior change.
Clark explains, "Well, the first thing is you need to create a culture in which your employees feel comfortable sharing and speaking about the challenges they're facing. Absenteeism, everyone knows when Billy's not at work, but presenteeism is much more difficult to identify. There are so many employees right now that are back at the office that aren't able to effectively deliver objectives and outcomes for the organization."
"Everything connects into the overall person. If you look at some of the data, the chronic healthcare conditions that we see today, it's a problem. But if you look at the root cause, it's stress. It's bad sleep, poor nutrition, and lack of physical activity. Those typical root causes are at the origin of all chronic healthcare costs and diseases. So we're talking about $3.8 trillion worth of annual healthcare costs that are contributed by these factors. Obviously, we need something different, unique and special to engage those employees to treat those types of conditions and those root causes."
"Wellness coaching, I consider the tip of the spear in the healthcare spectrum. There is a shortage of primary care providers, and there is a lack of available appointments currently. People don't want to go into an office. There are all these different challenges. The idea of health coaches and wellness coaches, it's about creating behavior change and being that first step that enables people to be engaged and to understand the risks and factors that are contributing to their healthcare. It also creates the right behaviors that allow them to see long-term health improvements."
@AvidonHealth #HealthCoaches #WellnessCoaches #CognitiveBehavioralTraining #CBT #DigitalHealth #SubstanceAbuse #Stress
avidonhealth.com
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Clark Lagemann is the CEO of Avidon Health, developing technologies for healthcare providers and payers in order to deliver personalized health improvement plans for employees. Health coaches deploy digital tools to address the challenges of substance abuse and stress in order to find the root causes of problems and find paths to behavior change.
Clark explains, "Well, the first thing is you need to create a culture in which your employees feel comfortable sharing and speaking about the challenges they're facing. Absenteeism, everyone knows when Billy's not at work, but presenteeism is much more difficult to identify. There are so many employees right now that are back at the office that aren't able to effectively deliver objectives and outcomes for the organization."
"Everything connects into the overall person. If you look at some of the data, the chronic healthcare conditions that we see today, it's a problem. But if you look at the root cause, it's stress. It's bad sleep, poor nutrition, and lack of physical activity. Those typical root causes are at the origin of all chronic healthcare costs and diseases. So we're talking about $3.8 trillion worth of annual healthcare costs that are contributed by these factors. Obviously, we need something different, unique and special to engage those employees to treat those types of conditions and those root causes."
"Wellness coaching, I consider the tip of the spear in the healthcare spectrum. There is a shortage of primary care providers, and there is a lack of available appointments currently. People don't want to go into an office. There are all these different challenges. The idea of health coaches and wellness coaches, it's about creating behavior change and being that first step that enables people to be engaged and to understand the risks and factors that are contributing to their healthcare. It also creates the right behaviors that allow them to see long-term health improvements."
@AvidonHealth #HealthCoaches #WellnessCoaches #CognitiveBehavioralTraining #CBT #DigitalHealth #SubstanceAbuse #Stress
avidonhealth.com
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Amir Jafri is the CEO and Founder of Immunicom, targeting the molecules and proteins produced by cancer. Using a subtractive approach, Immunicom has developed technology intended to remove the elements that are suppressing the immune system and allowing the tumor to shield itself from the immune system. After treatment, patients in clinical trials are seeing immune cells infiltrate their solid tumor cancers.
Amir explains, "What we will do is then design our own molecules that will neutralize what the molecule of cancer is producing. But instead of making our molecule into a drug, which is normally what would happen, we actually put it into this proprietary liquid cartridge that we have. It's got a liquid chemical matrix, and there's like a little cartridge, and our molecule goes in there. That cartridge attaches to what's called a plasmapheresis machine."
"Now, that machine is very similar to a dialysis machine. These machines exist all over the world and they've been around for 30 years. The patient sits down, and their blood and plasma attach to the machine. They just sit in a comfortable chair, and their plasma is then taken by the machine and sent through our cartridge. And then we will pull out, in a very, very exquisite way, the molecule that the cancer is producing that is suppressing the immune system."
@Immunicom #ImmuneSystem #Immunotherapy #MedicalDevice #HealthTech #MedTech #Oncology #Cancer #Tumors
Immunicom.com
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Amir Jafri is the CEO and Founder of Immunicom, targeting the molecules and proteins produced by cancer. Using a subtractive approach, Immunicom has developed technology intended to remove the elements that are suppressing the immune system and allowing the tumor to shield itself from the immune system. After treatment, patients in clinical trials are seeing immune cells infiltrate their solid tumor cancers.
Amir explains, "What we will do is then design our own molecules that will neutralize what the molecule of cancer is producing. But instead of making our molecule into a drug, which is normally what would happen, we actually put it into this proprietary liquid cartridge that we have. It's got a liquid chemical matrix, and there's like a little cartridge, and our molecule goes in there. That cartridge attaches to what's called a plasmapheresis machine."
"Now, that machine is very similar to a dialysis machine. These machines exist all over the world and they've been around for 30 years. The patient sits down, and their blood and plasma attach to the machine. They just sit in a comfortable chair, and their plasma is then taken by the machine and sent through our cartridge. And then we will pull out, in a very, very exquisite way, the molecule that the cancer is producing that is suppressing the immune system."
@Immunicom #ImmuneSystem #Immunotherapy #MedicalDevice #HealthTech #MedTech #Oncology #Cancer #Tumors
Immunicom.com
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Ming Li is the Chief Strategy Officer at Alvotech, a biosimilar-only company developing biosimilar drugs to provide lower-cost alternatives in the global marketplace. Biosimilars are analogous to generic medicines, but these drugs are complex molecules developed and produced out of living systems, requiring sophisticated manufacturing processes and often litigation. The bulk of success in biologics has been in oncology, immunology, gastrointestinal diseases, asthma, and osteoporosis.
Ming explains, "Biosimilars are somewhat analogous to generic medicines in that they are slightly less expensive to develop than it would be to develop a new molecule. They can be offered at a lower price to patients and healthcare systems. So, we are focusing on developing these more affordable biosimilars. We really think that there's an opportunity here because as biologics have become the standard of care across many different areas, they've also become a large portion of the costs when you look at pharma more broadly."
"In the US, as an example, I think it's almost 45 cents of every dollar spent on pharma is on a biologic. It's complex to develop biosimilars, and they call them similar because they're not exactly the same in the sense that these molecules are so complex you cannot create the exact same molecule. You have to control your process and develop your process and your product and your molecule within certain parameters that are accepted from regulatory agencies. We do aim to navigate those globally, navigate the regulatory environments globally and launch these products in almost every market in the world. That's our aim."
#Alvotech #Biosimilars #Biologics #Immunology #Oncology #GenericDrugs #Iceland
alvotech.com
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Ming Li is the Chief Strategy Officer at Alvotech, a biosimilar-only company developing biosimilar drugs to provide lower-cost alternatives in the global marketplace. Biosimilars are analogous to generic medicines, but these drugs are complex molecules developed and produced out of living systems, requiring sophisticated manufacturing processes and often litigation. The bulk of success in biologics has been in oncology, immunology, gastrointestinal diseases, asthma, and osteoporosis.
Ming explains, "Biosimilars are somewhat analogous to generic medicines in that they are slightly less expensive to develop than it would be to develop a new molecule. They can be offered at a lower price to patients and healthcare systems. So, we are focusing on developing these more affordable biosimilars. We really think that there's an opportunity here because as biologics have become the standard of care across many different areas, they've also become a large portion of the costs when you look at pharma more broadly."
"In the US, as an example, I think it's almost 45 cents of every dollar spent on pharma is on a biologic. It's complex to develop biosimilars, and they call them similar because they're not exactly the same in the sense that these molecules are so complex you cannot create the exact same molecule. You have to control your process and develop your process and your product and your molecule within certain parameters that are accepted from regulatory agencies. We do aim to navigate those globally, navigate the regulatory environments globally and launch these products in almost every market in the world. That's our aim."
#Alvotech #Biosimilars #Biologics #Immunology #Oncology #GenericDrugs #Iceland
alvotech.com
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Phillip Bogdanovich is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cipher Skin, developing wearable biometric monitoring technology for a wide range of applications. Their BioSleeve is providing data without the wires generally required to collect bio-signals. Development is underway for using this next-to-skin device to be embedded into clothing to capture a variety of biometrics.
Phillip explains, "Cipher Skin is a hardware-enabled SaaS tool. We're focused on providing really good patient outcomes and strengthening the patient/provider bond in the interest of providing best-in-class care. The hardware piece to this is important because, as a hardware-enabled SaaS company, it means that we have significantly better control of the biometric collection device and so better control over the data that's produced."
"The BioSleeve is a clothing-based tool, right now, to your point, in its current form and factor. It is a sleeve for the upper and lower extremity. We're working on devices for the rest of the body. It's a next-to-skin device. The intention is that we are directly embedding sensors into textiles in the form of clothing to capture a variety of biometrics. We're looking to generate the most accurate and precise tool on the planet for collecting motion data and then being able to transmit that in real-time anywhere in the world."
@CipherSkin #Rehabtherapy #PhysicalTherapy #Wearables #RTM #PatientEngagement #HybridHealthcare #Biometrics
Cipherskin.com
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Phillip Bogdanovich is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cipher Skin, developing wearable biometric monitoring technology for a wide range of applications. Their BioSleeve is providing data without the wires generally required to collect bio-signals. Development is underway for using this next-to-skin device to be embedded into clothing to capture a variety of biometrics.
Phillip explains, "Cipher Skin is a hardware-enabled SaaS tool. We're focused on providing really good patient outcomes and strengthening the patient/provider bond in the interest of providing best-in-class care. The hardware piece to this is important because, as a hardware-enabled SaaS company, it means that we have significantly better control of the biometric collection device and so better control over the data that's produced."
"The BioSleeve is a clothing-based tool, right now, to your point, in its current form and factor. It is a sleeve for the upper and lower extremity. We're working on devices for the rest of the body. It's a next-to-skin device. The intention is that we are directly embedding sensors into textiles in the form of clothing to capture a variety of biometrics. We're looking to generate the most accurate and precise tool on the planet for collecting motion data and then being able to transmit that in real-time anywhere in the world."
@CipherSkin #Rehabtherapy #PhysicalTherapy #Wearables #RTM #PatientEngagement #HybridHealthcare #Biometrics
Cipherskin.com
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Mark Manfredi is the CEO and President of Ikena Oncology, which is exploring the Hippo Pathway and how it relates to the RAS Pathway and RAS Network in order to inhibit genes that are associated with cancer initiation, progression, and cancer cell survival. Ikena is learning a great deal about drugging these pathways for therapeutic intervention and therapeutic resistance for NF2 mutant cancers.
Mark elaborates, "We're working on two interconnected pathways. One is called the Hippo Pathway, and the other is called the RAS Pathway. Together we call it the Hippo and RAS Onco Signaling Network because there's a connectivity between these two pathways. We built a deep institutional knowledge as well as tools to enable us to get the right drug to the right patient."
"We follow the science from all angles, including the biologic, so a deep understanding of the mechanism and how it relates to cancer patients as well as chemical. So the best approach to targeting different nodes. This includes targeting individual targets or complexes and then translationally, importantly, understanding which patient populations could potentially benefit from our therapies."
"One of the indications that we're going into is mesothelioma because of the high prevalence of mutations in NF2, and mesothelioma is an unmet medical need. Therefore, the FDA recognized the unmet need as well as the innovation around IK-930 and gave us Fast Track designation as well as Orphan Drug designation."
#IkenaOncology #TargetedOncology #Cancer #MakeItCount #Mesothelioma
IkenaOncology.com
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Mark Manfredi is the CEO and President of Ikena Oncology, which is exploring the Hippo Pathway and how it relates to the RAS Pathway and RAS Network in order to inhibit genes that are associated with cancer initiation, progression, and cancer cell survival. Ikena is learning a great deal about drugging these pathways for therapeutic intervention and therapeutic resistance for NF2 mutant cancers.
Mark elaborates, "We're working on two interconnected pathways. One is called the Hippo Pathway, and the other is called the RAS Pathway. Together we call it the Hippo and RAS Onco Signaling Network because there's a connectivity between these two pathways. We built a deep institutional knowledge as well as tools to enable us to get the right drug to the right patient."
"We follow the science from all angles, including the biologic, so a deep understanding of the mechanism and how it relates to cancer patients as well as chemical. So the best approach to targeting different nodes. This includes targeting individual targets or complexes and then translationally, importantly, understanding which patient populations could potentially benefit from our therapies."
"One of the indications that we're going into is mesothelioma because of the high prevalence of mutations in NF2, and mesothelioma is an unmet medical need. Therefore, the FDA recognized the unmet need as well as the innovation around IK-930 and gave us Fast Track designation as well as Orphan Drug designation."
#IkenaOncology #TargetedOncology #Cancer #MakeItCount #Mesothelioma
IkenaOncology.com
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Dr. Peter Traber is the Chief Medical officer at Selecta Biosciences, which is enabling and increasing the effectiveness of gene therapy by inhibiting the body's immune response. Their drug platform ImmTOR is a nano-encapsulated immunomodulatory drug that causes the immune system to be tolerant of antigens and inhibits the immune response. This approach may overcome an important hurdle in gene therapy and biologic therapy by allowing repeated dosing.
Peter explains, "Our immune response is very robust, and it's hard to get around it. So in order to make these therapies, either proteins or gene therapy, more effective and safer, we are tolerizing the individual to those therapies with this platform."
"So I'll give you an example from our phase three program in chronic refractory gout. We're using an enzyme to treat refractory gout, which decreases the uric acid, but it's a yeast-derived enzyme. It's an enzyme that humans don't have, and therefore it's highly immunogenic. If you give it to a human, it's only effective with one dose. In fact, by 30 days, it's not effective anymore. In contrast, when we give it with ImmTOR, we're able to give the drug monthly for 12 months. So the ImmTOR reduces the immune effect of the drug but allows it to be active and be used over the course of an entire year."
"We are collaborating with some groups on transplantation approaches. And certainly, inducing immune tolerance in that situation could be very important. And, of course, beyond that, we're also working in autoimmune diseases where the body turns against itself—so-called breaking of self-tolerance. Our program is also working on reestablishing self-tolerance in autoimmune diseases. There's a very long list of autoimmune diseases in the liver and joints and elsewhere that could be very important in this regard."
@SelectaBio #MMA #GeneTherapy #ImmuneTolerance #ImmuneSystem #AutoimmuneDiseases #Transplanation
selectabio.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Peter Traber is the Chief Medical officer at Selecta Biosciences, which is enabling and increasing the effectiveness of gene therapy by inhibiting the body's immune response. Their drug platform ImmTOR is a nano-encapsulated immunomodulatory drug that causes the immune system to be tolerant of antigens and inhibits the immune response. This approach may overcome an important hurdle in gene therapy and biologic therapy by allowing repeated dosing.
Peter explains, "Our immune response is very robust, and it's hard to get around it. So in order to make these therapies, either proteins or gene therapy, more effective and safer, we are tolerizing the individual to those therapies with this platform."
"So I'll give you an example from our phase three program in chronic refractory gout. We're using an enzyme to treat refractory gout, which decreases the uric acid, but it's a yeast-derived enzyme. It's an enzyme that humans don't have, and therefore it's highly immunogenic. If you give it to a human, it's only effective with one dose. In fact, by 30 days, it's not effective anymore. In contrast, when we give it with ImmTOR, we're able to give the drug monthly for 12 months. So the ImmTOR reduces the immune effect of the drug but allows it to be active and be used over the course of an entire year."
"We are collaborating with some groups on transplantation approaches. And certainly, inducing immune tolerance in that situation could be very important. And, of course, beyond that, we're also working in autoimmune diseases where the body turns against itself—so-called breaking of self-tolerance. Our program is also working on reestablishing self-tolerance in autoimmune diseases. There's a very long list of autoimmune diseases in the liver and joints and elsewhere that could be very important in this regard."
@SelectaBio #MMA #GeneTherapy #ImmuneTolerance #ImmuneSystem #AutoimmuneDiseases #Transplanation
selectabio.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ryan Lee, Chairman of the Department of Radiology at the Einstein Healthcare Network, now part of Jefferson health, and Dr. Peter Seidensticker, the VP of Medical Affairs and Clinical Development at Bayer Radiology join me to talk about how Bayer's Calantic Digital Solutions is empowering radiologists. Applying AI to the workflow allows the radiologist to improve efficiency, reduce fatigue, and focus on the most important suspicious markers.
Ryan explains, "You specifically asked about the role of the radiologist. I think traditionally, people think of a radiologist as somebody who looks at images and then generates a report. But these days, the American College of Radiology – ACR-- has something called imaging 3.0. What that really means is that we, as radiologists are much more than just a report. We're involved from the beginning of ordering of the study, all the way to the communication of the results. Not just the actual interpretation of the image themselves. So I think there is a much more holistic role for radiologists than maybe the general public really knows."
Peter elaborates, "The Bayer angle is more to extract the important findings out of an image and make sure that the radiologist sees those in a pronounced way or in a marked way, making it easier for him to find them in an image. So it goes in a similar direction, but I think the key focus here is to mark findings that are tough to find in this jungle of workload and images that radiologists see every day."
#Radiology #Radiologist #AI #BayerRadiology #BayerCalantic #MedicalImaging #MedTech #WorkflowPrioritization
calantic.com
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Dr. Ryan Lee, Chairman of the Department of Radiology at the Einstein Healthcare Network, now part of Jefferson health, and Dr. Peter Seidensticker, the VP of Medical Affairs and Clinical Development at Bayer Radiology join me to talk about how Bayer's Calantic Digital Solutions is empowering radiologists. Applying AI to the workflow allows the radiologist to improve efficiency, reduce fatigue, and focus on the most important suspicious markers.
Ryan explains, "You specifically asked about the role of the radiologist. I think traditionally, people think of a radiologist as somebody who looks at images and then generates a report. But these days, the American College of Radiology – ACR-- has something called imaging 3.0. What that really means is that we, as radiologists are much more than just a report. We're involved from the beginning of ordering of the study, all the way to the communication of the results. Not just the actual interpretation of the image themselves. So I think there is a much more holistic role for radiologists than maybe the general public really knows."
Peter elaborates, "The Bayer angle is more to extract the important findings out of an image and make sure that the radiologist sees those in a pronounced way or in a marked way, making it easier for him to find them in an image. So it goes in a similar direction, but I think the key focus here is to mark findings that are tough to find in this jungle of workload and images that radiologists see every day."
#Radiology #Radiologist #AI #BayerRadiology #BayerCalantic #MedicalImaging #MedTech #WorkflowPrioritization
calantic.com
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Len Liptak is the Co-Founder and CEO of ProSomnus Sleep Technologies, which is providing new options for patients suffering from the chronic disease obstructive sleep apnea. This condition means that the airways are blocked while people are sleeping. The most common treatment is a CPAP device that pushes air through the blockage and down the throat to ensure the sleeper has access to oxygen. ProSomnus has designed a personalized noninvasive oral device that holds the jaw forward to create a precision jaw position and stabilization to aid in better breathing and improved sleep quality.
Len explains, "It's serious but funny, but one of the most common ways it's diagnosed is what we call the elbow test. This is where someone's bed partner notices that their bed partner is having this pause in breathing at night, and they literally elbow the bed partner and say, "Hey, wake up. You're not breathing." At first, it can be cute, but then it becomes serious."
"Oral devices for treating such sleep apnea have been on the market for a while. But the challenge is that those traditional oral appliances arbitrarily posture the jaw forward. They're not quite precision in their nature. The precision is really important because the function of an oral device is to protrude the jaw in a position that opens the airway and then stabilize the jaw in that position throughout the night."
"It's our precision technology that allows us to do that because the airway is only 10 millimeters in diameter. So if the jaw is postured too far forward, it could be counterproductive. If the jaw is not postured far enough forward, it can be counterproductive and not generate efficacy. So it's really important to precisely position the jaw based on the treatment plan and the prescription that the provider draws up for the patient so that we get maximum efficacy."
#ProSomnus #SleepApnea #ObstructiveSleepApnea #OSA #CPAP #DentalSleepMedicine #JawRepositioning #SleepMedicine
ProSomnus.com
Listen to the podcast here
Len Liptak is the Co-Founder and CEO of ProSomnus Sleep Technologies, which is providing new options for patients suffering from the chronic disease obstructive sleep apnea. This condition means that the airways are blocked while people are sleeping. The most common treatment is a CPAP device that pushes air through the blockage and down the throat to ensure the sleeper has access to oxygen. ProSomnus has designed a personalized noninvasive oral device that holds the jaw forward to create a precision jaw position and stabilization to aid in better breathing and improved sleep quality.
Len explains, "It's serious but funny, but one of the most common ways it's diagnosed is what we call the elbow test. This is where someone's bed partner notices that their bed partner is having this pause in breathing at night, and they literally elbow the bed partner and say, "Hey, wake up. You're not breathing." At first, it can be cute, but then it becomes serious."
"Oral devices for treating such sleep apnea have been on the market for a while. But the challenge is that those traditional oral appliances arbitrarily posture the jaw forward. They're not quite precision in their nature. The precision is really important because the function of an oral device is to protrude the jaw in a position that opens the airway and then stabilize the jaw in that position throughout the night."
"It's our precision technology that allows us to do that because the airway is only 10 millimeters in diameter. So if the jaw is postured too far forward, it could be counterproductive. If the jaw is not postured far enough forward, it can be counterproductive and not generate efficacy. So it's really important to precisely position the jaw based on the treatment plan and the prescription that the provider draws up for the patient so that we get maximum efficacy."
#ProSomnus #SleepApnea #ObstructiveSleepApnea #OSA #CPAP #DentalSleepMedicine #JawRepositioning #SleepMedicine
ProSomnus.com
Download the transcript here
Inessa Lurye is the Senior Director of Consumer Product at Hinge Health, a digital musculoskeletal clinic with accessible digital physical therapy and whole-body care. Recently, Hinge has launched a Women's Pelvic Health program to personalize treatments for pelvic floor disorder and to expand access to pelvic floor physical therapy for underserved communities.
Inessa explains, "We span that entire continuum, and we offer individuals access to a personalized care team, which is in-house physical therapists and Board-certified coaches, and a digital product that includes exercise therapy and education to help free people from pain."
"We have personalized the experience to women and those with vaginal anatomy. One in four women has a pelvic floor disorder, and pelvic health is musculoskeletal health, but for so long, we haven't treated it as such. And so what we've done is, knowing that our clinic is a digital clinic that serves the whole person, we have personalized the experience for pelvic floor disorders."
"So instead of saying this is the way it is, this is so common, let's just make it normal. What we've done at Hinge Health is we've created a program that integrates pelvic healthcare into our digital clinic. It is a program that is created for women by women, and it allows women, those with vaginal anatomy, to enter the offering, to tell us what their needs are, and to get a customized experience for pelvic disorders in a holistic way."
@HingeHealth #WomensHealth #FemTech #PelvicHealth #PelvicFloor #PelvicFloorTherapy #DigitalHealth
hingehealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Inessa Lurye is the Senior Director of Consumer Product at Hinge Health, a digital musculoskeletal clinic with accessible digital physical therapy and whole-body care. Recently, Hinge has launched a Women's Pelvic Health program to personalize treatments for pelvic floor disorder and to expand access to pelvic floor physical therapy for underserved communities.
Inessa explains, "We span that entire continuum, and we offer individuals access to a personalized care team, which is in-house physical therapists and Board-certified coaches, and a digital product that includes exercise therapy and education to help free people from pain."
"We have personalized the experience to women and those with vaginal anatomy. One in four women has a pelvic floor disorder, and pelvic health is musculoskeletal health, but for so long, we haven't treated it as such. And so what we've done is, knowing that our clinic is a digital clinic that serves the whole person, we have personalized the experience for pelvic floor disorders."
"So instead of saying this is the way it is, this is so common, let's just make it normal. What we've done at Hinge Health is we've created a program that integrates pelvic healthcare into our digital clinic. It is a program that is created for women by women, and it allows women, those with vaginal anatomy, to enter the offering, to tell us what their needs are, and to get a customized experience for pelvic disorders in a holistic way."
@HingeHealth #WomensHealth #FemTech #PelvicHealth #PelvicFloor #PelvicFloorTherapy #DigitalHealth
hingehealth.com
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Jonathan Baktari MD is the Founder and CEO of e7 Health which specializes in seven areas of healthcare. The common theme is that adult vaccinations can have a significant impact on reducing vaccine-preventable deaths in these areas. Leveraging digital technology, e7 is reducing friction in the healthcare system and allowing patients to draw on a repository of their vaccine records to quickly get appropriate, quality care.
Jonathan explains, "A lot of times, for example, we see people who aren't sure if they had all their childhood vaccines. What we can offer people is to see if they have immunity to chicken pox varicella or if they have immunity to MMR or hepatitis B. And so, instead of just randomly getting the vaccines or not getting the vaccine, finding the people's status is helpful in making a determination of what they need. So we've offered that."
"We also offer STD testing. And the reason we do is that we offer several STD vaccines. And so if we're going to offer the vaccine, we're going to offer testing around it and other services. We just thought giving the vaccine without an understanding of whether someone necessarily needed the vaccine or didn't need the vaccine would be helpful."
"What we do is just remove all barriers. We write our own technology, our own software. So literally, you can, on your phone, get an appointment for that day and be seen that day. Whatever we do with you will be in your portal by the time you hit the parking lot. And that's our goal, that's what we try to do. And so, I think what we have noticed is if you reduce friction for the person, they're going to respond differently. A lot of people, say oh, I got to see my doctor, but there is a seven-week wait usually. And so I think those become barriers."
@e7_health #Vaccinations #AdultVaccinations #COVID #COVIDTesting #HealthTech #PrecisionMedicine
e7health.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jonathan Baktari MD is the Founder and CEO of e7 Health which specializes in seven areas of healthcare. The common theme is that adult vaccinations can have a significant impact on reducing vaccine-preventable deaths in these areas. Leveraging digital technology, e7 is reducing friction in the healthcare system and allowing patients to draw on a repository of their vaccine records to quickly get appropriate, quality care.
Jonathan explains, "A lot of times, for example, we see people who aren't sure if they had all their childhood vaccines. What we can offer people is to see if they have immunity to chicken pox varicella or if they have immunity to MMR or hepatitis B. And so, instead of just randomly getting the vaccines or not getting the vaccine, finding the people's status is helpful in making a determination of what they need. So we've offered that."
"We also offer STD testing. And the reason we do is that we offer several STD vaccines. And so if we're going to offer the vaccine, we're going to offer testing around it and other services. We just thought giving the vaccine without an understanding of whether someone necessarily needed the vaccine or didn't need the vaccine would be helpful."
"What we do is just remove all barriers. We write our own technology, our own software. So literally, you can, on your phone, get an appointment for that day and be seen that day. Whatever we do with you will be in your portal by the time you hit the parking lot. And that's our goal, that's what we try to do. And so, I think what we have noticed is if you reduce friction for the person, they're going to respond differently. A lot of people, say oh, I got to see my doctor, but there is a seven-week wait usually. And so I think those become barriers."
@e7_health #Vaccinations #AdultVaccinations #COVID #COVIDTesting #HealthTech #PrecisionMedicine
e7health.com
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Ram Sahasranam is the Co-Founder and President of Fold Health and building primary care delivery systems that focus on the experience of the physician and the patient. Fold has designed an operating system that works for primary care providers and their patients and folds all of the existing healthcare elements around these two individuals and their care delivery concerns. Sitting on top of existing electronic health record systems, Fold integrates legacy systems to bring real innovation to an environment originally built as a billing solution.
Ram explains, "What we saw during the pandemic was the lack of primary care being at the center of care where America is concerned. If you look at how we designed our system, primary care was supposed to be the hub around which the spokes of healthcare were supposed to function."
"But unfortunately, primary care was being looked at as traffic cops for specialty care. So we want to solve for that because about 80% of all care can actually be delivered at the primary care level. But the tools do not exist because the tools were built in a very different era. So, we've taken a complete full-stack approach so that where the providers and patients are concerned, the experience becomes the most critical aspect. Where automation is concerned, contextual intelligence becomes the most critical aspect to ensure that qualitative care delivery is happening across the continuum for the provider and the patient."
@FoldHealth #FoldHealth #Telehealth #HealthTech #Healthcare #PrimaryCare #DPC #DirectPrimaryCare #CRM
fold.health
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Ram Sahasranam is the Co-Founder and President of Fold Health and building primary care delivery systems that focus on the experience of the physician and the patient. Fold has designed an operating system that works for primary care providers and their patients and folds all of the existing healthcare elements around these two individuals and their care delivery concerns. Sitting on top of existing electronic health record systems, Fold integrates legacy systems to bring real innovation to an environment originally built as a billing solution.
Ram explains, "What we saw during the pandemic was the lack of primary care being at the center of care where America is concerned. If you look at how we designed our system, primary care was supposed to be the hub around which the spokes of healthcare were supposed to function."
"But unfortunately, primary care was being looked at as traffic cops for specialty care. So we want to solve for that because about 80% of all care can actually be delivered at the primary care level. But the tools do not exist because the tools were built in a very different era. So, we've taken a complete full-stack approach so that where the providers and patients are concerned, the experience becomes the most critical aspect. Where automation is concerned, contextual intelligence becomes the most critical aspect to ensure that qualitative care delivery is happening across the continuum for the provider and the patient."
@FoldHealth #FoldHealth #Telehealth #HealthTech #Healthcare #PrimaryCare #DPC #DirectPrimaryCare #CRM
fold.health
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Jill Pellegrino is the VP of Recruitment and RWE at CVS Health Clinical Trial Services. Real-world evidence uses data collected in a real-world setting and can supplement data collected in the controlled setting of a clinical trial. It could be used to measure safety outcomes, the efficacy of treatments, or behaviors that impact the quality of life.
Jill explains, "Most parties that are relying on real-world data are pulling it from claims or medical records. And this data is often de-identified, but it can be patchy because it needs to be pulled from multiple sources. At CVS, we have access to clinical data that's more cohesive because it spans across our different businesses and brings in data from payer, pharmacy, and provider in one set."
"But we don't just rely on clinical data when we're thinking about real-world evidence. We invite our customer community to participate directly in research opportunities, which allows us to gather insights directly from the patients. That patient voice is really helpful in illuminating variables that may be impacting their healthcare decisions as well as the disease burden impact on their daily lives."
@CVSHealth #RWE #RealWorldEvidence #RWD #RealWorldData #ClinicalTrial
CVSHealth.com
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Jill Pellegrino is the VP of Recruitment and RWE at CVS Health Clinical Trial Services. Real-world evidence uses data collected in a real-world setting and can supplement data collected in the controlled setting of a clinical trial. It could be used to measure safety outcomes, the efficacy of treatments, or behaviors that impact the quality of life.
Jill explains, "Most parties that are relying on real-world data are pulling it from claims or medical records. And this data is often de-identified, but it can be patchy because it needs to be pulled from multiple sources. At CVS, we have access to clinical data that's more cohesive because it spans across our different businesses and brings in data from payer, pharmacy, and provider in one set."
"But we don't just rely on clinical data when we're thinking about real-world evidence. We invite our customer community to participate directly in research opportunities, which allows us to gather insights directly from the patients. That patient voice is really helpful in illuminating variables that may be impacting their healthcare decisions as well as the disease burden impact on their daily lives."
@CVSHealth #RWE #RealWorldEvidence #RWD #RealWorldData #ClinicalTrial
CVSHealth.com
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Dr. Mukul Mehra is the Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of IllumiCare and firmly believes that cost transparency should be given to physicians so that hard clinical decisions can put the cost of treatment into perspective. By providing real-time data, IllumiCare is influencing clinician behavior to reduce waste, lower costs and improve decisions about appropriate treatments.
Mukul explains, "So IllumiCare is essentially bringing in all of these constructs of different points in a patient's care journey in the inpatient setting, giving a cost definition to what that treatment is costing, and getting down to a real true cost. Then understanding that at different points in a treatment plan, that certainly there may not be proper adjudication. But if we don't start off with cost transparency, then we're not going to really get to define the cost of waste."
"When you aggregate data and make it retrospect, it tends to have very little influence or impact on physician practice patterns. And in the end, IllumiCare is a behavioral change company. And we want to change behavior by reducing costs, but we want to reduce costs when you can decelerate good therapy when you now only need a pretty good drug because that's good enough. And so the nuances of all of that are only going to occur when you give this information at the point-of-care, contextually, in real-time. And that's occurring over the electronic medical record for many of us in that data assimilation and review mode."
"It's most directly designed to influence physician/clinician behavior. It's EMR agnostic. It grabs EMR data. It works in harmony with any electronic medical record. And it has really three ways to influence providers. One, it's point-of-care. Two, it can detect what a provider's wasteful tendencies are. Of course, the provider is the ultimate adjudicator. It detects the context of the patient and the provider's prior behaviors and what's going on with the current patient. And it can nudge, preemptively, a suggestion, sort of a digital, hey, tap on the shoulder, but it doesn't stop or interrupt the physician's workflow."
#IllumiCare #healthit #ehr #emr #hospitalpayers #payers #hospitals #patientcosts #patientprotection #costtransparency #lengthofstay #stewardship #patientcare #healthcaresystems
IllumiCare.com
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Dr. Mukul Mehra is the Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of IllumiCare and firmly believes that cost transparency should be given to physicians so that hard clinical decisions can put the cost of treatment into perspective. By providing real-time data, IllumiCare is influencing clinician behavior to reduce waste, lower costs and improve decisions about appropriate treatments.
Mukul explains, "So IllumiCare is essentially bringing in all of these constructs of different points in a patient's care journey in the inpatient setting, giving a cost definition to what that treatment is costing, and getting down to a real true cost. Then understanding that at different points in a treatment plan, that certainly there may not be proper adjudication. But if we don't start off with cost transparency, then we're not going to really get to define the cost of waste."
"When you aggregate data and make it retrospect, it tends to have very little influence or impact on physician practice patterns. And in the end, IllumiCare is a behavioral change company. And we want to change behavior by reducing costs, but we want to reduce costs when you can decelerate good therapy when you now only need a pretty good drug because that's good enough. And so the nuances of all of that are only going to occur when you give this information at the point-of-care, contextually, in real-time. And that's occurring over the electronic medical record for many of us in that data assimilation and review mode."
"It's most directly designed to influence physician/clinician behavior. It's EMR agnostic. It grabs EMR data. It works in harmony with any electronic medical record. And it has really three ways to influence providers. One, it's point-of-care. Two, it can detect what a provider's wasteful tendencies are. Of course, the provider is the ultimate adjudicator. It detects the context of the patient and the provider's prior behaviors and what's going on with the current patient. And it can nudge, preemptively, a suggestion, sort of a digital, hey, tap on the shoulder, but it doesn't stop or interrupt the physician's workflow."
#IllumiCare #healthit #ehr #emr #hospitalpayers #payers #hospitals #patientcosts #patientprotection #costtransparency #lengthofstay #stewardship #patientcare #healthcaresystems
IllumiCare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Mukul Mehra is the Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of IllumiCare and firmly believes that cost transparency should be given to physicians so that hard clinical decisions can put the cost of treatment into perspective. By providing real-time data, IllumiCare is influencing clinician behavior to reduce waste, lower costs and improve decisions about appropriate treatments.
Mukul explains, "So IllumiCare is essentially bringing in all of these constructs of different points in a patient's care journey in the inpatient setting, giving a cost definition to what that treatment is costing, and getting down to a real true cost. Then understanding that at different points in a treatment plan, that certainly there may not be proper adjudication. But if we don't start off with cost transparency, then we're not going to really get to define the cost of waste."
"When you aggregate data and make it retrospect, it tends to have very little influence or impact on physician practice patterns. And in the end, IllumiCare is a behavioral change company. And we want to change behavior by reducing costs, but we want to reduce costs when you can decelerate good therapy when you now only need a pretty good drug because that's good enough. And so the nuances of all of that are only going to occur when you give this information at the point-of-care, contextually, in real-time. And that's occurring over the electronic medical record for many of us in that data assimilation and review mode."
"It's most directly designed to influence physician/clinician behavior. It's EMR agnostic. It grabs EMR data. It works in harmony with any electronic medical record. And it has really three ways to influence providers. One, it's point-of-care. Two, it can detect what a provider's wasteful tendencies are. Of course, the provider is the ultimate adjudicator. It detects the context of the patient and the provider's prior behaviors and what's going on with the current patient. And it can nudge, preemptively, a suggestion, sort of a digital, hey, tap on the shoulder, but it doesn't stop or interrupt the physician's workflow."
#IllumiCare #healthit #ehr #emr #hospitalpayers #payers #hospitals #patientcosts #patientprotection #costtransparency #lengthofstay #stewardship #patientcare #healthcaresystems
IllumiCare.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Mukul Mehra is the Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of IllumiCare and firmly believes that cost transparency should be given to physicians so that hard clinical decisions can put the cost of treatment into perspective. By providing real-time data, IllumiCare is influencing clinician behavior to reduce waste, lower costs and improve decisions about appropriate treatments.
Mukul explains, "So IllumiCare is essentially bringing in all of these constructs of different points in a patient's care journey in the inpatient setting, giving a cost definition to what that treatment is costing, and getting down to a real true cost. Then understanding that at different points in a treatment plan, that certainly there may not be proper adjudication. But if we don't start off with cost transparency, then we're not going to really get to define the cost of waste."
"When you aggregate data and make it retrospect, it tends to have very little influence or impact on physician practice patterns. And in the end, IllumiCare is a behavioral change company. And we want to change behavior by reducing costs, but we want to reduce costs when you can decelerate good therapy when you now only need a pretty good drug because that's good enough. And so the nuances of all of that are only going to occur when you give this information at the point-of-care, contextually, in real-time. And that's occurring over the electronic medical record for many of us in that data assimilation and review mode."
"It's most directly designed to influence physician/clinician behavior. It's EMR agnostic. It grabs EMR data. It works in harmony with any electronic medical record. And it has really three ways to influence providers. One, it's point-of-care. Two, it can detect what a provider's wasteful tendencies are. Of course, the provider is the ultimate adjudicator. It detects the context of the patient and the provider's prior behaviors and what's going on with the current patient. And it can nudge, preemptively, a suggestion, sort of a digital, hey, tap on the shoulder, but it doesn't stop or interrupt the physician's workflow."
#IllumiCare #healthit #ehr #emr #hospitalpayers #payers #hospitals #patientcosts #patientprotection #costtransparency #lengthofstay #stewardship #patientcare #healthcaresystems
IllumiCare.com
Download the transcript here
Matty Culbreth-Notaro is the Chief Operations Officer at ObvioHealth and developing a new model for virtual decentralized clinical trials. Accelerated by the pandemic, there is widespread global acceptance of DCT. This digital solution and mobile app are an efficient approach to identifying and recruiting trial participants and significantly increasing trial completion rates.
Matty elaborates, "When I joined ObvioHealth, I had been in the industry for almost 30 years, I didn't know that it would actually work as well as it has. And now, being with Obvio for five years, I've seen the huge impact it's made, the technology has made to our patients, to our industry in general. And it's just been a great way for us to marry the tech and the service and leverage all the technological innovations that we have to tackle those inefficiencies in our industry."
"Our technology has built-in intelligence that it's able to say, well, you qualify, or you don't qualify, at least from the pre-screening questionnaire. And then, we send them, if they do qualify, a link to the app to download onto their smartphone. From there, we onboard them. We'll do the consenting process right on the phone. We'll ask them all the screening questionnaires right there. And then they're assigned to a virtual site team that's going to help them along the way. They're using their own smartphones to complete all of the study-related visits or study-related procedures."
"Now, not every trial can be done 100% in a decentralized way. Some trials have to be done with still a brick-and-mortar site involved in the process. And for that, that's called a hybrid model. We support that as well, so the participant can go to the office for some visits, but they don't have to go to the office for all the visits like they used to. And in many cases, none of this has to be done at the office anymore. It can be done remotely."
#ClinicalTrials #ObvioHealth #DecentralizedTrials #VirtualTrials #DCT #PatientEngagement #PatientCentricity #HybridClinicalTrials #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #DCTs #PatientAdherence #PatientCompliance #ClinicalResearch #RareDiseases
obviohealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Matty Culbreth-Notaro is the Chief Operations Officer at ObvioHealth and developing a new model for virtual decentralized clinical trials. Accelerated by the pandemic, there is widespread global acceptance of DCT. This digital solution and mobile app are an efficient approach to identifying and recruiting trial participants and significantly increasing trial completion rates.
Matty elaborates, "When I joined ObvioHealth, I had been in the industry for almost 30 years, I didn't know that it would actually work as well as it has. And now, being with Obvio for five years, I've seen the huge impact it's made, the technology has made to our patients, to our industry in general. And it's just been a great way for us to marry the tech and the service and leverage all the technological innovations that we have to tackle those inefficiencies in our industry."
"Our technology has built-in intelligence that it's able to say, well, you qualify, or you don't qualify, at least from the pre-screening questionnaire. And then, we send them, if they do qualify, a link to the app to download onto their smartphone. From there, we onboard them. We'll do the consenting process right on the phone. We'll ask them all the screening questionnaires right there. And then they're assigned to a virtual site team that's going to help them along the way. They're using their own smartphones to complete all of the study-related visits or study-related procedures."
"Now, not every trial can be done 100% in a decentralized way. Some trials have to be done with still a brick-and-mortar site involved in the process. And for that, that's called a hybrid model. We support that as well, so the participant can go to the office for some visits, but they don't have to go to the office for all the visits like they used to. And in many cases, none of this has to be done at the office anymore. It can be done remotely."
#ClinicalTrials #ObvioHealth #DecentralizedTrials #VirtualTrials #DCT #PatientEngagement #PatientCentricity #HybridClinicalTrials #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #DCTs #PatientAdherence #PatientCompliance #ClinicalResearch #RareDiseases
obviohealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Matty Culbreth-Notaro is the Chief Operations Officer at ObvioHealth and developing a new model for virtual decentralized clinical trials. Accelerated by the pandemic, there is widespread global acceptance of DCT. This digital solution and mobile app are an efficient approach to identifying and recruiting trial participants and significantly increasing trial completion rates.
Matty elaborates, "When I joined ObvioHealth, I had been in the industry for almost 30 years, I didn't know that it would actually work as well as it has. And now, being with Obvio for five years, I've seen the huge impact it's made, the technology has made to our patients, to our industry in general. And it's just been a great way for us to marry the tech and the service and leverage all the technological innovations that we have to tackle those inefficiencies in our industry."
"Our technology has built-in intelligence that it's able to say, well, you qualify, or you don't qualify, at least from the pre-screening questionnaire. And then, we send them, if they do qualify, a link to the app to download onto their smartphone. From there, we onboard them. We'll do the consenting process right on the phone. We'll ask them all the screening questionnaires right there. And then they're assigned to a virtual site team that's going to help them along the way. They're using their own smartphones to complete all of the study-related visits or study-related procedures."
"Now, not every trial can be done 100% in a decentralized way. Some trials have to be done with still a brick-and-mortar site involved in the process. And for that, that's called a hybrid model. We support that as well, so the participant can go to the office for some visits, but they don't have to go to the office for all the visits like they used to. And in many cases, none of this has to be done at the office anymore. It can be done remotely."
#ClinicalTrials #ObvioHealth #DecentralizedTrials #VirtualTrials #DCT #PatientEngagement #PatientCentricity #HybridClinicalTrials #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #DCTs #PatientAdherence #PatientCompliance #ClinicalResearch #RareDiseases
obviohealth.com
Download the transcript here
Matty Culbreth-Notaro is the Chief Operations Officer at ObvioHealth and developing a new model for virtual decentralized clinical trials. Accelerated by the pandemic, there is widespread global acceptance of DCT. This digital solution and mobile app are an efficient approach to identifying and recruiting trial participants and significantly increasing trial completion rates.
Matty elaborates, "When I joined ObvioHealth, I had been in the industry for almost 30 years, I didn't know that it would actually work as well as it has. And now, being with Obvio for five years, I've seen the huge impact it's made, the technology has made to our patients, to our industry in general. And it's just been a great way for us to marry the tech and the service and leverage all the technological innovations that we have to tackle those inefficiencies in our industry."
"Our technology has built-in intelligence that it's able to say, well, you qualify, or you don't qualify, at least from the pre-screening questionnaire. And then, we send them, if they do qualify, a link to the app to download onto their smartphone. From there, we onboard them. We'll do the consenting process right on the phone. We'll ask them all the screening questionnaires right there. And then they're assigned to a virtual site team that's going to help them along the way. They're using their own smartphones to complete all of the study-related visits or study-related procedures."
"Now, not every trial can be done 100% in a decentralized way. Some trials have to be done with still a brick-and-mortar site involved in the process. And for that, that's called a hybrid model. We support that as well, so the participant can go to the office for some visits, but they don't have to go to the office for all the visits like they used to. And in many cases, none of this has to be done at the office anymore. It can be done remotely."
#ClinicalTrials #ObvioHealth #DecentralizedTrials #VirtualTrials #DCT #PatientEngagement #PatientCentricity #HybridClinicalTrials #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #DCTs #PatientAdherence #PatientCompliance #ClinicalResearch #RareDiseases
obviohealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Paul Sherman is the Chief Medical Officer of the Community Health Plan of Washington, the only nonprofit managed care organization for Medicaid in Washington state. They have also expanded into offering Medicare Advantage plans and providing a public/private low-cost insurance option for low-income people who do not qualify for Medicaid. Paul is enthusiastic about the new benefits that have been added to provide alternative approaches to healthcare that are less invasive and have better options than opioids for pain management.
Paul explains, "Treatments that we're offering with this new benefit are a package of chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapy. So those traditional plans have offered services on a medical necessity or another basis. Still, we're trying to offer them in a much more patient-centered way where it's much easier for them to access it, to access the treatments that are important to them."
"We're starting with those three benefits, but as we work with our members across the state and listen to their needs, we're talking to various populations about what other alternative therapies we should consider offering. We're talking to Native American tribes and our Mexican communities to really understand if there are other treatments that are important to them that we should think about adding to this benefit."
@MyCHPW #CommunityHealthPlanofWashington #AlternativeTherapies #Medicaid #Medicare #Acupuncture #Chiropractic #MassageTherapy #PatientCentered
chpw.com
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Dr. Paul Sherman is the Chief Medical Officer of the Community Health Plan of Washington, the only nonprofit managed care organization for Medicaid in Washington state. They have also expanded into offering Medicare Advantage plans and providing a public/private low-cost insurance option for low-income people who do not qualify for Medicaid. Paul is enthusiastic about the new benefits that have been added to provide alternative approaches to healthcare that are less invasive and have better options than opioids for pain management.
Paul explains, "Treatments that we're offering with this new benefit are a package of chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapy. So those traditional plans have offered services on a medical necessity or another basis. Still, we're trying to offer them in a much more patient-centered way where it's much easier for them to access it, to access the treatments that are important to them."
"We're starting with those three benefits, but as we work with our members across the state and listen to their needs, we're talking to various populations about what other alternative therapies we should consider offering. We're talking to Native American tribes and our Mexican communities to really understand if there are other treatments that are important to them that we should think about adding to this benefit."
@MyCHPW #CommunityHealthPlanofWashington #AlternativeTherapies #Medicaid #Medicare #Acupuncture #Chiropractic #MassageTherapy #PatientCentered
chpw.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Paul Sherman is the Chief Medical Officer of the Community Health Plan of Washington, the only nonprofit managed care organization for Medicaid in Washington state. They have also expanded into offering Medicare Advantage plans and providing a public/private low-cost insurance option for low-income people who do not qualify for Medicaid. Paul is enthusiastic about the new benefits that have been added to provide alternative approaches to healthcare that are less invasive and have better options than opioids for pain management.
Paul explains, "Treatments that we're offering with this new benefit are a package of chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapy. So those traditional plans have offered services on a medical necessity or another basis. Still, we're trying to offer them in a much more patient-centered way where it's much easier for them to access it, to access the treatments that are important to them."
"We're starting with those three benefits, but as we work with our members across the state and listen to their needs, we're talking to various populations about what other alternative therapies we should consider offering. We're talking to Native American tribes and our Mexican communities to really understand if there are other treatments that are important to them that we should think about adding to this benefit."
@MyCHPW #CommunityHealthPlanofWashington #AlternativeTherapies #Medicaid #Medicare #Acupuncture #Chiropractic #MassageTherapy #PatientCentered
chpw.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Paul Sherman is the Chief Medical Officer of the Community Health Plan of Washington, the only nonprofit managed care organization for Medicaid in Washington state. They have also expanded into offering Medicare Advantage plans and providing a public/private low-cost insurance option for low-income people who do not qualify for Medicaid. Paul is enthusiastic about the new benefits that have been added to provide alternative approaches to healthcare that are less invasive and have better options than opioids for pain management.
Paul explains, "Treatments that we're offering with this new benefit are a package of chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapy. So those traditional plans have offered services on a medical necessity or another basis. Still, we're trying to offer them in a much more patient-centered way where it's much easier for them to access it, to access the treatments that are important to them."
"We're starting with those three benefits, but as we work with our members across the state and listen to their needs, we're talking to various populations about what other alternative therapies we should consider offering. We're talking to Native American tribes and our Mexican communities to really understand if there are other treatments that are important to them that we should think about adding to this benefit."
@MyCHPW #CommunityHealthPlanofWashington #AlternativeTherapies #Medicaid #Medicare #Acupuncture #Chiropractic #MassageTherapy #PatientCentered
chpw.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Alison Darcy is the President and Founder of Woebot Health, an engaging method of delivering self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy on a mobile device. Using only text, Woebot allows the user to interact with a fully automated system with no human intervention but using smart technology that is infinitely patient and never sleeps.
Alison explains, "That also makes it really flexible and flexibly delivered through the health system because it's kind of complimentary to traditional therapy. It can also be and has been used as a very easy on-ramp into the experience of working on one's mental health. It's also been used by people who have already been through therapy and looking for a refresher. It's also been used as a way to just engage with solid mental health-promoting ideas and skills prior to any diagnosable issue."
"What's interesting, actually, from our data, we see that the longest conversations people have with Woebot occur between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. I think that's so interesting because these are the moments when there's nobody really around to talk to. And, of course, 80% of all the conversations Woebot has occur outside of traditional clinical hours. So they're happening between 5:00 PM and 8:00 or 9:00 AM the next day. That is a key advantage that a digital solution has."
@HiWoebot #Woebot #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #MentalHealth #AITechnology
woebothealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Alison Darcy is the President and Founder of Woebot Health, an engaging method of delivering self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy on a mobile device. Using only text, Woebot allows the user to interact with a fully automated system with no human intervention but using smart technology that is infinitely patient and never sleeps.
Alison explains, "That also makes it really flexible and flexibly delivered through the health system because it's kind of complimentary to traditional therapy. It can also be and has been used as a very easy on-ramp into the experience of working on one's mental health. It's also been used by people who have already been through therapy and looking for a refresher. It's also been used as a way to just engage with solid mental health-promoting ideas and skills prior to any diagnosable issue."
"What's interesting, actually, from our data, we see that the longest conversations people have with Woebot occur between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. I think that's so interesting because these are the moments when there's nobody really around to talk to. And, of course, 80% of all the conversations Woebot has occur outside of traditional clinical hours. So they're happening between 5:00 PM and 8:00 or 9:00 AM the next day. That is a key advantage that a digital solution has."
@HiWoebot #Woebot #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #MentalHealth #AITechnology
woebothealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Alison Darcy is the President and Founder of Woebot Health, an engaging method of delivering self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy on a mobile device. Using only text, Woebot allows the user to interact with a fully automated system with no human intervention but using smart technology that is infinitely patient and never sleeps.
Alison explains, "That also makes it really flexible and flexibly delivered through the health system because it's kind of complimentary to traditional therapy. It can also be and has been used as a very easy on-ramp into the experience of working on one's mental health. It's also been used by people who have already been through therapy and looking for a refresher. It's also been used as a way to just engage with solid mental health-promoting ideas and skills prior to any diagnosable issue."
"What's interesting, actually, from our data, we see that the longest conversations people have with Woebot occur between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. I think that's so interesting because these are the moments when there's nobody really around to talk to. And, of course, 80% of all the conversations Woebot has occur outside of traditional clinical hours. So they're happening between 5:00 PM and 8:00 or 9:00 AM the next day. That is a key advantage that a digital solution has."
@HiWoebot #Woebot #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #MentalHealth #AITechnology
woebothealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Alison Darcy is the President and Founder of Woebot Health, an engaging method of delivering self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy on a mobile device. Using only text, Woebot allows the user to interact with a fully automated system with no human intervention but using smart technology that is infinitely patient and never sleeps.
Alison explains, "That also makes it really flexible and flexibly delivered through the health system because it's kind of complimentary to traditional therapy. It can also be and has been used as a very easy on-ramp into the experience of working on one's mental health. It's also been used by people who have already been through therapy and looking for a refresher. It's also been used as a way to just engage with solid mental health-promoting ideas and skills prior to any diagnosable issue."
"What's interesting, actually, from our data, we see that the longest conversations people have with Woebot occur between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. I think that's so interesting because these are the moments when there's nobody really around to talk to. And, of course, 80% of all the conversations Woebot has occur outside of traditional clinical hours. So they're happening between 5:00 PM and 8:00 or 9:00 AM the next day. That is a key advantage that a digital solution has."
@HiWoebot #Woebot #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutics #MentalHealth #AITechnology
woebothealth.com
Download the transcript here
Paula Brown Stafford is the President, CEO, and Chairman of Novan, which is focused on the research, development, and commercialization of therapies for skin diseases using a novel chemical entity. The first target indication is molluscum contagiosum, a highly contagious viral skin infection caused by molluscipoxvirus with no current FDA-approved treatment.
Paula explains, "The prevalence in the U.S. is around 6 million people, in terms of who gets it. In our clinical trials, which seem to be indicative of the normal population, the average age of the patient is about six and a half, primarily children, one year of age to 14, are the ones who get or are susceptible to this virus."
"Our product candidate is Berdazimer gel 10.3%. It's a topical gel under investigation here at Novan to be a first-in-class therapy for the treatment of molluscum. The active ingredient is Berdazimer sodium, which is a nitric oxide- releasing agent. Our other products potentially for acne, potentially for other areas like psoriasis, et cetera, may have a different percentage number after Berdazimer gel because it refers to the amount of nitric oxide that's in the final product."
@Novan_Biotech #Novan #Dermatology #Molluscum #Pediatrics
novan.com
Listen to the podcast here
Paula Brown Stafford is the President, CEO, and Chairman of Novan, which is focused on the research, development, and commercialization of therapies for skin diseases using a novel chemical entity. The first target indication is molluscum contagiosum, a highly contagious viral skin infection caused by molluscipoxvirus with no current FDA-approved treatment.
Paula explains, "The prevalence in the U.S. is around 6 million people, in terms of who gets it. In our clinical trials, which seem to be indicative of the normal population, the average age of the patient is about six and a half, primarily children, one year of age to 14, are the ones who get or are susceptible to this virus."
"Our product candidate is Berdazimer gel 10.3%. It's a topical gel under investigation here at Novan to be a first-in-class therapy for the treatment of molluscum. The active ingredient is Berdazimer sodium, which is a nitric oxide- releasing agent. Our other products potentially for acne, potentially for other areas like psoriasis, et cetera, may have a different percentage number after Berdazimer gel because it refers to the amount of nitric oxide that's in the final product."
@Novan_Biotech #Novan #Dermatology #Molluscum #Pediatrics
novan.com
Listen to the podcast here
Paula Brown Stafford is the President, CEO, and Chairman of Novan, which is focused on the research, development, and commercialization of therapies for skin diseases using a novel chemical entity. The first target indication is molluscum contagiosum, a highly contagious viral skin infection caused by molluscipoxvirus with no current FDA-approved treatment.
Paula explains, "The prevalence in the U.S. is around 6 million people, in terms of who gets it. In our clinical trials, which seem to be indicative of the normal population, the average age of the patient is about six and a half, primarily children, one year of age to 14, are the ones who get or are susceptible to this virus."
"Our product candidate is Berdazimer gel 10.3%. It's a topical gel under investigation here at Novan to be a first-in-class therapy for the treatment of molluscum. The active ingredient is Berdazimer sodium, which is a nitric oxide- releasing agent. Our other products potentially for acne, potentially for other areas like psoriasis, et cetera, may have a different percentage number after Berdazimer gel because it refers to the amount of nitric oxide that's in the final product."
@Novan_Biotech #Novan #Dermatology #Molluscum #Pediatrics
novan.com
Download the transcript here
Paula Brown Stafford is the President, CEO, and Chairman of Novan, which is focused on the research, development, and commercialization of therapies for skin diseases using a novel chemical entity. The first target indication is molluscum contagiosum, a highly contagious viral skin infection caused by molluscipoxvirus with no current FDA-approved treatment.
Paula explains, "The prevalence in the U.S. is around 6 million people, in terms of who gets it. In our clinical trials, which seem to be indicative of the normal population, the average age of the patient is about six and a half, primarily children, one year of age to 14, are the ones who get or are susceptible to this virus."
"Our product candidate is Berdazimer gel 10.3%. It's a topical gel under investigation here at Novan to be a first-in-class therapy for the treatment of molluscum. The active ingredient is Berdazimer sodium, which is a nitric oxide- releasing agent. Our other products potentially for acne, potentially for other areas like psoriasis, et cetera, may have a different percentage number after Berdazimer gel because it refers to the amount of nitric oxide that's in the final product."
@Novan_Biotech #Novan #Dermatology #Molluscum #Pediatrics
novan.com
Download the transcript here
Jordan Mauriello is the Chief Security Officer at Critical Start and points out the cybersecurity challenges that healthcare organizations, hospitals, individual doctors' offices, and private practices face to protect against cyberattacks. With an eye to how data is stored, Critical Start is looking to reduce opportunities for cybercriminals while, at the same time, planning for a response to a cyberattack.
Jordan explains, "The amount of change that is happening in healthcare actually needs a little bit of a boost. There are changes that have been made, but most healthcare is governed when it comes to cybersecurity by HIPAA. Most of your listeners are familiar with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was formed in 1996. And the last time we had a significant change to HIPAA was in 2013. And so when we see the regulatory requirements lagging almost a decade behind what we see here, there's actually quite a bit of change that needs to happen still in healthcare."
"I think the biggest blind spots are still understanding the potential impacts. We've seen hospitals kind of gain notoriety from attacks in the last couple of years. And it's because they have been slower to evolve. Cybercriminals are not slow to evolve. They're always looking for the fastest, most profitable way to monetize a cyberattack. Because they're all about money. It's much different than it was when we saw the hacking movies that came out 20 years ago."
@CriticalStart #HospitalCybersecurity #Cybersecurity #ManagedDetectionandResponse #Cybercriminals #Cyberattack #HIPAA
CriticalStart.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jordan Mauriello is the Chief Security Officer at Critical Start and points out the cybersecurity challenges that healthcare organizations, hospitals, individual doctors' offices, and private practices face to protect against cyberattacks. With an eye to how data is stored, Critical Start is looking to reduce opportunities for cybercriminals while, at the same time, planning for a response to a cyberattack.
Jordan explains, "The amount of change that is happening in healthcare actually needs a little bit of a boost. There are changes that have been made, but most healthcare is governed when it comes to cybersecurity by HIPAA. Most of your listeners are familiar with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was formed in 1996. And the last time we had a significant change to HIPAA was in 2013. And so when we see the regulatory requirements lagging almost a decade behind what we see here, there's actually quite a bit of change that needs to happen still in healthcare."
"I think the biggest blind spots are still understanding the potential impacts. We've seen hospitals kind of gain notoriety from attacks in the last couple of years. And it's because they have been slower to evolve. Cybercriminals are not slow to evolve. They're always looking for the fastest, most profitable way to monetize a cyberattack. Because they're all about money. It's much different than it was when we saw the hacking movies that came out 20 years ago."
@CriticalStart #HospitalCybersecurity #Cybersecurity #ManagedDetectionandResponse #Cybercriminals #Cyberattack #HIPAA
CriticalStart.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jordan Mauriello is the Chief Security Officer at Critical Start and points out the cybersecurity challenges that healthcare organizations, hospitals, individual doctors' offices, and private practices face to protect against cyberattacks. With an eye to how data is stored, Critical Start is looking to reduce opportunities for cybercriminals while, at the same time, planning for a response to a cyberattack.
Jordan explains, "The amount of change that is happening in healthcare actually needs a little bit of a boost. There are changes that have been made, but most healthcare is governed when it comes to cybersecurity by HIPAA. Most of your listeners are familiar with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was formed in 1996. And the last time we had a significant change to HIPAA was in 2013. And so when we see the regulatory requirements lagging almost a decade behind what we see here, there's actually quite a bit of change that needs to happen still in healthcare."
"I think the biggest blind spots are still understanding the potential impacts. We've seen hospitals kind of gain notoriety from attacks in the last couple of years. And it's because they have been slower to evolve. Cybercriminals are not slow to evolve. They're always looking for the fastest, most profitable way to monetize a cyberattack. Because they're all about money. It's much different than it was when we saw the hacking movies that came out 20 years ago."
@CriticalStart #HospitalCybersecurity #Cybersecurity #ManagedDetectionandResponse #Cybercriminals #Cyberattack #HIPAA
CriticalStart.com
Download the transcript here
Jordan Mauriello is the Chief Security Officer at Critical Start and points out the cybersecurity challenges that healthcare organizations, hospitals, individual doctors' offices, and private practices face to protect against cyberattacks. With an eye to how data is stored, Critical Start is looking to reduce opportunities for cybercriminals while, at the same time, planning for a response to a cyberattack.
Jordan explains, "The amount of change that is happening in healthcare actually needs a little bit of a boost. There are changes that have been made, but most healthcare is governed when it comes to cybersecurity by HIPAA. Most of your listeners are familiar with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was formed in 1996. And the last time we had a significant change to HIPAA was in 2013. And so when we see the regulatory requirements lagging almost a decade behind what we see here, there's actually quite a bit of change that needs to happen still in healthcare."
"I think the biggest blind spots are still understanding the potential impacts. We've seen hospitals kind of gain notoriety from attacks in the last couple of years. And it's because they have been slower to evolve. Cybercriminals are not slow to evolve. They're always looking for the fastest, most profitable way to monetize a cyberattack. Because they're all about money. It's much different than it was when we saw the hacking movies that came out 20 years ago."
@CriticalStart #HospitalCybersecurity #Cybersecurity #ManagedDetectionandResponse #Cybercriminals #Cyberattack #HIPAA
CriticalStart.com
Download the transcript here
Yishai Knobel is the Co-Founder and CEO of HelpAround, which is focused on the interoperability of data from providers, payers, vendors, and pharmacies that are part of the specialty patient journey. The HelpAround gateway enables patients to quickly get appropriate drugs with all necessary support to ensure patients can fill specialty prescriptions and stay on their therapy.
Yishai explains, "What we did is basically connect all these silos and create a gateway in the middle that basically gets the right information from all the vendors and makes sure that it is served to the patient in a way that is appropriate and manageable and consumable and actionable. For example, if the patient leaves the office, some of these vendors are not allowed to reach out to the patient until they have a consent signature from the patient that says, "Yes, I'm willing for the pharma company and their proxies to reach out to me." Collecting that consent at the right time is a critical step."
"Just really automating and digitizing a lot of this experience, and meeting the patients where they are, which is literally on their phone, on the go, in a very high-quality personalized experience. Not requiring them to download an app, not requiring them to go through hoops in order to just sign a few forms. Just making it very easy, click, click, click, and check all the boxes you need to check and get on with your life."
#HelpAround #SpecialtyDrugs #SpecialtyPharmaceuticals #SpecialtyPatient #RareDiseases #Oncology #DigitalHealth
HelpAround.co
Listen to the podcast here
Yishai Knobel is the Co-Founder and CEO of HelpAround, which is focused on the interoperability of data from providers, payers, vendors, and pharmacies that are part of the specialty patient journey. The HelpAround gateway enables patients to quickly get appropriate drugs with all necessary support to ensure patients can fill specialty prescriptions and stay on their therapy.
Yishai explains, "What we did is basically connect all these silos and create a gateway in the middle that basically gets the right information from all the vendors and makes sure that it is served to the patient in a way that is appropriate and manageable and consumable and actionable. For example, if the patient leaves the office, some of these vendors are not allowed to reach out to the patient until they have a consent signature from the patient that says, "Yes, I'm willing for the pharma company and their proxies to reach out to me." Collecting that consent at the right time is a critical step."
"Just really automating and digitizing a lot of this experience, and meeting the patients where they are, which is literally on their phone, on the go, in a very high-quality personalized experience. Not requiring them to download an app, not requiring them to go through hoops in order to just sign a few forms. Just making it very easy, click, click, click, and check all the boxes you need to check and get on with your life."
#HelpAround #SpecialtyDrugs #SpecialtyPharmaceuticals #SpecialtyPatient #RareDiseases #Oncology #DigitalHealth
HelpAround.co
Listen to the podcast here
Yishai Knobel is the Co-Founder and CEO of HelpAround, which is focused on the interoperability of data from providers, payers, vendors, and pharmacies that are part of the specialty patient journey. The HelpAround gateway enables patients to quickly get appropriate drugs with all necessary support to ensure patients can fill specialty prescriptions and stay on their therapy.
Yishai explains, "What we did is basically connect all these silos and create a gateway in the middle that basically gets the right information from all the vendors and makes sure that it is served to the patient in a way that is appropriate and manageable and consumable and actionable. For example, if the patient leaves the office, some of these vendors are not allowed to reach out to the patient until they have a consent signature from the patient that says, "Yes, I'm willing for the pharma company and their proxies to reach out to me." Collecting that consent at the right time is a critical step."
"Just really automating and digitizing a lot of this experience, and meeting the patients where they are, which is literally on their phone, on the go, in a very high-quality personalized experience. Not requiring them to download an app, not requiring them to go through hoops in order to just sign a few forms. Just making it very easy, click, click, click, and check all the boxes you need to check and get on with your life."
#HelpAround #SpecialtyDrugs #SpecialtyPharmaceuticals #SpecialtyPatient #RareDiseases #Oncology #DigitalHealth
HelpAround.co
Download the transcript here
Yishai Knobel is the Co-Founder and CEO of HelpAround, which is focused on the interoperability of data from providers, payers, vendors, and pharmacies that are part of the specialty patient journey. The HelpAround gateway enables patients to quickly get appropriate drugs with all necessary support to ensure patients can fill specialty prescriptions and stay on their therapy.
Yishai explains, "What we did is basically connect all these silos and create a gateway in the middle that basically gets the right information from all the vendors and makes sure that it is served to the patient in a way that is appropriate and manageable and consumable and actionable. For example, if the patient leaves the office, some of these vendors are not allowed to reach out to the patient until they have a consent signature from the patient that says, "Yes, I'm willing for the pharma company and their proxies to reach out to me." Collecting that consent at the right time is a critical step."
"Just really automating and digitizing a lot of this experience, and meeting the patients where they are, which is literally on their phone, on the go, in a very high-quality personalized experience. Not requiring them to download an app, not requiring them to go through hoops in order to just sign a few forms. Just making it very easy, click, click, click, and check all the boxes you need to check and get on with your life."
#HelpAround #SpecialtyDrugs #SpecialtyPharmaceuticals #SpecialtyPatient #RareDiseases #Oncology #DigitalHealth
HelpAround.co
Download the transcript here
Joe Hernandez is the Chairman and CEO of Blue Water Vaccines, a spinoff deploying technology from Oxford University. The original focus was on creating a universal flu vaccine that, with one shot, would provide immunity for all the known variations of influenza throughout an individual's lifetime. While continuing vaccine development with partners such as St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Blue Water has expanded its portfolio by identifying transformative vaccines in academic and research labs that can be preventative and prevent long-term diseases.
Joe elaborates, "Where we come in as corporate entities is that we take those technologies and really move them to the next level of development. We find out how we can manufacture them in a way that allows us to create enough material for broad distribution. We design clinical trials, we execute clinical trials, and we deal with the regulatory agencies to get the product approved. Then ultimately, we commercialize with commercial partners. That's kind of the modality that we use here at Blue Water."
"The technology that we in-licensed from the U.K. from Oxford was really derived from a mathematical model that was invented by a scientist there named Sunetra Gupta. Sunetra is by training a mathematician, although she focuses on epidemiological trends in different infectious agents, including malaria and COVID, and a number of other infective agents. But what she discovered, what she stumbled upon as it related to influenza, was that, in fact, influenza was not as diverse as we gave it credit for."
"What we noticed is that the virus, while elusive, really only has a limited ability to hide from the immune system. It has what we call "jackets" or these external codes that the virus uses, but it tends to use it again after a number of iterations. For example, the virus that was present in 1918, the one that was present in 1934, and the current virus have used some of those original "jackets" in the exterior, so we're able to deduce what those are."
@VaccinesInc #BlueWaterVaccines #Flu #Influenza #Vaccines #Vaccinations #FluVaccine #HealthcareInvesting #BigData
BlueWaterVaccines.com
Listen to the podcast here
Joe Hernandez is the Chairman and CEO of Blue Water Vaccines, a spinoff deploying technology from Oxford University. The original focus was on creating a universal flu vaccine that, with one shot, would provide immunity for all the known variations of influenza throughout an individual's lifetime. While continuing vaccine development with partners such as St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Blue Water has expanded its portfolio by identifying transformative vaccines in academic and research labs that can be preventative and prevent long-term diseases.
Joe elaborates, "Where we come in as corporate entities is that we take those technologies and really move them to the next level of development. We find out how we can manufacture them in a way that allows us to create enough material for broad distribution. We design clinical trials, we execute clinical trials, and we deal with the regulatory agencies to get the product approved. Then ultimately, we commercialize with commercial partners. That's kind of the modality that we use here at Blue Water."
"The technology that we in-licensed from the U.K. from Oxford was really derived from a mathematical model that was invented by a scientist there named Sunetra Gupta. Sunetra is by training a mathematician, although she focuses on epidemiological trends in different infectious agents, including malaria and COVID, and a number of other infective agents. But what she discovered, what she stumbled upon as it related to influenza, was that, in fact, influenza was not as diverse as we gave it credit for."
"What we noticed is that the virus, while elusive, really only has a limited ability to hide from the immune system. It has what we call "jackets" or these external codes that the virus uses, but it tends to use it again after a number of iterations. For example, the virus that was present in 1918, the one that was present in 1934, and the current virus have used some of those original "jackets" in the exterior, so we're able to deduce what those are."
@VaccinesInc #BlueWaterVaccines #Flu #Influenza #Vaccines #Vaccinations #FluVaccine #HealthcareInvesting #BigData
BlueWaterVaccines.com
Listen to the podcast here
Joe Hernandez is the Chairman and CEO of Blue Water Vaccines, a spinoff deploying technology from Oxford University. The original focus was on creating a universal flu vaccine that, with one shot, would provide immunity for all the known variations of influenza throughout an individual's lifetime. While continuing vaccine development with partners such as St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Blue Water has expanded its portfolio by identifying transformative vaccines in academic and research labs that can be preventative and prevent long-term diseases.
Joe elaborates, "Where we come in as corporate entities is that we take those technologies and really move them to the next level of development. We find out how we can manufacture them in a way that allows us to create enough material for broad distribution. We design clinical trials, we execute clinical trials, and we deal with the regulatory agencies to get the product approved. Then ultimately, we commercialize with commercial partners. That's kind of the modality that we use here at Blue Water."
"The technology that we in-licensed from the U.K. from Oxford was really derived from a mathematical model that was invented by a scientist there named Sunetra Gupta. Sunetra is by training a mathematician, although she focuses on epidemiological trends in different infectious agents, including malaria and COVID, and a number of other infective agents. But what she discovered, what she stumbled upon as it related to influenza, was that, in fact, influenza was not as diverse as we gave it credit for."
"What we noticed is that the virus, while elusive, really only has a limited ability to hide from the immune system. It has what we call "jackets" or these external codes that the virus uses, but it tends to use it again after a number of iterations. For example, the virus that was present in 1918, the one that was present in 1934, and the current virus have used some of those original "jackets" in the exterior, so we're able to deduce what those are."
@VaccinesInc #BlueWaterVaccines #Flu #Influenza #Vaccines #Vaccinations #FluVaccine #HealthcareInvesting #BigData
BlueWaterVaccines.com
Download the transcript here
Joe Hernandez is the Chairman and CEO of Blue Water Vaccines, a spinoff deploying technology from Oxford University. The original focus was on creating a universal flu vaccine that, with one shot, would provide immunity for all the known variations of influenza throughout an individual's lifetime. While continuing vaccine development with partners such as St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Blue Water has expanded its portfolio by identifying transformative vaccines in academic and research labs that can be preventative and prevent long-term diseases.
Joe elaborates, "Where we come in as corporate entities is that we take those technologies and really move them to the next level of development. We find out how we can manufacture them in a way that allows us to create enough material for broad distribution. We design clinical trials, we execute clinical trials, and we deal with the regulatory agencies to get the product approved. Then ultimately, we commercialize with commercial partners. That's kind of the modality that we use here at Blue Water."
"The technology that we in-licensed from the U.K. from Oxford was really derived from a mathematical model that was invented by a scientist there named Sunetra Gupta. Sunetra is by training a mathematician, although she focuses on epidemiological trends in different infectious agents, including malaria and COVID, and a number of other infective agents. But what she discovered, what she stumbled upon as it related to influenza, was that, in fact, influenza was not as diverse as we gave it credit for."
"What we noticed is that the virus, while elusive, really only has a limited ability to hide from the immune system. It has what we call "jackets" or these external codes that the virus uses, but it tends to use it again after a number of iterations. For example, the virus that was present in 1918, the one that was present in 1934, and the current virus have used some of those original "jackets" in the exterior, so we're able to deduce what those are."
@VaccinesInc #BlueWaterVaccines #Flu #Influenza #Vaccines #Vaccinations #FluVaccine #HealthcareInvesting #BigData
BlueWaterVaccines.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Bill Williams is the President and CEO of BriaCell, which is bringing a cellular approach to cancer immunotherapy. Building on their knowledge about HLA molecules, BriaCell is genetically engineering multiple HLA types of therapy to match the HLA types of cancer patients. Breast cancer and other cancers like prostate cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma are being explored for treatment with this approach. Individuals have up to 14 different HLA molecules, and BriaCell has seen that a single match is a strong predictor of the success of treatment.
Bill elaborates, "So, what we notice is that with our cellular therapy, we can predict patients that are very likely to respond based on the HLA type of a patient matching the HLA type of our cellular therapy The way that we do this, practically speaking, is we take our cells, grow them under GMP conditions, good manufacturing practice conditions Then after we harvest them, we irradiate them so they can't grow anymore, but they're still alive They are viable, but they don't really grow anymore."
"Then we freeze them down, and they're stable in that state for years, as we have proven at this point. Then, when the patients come in, we can ship them overnight to the clinic, where they can pull them out. Then they're injected into the skin of the patient in the upper back of the thighs to generate a very potent immune response, and the immune response generated will then attack the cancer of the patient."
@BriaCell #Immunotherapy #Tumors #Cancer #BreastCancer #HLATypes
briacell.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Bill Williams is the President and CEO of BriaCell, which is bringing a cellular approach to cancer immunotherapy. Building on their knowledge about HLA molecules, BriaCell is genetically engineering multiple HLA types of therapy to match the HLA types of cancer patients. Breast cancer and other cancers like prostate cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma are being explored for treatment with this approach. Individuals have up to 14 different HLA molecules, and BriaCell has seen that a single match is a strong predictor of the success of treatment.
Bill elaborates, "So, what we notice is that with our cellular therapy, we can predict patients that are very likely to respond based on the HLA type of a patient matching the HLA type of our cellular therapy The way that we do this, practically speaking, is we take our cells, grow them under GMP conditions, good manufacturing practice conditions Then after we harvest them, we irradiate them so they can't grow anymore, but they're still alive They are viable, but they don't really grow anymore."
"Then we freeze them down, and they're stable in that state for years, as we have proven at this point. Then, when the patients come in, we can ship them overnight to the clinic, where they can pull them out. Then they're injected into the skin of the patient in the upper back of the thighs to generate a very potent immune response, and the immune response generated will then attack the cancer of the patient."
@BriaCell #Immunotherapy #Tumors #Cancer #BreastCancer #HLATypes
briacell.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Bill Williams is the President and CEO of BriaCell, which is bringing a cellular approach to cancer immunotherapy. Building on their knowledge about HLA molecules, BriaCell is genetically engineering multiple HLA types of therapy to match the HLA types of cancer patients. Breast cancer and other cancers like prostate cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma are being explored for treatment with this approach. Individuals have up to 14 different HLA molecules, and BriaCell has seen that a single match is a strong predictor of the success of treatment.
Bill elaborates, "So, what we notice is that with our cellular therapy, we can predict patients that are very likely to respond based on the HLA type of a patient matching the HLA type of our cellular therapy The way that we do this, practically speaking, is we take our cells, grow them under GMP conditions, good manufacturing practice conditions Then after we harvest them, we irradiate them so they can't grow anymore, but they're still alive They are viable, but they don't really grow anymore."
"Then we freeze them down, and they're stable in that state for years, as we have proven at this point. Then, when the patients come in, we can ship them overnight to the clinic, where they can pull them out. Then they're injected into the skin of the patient in the upper back of the thighs to generate a very potent immune response, and the immune response generated will then attack the cancer of the patient."
@BriaCell #Immunotherapy #Tumors #Cancer #BreastCancer #HLATypes
briacell.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Bill Williams is the President and CEO of BriaCell, which is bringing a cellular approach to cancer immunotherapy. Building on their knowledge about HLA molecules, BriaCell is genetically engineering multiple HLA types of therapy to match the HLA types of cancer patients. Breast cancer and other cancers like prostate cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma are being explored for treatment with this approach. Individuals have up to 14 different HLA molecules, and BriaCell has seen that a single match is a strong predictor of the success of treatment.
Bill elaborates, "So, what we notice is that with our cellular therapy, we can predict patients that are very likely to respond based on the HLA type of a patient matching the HLA type of our cellular therapy The way that we do this, practically speaking, is we take our cells, grow them under GMP conditions, good manufacturing practice conditions Then after we harvest them, we irradiate them so they can't grow anymore, but they're still alive They are viable, but they don't really grow anymore."
"Then we freeze them down, and they're stable in that state for years, as we have proven at this point. Then, when the patients come in, we can ship them overnight to the clinic, where they can pull them out. Then they're injected into the skin of the patient in the upper back of the thighs to generate a very potent immune response, and the immune response generated will then attack the cancer of the patient."
@BriaCell #Immunotherapy #Tumors #Cancer #BreastCancer #HLATypes
briacell.com
Download the transcript here
Trisha Bordelon is a patient advocate and active participant with the PatientsLikeMe organization. Trisha talks about her journey from when the doctors first diagnosed multiple sclerosis through her attempts to find an effective medication. Along the way, she discovered some genetic and environmental factors in developing this disease. She also found a community of patients and advocates on PatientsLikeMe, where she found guidance and where she shares resources and advocacy support.
Trisha explains, "I found PatientsLikeMe just by surfing the internet, and I didn't want somebody else to go through what I went through when I was first diagnosed. My doctor, when I was diagnosed with MS, handed me two brochures. One was for Copaxone, and the other one was for, I believe, Avonex. And he said, "Take these home, take a look at them, come back next week, and we'll decide which medicine you're going to start on." I didn't know anything about MS, in my mind's eye, since I had a relative that had it, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to end up in a wheelchair within six months. I won't be to work anymore. My life as I know it is over." I want to spare somebody else going through that agony."
"I stayed off work from 2017 to 2021 and then went back to work full-time for one of the hospitals. They were so short-staffed and could not get enough people that they were reaching out to people that might have a disability or might have a problem. I did not try to hide my MS from them, but I also didn't volunteer it. I put down that I had been formally on disability, and I told my boss that I did have some limitations, but no one ever asked, so I did not disclose them."
@PatientsLikeMe #MultipleSclerosis #MS #ChronicKidneyDisease #PatientAdvocacy #ChronicIllness
PatientsLikeMe.com
Listen to the podcast here
Trisha Bordelon is a patient advocate and active participant with the PatientsLikeMe organization. Trisha talks about her journey from when the doctors first diagnosed multiple sclerosis through her attempts to find an effective medication. Along the way, she discovered some genetic and environmental factors in developing this disease. She also found a community of patients and advocates on PatientsLikeMe, where she found guidance and where she shares resources and advocacy support.
Trisha explains, "I found PatientsLikeMe just by surfing the internet, and I didn't want somebody else to go through what I went through when I was first diagnosed. My doctor, when I was diagnosed with MS, handed me two brochures. One was for Copaxone, and the other one was for, I believe, Avonex. And he said, "Take these home, take a look at them, come back next week, and we'll decide which medicine you're going to start on." I didn't know anything about MS, in my mind's eye, since I had a relative that had it, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to end up in a wheelchair within six months. I won't be to work anymore. My life as I know it is over." I want to spare somebody else going through that agony."
"I stayed off work from 2017 to 2021 and then went back to work full-time for one of the hospitals. They were so short-staffed and could not get enough people that they were reaching out to people that might have a disability or might have a problem. I did not try to hide my MS from them, but I also didn't volunteer it. I put down that I had been formally on disability, and I told my boss that I did have some limitations, but no one ever asked, so I did not disclose them."
@PatientsLikeMe #MultipleSclerosis #MS #ChronicKidneyDisease #PatientAdvocacy #ChronicIllness
PatientsLikeMe.com
Listen to the podcast here
Trisha Bordelon is a patient advocate and active participant with the PatientsLikeMe organization. Trisha talks about her journey from when the doctors first diagnosed multiple sclerosis through her attempts to find an effective medication. Along the way, she discovered some genetic and environmental factors in developing this disease. She also found a community of patients and advocates on PatientsLikeMe, where she found guidance and where she shares resources and advocacy support.
Trisha explains, "I found PatientsLikeMe just by surfing the internet, and I didn't want somebody else to go through what I went through when I was first diagnosed. My doctor, when I was diagnosed with MS, handed me two brochures. One was for Copaxone, and the other one was for, I believe, Avonex. And he said, "Take these home, take a look at them, come back next week, and we'll decide which medicine you're going to start on." I didn't know anything about MS, in my mind's eye, since I had a relative that had it, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to end up in a wheelchair within six months. I won't be to work anymore. My life as I know it is over." I want to spare somebody else going through that agony."
"I stayed off work from 2017 to 2021 and then went back to work full-time for one of the hospitals. They were so short-staffed and could not get enough people that they were reaching out to people that might have a disability or might have a problem. I did not try to hide my MS from them, but I also didn't volunteer it. I put down that I had been formally on disability, and I told my boss that I did have some limitations, but no one ever asked, so I did not disclose them."
@PatientsLikeMe #MultipleSclerosis #MS #ChronicKidneyDisease #PatientAdvocacy #ChronicIllness
PatientsLikeMe.com
Download the transcript here
Trisha Bordelon is a patient advocate and active participant with the PatientsLikeMe organization. Trisha talks about her journey from when the doctors first diagnosed multiple sclerosis through her attempts to find an effective medication. Along the way, she discovered some genetic and environmental factors in developing this disease. She also found a community of patients and advocates on PatientsLikeMe, where she found guidance and where she shares resources and advocacy support.
Trisha explains, "I found PatientsLikeMe just by surfing the internet, and I didn't want somebody else to go through what I went through when I was first diagnosed. My doctor, when I was diagnosed with MS, handed me two brochures. One was for Copaxone, and the other one was for, I believe, Avonex. And he said, "Take these home, take a look at them, come back next week, and we'll decide which medicine you're going to start on." I didn't know anything about MS, in my mind's eye, since I had a relative that had it, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to end up in a wheelchair within six months. I won't be to work anymore. My life as I know it is over." I want to spare somebody else going through that agony."
"I stayed off work from 2017 to 2021 and then went back to work full-time for one of the hospitals. They were so short-staffed and could not get enough people that they were reaching out to people that might have a disability or might have a problem. I did not try to hide my MS from them, but I also didn't volunteer it. I put down that I had been formally on disability, and I told my boss that I did have some limitations, but no one ever asked, so I did not disclose them."
@PatientsLikeMe #MultipleSclerosis #MS #ChronicKidneyDisease #PatientAdvocacy #ChronicIllness
PatientsLikeMe.com
Download the transcript here
Stan Abel is the Chief Executive Officer of ProJenX, working on developing therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons that are dying in ALS and other brain and neurological diseases. Their drug prosetin is optimized to be bioavailable and administered in a small amount of liquid which is an advantage to someone living with ALS. Research is showing promise in increasing motor neuron survival in other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and perhaps Alzheimer's.
Stan explains, "In ALS, we need the therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons where the pathology is taking place and where those motor neurons are dying. The team at Columbia actually optimized a family of compounds. Not only were they screening these drugs to see that they were neuroprotective, and in these ALS models, they could see that we were actually really improving the survival of motor neurons in vitro, which means basically in a Petri dish. They optimized the compound so that it would easily cross the blood-brain barrier."
"These are two really important aspects. I think the advantage, in fact, that ProJenX has and prosetin has versus other programs that have been advanced in ALS is that this drug, all along the way, was based on ALS disease pathology. It was then was optimized to actually get into the brain and access the motor neurons that need the help."
@ProJenX #ProJenX #ALS #ProjectALS #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #BrainDiseases #BloodBrainBarrier #ColumbiaUniversity
projenx.com
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Stan Abel is the Chief Executive Officer of ProJenX, working on developing therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons that are dying in ALS and other brain and neurological diseases. Their drug prosetin is optimized to be bioavailable and administered in a small amount of liquid which is an advantage to someone living with ALS. Research is showing promise in increasing motor neuron survival in other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and perhaps Alzheimer's.
Stan explains, "In ALS, we need the therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons where the pathology is taking place and where those motor neurons are dying. The team at Columbia actually optimized a family of compounds. Not only were they screening these drugs to see that they were neuroprotective, and in these ALS models, they could see that we were actually really improving the survival of motor neurons in vitro, which means basically in a Petri dish. They optimized the compound so that it would easily cross the blood-brain barrier."
"These are two really important aspects. I think the advantage, in fact, that ProJenX has and prosetin has versus other programs that have been advanced in ALS is that this drug, all along the way, was based on ALS disease pathology. It was then was optimized to actually get into the brain and access the motor neurons that need the help."
@ProJenX #ProJenX #ALS #ProjectALS #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #BrainDiseases #BloodBrainBarrier #ColumbiaUniversity
projenx.com
Listen to the podcast here
Stan Abel is the Chief Executive Officer of ProJenX, working on developing therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons that are dying in ALS and other brain and neurological diseases. Their drug prosetin is optimized to be bioavailable and administered in a small amount of liquid which is an advantage to someone living with ALS. Research is showing promise in increasing motor neuron survival in other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and perhaps Alzheimer's.
Stan explains, "In ALS, we need the therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons where the pathology is taking place and where those motor neurons are dying. The team at Columbia actually optimized a family of compounds. Not only were they screening these drugs to see that they were neuroprotective, and in these ALS models, they could see that we were actually really improving the survival of motor neurons in vitro, which means basically in a Petri dish. They optimized the compound so that it would easily cross the blood-brain barrier."
"These are two really important aspects. I think the advantage, in fact, that ProJenX has and prosetin has versus other programs that have been advanced in ALS is that this drug, all along the way, was based on ALS disease pathology. It was then was optimized to actually get into the brain and access the motor neurons that need the help."
@ProJenX #ProJenX #ALS #ProjectALS #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #BrainDiseases #BloodBrainBarrier #ColumbiaUniversity
projenx.com
Download the transcript here
Stan Abel is the Chief Executive Officer of ProJenX, working on developing therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons that are dying in ALS and other brain and neurological diseases. Their drug prosetin is optimized to be bioavailable and administered in a small amount of liquid which is an advantage to someone living with ALS. Research is showing promise in increasing motor neuron survival in other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and perhaps Alzheimer's.
Stan explains, "In ALS, we need the therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons where the pathology is taking place and where those motor neurons are dying. The team at Columbia actually optimized a family of compounds. Not only were they screening these drugs to see that they were neuroprotective, and in these ALS models, they could see that we were actually really improving the survival of motor neurons in vitro, which means basically in a Petri dish. They optimized the compound so that it would easily cross the blood-brain barrier."
"These are two really important aspects. I think the advantage, in fact, that ProJenX has and prosetin has versus other programs that have been advanced in ALS is that this drug, all along the way, was based on ALS disease pathology. It was then was optimized to actually get into the brain and access the motor neurons that need the help."
@ProJenX #ProJenX #ALS #ProjectALS #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #BrainDiseases #BloodBrainBarrier #ColumbiaUniversity
projenx.com
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Dr. Stacia Woodcock is Clinical Cannabis Pharmacist at Curaleaf, which is bringing medical and adult use of cannabis to several states throughout the country. Their model is to include a pharmacist in their dispensaries to educate practitioners and patients on the ways to use and manage cannabis products to address their concerns. Curaleaf is also developing products that take a more nuanced view of the elements of the plant to explore how the use of minor cannabinoids can support everyday wellness and pain management without undesirable effects.
Stacia explains, "So the Plant Precision line is five different formulations of the minor cannabinoids. The first one is CBG, which is cannabigerol, and CBG is a soothing anti-inflammatory. It can be really beneficial for people that have stomach issues, gut issues, and people that work out and want faster recovery from working out. It can help soothe all of that inflammation. It's for the active, involved person or someone who maybe has some stomach troubles, which we all do nowadays. Along with like a probiotic, it can be really beneficial for just soothing."
"CBN gets a lot of attention. It's actually what happens to THC over time. It degrades into CBN. So that cannabinoid is really relaxing. It's associated with sleep and not in a way that leaves you hungover the next morning or gives you lower quality sleep. It helps you have a really nice restful sleep without, again, that intoxicating effect. So those are the sorts of things we're talking about with these minor cannabinoids and the different targeted use that they can have. That's a little bit different from when people think about traditional cannabis products."
@Curaleaf_Inc #Curaleaf #Cannabis #CannabisMedicine #HolisticMedicine #CannabisWithConfidence #CannabisGummies
curaleaf.com
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Dr. Stacia Woodcock is Clinical Cannabis Pharmacist at Curaleaf, which is bringing medical and adult use of cannabis to several states throughout the country. Their model is to include a pharmacist in their dispensaries to educate practitioners and patients on the ways to use and manage cannabis products to address their concerns. Curaleaf is also developing products that take a more nuanced view of the elements of the plant to explore how the use of minor cannabinoids can support everyday wellness and pain management without undesirable effects.
Stacia explains, "So the Plant Precision line is five different formulations of the minor cannabinoids. The first one is CBG, which is cannabigerol, and CBG is a soothing anti-inflammatory. It can be really beneficial for people that have stomach issues, gut issues, and people that work out and want faster recovery from working out. It can help soothe all of that inflammation. It's for the active, involved person or someone who maybe has some stomach troubles, which we all do nowadays. Along with like a probiotic, it can be really beneficial for just soothing."
"CBN gets a lot of attention. It's actually what happens to THC over time. It degrades into CBN. So that cannabinoid is really relaxing. It's associated with sleep and not in a way that leaves you hungover the next morning or gives you lower quality sleep. It helps you have a really nice restful sleep without, again, that intoxicating effect. So those are the sorts of things we're talking about with these minor cannabinoids and the different targeted use that they can have. That's a little bit different from when people think about traditional cannabis products."
@Curaleaf_Inc #Curaleaf #Cannabis #CannabisMedicine #HolisticMedicine #CannabisWithConfidence #CannabisGummies
curaleaf.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Stacia Woodcock is Clinical Cannabis Pharmacist at Curaleaf, which is bringing medical and adult use of cannabis to several states throughout the country. Their model is to include a pharmacist in their dispensaries to educate practitioners and patients on the ways to use and manage cannabis products to address their concerns. Curaleaf is also developing products that take a more nuanced view of the elements of the plant to explore how the use of minor cannabinoids can support everyday wellness and pain management without undesirable effects.
Stacia explains, "So the Plant Precision line is five different formulations of the minor cannabinoids. The first one is CBG, which is cannabigerol, and CBG is a soothing anti-inflammatory. It can be really beneficial for people that have stomach issues, gut issues, and people that work out and want faster recovery from working out. It can help soothe all of that inflammation. It's for the active, involved person or someone who maybe has some stomach troubles, which we all do nowadays. Along with like a probiotic, it can be really beneficial for just soothing."
"CBN gets a lot of attention. It's actually what happens to THC over time. It degrades into CBN. So that cannabinoid is really relaxing. It's associated with sleep and not in a way that leaves you hungover the next morning or gives you lower quality sleep. It helps you have a really nice restful sleep without, again, that intoxicating effect. So those are the sorts of things we're talking about with these minor cannabinoids and the different targeted use that they can have. That's a little bit different from when people think about traditional cannabis products."
@Curaleaf_Inc #Curaleaf #Cannabis #CannabisMedicine #HolisticMedicine #CannabisWithConfidence #CannabisGummies
curaleaf.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Stacia Woodcock is Clinical Cannabis Pharmacist at Curaleaf, which is bringing medical and adult use of cannabis to several states throughout the country. Their model is to include a pharmacist in their dispensaries to educate practitioners and patients on the ways to use and manage cannabis products to address their concerns. Curaleaf is also developing products that take a more nuanced view of the elements of the plant to explore how the use of minor cannabinoids can support everyday wellness and pain management without undesirable effects.
Stacia explains, "So the Plant Precision line is five different formulations of the minor cannabinoids. The first one is CBG, which is cannabigerol, and CBG is a soothing anti-inflammatory. It can be really beneficial for people that have stomach issues, gut issues, and people that work out and want faster recovery from working out. It can help soothe all of that inflammation. It's for the active, involved person or someone who maybe has some stomach troubles, which we all do nowadays. Along with like a probiotic, it can be really beneficial for just soothing."
"CBN gets a lot of attention. It's actually what happens to THC over time. It degrades into CBN. So that cannabinoid is really relaxing. It's associated with sleep and not in a way that leaves you hungover the next morning or gives you lower quality sleep. It helps you have a really nice restful sleep without, again, that intoxicating effect. So those are the sorts of things we're talking about with these minor cannabinoids and the different targeted use that they can have. That's a little bit different from when people think about traditional cannabis products."
@Curaleaf_Inc #Curaleaf #Cannabis #CannabisMedicine #HolisticMedicine #CannabisWithConfidence #CannabisGummies
curaleaf.com
Download the transcript here
Tom Gibbs is the Director of Debiopharm's Innovation Fund, which is focused on in-licensing early-stage assets to help innovators bridge the gap between invention and bringing solutions to market. Investments are being made in technology that might help in drug development and digital technology that is enhancing the patient treatment pathway.
Tom elaborates, "Debiopharm is actually a quite successful pharma company that most people haven't heard of. And this is really down to the business model. We were set up more than 40 years ago with the idea of taking molecules that have been dropped in development, bringing them into the clinic, proving that they really worked, and then getting them out to as many patients as possible. And so, the business model then is an in-licensing model where we go around the world looking for new compounds, typically at a pre-clinical stage, then we in-license them and develop them with our own money."
"We invested in a company based out of California called VeriSIM Life, and they're modeling exactly this translational stage, and they've modeled six different species. So you can see what might happen in a mouse and see how that translates to a human. This is super important because we all start our studies in mice and rats and dogs and monkeys. Then we try and move them into humans, and often the results don't correlate so well because humans aren't monkeys and monkeys aren't rats and so on and so forth. So that I think is coming, but also has not been greatly exploited up to this date."
"Another aspect is about psycho-oncology. We recently invested in a German company called Fosanis that has a platform called Mika, and that's all about supporting cancer patients. In fact, they don't even have a provider-facing component. It really is direct to patients and it gives cancer patients psychological support. This is information, training, and coaching tools that can help them get over the psychological effects of having a cancer diagnosis and being in treatment, which is super important, as I think we all know."
@DebiopharmFund #DebiopharmInnovationFund #DigitalHealth #DrugDevelopment #Oncology #Pharma #ClinicalTrials #Biopharma #ClinicalResearch #DigitalBiomarkers #DigitalTherapeutics
debiopharm.com
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Tom Gibbs is the Director of Debiopharm's Innovation Fund, which is focused on in-licensing early-stage assets to help innovators bridge the gap between invention and bringing solutions to market. Investments are being made in technology that might help in drug development and digital technology that is enhancing the patient treatment pathway.
Tom elaborates, "Debiopharm is actually a quite successful pharma company that most people haven't heard of. And this is really down to the business model. We were set up more than 40 years ago with the idea of taking molecules that have been dropped in development, bringing them into the clinic, proving that they really worked, and then getting them out to as many patients as possible. And so, the business model then is an in-licensing model where we go around the world looking for new compounds, typically at a pre-clinical stage, then we in-license them and develop them with our own money."
"We invested in a company based out of California called VeriSIM Life, and they're modeling exactly this translational stage, and they've modeled six different species. So you can see what might happen in a mouse and see how that translates to a human. This is super important because we all start our studies in mice and rats and dogs and monkeys. Then we try and move them into humans, and often the results don't correlate so well because humans aren't monkeys and monkeys aren't rats and so on and so forth. So that I think is coming, but also has not been greatly exploited up to this date."
"Another aspect is about psycho-oncology. We recently invested in a German company called Fosanis that has a platform called Mika, and that's all about supporting cancer patients. In fact, they don't even have a provider-facing component. It really is direct to patients and it gives cancer patients psychological support. This is information, training, and coaching tools that can help them get over the psychological effects of having a cancer diagnosis and being in treatment, which is super important, as I think we all know."
@DebiopharmFund #DebiopharmInnovationFund #DigitalHealth #DrugDevelopment #Oncology #Pharma #ClinicalTrials #Biopharma #ClinicalResearch #DigitalBiomarkers #DigitalTherapeutics
debiopharm.com
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Jason Matuszewski, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, and Andrew Van Vurst, Chief Operating Officer of BioStem Technologies have a vision to change the paradigm on the use of perinatal tissue for advanced wound care. Their initial target is complex wounds in the lower extremity region, specifically focusing on diabetic foot ulcers, venous ulcers, and pressure ulcers using a perinatal tissue allograft to promote healing.
Jason explains, "In general, non-healing and complex wounds share similar characteristics, high levels of protease, elevated inflammatory markers, low growth factor activity, and reduced cellular proliferation."
"Chronic non-healing wounds are wounds that have failed to progress through a timely sequence of repair or proceed through the wound healing process without restoring anatomic or functional results. A large amount of these wounds add a huge burden on cost. Specifically, our initial market, Medicare patients, things of that nature, add up to the tune of almost $25 billion spent on healthcare systems treating these complex wound types."
Andrew elaborates, "We've identified a process that we've acquired some IP around called BioRetain. Our goal with these tissues to set ourselves apart is not only to act as a protective barrier covering for the wound and the wound environment to create a healing environment but also to retain as much of the actual structural tissue components and biologic tissue components within the donated tissue we receive."
@BSEM_Tech #BioStem #WoundHealing #ComplexWounds #SkinRegeneration #RegenerativeMedicine
biostemtechnologies.com
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Jason Matuszewski, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, and Andrew Van Vurst, Chief Operating Officer of BioStem Technologies have a vision to change the paradigm on the use of perinatal tissue for advanced wound care. Their initial target is complex wounds in the lower extremity region, specifically focusing on diabetic foot ulcers, venous ulcers, and pressure ulcers using a perinatal tissue allograft to promote healing.
Jason explains, "In general, non-healing and complex wounds share similar characteristics, high levels of protease, elevated inflammatory markers, low growth factor activity, and reduced cellular proliferation."
"Chronic non-healing wounds are wounds that have failed to progress through a timely sequence of repair or proceed through the wound healing process without restoring anatomic or functional results. A large amount of these wounds add a huge burden on cost. Specifically, our initial market, Medicare patients, things of that nature, add up to the tune of almost $25 billion spent on healthcare systems treating these complex wound types."
Andrew elaborates, "We've identified a process that we've acquired some IP around called BioRetain. Our goal with these tissues to set ourselves apart is not only to act as a protective barrier covering for the wound and the wound environment to create a healing environment but also to retain as much of the actual structural tissue components and biologic tissue components within the donated tissue we receive."
@BSEM_Tech #BioStem #WoundHealing #ComplexWounds #SkinRegeneration #RegenerativeMedicine
biostemtechnologies.com
Download the transcript here
Sharon L. Rogers Ph.D. is the CEO of AmyriAD Therapeutics and has a deep understanding of the development of drugs to address the impact of Alzheimer's disease. Currently, the most common treatment is Aricept which Sharon developed and brought to market in 1996. Based on recent research, it does not appear that disease modification leads to clinical benefit or reduction in the progression of the disease.
Sharon explains, "We're not doing anything that's going to modify the underlying progression of the disease, at least that we know of. This is a relentless disease, and sooner or later, it will run its course, and the outcome is ultimately fatal. But, we can buy time for people. Whenever you can improve function, you can reduce reliance on skilled nursing care. You can reduce reliance on the caregiver and the burden that it brings to the loved ones of the patients. You can prolong the time to nursing home placement, which is just really horrible for everyone involved, the families and the patients."
"It is a simple tablet that will be administered once a day by mouth with just a little bit of water going with it. And as a matter of fact, this drug is designed to be administered as an adjunct to Aricept. Aricept is the standard of care. And so we want to maintain the Aricept treatment, but when you give AD101 on top of it as an oral drug, it increases the effects that were there before. So you'd have an additive improvement in cognition and global function."
@AmyriAD_Tx #Alzeimersdisease #Alzeimers #AD #BrainHealth #MentalHealth #AlzheimersAwareness #MemoriesAreWorthFightingFor
amyriadtherapeutics.com
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Sharon L. Rogers Ph.D. is the CEO of AmyriAD Therapeutics and has a deep understanding of the development of drugs to address the impact of Alzheimer's disease. Currently, the most common treatment is Aricept which Sharon developed and brought to market in 1996. Based on recent research, it does not appear that disease modification leads to clinical benefit or reduction in the progression of the disease.
Sharon explains, "We're not doing anything that's going to modify the underlying progression of the disease, at least that we know of. This is a relentless disease, and sooner or later, it will run its course, and the outcome is ultimately fatal. But, we can buy time for people. Whenever you can improve function, you can reduce reliance on skilled nursing care. You can reduce reliance on the caregiver and the burden that it brings to the loved ones of the patients. You can prolong the time to nursing home placement, which is just really horrible for everyone involved, the families and the patients."
"It is a simple tablet that will be administered once a day by mouth with just a little bit of water going with it. And as a matter of fact, this drug is designed to be administered as an adjunct to Aricept. Aricept is the standard of care. And so we want to maintain the Aricept treatment, but when you give AD101 on top of it as an oral drug, it increases the effects that were there before. So you'd have an additive improvement in cognition and global function."
@AmyriAD_Tx #Alzeimersdisease #Alzeimers #AD #BrainHealth #MentalHealth #AlzheimersAwareness #MemoriesAreWorthFightingFor
amyriadtherapeutics.com
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Jack Hoppin Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer and John Babich Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer, and Co-Founders of Ratio Therapeutics aim to develop and produce best-in-class radiopharmaceuticals. Harnessing the power of radiation by making it into an injectable drug, Ratio is creating a way to find tumor cells anywhere in the body.
John explains, "And what we are doing, which is quite unique, is creating a platform of small molecules that can be radiolabeled with a variety of different isotopes. And these radioactive isotopes carry the ability to deliver different types of radiation -- beta particles and alpha particles. They have different toxicities and different lengths, so they travel in the tissue. And by combining the right molecules for the delivery with the right isotope, we're hoping to optimize the ability to control the tumor to basically put it into remission while maintaining a high quality of life. And we do that latter component by making sure that the injected material doesn't go to normal tissues and damage normal tissues."
"So we're trying to enhance the ratio of the delivery between the tumor itself and the normal tissues. The higher that ratio, the better off we are in being able to provide patients with a good treatment while maintaining a high quality of a life."
Jack elaborates, "That's the uniqueness of the platform in terms of the market itself. John was a pioneer in this market, and he has been in the space for some time. It's really been known in the past, and it's not a novel concept. Radioactive iodines have been used for a long time, and there's been a class of drugs, a few drugs adopted, but in the last five years or so, we've seen a big boom in the adoption of targeted radiotherapies."
@Ratio_Tx #Ratio #RatioTx #RatioTherapeutics #Radioactive #Radiopharmaceuticals #cancer #onco #MathMeetsMedicine #Pharmokinetics #Tumor
ratiotx.com
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Jack Hoppin Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer and John Babich Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer, and Co-Founders of Ratio Therapeutics aim to develop and produce best-in-class radiopharmaceuticals. Harnessing the power of radiation by making it into an injectable drug, Ratio is creating a way to find tumor cells anywhere in the body.
John explains, "And what we are doing, which is quite unique, is creating a platform of small molecules that can be radiolabeled with a variety of different isotopes. And these radioactive isotopes carry the ability to deliver different types of radiation -- beta particles and alpha particles. They have different toxicities and different lengths, so they travel in the tissue. And by combining the right molecules for the delivery with the right isotope, we're hoping to optimize the ability to control the tumor to basically put it into remission while maintaining a high quality of life. And we do that latter component by making sure that the injected material doesn't go to normal tissues and damage normal tissues."
"So we're trying to enhance the ratio of the delivery between the tumor itself and the normal tissues. The higher that ratio, the better off we are in being able to provide patients with a good treatment while maintaining a high quality of a life."
Jack elaborates, "That's the uniqueness of the platform in terms of the market itself. John was a pioneer in this market, and he has been in the space for some time. It's really been known in the past, and it's not a novel concept. Radioactive iodines have been used for a long time, and there's been a class of drugs, a few drugs adopted, but in the last five years or so, we've seen a big boom in the adoption of targeted radiotherapies."
@Ratio_Tx #Ratio #RatioTx #RatioTherapeutics #Radioactive #Radiopharmaceuticals #cancer #onco #MathMeetsMedicine #Pharmokinetics #Tumor
ratiotx.com
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Dr. Robert Ross is the CEO of Surface Oncology, which is focused on immune modulation in the treatment of cancers. Their hypothesis is that IL-27, a cytokine, is telling the immune system to ignore the cancer and providing a hiding place for the cancer cells. By administering their drug SRF 388 to bind up all the IL-27, the immune system can properly identify and fight the cancer.
Robert explains, "SRF 388, all of these drugs, have such needlessly complicated names when they get started, but SRF 388 is an antibody. It's a protein that basically is trying to neutralize a cytokine. Cytokines are proteins in the body that the immune system uses to talk to other cells in the immune system. There are cytokines that stimulate the immune system, that make the immune system act more robustly, and there are cytokines that suppress the immune system. These are proteins that make the immune system go awry, for lack of a better word."
"We know, and we've used for a long time, drugs to try to mimic the effect of cytokines that stimulate the immune system. Well, what we noted, and our scientific advisory board noted, was that in some patients with cancer and in some types of cancer, you saw the presence of this uncommon cytokine that we call IL-27."
"IL-27 is a protein. It circulates in your body, but usually, there's very little of it, and in some patients with cancer, there are much higher levels of it. In the tumor itself, there are very high levels. Our hypothesis, our idea, was that it is possible that IL-27, that cytokine, was preventing the immune system from attacking the cancer."
@SurfaceOncology #Immunotherapy #ImmunoOncology #Immunology #Cytokines #LungCancer #GastricCancer #StomachCancer #LiverCancer #KidneyCancer
surfaceoncology.com
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Dr. Robert Ross is the CEO of Surface Oncology, which is focused on immune modulation in the treatment of cancers. Their hypothesis is that IL-27, a cytokine, is telling the immune system to ignore the cancer and providing a hiding place for the cancer cells. By administering their drug SRF 388 to bind up all the IL-27, the immune system can properly identify and fight the cancer.
Robert explains, "SRF 388, all of these drugs, have such needlessly complicated names when they get started, but SRF 388 is an antibody. It's a protein that basically is trying to neutralize a cytokine. Cytokines are proteins in the body that the immune system uses to talk to other cells in the immune system. There are cytokines that stimulate the immune system, that make the immune system act more robustly, and there are cytokines that suppress the immune system. These are proteins that make the immune system go awry, for lack of a better word."
"We know, and we've used for a long time, drugs to try to mimic the effect of cytokines that stimulate the immune system. Well, what we noted, and our scientific advisory board noted, was that in some patients with cancer and in some types of cancer, you saw the presence of this uncommon cytokine that we call IL-27."
"IL-27 is a protein. It circulates in your body, but usually, there's very little of it, and in some patients with cancer, there are much higher levels of it. In the tumor itself, there are very high levels. Our hypothesis, our idea, was that it is possible that IL-27, that cytokine, was preventing the immune system from attacking the cancer."
@SurfaceOncology #Immunotherapy #ImmunoOncology #Immunology #Cytokines #LungCancer #GastricCancer #StomachCancer #LiverCancer #KidneyCancer
surfaceoncology.com
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Greg Frost is the Chairman and CEO of EXUMA Biotech, which is working on a cancer cellular therapy that can be administered in a patient without lymphodepletion from chemotherapy. Traditionally, it was thought that some cells needed to be eliminated before new cells could be introduced. EXUMA is working on a rapid point of care, rPOC, technology that will allow this approach to be expanded to various cancers and readily available to patients.
Greg explains, "What we came to realize was that if we were to take our gene-loaded lymphocytes, and rather than putting them directly in the bloodstream, if we allowed them to start through what we call a synthetic lymph node or a local injection site, that those cells could get the programming and expansion where they were rather than just going straight in the bloodstream and every cell was diluted out into different locations in the body."
"If they could start in one location together as a team, you had a much better chance of, when they would get into the lymphatics and build up through there, of having a stronger team to go in and fight the cancer. And importantly, also it makes it very effective for them to be able to amplify the gene programs that we have to get up into circulation without the need for lymphodepleting chemotherapy first."
@EXUMABiotech #CellularTherapy #SolidTumors #BloodCancers #Chemotherapy #Lymphodepletion #Cancer
EXUMAbio.com
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Greg Frost is the Chairman and CEO of EXUMA Biotech, which is working on a cancer cellular therapy that can be administered in a patient without lymphodepletion from chemotherapy. Traditionally, it was thought that some cells needed to be eliminated before new cells could be introduced. EXUMA is working on a rapid point of care, rPOC, technology that will allow this approach to be expanded to various cancers and readily available to patients.
Greg explains, "What we came to realize was that if we were to take our gene-loaded lymphocytes, and rather than putting them directly in the bloodstream, if we allowed them to start through what we call a synthetic lymph node or a local injection site, that those cells could get the programming and expansion where they were rather than just going straight in the bloodstream and every cell was diluted out into different locations in the body."
"If they could start in one location together as a team, you had a much better chance of, when they would get into the lymphatics and build up through there, of having a stronger team to go in and fight the cancer. And importantly, also it makes it very effective for them to be able to amplify the gene programs that we have to get up into circulation without the need for lymphodepleting chemotherapy first."
@EXUMABiotech #CellularTherapy #SolidTumors #BloodCancers #Chemotherapy #Lymphodepletion #Cancer
EXUMAbio.com
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Dr. Robert Gish is the Medical Advisor to Helio Genomics and the Medical Director of the Hepatitis B Foundation and is looking for answers to questions related to who is most at risk for liver cancer. He is also working to improve blood testing to diagnose liver cancer earlier by looking for tumor material that shows methylated DNA changes.
Robert explains, "So, one of the biggest messages I would have is the deficiency in surveillance for liver cancer. Screening is the first test, and surveillance is ongoing testing. Some people get confused with the word screening, unfortunately. We are not testing patients for liver cancer anywhere near what we should. Probably 20%, one out of five, people are getting proper surveillance when they're at risk for liver cancer."
"Let's talk about at risk. That's a second message. Identifying people with risk, which is cirrhosis, 80%, 85% of people with liver cancer have cirrhosis, is also inadequate. We need to teach people how to find out if somebody has cirrhosis without doing a liver biopsy. We have great tools, but the education of the medical community and patient community needs to be much more robust, in my opinion."
@HepBFoundation #HelioGenomics #CancerDetection #LiverCancer #BeatCancerEarly #Stage4NoMore
hepb.org
heliogenomics.com
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Dr. Robert Gish is the Medical Advisor to Helio Genomics and the Medical Director of the Hepatitis B Foundation and is looking for answers to questions related to who is most at risk for liver cancer. He is also working to improve blood testing to diagnose liver cancer earlier by looking for tumor material that shows methylated DNA changes.
Robert explains, "So, one of the biggest messages I would have is the deficiency in surveillance for liver cancer. Screening is the first test, and surveillance is ongoing testing. Some people get confused with the word screening, unfortunately. We are not testing patients for liver cancer anywhere near what we should. Probably 20%, one out of five, people are getting proper surveillance when they're at risk for liver cancer."
"Let's talk about at risk. That's a second message. Identifying people with risk, which is cirrhosis, 80%, 85% of people with liver cancer have cirrhosis, is also inadequate. We need to teach people how to find out if somebody has cirrhosis without doing a liver biopsy. We have great tools, but the education of the medical community and patient community needs to be much more robust, in my opinion."
@HepBFoundation #HelioGenomics #CancerDetection #LiverCancer #BeatCancerEarly #Stage4NoMore
hepb.org
heliogenomics.com
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Dr. Paul Peter Tak is the CEO and President of Candel Therapeutics, developing innovative immunotherapies for patients with solid tumors that are difficult to treat, like brain cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer. This approach induces cell death in cancer cells at the site of injection, and it also trains cells to look for tumor cells migrating throughout the body.
Paul Peter explains, "The approach we call oncolytic viral immunotherapy. The name already indicates that we use viruses here for a good purpose, actually, to treat cancer. And immunotherapy indicates that we try to activate the patient's own immune system to fight cancer at the site of the injection, as well as at the site of the un-injected distant metastasis. Basically, you can see it as a form of what we call in situ vaccination. In situ means at the place of the injection."
"We kill the tumor cells at the site of the injection, and we do that in a way that's immunogenic. That means that we activate the immune system, and we create the optimal conditions at the site of the injection of the body's own immune system to start to recognize specifically the so-called cancer neoantigens. These are the molecules that are expressed on the surface of the cancer cells, and that can be recognized by these T cells. We call them cytotoxic T cells. The name already means that they're able to kill the tumor cells."
#Candel #CandelTherapeutics #Candoers #CAN2409 #Immunotherapy #SolidTumors #Cancer
candeltx.com
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Dr. Paul Peter Tak is the CEO and President of Candel Therapeutics, developing innovative immunotherapies for patients with solid tumors that are difficult to treat, like brain cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer. This approach induces cell death in cancer cells at the site of injection, and it also trains cells to look for tumor cells migrating throughout the body.
Paul Peter explains, "The approach we call oncolytic viral immunotherapy. The name already indicates that we use viruses here for a good purpose, actually, to treat cancer. And immunotherapy indicates that we try to activate the patient's own immune system to fight cancer at the site of the injection, as well as at the site of the un-injected distant metastasis. Basically, you can see it as a form of what we call in situ vaccination. In situ means at the place of the injection."
"We kill the tumor cells at the site of the injection, and we do that in a way that's immunogenic. That means that we activate the immune system, and we create the optimal conditions at the site of the injection of the body's own immune system to start to recognize specifically the so-called cancer neoantigens. These are the molecules that are expressed on the surface of the cancer cells, and that can be recognized by these T cells. We call them cytotoxic T cells. The name already means that they're able to kill the tumor cells."
#Candel #CandelTherapeutics #Candoers #CAN2409 #Immunotherapy #SolidTumors #Cancer
candeltx.com
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Dr. Samantha Dale Strasser Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Pepper Bio, uses a transomic perspective with a global functional causal lens on genomic data to drive insights throughout the drug discovery process and identify the best treatments for patients. The goal is to go beyond the traditional understanding of diseases to unlock opportunities and solutions not considered in the past.
Samantha explains, "So, I mentioned the genome is fantastic because it looks at instructions, but it looks at what can happen. It doesn't look at what is happening. And so looking up those data layers, bringing us to phosphoproteomics, brings functional context of fundamentally what proteins are doing and how that impacts disease and treatment selection."
"The second facet that we drive forward here at Pepper is bringing a global context. So just kind of genomics itself is obviously a massive data set of hundreds of thousands of genes. But then you look at bringing in context from transomics, as well as proteomics and phosphoproteomics, all of those data layers we want to look at in their entirety. We don't want to pre-select a favorite pathway per se because we want to ensure that critical insights aren't missed. So with Pepper, again, the transomics approach brings global information to bear to ensure that we're capturing all of that critical biology at each data layer."
@Pepper_Bio #DrugDiscovery #Genomics #Transomics #Proteomics #Phosphoproteomics
Pepper.Bio
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Dr. Samantha Dale Strasser Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Pepper Bio, uses a transomic perspective with a global functional causal lens on genomic data to drive insights throughout the drug discovery process and identify the best treatments for patients. The goal is to go beyond the traditional understanding of diseases to unlock opportunities and solutions not considered in the past.
Samantha explains, "So, I mentioned the genome is fantastic because it looks at instructions, but it looks at what can happen. It doesn't look at what is happening. And so looking up those data layers, bringing us to phosphoproteomics, brings functional context of fundamentally what proteins are doing and how that impacts disease and treatment selection."
"The second facet that we drive forward here at Pepper is bringing a global context. So just kind of genomics itself is obviously a massive data set of hundreds of thousands of genes. But then you look at bringing in context from transomics, as well as proteomics and phosphoproteomics, all of those data layers we want to look at in their entirety. We don't want to pre-select a favorite pathway per se because we want to ensure that critical insights aren't missed. So with Pepper, again, the transomics approach brings global information to bear to ensure that we're capturing all of that critical biology at each data layer."
@Pepper_Bio #DrugDiscovery #Genomics #Transomics #Proteomics #Phosphoproteomics
Pepper.Bio
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Dr. Miguel Grillo, Prosthodontic Specialists of San Diego raises awareness about the importance of proper chewing and the role teeth play in overall health. Finding periodontal disease at an early stage means measures can be taken to save teeth. Patients with the late-stage disease and those with cosmetic concerns now have more options for permanent solutions to restore their smiles.
Miguel explains, "So prosthodontist is a specialty within dentistry. What we specialize in is the reconstruction of the mouth. So when it gets to the point where others cannot handle a case due to complexity, it could be medical, restorative, or behavioral issues. Then we basically take it from there, and we do large restorations of the mouth with implants, partials, dentures, or crowns or veneers. And we're in the business of making things work better, function well, and giving people their lives back."
"I think you can pick up a lot of clues just by looking at somebody's smile and seeing the teeth, how long the teeth are, if they're worn, if they're flat, if they don't have the right curvature, if they're old restorations, decay. You can see a lot from the outside that gives you some insight as to what you might see when you do a full examination. But ultimately, really you need to blend in clinical examination with a radiographic evaluation to come up with a proper diagnosis. But you can actually probably tell more than you think."
#Prosthodontics #ReconstructiveSurgeries #OralHealth #DentalImplants #Teeth #MiguelGrilloDMD
prosthodonticspecialist.com
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Dr. Miguel Grillo, Prosthodontic Specialists of San Diego raises awareness about the importance of proper chewing and the role teeth play in overall health. Finding periodontal disease at an early stage means measures can be taken to save teeth. Patients with the late-stage disease and those with cosmetic concerns now have more options for permanent solutions to restore their smiles.
Miguel explains, "So prosthodontist is a specialty within dentistry. What we specialize in is the reconstruction of the mouth. So when it gets to the point where others cannot handle a case due to complexity, it could be medical, restorative, or behavioral issues. Then we basically take it from there, and we do large restorations of the mouth with implants, partials, dentures, or crowns or veneers. And we're in the business of making things work better, function well, and giving people their lives back."
"I think you can pick up a lot of clues just by looking at somebody's smile and seeing the teeth, how long the teeth are, if they're worn, if they're flat, if they don't have the right curvature, if they're old restorations, decay. You can see a lot from the outside that gives you some insight as to what you might see when you do a full examination. But ultimately, really you need to blend in clinical examination with a radiographic evaluation to come up with a proper diagnosis. But you can actually probably tell more than you think."
#Prosthodontics #ReconstructiveSurgeries #OralHealth #DentalImplants #Teeth #MiguelGrilloDMD
prosthodonticspecialist.com
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Chuck Sawyer is the Special Assistant to the President at Northwestern Health Sciences University, NWHSU, located in Bloomington, Minnesota. Chuck argues for a different approach to pain management given the opioid epidemic and the overuse of opioid narcotics to treat acute pain and chronic pain. Of particular concern is extending the use of chiropractic treatments and acupuncture for Medicaid and Medicare patients.
Chuck explains, "And fast forward to the present day, we now have ten programs, with our chiropractic program continuing to be the largest. But we've added acupuncture at both the master's and doctoral levels, and we have a program in therapeutic massage. More recently, programs in other allied health careers including medical assisting, medical laboratory science, radiologic technology, and radiation therapy. We have a post-bachelors pre-health program for students with bachelor's degrees who are seeking enrollment in medical schools and dental schools, and two online programs just launched in integrative health and wellness and functional nutrition."
"Then you get to the age of 65, and all of a sudden, now your coverage, and even though your access to care is still good in the Medicare program, your coverage is very limited. So aging into Medicare is a problem. And so it's time really for Medicare to catch up with what's happening on the commercial side, and particularly now with the heightened emphasis on non-pharmacologic options for treating pain. It's time for Medicare to broaden its coverage so that patients don't have to pay out of pocket for services that are covered in the Medicare program when provided by healthcare professionals, other than chiropractic doctors and acupuncturists."
#NWHSU #TreatingPain #IntegrativeHealth #AlternativeMedicine #Acupuncture #ChiropracticDoctors #PainManagement #Opioids #NonDrugTreatment #NonPharmacologic #Medicaid #Medicare
nwhealth.edu
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Chuck Sawyer is the Special Assistant to the President at Northwestern Health Sciences University, NWHSU, located in Bloomington, Minnesota. Chuck argues for a different approach to pain management given the opioid epidemic and the overuse of opioid narcotics to treat acute pain and chronic pain. Of particular concern is extending the use of chiropractic treatments and acupuncture for Medicaid and Medicare patients.
Chuck explains, "And fast forward to the present day, we now have ten programs, with our chiropractic program continuing to be the largest. But we've added acupuncture at both the master's and doctoral levels, and we have a program in therapeutic massage. More recently, programs in other allied health careers including medical assisting, medical laboratory science, radiologic technology, and radiation therapy. We have a post-bachelors pre-health program for students with bachelor's degrees who are seeking enrollment in medical schools and dental schools, and two online programs just launched in integrative health and wellness and functional nutrition."
"Then you get to the age of 65, and all of a sudden, now your coverage, and even though your access to care is still good in the Medicare program, your coverage is very limited. So aging into Medicare is a problem. And so it's time really for Medicare to catch up with what's happening on the commercial side, and particularly now with the heightened emphasis on non-pharmacologic options for treating pain. It's time for Medicare to broaden its coverage so that patients don't have to pay out of pocket for services that are covered in the Medicare program when provided by healthcare professionals, other than chiropractic doctors and acupuncturists."
#NWHSU #TreatingPain #IntegrativeHealth #AlternativeMedicine #Acupuncture #ChiropracticDoctors #PainManagement #Opioids #NonDrugTreatment #NonPharmacologic #Medicaid #Medicare
nwhealth.edu
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jon Morrow, Senior VP of Medical Affairs and Informatics, and Daniel Blumenthal, Vice President of Strategy at MDClone, shed light on the meaning of synthetic data for drug discovery and patient care. Using both original data and statistical models of the data, researchers and clinicians can quickly gain insights that can impact patient care, facilitate collaborations and partnerships, and dramatically shorten the time required for product development.
Daniel explains, "Actually, the system is able to produce synthetic data on the fly on demand. It reacts to the end user's request for data. So, if I'm an end user and I want to build a population, I want to look at a population of patients with diabetes and understand the medications they were on and lab tests that were drawn about them. To understand their disease trajectory over time. I'm able to define that, and the way our engine works is it actually can take that original population. But without sharing that population, as John articulated at the beginning, without actually sharing that original population. Just learn the statistics of that population and then build this brand new set of synthetic data. That synthetic data, every time it's generated, is compared to the original."
Jon elaborates, "So rather than exposing my patient's information or using my patient's information with approval, how about if I ask a system like MDClone ADAMS to generate a synthetic dataset that looks statistically exactly like my population of patients with gestational diabetes? And it's pulling the data from the electronic medical record at my hospital. It's running this process behind the firewall of my hospital, but it's providing me with data on a population that doesn't exist but behaves exactly like my patients at the population level."
@MDClone_ #SyntheticData #LifeScience #ResearchData #RareDiseases
mdclone.com
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Dr. Jon Morrow, Senior VP of Medical Affairs and Informatics, and Daniel Blumenthal, Vice President of Strategy at MDClone, shed light on the meaning of synthetic data for drug discovery and patient care. Using both original data and statistical models of the data, researchers and clinicians can quickly gain insights that can impact patient care, facilitate collaborations and partnerships, and dramatically shorten the time required for product development.
Daniel explains, "Actually, the system is able to produce synthetic data on the fly on demand. It reacts to the end user's request for data. So, if I'm an end user and I want to build a population, I want to look at a population of patients with diabetes and understand the medications they were on and lab tests that were drawn about them. To understand their disease trajectory over time. I'm able to define that, and the way our engine works is it actually can take that original population. But without sharing that population, as John articulated at the beginning, without actually sharing that original population. Just learn the statistics of that population and then build this brand new set of synthetic data. That synthetic data, every time it's generated, is compared to the original."
Jon elaborates, "So rather than exposing my patient's information or using my patient's information with approval, how about if I ask a system like MDClone ADAMS to generate a synthetic dataset that looks statistically exactly like my population of patients with gestational diabetes? And it's pulling the data from the electronic medical record at my hospital. It's running this process behind the firewall of my hospital, but it's providing me with data on a population that doesn't exist but behaves exactly like my patients at the population level."
@MDClone_ #SyntheticData #LifeScience #ResearchData #RareDiseases
mdclone.com
Download the transcript here
Ardy Arianpour, CEO and Co-Founder of SEQSTER, is breaking down health data silos using their enterprise operating system, which aggregates disparate health data sources, including real-world data, into a single 360-degree view of a patient in real-time. This integrated approach with a Digital Front Door solves many challenges for life sciences, patient engagement, and data interoperability.
Ardy elaborates, "We have achieved nationwide coverage of electronic health records from hospitals and medical groups, as well as genomic DNA labs, wearables, remote patient monitoring sensors, pharmacy data, and even social determinants of health data. And we have this very unique customizable white label approach where SEQSTER provides accelerated access to de-identified tokenized real-time data and comprehensive curated data to address critical needs across the healthcare continuum."
"For about five years, nobody wanted to work with us. We were just building, building, building, being visionary, as we thought. Then the pandemic hit, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals decided to invest in SEQSTER and do a commercial deal with us. From there, we created the SEQSTER data backbone for Takeda to centralize all this health data. And since we pioneered a longitudinal health record and pharma was the first to take a look at our technology, from there, we are able to strike many partnerships. We just exploded in the last two and a half years, I could say."
@SEQSTER #PatientCentric #HealthDataIsMedicine #PatientEngagement #ClinicalTrials #DecentralizedTrials #Interoperability #OutcomesStudies #HEOR #RWD #RWE #SaaS. #SanDiego
SEQSTER.com
Medium Article: Participant Digital Front Door
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Ardy Arianpour, CEO and Co-Founder of SEQSTER, is breaking down health data silos using their enterprise operating system, which aggregates disparate health data sources, including real-world data, into a single 360-degree view of a patient in real-time. This integrated approach with a Digital Front Door solves many challenges for life sciences, patient engagement, and data interoperability.
Ardy elaborates, "We have achieved nationwide coverage of electronic health records from hospitals and medical groups, as well as genomic DNA labs, wearables, remote patient monitoring sensors, pharmacy data, and even social determinants of health data. And we have this very unique customizable white label approach where SEQSTER provides accelerated access to de-identified tokenized real-time data and comprehensive curated data to address critical needs across the healthcare continuum."
"For about five years, nobody wanted to work with us. We were just building, building, building, being visionary, as we thought. Then the pandemic hit, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals decided to invest in SEQSTER and do a commercial deal with us. From there, we created the SEQSTER data backbone for Takeda to centralize all this health data. And since we pioneered a longitudinal health record and pharma was the first to take a look at our technology, from there, we are able to strike many partnerships. We just exploded in the last two and a half years, I could say."
@SEQSTER #PatientCentric #HealthDataIsMedicine #PatientEngagement #ClinicalTrials #DecentralizedTrials #Interoperability #OutcomesStudies #HEOR #RWD #RWE #SaaS. #SanDiego
SEQSTER.com
Medium Article: Participant Digital Front Door
Download the transcript here
Alex Nepogodiev is a Divisional Vice President of Abbott Vascular Business and shares insights about the need for stents with larger diameters. In the past, physicians would have to take a smaller diameter stent and follow up with another catheter to expand that stent to a larger size and to match the vessel. This procedure added an additional step and risk.
Alex explains, "Some of the bigger challenges today are, of course, the variation in anatomy and the complexity of some of those narrowings that we have in our heart. Cardiovascular disease, obviously, impacts a lot of patients, and myself included, and it's important for us not only to maintain good health but also go for appropriate and timely checkups. And when the cardiologist finds a narrowing in our heart, they initiate the procedure by first doing an x-ray or an angiogram before proceeding to insert a stent. And once they do that, they can also use other imaging modalities to look more closely at the vessel."
"So XIENCE Skypoint large vessel sizes have been introduced now with the largest size matrix and the new diameters that come in vessel sizes of 4.5 or 5.0 millimeters in diameter. And what they allow us to do is treat patients who may have larger vessels. We're all unique, and some of us are patients who are larger male or we have vessels that are closer to the aorta. So those tend to be larger in diameter as well. And having these larger vessel sizes allows the physicians to, again, optimize and personalize treatments to those particular situations in those patients."
@AbbottCardio #Stents #DrugElutingStents #InterventionalCardiologist #Cardiology #CardiovascularDisease
cardiovascular.abbott.com
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Alex Nepogodiev is a Divisional Vice President of Abbott Vascular Business and shares insights about the need for stents with larger diameters. In the past, physicians would have to take a smaller diameter stent and follow up with another catheter to expand that stent to a larger size and to match the vessel. This procedure added an additional step and risk.
Alex explains, "Some of the bigger challenges today are, of course, the variation in anatomy and the complexity of some of those narrowings that we have in our heart. Cardiovascular disease, obviously, impacts a lot of patients, and myself included, and it's important for us not only to maintain good health but also go for appropriate and timely checkups. And when the cardiologist finds a narrowing in our heart, they initiate the procedure by first doing an x-ray or an angiogram before proceeding to insert a stent. And once they do that, they can also use other imaging modalities to look more closely at the vessel."
"So XIENCE Skypoint large vessel sizes have been introduced now with the largest size matrix and the new diameters that come in vessel sizes of 4.5 or 5.0 millimeters in diameter. And what they allow us to do is treat patients who may have larger vessels. We're all unique, and some of us are patients who are larger male or we have vessels that are closer to the aorta. So those tend to be larger in diameter as well. And having these larger vessel sizes allows the physicians to, again, optimize and personalize treatments to those particular situations in those patients."
@AbbottCardio #Stents #DrugElutingStents #InterventionalCardiologist #Cardiology #CardiovascularDisease
cardiovascular.abbott.com
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Dr. Tom Milam is the Chief Medical Officer at Iris Telehealth, which focuses on providing in-person and digital support to community mental health centers, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and rural health clinics that don't have enough access to behavioral health providers. The populations they treat are often underserved and have social determinants of health that are barriers to accessing timely care.
Tom elaborates, "We're also working a lot in emergency rooms and hospitals around the country. Seeing patients there with behavioral health issues, again in organizations that don't have enough providers. And that seems to be par for the course around the country for a lot of hospitals and health systems. They need additional providers, and we're happy to provide those through telepsychiatry at Iris."
"The positive thing about telepsychiatry really is that it eliminates the geographic barriers that are huge barriers for people getting care. So we can get our excellent providers into areas that have a really hard time recruiting onsite providers. So other than that, one of the things I say is that telepsychiatry is a technology. That's all that it is."
@IrisHealth #IrisTelehealth #Telepsychiatry #Telepsychiatrist #Psychiatrist #BehavioralHealth #EmergencyDepartments #RuralHospitals #MedicaidPatients #MedicarePatients #SDoH
iristelehealth.com
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Dr. Tom Milam is the Chief Medical Officer at Iris Telehealth, which focuses on providing in-person and digital support to community mental health centers, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and rural health clinics that don't have enough access to behavioral health providers. The populations they treat are often underserved and have social determinants of health that are barriers to accessing timely care.
Tom elaborates, "We're also working a lot in emergency rooms and hospitals around the country. Seeing patients there with behavioral health issues, again in organizations that don't have enough providers. And that seems to be par for the course around the country for a lot of hospitals and health systems. They need additional providers, and we're happy to provide those through telepsychiatry at Iris."
"The positive thing about telepsychiatry really is that it eliminates the geographic barriers that are huge barriers for people getting care. So we can get our excellent providers into areas that have a really hard time recruiting onsite providers. So other than that, one of the things I say is that telepsychiatry is a technology. That's all that it is."
@IrisHealth #IrisTelehealth #Telepsychiatry #Telepsychiatrist #Psychiatrist #BehavioralHealth #EmergencyDepartments #RuralHospitals #MedicaidPatients #MedicarePatients #SDoH
iristelehealth.com
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Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge and is focused on streamlining clinical trial recruitment, retention, and completion and improving the results of trials to speed time to approval. Clincierge is most concerned about the challenges presented by travel needs and logistics for patients, caregivers, and family members.
Scott explains, "Our mission is to lead the global clinical trial performance improvement market. So a lot of my experience has been in leadership development with my pharma customers and performance improvement. And as we created Clincierge over the last seven years, we felt that what we could do in the space, being non-medical in our approach, that we could help with the patient experience and thereby influence the overall outcome to the improvement of clinical trials."
"We positioned it in the space of clinical trials and helping those who want to conduct clinical trials, especially sponsors, to better understand what patients are asking for or to better understand the challenges that patients face when they want to participate in a clinical trial. As an example, 62% of patients and 59% of the caregivers said that travel stopped them from participating in a clinical trial. And 42% of patients and 47% of caregivers said financial issues stop them from participating."
"Well, with patients having a better experience, there's a lot of building of trust. Because some other reasons that patients drop out are not only the financial and travel burdens, but they may feel underappreciated. They have work pressures, losing work, losing wages from not being at work."
@Clincierge #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalResearch #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #PatientExperience #RareDiseases #Pharma #Biotech
Clincierge.com
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Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge and is focused on streamlining clinical trial recruitment, retention, and completion and improving the results of trials to speed time to approval. Clincierge is most concerned about the challenges presented by travel needs and logistics for patients, caregivers, and family members.
Scott explains, "Our mission is to lead the global clinical trial performance improvement market. So a lot of my experience has been in leadership development with my pharma customers and performance improvement. And as we created Clincierge over the last seven years, we felt that what we could do in the space, being non-medical in our approach, that we could help with the patient experience and thereby influence the overall outcome to the improvement of clinical trials."
"We positioned it in the space of clinical trials and helping those who want to conduct clinical trials, especially sponsors, to better understand what patients are asking for or to better understand the challenges that patients face when they want to participate in a clinical trial. As an example, 62% of patients and 59% of the caregivers said that travel stopped them from participating in a clinical trial. And 42% of patients and 47% of caregivers said financial issues stop them from participating."
"Well, with patients having a better experience, there's a lot of building of trust. Because some other reasons that patients drop out are not only the financial and travel burdens, but they may feel underappreciated. They have work pressures, losing work, losing wages from not being at work."
@Clincierge #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalResearch #ClinicalTrialRecruitment #PatientExperience #RareDiseases #Pharma #Biotech
Clincierge.com
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Dr. Thomas Young is the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of nView Health, a behavioral health technology company providing tools for physicians and researchers to help diagnose psychiatric disorders accurately and efficiently determine treatment options. In addition, the nView Health tools allow tracking and following outcomes to determine if the right drugs have been prescribed and if the cognitive behavioral therapy intervention is working.
Thomas elaborates, "Mental health is a large category. I think what people have to understand is, kind of the old rule when I was teaching in medicine, is that 50% of the people that come into a doctor's office for some sort of physical ailment also have a mental health disorder. One in five Americans has depression at some point in their life, and that's a significant number of people. Anxiety is climbing in children. Eating disorders are shooting up at hockey stick rates."
"What nView Health does, we believe strongly that the system requires the ability to create an initial ability for people to be screened at every level including children. Providers of all types, primary care providers, nurse practitioners, pediatricians, and others, can give a simple screening test. I can ask a few questions, and I can get some information that helps me understand this patient's behavioral health status."
"Secondary to that is the ability to then arm the primary care community with the right tools to be able to make the right diagnostic decisions. Our tools don't make diagnoses. Our tools help and assist a provider in collecting the right data so that they can make an appropriate decision. Because what we know is that early diagnosis leads to early treatment, which leads to better outcomes."
@nViewHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #ValueBasedCare #DigitalWorkFlows #ActionableData #HealthyMindsStartHere
nviewhealth.com
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Dr. Thomas Young is the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of nView Health, a behavioral health technology company providing tools for physicians and researchers to help diagnose psychiatric disorders accurately and efficiently determine treatment options. In addition, the nView Health tools allow tracking and following outcomes to determine if the right drugs have been prescribed and if the cognitive behavioral therapy intervention is working.
Thomas elaborates, "Mental health is a large category. I think what people have to understand is, kind of the old rule when I was teaching in medicine, is that 50% of the people that come into a doctor's office for some sort of physical ailment also have a mental health disorder. One in five Americans has depression at some point in their life, and that's a significant number of people. Anxiety is climbing in children. Eating disorders are shooting up at hockey stick rates."
"What nView Health does, we believe strongly that the system requires the ability to create an initial ability for people to be screened at every level including children. Providers of all types, primary care providers, nurse practitioners, pediatricians, and others, can give a simple screening test. I can ask a few questions, and I can get some information that helps me understand this patient's behavioral health status."
"Secondary to that is the ability to then arm the primary care community with the right tools to be able to make the right diagnostic decisions. Our tools don't make diagnoses. Our tools help and assist a provider in collecting the right data so that they can make an appropriate decision. Because what we know is that early diagnosis leads to early treatment, which leads to better outcomes."
@nViewHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #ValueBasedCare #DigitalWorkFlows #ActionableData #HealthyMindsStartHere
nviewhealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Thomas Young is the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of nView Health, a behavioral health technology company providing tools for physicians and researchers to help diagnose psychiatric disorders accurately and efficiently determine treatment options. In addition, the nView Health tools allow tracking and following outcomes to determine if the right drugs have been prescribed and if the cognitive behavioral therapy intervention is working.
Thomas elaborates, "Mental health is a large category. I think what people have to understand is, kind of the old rule when I was teaching in medicine, is that 50% of the people that come into a doctor's office for some sort of physical ailment also have a mental health disorder. One in five Americans has depression at some point in their life, and that's a significant number of people. Anxiety is climbing in children. Eating disorders are shooting up at hockey stick rates."
"What nView Health does, we believe strongly that the system requires the ability to create an initial ability for people to be screened at every level including children. Providers of all types, primary care providers, nurse practitioners, pediatricians, and others, can give a simple screening test. I can ask a few questions, and I can get some information that helps me understand this patient's behavioral health status."
"Secondary to that is the ability to then arm the primary care community with the right tools to be able to make the right diagnostic decisions. Our tools don't make diagnoses. Our tools help and assist a provider in collecting the right data so that they can make an appropriate decision. Because what we know is that early diagnosis leads to early treatment, which leads to better outcomes."
@nViewHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #ValueBasedCare #DigitalWorkFlows #ActionableData #HealthyMindsStartHere
nviewhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Thomas Young is the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of nView Health, a behavioral health technology company providing tools for physicians and researchers to help diagnose psychiatric disorders accurately and efficiently determine treatment options. In addition, the nView Health tools allow tracking and following outcomes to determine if the right drugs have been prescribed and if the cognitive behavioral therapy intervention is working.
Thomas elaborates, "Mental health is a large category. I think what people have to understand is, kind of the old rule when I was teaching in medicine, is that 50% of the people that come into a doctor's office for some sort of physical ailment also have a mental health disorder. One in five Americans has depression at some point in their life, and that's a significant number of people. Anxiety is climbing in children. Eating disorders are shooting up at hockey stick rates."
"What nView Health does, we believe strongly that the system requires the ability to create an initial ability for people to be screened at every level including children. Providers of all types, primary care providers, nurse practitioners, pediatricians, and others, can give a simple screening test. I can ask a few questions, and I can get some information that helps me understand this patient's behavioral health status."
"Secondary to that is the ability to then arm the primary care community with the right tools to be able to make the right diagnostic decisions. Our tools don't make diagnoses. Our tools help and assist a provider in collecting the right data so that they can make an appropriate decision. Because what we know is that early diagnosis leads to early treatment, which leads to better outcomes."
@nViewHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #ValueBasedCare #DigitalWorkFlows #ActionableData #HealthyMindsStartHere
nviewhealth.com
Download the transcript here
Shuo Qiao is the Co-Founder and CTO of Moving Analytics, a digital health company focusing on cardiovascular health and providing alternatives to traditional cardiac services. While many devices measure blood pressure and monitor activity, using them can be time-consuming and provide inaccurate readings. Shou points to clinical evidence that home-based cardiac rehabilitation with remote sensing support is as safe and effective as in-person care. The challenge is getting providers and payers to understand how this approach can significantly benefit them as well as patients.
Shuo explains, "What we are using currently is from one of our device providers. They provide a heart monitor and weighing scale that basically just does the measurements. They will automatically transfer the data through 3G network to our server. I would say there's zero set-up for the patient. They just get the device, and they just measure their blood pressure and weight. That's it. When it's done, data automatically uploads. No set-up whatsoever. Those are the things that we usually use."
"On top of that, we also have a smart activity tracker that you put on the wrist. It can help you monitor your daily tasks, how much you exercise, along with your heart rate, and things like that. It's super helpful as well."
@MovingAnalytics #Telehealth #DigitalHealth #VirtualCare #CardiacRehabilitation #CardiacRehab #ActivityTracker
movinganalytics.com
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Shuo Qiao is the Co-Founder and CTO of Moving Analytics, a digital health company focusing on cardiovascular health and providing alternatives to traditional cardiac services. While many devices measure blood pressure and monitor activity, using them can be time-consuming and provide inaccurate readings. Shou points to clinical evidence that home-based cardiac rehabilitation with remote sensing support is as safe and effective as in-person care. The challenge is getting providers and payers to understand how this approach can significantly benefit them as well as patients.
Shuo explains, "What we are using currently is from one of our device providers. They provide a heart monitor and weighing scale that basically just does the measurements. They will automatically transfer the data through 3G network to our server. I would say there's zero set-up for the patient. They just get the device, and they just measure their blood pressure and weight. That's it. When it's done, data automatically uploads. No set-up whatsoever. Those are the things that we usually use."
"On top of that, we also have a smart activity tracker that you put on the wrist. It can help you monitor your daily tasks, how much you exercise, along with your heart rate, and things like that. It's super helpful as well."
@MovingAnalytics #Telehealth #DigitalHealth #VirtualCare #CardiacRehabilitation #CardiacRehab #ActivityTracker
movinganalytics.com
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Dr. Anthony Japour is the Chief Executive Officer and President at iTolerance, an early-stage privately-held regenerative medicine company. Currently, if a patient receives a pancreatic islet transplant to treat type 1 diabetes, there is a need for lifelong immune suppression. The technology that iTolerance is developing leverages the protein Fas Ligand to enable implantation without the need to be immune suppressed to suppress the body from rejecting the foreign tissue.
Anthony explains, "Our treatment does allow for local immune tolerance, so around the area of the cells, organoid, or tissue. It allows it to be accepted without the body rejecting it by inducing what's called local immune tolerance. This does not affect the systemic immune system, only the local immune system. And it has not been done in humans yet. It's been tested both in rodent model rats as well as in monkeys. And in both models, we can cure type 1 diabetes."
"The technology of our product came from Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, as well as the University of Louisville in Kentucky. And the researcher that was there is now at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. This is Dr. Andrés García at Georgia Tech, who is a world-renowned expert in biomaterials. He's been developing the micro gel treatment for a period of time and is a very well-respected researcher. Also, Dr. Haval Shirwan, who is an immunologist, has been working with the FasL protein for roughly 20 or 25 years."
@iTolerance_Inc #RegenerativeMedicine #Transplants #PancreaticIsletTransplant #Diabetes #Type1Diabetes #ImmuneSuppressiveDrugs #ImmuneTolerance #Apoptosis #FasL #FasLigand
iTolerance.com
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Dr. Anthony Japour is the Chief Executive Officer and President at iTolerance, an early-stage privately-held regenerative medicine company. Currently, if a patient receives a pancreatic islet transplant to treat type 1 diabetes, there is a need for lifelong immune suppression. The technology that iTolerance is developing leverages the protein Fas Ligand to enable implantation without the need to be immune suppressed to suppress the body from rejecting the foreign tissue.
Anthony explains, "Our treatment does allow for local immune tolerance, so around the area of the cells, organoid, or tissue. It allows it to be accepted without the body rejecting it by inducing what's called local immune tolerance. This does not affect the systemic immune system, only the local immune system. And it has not been done in humans yet. It's been tested both in rodent model rats as well as in monkeys. And in both models, we can cure type 1 diabetes."
"The technology of our product came from Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, as well as the University of Louisville in Kentucky. And the researcher that was there is now at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. This is Dr. Andrés García at Georgia Tech, who is a world-renowned expert in biomaterials. He's been developing the micro gel treatment for a period of time and is a very well-respected researcher. Also, Dr. Haval Shirwan, who is an immunologist, has been working with the FasL protein for roughly 20 or 25 years."
@iTolerance_Inc #RegenerativeMedicine #Transplants #PancreaticIsletTransplant #Diabetes #Type1Diabetes #ImmuneSuppressiveDrugs #ImmuneTolerance #Apoptosis #FasL #FasLigand
iTolerance.com
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Spiro Rombotis is the CEO of Cyclacel, which is identifying biomarkers relevant to their drug fadraciclib's mechanism to increase the chance for success in trials for a wide range of cancers. Cyclacel has seen activity of fadra as a single agent in phase one patients with women's cancers like endometrial, ovarian, and breast cancers, and lymphomas, liver cancer, and colorectal cancer.
Spiro explains, "Before the pandemic, we had an intravenous version of fadra administered to patients in a single center study at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. And although the drug was active in these patients, it is clear during the pandemic and now, at hopefully the tail end of the pandemic, that oral therapies have dramatic advantages. Not only because patients don't have to be exposed to the virus, which is not a very good idea for a cancer patient who is more vulnerable than the general population, but also because of the ability and convenience of receiving a drug orally and staying at home."
"We take patients regardless of tumor type, the anatomy, or where the tumor started but based on biomarkers. Biomarkers are biological parameters that we test with patients' blood or tissue before they go on the study based on the drug’s mechanism. If they have a high level of these markers, they can enroll in the basket cohort, which allows us to have a shot at the goal by identifying patients who might have a higher chance of response than the population at large."
@CyclacelPharm #Cyclacel $CYCC #Onco #Oncology #Cancer #CancerResistance #CancerDrug #SolidTumor #Tumor #Fadraciclib #Fadra #CYC140 #CellCycle #Mitosis #Apoptosis
cyclacel.com
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Spiro Rombotis is the CEO of Cyclacel, which is identifying biomarkers relevant to their drug fadraciclib's mechanism to increase the chance for success in trials for a wide range of cancers. Cyclacel has seen activity of fadra as a single agent in phase one patients with women's cancers like endometrial, ovarian, and breast cancers, and lymphomas, liver cancer, and colorectal cancer.
Spiro explains, "Before the pandemic, we had an intravenous version of fadra administered to patients in a single center study at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. And although the drug was active in these patients, it is clear during the pandemic and now, at hopefully the tail end of the pandemic, that oral therapies have dramatic advantages. Not only because patients don't have to be exposed to the virus, which is not a very good idea for a cancer patient who is more vulnerable than the general population, but also because of the ability and convenience of receiving a drug orally and staying at home."
"We take patients regardless of tumor type, the anatomy, or where the tumor started but based on biomarkers. Biomarkers are biological parameters that we test with patients' blood or tissue before they go on the study based on the drug’s mechanism. If they have a high level of these markers, they can enroll in the basket cohort, which allows us to have a shot at the goal by identifying patients who might have a higher chance of response than the population at large."
@CyclacelPharm #Cyclacel $CYCC #Onco #Oncology #Cancer #CancerResistance #CancerDrug #SolidTumor #Tumor #Fadraciclib #Fadra #CYC140 #CellCycle #Mitosis #Apoptosis
cyclacel.com
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Jim Pursley is the President of Hinge Health, the leading digital health musculoskeletal (MSK) clinic that aims to reduce joint and surgical pain by deploying wearable sensors and computer-vision technology and clinical care teams. Hinge is addressing chronic and acute MSK pain with a mission to reduce the use of opioids and bring lasting relief to patients.
Jim explains, "We have the goal of alleviating pain for millions of people, not just here in the United States but around the globe. Musculoskeletal challenges, whether they be acute or chronic, account for a significant amount of the cost in today's healthcare system and also have a significant detrimental effect on the quality of life."
"As a result, what they do is they turn to other things like opioids, and surgery, which again has both a detrimental impact on their quality of life and also is a big cost driver in the country today. And so our job is to reduce the friction in this system. Whether it's the access challenge, whether it's the cost challenge or the educational challenge, our goal is to reduce that friction and make it as easy as possible to get the care you need and the outcomes you're looking for."
"So one of our missions is to really have an alternative to both opioid use and eventually elective surgery. Recognizing that sometimes surgery isn't the appropriate intervention, there's a lot of unnecessary surgery today. So we've developed Hinge with the idea that if we can deliver, again, that virtual physical therapy delivered by a physical therapist supported by a health coach and a comprehensive care team that includes orthopedic surgeons, nurse practitioners, and registered dieticians."
@HingeHealth #MSK #Musculoskeletal #DigitalHealth #PT #PhysicalTherapy #HealthandWellness #ChronicPain
Clinical Data: hingehealth.com/outcomes/
State of MSK: hingehealth.com/state-of-msk-report-2022-pdf/
Hingehealth.com
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Jim Pursley is the President of Hinge Health, the leading digital health musculoskeletal (MSK) clinic that aims to reduce joint and surgical pain by deploying wearable sensors and computer-vision technology and clinical care teams. Hinge is addressing chronic and acute MSK pain with a mission to reduce the use of opioids and bring lasting relief to patients.
Jim explains, "We have the goal of alleviating pain for millions of people, not just here in the United States but around the globe. Musculoskeletal challenges, whether they be acute or chronic, account for a significant amount of the cost in today's healthcare system and also have a significant detrimental effect on the quality of life."
"As a result, what they do is they turn to other things like opioids, and surgery, which again has both a detrimental impact on their quality of life and also is a big cost driver in the country today. And so our job is to reduce the friction in this system. Whether it's the access challenge, whether it's the cost challenge or the educational challenge, our goal is to reduce that friction and make it as easy as possible to get the care you need and the outcomes you're looking for."
"So one of our missions is to really have an alternative to both opioid use and eventually elective surgery. Recognizing that sometimes surgery isn't the appropriate intervention, there's a lot of unnecessary surgery today. So we've developed Hinge with the idea that if we can deliver, again, that virtual physical therapy delivered by a physical therapist supported by a health coach and a comprehensive care team that includes orthopedic surgeons, nurse practitioners, and registered dieticians."
@HingeHealth #MSK #Musculoskeletal #DigitalHealth #PT #PhysicalTherapy #HealthandWellness #ChronicPain
Clinical Data: hingehealth.com/outcomes/
State of MSK: hingehealth.com/state-of-msk-report-2022-pdf/
Hingehealth.com
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Dr. Jessica Grossman is the CEO of an early stage biotech, IgGenix, the world leader in discovering and characterizing IgE antibodies which have been identified as the cause of allergies. With an initial focus on peanut allergy, IgGenix is developing a plan to use a subcutaneous injection to block specific allergic reactions immediately.
Jessica explains, "At IgGenix, what we do is start with whole blood donations from allergic donors. And we take that blood and isolate out the single B cells that are making the IgE antibodies. We get those IgE antibodies, and we transform them into an IgG antibody that's actually protective. And I'll use again, peanut as an example. That's our lead program, which we're the furthest ahead. We have done some pre-clinical work, some animal studies, which look remarkably promising, and I'm excited about it. But what we envision our therapy looking like is an antibody therapeutic that would be given to an individual, and the antibody would immediately protect them from any accidental exposure."
"So we isolate these very rare B cells that produce IgE antibodies, and they're about 0.05% of the circulating blood cells. Because the IgE antibodies are so rare, they're also extremely potent, meaning they have a very high affinity. And when you are allergic, they seek out the food that you're allergic to and cause this immediate reaction. What we're doing is taking those very potent IgE antibodies, converting them to IgG antibodies to act as blockers."
#IgGenix #FoodAllergyResearch #AllergicDisease #BCells #AntibodyTherapeutics #AirborneAllergies #EnvironmentalAllergies #SustainableInnovation #WomenInSTEM #Biotech
IgGenix.com
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Dr. Jessica Grossman is the CEO of an early stage biotech, IgGenix, the world leader in discovering and characterizing IgE antibodies which have been identified as the cause of allergies. With an initial focus on peanut allergy, IgGenix is developing a plan to use a subcutaneous injection to block specific allergic reactions immediately.
Jessica explains, "At IgGenix, what we do is start with whole blood donations from allergic donors. And we take that blood and isolate out the single B cells that are making the IgE antibodies. We get those IgE antibodies, and we transform them into an IgG antibody that's actually protective. And I'll use again, peanut as an example. That's our lead program, which we're the furthest ahead. We have done some pre-clinical work, some animal studies, which look remarkably promising, and I'm excited about it. But what we envision our therapy looking like is an antibody therapeutic that would be given to an individual, and the antibody would immediately protect them from any accidental exposure."
"So we isolate these very rare B cells that produce IgE antibodies, and they're about 0.05% of the circulating blood cells. Because the IgE antibodies are so rare, they're also extremely potent, meaning they have a very high affinity. And when you are allergic, they seek out the food that you're allergic to and cause this immediate reaction. What we're doing is taking those very potent IgE antibodies, converting them to IgG antibodies to act as blockers."
#IgGenix #FoodAllergyResearch #AllergicDisease #BCells #AntibodyTherapeutics #AirborneAllergies #EnvironmentalAllergies #SustainableInnovation #WomenInSTEM #Biotech
IgGenix.com
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Bret Scholtes is the President and CEO of Guardion Health Sciences and is in the business of bringing medical foods and dietary supplements to the market. Formulating products with ingredients with solid science behind them, Guardion is also focused on creating good-tasting products that people want to continue to use for good health.
Bret explains, "So, for example, we have an omega-3 gel bite that we'd recently formulated and started selling. There are a tremendous number of studies that are done on omega-3s. We put it in a format that's a little bit different than a soft gel. We'll be doing clinical work to basically prove the efficacy of not only omega-3 but also, what it looks like in that gel bite format, and how that would compare to other options that a consumer would have."
"We think that there's the opportunity to look at the role that calcium plays in order for a person to benefit, from a bone perspective. We think that omega-3s are an excellent opportunity for someone to get essential nutrients that their body doesn't produce, which are proven for cognitive health and bone health. So for us, it's about living a more vibrant and active life, which is why we sell our products. And for us, it's about allowing the body to get the nutrients that it needs in sufficient form to continue to live that life as long as possible."
@GuardionHealth #MedicalFood #ClinicalNutrition #Omega3 #Nutrition
guardionhealth.com
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Bret Scholtes is the President and CEO of Guardion Health Sciences and is in the business of bringing medical foods and dietary supplements to the market. Formulating products with ingredients with solid science behind them, Guardion is also focused on creating good-tasting products that people want to continue to use for good health.
Bret explains, "So, for example, we have an omega-3 gel bite that we'd recently formulated and started selling. There are a tremendous number of studies that are done on omega-3s. We put it in a format that's a little bit different than a soft gel. We'll be doing clinical work to basically prove the efficacy of not only omega-3 but also, what it looks like in that gel bite format, and how that would compare to other options that a consumer would have."
"We think that there's the opportunity to look at the role that calcium plays in order for a person to benefit, from a bone perspective. We think that omega-3s are an excellent opportunity for someone to get essential nutrients that their body doesn't produce, which are proven for cognitive health and bone health. So for us, it's about living a more vibrant and active life, which is why we sell our products. And for us, it's about allowing the body to get the nutrients that it needs in sufficient form to continue to live that life as long as possible."
@GuardionHealth #MedicalFood #ClinicalNutrition #Omega3 #Nutrition
guardionhealth.com
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Robbie Hughes is the Founder and CEO of Lumeon, which is deploying its care orchestration platform to personalize the treatment plan and follow-up for patients while guiding care providers to make the right decision at the right time.
Robbie elaborates, "We decided that there was a need for a solution that would proactively coordinate care algorithmically and do so at a very low cost. Thus, you could use that system to coordinate care everywhere. What we see now from our providers and our partners is that they use it to coordinate everything from elective surgery to discharge planning to hospital-at-home and everything in between."
"I need to do all of this in real-time. What we are doing is we're combining all of these things together into a single solution, and it really allows us to do something transformative in terms of the personalized scaling of care. It's tasking the care team specifically with activities, and it's automating those, and that's engaging the patient and making them an equal participant in that care. What's critical is that this isn't just patient engagement. We're not just sending notifications out to patients saying, do this or that. It's actually using the patient engagement loop as a way of understanding what's working and what's not and then guiding the care team appropriately."
@Lumeon_ #CareOrchestration #CareAutomation #QualityImprovement #DigitalTransformation #Burnout #Productivity #ClosingCareGaps
lumeon.com
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Robbie Hughes is the Founder and CEO of Lumeon, which is deploying its care orchestration platform to personalize the treatment plan and follow-up for patients while guiding care providers to make the right decision at the right time.
Robbie elaborates, "We decided that there was a need for a solution that would proactively coordinate care algorithmically and do so at a very low cost. Thus, you could use that system to coordinate care everywhere. What we see now from our providers and our partners is that they use it to coordinate everything from elective surgery to discharge planning to hospital-at-home and everything in between."
"I need to do all of this in real-time. What we are doing is we're combining all of these things together into a single solution, and it really allows us to do something transformative in terms of the personalized scaling of care. It's tasking the care team specifically with activities, and it's automating those, and that's engaging the patient and making them an equal participant in that care. What's critical is that this isn't just patient engagement. We're not just sending notifications out to patients saying, do this or that. It's actually using the patient engagement loop as a way of understanding what's working and what's not and then guiding the care team appropriately."
@Lumeon_ #CareOrchestration #CareAutomation #QualityImprovement #DigitalTransformation #Burnout #Productivity #ClosingCareGaps
lumeon.com
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James Hammer, the Senior VP at Harmony Healthcare IT, and Dr. Colin Banas, the Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst, join me to discuss their recent partnership to accelerate the transition of care providers and payers to a digital environment. Faced with clinician burnout, organizations are even more pressed to find efficient methods to treat patients and reduce the need to struggle with outdated information systems and data silos.
Jim explains, "The farther back or historical, the older legacy applications are, the less the data is actually what's called discreet or codified. And today's EHRs, obviously require codified data to alert triggers and have to be codified to be able to interact and be interoperable with other systems. What's exciting about this relationship between DrFirst and us is they've got years of technology and the ability to look at medications, for example. And, to take literally descriptive text and convert that into codified data, meaning translate that to an NDC code, or a drug name, as well as a CIG that's required for interoperable and usable data in the EHR."
Colin elaborates, "Anytime you have the clinical team re-input data, it's tedious, but it also can introduce errors. I've been in informatics for over two decades now, and we've been talking about interoperability since the onset. I do think we've gotten a lot better, especially with solutions like Harmony's, but I still think that we have a way to go. Particularly, I would refer to semantic interoperability, which is what Jim was referring to. This is when the data not only moves from point A to B, but it arrives at endpoint B in the format that system is expecting and can be used immediately without that manual intervention that is so tedious."
@DrFirst #Healthit #Interoperability #ValueBasedCare #EHR #ClinicianBurnout #PatientOutcomes
drfirst.com
harmonyhit.com
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James Hammer, the Senior VP at Harmony Healthcare IT and Dr. Colin Banas, the Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst join me to discuss their recent partnership to accelerate the transition of care providers and payers to a digital environment. Faced with clinician burnout, organizations are even more pressed to find efficient methods to treat patients and reduce the need to struggle with outdated information systems and data silos.
Jim explains, "The farther back or historical, the older legacy applications are, the less the data is actually what's called discreet or codified. And today's EHRs, obviously require codified data to alert triggers and have to be codified to be able to interact and be interoperable with other systems. What's exciting about this relationship between DrFirst and us is they've got years of technology and the ability to look at medications, for example. And, to take literally descriptive text and convert that into codified data, meaning translate that to an NDC code, or a drug name, as well as a CIG that's required for interoperable and usable data in the EHR."
Colin elaborates, "Anytime you have the clinical team re-input data, it's tedious, but it also can introduce errors. I've been in informatics for over two decades now, and we've been talking about interoperability since the onset. I do think we've gotten a lot better, especially with solutions like Harmony's, but I still think that we have a way to go. Particularly, I would refer to semantic interoperability, which is what Jim was referring to. This is when the data not only moves from point A to B, but it arrives at endpoint B in the format that system is expecting and can be used immediately without that manual intervention that is so tedious."
@DrFirst #Healthit #Interoperability #ValueBasedCare #EHR #ClinicianBurnout #PatientOutcomes
drfirst.com
harmonyhit.com
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Rajatesh Gudibande is the Co-Founder and President of GraphWear Technologies, which has taken lessons from earlier self-monitoring blood glucose device development to come up with a patient-friendly system for continuous monitoring of glucose in people with diabetes. Using a needle-free device, this smart device is attached on the wrist, on the lower abdomen, or on the side arm.
Raj explains, "The principle of operation is fairly simple and also unique, in a way. Let's look at what is our source first. Skin is the largest organ in the human body, and it has access to interstitial fluid, which is the fluid just underneath the skin and a few layers off it, so underneath the stratum corneum. And so, if we are able to somehow put a device that can taste molecules by pulling them out a little bit just on the surface of the skin, then we can access whatever's there in the blood."
"But that requires a device that's very sensitive. So the first key principle operation is we have a sensitive material that is electronically active. It is specific to the molecules we are targeting, and then it converts the molecular information into electric signals and then transmits via Bluetooth to your phone. Think about it, it's literally an electronic tongue tasting molecules like glucose that come out. The key is the sensor sits on the surface of the skin, so there's no breaking of the skin whatsoever. Still, then there's a peripheral device that converts, stores, computes, and has the battery in it, and that then is a housing for which the device operates together as a system."
@GraphWear_Tech #GraphWearTechnologies #NotBlood #NeedleFree #Detection #Nanomaterial
graphwear.co
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Rajatesh Gudibande is the Co-Founder and President of GraphWear Technologies, which has taken lessons from earlier self-monitoring blood glucose device development to come up with a patient-friendly system for continuous monitoring of glucose in people with diabetes. Using a needle-free device, this smart device is attached on the wrist, on the lower abdomen, or on the side arm.
Raj explains, "The principle of operation is fairly simple and also unique, in a way. Let's look at what is our source first. Skin is the largest organ in the human body, and it has access to interstitial fluid, which is the fluid just underneath the skin and a few layers off it, so underneath the stratum corneum. And so, if we are able to somehow put a device that can taste molecules by pulling them out a little bit just on the surface of the skin, then we can access whatever's there in the blood."
"But that requires a device that's very sensitive. So the first key principle operation is we have a sensitive material that is electronically active. It is specific to the molecules we are targeting, and then it converts the molecular information into electric signals and then transmits via Bluetooth to your phone. Think about it, it's literally an electronic tongue tasting molecules like glucose that come out. The key is the sensor sits on the surface of the skin, so there's no breaking of the skin whatsoever. Still, then there's a peripheral device that converts, stores, computes, and has the battery in it, and that then is a housing for which the device operates together as a system."
@GraphWear_Tech #GraphWearTechnologies #NotBlood #NeedleFree #Detection #Nanomaterial
graphwear.co
Download the transcript here
Jeff Beck is the Chief Development Officer at BioCareSD, a specialty pharmaceutical distributor. The field of specialty drugs has grown from the first drug for hemophilia in the 1980s to today, with about 50% of the drugs in the pipeline being specialty drugs. BioCareSD is an important component of the supply chain to ensure that these life-saving and life-sustaining drugs are available at the right time and in the right place.
Jeff explains, "I'm actually right now at the World Orphan Drug Conference, and it's unbelievable the number of studies that are underway for diseases that maybe a hundred people have, or a thousand people. What we're seeing now is more, and more of these patients are being able to live a really great life, no longer worried about having debilitating conditions. Sometimes, it's life-saving medicine. Sometimes, life-sustaining medicines. At BioCareSD, we're an important cog in the wheel to get those products to the patients."
"Specialty pharmaceuticals, it seems like the term has expanded a lot over the days. Sometimes you used to think that specialty pharmaceuticals were just infusible drugs, really high-cost drugs. There are specialty pharmaceuticals now that are pills, but they're unique. They're drugs that usually treat smaller patient populations, so I don't see them moving out of that niche or that term, so to speak."
@BioCareSD #BioCareSD #BioCare #SpecialtyDistribution #MedicalSupplyChain #RareDiseases #Pharmaceuticals
BioCareSD.com
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Jeff Beck is the Chief Development Officer at BioCareSD, a specialty pharmaceutical distributor. The field of specialty drugs has grown from the first drug for hemophilia in the 1980s to today, with about 50% of the drugs in the pipeline being specialty drugs. BioCareSD is an important component of the supply chain to ensure that these life-saving and life-sustaining drugs are available at the right time and in the right place.
Jeff explains, "I'm actually right now at the World Orphan Drug Conference, and it's unbelievable the number of studies that are underway for diseases that maybe a hundred people have, or a thousand people. What we're seeing now is more, and more of these patients are being able to live a really great life, no longer worried about having debilitating conditions. Sometimes, it's life-saving medicine. Sometimes, life-sustaining medicines. At BioCareSD, we're an important cog in the wheel to get those products to the patients."
"Specialty pharmaceuticals, it seems like the term has expanded a lot over the days. Sometimes you used to think that specialty pharmaceuticals were just infusible drugs, really high-cost drugs. There are specialty pharmaceuticals now that are pills, but they're unique. They're drugs that usually treat smaller patient populations, so I don't see them moving out of that niche or that term, so to speak."
@BioCareSD #BioCareSD #BioCare #SpecialtyDistribution #MedicalSupplyChain #RareDiseases #Pharmaceuticals
BioCareSD.com
Download the transcript here
Marty Gauvin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fertilis, an Australian-based company creating micro medical tools to be used in cell culture such as IVF to improve outcomes. There is a vast difference in outcomes of IVF across different clinics in part because of the human intervention that is required in the cell development process. Fertilis has developed a system that controls the environment around each cell and mimics what would happen in the body.
Marty explains, "The first way it makes it cheaper is simply by having one less cycle. Patients are not paying for a baby. Patients are paying for a cycle. And so if it takes one less cycle, the average at the moment is three cycles, if you could have a baby in two cycles, that's a very major saving. A saving well into the five figures that you're going to make in any marketing in the world."
"It further makes it efficient because, at the moment, IVF is so expensive because it's what the economist would call supply constraints. There aren't enough embryologists and IVF clinics for the number of people that would like to become parents. And so, by making the process more automated, we can make it so that the best embryologists are not required for every single cycle. We can make it possible for an embryologist to be trained in much less time, for example. So the constraint that's on that capacity can then be removed."
#Fertilis #IVF #IVFClinic #CellCulture #Embryologists #IncubatorMakers
fertil.is
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Marty Gauvin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fertilis, an Australian-based company creating micro medical tools to be used in cell culture such as IVF to improve outcomes. There is a vast difference in outcomes of IVF across different clinics in part because of the human intervention that is required in the cell development process. Fertilis has developed a system that controls the environment around each cell and mimics what would happen in the body.
Marty explains, "The first way it makes it cheaper is simply by having one less cycle. Patients are not paying for a baby. Patients are paying for a cycle. And so if it takes one less cycle, the average at the moment is three cycles, if you could have a baby in two cycles, that's a very major saving. A saving well into the five figures that you're going to make in any marketing in the world."
"It further makes it efficient because, at the moment, IVF is so expensive because it's what the economist would call supply constraints. There aren't enough embryologists and IVF clinics for the number of people that would like to become parents. And so, by making the process more automated, we can make it so that the best embryologists are not required for every single cycle. We can make it possible for an embryologist to be trained in much less time, for example. So the constraint that's on that capacity can then be removed."
#Fertilis #IVF #IVFClinic #CellCulture #Embryologists #IncubatorMakers
fertil.is
Download the transcript here
Jenny Ahlstrom is the Founder and CEO of the HealthTree Fouon and a multiple myeloma patient and patient advocate. The HealthTree Foundation was the winner of the GSK Target the Future Think Tank Challenge and will receive financial support and technical expertise to extend equal access and diversity in multiple myeloma research, clinical trials, services, and education. This effort includes patient navigators who are members of the Black community as well as Spanish speakers who can provide patients access to material translated into Spanish.
Jenny explains, "I was diagnosed in 2010 and had some hypotheses about what I wanted in terms of my own therapy and my own types of support that I was looking for. And so, in 2012, we started the foundation, and we have been building up different patient programs for multiple myeloma over that long period of time. We've just gone to look and see what is available already in terms of support services. Then we identified different gaps that we saw as patients ourselves and tried to fill those gaps. And that's been the primary effort of our work, to fill those gaps for patients."
"So, we are going to apply this funding to our equity and diversity program. And specifically on this blackmyelomahealth.org website. This website will do outreach to the African American community. Like I said, they are two or three times more likely to develop multiple myeloma. And it's really essential that they learn broadly about what multiple myeloma is."
@HealthTree #HealthTreeFoundation #GSK #TargettheFuture #MultipleMyeloma #PatientAdvocate
healthtree.org
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Interview with Dr. Tania Small GSK
Podcast and Transcript
Jenny Ahlstrom is the Founder and CEO of the HealthTree Fouon and a multiple myeloma patient and patient advocate. The HealthTree Foundation was the winner of the GSK Target the Future Think Tank Challenge and will receive financial support and technical expertise to extend equal access and diversity in multiple myeloma research, clinical trials, services, and education. This effort includes patient navigators who are members of the Black community as well as Spanish speakers who can provide patients access to material translated into Spanish.
Jenny explains, "I was diagnosed in 2010 and had some hypotheses about what I wanted in terms of my own therapy and my own types of support that I was looking for. And so, in 2012, we started the foundation, and we have been building up different patient programs for multiple myeloma over that long period of time. We've just gone to look and see what is available already in terms of support services. Then we identified different gaps that we saw as patients ourselves and tried to fill those gaps. And that's been the primary effort of our work, to fill those gaps for patients."
"So, we are going to apply this funding to our equity and diversity program. And specifically on this blackmyelomahealth.org website. This website will do outreach to the African American community. Like I said, they are two or three times more likely to develop multiple myeloma. And it's really essential that they learn broadly about what multiple myeloma is."
@HealthTree #HealthTreeFoundation #GSK #TargettheFuture #MultipleMyeloma #PatientAdvocate
healthtree.org
Download the transcript here
Interview with Dr. Tania Small GSK
Podcast and Transcript
Dr. Tania Small is the Vice President and Head of Global Oncology Medical Affairs and Chair, R&D Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Counsel at GSK. To improve clinical participation and outreach to a more diverse multiple myeloma community, GSK created the Target the Future Think Tank Challenge to find partners to meet unmet needs.
Tania explains, "This is where this whole Target the Future program stems from. It was really understanding what the needs are in the multiple myeloma community so that we get an earlier diagnosis so that we get improved access so that we get improved outcomes. What we did at GSK is we asked those questions. Then we paused and said actually the people who are best equipped to tell us is, are the patients themselves and their caregivers. And so, our goal was to take a grassroots approach to really understanding what are the key needs in this community to have the optimal outcome."
"So, we launched something called Target the Future to your point, this think tank for anyone in the community who could come up with innovative and impactful solutions to address these problems. We wanted them to let us know, and what we decided to do was fund their idea, not only fund the idea but give help to implement this idea."
"Yes, and we were extremely impressed with all three of our finalists. But this one really checked all the boxes and what they pitched was a HealthTree Equity and Diversity program. When you go through it, it really shows me an optimal model because not only did they check all of the boxes, but they were creating a real, sustainable solution within the communities that they were trying to strengthen and trying to help."
@GSK #TargettheFuture #MultipleMyeloma #HealthTreeFoundation
gsk.com
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Interview with HealthTree Foundation
Podcast and Transcript
Dr. Tania Small is the Vice President and Head of Global Oncology Medical Affairs and Chair, R&D Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Counsel at GSK. To improve clinical participation and outreach to a more diverse multiple myeloma community, GSK created the Target the Future Think Tank Challenge to find partners to meet unmet needs.
Tania explains, "This is where this whole Target the Future program stems from. It was really understanding what the needs are in the multiple myeloma community so that we get an earlier diagnosis so that we get improved access so that we get improved outcomes. What we did at GSK is we asked those questions. Then we paused and said actually the people who are best equipped to tell us is, are the patients themselves and their caregivers. And so, our goal was to take a grassroots approach to really understanding what are the key needs in this community to have the optimal outcome."
"So, we launched something called Target the Future to your point, this think tank for anyone in the community who could come up with innovative and impactful solutions to address these problems. We wanted them to let us know, and what we decided to do was fund their idea, not only fund the idea but give help to implement this idea."
"Yes, and we were extremely impressed with all three of our finalists. But this one really checked all the boxes and what they pitched was a HealthTree Equity and Diversity program. When you go through it, it really shows me an optimal model because not only did they check all of the boxes, but they were creating a real, sustainable solution within the communities that they were trying to strengthen and trying to help."
@GSK #TargettheFuture #MultipleMyeloma #HealthTreeFoundation
gsk.com
Download the transcript here
Interview with HealthTree Foundation
Podcast and Transcript
Joe Landolina is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cresilon, the only fill-and-finish operation in the five boroughs of New York. Building on a discovery about the ability to stop all kinds of bleeding, Cresilon is using recycled algae, meaning algae or kelp that has washed up onto the shoreline. The vendors they work with are highly sustainable as they are not damaging kelp forests but salvaging material that has already washed up on beaches.
Joe explains, "So I was very experienced in plant-based chemistries, and one day I was trying to run an experiment. The original intent of the experiment failed, but what I came across was this blend of two polysaccharides, long chains of sugar, that formed a gel that would immediately reassemble and stick to tissue, like skin or an open injury. It wouldn't let go until you wanted it to."
"That's not quite what we do today, but that led to the technology that we now have commercially under the brand name VETIGEL, which is a hemostatic gel that immediately stops anything from the most traumatic of bleeding, like gunshot wounds, arterial bleeds, all the way down to small nicks and scrapes surgically, on contact, without the need to apply pressure, allowing the patient to produce their own healthy clot and heal the wound normally."
@Cresilon #Cresilon #StoptheBleed #BleedingControl #Vertigel #Hemostatic #PlantBasedChemistries
cresilon.com
Listen to the podcast here
Joe Landolina is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cresilon, the only fill-and-finish operation in the five boroughs of New York. Building on a discovery about the ability to stop all kinds of bleeding, Cresilon is using recycled algae, meaning algae or kelp that has washed up onto the shoreline. The vendors they work with are highly sustainable as they are not damaging kelp forests but salvaging material that has already washed up on beaches.
Joe explains, "So I was very experienced in plant-based chemistries, and one day I was trying to run an experiment. The original intent of the experiment failed, but what I came across was this blend of two polysaccharides, long chains of sugar, that formed a gel that would immediately reassemble and stick to tissue, like skin or an open injury. It wouldn't let go until you wanted it to."
"That's not quite what we do today, but that led to the technology that we now have commercially under the brand name VETIGEL, which is a hemostatic gel that immediately stops anything from the most traumatic of bleeding, like gunshot wounds, arterial bleeds, all the way down to small nicks and scrapes surgically, on contact, without the need to apply pressure, allowing the patient to produce their own healthy clot and heal the wound normally."
@Cresilon #Cresilon #StoptheBleed #BleedingControl #Vertigel #Hemostatic #PlantBasedChemistries
cresilon.com
Download the transcript here
JT Garwood, the CEO and Co-Founder of bttn, identified there was not a spot on the internet where healthcare providers could go and compare the price of their most frequently purchased products. The bttn mission is to build a system that allows for transparency through an online marketplace and digital platform. With excellent customer service, the platform allows each practitioner to save time and money when procuring key supplies, getting the quality they expect. When customers or suppliers work with bttn, the company digitizes multiple parts of the supply chain.
JT elaborates, "On the healthcare distribution side, I see it as bifurcated between national distributors and local distributors. There has been great organization to this entire process for many years. Healthcare distribution has been going on pretty flawlessly for the last 80-plus years in the United States. Group Purchasing Organizations have dominated it for a very long time, and healthcare providers are getting the supplies that they need. It really comes back to this impact of lack of digital transformation. And since technology hasn't been at the forefront, the industry has suffered because of it. So, overall, lots of organization, but not a ton of focus on the technology side."
"We talk a lot about these two key pillars of transparency and technology. I'll start with technology because you mentioned the fax machine. It really is still common practice in medical supply to fax in an order sheet or to need to call your sales rep to place any sort of order or track where your latest shipment is. That doesn't mean that tech isn't present; it just hasn't been the focus."
@JTGarwood @bttnusa #MedicalSupplies #HealthcareSupplies #SupplyChain #MedicalSupplyChain #PricingTransparency
bttnusa.com
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JT Garwood, the CEO and Co-Founder of bttn, identified there was not a spot on the internet where healthcare providers could go and compare the price of their most frequently purchased products. The bttn mission is to build a system that allows for transparency through an online marketplace and digital platform. With excellent customer service, the platform allows each practitioner to save time and money when procuring key supplies, getting the quality they expect. When customers or suppliers work with bttn, the company digitizes multiple parts of the supply chain.
JT elaborates, "On the healthcare distribution side, I see it as bifurcated between national distributors and local distributors. There has been great organization to this entire process for many years. Healthcare distribution has been going on pretty flawlessly for the last 80-plus years in the United States. Group Purchasing Organizations have dominated it for a very long time, and healthcare providers are getting the supplies that they need. It really comes back to this impact of lack of digital transformation. And since technology hasn't been at the forefront, the industry has suffered because of it. So, overall, lots of organization, but not a ton of focus on the technology side."
"We talk a lot about these two key pillars of transparency and technology. I'll start with technology because you mentioned the fax machine. It really is still common practice in medical supply to fax in an order sheet or to need to call your sales rep to place any sort of order or track where your latest shipment is. That doesn't mean that tech isn't present; it just hasn't been the focus."
@JTGarwood @bttnusa #MedicalSupplies #HealthcareSupplies #SupplyChain #MedicalSupplyChain #PricingTransparency
bttnusa.com
Download the transcript here
David Fontana is the Chief Business and Strategy Officer at Umoja Biopharma which is using a cocktail of their TumorTags to kill solid tumors. This in vivo technology has the potential to streamline the gene therapy process by driving down costs, simplifying logistics, and increasing accessibility.
David explains, "With in vivo, we don't deal with cells per se. We deal with cells in the body. So I'll focus on what we do. We have a very proprietary technology called VivoVec, which is a delivery system to deliver RNA through lentiviral vector particles. Our secret sauce is the ability to surface engineer these VivoVec cells to make them more specific, it's called tropism, to drive them to certain cell types. We're focusing on the T-cells, but also to transduce this RNA message, so all we're delivering is the components of an RNA message to get transformed into the target T-cells of the human. We're basically taking those T-cells and making them better killer cells by implanting these payloads, as we're calling them, which would really enable the body to create these cells in vivo and not have to deliver any cells ex vivo."
"That's where we have a couple of interesting approaches at Umoja. The first one is our technology called TumorTags. These are really specific tags that hit the tumors. They bind with the tumors, they get absorbed into tumors, and then represent themselves on the surface in the small molecules, so they last there quite a long time. What our in vivo technology allows us to do is to bind to those receptors and basically form the T-cell synapse, then thus kill the tumor. The nice thing we like about our tumor tech technologies is we can use one in vivo CAR, so one called the universal CAR, and that will bind with several TumorTags."
@UmojaBiopharma #CARTCells #Cancer #Tumors #InVivo #CellTherapy #Immunotherapy #Breyanzi
Umoja-biopharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
David Fontana is the Chief Business and Strategy Officer at Umoja Biopharma which is using a cocktail of their TumorTags to kill solid tumors. This in vivo technology has the potential to streamline the gene therapy process by driving down costs, simplifying logistics, and increasing accessibility.
David explains, "With in vivo, we don't deal with cells per se. We deal with cells in the body. So I'll focus on what we do. We have a very proprietary technology called VivoVec, which is a delivery system to deliver RNA through lentiviral vector particles. Our secret sauce is the ability to surface engineer these VivoVec cells to make them more specific, it's called tropism, to drive them to certain cell types. We're focusing on the T-cells, but also to transduce this RNA message, so all we're delivering is the components of an RNA message to get transformed into the target T-cells of the human. We're basically taking those T-cells and making them better killer cells by implanting these payloads, as we're calling them, which would really enable the body to create these cells in vivo and not have to deliver any cells ex vivo."
"That's where we have a couple of interesting approaches at Umoja. The first one is our technology called TumorTags. These are really specific tags that hit the tumors. They bind with the tumors, they get absorbed into tumors, and then represent themselves on the surface in the small molecules, so they last there quite a long time. What our in vivo technology allows us to do is to bind to those receptors and basically form the T-cell synapse, then thus kill the tumor. The nice thing we like about our tumor tech technologies is we can use one in vivo CAR, so one called the universal CAR, and that will bind with several TumorTags."
@UmojaBiopharma #CARTCells #Cancer #Tumors #InVivo #GeneTherapy #CellTherapy #Immunotherapy #Breyanzi
Umoja-biopharma.com
Download the transcript here
James Mackay is the Founder, President, and CEO of Aristea Therapeutics, and applying their insights about neutrophils to develop a treatment for the rare inflammatory skin condition palmoplantar pustulosis, PPP. Most of the people who get this disease are postmenopausal females, and 90%+ of the patients either are current cigarette smokers or have a history of cigarette smoking.
James explains, "So neutrophils are cells that are part of the immune system. They sit in the bone marrow, and then when there's either an infection or an inflammatory response in the body, the neutrophils are attracted out of the bone marrow to the site of infection or inflammation. In inflammatory diseases, what you often see is extremely large numbers of neutrophils accumulating at the site of the inflammation, which obviously causes some challenges for the patients."
"And in our particular case, we have a drug, it's called RIST4721, which is a CXCR2 antagonist which actually blocks the neutrophils moving from the bone marrow to the site of inflammation. And we believe that this is potentially a way to treat a whole range of serious inflammatory diseases."
"So there's definitely a direct link to cigarette smoking. There's not much basic research been done on PPP, so the exact reason for that is not clear, but we believe, based on some of the research, that it's due to the nicotine receptor in the sweat ducts on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. And the sweat ducts on the hands and the feet are different structures from those elsewhere in the body, which is why this disease probably just affects the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet."
@AristeaTx #PPP #PalmoplantarPustulosis #RareDisease #Inflammation #Neutrophils #SanDiego
aristeatx.com
Listen to the podcast here
James Mackay is the Founder, President, and CEO of Aristea Therapeutics, and applying their insights about neutrophils to develop a treatment for the rare inflammatory skin condition palmoplantar pustulosis, PPP. Most of the people who get this disease are postmenopausal females, and 90%+ of the patients either are current cigarette smokers or have a history of cigarette smoking.
James explains, "So neutrophils are cells that are part of the immune system. They sit in the bone marrow, and then when there's either an infection or an inflammatory response in the body, the neutrophils are attracted out of the bone marrow to the site of infection or inflammation. In inflammatory diseases, what you often see is extremely large numbers of neutrophils accumulating at the site of the inflammation, which obviously causes some challenges for the patients."
"And in our particular case, we have a drug, it's called RIST4721, which is a CXCR2 antagonist which actually blocks the neutrophils moving from the bone marrow to the site of inflammation. And we believe that this is potentially a way to treat a whole range of serious inflammatory diseases."
"So there's definitely a direct link to cigarette smoking. There's not much basic research been done on PPP, so the exact reason for that is not clear, but we believe, based on some of the research, that it's due to the nicotine receptor in the sweat ducts on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. And the sweat ducts on the hands and the feet are different structures from those elsewhere in the body, which is why this disease probably just affects the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet."
@AristeaTx #PPP #PalmoplantarPustulosis #RareDisease #Inflammation #Neutrophils #SanDiego
aristeatx.com
Download the transcript here
Ryan Mooney is the Executive VP and General Manager of Burgess Source, the payment integrity business unit of HealthEdge. Ryan sheds light on the root causes that lead to waste and errors in the process of providing and paying for healthcare. He points out the need for better data management and clear lines of communication for all participants in the system, including patients, providers, and payers.
Ryan says, "I spent 23-plus years working in strict payment integrity. That is a kind of gain share model and contingency where you go, and you identify issues, and you recover them, or you prevent them from happening. The outside vendor keeps a percentage of that recovery and so on. And that way of thinking goes directly to the way that your question was asked, which is, where's the most waste? And I spent over two decades thinking in that same way."
"But another way of framing that question is, what is leading to all of these downstream issues? And in the current project with Burgess Source and HealthEdge, we're trying to take payment integrity, this whole world of knowledge, of the ways that things break and where there's waste and where there are broken things, and apply that intelligence to paying things correctly. This means getting down to the root cause and fixing those things so that there is no waste downstream or we're reducing waste downstream."
@HealthEdge #PaymentIntegrity #DigitalTransformation
healthedge.com
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Ryan Mooney is the Executive VP and General Manager of Burgess Source, the payment integrity business unit of HealthEdge. Ryan sheds light on the root causes that lead to waste and errors in the process of providing and paying for healthcare. He points out the need for better data management and clear lines of communication for all participants in the system, including patients, providers, and payers.
Ryan says, "I spent 23-plus years working in strict payment integrity. That is a kind of gain share model and contingency where you go, and you identify issues, and you recover them, or you prevent them from happening. The outside vendor keeps a percentage of that recovery and so on. And that way of thinking goes directly to the way that your question was asked, which is, where's the most waste? And I spent over two decades thinking in that same way."
"But another way of framing that question is, what is leading to all of these downstream issues? And in the current project with Burgess Source and HealthEdge, we're trying to take payment integrity, this whole world of knowledge, of the ways that things break and where there's waste and where there are broken things, and apply that intelligence to paying things correctly. This means getting down to the root cause and fixing those things so that there is no waste downstream or we're reducing waste downstream."
@HealthEdge #PaymentIntegrity #DigitalTransformation
healthedge.com
Download the transcript here
Michael Schrader is CEO and Co-Founder of Vaxess Technologies, which is transforming vaccine delivery from needles and syringes to a skin patch delivery system. Their solution reduces the need to have mass vaccination sites, makes vaccines easier and cheaper to transport, and addresses the reluctance of patients to get a shot in the arm. Using the protein polymer from silk, Vaxess is making patches with tiny protrusions that pierce the skin and allow the large molecule vaccines into the skin.
Michael explains, "I think what COVID really brought to the forefront and highlighted for all of us was that the needle and syringe has a lot of drawbacks. The first being that these COVID vaccines required refrigeration or freezing temperatures, which made storage very challenging. In order to get these vaccines to people, we actually had to ask them to congregate. So we came to mass vaccination sites, whether at hospitals or places like Gillette Stadium or Fenway park here in Boston. In the event of a pandemic outbreak, the last thing you want to do is ask folks to come together, but we had to do that because you needed a trained healthcare professional to administer the product."
"So when we take this patch, and we apply it to the patient's skin, it just barely breaks the surface of the skin - enough to allow the vaccine or other biologic drug into the skin. Those protrusions actually dissolve as they're letting go of the vaccine into the skin. Again, very similar to what you see from a nicotine patch. And after five minutes of wearing the patch, you can pull it off and throw it in the trashcan."
@Vaxess #Vaccines #Vaccinations #COVID #FluShot #NeedleandSyringe #VaccinePatch
vaxess.com
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Michael Schrader is CEO and Co-Founder of Vaxess Technologies, which is transforming vaccine delivery from needles and syringes to a skin patch delivery system. Their solution reduces the need to have mass vaccination sites, makes vaccines easier and cheaper to transport, and addresses the reluctance of patients to get a shot in the arm. Using the protein polymer from silk, Vaxess is making patches with tiny protrusions that pierce the skin and allow the large molecule vaccines into the skin.
Michael explains, "I think what COVID really brought to the forefront and highlighted for all of us was that the needle and syringe has a lot of drawbacks. The first being that these COVID vaccines required refrigeration or freezing temperatures, which made storage very challenging. In order to get these vaccines to people, we actually had to ask them to congregate. So we came to mass vaccination sites, whether at hospitals or places like Gillette Stadium or Fenway park here in Boston. In the event of a pandemic outbreak, the last thing you want to do is ask folks to come together, but we had to do that because you needed a trained healthcare professional to administer the product."
"So when we take this patch, and we apply it to the patient's skin, it just barely breaks the surface of the skin - enough to allow the vaccine or other biologic drug into the skin. Those protrusions actually dissolve as they're letting go of the vaccine into the skin. Again, very similar to what you see from a nicotine patch. And after five minutes of wearing the patch, you can pull it off and throw it in the trashcan."
@Vaxess #Vaccines #Vaccinations #COVID #FluShot #NeedleandSyringe #VaccinePatch
vaxess.com
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Gabriele Brambilla is the CEO and Executive VP of AliraHealth and is looking for ways to humanize healthcare and involve patients in the entire drug development continuum. They deliver services to drug developers, medical device developers, and digital health solution providers.
Gabriele explains, "We call it democratization of life sciences research, the ability to use our technology to directly involve patients, in different phases of development of a drug or a device, in a very active partnership, not just a passive collection of data."
"So AliraHealth provides a continuum of services that starts from the very early phases of development of a drug or a device. And a drug would be for us the CMC, which is chemistry manufacturing control. It would go then to regulatory, so we help our clients to interact with the FDA, or EMA for Europe, and then register the drugs. And we run clinical trials for our clients and market access. Also the ability to deliver value and effectiveness in front of payers so that they can actually reimburse for the drug and give access to patients to the drug."
@AliraHealth #PatientCentric #DigitalHealth #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #Digitaltx #DrugDevelopment
AliraHealth.com
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Gabriele Brambilla is the CEO and Executive VP of AliraHealth and is looking for ways to humanize healthcare and involve patients in the entire drug development continuum. They deliver services to drug developers, medical device developers, and digital health solution providers.
Gabriele explains, "We call it democratization of life sciences research, the ability to use our technology to directly involve patients, in different phases of development of a drug or a device, in a very active partnership, not just a passive collection of data."
"So AliraHealth provides a continuum of services that starts from the very early phases of development of a drug or a device. And a drug would be for us the CMC, which is chemistry manufacturing control. It would go then to regulatory, so we help our clients to interact with the FDA, or EMA for Europe, and then register the drugs. And we run clinical trials for our clients and market access. Also the ability to deliver value and effectiveness in front of payers so that they can actually reimburse for the drug and give access to patients to the drug."
@AliraHealth #PatientCentric #DigitalHealth #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #Digitaltx #DrugDevelopment
AliraHealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Gabriele Brambilla is the CEO and Executive VP of AliraHealth and is looking for ways to humanize healthcare and involve patients in the entire drug development continuum. They deliver services to drug developers, medical device developers, and digital health solution providers.
Gabriele explains, "We call it democratization of life sciences research, the ability to use our technology to directly involve patients, in different phases of development of a drug or a device, in a very active partnership, not just a passive collection of data."
"So AliraHealth provides a continuum of services that starts from the very early phases of development of a drug or a device. And a drug would be for us the CMC, which is chemistry manufacturing control. It would go then to regulatory, so we help our clients to interact with the FDA, or EMA for Europe, and then register the drugs. And we run clinical trials for our clients and market access. Also the ability to deliver value and effectiveness in front of payers so that they can actually reimburse for the drug and give access to patients to the drug."
@AliraHealth #PatientCentric #DigitalHealth #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #Digitaltx #DrugDevelopment
AliraHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Gabriele Brambilla is the CEO and Executive VP of AliraHealth and is looking for ways to humanize healthcare and involve patients in the entire drug development continuum. They deliver services to drug developers, medical device developers, and digital health solution providers.
Gabriele explains, "We call it democratization of life sciences research, the ability to use our technology to directly involve patients, in different phases of development of a drug or a device, in a very active partnership, not just a passive collection of data."
"So AliraHealth provides a continuum of services that starts from the very early phases of development of a drug or a device. And a drug would be for us the CMC, which is chemistry manufacturing control. It would go then to regulatory, so we help our clients to interact with the FDA, or EMA for Europe, and then register the drugs. And we run clinical trials for our clients and market access. Also the ability to deliver value and effectiveness in front of payers so that they can actually reimburse for the drug and give access to patients to the drug."
@AliraHealth #PatientCentric #DigitalHealth #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #Digitaltx #DrugDevelopment
AliraHealth.com
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Dr. Matt Wilson is the Founder and CEO of uMEd, bringing together healthcare providers and researchers to reach out to patients to participate in clinical trials. Using health data, uMed facilitates targeting good candidates for trials and helps the care provider educate patients about the value of participating in one or multiple clinical trials. In a very repeatable and scalable environment, uMed can match patients to specific study opportunities based on standardized queries.
Matt explains, "A lot of other organizations in the clinical study space that are looking at using health record data are using it in a very different way because they're generally focused on bringing together existing EMR data or claims data from lots of different healthcare providers and using that in of itself to identify trends and value for researchers. Whereas uMed is taking a different approach, saying, "Well, actually, their health record data is incredibly useful as a starting point to be able to identify potential study participants."
"We essentially have a common data infrastructure that sits across our network of healthcare providers, that's bound to the U.K. and now the U.S. as well, which will shortly be coming online. What we do in that network is each of these providers essentially say, "Yes, we want to be part of the uMed network." That allows us to be able to bring the data from those health records and normalize them across all of the different providers we're working with."
#uMed #PatientRecruitment #ClinicalTrials #MedicalResearch #ClinicalTrialRecruitment
uMed.io
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Dr. Matt Wilson is the Founder and CEO of uMEd, bringing together healthcare providers and researchers to reach out to patients to participate in clinical trials. Using health data, uMed facilitates targeting good candidates for trials and helps the care provider educate patients about the value of participating in one or multiple clinical trials. In a very repeatable and scalable environment, uMed can match patients to specific study opportunities based on standardized queries.
Matt explains, "A lot of other organizations in the clinical study space that are looking at using health record data are using it in a very different way because they're generally focused on bringing together existing EMR data or claims data from lots of different healthcare providers and using that in of itself to identify trends and value for researchers. Whereas uMed is taking a different approach, saying, "Well, actually, their health record data is incredibly useful as a starting point to be able to identify potential study participants."
"We essentially have a common data infrastructure that sits across our network of healthcare providers, that's bound to the U.K. and now the U.S. as well, which will shortly be coming online. What we do in that network is each of these providers essentially say, "Yes, we want to be part of the uMed network." That allows us to be able to bring the data from those health records and normalize them across all of the different providers we're working with."
#uMed #PatientRecruitment #ClinicalTrials #MedicalResearch #ClinicalTrialRecruitment
uMed.io
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Andrew Hall is the CEO of IMV Inc, which has developed a platform based on a lipid-in-oil technology that encapsulates the therapeutic. When injected subcutaneously, the drug remains in a specific location to reinvigorate the immune system to overcome the tumor surveillance that allows cancer to grow.
Andrew explains, "There is a checkered history in oncology drug development that is known as vaccines in oncology. For the longest period of time, they were so exciting and, unfortunately, so disappointing in the way they performed clinically. We believe with the technology that we've created at IMV, that we can make vaccines in oncology cool again. We are creating an ability to educate the immune system in a prolonged way, in a way that may present a historical retraction of why things failed before, or maybe it wasn't the targets that made them fail. Maybe it was the way in which the targets were delivered in a meaningful way."
"The initial clinical trials are around a lead product, maveropepimut-S. So the target there is Survivin. Survivin is a target that's been well understood in cancer biology for a long time because it is very typical for a lot of cancers. One of the challenges we have as a company is that we have a number of targets that we could go after in cancer, but we just don't have all of the money in the world. So the reason we've chosen the targets we have, and these are ovarian cancer, these are DBCL, so Diffuse Large B-cell lymphoma basically, and then bladder cancer and other solid cancer is, we know that these cancers are highly overexpressing the target of Survivin. And we know that Survivin, and it's kind of akin to its name, is required for the cancer cell to survive."
@IMV_inc #Immunotherapies #Immunotherapeutics #Cancer #Oncology #LipidinOilTechnology #Survivin #Halifax #NovaScotia
IMV-inc.com
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Andrew Hall is the CEO of IMV Inc, which has developed a platform based on a lipid-in-oil technology that encapsulates the therapeutic. When injected subcutaneously, the drug remains in a specific location to reinvigorate the immune system to overcome the tumor surveillance that allows cancer to grow.
Andrew explains, "There is a checkered history in oncology drug development that is known as vaccines in oncology. For the longest period of time, they were so exciting and, unfortunately, so disappointing in the way they performed clinically. We believe with the technology that we've created at IMV, that we can make vaccines in oncology cool again. We are creating an ability to educate the immune system in a prolonged way, in a way that may present a historical retraction of why things failed before, or maybe it wasn't the targets that made them fail. Maybe it was the way in which the targets were delivered in a meaningful way."
"The initial clinical trials are around a lead product, maveropepimut-S. So the target there is Survivin. Survivin is a target that's been well understood in cancer biology for a long time because it is very typical for a lot of cancers. One of the challenges we have as a company is that we have a number of targets that we could go after in cancer, but we just don't have all of the money in the world. So the reason we've chosen the targets we have, and these are ovarian cancer, these are DBCL, so Diffuse Large B-cell lymphoma basically, and then bladder cancer and other solid cancer is, we know that these cancers are highly overexpressing the target of Survivin. And we know that Survivin, and it's kind of akin to its name, is required for the cancer cell to survive."
@IMV_inc #Immunotherapies #Immunotherapeutics #Cancer #Oncology #LipidinOilTechnology #Survivin #Halifax #NovaScotia
IMV-inc.com
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Clark Lagemann is the CEO of Avidon Health which is helping organizations support employees as they recover from the disruption of COVID and adjust to the reconfiguration of the workplace. While many people are leaving their jobs for more income, Avidon is finding that employees are also seeking resources to address substance abuse, stress, and pain.
Clark explains, "The kinds of substances really expanded so significantly prior to COVID then post-COVID. Before COVID, we could talk about one in 10 adults who reported anxiety and depressive disorder. Since COVID and in 2020, that shot up to four in 10, so nearly 40% of American workers suffer from mental health issues."
"So things that they're going to rely on to help them get through this, alcohol, a substance, pills. Opioids are very common, then you can go into more illicit drugs. So, the most common things that we see in the workplace that we're doing for large organizations are alcohol addiction and typically some sort of prescribed medications."
"Substance use in the workplace causes absenteeism, lost productivity, and healthcare expenses. That's from the employer, so those are big expenses, soft and hard costs, but the employee is facing the same thing. They're missing out on work, and they have lifestyle side effects because they're now suffering and they're going through these challenges. So, the opportunity that we have really is to create awareness. We start talking about that personalization first, but then creating awareness, making sure employees know what's available to them, and doing it in a discrete setting."
@AvidonHealth #DigitalHealthCoaching #SubstanceUseSupport #CorporateWellness #CorporateWellBeing #SubstanceAbuse #Addiction
avidonhealth.com
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Clark Lagemann is the CEO of Avidon Health which is helping organizations support employees as they recover from the disruption of COVID and adjust to the reconfiguration of the workplace. While many people are leaving their jobs for more income, Avidon is finding that employees are also seeking resources to address substance abuse, stress, and pain.
Clark explains, "The kinds of substances really expanded so significantly prior to COVID then post-COVID. Before COVID, we could talk about one in 10 adults who reported anxiety and depressive disorder. Since COVID and in 2020, that shot up to four in 10, so nearly 40% of American workers suffer from mental health issues."
"So things that they're going to rely on to help them get through this, alcohol, a substance, pills. Opioids are very common, then you can go into more illicit drugs. So, the most common things that we see in the workplace that we're doing for large organizations are alcohol addiction and typically some sort of prescribed medications."
"Substance use in the workplace causes absenteeism, lost productivity, and healthcare expenses. That's from the employer, so those are big expenses, soft and hard costs, but the employee is facing the same thing. They're missing out on work, and they have lifestyle side effects because they're now suffering and they're going through these challenges. So, the opportunity that we have really is to create awareness. We start talking about that personalization first, but then creating awareness, making sure employees know what's available to them, and doing it in a discrete setting."
@AvidonHealth #DigitalHealthCoaching #SubstanceUseSupport #CorporateWellness #CorporateWellBeing #SubstanceAbuse #Addiction
avidonhealth.com
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Matthew Robinson is the Senior Vice President of R&D at Immunome, which is leveraging the information in memory B cells to target antibody therapeutics to kill tumor cells.
Matthew explains, "At Immunome, we believe that the antibodies that these B cells are making have an ability to see the different types of tumor antigens, or the specific epitopes on infectious disease. Our platform allows us to see that disease through the lens of the human B cell. We can interrogate what those antibodies are binding to, and we can use that information to help other patients."
"Right now, we have a couple of programs ongoing that are either in the clinic or moving towards the clinic. We have a program in infectious disease and COVID that is currently in phase 1b trials. It's a three-antibody cocktail. Those were isolated from patients who made a very robust antibody response to the disease and fought it off very effectively. Each of those antibodies was selected because they have different mechanisms of action."
"Our lead oncology program is against an under-studied or an under-recognized anti-inflammatory cytokine. It's a molecule that the immune system makes to essentially tell the rest of its other components to stop making an immune response. We isolated an antibody from a head-and-neck cancer patient that pointed us towards IL-38 as being a potential important target for head and neck cancer."
@Immunome #COVID19 #ImmunoOncology #MemoryBCells #AntibodyTherapeutics #AntibodyDrugConjugates #AutoimmuneDiseases #InfectiousDiseases
immunome.com
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Matthew Robinson is the Senior Vice President of R&D at Immunome, which is leveraging the information in memory B cells to target antibody therapeutics to kill tumor cells.
Matthew explains, "At Immunome, we believe that the antibodies that these B cells are making have an ability to see the different types of tumor antigens, or the specific epitopes on infectious disease. Our platform allows us to see that disease through the lens of the human B cell. We can interrogate what those antibodies are binding to, and we can use that information to help other patients."
"Right now, we have a couple of programs ongoing that are either in the clinic or moving towards the clinic. We have a program in infectious disease and COVID that is currently in phase 1b trials. It's a three-antibody cocktail. Those were isolated from patients who made a very robust antibody response to the disease and fought it off very effectively. Each of those antibodies was selected because they have different mechanisms of action."
"Our lead oncology program is against an under-studied or an under-recognized anti-inflammatory cytokine. It's a molecule that the immune system makes to essentially tell the rest of its other components to stop making an immune response. We isolated an antibody from a head-and-neck cancer patient that pointed us towards IL-38 as being a potential important target for head and neck cancer."
@Immunome #COVID19 #ImmunoOncology #MemoryBCells #AntibodyTherapeutics #AntibodyDrugConjugates #AutoimmuneDiseases #InfectiousDiseases
immunome.com
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Dr. Michael Racke is the Medical Director at Quest Advanced Neurology, which is extending the options for neurologic diagnoses by looking for biomarkers in blood tests.
Michael explains, "And now, we're very much involved in developing plasma-based biomarkers to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease was a disorder that was initially diagnosed pathologically. You had to find the plaque and tangles in the brain at autopsy. Over the last 20 years, they've been able to show that with spinal fluid testing, you're able to identify changes in the cerebral spinal fluid suggestive of Alzheimer's disease. And now, we're also able to do that with a blood test."
"And for example, one of the ways that people were first able to do an evaluation for Alzheimer's disease in living people was to do a PET scan and actually demonstrate that you could do an imaging test that would show the beta amyloid plaques."
"So, Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed by finding these plaques. The plaques are caused by aggregation of peptides of beta amyloid. And then the other thing was the neurofibrillary tangle. And that's actually the aggregation of a molecule called tao within neurons. And the combination of these two things results in the death of neurons and the loss of synapses, which eventually leads to the cognitive dysfunction that you see in Alzheimer's disease."
#QuestDiagnostics #Alzheimers #Dementia #Biomarkers #BloodBiomarkers #PlasmaBiomarkers #NeurologicalDiseases #LewyBodies #LewyBodyDementia
questdiagnostics.com
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Dr. Michael Racke is the Medical Director at Quest Advanced Neurology, which is extending the options for neurologic diagnoses by looking for biomarkers in blood tests.
Michael explains, "And now, we're very much involved in developing plasma-based biomarkers to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease was a disorder that was initially diagnosed pathologically. You had to find the plaque and tangles in the brain at autopsy. Over the last 20 years, they've been able to show that with spinal fluid testing, you're able to identify changes in the cerebral spinal fluid suggestive of Alzheimer's disease. And now, we're also able to do that with a blood test."
"And for example, one of the ways that people were first able to do an evaluation for Alzheimer's disease in living people was to do a PET scan and actually demonstrate that you could do an imaging test that would show the beta amyloid plaques."
"So, Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed by finding these plaques. The plaques are caused by aggregation of peptides of beta amyloid. And then the other thing was the neurofibrillary tangle. And that's actually the aggregation of a molecule called tao within neurons. And the combination of these two things results in the death of neurons and the loss of synapses, which eventually leads to the cognitive dysfunction that you see in Alzheimer's disease."
#QuestDiagnostics #Alzheimers #Dementia #Biomarkers #BloodBiomarkers #PlasmaBiomarkers #NeurologicalDiseases #LewyBodies #LewyBodyDementia
questdiagnostics.com
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Dr. Guenther Koehne is the Deputy Director and Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Hematologic Oncology at the Baptist Health South Florida Miami Cancer Institute. They are part of a clinical trial for an approach that protects healthy cells from the toxic side-effects of targeted blood cancer treatments with a focus on acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Guenther explains," And then, we have the opportunity to administer medications or CAR-T cells, for example, post transplantation, that are specifically targeting CD33, which then presumably allows us to specifically target residual leukemia cells."
"So, my institution, Miami Cancer Institute, and before that, I was at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where I implemented the purification of stem cells from the stem cell product, from the donor stem cell product, allowing to deplete the T cells and other cells that were not necessarily needed for a successful transplant while we have a purified stem cell population. And on this clinical trial, we can now use the purified stem cells and send them to a specified laboratory to silence or down regulate the expression of CD33, using CRISPR technology so that the end product after this step will include a donor-derived stem cell population that is CD33 negative."
#MiamiCancerInstitute #VorBio #CellTherapy #BloodCancers #AML #AcuteMyeloidLeukemia #AML #Leukemia #ClinicalTrial #Miami
miamicancerinstitute.com
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Dr. Guenther Koehne is the Deputy Director and Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Hematologic Oncology at the Baptist Health South Florida Miami Cancer Institute. They are part of a clinical trial for an approach that protects healthy cells from the toxic side-effects of targeted blood cancer treatments with a focus on acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Guenther explains," And then, we have the opportunity to administer medications or CAR-T cells, for example, post transplantation, that are specifically targeting CD33, which then presumably allows us to specifically target residual leukemia cells."
"So, my institution, Miami Cancer Institute, and before that, I was at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where I implemented the purification of stem cells from the stem cell product, from the donor stem cell product, allowing to deplete the T cells and other cells that were not necessarily needed for a successful transplant while we have a purified stem cell population. And on this clinical trial, we can now use the purified stem cells and send them to a specified laboratory to silence or down regulate the expression of CD33, using CRISPR technology so that the end product after this step will include a donor-derived stem cell population that is CD33 negative."
#MiamiCancerInstitute #VorBio #CellTherapy #BloodCancers #AML #AcuteMyeloidLeukemia #AML #Leukemia #ClinicalTrial #Miami
miamicancerinstitute.com
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Dr. Judy Chou is the President and CEO of AltruBio which is developing novel immunomodulators to treat immunological diseases such as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their first-in-class agnostic antibody has a unique mechanism to regulate T cell homeostasis. Currently, there is a clinical trial for SR-aGVHD, steroid-refractory acute graft-host disease and an investigation is underway into using their second-generation molecule to treat ulcerative colitis.
Judy explains, "So we have this specific approach, only targeting those activated or the so-called over-activated T cell. So when the T cell is supposed to come down to quieten and to bring back to homeostasis, go back to balance, it did not. It keeps going and going and going. And we have identified the key target to turn it down to the balance point to tell those T cells it's time to rest, to downregulate this group of T cells. And that's the approach you are taking. That's why AltruBio is so unique in addressing immunological diseases."
#AltruBio #ImmuneModulators #ImmuneDiseases #TCells #GVHD
AltruBio.com
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Dr. Judy Chou is the President and CEO of AltruBio which is developing novel immunomodulators to treat immunological diseases such as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their first-in-class agnostic antibody has a unique mechanism to regulate T cell homeostasis. Currently, there is a clinical trial for SR-aGVHD, steroid-refractory acute graft-host disease and an investigation is underway into using their second-generation molecule to treat ulcerative colitis.
Judy explains, "So we have this specific approach, only targeting those activated or the so-called over-activated T cell. So when the T cell is supposed to come down to quieten and to bring back to homeostasis, go back to balance, it did not. It keeps going and going and going. And we have identified the key target to turn it down to the balance point to tell those T cells it's time to rest, to downregulate this group of T cells. And that's the approach you are taking. That's why AltruBio is so unique in addressing immunological diseases."
#AltruBio #ImmuneModulators #ImmuneDiseases #TCells #GVHD
AltruBio.com
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Jeff Cleland is the Chairman, President, and CEO of Ashvattha Therapeutics, initially focusing on demonstrating the ability to deliver drugs that cross tissue barriers like the blood-brain barrier and the blood-retinal barrier to attack inflammation. The company is part of the emerging era of Hydroxyl Dendrimer Therapeutics, HDTs. While starting with ophthalmology and treating wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema, they are also running trials with long haul COVID patients. In addition, they are investigating neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's with the ability to measure the amount of the drug that gets into the brain.
Jeff explains, "The secret is the platform that was developed by our founders at Johns Hopkins. It's a husband and wife team that really focused on trying to figure out how to get across tissue barriers. So, they empirically went about looking at different nanomedicine platforms, and they came across what's called a hydroxyl dendrimer platform."
"What's unique about this is the density of hydroxyls on the surface makes it look like water to the body, so when it goes into the body, it doesn't get taken up by cells or tissues unless there's inflammation present. Then as it goes by those areas of inflammation, the cells grab the hydroxyl dendrimer and take it inside. Then we could treat intercellular targets, unlike other approaches where it hits all cells."
#AshvatthaTherapeutics #HDT #HydroxylDendrimerTherapeutics #WetAgeRelatedMacularDegeneration #DiabeticMacularEdema #Inflammation #LongCOVID #COVID #Alzheimers #Parkinsons
AVTTX.com
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Jeff Cleland is the Chairman, President, and CEO of Ashvattha Therapeutics, initially focusing on demonstrating the ability to deliver drugs that cross tissue barriers like the blood-brain barrier and the blood-retinal barrier to attack inflammation. The company is part of the emerging era of Hydroxyl Dendrimer Therapeutics, HDTs. While starting with ophthalmology and treating wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema, they are also running trials with long haul COVID patients. In addition, they are investigating neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's with the ability to measure the amount of the drug that gets into the brain.
Jeff explains, "The secret is the platform that was developed by our founders at Johns Hopkins. It's a husband and wife team that really focused on trying to figure out how to get across tissue barriers. So, they empirically went about looking at different nanomedicine platforms, and they came across what's called a hydroxyl dendrimer platform."
"What's unique about this is the density of hydroxyls on the surface makes it look like water to the body, so when it goes into the body, it doesn't get taken up by cells or tissues unless there's inflammation present. Then as it goes by those areas of inflammation, the cells grab the hydroxyl dendrimer and take it inside. Then we could treat intercellular targets, unlike other approaches where it hits all cells."
#AshvatthaTherapeutics #HDT #HydroxylDendrimerTherapeutics #WetAgeRelatedMacularDegeneration #DiabeticMacularEdema #Inflammation #LongCOVID #COVID #Alzheimers #Parkinsons
AVTTX.com
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Dr. Todd Johnson is the Chief Growth Officer at M2GEN an oncology-focused health informatics company. Its mission is to connect cancer patients to a precise cure using its data platform to analyze longitudinal clinical and genomic data. With a permission-based approach to data collection, M2GEN looks at the information related to the patient and from a tumor biopsy. This data analysis allows M2GEN to understand how patients respond to existing cancer treatments and gain more knowledge about the science behind cancer so that innovations and new precision medicines can be developed.
Todd elaborates, "Let's call the first the natural genome or the normal genome of a patient, also often called the germline genome. We provide information on germline as well as on the genome of the cancer. The reason why that's really important is that cancer is a disease of DNA, and it's a disease of how DNA changes over time or mutates. Those mutations are what cause a cancer to actually occur in the first place, for it to be able to evade the immune system, which is an important element of cancer progression. Then cancers can continue to mutate during the course of their life as they grow. That access to what we call serial specimens, that access to additional information about the cancer and how it continues to change from the body's normal or the patient's normal DNA, is a really important part of unlocking the mystery of what's happening here."
@M2GEN #DataScience #DataSolutions #Genomics #CancerResearch #CancerTreatment #PrecisionOncology
M2GEN.com
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Dr. Todd Johnson is the Chief Growth Officer at M2GEN an oncology-focused health informatics company. Its mission is to connect cancer patients to a precise cure using its data platform to analyze longitudinal clinical and genomic data. With a permission-based approach to data collection, M2GEN looks at the information related to the patient and from a tumor biopsy. This data analysis allows M2GEN to understand how patients respond to existing cancer treatments and gain more knowledge about the science behind cancer so that innovations and new precision medicines can be developed.
Todd elaborates, "Let's call the first the natural genome or the normal genome of a patient, also often called the germline genome. We provide information on germline as well as on the genome of the cancer. The reason why that's really important is that cancer is a disease of DNA, and it's a disease of how DNA changes over time or mutates. Those mutations are what cause a cancer to actually occur in the first place, for it to be able to evade the immune system, which is an important element of cancer progression. Then cancers can continue to mutate during the course of their life as they grow. That access to what we call serial specimens, that access to additional information about the cancer and how it continues to change from the body's normal or the patient's normal DNA, is a really important part of unlocking the mystery of what's happening here."
@M2GEN #DataScience #DataSolutions #Genomics #CancerResearch #CancerTreatment #PrecisionOncology
M2GEN.com
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Laurent Levy is the CEO of Nanobiotix, which is applying nanophysics to direct radiation therapy more efficiently to cancerous tumors while reducing the side effects of damage to surrounding tissue. This intratumoral injection of nanoparticles maximizes the concentration in the tumor and minimizes the rest of the body exposure. Starting with soft tissue sarcoma, they are expanding to head and neck cancer with plans for other indications like pancreatic, liver, and breast cancer.
Laurent explains, "We thought, at Nanobiotix, that we may find something different. Rather than making better radiation therapy equipment, we thought about the problem in a different way. We did develop a product that is an injectable that you will inject directly into the tumor. And, when the product is in the tumor -- they are based on nanoparticles, tiny objects -- these objects will go into the cell, and they will sit there. They'll do nothing until the patient is getting the usual radiation therapy."
"And we've been designing those objects to be able to absorb the energy of radiation. Therefore, when the patient is getting radiation, the x-ray will cross the cancer cell, and the nanoparticle in that cancer cell will absorb the energy and will deliver around them a high quantity of damage and will kill the cancer cell more efficiently."
@Nanobiotix #Nanomedicine #Nanophysics #Nanotechnology #Nanoparticles #RadiationTherapy #Cancer #SolidTumors #HeadandNeckCancer
Nanobiotix.com
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Laurent Levy is the CEO of Nanobiotix, which is applying nanophysics to direct radiation therapy more efficiently to cancerous tumors while reducing the side effects of damage to surrounding tissue. This intratumoral injection of nanoparticles maximizes the concentration in the tumor and minimizes the rest of the body exposure. Starting with soft tissue sarcoma, they are expanding to head and neck cancer with plans for other indications like pancreatic, liver, and breast cancer.
Laurent explains, "We thought, at Nanobiotix, that we may find something different. Rather than making better radiation therapy equipment, we thought about the problem in a different way. We did develop a product that is an injectable that you will inject directly into the tumor. And, when the product is in the tumor -- they are based on nanoparticles, tiny objects -- these objects will go into the cell, and they will sit there. They'll do nothing until the patient is getting the usual radiation therapy."
"And we've been designing those objects to be able to absorb the energy of radiation. Therefore, when the patient is getting radiation, the x-ray will cross the cancer cell, and the nanoparticle in that cancer cell will absorb the energy and will deliver around them a high quantity of damage and will kill the cancer cell more efficiently."
@Nanobiotix #Nanomedicine #Nanophysics #Nanotechnology #Nanoparticles #RadiationTherapy #Cancer #SolidTumors #HeadandNeckCancer
Nanobiotix.com
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Dr. Jacob Donoghue is the CEO and Co-Founder of Beacon Biosignals, a computational neurobiomarker discovery and deployment platform taking EEG readings and applying their algorithms to identify novel neurobiomarkers that might be related to a disease that can be modulated by a new therapy.
Jacob drills down, "We anchor these biomarkers that we are able to identify off the world's largest annotated EEG database, which we have at Beacon, to be able to really put things into context. When we make a discovery, we can really see, even in a small cohort of patients, how does that relate to both other patients with that related disease or also healthy normal patients?
"Beacon was born by looking at the massive opportunity and unmet need in patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases and to take in all these long data sets of electrical brain activity, EEG data, to be able to provide the same types of tools that were transforming digital pathology, radiology, and GI to better characterize diseases of the brain and help novel therapies make it through the clinical development process into patients."
"One of the traditional endpoints that persist in rare diseases for epilepsy is often the seizure diary, where you ask the parents, in the case of pediatric genetic epilepsy, you ask the parents to annotate either in a paper notebook or in an app when they see a visible event that resembles a seizure or is a seizure event."
"In some of the kids that we've started analyzing, we see that the patient reported seizures, the seizure diaries, will show only 10 or 20 seizures a day, but when you put an EEG on, you actually capture hundreds of seizures per day. And similarly, we have other kids where they're actually having 0 seizures a day, but the patient diaries often will report 10 or 20 seizures a day."
@biosignals #BeaconBiosignals #EEG #Epilepsy #RareDiseases #SleepDisorders #Neurology #NeurologicalDiseases #NeuroDegenerativeDiseases #PsychiatricDiseases #ML #MachineLearning
beacon.bio
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Dr. Jacob Donoghue is the CEO and Co-Founder of Beacon Biosignals, a computational neurobiomarker discovery and deployment platform taking EEG readings and applying their algorithms to identify novel neurobiomarkers that might be related to a disease that can be modulated by a new therapy.
Jacob drills down, "We anchor these biomarkers that we are able to identify off the world's largest annotated EEG database, which we have at Beacon, to be able to really put things into context. When we make a discovery, we can really see, even in a small cohort of patients, how does that relate to both other patients with that related disease or also healthy normal patients?
"Beacon was born by looking at the massive opportunity and unmet need in patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases and to take in all these long data sets of electrical brain activity, EEG data, to be able to provide the same types of tools that were transforming digital pathology, radiology, and GI to better characterize diseases of the brain and help novel therapies make it through the clinical development process into patients."
"One of the traditional endpoints that persist in rare diseases for epilepsy is often the seizure diary, where you ask the parents, in the case of pediatric genetic epilepsy, you ask the parents to annotate either in a paper notebook or in an app when they see a visible event that resembles a seizure or is a seizure event."
"In some of the kids that we've started analyzing, we see that the patient reported seizures, the seizure diaries, will show only 10 or 20 seizures a day, but when you put an EEG on, you actually capture hundreds of seizures per day. And similarly, we have other kids where they're actually having 0 seizures a day, but the patient diaries often will report 10 or 20 seizures a day."
@biosignals #BeaconBiosignals #EEG #Epilepsy #RareDiseases #SleepDisorders #Neurology #NeurologicalDiseases #NeuroDegenerativeDiseases #PsychiatricDiseases #ML #MachineLearning
beacon.bio
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Dr. Jennifer Jones-McMeans is a Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott Vascular Business and she sheds light on the FDA guidance to encourage sponsors of clinical trials to include all genders, ethnicities, and under-represented patients to participate. New guidelines are more organized and provide better guidance for what sponsors of clinical trials should consider during their submissions to the FDA.
Jennifer explains, "If you think about where clinical trials sit, clinical trials are part of the overall healthcare ecosystem. And if we consider that the healthcare ecosystem is to be inclusive, it is to make sure that there are appropriate treatments for women and different ethnic groups. Also understanding that possibly there could be differences in maybe therapeutic responses, or even considering access too. Clinical trials have to then move forward as the medical ecosystem is moving forward to ensure that there's treatment available for all patients. And so this is where again, this guidance is just a guideline to help support that pathway for clinical trials."
"We do know that there are specific populations that, based on their access to health and lack of trust that can occur with the healthcare system, when it comes to clinical trials, they may actually not know and have an awareness of the clinical trial. But they also may not be connected with the appropriate medical system or within a medical system to even have that access. So that's some of the work that we know that the sponsors can do in reaching out."
@AbbottCardio #ClinicalTrials #FDAGuidance #UnderservedPatients #UnderrepresentedPatients #MinorityPatients
abbott.com
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Dr. Jennifer Jones-McMeans is a Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott Vascular Business and she sheds light on the FDA guidance to encourage sponsors of clinical trials to include all genders, ethnicities, and under-represented patients to participate. New guidelines are more organized and provide better guidance for what sponsors of clinical trials should consider during their submissions to the FDA.
Jennifer explains, "If you think about where clinical trials sit, clinical trials are part of the overall healthcare ecosystem. And if we consider that the healthcare ecosystem is to be inclusive, it is to make sure that there are appropriate treatments for women and different ethnic groups. Also understanding that possibly there could be differences in maybe therapeutic responses, or even considering access too. Clinical trials have to then move forward as the medical ecosystem is moving forward to ensure that there's treatment available for all patients. And so this is where again, this guidance is just a guideline to help support that pathway for clinical trials."
"We do know that there are specific populations that, based on their access to health and lack of trust that can occur with the healthcare system, when it comes to clinical trials, they may actually not know and have an awareness of the clinical trial. But they also may not be connected with the appropriate medical system or within a medical system to even have that access. So that's some of the work that we know that the sponsors can do in reaching out."
@AbbottCardio #ClinicalTrials #FDAGuidance #UnderservedPatients #UnderrepresentedPatients #MinorityPatients
abbott.com
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Kathleen Aller is the Director of Market Strategy for Healthcare at InterSystems, a software company that focuses on high-volume data management and mobile applications to manage healthcare data. By taking advantage of the InterSystems capabilities on the AWS platform, young startup companies can use its technology to help them cost-effectively build interoperable applications or data-intensive applications and scale up as needed.
Kathleen explains, "In fact, there are more than a billion records managed in our technology. One of the groups we've been working with a lot in the last few years are payer organizations who are responding to government regulation that says you have to make the information you hold about patients available to them. You need to do it using a standard called FHIR, Fast Health Interoperability Resources. They have to be able, then, to import that data into applications so that they can do things with it."
"We've been involved in digital health practically since its inception. Some of that is managed in applications built by partners like Epic, like 3M, who use our data management platform at the center of what they do. Some of that is in applications that we build on our own platform, so our HealthShare Interoperability engine connects up records for citizens around the world and gives a seamless longitudinal record. Our TrakCare EHR is used outside the US to document and deliver care."
@InterSystems #AWS #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #MedicalApps #HealthcareApps #FHIR
InterSystems.com
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Kathleen Aller is the Director of Market Strategy for Healthcare at InterSystems, a software company that focuses on high-volume data management and mobile applications to manage healthcare data. By taking advantage of the InterSystems capabilities on the AWS platform, young startup companies can use its technology to help them cost-effectively build interoperable applications or data-intensive applications and scale up as needed.
Kathleen explains, "In fact, there are more than a billion records managed in our technology. One of the groups we've been working with a lot in the last few years are payer organizations who are responding to government regulation that says you have to make the information you hold about patients available to them. You need to do it using a standard called FHIR, Fast Health Interoperability Resources. They have to be able, then, to import that data into applications so that they can do things with it."
"We've been involved in digital health practically since its inception. Some of that is managed in applications built by partners like Epic, like 3M, who use our data management platform at the center of what they do. Some of that is in applications that we build on our own platform, so our HealthShare Interoperability engine connects up records for citizens around the world and gives a seamless longitudinal record. Our TrakCare EHR is used outside the US to document and deliver care."
@InterSystems #AWS #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #MedicalApps #HealthcareApps #FHIR
InterSystems.com
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Keith Palmer is the Worldwide Vice President for Hip Reconstruction at DePuy Synthes, which is the orthopedic company of Johnson & Johnson. DePuy Synthes is focused on adapting their technology, techniques, and implants to provide stability, flexibility, and durability to an ever more active patient population.
Keith reports, "When we think about our surgeons and our patients and keep them in mind, we have solutions that address unmet needs in patients that lead to improved outcomes. So, through our anterior advantage, our portfolio solutions, in particular, patients benefit from shorter hospital stays, quicker recovery times, and reduced use of pain medication when they're surgeon implants or comprehensive systems for hip replacement surgeries."
"Our patients today are highly educated on different surgical technique offerings. They even think about what's best in terms of meeting their needs, the quicker recovery, and even going to outpatient surgery centers and ensuring that the time is reduced to help them get back to their active lifestyle quicker. But they're continuously involved in goal planning with the surgeon to be able to address some of these needs."
@DePuySynthes #HipReplacement #HipReplacementSurgery
jnjmedtech.com
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Keith Palmer is the Worldwide Vice President for Hip Reconstruction at DePuy Synthes, which is the orthopedic company of Johnson & Johnson. DePuy Synthes is focused on adapting their technology, techniques, and implants to provide stability, flexibility, and durability to an ever more active patient population.
Keith reports, "When we think about our surgeons and our patients and keep them in mind, we have solutions that address unmet needs in patients that lead to improved outcomes. So, through our anterior advantage, our portfolio solutions, in particular, patients benefit from shorter hospital stays, quicker recovery times, and reduced use of pain medication when they're surgeon implants or comprehensive systems for hip replacement surgeries."
"Our patients today are highly educated on different surgical technique offerings. They even think about what's best in terms of meeting their needs, the quicker recovery, and even going to outpatient surgery centers and ensuring that the time is reduced to help them get back to their active lifestyle quicker. But they're continuously involved in goal planning with the surgeon to be able to address some of these needs."
@DePuySynthes #HipReplacement #HipReplacementSurgery
jnjmedtech.com
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Javier Szwarcberg, CEO of Spruce Biosciences, is developing a compound to address the needs of patients with classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia, CAH, a rare disease first diagnosed at birth. Only recently have companies started to explore innovative therapies to improve the standard of care discovered in the early 1960s. Currently, patients manage their conditions with glucocorticoids but often suffer from steroid-related complications.
Javier explains, "What we're trying to do with our drug is to treat the disease. The compound is a small molecule that binds to a receptor in the pituitary and blocks the release of a hormone called ACTH or adrenal corticotropin hormone. By blocking that hormone, you reduce the amount, the stimulation on the adrenals, and the buildup of precursors that are going to lead to a hyperandrogenic state. So our drug treats the disease. Patients, of course, will still need to get steroids daily to supplement the missing cortisol. But the CAH piece of the disease will be well managed. That's the hope."
"The whole pharmaceutical industry and academic community are starting to pay more attention to rare diseases. And back when I started my career in industry, it was all about addressing the totality of a population with, say, hypertension or diabetes or cancer, for that matter. Now there's a realization that companies ought to be more thoughtful, and research ought to be more thoughtful and address the needs of a subset of patients with rare diseases with more kinds of patient-targeted therapies."
@Spruce_Bio #RareDisease #CAH #CongenitalAdrenalHyperplasia #Glucocorticoids
SpruceBiosciences.com
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Javier Szwarcberg, CEO of Spruce Biosciences, is developing a compound to address the needs of patients with classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia, CAH, a rare disease first diagnosed at birth. Only recently have companies started to explore innovative therapies to improve the standard of care discovered in the early 1960s. Currently, patients manage their conditions with glucocorticoids but often suffer from steroid-related complications.
Javier explains, "What we're trying to do with our drug is to treat the disease. The compound is a small molecule that binds to a receptor in the pituitary and blocks the release of a hormone called ACTH or adrenal corticotropin hormone. By blocking that hormone, you reduce the amount, the stimulation on the adrenals, and the buildup of precursors that are going to lead to a hyperandrogenic state. So our drug treats the disease. Patients, of course, will still need to get steroids daily to supplement the missing cortisol. But the CAH piece of the disease will be well managed. That's the hope."
"The whole pharmaceutical industry and academic community are starting to pay more attention to rare diseases. And back when I started my career in industry, it was all about addressing the totality of a population with, say, hypertension or diabetes or cancer, for that matter. Now there's a realization that companies ought to be more thoughtful, and research ought to be more thoughtful and address the needs of a subset of patients with rare diseases with more kinds of patient-targeted therapies."
@Spruce_Bio #RareDisease #CAH #CongenitalAdrenalHyperplasia #Glucocorticoids
SpruceBiosciences.com
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Richard Hague is the CEO and President of PolarityTE, creating a paste-like substance containing multicellular skin segments that can be spread on the patient's wound bed and engrafts into the wound. This stimulates healing from the inside out with wounds created by diabetic foot ulcer and venous leg ulcer.
Richard elaborates, "We're very excited about our SkinTE platform. It's a very unique and novel approach for treating wounds. The goal here is to use the patient's own cells so that there's no risk of rejection of any kind, no introduction of anything foreign to the body."
"The first thing that happens is a physician takes a very small, full thickness harvest from the patient's body, usually somewhere in the proximal calf area. So this is healthy tissue. It's a small harvest that's easily stitched up and closed. And that tissue is sent back to our facility in Salt Lake City. We have a proprietary process for processing that skin that allows us to utilize all aspects of that harvest. So we're using all layers of the cells and all the extracellular material that's in that full thickness skin."
@PolarityTE #PolarityTE #SkinTE #DiabeticFootUlcers #Diabetes #PressureUlcers
PolarityTE.com
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Richard Hague is the CEO and President of PolarityTE, creating a paste-like substance containing multicellular skin segments that can be spread on the patient's wound bed and engrafts into the wound. This stimulates healing from the inside out with wounds created by diabetic foot ulcer and venous leg ulcer.
Richard elaborates, "We're very excited about our SkinTE platform. It's a very unique and novel approach for treating wounds. The goal here is to use the patient's own cells so that there's no risk of rejection of any kind, no introduction of anything foreign to the body."
"The first thing that happens is a physician takes a very small, full thickness harvest from the patient's body, usually somewhere in the proximal calf area. So this is healthy tissue. It's a small harvest that's easily stitched up and closed. And that tissue is sent back to our facility in Salt Lake City. We have a proprietary process for processing that skin that allows us to utilize all aspects of that harvest. So we're using all layers of the cells and all the extracellular material that's in that full thickness skin."
@PolarityTE #PolarityTE #SkinTE #DiabeticFootUlcers #Diabetes #PressureUlcers
PolarityTE.com
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Greg Sturmer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Elysium Therapeutics and rethinking how to overcome the challenges of opioid abuse and addiction by reformulating the drug itself. Blending an understanding of chemistry and human behavior, Elysium questions why it takes 70 years for an opioid to lose half its potency and what would discourage patients from taking more opioids than their prescribed treatment plan.
Greg explains, "When you look at Elysium's mission, just to step back briefly, it's all about relieving suffering from acute pain, from opioid use disorder, and from an opioid overdose. And our objective is to save thousands of lives each year and reduce the next generation of opioid use disorder sufferers while still providing patients with highly effective, proven pain relief."
"O2P, again, which stands for Oral Overdose Protection, is expected to be the first-in-class immediate-release opioid that eliminates that incentive to take more. And it protects against fatal overdose, not only orally but also via injection and inhalation. So, it's a way that Tom has done using chemistry, has created a way to limit, self-limit, the amount of opioid that actually becomes activated. So regardless of how many you swallow, we're limiting the amount of opioid that will actually be active. And that'll protect, one, from incentivizing an individual to take more and, two, preventing an overdose."
#Elysium #ElysiumRX #OpioidAbuse #OpioidOverdose #Opioids
elysiumrx.com
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Greg Sturmer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Elysium Therapeutics and rethinking how to overcome the challenges of opioid abuse and addiction by reformulating the drug itself. Blending an understanding of chemistry and human behavior, Elysium questions why it takes 70 years for an opioid to lose half its potency and what would discourage patients from taking more opioids than their prescribed treatment plan.
Greg explains, "When you look at Elysium's mission, just to step back briefly, it's all about relieving suffering from acute pain, from opioid use disorder, and from an opioid overdose. And our objective is to save thousands of lives each year and reduce the next generation of opioid use disorder sufferers while still providing patients with highly effective, proven pain relief."
"O2P, again, which stands for Oral Overdose Protection, is expected to be the first-in-class immediate-release opioid that eliminates that incentive to take more. And it protects against fatal overdose, not only orally but also via injection and inhalation. So, it's a way that Tom has done using chemistry, has created a way to limit, self-limit, the amount of opioid that actually becomes activated. So regardless of how many you swallow, we're limiting the amount of opioid that will actually be active. And that'll protect, one, from incentivizing an individual to take more and, two, preventing an overdose."
#Elysium #ElysiumRX #OpioidAbuse #OpioidOverdose #Opioids
elysiumrx.com
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Dr. Alice Martin is the Co-Founder of Dermanostic, the largest teledermatology resource in Europe. Their vision is to give access to a dermatologist to everyone worldwide with a rapid diagnosis and suggested therapy, including prescriptions. While many skin conditions are not life-threatening and are often seen as unimportant by physicians, they impact the quality of life and are treatable.
Alice explains, "We have a lot of patients with skin cancer, white and also black skin cancer melanoma, for example, and it's so easy to just make the pictures because we can see the criteria for malignancy. The patients don't want to go to the appointment because they don't have any symptoms. It's just skin, the area that is growing, and by having such easy access, they are sending the pictures. They are getting the diagnosis before it's starting to make any metastases."
"So the application is available, for example, on the Apple Play Store or Google Play Store, and you can download it in your language. It's also available in English and after you are downloaded that application, you can just take three pictures of the area, for example, something on your skin or your hair and also on your nail. Afterward, you're getting a very small questionnaire, like since when do you have this problem? Does it hurt? And do you have any allergies or something like that? And then you are making the registration process, and afterward, you are making the payment process."
"And normally it takes two to four hours and that time you can just enjoy your free time and our physicians are getting the pictures and the questionnaire, and on this basis, they are making the diagnosis, and the treatment and they are sending back a doctor's letter in PDF. Also, the prescription and the patient can get the prescription by just clicking on the button. So in Europe, it's working all over all European countries. Of course, we are also working on the other countries to get good access to the pharmacist and so on, but for the first step here in Europe it's working quite well."
#Dermanostic #DermatologistApp #Teledermatology #Dermatology #Dermatologist #DigitalHealth #Germany
dermanostic.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Alice Martin is the Co-Founder of Dermanostic, the largest teledermatology resource in Europe. Their vision is to give access to a dermatologist to everyone worldwide with a rapid diagnosis and suggested therapy, including prescriptions. While many skin conditions are not life-threatening and are often seen as unimportant by physicians, they impact the quality of life and are treatable.
Alice explains, "We have a lot of patients with skin cancer, white and also black skin cancer melanoma, for example, and it's so easy to just make the pictures because we can see the criteria for malignancy. The patients don't want to go to the appointment because they don't have any symptoms. It's just skin, the area that is growing, and by having such easy access, they are sending the pictures. They are getting the diagnosis before it's starting to make any metastases."
"So the application is available, for example, on the Apple Play Store or Google Play Store, and you can download it in your language. It's also available in English and after you are downloaded that application, you can just take three pictures of the area, for example, something on your skin or your hair and also on your nail. Afterward, you're getting a very small questionnaire, like since when do you have this problem? Does it hurt? And do you have any allergies or something like that? And then you are making the registration process, and afterward, you are making the payment process."
"And normally it takes two to four hours and that time you can just enjoy your free time and our physicians are getting the pictures and the questionnaire, and on this basis, they are making the diagnosis, and the treatment and they are sending back a doctor's letter in PDF. Also, the prescription and the patient can get the prescription by just clicking on the button. So in Europe, it's working all over all European countries. Of course, we are also working on the other countries to get good access to the pharmacist and so on, but for the first step here in Europe it's working quite well."
#Dermanostic #DermatologistApp #Teledermatology #Dermatology #Dermatologist #DigitalHealth #Germany
dermanostic.com
Download the transcript here
Patty Hayward is the Vice President of Industry Strategy for Healthcare and Life Sciences at Talkdesk which is working with payer and provider organizations, life sciences companies, and other clients in the healthcare and life sciences areas. Its mission is to synchronize data streams so that there is a convenient way for care providers and patients to receive healthcare information and services using their channel of choice.
Patty elaborates, "People are really looking for that kind of convenience, and I think that's a radical shift from where we've been in the provider space, where it's really, you hang a sign outside and people came to you. You didn't do as much of the big outreach and marketing unless you were in really congested marketplaces. Even then it was very traditional in how you went about marketing."
"I think today that's really shifted. A lot of folks that we're talking to are really looking to digitize their contact centers, digitize their patient experience, and trying to look at things in a very different way to allow different kinds of conversations and communication styles."
#Talkdesk #ContactCenter #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareIT #PatientExperience
Talkdesk.com
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Patty Hayward is the Vice President of Industry Strategy for Healthcare and Life Sciences at Talkdesk which is working with payer and provider organizations, life sciences companies, and other clients in the healthcare and life sciences areas. Its mission is to synchronize data streams so that there is a convenient way for care providers and patients to receive healthcare information and services using their channel of choice.
Patty elaborates, "People are really looking for that kind of convenience, and I think that's a radical shift from where we've been in the provider space, where it's really, you hang a sign outside and people came to you. You didn't do as much of the big outreach and marketing unless you were in really congested marketplaces. Even then it was very traditional in how you went about marketing."
"I think today that's really shifted. A lot of folks that we're talking to are really looking to digitize their contact centers, digitize their patient experience, and trying to look at things in a very different way to allow different kinds of conversations and communication styles."
#Talkdesk #ContactCenter #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareIT #PatientExperience
Talkdesk.com
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Terry Weber is the CEO of BioTE and is on a mission to educate medical professionals about the need to address the hormone levels in patients as they age. With a personalized approach, BioTE focuses on providing hormone therapy to help patients maintain their quality of life and not just be dismissed as getting old when they report discomfort, sexual dysfunction, and loss of muscle mass.
Terry explains, "At BioTE we don't just do hormone treatment. We try to optimize the individual's hormones, and that would be estrogen and testosterone, both for men and women. Testosterone's very important for women. Also, looking at the thyroid and adrenals. What we look to see is how do we balance those hormones in the individuals so that they really feel their absolute best. We take blood tests, and we have very in-depth questionnaires because everyone's reaction to hormone levels is very personal."
"BioTE's history has been to focus on putting a light on testosterone for women because it's such a critical hormone. Most people assume that testosterone is just for men, and that's not true at all. What BioTE has brought to the market is a real focus on women's needs and the need for testosterone in women's bodies and how important that is in the long run for their general health. We've been disruptive in that way."
#BioTE #HealthyAging #WomensHealth #HormoneTherapy #Hormones #HormonalInbalance #Testosterone #Estrogen
BioTE.com
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Terry Weber is the CEO of BioTE and is on a mission to educate medical professionals about the need to address the hormone levels in patients as they age. With a personalized approach, BioTE focuses on providing hormone therapy to help patients maintain their quality of life and not just be dismissed as getting old when they report discomfort, sexual dysfunction, and loss of muscle mass.
Terry explains, "At BioTE we don't just do hormone treatment. We try to optimize the individual's hormones, and that would be estrogen and testosterone, both for men and women. Testosterone's very important for women. Also, looking at the thyroid and adrenals. What we look to see is how do we balance those hormones in the individuals so that they really feel their absolute best. We take blood tests, and we have very in-depth questionnaires because everyone's reaction to hormone levels is very personal."
"BioTE's history has been to focus on putting a light on testosterone for women because it's such a critical hormone. Most people assume that testosterone is just for men, and that's not true at all. What BioTE has brought to the market is a real focus on women's needs and the need for testosterone in women's bodies and how important that is in the long run for their general health. We've been disruptive in that way."
#BioTE #HealthyAging #WomensHealth #HormoneTherapy #Hormones #HormonalInbalance #Testosterone #Estrogen
BioTE.com
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Dr. Diem Nguyen is the CEO of Xalud Therapeutics, a DNA delivery gene therapy company striving to develop and deliver medicines for large, broad-based disease indications like chronic inflammatory diseases, particularly musculoskeletal diseases like osteoarthritis of the knee and as well as neurodegenerative diseases like MS and ALS. Earlier in her career, Diem was the global President of Pfizer, covering multiple therapeutic areas, and has joined Xalud because of their ground-breaking DNA delivery platform.
Diem explains, "Gene therapy means a lot of things to a lot of people. And the first, I would say, is most people, when they think about gene therapies, think about viral AAV gene therapy. And a lot of promise is associated with that type of platform because you're seeing this potential, particularly in rare diseases. The challenges associated with AAV sometimes are the safety profile associated with that product. Our particular gene therapy is DNA gene therapy, so we do not have the challenges with genome integration, which allows us to have a potentially stronger safety profile."
"I want to be very clear when I say disease modification because it can mean many things from a definition perspective to different audiences. What I want to say specifically about our product, XT-150, is we're not looking to treat pain associated with osteoarthritis of the knee by just blocking the pain or masking the pain. What we're trying to do is help your body restore homeostasis."
"What we're saying is we're supplementing your body with interleukin-10, which then allows you to have your body naturally reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines, which then reduces the inflammation."
#XaludTherapeutics #GeneTherapy #InflammatoryDiseases #Cytokines #Inflammation #Osteoarthritis #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #ALS #MS
XaludThera.com
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Dr. Diem Nguyen is the CEO of Xalud Therapeutics, a DNA delivery gene therapy company striving to develop and deliver medicines for large, broad-based disease indications like chronic inflammatory diseases, particularly musculoskeletal diseases like osteoarthritis of the knee and as well as neurodegenerative diseases like MS and ALS. Earlier in her career, Diem was the global President of Pfizer, covering multiple therapeutic areas, and has joined Xalud because of their ground-breaking DNA delivery platform.
Diem explains, "Gene therapy means a lot of things to a lot of people. And the first, I would say, is most people, when they think about gene therapies, think about viral AAV gene therapy. And a lot of promise is associated with that type of platform because you're seeing this potential, particularly in rare diseases. The challenges associated with AAV sometimes are the safety profile associated with that product. Our particular gene therapy is DNA gene therapy, so we do not have the challenges with genome integration, which allows us to have a potentially stronger safety profile."
"I want to be very clear when I say disease modification because it can mean many things from a definition perspective to different audiences. What I want to say specifically about our product, XT-150, is we're not looking to treat pain associated with osteoarthritis of the knee by just blocking the pain or masking the pain. What we're trying to do is help your body restore homeostasis."
"What we're saying is we're supplementing your body with interleukin-10, which then allows you to have your body naturally reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines, which then reduces the inflammation."
#XaludTherapeutics #GeneTherapy #InflammatoryDiseases #Cytokines #Inflammation #Osteoarthritis #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #ALS #MS
XaludThera.com
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Sabrina Johnson is the Founder, President, and CEO of Daré Bioscience. Sabrina points out that there are several unmet needs in women's health and that many of the indications or conditions that women are dealing with are not life-threatening but affect their quality of life. Applying technologies created by smaller companies and academic institutions, Daré aims to become a pipeline for companies that have a global commitment to improving women's health.
Sabrina explains, "Our business model is to really be that innovation accelerator that starts with finding and identifying that persistent unmet need. And that's where we start. What is that condition that is not adequately addressed today for her? Developing a target product profile, what would the product look like that might be best suited to address that condition for her? We then go out and look for a technology that has a proof of concept that it should address that and hit that target product profile. We bring that into Daré into our portfolio. We advance it through development, and then ultimately, we seek to bring that product to market in whatever way makes the most sense for that product. And sometimes that's going to be by being that pipeline resource to companies like Bayer and Organon. And I mentioned both of those because we have a collaboration with each of them now."
@DareBioscience #WomensHealth #GenderInequality #Healthcare #ReproductiveHealth #SexualHealth #Biotech #DrugDevelopment
darebioscience.com
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Sabrina Johnson is the Founder, President, and CEO of Daré Bioscience. Sabrina points out that there are several unmet needs in women's health and that many of the indications or conditions that women are dealing with are not life-threatening but affect their quality of life. Applying technologies created by smaller companies and academic institutions, Daré aims to become a pipeline for companies that have a global commitment to improving women's health.
Sabrina explains, "Our business model is to really be that innovation accelerator that starts with finding and identifying that persistent unmet need. And that's where we start. What is that condition that is not adequately addressed today for her? Developing a target product profile, what would the product look like that might be best suited to address that condition for her? We then go out and look for a technology that has a proof of concept that it should address that and hit that target product profile. We bring that into Daré into our portfolio. We advance it through development, and then ultimately, we seek to bring that product to market in whatever way makes the most sense for that product. And sometimes that's going to be by being that pipeline resource to companies like Bayer and Organon. And I mentioned both of those because we have a collaboration with each of them now."
@DareBioscience #WomensHealth #GenderInequality #Healthcare #ReproductiveHealth #SexualHealth #Biotech #DrugDevelopment
darebioscience.com
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Dr. Kimberly Kilby is the Vice-President and Medical Director of Health and Wellbeing at MVP Health Care. Trained as a family and preventive physician, Kimberly is focused on the patient journey and expanding the options for virtual care. MVP collaborates with virtual care providers and other digital health solutions, supporting virtual primary care, urgent care, chronic care management, and specialty care.
Kimberly explains, "We want to be sure that patients are finding options for virtual care that are actually high-quality medicine but also thoughtfully integrated into the rest of their care continuum. That's part of the professional reason why a physician is dedicated to that key customer experience as you expand options in the virtual care space."
"A lot of the data is showing that patient and consumer preferences within healthcare have obviously changed dramatically, and patients are looking for more convenience and availability. And I'm really charged with determining which of the innovative options people are migrating to are actually high value and improve care and don't really add waste to the system."
@MVPHealthCare #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #VirtualPrimaryCare #VirtualUrgentCare
MVPHealthCare.com
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Dr. Kimberly Kilby is the Vice-President and Medical Director of Health and Wellbeing at MVP Health Care. Trained as a family and preventive physician, Kimberly is focused on the patient journey and expanding the options for virtual care. MVP collaborates with virtual care providers and other digital health solutions, supporting virtual primary care, urgent care, chronic care management, and specialty care.
Kimberly explains, "We want to be sure that patients are finding options for virtual care that are actually high-quality medicine but also thoughtfully integrated into the rest of their care continuum. That's part of the professional reason why a physician is dedicated to that key customer experience as you expand options in the virtual care space."
"A lot of the data is showing that patient and consumer preferences within healthcare have obviously changed dramatically, and patients are looking for more convenience and availability. And I'm really charged with determining which of the innovative options people are migrating to are actually high value and improve care and don't really add waste to the system."
@MVPHealthCare #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #VirtualPrimaryCare #VirtualUrgentCare
MVPHealthCare.com
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Mai-Britt Zocca is the Founder, CEO, and President of IO Biotech, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Denmark. They are developing immune modeling cancer therapies based on their T-win technology. Using these cancer vaccines, pre-existing T-cells are being directed in patients to attack and eliminate solid tumors.
Mai-Britt explains, "Currently, we have a leading program that is in Phase 3. So, this is in first-line advanced melanoma. We have a breakthrough therapy designation granted by the FDA, based on the earlier data that we have seen in melanoma. Our targets also are able to be used in other cancer indications. We are not melanoma per se. We are already running trials in first-line solid tumors where we are including also lung, head, neck, and bladder cancer."
"What we do is vaccinate, as I mentioned before, and the vaccination process is a combination of first a booster program, where we give vaccination or injections several times. Then we have a maintenance phase after that. This is where we see that after these vaccinations, where we vaccinate against the tumor environment, we generate the T-cells that can react towards the immune suppressive mechanisms that we know are hindering the effect of the T-cells in these patients."
#IOBiotech #Melanoma #CancerVaccine #Immunotherapy #Cancer #ImmunoOncology
IOBiotech.com
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Mai-Britt Zocca is the Founder, CEO, and President of IO Biotech, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Denmark. They are developing immune modeling cancer therapies based on their T-win technology. Using these cancer vaccines, pre-existing T-cells are being directed in patients to attack and eliminate solid tumors.
Mai-Britt explains, "Currently, we have a leading program that is in Phase 3. So, this is in first-line advanced melanoma. We have a breakthrough therapy designation granted by the FDA, based on the earlier data that we have seen in melanoma. Our targets also are able to be used in other cancer indications. We are not melanoma per se. We are already running trials in first-line solid tumors where we are including also lung, head, neck, and bladder cancer."
"What we do is vaccinate, as I mentioned before, and the vaccination process is a combination of first a booster program, where we give vaccination or injections several times. Then we have a maintenance phase after that. This is where we see that after these vaccinations, where we vaccinate against the tumor environment, we generate the T-cells that can react towards the immune suppressive mechanisms that we know are hindering the effect of the T-cells in these patients."
#IOBiotech #Melanoma #CancerVaccine #Immunotherapy #Cancer #ImmunoOncology
IOBiotech.com
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Dr. Hernan Bazan is the CEO and Co-Founder of South Rampart Pharma and focuses on finding a new way to treat acute and chronic pain with a drug that has no expectation for abuse and is not toxic to the liver, kidneys, or cardiovascular system.
Hernan explains, "This is a tremendous unmet need in that there really has been no innovation in the pain space for over 50 years. Tylenol itself, acetaminophen, Tylenol was born in the '40s and the early '50s and worked by actually someone that was at the NIH that came to visit us a few times, a very well renowned neuroscientist. And he really discovered it incidentally, looking for another pathway, but we won't go into that. And that was adopted by McNeil Laboratories, and then eventually Johnson & Johnson."
"And then, in the '60s and '70s, non-steroidals, non NSAIDs, were marketed as Advil and ibuprofen, and a bunch of NSAIDs were derived. And these are very good medicines for preventing inflammation and treating pain in the short term. The challenge with both of these classes of pain meds is that they have risks."
"And then the third class, obviously, everybody knows about opioids and how they were marketed in the '90s."
@SR_Pharma #Pain #AcutePain #Analgesic #Acetaminophen #Opioid #NSAID #Nontoxic #NonOpioid #NewOrleans
southrampartpharma.com
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Dr. Hernan Bazan is the CEO and Co-Founder of South Rampart Pharma and focuses on finding a new way to treat acute and chronic pain with a drug that has no expectation for abuse and is not toxic to the liver, kidneys, or cardiovascular system.
Hernan explains, "This is a tremendous unmet need in that there really has been no innovation in the pain space for over 50 years. Tylenol itself, acetaminophen, Tylenol was born in the '40s and the early '50s and worked by actually someone that was at the NIH that came to visit us a few times, a very well renowned neuroscientist. And he really discovered it incidentally, looking for another pathway, but we won't go into that. And that was adopted by McNeil Laboratories, and then eventually Johnson & Johnson."
"And then, in the '60s and '70s, non-steroidals, non NSAIDs, were marketed as Advil and ibuprofen, and a bunch of NSAIDs were derived. And these are very good medicines for preventing inflammation and treating pain in the short term. The challenge with both of these classes of pain meds is that they have risks."
"And then the third class, obviously, everybody knows about opioids and how they were marketed in the '90s."
@SR_Pharma #Pain #AcutePain #Analgesic #Acetaminophen #Opioid #NSAID #Nontoxic #NonOpioid #NewOrleans
southrampartpharma.com
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Sheila Frame is the President for the Americas at Amryt Pharma, founded on the belief that rare and ultra-rare diseases were an opportunity to support underserved patients differently than the big pharmaceutical companies could. With the acquisition of Mycapssa, Amryt is changing the treatment for the rare disease acromegaly from painful injections to the first and only twice-daily oral medication.
Shelia explains, "We're currently commercially, at least, in three different areas. So lipodystrophy is a pretty significant leptin deficiency for people who suffer from that. It's a fairly rare disease, with about 300 patients roughly in the US. The second one is in homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, and again, a very rare genetic disease, probably even fewer patients than what we see in lipodystrophy. And then the third area, of course, is acromegaly with Mycapssa, where we actually have products in the market."
"I think what's interesting about not only the technology that we have with Mycapssa but also the impact of taking a pill twice a day means that you have this sustained control of the drug in your system. I think patients are finding that that really helps them. And so beyond just the convenience of not having to go through monthly objections, but also just the way they feel by having that sustained control and the drug in their system."
@AmrytPharma #Amryt #Acromegaly #Endocrinology #RareDisease #Mycapssa
Acromegalycommunity.org
Amrytpharma.com
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Sheila Frame is the President for the Americas at Amryt Pharma, founded on the belief that rare and ultra-rare diseases were an opportunity to support underserved patients differently than the big pharmaceutical companies could. With the acquisition of Mycapssa, Amryt is changing the treatment for the rare disease acromegaly from painful injections to the first and only twice-daily oral medication.
Shelia explains, "We're currently commercially, at least, in three different areas. So lipodystrophy is a pretty significant leptin deficiency for people who suffer from that. It's a fairly rare disease, with about 300 patients roughly in the US. The second one is in homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, and again, a very rare genetic disease, probably even fewer patients than what we see in lipodystrophy. And then the third area, of course, is acromegaly with Mycapssa, where we actually have products in the market."
"I think what's interesting about not only the technology that we have with Mycapssa but also the impact of taking a pill twice a day means that you have this sustained control of the drug in your system. I think patients are finding that that really helps them. And so beyond just the convenience of not having to go through monthly objections, but also just the way they feel by having that sustained control and the drug in their system."
@AmrytPharma #Amryt #Acromegaly #Endocrinology #RareDisease #Mycapssa
Acromegalycommunity.org
Amrytpharma.com
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Allison London Brown is the CEO of LUMINELLE, inventors of an advanced endoscopic system with a camera and biopsy device that allows physicians to perform gynecological procedures in their offices more safely, more efficiently, and with better reimbursement. Being able to look inside the uterus and bladder and perform operations that in the past would have required a hospital outpatient visit means that women and their doctors are more likely to identify problems sooner and get a prompt diagnosis of cancerous tissues.
Allison elaborates, "If you have problems, it can also help with things like drug delivery for overactive bladder. And it can be used for fertility, both treatments, as well as trying to prevent pregnancy. So it's a pretty versatile system. It's very low cost, and it's really so that women can have procedures done in the comfort of their physician's office with less anesthesia and certainly less cost."
"And for the payers, if you're catching things sooner, you're not incurring all these costs that you might in a hospital, like the anesthesiologist and all the nurses and all the different things that go along with the hospital outpatient procedure. It's much more beneficial for them as well. So it's really a nice move to try to get people care the first time at the first place they should be going."
#LUMINELLE #Endoscopy #MedicalDevice #WomensHealth #UterineCancer
LUMINELLE360.com
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Allison London Brown is the CEO of LUMINELLE, inventors of an advanced endoscopic system with a camera and biopsy device that allows physicians to perform gynecological procedures in their offices more safely, more efficiently, and with better reimbursement. Being able to look inside the uterus and bladder and perform operations that in the past would have required a hospital outpatient visit means that women and their doctors are more likely to identify problems sooner and get a prompt diagnosis of cancerous tissues.
Allison elaborates, "If you have problems, it can also help with things like drug delivery for overactive bladder. And it can be used for fertility, both treatments, as well as trying to prevent pregnancy. So it's a pretty versatile system. It's very low cost, and it's really so that women can have procedures done in the comfort of their physician's office with less anesthesia and certainly less cost."
"And for the payers, if you're catching things sooner, you're not incurring all these costs that you might in a hospital, like the anesthesiologist and all the nurses and all the different things that go along with the hospital outpatient procedure. It's much more beneficial for them as well. So it's really a nice move to try to get people care the first time at the first place they should be going."
#LUMINELLE #Endoscopy #MedicalDevice #WomensHealth #UterineCancer
LUMINELLE360.com
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Dr. Emily Hamilton is the Senior Vice President of Clinical Research at PeriGen, which is applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to early warning and clinical decision support in healthcare. With a focus on labor and delivery, PeriGen is providing real-time information to clinicians to drive down the likelihood of birth-related brain injury.
Emily explains, "So, what we have developed is an AI machine learning-based way of looking at the tracing to identify contractions, to notify nurses and doctors that there are excessive contractions, and that's gone on for a while. We've also used that to recognize patterns in the fetal heart rate, which indicate that the baby's not responding well to labor and to notify them of that so that they can intervene and prevent the adverse outcome."
"Likewise, we can look at the labor, and we can compare a patient's labor to a group of similar women who are having the same frequency of contractions, a number of other variables, and indicate whether or not this labor is on course or whether or not it's slower or perhaps faster. It's all done in a very consistent, quantifiable way."
@PeriGen #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #ML #WomensHealth #LaborandDelivery #BirthRelatedBrainInjury
Perigen.com
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Dr. Emily Hamilton is the Senior Vice President of Clinical Research at PeriGen, which is applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to early warning and clinical decision support in healthcare. With a focus on labor and delivery, PeriGen is providing real-time information to clinicians to drive down the likelihood of birth-related brain injury.
Emily explains, "So, what we have developed is an AI machine learning-based way of looking at the tracing to identify contractions, to notify nurses and doctors that there are excessive contractions, and that's gone on for a while. We've also used that to recognize patterns in the fetal heart rate, which indicate that the baby's not responding well to labor and to notify them of that so that they can intervene and prevent the adverse outcome."
"Likewise, we can look at the labor, and we can compare a patient's labor to a group of similar women who are having the same frequency of contractions, a number of other variables, and indicate whether or not this labor is on course or whether or not it's slower or perhaps faster. It's all done in a very consistent, quantifiable way."
@PeriGen #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #ML #WomensHealth #LaborandDelivery #BirthRelatedBrainInjury
Perigen.com
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Arjan Haverhals is the CEO and President of Milestone Scientific, which is exploring how to modernize hypodermic syringe use. One application of their injection technology is for women during labor and delivery to inject the epidural needle more accurately and control the pain. Milestone is also looking at dentistry, chronic pain, neuro-surgery, and cosmetic medicine as additional opportunities to deliver more efficient, precise, and safer injections.
Arjan provides a historical perspective, "Just to give you some background information from a study from last year. It was found that even when male and female patients expressed the same amount of pain, female patients' pain is often seen as less intense and more likely to benefit from psychotherapy versus medication as compared to men's pain. And I do believe that this gender gap in healthcare could lead to bias diagnoses related to chronic pain for women and may also explain why very little has changed in the field of epidural delivery. And any way we can aid in closing that gap is a win-win."
"Now, if women go for labor and delivery these days, it is still a technology that is used stemming from the 1860s, and it is nothing more or less than a hypodermic syringe, later positioned in the medical field as the loss of resistance technique, which is a very manual, subjective way of placing the epidural needle in the epidural space. And the reason why we entered this field is a strong belief that we can solve the problems, and the associated risk factors, with this high-risk epidural analgesia procedure."
@MilestoneSciInc #CompuFlov#WomensHealth #Pregnancy #LaborandDelivery #Epidural #DuralPuncture #MedicalDevice #MedTech
MilestoneScientific.com
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Arjan Haverhals is the CEO and President of Milestone Scientific, which is exploring how to modernize hypodermic syringe use. One application of their injection technology is for women during labor and delivery to inject the epidural needle more accurately and control the pain. Milestone is also looking at dentistry, chronic pain, neuro-surgery, and cosmetic medicine as additional opportunities to deliver more efficient, precise, and safer injections.
Arjan provides a historical perspective, "Just to give you some background information from a study from last year. It was found that even when male and female patients expressed the same amount of pain, female patients' pain is often seen as less intense and more likely to benefit from psychotherapy versus medication as compared to men's pain. And I do believe that this gender gap in healthcare could lead to bias diagnoses related to chronic pain for women and may also explain why very little has changed in the field of epidural delivery. And any way we can aid in closing that gap is a win-win."
"Now, if women go for labor and delivery these days, it is still a technology that is used stemming from the 1860s, and it is nothing more or less than a hypodermic syringe, later positioned in the medical field as the loss of resistance technique, which is a very manual, subjective way of placing the epidural needle in the epidural space. And the reason why we entered this field is a strong belief that we can solve the problems, and the associated risk factors, with this high-risk epidural analgesia procedure."
@MilestoneSciInc #CompuFlov#WomensHealth #Pregnancy #LaborandDelivery #Epidural #DuralPuncture #MedicalDevice #MedTech
MilestoneScientific.com
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Daniel Teper is the CEO and Founder of Cytovia Therapeutics and talks about using natural killer, NK, cells as an alternative to T-cells in immuno-oncology. He shares insights about the development of induced pluripotent stem cells, IPSC-derived NK cells, iNK cells, used by themselves or using their Flex-NK cell Engagers or in combination to address the challenges cancer patients face.
Daniel elaborates, "That's also where the NK cells may have advantages over T-cells, in that it hasn't been reported that they cause CRS, GBHD, or other side effects that would require the patients to be kept in the hospital. Now, if we say the first iteration was derived from the patient's own blood, the second iteration is donor, the third generation, which we are one of a handful of companies to pursue and master, is the production of immune cells, including NK cells, from induced pluripotent stem cells."
"We see also that you can direct the cells in two ways. You can direct the cells by inserting what's called a CAR, or chimeric antigen receptor, that's like a GPS on the cell. But alternatively, we can redirect the NK cells to kill the tumor cells by combining them with antibodies, and particularly with what we call NK engager antibodies. So our brand of NK engager antibodies is called Flex-NK cell engager antibodies. And what they do is that they have one arm that binds and activates the NK cell, and another arm that binds into the tumor cell, and the NK cells are redirected to kill the tumor cells."
@Cytovia #CytoviaTX #Oncology #ImmunoOncology #Cancer #CancerTherapeutics #CellTherapeutics #NKCells #iNKCells #NaturalKillerCells
CytoviaTX.com
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Daniel Teper is the CEO and Founder of Cytovia Therapeutics and talks about using natural killer, NK, cells as an alternative to T-cells in immuno-oncology. He shares insights about the development of induced pluripotent stem cells, IPSC-derived NK cells, iNK cells, used by themselves or using their Flex-NK cell Engagers or in combination to address the challenges cancer patients face.
Daniel elaborates, "That's also where the NK cells may have advantages over T-cells, in that it hasn't been reported that they cause CRS, GBHD, or other side effects that would require the patients to be kept in the hospital. Now, if we say the first iteration was derived from the patient's own blood, the second iteration is donor, the third generation, which we are one of a handful of companies to pursue and master, is the production of immune cells, including NK cells, from induced pluripotent stem cells."
"We see also that you can direct the cells in two ways. You can direct the cells by inserting what's called a CAR, or chimeric antigen receptor, that's like a GPS on the cell. But alternatively, we can redirect the NK cells to kill the tumor cells by combining them with antibodies, and particularly with what we call NK engager antibodies. So our brand of NK engager antibodies is called Flex-NK cell engager antibodies. And what they do is that they have one arm that binds and activates the NK cell, and another arm that binds into the tumor cell, and the NK cells are redirected to kill the tumor cells."
@Cytovia #CytoviaTX #Oncology #ImmunoOncology #Cancer #CancerTherapeutics #CellTherapeutics #NKCells #iNKCells #NaturalKillerCells
CytoviaTX.com
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Dr. Phil Kantoff is the CEO and Co-Founder and Alex Brown is the COO of Convergent Therapeutics which is developing the next generation of targeted therapies to treat cancer. Drawing on insights from developments in radiopharmaceuticals, Convergent focuses on radioantibodies that are radioisotopes attached to antibodies directed to treat prostate cancer.
Phil explains, "Antibodies will recognize surface molecules on cancer cells and they can be linked to radioisotopes. We are focused on an isotope known as Actinium-225, which is an important radioisotope because it's different than isotopes that have been previously used, it's an alpha-emitting radiopharmaceutical. Alpha particles are much larger, they're much more powerful, and they travel a shorter distance. You can deliver a very powerful, very targeted therapy to cancer."
"We have clinical trials that are taking place right now that are showing remarkable activity using the combination of the directed antibody against prostate cancer cells, specifically prostate-specific membrane antigen coupled to this isotope, Actinium-225."
Alex continues, "Our radioantibodies, which is what we're talking about here, are novel enough that there are few if any, examples of marketed products out there. It's a field that's emerging, so aside from having the experience in antibody development and commercialization, some of this is new to our team as well as to others."
@ConvergentRx @DrPhilKantoff #ProstateCancer #Radiopharmaceuticals #PSMA #Radioantibody #RadioLingandTherapy #Oncology #Biotechnology
ConvergentRx.com
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Dr. Phil Kantoff is the CEO and Co-Founder and Alex Brown is the COO of Convergent Therapeutics which is developing the next generation of targeted therapies to treat cancer. Drawing on insights from developments in radiopharmaceuticals, Convergent focuses on radioantibodies that are radioisotopes attached to antibodies directed to treat prostate cancer.
Phil explains, "Antibodies will recognize surface molecules on cancer cells and they can be linked to radioisotopes. We are focused on an isotope known as Actinium-225, which is an important radioisotope because it's different than isotopes that have been previously used, it's an alpha-emitting radiopharmaceutical. Alpha particles are much larger, they're much more powerful, and they travel a shorter distance. You can deliver a very powerful, very targeted therapy to cancer."
"We have clinical trials that are taking place right now that are showing remarkable activity using the combination of the directed antibody against prostate cancer cells, specifically prostate-specific membrane antigen coupled to this isotope, Actinium-225."
Alex continues, "Our radioantibodies, which is what we're talking about here, are novel enough that there are few if any, examples of marketed products out there. It's a field that's emerging, so aside from having the experience in antibody development and commercialization, some of this is new to our team as well as to others."
@ConvergentRx @DrPhilKantoff #ProstateCancer #Radiopharmaceuticals #PSMA #Radioantibody #RadioLingandTherapy #Oncology #Biotechnology
ConvergentRx.com
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Dr. Eric Brouwer is the Chief Scientific Officer for SQI Diagnostics, which believes that lung health is human health. Their focus is on the lung and ranges from COVID PCR, antigen, and antibody tests, across the spectrum to assessing lung transplant donors. With demand going up for lung transplants and new protocols for COVID screening of donors, diagnostic tests help better identify good candidates for organ donors.
Eric elaborates, "We're a Canadian-based company, and we have the distribution rights in Canada for a technology that was developed by the US military. The product is called Biomeme, and it's a portable PCR analyzer. So it does very rapid thermocycling that will enable the results to be delivered in just over two hours."
"This is deployed in mines and remote locations, on TV and film crew sets, and so that technology exists. We're using it, and that really makes that testing cycle reduced, so we can get same-morning tests, same-day testing, versus sending it in to a central lab which has the travel time, which has the review time, which has the execution time, that's pushing four to eight, sometimes 24 hours, before those results can get back. So the technology is out there, and it's becoming more widely available."
#SQI #COVID #COVIDTesting #PCRTest #Lungs #LungTransplants #Antibodies #Inflammation #LungDiagnostics #TransplantDiagnostics #PrecisionMedicine
SQIDiagnostics.com
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Dr. Eric Brouwer is the Chief Scientific Officer for SQI Diagnostics, which believes that lung health is human health. Their focus is on the lung and ranges from COVID PCR, antigen, and antibody tests, across the spectrum to assessing lung transplant donors. With demand going up for lung transplants and new protocols for COVID screening of donors, diagnostic tests help better identify good candidates for organ donors.
Eric elaborates, "We're a Canadian-based company, and we have the distribution rights in Canada for a technology that was developed by the US military. The product is called Biomeme, and it's a portable PCR analyzer. So it does very rapid thermocycling that will enable the results to be delivered in just over two hours."
"This is deployed in mines and remote locations, on TV and film crew sets, and so that technology exists. We're using it, and that really makes that testing cycle reduced, so we can get same-morning tests, same-day testing, versus sending it in to a central lab which has the travel time, which has the review time, which has the execution time, that's pushing four to eight, sometimes 24 hours, before those results can get back. So the technology is out there, and it's becoming more widely available."
#SQI #COVID #COVIDTesting #PCRTest #Lungs #LungTransplants #Antibodies #Inflammation #LungDiagnostics #TransplantDiagnostics #PrecisionMedicine
SQIDiagnostics.com
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Dave Lareau is the CEO of Medicomp Systems, which has spent 44 years working with providers to understand better the kinds of information that is most relevant to a diagnosis and therapeutic approach. With 400,000 concepts and tens of millions of relevancy links and mappings to data, Medicomp is prepared to handle the flood of information expected with the standardization of person-centered care. Just finalized in January, TEFCA, the Trusted Exchange Framework, and Common Agreement is expected to provide an infrastructure for sharing information.
Dave explains, "So there's a new era starting in healthcare, which is the data belongs to the patient. It doesn't belong to the provider or the organization. And now there's a framework in place for sharing it, a trusted framework. It's right in the name, TEFCA. And I think it's going to open up new possibilities, new opportunities, new challenges. And for the first time, the patient will be able to participate in the viewing and managing of their own care. It will radically change the way that people interact with information all along the continuum of care."
@MedicompSys #TEFCA #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHR #DataExchange #Interoperability
Medicomp.com
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Dave Lareau is the CEO of Medicomp Systems, which has spent 44 years working with providers to understand better the kinds of information that is most relevant to a diagnosis and therapeutic approach. With 400,000 concepts and tens of millions of relevancy links and mappings to data, Medicomp is prepared to handle the flood of information expected with the standardization of person-centered care. Just finalized in January, TEFCA, the Trusted Exchange Framework, and Common Agreement is expected to provide an infrastructure for sharing information.
Dave explains, "So there's a new era starting in healthcare, which is the data belongs to the patient. It doesn't belong to the provider or the organization. And now there's a framework in place for sharing it, a trusted framework. It's right in the name, TEFCA. And I think it's going to open up new possibilities, new opportunities, new challenges. And for the first time, the patient will be able to participate in the viewing and managing of their own care. It will radically change the way that people interact with information all along the continuum of care."
@MedicompSys #TEFCA #ElectronicHealthRecords #EHR #DataExchange #Interoperability
Medicomp.com
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Wei Escala is the founder and CEO of Eggschain, the first biotech on the Bitcoin blockchain. This blockchain-integrated approach brings order to the management of tracking patient and biospecimen information. Their goal is to bring the healthcare industry to Web3 through decentralization.
Wei explains, "We're the first blockchain-enabled and blockchain-integrated inventory management and chain-of-custody solution for tracking all biospecimens. When I say all biospecimens, I mean sperm, eggs, embryos, genome, stem cells, tissues, organs, DNA and RNA, and more. So, essentially, we are the bridge between biology and blockchain. And our goal is to bring the healthcare industry to Web3 through decentralization."
"Yes, a blockchain-integrated platform helps tackle the problem of centralized records. Let me talk about what might be some of the issues of centralized records. Centralized records can be lost or can become inaccessible in times of need. And we all have heard that centralized records can be corrupted and can also be hacked. So, a blockchain approach, through decentralization, brings an added layer of security or backup to the current system."
@Eggschain #Eggschain #Blockchain #DigitalHealth #HealthRecords #Web3
Eggschain.com
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Wei Escala is the founder and CEO of Eggschain, the first biotech on the Bitcoin blockchain. This blockchain-integrated approach brings order to the management of tracking patient and biospecimen information. Their goal is to bring the healthcare industry to Web3 through decentralization.
Wei explains, "We're the first blockchain-enabled and blockchain-integrated inventory management and chain-of-custody solution for tracking all biospecimens. When I say all biospecimens, I mean sperm, eggs, embryos, genome, stem cells, tissues, organs, DNA and RNA, and more. So, essentially, we are the bridge between biology and blockchain. And our goal is to bring the healthcare industry to Web3 through decentralization."
"Yes, a blockchain-integrated platform helps tackle the problem of centralized records. Let me talk about what might be some of the issues of centralized records. Centralized records can be lost or can become inaccessible in times of need. And we all have heard that centralized records can be corrupted and can also be hacked. So, a blockchain approach, through decentralization, brings an added layer of security or backup to the current system."
@Eggschain #Eggschain #Blockchain #DigitalHealth #HealthRecords #Web3
Eggschain.com
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Bill Stilley is the CEO and President of Adial Pharmaceuticals, which is focused on developing medicinal therapies for the treatment and prevention of addiction. Their first drug is a genetically targeted drug to treat alcohol use disorder, otherwise known as alcoholism.
Bill explains, "Yes, in the end, a lot of diseases are based on our genetics, and addiction seems to have some genetic components. I mean, for decades, it's been known that people that have had family members with an alcohol use problem have a much higher rate, and the numbers thrown around a lot are a nine times greater likelihood to have the problem themselves. Of course, some of that's going to be due to an environment, but it's clear that there's a genetic component."
"So, we believe that we have identified some defects in the serotonin system of certain patients which will allow them to respond to treatment with our drug, which is a serotonin-3 receptor blocker. By that, I mean what it seems to indicate in clinical trials to date, is that we can reduce the craving that these patients have that's driven through their serotonin system to encourage them where they have a need to drink, rather than just a desire to drink."
"In our phase 2 study, which is a 283 patient clinical trial that was run with our drug, patients that were on the drug that had the right genetics reduced the frequency of their drinking by almost 50%. When they drank, they reduced the amount they drank by almost 60%. So they picked up the bottle less often, and when they picked it up, they could put it back down. We think this is a really meaningful result for these people."
@AdialPharma #Addiction #AlcoholUseDisorder #Alcoholism #AddictionTreatment #MentalHealth
adialpharma.com
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Bill Stilley is the CEO and President of Adial Pharmaceuticals, which is focused on developing medicinal therapies for the treatment and prevention of addiction. Their first drug is a genetically targeted drug to treat alcohol use disorder, otherwise known as alcoholism.
Bill explains, "Yes, in the end, a lot of diseases are based on our genetics, and addiction seems to have some genetic components. I mean, for decades, it's been known that people that have had family members with an alcohol use problem have a much higher rate, and the numbers thrown around a lot are a nine times greater likelihood to have the problem themselves. Of course, some of that's going to be due to an environment, but it's clear that there's a genetic component."
"So, we believe that we have identified some defects in the serotonin system of certain patients which will allow them to respond to treatment with our drug, which is a serotonin-3 receptor blocker. By that, I mean what it seems to indicate in clinical trials to date, is that we can reduce the craving that these patients have that's driven through their serotonin system to encourage them where they have a need to drink, rather than just a desire to drink."
"In our phase 2 study, which is a 283 patient clinical trial that was run with our drug, patients that were on the drug that had the right genetics reduced the frequency of their drinking by almost 50%. When they drank, they reduced the amount they drank by almost 60%. So they picked up the bottle less often, and when they picked it up, they could put it back down. We think this is a really meaningful result for these people."
@AdialPharma #Addiction #AlcoholUseDisorder #Alcoholism #AddictionTreatment #MentalHealth
adialpharma.com
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Dr. Mark Berman is the Chief Medical Officer at Better Therapeutics, using a prescription digital therapeutic to treat diseases caused by human behavior, particularly type II diabetes. While PDT model might be expected to be effective with younger patients, clinical trial data is revealing that older patients 60+ are getting the most benefit in blood sugar reduction from this approach.
Mark elaborates, "We are, at Better Therapeutics, trying to pioneer a prescription digital therapeutics platform with the intent of treating a whole host of cardiometabolic conditions, starting first with type II diabetes. Then moving on to other related cardiometabolic conditions that all share their roots in health behaviors that really drive the pandemic of disease that we're seeing in cardiometabolic health. And so, at Better Therapeutics, we're bringing about this platform to enable scalable means of treating those root causes of cardiometabolic conditions."
"The notion of prescription digital therapeutic is that instead of prescribing yet another drug to help those types of patients, they're going to prescribe an FDA regulated mobile medical app, a prescription digital therapeutic, which is easy to fill, and it comes directly onto the patient's smartphone. And from there, it's the job of the digital therapeutic to really personalize the therapy for the patient. We don't believe that the providers have the time or the ability to really get very granular into the nature of the behavioral therapy. We really need to rely on the digital therapeutic to do that personalized work about what behaviors to target and how to be effective in each patient."
@Better_TX #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #PDT #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutic #Type2Diabetes #MobileHealth
BetterTX.com
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Dr. Mark Berman is the Chief Medical Officer at Better Therapeutics, using a prescription digital therapeutic to treat diseases caused by human behavior, particularly type II diabetes. While PDT model might be expected to be effective with younger patients, clinical trial data is revealing that older patients 60+ are getting the most benefit in blood sugar reduction from this approach.
Mark elaborates, "We are, at Better Therapeutics, trying to pioneer a prescription digital therapeutics platform with the intent of treating a whole host of cardiometabolic conditions, starting first with type II diabetes. Then moving on to other related cardiometabolic conditions that all share their roots in health behaviors that really drive the pandemic of disease that we're seeing in cardiometabolic health. And so, at Better Therapeutics, we're bringing about this platform to enable scalable means of treating those root causes of cardiometabolic conditions."
"The notion of prescription digital therapeutic is that instead of prescribing yet another drug to help those types of patients, they're going to prescribe an FDA regulated mobile medical app, a prescription digital therapeutic, which is easy to fill, and it comes directly onto the patient's smartphone. And from there, it's the job of the digital therapeutic to really personalize the therapy for the patient. We don't believe that the providers have the time or the ability to really get very granular into the nature of the behavioral therapy. We really need to rely on the digital therapeutic to do that personalized work about what behaviors to target and how to be effective in each patient."
@Better_TX #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #PDT #PrescriptionDigitalTherapeutic #Type2Diabetes #MobileHealth
BetterTX.com
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Dr. Tom Lendvay is the Chief Medical Officer of Tend, which addresses the gut microbiome of the severe intestinal infection Clostridium difficile CDIF. Currently, recurrent Clostridium difficile is the only FDA-regulated disease for the use of microbiome transplants outside of a clinical trial. Clinical trials are also underway applying microbiome transplants to intestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, and other diseases outside of the gut.
Tom explains, "Tend is focused on two types of offerings. One is a device called the CAP device, a collection processing device that allows a clinician or a researcher to collect a sample and process it, mix it, filter it and encapsulate it into orally ingestible capsules that can be stored in a freezer."
"The other side is the data side, which is understanding. So, doing microbiome analyses on the donors, on the recipient ill patients and seeing how their microbiome changes over time and learning who's the best donor for the best recipient. Those two offerings do not exist today, and right now, the process for a clinician, for a researcher to provide microbiome transplants to their patients is extremely onerous and laborious."
@Tend_Health #FMT #CDIF #Microbiome #GutMicrobiome #MedicalDevice #Healthcare #Patient
tend-health.com
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Dr. Tom Lendvay is the Chief Medical Officer of Tend, which addresses the gut microbiome of the severe intestinal infection Clostridium difficile CDIF. Currently, recurrent Clostridium difficile is the only FDA-regulated disease for the use of microbiome transplants outside of a clinical trial. Clinical trials are also underway applying microbiome transplants to intestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, and even other diseases outside of the gut.
Tom explains, "Tend is focused on two types of offerings. One is a device called the CAP device, a collection processing device that allows a clinician or a researcher to collect a sample and process it, mix it, filter it and encapsulate it into orally ingestible capsules that can be stored in a freezer."
"The other side is the data side, which is understanding. So, doing microbiome analyses on the donors, on the recipient ill patients and seeing how their microbiome changes over time and learning who's the best donor for the best recipient. Those two offerings do not exist today, and right now, the process for a clinician, for a researcher to provide microbiome transplants to their patients is extremely onerous and laborious."
@Tend_Health #FMT #CDIF #Microbiome #GutMicrobiome #MedicalDevice #Healthcare #Patient
tend-health.com
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Russ Thomas, the CEO of Availity, and Oron Afek, CEO and Co-Founder of Vim, join me in discussing the benefits of breaking down information silos of the payers and care providers and bringing real-time data to the point of care. By integrating actionable patient information at the right point of time, providers are better informed to improve patient outcomes.
Russ explains, "Availity, for the last 21 years now, has been in the business of developing connectivity and relationships between health plans and providers. I know we're going to talk a lot today about the really cool program we've embarked upon with Oron and the Vim team. But at our core, we sit in the center of the relationship between health plans and providers and communicate all types of health information between these critical constituents."
Oron elaborates, "One of the goals for the Availity-Vim partnership is to really drive behavioral change based on real-time decision-making. It is to intercept at the point of care, at the point of intent, intercept decision-making points that can influence things like downstream costs or administrative costs, like submitting prior authorization, or other components in the entire trajectory, and influence them. This is instead of doing some retrospect analysis for engagement that is usually more expensive, because when you don't catch a person at the point of intent, then you most often end up paying a lot more to engage them, in retrospect."
@Availity @GetVim #PointofCare #PriorAuthorization #Ai #ComputerVision
Availity.com
GetVim.com
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Russ Thomas, the CEO of Availity, and Oron Afek, CEO and Co-Founder of Vim, join me in discussing the benefits of breaking down information silos of the payers and care providers and bringing real-time data to the point of care. By integrating actionable patient information at the right point of time, providers are better informed to improve patient outcomes.
Russ explains, "Availity, for the last 21 years now, has been in the business of developing connectivity and relationships between health plans and providers. I know we're going to talk a lot today about the really cool program we've embarked upon with Oron and the Vim team. But at our core, we sit in the center of the relationship between health plans and providers and communicate all types of health information between these critical constituents."
Oron elaborates, "One of the goals for the Availity-Vim partnership is to really drive behavioral change based on real-time decision-making. It is to intercept at the point of care, at the point of intent, intercept decision-making points that can influence things like downstream costs or administrative costs, like submitting prior authorization, or other components in the entire trajectory, and influence them. This is instead of doing some retrospect analysis for engagement that is usually more expensive, because when you don't catch a person at the point of intent, then you most often end up paying a lot more to engage them, in retrospect."
@Availity @GetVim #PointofCare #PriorAuthorization #AI #ComputerVision
Availity.com
GetVim.com
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Avihai Sodri is the Co-Founder and CEO of Antidote Health, which takes a digital HMO approach to bring 24/7 healthcare to a broad audience. Their target patients include both insured people and those who are uninsured, anyone who requires a one-time service or care for a chronic condition.
Avihai says, "So, in a very significant sense, we're not reinventing the wheel. So we're talking about processes and best practices in providing healthcare in a very traditional way, I would say. But we're injecting a lot of technology with our decision support systems and the way that our bot collects information from the patient, and we are adding more digital processes more on the administrative side of things. So, if you take all this together, with the alignment of interest, then we can create a real disruption. And without changing dramatically, the way that healthcare is being provided, but the fact that we are using telehealth to provide the healthcare."
@AntidoteAI #AntidoteHealth #AI #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #HMO #HealthcareProviders
antidotehealth.ai
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Avihai Sodri is the Co-Founder and CEO of Antidote Health, which takes a digital HMO approach to bring 24/7 healthcare to a broad audience. Their target patients include both insured people and those who are uninsured, anyone who requires a one-time service or care for a chronic condition.
Avihai says, "So, in a very significant sense, we're not reinventing the wheel. So we're talking about processes and best practices in providing healthcare in a very traditional way, I would say. But we're injecting a lot of technology with our decision support systems and the way that our bot collects information from the patient, and we are adding more digital processes more on the administrative side of things. So, if you take all this together, with the alignment of interest, then we can create a real disruption. And without changing dramatically, the way that healthcare is being provided, but the fact that we are using telehealth to provide the healthcare."
@AntidoteAI #AntidoteHealth #AI #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #HMO #HealthcareProviders
antidotehealth.ai
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Michael Boerner is the Founder and CEO of Engage Technologies Group, which uses short-form videos to educate and motivate patients. It might be for someone with a diagnosed disease or a surgical process where it's a need for pre-operative or post-operative information. Their mobile intelligence platform is designed to deliver content to patients at the moment when it makes the most sense on their preferred screen.
Michael explains, "So when we transform lives by delivering wisdom, it's in the format of short-form video. What we find is people love video, they just don't want it to be long. So, we found that the best way to be able to educate someone is with kind of the three biggest consumer behavioral shifts."
"But short-form video, what's tough about brief videos, about 90 seconds, is you can't really talk about anything super complex in 90 seconds, but you can if you put the videos together in what we call an arc or an arc of engagement, a sequence of video content. That allows someone to be able to tap next and go to the next key kind of chapter in that educational journey."
#DigitalHealth #MobileHealth #PatientEducation #PatientEngagment #PatientRelationships #ShortFormVideo
engagetg.com
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Michael Boerner is the Founder and CEO of Engage Technologies Group, which uses short-form videos to educate and motivate patients. It might be for someone with a diagnosed disease or a surgical process where it's a need for pre-operative or post-operative information. Their mobile intelligence platform is designed to deliver content to patients at the moment when it makes the most sense on their preferred screen.
Michael explains, "So when we transform lives by delivering wisdom, it's in the format of short-form video. What we find is people love video, they just don't want it to be long. So, we found that the best way to be able to educate someone is with kind of the three biggest consumer behavioral shifts."
"But short-form video, what's tough about brief videos, about 90 seconds, is you can't really talk about anything super complex in 90 seconds, but you can if you put the videos together in what we call an arc or an arc of engagement, a sequence of video content. That allows someone to be able to tap next and go to the next key kind of chapter in that educational journey."
#DigitalHealth #MobileHealth #PatientEducation #PatientEngagment #PatientRelationships #ShortFormVideo
engagetg.com
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Dr. Sameer Berry is the Chief Medical Officer of Oshi Health, and he shines a light on the challenges patients face from gastrointestinal conditions and the lack of effective treatments available from doctors for GI-related symptoms. While the reimbursement and payment model discourages a team approach to treating these patients, Oshi Health is taking a multidisciplinary integrated healthcare approach with a focus on the enteric nervous system.
Sameer explains, "Where this comes from is the understanding that anatomically, there's actually an entirely separate nervous system that exists in the GI tract, and it's called the enteric nervous system. So, these are nerve cells, the same types of nerve cells that are in your spinal cord, in your brain, those nerve cells are in your gut. And just like the nerves in your brain respond to environmental stressors that might cause you to feel anxious, depressed, sad, happy, these nerves that are in your gut can respond to environmental stressors. But instead of causing you to feel anxious or depressed, they can cause GI symptoms."
"I don't see the use of drugs diminishing. I see us refining the molecular targets for the future of pharmacology and functional GI conditions. Where those drugs target, I think, will start to incorporate our understanding of the enteric nervous system and the interplay of the enteric nervous system with both the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system."
@OshiHealth #GITwitter #MedTwitter #GI #IBS #GutHealth #MindGut #EntericNervousSystem
OshiHealth.com
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Dr. Sameer Berry is the Chief Medical Officer of Oshi Health, and he shines a light on the challenges patients face from gastrointestinal conditions and the lack of effective treatments available from doctors for GI-related symptoms. While the reimbursement and payment model discourages a team approach to treating these patients, Oshi Health is taking a multidisciplinary integrated healthcare approach with a focus on the enteric nervous system.
Sameer explains, "Where this comes from is the understanding that anatomically, there's actually an entirely separate nervous system that exists in the GI tract, and it's called the enteric nervous system. So, these are nerve cells, the same types of nerve cells that are in your spinal cord, in your brain, those nerve cells are in your gut. And just like the nerves in your brain respond to environmental stressors that might cause you to feel anxious, depressed, sad, happy, these nerves that are in your gut can respond to environmental stressors. But instead of causing you to feel anxious or depressed, they can cause GI symptoms."
"I don't see the use of drugs diminishing. I see us refining the molecular targets for the future of pharmacology and functional GI conditions. Where those drugs target, I think, will start to incorporate our understanding of the enteric nervous system and the interplay of the enteric nervous system with both the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system."
@OshiHealth #GITwitter #MedTwitter #GI #IBS #GutHealth #MindGut #EntericNervousSystem
OshiHealth.com
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Dr. Jacob Hascalovici is the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Clearing which is in the business of transforming chronic pain care. While some chronic pain has no cure, there are many strategies that can be used to manage the symptoms and improve the quality of life of a patient. One of the key goals of Clearing is to leverage the use of technology to help remove obstacles in the chronic pain care environment.
Jacob explains, "When we think about individual treatments in isolation, we call that unimodal care. I'd say that on an individual basis, the effectiveness of a treatment is limited. I rarely see patients with chronic pain who have a 100% response to a single therapy. But when we employ multimodal therapies where we have home exercise or physical therapy, plus a topical, plus an oral, plus an injection, that's when we start to see a very effective treatment strategy and plan."
"Pain is a very personal experience. It's highly subjective, it's deeply personal, and there is a multitude of factors that can affect our perception of pain. In order for us to manage something that is so personal and so subjective, we really need to consider all of the biological factors, the psychological factors, and the social factors that affect an individual to design a treatment plan that's best for them. We call this the biopsychosocial model for chronic pain care, and that is at the foundation of what we do at Clearing. Highly personalized therapies that focus on the mind, the body, and the social wellbeing of an individual who's suffering from pain."
#ChronicPain #PainTreatment #PainCare #Opioids #NonOpioidTreatment #NociplasticPain #DigitalHealth
clearing.com
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Dr. Jacob Hascalovici is the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Clearing which is in the business of transforming chronic pain care. While some chronic pain has no cure, there are many strategies that can be used to manage the symptoms and improve the quality of life of a patient. One of the key goals of Clearing is to leverage the use of technology to help remove obstacles in the chronic pain care environment.
Jacob explains, "When we think about individual treatments in isolation, we call that unimodal care. I'd say that on an individual basis, the effectiveness of a treatment is limited. I rarely see patients with chronic pain who have a 100% response to a single therapy. But when we employ multimodal therapies where we have home exercise or physical therapy, plus a topical, plus an oral, plus an injection, that's when we start to see a very effective treatment strategy and plan."
"Pain is a very personal experience. It's highly subjective, it's deeply personal, and there is a multitude of factors that can affect our perception of pain. In order for us to manage something that is so personal and so subjective, we really need to consider all of the biological factors, the psychological factors, and the social factors that affect an individual to design a treatment plan that's best for them. We call this the biopsychosocial model for chronic pain care, and that is at the foundation of what we do at Clearing. Highly personalized therapies that focus on the mind, the body, and the social wellbeing of an individual who's suffering from pain."
#ChronicPain #PainTreatment #PainCare #Opioids #NonOpioidTreatment #NociplasticPain #DigitalHealth
clearing.com
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Sam Lee, interim Co-CEO and President, and Jim Martin, interim Co-CEO and CFO of Cocrystal Pharma. They're a clinical stage biotech company using their proprietary drug development platform to create novel antiviral therapeutics to treat seasonal influenza and pandemic viral infections like COVID-19.
Jim explains, "There are vaccines, and then there are therapeutics. We are a therapeutic company. We don't produce vaccines. Vaccines are more preventative. What we do is, once you get the illness, we stop the illness through our compounds. So as a therapeutic, you do need that one-two punch of both vaccines and therapeutics. And in the case of influenza, we have every year people getting vaccines, which are good. But the therapeutics that are necessary are far and few between."
Sam elaborates, "So our compounds, the compound IDs of CC-42344, we're currently doing phase one study in Australia, this compound has an outstanding drug-resistant profile. We have not been able to isolate the drug-resistance strains from in vitro test-tube experiments. So we believe this compound is really designed for the pandemic as well as a seasonal treatment, particularly targeting for influenza A infection. And also, because of the excellent drug resistance profile, we believe this would be a real breakthrough influenza treatment for pandemic as well as seasonal infection."
@CocrystalPharma #Flu #Influenza #Pandemic #SeasonalFlu #COVID #Vaccines #COVIDTreatments #FluTreatments
cocrystalpharma.com
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Sam Lee, interim Co-CEO and President, and Jim Martin, interim Co-CEO and CFO of Cocrystal Pharma. They're a clinical stage biotech company using their proprietary drug development platform to create novel antiviral therapeutics to treat seasonal influenza and pandemic viral infections like COVID-19.
Jim explains, "There are vaccines, and then there are therapeutics. We are a therapeutic company. We don't produce vaccines. Vaccines are more preventative. What we do is, once you get the illness, we stop the illness through our compounds. So as a therapeutic, you do need that one-two punch of both vaccines and therapeutics. And in the case of influenza, we have every year people getting vaccines, which are good. But the therapeutics that are necessary are far and few between."
Sam elaborates, "So our compounds, the compound IDs of CC-42344, we're currently doing phase one study in Australia, this compound has an outstanding drug-resistant profile. We have not been able to isolate the drug-resistance strains from in vitro test-tube experiments. So we believe this compound is really designed for the pandemic as well as a seasonal treatment, particularly targeting for influenza A infection. And also, because of the excellent drug resistance profile, we believe this would be a real breakthrough influenza treatment for pandemic as well as seasonal infection."
@CocrystalPharma #Flu #Influenza #Pandemic #SeasonalFlu #COVID #Vaccines #COVIDTreatments #FluTreatments
cocrystalpharma.com
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Brian Culley is the CEO of Lineage Cell Therapeutics which is developing cell therapy for Dry AMD, a common condition and one of the leading causes of blindness, and to restore the functional capacity of hearing and the spine.
Brian explains, "Conceptually, what we're doing is manufacturing the type of cell that has been lost due to aging or disease or trauma, and in doing so, in transplanting those cells, we're looking to restore function. This is what we saw in the setting of the eye, and this is what we're looking to replicate in the setting of the ear."
"Lineage has a fundamental technology that allows us to manufacture these specific cell types. That technology is capable of manufacturing not just auditory neurons and retinal cells, as we talked about today, but we also can manufacture the cells of your spinal cord. We have treated 25 people who suffered a traumatic spinal cord injury, and we are working to replace those cells so that they can regain function, operate their own wheelchair, dress, and feed themselves."
"Everything gets converted, and so we're able to come up with these largely pure populations of specific cell types. We can do it at a meaningful scale. Meaningful meaning you can actually get into a clinical trial and test to see if they work. The hallmark of our technology is being able to manufacture these cells in a way that the FDA expects. Rather than an academic science experiment, we're really trying to think about these as products that are going to reach patients and be used by surgeons and physicians."
@ceo_culley @lineagecell #LineageCellTherapeutics #Biotech #CellTherapy #CellTransplant #RegenerativeMedicine #ReplaceandRestore
lineagecell.com
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Brian Culley is the CEO of Lineage Cell Therapeutics which is developing cell therapy for Dry AMD, a common condition and one of the leading causes of blindness, and to restore the functional capacity of hearing and the spine.
Brian explains, "Conceptually, what we're doing is manufacturing the type of cell that has been lost due to aging or disease or trauma, and in doing so, in transplanting those cells, we're looking to restore function. This is what we saw in the setting of the eye, and this is what we're looking to replicate in the setting of the ear."
"Lineage has a fundamental technology that allows us to manufacture these specific cell types. That technology is capable of manufacturing not just auditory neurons and retinal cells, as we talked about today, but we also can manufacture the cells of your spinal cord. We have treated 25 people who suffered a traumatic spinal cord injury, and we are working to replace those cells so that they can regain function, operate their own wheelchair, dress, and feed themselves."
"Everything gets converted, and so we're able to come up with these largely pure populations of specific cell types. We can do it at a meaningful scale. Meaningful meaning you can actually get into a clinical trial and test to see if they work. The hallmark of our technology is being able to manufacture these cells in a way that the FDA expects. Rather than an academic science experiment, we're really trying to think about these as products that are going to reach patients and be used by surgeons and physicians."
@ceo_culley @lineagecell #LineageCellTherapeutics #Biotech #CellTherapy #CellTransplant #RegenerativeMedicine #ReplaceandRestore
lineagecell.com
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Alon Ben-Noon is the Co-Founder and CEO of NeuroSense Therapeutics, which is working on ALS therapy and other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. They are working on a disease-modifying drug PrimeC and have identified a large set of biomarkers that are related to ALS progression and the mechanisms of PrimeC.
Alon explains, "Our lead candidate is called PrimeC. It's a novel formulation that consists of two FDA-approved drugs not related to ALS. We found that when these drugs are combined together in unique doses, they had the quality to treat ALS and tackle ALS in several forms. This formulation aims to maximize the synergism that we found to have between these compounds and as I mentioned, to tackle multiple targets in order to eventually create a clinical benefit for the patients."
"We are advancing with identifying biomarkers and progressing there very nicely. We identified a large set of biomarkers that relates both to the disease progression and to the mechanisms of PrimeC. We work on neuron-derived exosomes, and when we first characterize the set of biomarkers that are relevant for us, we also explored how PrimeC, our lead candidate, can create a change in these biomarkers."
@NeuroSenseT #NeuroSense #Neurodegenerative #PrimeC #Biotech #RareDiseases #CNS #ALS #Alzheirmers #AD #Parkinsons #PD #Biomarkers
NeuroSense-TX.com
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Alon Ben-Noon is the Co-Founder and CEO of NeuroSense Therapeutics, which is working on ALS therapy and other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. They are working on a disease-modifying drug PrimeC and have identified a large set of biomarkers that are related to ALS progression and the mechanisms of PrimeC.
Alon explains, "Our lead candidate is called PrimeC. It's a novel formulation that consists of two FDA-approved drugs not related to ALS. We found that when these drugs are combined together in unique doses, they had the quality to treat ALS and tackle ALS in several forms. This formulation aims to maximize the synergism that we found to have between these compounds and as I mentioned, to tackle multiple targets in order to eventually create a clinical benefit for the patients."
"We are advancing with identifying biomarkers and progressing there very nicely. We identified a large set of biomarkers that relates both to the disease progression and to the mechanisms of PrimeC. We work on neuron-derived exosomes, and when we first characterize the set of biomarkers that are relevant for us, we also explored how PrimeC, our lead candidate, can create a change in these biomarkers."
@NeuroSenseT #NeuroSense #Neurodegenerative #PrimeC #Biotech #RareDiseases #CNS #ALS #Alzheirmers #AD #Parkinsons #PD #Biomarkers
NeuroSense-TX.com
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Dr. Maryann Lauletta is the Chief Medical Officer of Dina, re-imagining healthcare with a home-first model using technology and community-based solutions. Their 50-state network provides access to different providers of medical and home setting solutions to aid care coordinators in creating a safe home environment.
Maryann elaborates, "We have to realize that the home is not a controlled setting, as you experience in a hospital setting or a skilled nursing facility. There are a lot of things that pop up that you need to be prepared for. Patients may not have adequate equipment at home, and they may not have adequate access to food, heating, and cooling. There could be pest infestations. They need access to transportation. You need to figure out how to coordinate with sometimes four or five or more different providers and be able to share information about that patient in real-time and on the go. I think that's something we don't always talk about or realize."
"In the hospital, you're not worrying or necessarily even thinking about home modification needs, again, pest control, meal delivery, because you have that all under one roof. It's really been our goal to take into account all of the different needs that patients may encounter in the home and load those types of providers in our network so that we're basically prepared for any service that patients may need to be activated in a short amount of time."
@Dinacare_inc #aginginplace #CareatHome #CareCoordination #CMS #Healthcare #Homecare #PopulationHealth #Providers #RaH #SDoH #SkilledNursing #ValueBasedCare #WorkforceShortage #HealthTechnology #Medtech
Dinacare.com
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Dr. Maryann Lauletta is the Chief Medical Officer of Dina, re-imagining healthcare with a home-first model using technology and community-based solutions. Their 50-state network provides access to different providers of medical and home setting solutions to aid care coordinators in creating a safe home environment.
Maryann elaborates, "We have to realize that the home is not a controlled setting, as you experience in a hospital setting or a skilled nursing facility. There are a lot of things that pop up that you need to be prepared for. Patients may not have adequate equipment at home, and they may not have adequate access to food, heating, and cooling. There could be pest infestations. They need access to transportation. You need to figure out how to coordinate with sometimes four or five or more different providers and be able to share information about that patient in real-time and on the go. I think that's something we don't always talk about or realize."
"In the hospital, you're not worrying or necessarily even thinking about home modification needs, again, pest control, meal delivery, because you have that all under one roof. It's really been our goal to take into account all of the different needs that patients may encounter in the home and load those types of providers in our network so that we're basically prepared for any service that patients may need to be activated in a short amount of time."
@Dinacare_inc #aginginplace #CareatHome #CareCoordination #CMS #Healthcare #Homecare #PopulationHealth #Providers #RaH #SDoH #SkilledNursing #ValueBasedCare #WorkforceShortage #HealthTechnology #Medtech
Dinacare.com
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Enam Noor is the Founder and CEO of Insightin Health, empowering health plans to drive action through connected data. Working with health insurance companies with a focus on direct-to-consumer health plan products, Insightin is creating a data ecosystem that allows access by providers, payers, and patients. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, that data can be used to design treatment plans using their Next Best Action strategy.
Enam explains, "We try to create real-time insight around that information to drive healthier behavior, improve the member engagement, the population health part of preventative care management. In the senior population, when it comes to Medicare, there are a lot of chronic conditions. Preventative care management plays a big role in staying healthy. In general, what our clients expect out of our involvement is building that lifetime member value and are really extracting the best way to be healthier. Then eventually, it's a win-win for everybody."
"Our platform has three main areas in terms of technology. The very first portion is the data connector, where in a very simple way, very quickly, both structured and unstructured data can be digested by our platform. We have machine learning AIs and natural language processing. We can take any sort of data. In healthcare, there's a lot of unstructured data, data that happens in phone conversations or notes field on the EHR."
@InsightinHealth #NextBestAction #HealthIT #AI #ML #MedicareAdvantage #CAPHS
insightinhealth.com
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Enam Noor is the Founder and CEO of Insightin Health, empowering health plans to drive action through connected data. Working with health insurance companies with a focus on direct-to-consumer health plan products, Insightin is creating a data ecosystem that allows access by providers, payers, and patients. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, that data can be used to design treatment plans using their Next Best Action strategy.
Enam explains, "We try to create real-time insight around that information to drive healthier behavior, improve the member engagement, the population health part of preventative care management. In the senior population, when it comes to Medicare, there are a lot of chronic conditions. Preventative care management plays a big role in staying healthy. In general, what our clients expect out of our involvement is building that lifetime member value and are really extracting the best way to be healthier. Then eventually, it's a win-win for everybody."
"Our platform has three main areas in terms of technology. The very first portion is the data connector, where in a very simple way, very quickly, both structured and unstructured data can be digested by our platform. We have machine learning AIs and natural language processing. We can take any sort of data. In healthcare, there's a lot of unstructured data, data that happens in phone conversations or notes field on the EHR."
@InsightinHealth #NextBestAction #HealthIT #AI #ML #MedicareAdvantage #CAPHS
insightinhealth.com
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Michael Smith is the Chief Commercial Officer of Sonendo, a commercial-stage medtech company taking on saving teeth from tooth decay by driving changes in root canal surgery and outcomes. The GentleWave procedure brings innovation to root canal therapy by using a software-controlled fluid management system that can predictably clean and disinfect the inside of the tooth.
Michael elaborates, "If you think about dentistry, you can probably categorize it into three distinct segments -- those companies who move teeth, so the orthodontic companies, those who replace teeth, the implant companies, and then those who are focused on saving teeth. That's really been our focus. Tooth decay's the most prevalent chronic disease globally. So our mission is to save teeth and improve lives."
"I think that the reality is that root canal therapy is an end-stage of the disease state. It starts with something that's much more minor. The alternative really is that the tooth is extracted. So any technology that can improve that patient experience takes away some of the anxiety that patients have around either going to the dentist, the endodontist or having a root canal therapy. You can imagine how easy that is for patients to relate to it. And we feel that not only is this a significant market, but the technology that we have makes a real difference to the patient experience, but also the way the doctors treat it as well."
#Sonendo #GentleWave #GentleWaveProcedure #Endodontics #RootCanal #RootCanalTherapy #RootCanalSurgery #ToothDecay #Teeth #OralHealth
Sonendo.com
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Michael Smith is the Chief Commercial Officer of Sonendo, a commercial-stage medtech company taking on saving teeth from tooth decay by driving changes in root canal surgery and outcomes. The GentleWave procedure brings innovation to root canal therapy by using a software-controlled fluid management system that can predictably clean and disinfect the inside of the tooth.
Michael elaborates, "If you think about dentistry, you can probably categorize it into three distinct segments -- those companies who move teeth, so the orthodontic companies, those who replace teeth, the implant companies, and then those who are focused on saving teeth. That's really been our focus. Tooth decay's the most prevalent chronic disease globally. So our mission is to save teeth and improve lives."
"I think that the reality is that root canal therapy is an end-stage of the disease state. It starts with something that's much more minor. The alternative really is that the tooth is extracted. So any technology that can improve that patient experience takes away some of the anxiety that patients have around either going to the dentist, the endodontist or having a root canal therapy. You can imagine how easy that is for patients to relate to it. And we feel that not only is this a significant market, but the technology that we have makes a real difference to the patient experience, but also the way the doctors treat it as well."
#Sonendo #GentleWave #GentleWaveProcedure #Endodontics #RootCanal #RootCanalTherapy #RootCanalSurgery #ToothDecay #Teeth #OralHealth
Sonendo.com
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Dr. John Bellettiere is the assistant professor of epidemiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego. Alexis Garduno is a third-year student in the UC San Diego and San Diego State University joint doctoral program in public health and the first author in a multi-institutional research effort better to understand the impact of physical activity on health. Their recently released study analyzed data about the total steps taken per day, the intensity of the walking, and the risk of development of Type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women. Study results indicated that for each 2,000 additional steps per day, there was a 12% reduction in diabetes risk.
John elaborates, "Well, we set out to understand how steps per day was related to incident diabetes in older women. Long have we known that physical activity is important for the prevention of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But for a long time, we have not been able to measure with good accuracy the everyday movements that people make. Previously, we had to ask individuals how much physical activity do you engage in on a given day. And so, with those self-reports, it's hard for people to remember and give good estimates. And we also don't get high resolution on how many steps they're able to take."
Alexis explains, "We followed these women for up to approximately 6.9 years, and we had questionnaire data about their medical history, which we also validated with a physician diagnosis and showed high agreement between the physician diagnosis and the questionnaire data. And then all of our physical activity measures were taken from these women wearing the accelerometer."
"It's important to think about where you're at and any increase in your daily movement, whether that's remembering to take an extra walk around the block or starting off your morning a little bit more active. All of those steps will make a difference regardless of how active you are at the starting point."
@JohnBellettiere @Garduno_Alexis #Type2Diabetes #Diabetes #HealthyAging #Accelerometer
Study published in Diabetes Care
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Dr. John Bellettiere is the assistant professor of epidemiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego. Alexis Garduno is a third-year student in the UC San Diego and San Diego State University joint doctoral program in public health and the first author in a multi-institutional research effort better to understand the impact of physical activity on health. Their recently released study analyzed data about the total steps taken per day, the intensity of the walking, and the risk of development of Type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women. Study results indicated that for each 2,000 additional steps per day, there was a 12% reduction in diabetes risk.
John elaborates, "Well, we set out to understand how steps per day was related to incident diabetes in older women. Long have we known that physical activity is important for the prevention of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But for a long time, we have not been able to measure with good accuracy the everyday movements that people make. Previously, we had to ask individuals how much physical activity do you engage in on a given day. And so, with those self-reports, it's hard for people to remember and give good estimates. And we also don't get high resolution on how many steps they're able to take."
Alexis explains, "We followed these women for up to approximately 6.9 years, and we had questionnaire data about their medical history, which we also validated with a physician diagnosis and showed high agreement between the physician diagnosis and the questionnaire data. And then all of our physical activity measures were taken from these women wearing the accelerometer."
"It's important to think about where you're at and any increase in your daily movement, whether that's remembering to take an extra walk around the block or starting off your morning a little bit more active. All of those steps will make a difference regardless of how active you are at the starting point."
@JohnBellettiere @Garduno_Alexis #Type2Diabetes #Diabetes #HealthyAging #Accelerometer
Study published in Diabetes Care
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Dr. Katherine Iscoe is the Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Human Imaging. AHI has developed image processing technology for the body, face, and skin along with health-related risk assessment models for their individual healthcare partners. The analysis of these images can identify early warning signs for a wide range of diseases, including determining if a mole on the skin is benign or potentially cancerous.
Katherine explains, "It's big technology in a very small space, that's for sure. We have developed an on-device capturing technology, where we use the phone's camera to capture images of the human body, or it could be the face. And then we take the information that's stored within those images."
"Often, we look at a photograph, and we just think, "That's very pretty." Still, there's so much data within those images, and we use that data to process that information within the device. So that's quite important because the images never leave the device."
"The output of this processing of data is incredibly accurate results. The data can be used to provide biometrics, which is just this fancy word for measurements of the human body. So these could be everything from your waist or your hip circumference, but the combination of these data points can also be used for health risk markers, such as the relationship between your waist and hip. We know that central adiposity is a very strong marker for future metabolic risk, such as syndrome X."
@HumanImaging #HealthTech #FitnessTech #BodyScan #FaceScan #DermaScan #DigitalHealth #MedTech
ahi.tech
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Dr. Katherine Iscoe is the Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Human Imaging. AHI has developed image processing technology for the body, face, and skin along with health-related risk assessment models for their individual healthcare partners. The analysis of these images can identify early warning signs for a wide range of diseases, including determining if a mole on the skin is benign or potentially cancerous.
Katherine explains, "It's big technology in a very small space, that's for sure. We have developed an on-device capturing technology, where we use the phone's camera to capture images of the human body, or it could be the face. And then we take the information that's stored within those images."
"Often, we look at a photograph, and we just think, "That's very pretty." Still, there's so much data within those images, and we use that data to process that information within the device. So that's quite important because the images never leave the device."
"The output of this processing of data is incredibly accurate results. The data can be used to provide biometrics, which is just this fancy word for measurements of the human body. So these could be everything from your waist or your hip circumference, but the combination of these data points can also be used for health risk markers, such as the relationship between your waist and hip. We know that central adiposity is a very strong marker for future metabolic risk, such as syndrome X."
@HumanImaging #HealthTech #FitnessTech #BodyScan #FaceScan #DermaScan #DigitalHealth #MedTech
ahi.tech
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Dr. Travis Mickle is the President and CEO of KemPharm, a clinical clinical-stage specialty pharmaceutical company. KemPharm is building on their successful launch of AZSTARYS for ADHD to treat rare sleep disorders like idiopathic hypersomnia as well as sleep disorders that are a symptom of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Travis explains, "We focused most of our history in the CNS area on a broad base, but idiopathic hypersomnia is now a rare sleep disorder. In the past, we focused on ADHD and pain and larger patient populations. But now, I think, we're focusing more on specific needs of patients with severe, debilitating diseases."
"As an example, our lead product that just got approved last year, AZSTARYS, for ADHD, we thought, well, perhaps it would be better if that product could last longer, as well as have less abuseability."
"That prodrug now makes the basis for our KP1077 for idiopathic hypersomnia. So, you can see how one product can actually have an impact in many different areas when you make a new, improved prodrug form."
@KemPharm #SDX #SleepDisorders #CNS #ADHA #Prodrug #IdiopathicHypersomnia #AZSTARYS #RareDiseases
KemPharm.com
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Dr. Travis Mickle is the President and CEO of KemPharm, a clinical clinical-stage specialty pharmaceutical company. KemPharm is building on their successful launch of AZSTARYS for ADHD to treat rare sleep disorders like idiopathic hypersomnia as well as sleep disorders that are a symptom of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Travis explains, "We focused most of our history in the CNS area on a broad base, but idiopathic hypersomnia is now a rare sleep disorder. In the past, we focused on ADHD and pain and larger patient populations. But now, I think, we're focusing more on specific needs of patients with severe, debilitating diseases."
"As an example, our lead product that just got approved last year, AZSTARYS, for ADHD, we thought, well, perhaps it would be better if that product could last longer, as well as have less abuseability."
"That prodrug now makes the basis for our KP1077 for idiopathic hypersomnia. So, you can see how one product can actually have an impact in many different areas when you make a new, improved prodrug form."
@KemPharm #SDX #SleepDisorders #CNS #ADHA #Prodrug #IdiopathicHypersomnia #AZSTARYS #RareDiseases
KemPharm.com
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John Glasspool is the CEO of Anthos Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on high-risk cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Anthos is developing innovative therapies for treating thrombosis or more commonly known as clots that are caused by a stroke or heart attack. The current agents, while protecting from a clot, also cause more frequent bleeding. The main unmet need is to give protection from the clots while not having the patient bleed.
John explains, "People that are at risk of these are elderly people who obviously have some changes in the dynamics of their vessels. The other area that's of particular common occurrence is in patients undergoing cancer. And even, in fact, the development of a clot sometimes is the first sign for patients with cancer in their disease prognosis and diagnosis."
"We're developing a factor XI agent. In fact, it's a dual activity factor XI and XIa. What that really means from a patient perspective is we believe that we can pharmacologically uncouple the prevention of your pathological thrombosis, your clot, and yet leave intact your normal hemostasis. If you have a bleed, you clot normally, but we don't increase the bleeding by interfering with normal hemostasis. In our ideal world, and we need to prove this clinically, the drug is still in development, we stop clots while not increasing bleeding."
@Anthos_Tx #Abelacimab #Anticoagulant #Thrombosis #Hemostasis
AnthosTherapeutics.com
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John Glasspool is the CEO of Anthos Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on high-risk cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Anthos is developing innovative therapies for treating thrombosis or more commonly known as clots that are caused by a stroke or heart attack. The current agents, while protecting from a clot, also cause more frequent bleeding. The main unmet need is to give protection from the clots while not having the patient bleed.
John explains, "People that are at risk of these are elderly people who obviously have some changes in the dynamics of their vessels. The other area that's of particular common occurrence is in patients undergoing cancer. And even, in fact, the development of a clot sometimes is the first sign for patients with cancer in their disease prognosis and diagnosis."
"We're developing a factor XI agent. In fact, it's a dual activity factor XI and XIa. What that really means from a patient perspective is we believe that we can pharmacologically uncouple the prevention of your pathological thrombosis, your clot, and yet leave intact your normal hemostasis. If you have a bleed, you clot normally, but we don't increase the bleeding by interfering with normal hemostasis. In our ideal world, and we need to prove this clinically, the drug is still in development, we stop clots while not increasing bleeding."
@Anthos_Tx #Abelacimab #Anticoagulant #Thrombosis #Hemostasis
AnthosTherapeutics.com
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Dr. Robert Foster is the CEO and Founder of Hepion Pharmaceutical which is developing Rencofilstat, a drug in the category of cyclophilin inhibition to target cyclophilins a specific type of enzyme that is present in all humans. These cyclophilins perform a number of functions and are responsible to some extent for the formation of collagen which can lead to events like inflammation and scarring of the liver as well as other liver diseases.
Robert explains, "Liver disease is, unfortunately, way too common. A lot of us are used to eating fatty foods, lots of sugars, processed foods, things like that. It tends to lead to fatty liver disease, which is just way too prevalent. We estimate one in four people globally that have a fatty liver. Then if we let it progress by not losing weight, exercising, and doing all the right things from a dietary standpoint and just a general health standpoint, it can lead to something called NASH.
"NASH is an acronym that stands for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. Probably about 20% of people with a fatty liver will develop NASH. Within the North American context as well, probably 5% to 10% of the population will have NASH. NASH is one of the leading causes of the development of liver cancer. Unfortunately, it's a little bit too common, and it's a global problem."
"So, there are all these different cyclophilins that do all these different things in terms of driving disease forward. Rencofilstat is a once-a-day oral medication. By giving this medication to people, our hope sincerely is that we can reverse a lot of the things that are leading to this liver disease."
"But together with myself, we have collectively over 100 years of experience only in this class called cyclophilin inhibition. Really, just about all we know is cyclophilin inhibition, and drugs developed around this whole body of knowledge."
@HepionPharma #LiverDisease #Fibrosis #NASH #NonAlcoholicSteatohepatitis #HCC #Cyclophilins #CyclophilinInhibition
HepionPharma.com
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Dr. Robert Foster is the CEO and Founder of Hepion Pharmaceutical which is developing Rencofilstat, a drug in the category of cyclophilin inhibition to target cyclophilins a specific type of enzyme that is present in all humans. These cyclophilins perform a number of functions and are responsible to some extent for the formation of collagen which can lead to events like inflammation and scarring of the liver as well as other liver diseases.
Robert explains, "Liver disease is, unfortunately, way too common. A lot of us are used to eating fatty foods, lots of sugars, processed foods, things like that. It tends to lead to fatty liver disease, which is just way too prevalent. We estimate one in four people globally that have a fatty liver. Then if we let it progress by not losing weight, exercising, and doing all the right things from a dietary standpoint and just a general health standpoint, it can lead to something called NASH.
"NASH is an acronym that stands for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. Probably about 20% of people with a fatty liver will develop NASH. Within the North American context as well, probably 5% to 10% of the population will have NASH. NASH is one of the leading causes of the development of liver cancer. Unfortunately, it's a little bit too common, and it's a global problem."
"So, there are all these different cyclophilins that do all these different things in terms of driving disease forward. Rencofilstat is a once-a-day oral medication. By giving this medication to people, our hope sincerely is that we can reverse a lot of the things that are leading to this liver disease."
"But together with myself, we have collectively over 100 years of experience only in this class called cyclophilin inhibition. Really, just about all we know is cyclophilin inhibition, and drugs developed around this whole body of knowledge."
@HepionPharma #LiverDisease #Fibrosis #NASH #NonAlcoholicSteatohepatitis #HCC #Cyclophilins #CyclophilinInhibition
HepionPharma.com
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Dave Rosa is the President and CEO of NeuroOne and an entrepreneur with extensive experience in the medical device industry. NeuroOne is developing and commercializing thin-film high-definition electrode technology that can dramatically improve neurosurgery where typically, multiple surgeries are needed for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Using a photolithographic process to print out these circuits is a distinct advantage over the outdated approach to manufacturing electrodes by hand.
Dave elaborates, "Another key piece of what we're looking to accomplish is to really reduce the number of surgeries that a patient has to undergo by combining multiple functions using the same device. So, when I refer to electrode functions, what I'm really talking about is the ability to record electrical activity in the brain, or other areas of the body, stimulate the tissue for therapeutic purposes, or perform an ablation, which is basically destroying problematic tissue that patients would have if they had epilepsy."
"All the commercially available electrodes that are cleared by the FDA are fairly thick and not flexible. That becomes really important, the flexibility and thinness when you're trying to insert these through minimally invasive procedures. So, for example, in the spine, the thinness and flexibility of our device allow you to basically roll it up into a tube and push it through a needle, which is commonly used in back surgery procedures. Or you can create smaller holes in the skull to insert these electrodes, as opposed to having to remove the entire part of the skull."
@N1MTC #Electrodes #ThinFilmElectrodes #ParkinsonsDisease #Neurosurgery #BrainSurgery #Epilepsy #Depression #ChronicBackPain #MedicalDevices
n1mtc.com
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Dave Rosa is the President and CEO of NeuroOne and an entrepreneur with extensive experience in the medical device industry. NeuroOne is developing and commercializing thin-film high-definition electrode technology that can dramatically improve neurosurgery where typically, multiple surgeries are needed for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Using a photolithographic process to print out these circuits is a distinct advantage over the outdated approach to manufacturing electrodes by hand.
Dave elaborates, "Another key piece of what we're looking to accomplish is to really reduce the number of surgeries that a patient has to undergo by combining multiple functions using the same device. So, when I refer to electrode functions, what I'm really talking about is the ability to record electrical activity in the brain, or other areas of the body, stimulate the tissue for therapeutic purposes, or perform an ablation, which is basically destroying problematic tissue that patients would have if they had epilepsy."
"All the commercially available electrodes that are cleared by the FDA are fairly thick and not flexible. That becomes really important, the flexibility and thinness when you're trying to insert these through minimally invasive procedures. So, for example, in the spine, the thinness and flexibility of our device allow you to basically roll it up into a tube and push it through a needle, which is commonly used in back surgery procedures. Or you can create smaller holes in the skull to insert these electrodes, as opposed to having to remove the entire part of the skull."
@N1MTC #Electrodes #ThinFilmElectrodes #ParkinsonsDisease #Neurosurgery #BrainSurgery #Epilepsy #Depression #ChronicBackPain #MedicalDevices
n1mtc.com
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Tim Dyer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Addex Therapeutics, which is focusing on the pharmacology known as allosteric modulation. This emerging class of small molecule drugs known as allosteric modulators is being explored for treating central nervous system and neurologic disorders, particularly movement disorders like dyskinesia associated with Parkinson's and dystonia. Addex did not invent allosteric modulation but is pioneering the screening technologies to find these difficult to locate molecules.
Tim explains, "In the conventional world, which people probably know a lot about, are the orthosteric agonists and antagonists. These molecules are binding to the active site. The way to understand, in simple terms, the difference between an allosteric and an orthosteric drug is to use an analogy of the dimmer light switch."
"If you think about the dimmer light switch, you're initially turning the light on-- that would be the orthosteric agonist. Turning the light off would be the orthosteric antagonist, and what Addex is, is the dimmer. We leave the body in charge of turning the light on, so to speak, and then the Addex, allosteric modulator, if it's a positive modulator, we are really turning up the intensity of the light. If it is a negative modulator, we are turning down the intensity, so we're really modulating the intensity of the signal."
@AddexPharma #AllostericModulators #CNSDrugDiscovery #NeurologicDrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #ParkinsonsDisease #Dyskinesia #Dystonia #Blepharospasm #MovementDisorders
Addextherapeutics.com
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Tim Dyer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Addex Therapeutics, which is focusing on the pharmacology known as allosteric modulation. This emerging class of small molecule drugs known as allosteric modulators is being explored for treating central nervous system and neurologic disorders, particularly movement disorders like dyskinesia associated with Parkinson's and dystonia. Addex did not invent allosteric modulation but is pioneering the screening technologies to find these difficult to locate molecules.
Tim explains, "In the conventional world, which people probably know a lot about, are the orthosteric agonists and antagonists. These molecules are binding to the active site. The way to understand, in simple terms, the difference between an allosteric and an orthosteric drug is to use an analogy of the dimmer light switch."
"If you think about the dimmer light switch, you're initially turning the light on-- that would be the orthosteric agonist. Turning the light off would be the orthosteric antagonist, and what Addex is, is the dimmer. We leave the body in charge of turning the light on, so to speak, and then the Addex, allosteric modulator, if it's a positive modulator, we are really turning up the intensity of the light. If it is a negative modulator, we are turning down the intensity, so we're really modulating the intensity of the signal."
@AddexPharma #AllostericModulators #CNSDrugDiscovery #NeurologicDrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #ParkinsonsDisease #Dyskinesia #Dystonia #Blepharospasm #MovementDisorders
Addextherapeutics.com
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Erica Jain is the Co-Founder and CEO of Healthie, a software as a service (SaaS) platform and family of APIs that allow healthcare providers to move more easily to a digital environment to interact with patients.
Erica explains, "Healthie serves organizations in over 25 specialties and verticals and healthcare. We got started in the nutrition and behavioral health space, and we have thousands of dietitians and health coaches that use our platform to deliver longitudinal care. We also work with digital healthcare startups, universities, and grocery stores, all of whom are popping up in scaling these virtual first experiences."
"The beauty of the problem that we solve is that companies are able to come to us, save two years and millions of dollars to prop up and scale the virtual care delivery. And by virtue of us having both an out-of-the-box solution, but coupling that with an API first experience means that really, we're able to see our organizations get started with us, experiment with us, and figure out how they want to deliver clinical care and clinical outcomes. They can also leverage our API to create, over time, those pixel-perfect experiences that they want to deliver to their clients."
@GetHealthie @EricaAJain #DigitalHealth #MedTech #SaaS #VirtualCare #Startups #Healthcare
gethealthie.com
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Erica Jain is the Co-Founder and CEO of Healthie, a software as a service (SaaS) platform and family of APIs that allow healthcare providers to move more easily to a digital environment to interact with patients.
Erica explains, "Healthie serves organizations in over 25 specialties and verticals and healthcare. We got started in the nutrition and behavioral health space, and we have thousands of dietitians and health coaches that use our platform to deliver longitudinal care. We also work with digital healthcare startups, universities, and grocery stores, all of whom are popping up in scaling these virtual first experiences."
"The beauty of the problem that we solve is that companies are able to come to us, save two years and millions of dollars to prop up and scale the virtual care delivery. And by virtue of us having both an out-of-the-box solution, but coupling that with an API first experience means that really, we're able to see our organizations get started with us, experiment with us, and figure out how they want to deliver clinical care and clinical outcomes. They can also leverage our API to create, over time, those pixel-perfect experiences that they want to deliver to their clients."
@GetHealthie @EricaAJain #DigitalHealth #MedTech #SaaS #VirtualCare #Startups #Healthcare
gethealthie.com
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Eric Adams is the CEO and President of InMed Pharmaceuticals, exploring the benefits of rare cannabinoids from the cannabis plant. We have these naturally occurring cannabinoids in our body and a number of receptors throughout our body that respond to this class of compounds. Because these rare cannabinoids exist in low quantities in the plant, they have been hard to isolate or extract, which has limited research into their therapeutic value. InMed has developed ways to economically manufacture bioidentical compounds and investigate potential benefits for treating eye and skin disorders.
Eric elaborates, "InMed Pharmaceuticals is a global leader in the manufacturing, clinical development, and commercialization of non-intoxicating, rare cannabinoids. We have two branches to the company. One is the pharmaceutical drug development program where we're taking the traditional clinical trial, FDA pathway approach to bringing important medicines to market for hard t treat diseases. On the other hand, we also have a group that is manufacturing rare cannabinoids for the health and wellness space, so things that will be sold over the counter, such as the CBD mark t, for instance. Those two sides are joined by manufacturing know-how and a general understanding of this class of compounds that we call rare cannabinoids."
@InMedPharma #cannabinoids #rarecannabinoids #rarecannabinoid #cannabinol #CBN #glaucoma #minorcannabinoids #ophthalmology #epidermolysisbullosa #rarediseases #science #pharma
InMedPharma.com
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Eric Adams is the CEO and President of InMed Pharmaceuticals, exploring the benefits of rare cannabinoids from the cannabis plant. We have these naturally occurring cannabinoids in our body and a number of receptors throughout our body that respond to this class of compounds. Because these rare cannabinoids exist in low quantities in the plant, they have been hard to isolate or extract, which has limited research into their therapeutic value. InMed has developed ways to economically manufacture bioidentical compounds and investigate potential benefits for treating eye and skin disorders.
Eric elaborates, "InMed Pharmaceuticals is a global leader in the manufacturing, clinical development, and commercialization of non-intoxicating, rare cannabinoids. We have two branches to the company. One is the pharmaceutical drug development program where we're taking the traditional clinical trial, FDA pathway approach to bringing important medicines to market for hard t treat diseases. On the other hand, we also have a group that is manufacturing rare cannabinoids for the health and wellness space, so things that will be sold over the counter, such as the CBD mark t, for instance. Those two sides are joined by manufacturing know-how and a general understanding of this class of compounds that we call rare cannabinoids."
@InMedPharma #cannabinoids #rarecannabinoids #rarecannabinoid #cannabinol #CBN #glaucoma #minorcannabinoids #ophthalmology #epidermolysisbullosa #rarediseases #science #pharma
InMedPharma.com
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Natasha Drapeau is the Executive Vice President of BioSig Technologies, pioneers in advanced biomedical signal processing solutions that will unlock the future of bioelectronic medicine, starting with the PURE EP™ System and their work on common and complex cardiac arrhythmia. Approximately more than half of patients diagnosed with this heart rhythm disorder have AFib. The BioSig noninvasive technology works with all the systems generating data to get an entire cardiac picture for diagnosis and performing a cardiac ablation procedure.
Natasha explains, "What we're focusing on with our technology is really to prevent that signal distortion. That's happening both through our different hardware architecture and the software algorithms. We focus on delivering a much cleaner, more detailed cardiac picture displayed to the physician in real-time."
"But also, we're uncovering a lot of diagnostic data that was simply not there before. We have side-by-side comparisons because we have other technology in support at the same time as PURE EP. I believe we have an opportunity there to give that better, more comprehensive cardiac picture to physicians, and that could lead to a transformation of care."
@BioSig_Tech #MedTech #MedicalTechnology #Afib #AtrialFibrillation #AfibAwareness #Electrophysiology #Epeeps #GlobalEP #AF #Ablation #Cardiology #CardioTwitter #HeartHealth #BioelectronicMedicine
BioSig.com
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Natasha Drapeau is the Executive Vice President of BioSig Technologies, pioneers in advanced biomedical signal processing solutions that will unlock the future of bioelectronic medicine, starting with the PURE EP™ System and their work on common and complex cardiac arrhythmia. Approximately more than half of patients diagnosed with this heart rhythm disorder have AFib. The BioSig noninvasive technology works with all the systems generating data to get an entire cardiac picture for diagnosis and performing a cardiac ablation procedure.
Natasha explains, "What we're focusing on with our technology is really to prevent that signal distortion. That's happening both through our different hardware architecture and the software algorithms. We focus on delivering a much cleaner, more detailed cardiac picture displayed to the physician in real-time."
"But also, we're uncovering a lot of diagnostic data that was simply not there before. We have side-by-side comparisons because we have other technology in support at the same time as PURE EP. I believe we have an opportunity there to give that better, more comprehensive cardiac picture to physicians, and that could lead to a transformation of care."
@BioSig_Tech #MedTech #MedicalTechnology #AFib #AtrialFibrillation #AfibAwareness #Electrophysiology #Epeeps #GlobalEP #AF #Ablation #Cardiology #CardioTwitter #HeartHealth #BioelectronicMedicine
BioSig.com
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Sylvia Hastanan is the CEO and Founder of Greater Good Health and shines a light on the experience and new skills that nurse practitioners have developed as a result of the demand for virtual care during the pandemic. Sylvia wants to empower and train NPs as primary care providers to provide more access to underserved communities and to promote a stronger partnership between nurse practitioners and physicians to handle the ever-increasing demand for chronic and senior healthcare.
Sylvia explains, "Greater Good Health is building a medical group of nurse practitioners simply with a mission to expand more access to care to people who need it. We believe in supporting nurse practitioners, who we think have been an overlooked and maybe underutilized resource in healthcare, and nurse practitioners specifically as primary care providers."
"Well, my background has always been in healthcare and provider services. I worked for organizations across the United States that supported physician groups, primary care physician groups specifically. And I watched as NPs worked alongside physicians. I watched as physicians continued to be burnt out and struggled with caseloads, patient caseloads, and 35 patients in a day and only seeing them for minutes at a time."
#GGH #GreaterGoodHealth #NursePractitioner #NP #Healthcare #COVID #Pandemic
GreaterGoodHealth.com
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Sylvia Hastanan is the CEO and Founder of Greater Good Health and shines a light on the experience and new skills that nurse practitioners have developed as a result of the demand for virtual care during the pandemic. Sylvia wants to empower and train NPs as primary care providers to provide more access to underserved communities and to promote a stronger partnership between nurse practitioners and physicians to handle the ever-increasing demand for chronic and senior healthcare.
Sylvia explains, "Greater Good Health is building a medical group of nurse practitioners simply with a mission to expand more access to care to people who need it. We believe in supporting nurse practitioners, who we think have been an overlooked and maybe underutilized resource in healthcare, and nurse practitioners specifically as primary care providers."
"Well, my background has always been in healthcare and provider services. I worked for organizations across the United States that supported physician groups, primary care physician groups specifically. And I watched as NPs worked alongside physicians. I watched as physicians continued to be burnt out and struggled with caseloads, patient caseloads, and 35 patients in a day and only seeing them for minutes at a time."
#GGH #GreaterGoodHealth #NursePractitioner #NP #Healthcare #COVID #Pandemic
GreaterGoodHealth.com
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Dr. Adam Kaplin is the Chief Scientific Officer of MyMD Pharmaceuticals which is developing a drug that gets to the cause of inflammation. Since chronic inflammation is a factor in pathological aging, managing inflammation shows opportunities for slowing aging. Their lead drug MyMD-1 is a TNF-a inhibitor that can cross the blood-brain barrier and treat the brain where other anti-TNF-a treatments do not.
Adam explains, "By delaying aging, what I mean is they not only lived longer, but they didn't lose their function. So, they retained their strength and their cognition. Because if we were only developing a drug that would just allow us all to get older and demented, that wouldn't be good for the economy, good for our personal health, good for anybody. So really, what we're excited about is the prospect of actually slowing the aging process and extending the healthy portion of our lifespans."
"So, aging probably is going to end up being the result of two primary processes. One is inflammation, and that is the product of having an immune system which is all set up to fight off infection. And not just fight off infection -- it turns out, inflammation is also a part of how we develop."
"The second most important thing I think is that these drugs, the anti-TNF-a treatments like HUMIRA, do not have any benefit for the brain. I mean, they can cause things that look like MS, but they certainly have no benefit for CNS inflammatory conditions. And among those are MS, lupus, but also dementias. Alzheimer's now has been implicated to have inflammation involved. So, crossing over the blood-brain barrier's a big deal. It's orally available. Additionally, all the other TNF-a inhibitors have to be taken by a needle in some way, injection or infusion."
@MyMDPharma #Health #Medical #Aging #Lifespan #Sarcopenia #Immunology #Immunesystem #Inflammation #Cytokines #CytokineStorm #TNFa #BloodBrainBarrier
MyMD.com
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Dr. Adam Kaplin is the Chief Scientific Officer of MyMD Pharmaceuticals which is developing a drug that gets to the cause of inflammation. Since chronic inflammation is a factor in pathological aging, managing inflammation shows opportunities for slowing aging. Their lead drug MyMD-1 is a TNF-a inhibitor that can cross the blood-brain barrier and treat the brain where other anti-TNF-a treatments do not.
Adam explains, "By delaying aging, what I mean is they not only lived longer, but they didn't lose their function. So, they retained their strength and their cognition. Because if we were only developing a drug that would just allow us all to get older and demented, that wouldn't be good for the economy, good for our personal health, good for anybody. So really, what we're excited about is the prospect of actually slowing the aging process and extending the healthy portion of our lifespans."
"So, aging probably is going to end up being the result of two primary processes. One is inflammation, and that is the product of having an immune system which is all set up to fight off infection. And not just fight off infection -- it turns out, inflammation is also a part of how we develop."
"The second most important thing I think is that these drugs, the anti-TNF-a treatments like HUMIRA, do not have any benefit for the brain. I mean, they can cause things that look like MS, but they certainly have no benefit for CNS inflammatory conditions. And among those are MS, lupus, but also dementias. Alzheimer's now has been implicated to have inflammation involved. So, crossing over the blood-brain barrier's a big deal. It's orally available. Additionally, all the other TNF-a inhibitors have to be taken by a needle in some way, injection or infusion."
@MyMDPharma #Health #Medical #Aging #Lifespan #Sarcopenia #Immunology #Immunesystem #Inflammation #Cytokines #CytokineStorm #TNFa #BloodBrainBarrier
MyMD.com
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Dr. Jens Bjørheim is the Chief Medical Officer at Ultimovacs which is taking advantage of the environment for R&D in the science around cancer vaccines in the Oslo region of Norway. Ultimovacs is working with peptide vaccines and long peptides. These peptides will drive for a specific subgroup of immune cells called the CD4 cells, or the helper cells, which coordinate the immune attack against infection and cancer.
Jens explains, "In some patients, they do not have the sufficient number or repertoire of immune cells that are needed to kill off the whole tumor. And we believe that adding T-cells or immune cells that can recognize specific things in the tumors, like in our case, an enzyme called telomerase, can benefit the patients in the future. So the checkpoint inhibitors on one side, they allow the immune system to kill off the cancer. On the other side, the immune system sometimes needs more help. There need to be more T-cells and more differentiation among the T-cells to really cure people from cancer."
"In our vaccine, we have sequences from an enzyme called telomerase. Why do we target telomerase? Well, in all cancers, they need to have a strategy for eternal cell division, and 85% to 90% of all cancers have turned on this enzyme, telomerase, which allows them, at least in theory, to divide forever. So this is an essential enzyme for the tumor cells. They cannot turn off this enzyme because if they do so, they cannot divide anymore, so we are targeting one of the core and essential features of the cancer."
@Ultimovacs #Ultimovacs #Telomerase #Immunotherapy #CD4Cells #CancerVaccine #Cancer #CheckpointInhibitor
Ultimovacs.com
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Dr. Jens Bjørheim is the Chief Medical Officer at Ultimovacs which is taking advantage of the environment for R&D in the science around cancer vaccines in the Oslo region of Norway. Ultimovacs is working with peptide vaccines and long peptides. These peptides will drive for a specific subgroup of immune cells called the CD4 cells, or the helper cells, which coordinate the immune attack against infection and cancer.
Jens explains, "In some patients, they do not have the sufficient number or repertoire of immune cells that are needed to kill off the whole tumor. And we believe that adding T-cells or immune cells that can recognize specific things in the tumors, like in our case, an enzyme called telomerase, can benefit the patients in the future. So the checkpoint inhibitors on one side, they allow the immune system to kill off the cancer. On the other side, the immune system sometimes needs more help. There need to be more T-cells and more differentiation among the T-cells to really cure people from cancer."
"In our vaccine, we have sequences from an enzyme called telomerase. Why do we target telomerase? Well, in all cancers, they need to have a strategy for eternal cell division, and 85% to 90% of all cancers have turned on this enzyme, telomerase, which allows them, at least in theory, to divide forever. So this is an essential enzyme for the tumor cells. They cannot turn off this enzyme because if they do so, they cannot divide anymore, so we are targeting one of the core and essential features of the cancer."
@Ultimovacs #Ultimovacs #Telomerase #Immunotherapy #CD4Cells #CancerVaccine #Cancer #CheckpointInhibitor
Ultimovacs.com
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Anthony Capone is President of DocGo and brings his background in computational learning theory and artificial intelligence to the world of mobile medical solutions. By creating a robust routing and dispatch system integrated with first responders and up-trained lower-cost healthcare providers, DocGo is able to treat patients in emergency situations as well as provide on-site and at-home comprehensive healthcare.
Anthony explains, "Just in the past couple of years, the acceptance in a community for point-of-care tests for COVID really changed the landscape. However, COVID is one thing. The key component is that now people are more receptive to that idea, and there's a lot more investment from them going in. So things where you normally would have to drive to a lab and have to wait a couple of days to get your results, you can now do a point-of-care test right then and there. So if you combine that together with a remote diagnostic system, then what you end up getting is care that might have taken three episodes, three encounters, can be done in one encounter."
"Well, one of the biggest ways to reduce that cost of care for them is to keep the patients out of the emergency room. And who can keep them out of the emergency room? Well, it's a rare person who can actually go and have somebody who can respond rapidly to an urgent care visit and prevent that patient from actually going into the emergency room, and we're in that position. So physicians want to work with us, especially those that are on some sort of capitated type risk-based arrangement like an ACO."
#DocGo #Ambulnz #DocGoMobileHealth #MobileTesting #MobileHealthcare #HealthcareAI #InnovationInHealthcare #AI #HealthcareTechnology
DocGo.com
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Anthony Capone is President of DocGo and brings his background in computational learning theory and artificial intelligence to the world of mobile medical solutions. By creating a robust routing and dispatch system integrated with first responders and up-trained lower-cost healthcare providers, DocGo is able to treat patients in emergency situations as well as provide on-site and at-home comprehensive healthcare.
Anthony explains, "Just in the past couple of years, the acceptance in a community for point-of-care tests for COVID really changed the landscape. However, COVID is one thing. The key component is that now people are more receptive to that idea, and there's a lot more investment from them going in. So things where you normally would have to drive to a lab and have to wait a couple of days to get your results, you can now do a point-of-care test right then and there. So if you combine that together with a remote diagnostic system, then what you end up getting is care that might have taken three episodes, three encounters, can be done in one encounter."
"Well, one of the biggest ways to reduce that cost of care for them is to keep the patients out of the emergency room. And who can keep them out of the emergency room? Well, it's a rare person who can actually go and have somebody who can respond rapidly to an urgent care visit and prevent that patient from actually going into the emergency room, and we're in that position. So physicians want to work with us, especially those that are on some sort of capitated type risk-based arrangement like an ACO."
#DocGo #Ambulnz #DocGoMobileHealth #MobileTesting #MobileHealthcare #HealthcareAI #InnovationInHealthcare #AI #HealthcareTechnology
DocGo.com
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Anish Sebastian is the CEO and Co-Founder of Babyscripts, which is focused on improving prenatal and postpartum care for mothers and their newborns. Using remote monitoring and a robust digital environment, low and high-risk pregnancies are supported with virtual care as well as in-office appointments. Babyscripts works with care teams, providers, healthcare providers, OBGYNs, nurse midwives, nurses, and the whole care continuum to improve access to and quality of care.
Anish explains, "So this was sort of our moment to provide the market with tools that could really help improve access. One of the things that we do is remote patient monitoring for blood pressure for high and low-risk moms. And that is such an important and pivotal thing in prenatal and postpartum care. So providers across the nation, a lot of our practices that we work with said, Hey, Babyscripts, how can we work together to still give good quality care and maintain access, but handle some of the shortages that we knew were going to come."
"Highly compliant, fully engaged patient, in the old way of doing things, would show up to an office appointment 12 to 14 times. So, over the course of that pregnancy, we're looking at 12 to 14 data points, blood pressure data points."
"Compare that to us collecting that data from home. We're shipping them a blood pressure cuff, it's Bluetooth enabled, and they can take it, in certain instances, every single day. Or at least every single week. So there is a much higher order of magnitude difference of data that we're collecting, and also creating more and more real-time instances to identify risk and ultimately intervene. We're catching things quicker and allowing care teams to intervene quicker."
@Babyscripts #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #MaternalHealth #RemoteMonitoring #Prenatal #Startup
Babyscripts.com
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Anish Sebastian is the CEO and Co-Founder of Babyscripts, which is focused on improving prenatal and postpartum care for mothers and their newborns. Using remote monitoring and a robust digital environment, low and high-risk pregnancies are supported with virtual care as well as in-office appointments. Babyscripts works with care teams, providers, healthcare providers, OBGYNs, nurse midwives, nurses, and the whole care continuum to improve access to and quality of care.
Anish explains, "So this was sort of our moment to provide the market with tools that could really help improve access. One of the things that we do is remote patient monitoring for blood pressure for high and low-risk moms. And that is such an important and pivotal thing in prenatal and postpartum care. So providers across the nation, a lot of our practices that we work with said, Hey, Babyscripts, how can we work together to still give good quality care and maintain access, but handle some of the shortages that we knew were going to come."
"Highly compliant, fully engaged patient, in the old way of doing things, would show up to an office appointment 12 to 14 times. So, over the course of that pregnancy, we're looking at 12 to 14 data points, blood pressure data points."
"Compare that to us collecting that data from home. We're shipping them a blood pressure cuff, it's Bluetooth enabled, and they can take it, in certain instances, every single day. Or at least every single week. So there is a much higher order of magnitude difference of data that we're collecting, and also creating more and more real-time instances to identify risk and ultimately intervene. We're catching things quicker and allowing care teams to intervene quicker."
@Babyscripts #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #MaternalHealth #RemoteMonitoring #Prenatal #Startup
Babyscripts.com
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Lynn Carroll is the Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox and is in the business of helping payers and providers move from a fee-for-service to a value-based model. One of the critical challenges in scaling these solutions so that they can work with legacy systems and provide data and performance metrics to determine and improve outcomes in the value-based arena.
Lynn explains, "So, as we think about the overall landscape of healthcare that traditionally has been on a fee-for-service basis, the legacy systems on both the payer and provider sides have been geared toward billing and transactional mechanisms. Submitting claims and getting paid based upon those claims is a very fragmented approach."
"And what we have noticed is that the ability to operationalize these value-based programs with the legacy system is a challenge. Both hierarchically in terms of which providers are participating, what population is assigned, but also in the funding pool management, whether they're from employers, from commercial payers, from Medicare Advantage, or state programs, Medicaid, children's health. Keeping the funding pools straight, managing the associated risk corridors, and then ultimately reporting performance is not how the traditional systems have been geared in the past."
@Blox_HS #communityhealth #healthcare #healthequity #homehealthcare #managedcare #SDoH #valuebasedadministration #VBC #valuebasedcare
HSBlox.com
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Lynn Carroll is the Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox and is in the business of helping payers and providers move from a fee-for-service to a value-based model. One of the critical challenges in scaling these solutions so that they can work with legacy systems and provide data and performance metrics to determine and improve outcomes in the value-based arena.
Lynn explains, "So, as we think about the overall landscape of healthcare that traditionally has been on a fee-for-service basis, the legacy systems on both the payer and provider sides have been geared toward billing and transactional mechanisms. Submitting claims and getting paid based upon those claims is a very fragmented approach."
"And what we have noticed is that the ability to operationalize these value-based programs with the legacy system is a challenge. Both hierarchically in terms of which providers are participating, what population is assigned, but also in the funding pool management, whether they're from employers, from commercial payers, from Medicare Advantage, or state programs, Medicaid, children's health. Keeping the funding pools straight, managing the associated risk corridors, and then ultimately reporting performance is not how the traditional systems have been geared in the past."
@Blox_HS #communityhealth #healthcare #healthequity #homehealthcare #managedcare #SDoH #valuebasedadministration #VBC #valuebasedcare
HSBlox.com
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Craig Parker is the CEO of Surrozen, experts in the Wnt pathway which is one of the fundamental pathways that help to establish the structure of organs, renewal of stem cells, and recovery from injury. This is a story of discovering the right combination of their tissue-specific approach and the right molecules to enhance or activate the Wnt pathway.
Craig elaborates, "So, in the liver, for example, when we injure our liver by drinking too much alcohol, the Wnt pathway is activated and is really the key pathway that's responsible for the regeneration that we're all able to stimulate in our liver."
"There are many, many other organs where the Wnt pathway is known to play a role in how that particular organ is maintained and responds to injury. So, what we're trying to do is take advantage of that biology that's so important in all of us during development and in adulthood and to stimulate it in a very selective way to get organs like the liver or the intestine or the retina to regenerate in response to the injury that certain diseases caused to that tissue."
"When you have biology that's so powerful, and that is so relevant in different organs, the challenge, really, probably the most fundamental challenge, is to utilize it or activate it only in the tissue that you want, only in the tissue that you're targeting for a specific disease. We don't want to activate this pathway throughout the body. So, it's that selective approach that really distinguishes our technology and our approach, and that was really an impediment to utilizing this pathway over the last 30 years."
#Surrozen #WntPathway #Wnt #WntBiology #WntSignaling #SevereAlcoholicHepatitis #LiverCells #IBD #TissueRepair #Biotech #FrizzledReceptors #ZincFIngers #ClinicalDevelopment
Surrozen.com
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Craig Parker is the CEO of Surrozen, experts in the Wnt pathway, which is one of the fundamental pathways that help to establish the structure of organs, renewal of stem cells, and recovery from injury. This is a story of discovering the right combination of their tissue-specific approach and the right molecules to enhance or activate the Wnt pathway.
Craig elaborates, "So, in the liver, for example, when we injure our liver by drinking too much alcohol, the Wnt pathway is activated and is really the key pathway that's responsible for the regeneration that we're all able to stimulate in our liver."
"There are many, many other organs where the Wnt pathway is known to play a role in how that particular organ is maintained and responds to injury. So, what we're trying to do is take advantage of that biology that's so important in all of us during development and in adulthood and to stimulate it in a very selective way to get organs like the liver or the intestine or the retina to regenerate in response to the injury that certain diseases caused to that tissue."
"When you have biology that's so powerful, and that is so relevant in different organs, the challenge, really, probably the most fundamental challenge, is to utilize it or activate it only in the tissue that you want, only in the tissue that you're targeting for a specific disease. We don't want to activate this pathway throughout the body. So, it's that selective approach that really distinguishes our technology and our approach, and that was really an impediment to utilizing this pathway over the last 30 years."
#Surrozen #WntPathway #Wnt #WntBiology #WntSignaling #SevereAlcoholicHepatitis #LiverCells #IBD #TissueRepair #Biotech #FrizzledReceptors #ZincFIngers #ClinicalDevelopment
Surrozen.com
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George Georgallides is the Founder of Basis, a start-up that is taking an advanced view of helping patients achieve better health and reach health and fitness goals. Integrating data from a wide range of sources, Basis is striving for a real-time approach to engaging patients in making small but significant adjustments as they go through their day.
George explains, "So, what we've essentially built is the unique integrative approach to help them that combines all this information that we're getting. We're actually addressing and combining it with workout, nutrition, mindfulness, and sleep in one platform. Those are things that exist in silos. The data exists in unstructured and incomprehensible ways for the person."
"We've structured all those things around specific health goals. My background is in bioinformatics. My team is data scientists and health experts from universities and programs. So, we have an amazing team, and we've been able to build very interesting models around data that most people don't really have much use for. Most people don't really understand how to put a resting heart rate or heart rate variability as a number into affecting their day-to-day life. So, we take that obscurity of that, and we put that into a specific, actionable task. So, how does it influence recovery? How does your sleep last night influence how you should eat, exercise, the level of activity you have today?
@Basis_Health #Healthcare #Fitness #WearableTech #DigitalHealth #HealthandWellness #AI #Startups #Entrepreneur
BasisHealth.io
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George Georgallides is the Founder of Basis, a start-up that is taking an advanced view of helping patients achieve better health and reach health and fitness goals. Integrating data from a wide range of sources, Basis is striving for a real-time approach to engaging patients in making small but significant adjustments as they go through their day.
George explains, "So, what we've essentially built is the unique integrative approach to help them that combines all this information that we're getting. We're actually addressing and combining it with workout, nutrition, mindfulness, and sleep in one platform. Those are things that exist in silos. The data exists in unstructured and incomprehensible ways for the person."
"We've structured all those things around specific health goals. My background is in bioinformatics. My team is data scientists and health experts from universities and programs. So, we have an amazing team, and we've been able to build very interesting models around data that most people don't really have much use for. Most people don't really understand how to put a resting heart rate or heart rate variability as a number into affecting their day-to-day life. So, we take that obscurity of that, and we put that into a specific, actionable task. So, how does it influence recovery? How does your sleep last night influence how you should eat, exercise, the level of activity you have today?
@Basis_Health #Healthcare #Fitness #WearableTech #DigitalHealth #HealthandWellness #AI #Startups #Entrepreneur
BasisHealth.io
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Dr. Jim Feng is the CEO and Founder of Phyxable which is serving up curated content specific to an injury or chronic condition to help patients overcome physical pain. Using a virtual approach, Phyxable is engaging patients with gamification and social media type notifications to keep people on a plan and encourage them to not drop off.
Jim elaborates, "We actually combine it with some machine learning algorithms to personalize the solution for you. And along the way, we also found that good guidance and coaching still play a good part in recovery, so we provide that service as well."
"And the last point, we're actually building on the high technology side in the augmented reality part. So, there's one side to understanding where you're at and what you need to do. But the other aspect of it is checking in to make sure you're actually doing it right on a daily basis. We're utilizing augmented reality technology just on your phone camera in order to provide the feedback in real-time."
@Phyxable #Health #Pain #Telehealth #Physiotherapy #Chiropractic #PhysicalTherapy #OnlineCoaching #OnlineCoach #OnlineTherapy #Entrepreneur
Phyxable.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Jim Feng is the CEO and Founder of Phyxable which is serving up curated content specific to an injury or chronic condition to help patients overcome physical pain. Using a virtual approach, Phyxable is engaging patients with gamification and social media type notifications to keep people on a plan and encourage them to not drop off.
Jim elaborates, "We actually combine it with some machine learning algorithms to personalize the solution for you. And along the way, we also found that good guidance and coaching still play a good part in recovery, so we provide that service as well."
"And the last point, we're actually building on the high technology side in the augmented reality part. So, there's one side to understanding where you're at and what you need to do. But the other aspect of it is checking in to make sure you're actually doing it right on a daily basis. We're utilizing augmented reality technology just on your phone camera in order to provide the feedback in real-time."
@Phyxable #Health #Pain #Telehealth #Physiotherapy #Chiropractic #PhysicalTherapy #OnlineCoaching #OnlineCoach #OnlineTherapy #Entrepreneur
Phyxable.com
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Dr. Ketan Patel is the Chief Medical Officer at SyTrue which has taken on the challenge of modernizing the exchange of information between providers and insurance companies. Transitioning from a traditional system designed for reactive healthcare to one of preventative care means information flow and analysis need to change as well.
Ketan explains, "As we start thinking about healthcare in the next few decades, it's really about receiving value back from the money we see spent. It's about getting involved earlier, looking at those risk factors at a really early stage when the intervention can cost a 10th or a 20th of what it might cost later in life. And that's a paradigm shift, and our systems aren't really created for that. They were never designed for that kind of thinking. And we now realize this is important, and we have to do this. This is where there's a need for technology to get to that information, but there's also a need to look at that information differently."
"So, structured data, I'll start with that one, is information that is very succinct, it's defined. It's like a measurement coming off of a machine. It's easy to put that piece of information or data into a field inside of a computer or in a database.
"Unstructured information is things like a narrative note, a consultation report from a specialist that a patient goes and sees, and at the end of it, could be a five or six-page note. And there's a lot of words, a lot of phrases, a lot of paragraphs. Intermixed inside of that could also be other types of information like lab information, imaging report information, or a genetic study, for example."
@SyTrue #SyTrue #UnstructuredData #NLP #NaturalLanguageProcessing #COVID #DigitalHealth #MedTech #ElectronicHealthRecords
sytrue.com
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Dr. Ketan Patel is the Chief Medical Officer at SyTrue which has taken on the challenge of modernizing the exchange of information between providers and insurance companies. Transitioning from a traditional system designed for reactive healthcare to one of preventative care means information flow and analysis need to change as well.
Ketan explains, "As we start thinking about healthcare in the next few decades, it's really about receiving value back from the money we see spent. It's about getting involved earlier, looking at those risk factors at a really early stage when the intervention can cost a 10th or a 20th of what it might cost later in life. And that's a paradigm shift, and our systems aren't really created for that. They were never designed for that kind of thinking. And we now realize this is important, and we have to do this. This is where there's a need for technology to get to that information, but there's also a need to look at that information differently."
"So, structured data, I'll start with that one, is information that is very succinct, it's defined. It's like a measurement coming off of a machine. It's easy to put that piece of information or data into a field inside of a computer or in a database.
"Unstructured information is things like a narrative note, a consultation report from a specialist that a patient goes and sees, and at the end of it, could be a five or six-page note. And there's a lot of words, a lot of phrases, a lot of paragraphs. Intermixed inside of that could also be other types of information like lab information, imaging report information, or a genetic study, for example."
@SyTrue #SyTrue #UnstructuredData #NLP #NaturalLanguageProcessing #COVID #DigitalHealth #MedTech #ElectronicHealthRecords
sytrue.com
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Dr. Josh Liu is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeamlessMD is working with care providers to safely discharge patients home sooner by at-home monitoring to track progress and reduce readmission rates. This allows hospitals to free up beds so they can actually see more patients, get more surgeries and other inpatient care done sooner.
Josh elaborates, "Where SeamlessMD is differentiated from other patient engagement solutions is that we think of ourselves as more of a digital care journey platform. So the idea is that we work with hospitals and health systems to engage, monitor, and stay connected with patients across this entire healthcare journey when you're going through something like a surgery, a cancer journey, or chronic care journey."
"The funny thing is when we first started SeamlessMD about nine years ago, just by chance, we focused initially on the older, higher risk, the complex patient population in their sixties, seventies, or eighties. So from day one, we had chosen to design this for the most challenged population when it comes to technology. Because of that, it's now very easy for all populations to use. And so we see all ages from the early twenties all the way up to the nineties."
@SeamlessMD #SeamlessMD #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
seamless.md
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Dr. Josh Liu is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeamlessMD is working with care providers to safely discharge patients home sooner by at-home monitoring to track progress and reduce readmission rates. This allows hospitals to free up beds so they can actually see more patients, get more surgeries and other inpatient care done sooner.
Josh elaborates, "Where SeamlessMD is differentiated from other patient engagement solutions is that we think of ourselves as more of a digital care journey platform. So the idea is that we work with hospitals and health systems to engage, monitor, and stay connected with patients across this entire healthcare journey when you're going through something like a surgery, a cancer journey, or chronic care journey."
"The funny thing is when we first started SeamlessMD about nine years ago, just by chance, we focused initially on the older, higher risk, the complex patient population in their sixties, seventies, or eighties. So from day one, we had chosen to design this for the most challenged population when it comes to technology. Because of that, it's now very easy for all populations to use. And so we see all ages from the early twenties all the way up to the nineties."
@SeamlessMD #SeamlessMD #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
seamless.md
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Dr. Brian Roberts is a Senior VP and Head of Clinical Development at Rezolute which is developing first in class therapies in the treatment of metabolic diseases. In addition to working on a therapeutic for congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare disease, Rezolute is also in clinical trials with RZ402, an oral small molecule to treat diabetic macular edema which is showing an increase in prevalence due to the increase in the number of people suffering from diabetes.
Brian explains, "DME or diabetic macular edema is a complication of diabetes. It's a subset of diabetic retinopathy. And like other complications of diabetes, the blood vessels in the eye become injured or corrupted. And this leads to inflammation in the leakage of fluid across the blood vessel into the eye. And in this case, into the macula of the retina, which is responsible for high-resolution vision. If that continues, it can result in progressive visual loss and even blindness."
"Another problem with these therapies is that in some patients, they simply don't work. So the disease is not driven by vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF. And so there really is a need for therapies that address a different mechanism and that allow the earlier treatment of disease before the disease gets difficult to control. And that's where our oral therapeutic with a different mechanism of action comes into play."
"First and foremost, it represents a different mechanism, or a different way, to target the disease. RZ402 is a plasma kallikrein inhibitor. The kallikrein system is involved in the promotion of inflammation and vascular leakage. And it's part of normal physiology around the body to really promote the fight against infection or injury."
@RezoluteBio #RezoluteBio #Biotech #DME #Medicines #Innovation #RareDisease #MetabolicDiseases #DiabeticMacularEdema #DiabeticRetinopathy
RezoluteBio.com
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Dr. Brian Roberts is a Senior VP and Head of Clinical Development at Rezolute which is developing first in class therapies in the treatment of metabolic diseases. In addition to working on a therapeutic for congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare disease, Rezolute is also in clinical trials with RZ402, an oral small molecule to treat diabetic macular edema which is showing an increase in prevalence due to the increase in the number of people suffering from diabetes.
Brian explains, "DME or diabetic macular edema is a complication of diabetes. It's a subset of diabetic retinopathy. And like other complications of diabetes, the blood vessels in the eye become injured or corrupted. And this leads to inflammation in the leakage of fluid across the blood vessel into the eye. And in this case, into the macula of the retina, which is responsible for high-resolution vision. If that continues, it can result in progressive visual loss and even blindness."
"Another problem with these therapies is that in some patients, they simply don't work. So the disease is not driven by vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF. And so there really is a need for therapies that address a different mechanism and that allow the earlier treatment of disease before the disease gets difficult to control. And that's where our oral therapeutic with a different mechanism of action comes into play."
"First and foremost, it represents a different mechanism, or a different way, to target the disease. RZ402 is a plasma kallikrein inhibitor. The kallikrein system is involved in the promotion of inflammation and vascular leakage. And it's part of normal physiology around the body to really promote the fight against infection or injury."
@RezoluteBio #RezoluteBio #Biotech #DME #Medicines #Innovation #RareDisease #MetabolicDiseases #DiabeticMacularEdema #DiabeticRetinopathy
RezoluteBio.com
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Paul Cataford is the Interim CEO and President of Titan Medical Inc. which is bringing advancements to single-port or single incision robotic-assisted surgery. This differs from multiple ports where a number of incisions are made, and different tools are inserted into the different ports. Titan is moving all of the tools like the camera, a needle driver, grasper, and shearers through a single access point thanks to innovations in robotics, miniaturization, computing power, and visualization techniques.
Paul elaborates, "Well, as you can well imagine, what multiport means, you have multiple incisions around the abdomen or around the surgical work area. Every time you create a new point of entry, you create a new opportunity for infection. So, you have a new wound that needs to heal. You have a new scar, there's further risk of hitting something without intention, as you have multiple incisions. Less sites mean less pain, so a single incision has big benefits to the patient."
"So the patient is the real beneficiary of single incision. It's, as I mentioned earlier, faster healing, fewer pain meds, your hospital stay is a lot shorter. The reason why the surgeons like it is it can be quite tiring to do multiple surgeries stacked back-to-back-to-back. Whereas with robotic-assisted surgery, they don't fatigue as quickly. They're not bending over a patient. The fine motor skills that are required with these surgeons, it's not as tiring when you're working with tools and hand controllers and foot pedals."
@Titan_Medical #RoboticSurgery #Robotics #Gynecology #MinimallyInvasiveSurgery #Hysterectomy
titanmedicalinc.com
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Paul Cataford is the Interim CEO and President of Titan Medical Inc. which is bringing advancements to single-port or single incision robotic-assisted surgery. This differs from multiple ports where a number of incisions are made, and different tools are inserted into the different ports. Titan is moving all of the tools like the camera, a needle driver, grasper, and shearers through a single access point thanks to innovations in robotics, miniaturization, computing power, and visualization techniques.
Paul elaborates, "Well, as you can well imagine, what multiport means, you have multiple incisions around the abdomen or around the surgical work area. Every time you create a new point of entry, you create a new opportunity for infection. So, you have a new wound that needs to heal. You have a new scar, there's further risk of hitting something without intention, as you have multiple incisions. Less sites mean less pain, so a single incision has big benefits to the patient."
"So the patient is the real beneficiary of single incision. It's, as I mentioned earlier, faster healing, fewer pain meds, your hospital stay is a lot shorter. The reason why the surgeons like it is it can be quite tiring to do multiple surgeries stacked back-to-back-to-back. Whereas with robotic-assisted surgery, they don't fatigue as quickly. They're not bending over a patient. The fine motor skills that are required with these surgeons, it's not as tiring when you're working with tools and hand controllers and foot pedals."
@Titan_Medical #RoboticSurgery #Robotics #Gynecology #MinimallyInvasiveSurgery #Hysterectomy
titanmedicalinc.com
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Sheetal Parmar is the Head of Clinical Services at Natera, a clinical genetic testing company. She draws on her experience as a prenatal genetic counselor to address the need for more accurate and available non-invasive prenatal genetic testing. This kind of information can guide women and their care teams and can also help emotionally prepare families. Sheetal looks forward to seeing more genetic markers being used to identify other types of pregnancy health.
Sheetal explains, "People want to know, what are all the different options of testing? You can want to know as little information as possible or no information, all the way to "I want all the testing that could possibly be available for me or for the pregnancy." I think those are the type of questions that come up. Or "I have this in my family history. Will this test help me with that?" We want to make sure the right test is ordered based on the information that's needed for that patient based on their values and their beliefs, and what they want to know."
"There has been a significant drop in the number of invasive tests that are done. I recall when I was first starting in practice, I worked with an OB geneticist, and we would do like seven of these a day. Now it might be seven a week, maybe less than that in his practice. It's pretty rare because of the screening tests that are available now, non-invasive prenatal testing is such an accurate screening test compared to what was previously available that there are much fewer false positives and false negatives. Much fewer women are pulled out as a high risk that would then need to be offered to be tested."
#Natera #NIPT #NonInvasivePrenatalTesting #GeneticCounselor #GeneticTesting #GeneticScreening #PrenatalCare
Natera.com
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Sheetal Parmar is the Head of Clinical Services at Natera, a clinical genetic testing company. She draws on her experience as a prenatal genetic counselor to address the need for more accurate and available non-invasive prenatal genetic testing. This kind of information can guide women and their care teams and can also help emotionally prepare families. Sheetal looks forward to seeing more genetic markers being used to identify other types of pregnancy health.
Sheetal explains, "People want to know, what are all the different options of testing? You can want to know as little information as possible or no information, all the way to "I want all the testing that could possibly be available for me or for the pregnancy." I think those are the type of questions that come up. Or "I have this in my family history. Will this test help me with that?" We want to make sure the right test is ordered based on the information that's needed for that patient based on their values and their beliefs, and what they want to know."
"There has been a significant drop in the number of invasive tests that are done. I recall when I was first starting in practice, I worked with an OB geneticist, and we would do like seven of these a day. Now it might be seven a week, maybe less than that in his practice. It's pretty rare because of the screening tests that are available now, non-invasive prenatal testing is such an accurate screening test compared to what was previously available that there are much fewer false positives and false negatives. Much fewer women are pulled out as a high risk that would then need to be offered to be tested."
#Natera #NIPT #NonInvasivePrenatalTesting #GeneticCounselor #GeneticTesting #GeneticScreening #PrenatalCare
Natera.com
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Dr. David Dyer is the Chief Retina Specialist for Alimera Sciences, a publicly-traded company specializing in the development and commercialization of prescription ophthalmology treatments for the management of retinal diseases. Having high blood sugar over time can damage the retinal blood vessels that bring nutrients to the retina, creating diabetic retinopathy. Alimera has developed a delivery platform to inject their drug Iluvien into the eye to treat the resulting diabetic macular edema.
David explains, "So with retinal diseases, you're usually talking about diseases within the nerve fiber layer of the retina, the retinal vessels, or in the tissue that is underneath the retina that supports some of the retinal function. And that includes diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, vein occlusions, sometimes you can get detachments of the retina, and there are many other disorders, but those are the most common."
"The treatment for diabetic macular edema typically involves injecting medications into the eye. That sounds horrible, but we can actually numb up the eye, usually, with a series of numbing drops, and with a very tiny needle, we can inject medicine into the center of the eye, and that medicine diffuses into the retina."
"Iluvien is a sustained-release steroid. It's a little pellet, like a little tiny piece of rice, and we can inject that into the eye in the office, and it slowly dissolves over a period of three years, and it releases a steroid into the eye. The steroid works specifically on diabetic macular edema or the swelling in the central vision, and it decreases swelling."
@AlimeraSciences $ALIM #Iluvien #NewDayStudy #DMEandME #DiabeticMacularEdema #Ophthamology #Diabetes #Vision
AlimeraSciences.com
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Dr. David Dyer is the Chief Retina Specialist for Alimera Sciences, a publicly-traded company specializing in the development and commercialization of prescription ophthalmology treatments for the management of retinal diseases. Having high blood sugar over time can damage the retinal blood vessels that bring nutrients to the retina, creating diabetic retinopathy. Alimera has developed a delivery platform to inject their drug Iluvien into the eye to treat the resulting diabetic macular edema.
David explains, "So with retinal diseases, you're usually talking about diseases within the nerve fiber layer of the retina, the retinal vessels, or in the tissue that is underneath the retina that supports some of the retinal function. And that includes diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, vein occlusions, sometimes you can get detachments of the retina, and there are many other disorders, but those are the most common."
"The treatment for diabetic macular edema typically involves injecting medications into the eye. That sounds horrible, but we can actually numb up the eye, usually, with a series of numbing drops, and with a very tiny needle, we can inject medicine into the center of the eye, and that medicine diffuses into the retina."
"Iluvien is a sustained-release steroid. It's a little pellet, like a little tiny piece of rice, and we can inject that into the eye in the office, and it slowly dissolves over a period of three years, and it releases a steroid into the eye. The steroid works specifically on diabetic macular edema or the swelling in the central vision, and it decreases swelling."
@AlimeraSciences $ALIM #Iluvien #NewDayStudy #DMEandME #DiabeticMacularEdema #Ophthamology #Diabetes #Vision
AlimeraSciences.com
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Dr. Justin Norden is a Partner at GSR Ventures, a healthcare technology-focused venture fund investing in early-stage companies that are leveraging emerging technology to drive transformative changes in healthcare for all patients.
Justin explains, "Digital health has been, I think, a long journey for companies really trying to find things that we know should work, that we've seen work in other aspects of business where technologies really transformed how we do things. Even though that technology has been possible, it really hasn't touched healthcare until many would argue, very recently."
"Many companies that came in, either starting around 2010 or even through 2015, were a lot of the similar ideas that we're seeing today, there just wasn't the adoption. We didn't see patients being ready to adopt these technologies. Largely, even though some patients tried to adopt them, the providers weren't ready, providers weren't ready to deal with that data or willing to connect or spend time with the patients using these new technologies."
"In terms of how my background fits into how I look at companies today, I think one of the things that's very clear is if you go through medical training with a computer science background, you're continually banging your head against the wall saying why are we doing this repeatable task? Why are we using fax machines?"
#GSRVentures #DigitalHealth #MobileHealth #HealthTech #Healthcare #VirtualHealthcare #VentureCapital #HealthTechDeals
GSRVenturesus.com
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Dr. Justin Norden is a Partner at GSR Ventures, a healthcare technology-focused venture fund investing in early-stage companies that are leveraging emerging technology to drive transformative changes in healthcare for all patients.
Justin explains, "Digital health has been, I think, a long journey for companies really trying to find things that we know should work, that we've seen work in other aspects of business where technologies really transformed how we do things. Even though that technology has been possible, it really hasn't touched healthcare until many would argue, very recently."
"Many companies that came in, either starting around 2010 or even through 2015, were a lot of the similar ideas that we're seeing today, there just wasn't the adoption. We didn't see patients being ready to adopt these technologies. Largely, even though some patients tried to adopt them, the providers weren't ready, providers weren't ready to deal with that data or willing to connect or spend time with the patients using these new technologies."
"In terms of how my background fits into how I look at companies today, I think one of the things that's very clear is if you go through medical training with a computer science background, you're continually banging your head against the wall saying why are we doing this repeatable task? Why are we using fax machines?"
#GSRVentures #DigitalHealth #MobileHealth #HealthTech #Healthcare #VirtualHealthcare #VentureCapital #HealthTechDeals
GSRVenturesus.com
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Micha Breakstone is the CEO and Co-Founder of NeuraLight and points out the lack of objective and sensitive evaluation measures available to diagnose neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. Currently, evaluations using short questionnaires, visual observations, and self-reported behavior are further influenced by biases of the physician. NeuraLight is developing an approach that focuses on using images of the eye to produce objective, repeatable measures of disease progression.
Micha elaborates, "We look at over 100 parameters at once, and we capture these by standard videos or anything from a webcam to a mobile phone. And we've developed a quite unique technology that marries, on the one hand, a kind of standard machine learning. But on the other hand, something that is entirely unique to us which is signal processing. So the ability to basically bring technologies that are available for satellites, in super-resolution, bring them down to earth into mobile phones in order to take these standard videos and extract parameters at a super-resolution or a sub-pixel resolution from standard video."
"There are actually over 700 papers that were published in the last 20 years or so showing that oculometrics, namely, micro measurements of the eyes, are extremely good as a proxy both for currently used endpoints like UPDRS and EDSS that I mentioned earlier. But also in phenotyping patients, looking at the difference between secondary progressive MS and repeating, remitting MS or the subtypes, four or five subtypes of Alzheimer's, just being able to look at those oculometrics or ocular measures, being able to identify the subtype of the disease is a great proxy for the standard scale."
@NeuraLight #NeuraLight #AI #Oculometric #OcularMeasures #NeurologicalDiseases #NeurodegenerativeDisease #Parkinsons #MS #MultipleSclerosis #Alzheimers #Dementia #ClinicalTrials #NeurologicalEvaluation
NeuraLight.ai
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Micha Breakstone is the CEO and Co-Founder of NeuraLight and points out the lack of objective and sensitive evaluation measures available to diagnose neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. Currently, evaluations using short questionnaires, visual observations, and self-reported behavior are further influenced by biases of the physician. NeuraLight is developing an approach that focuses on using images of the eye to produce objective, repeatable measures of disease progression.
Micha elaborates, "We look at over 100 parameters at once, and we capture these by standard videos or anything from a webcam to a mobile phone. And we've developed a quite unique technology that marries, on the one hand, a kind of standard machine learning. But on the other hand, something that is entirely unique to us which is signal processing. So the ability to basically bring technologies that are available for satellites, in super-resolution, bring them down to earth into mobile phones in order to take these standard videos and extract parameters at a super-resolution or a sub-pixel resolution from standard video."
"There are actually over 700 papers that were published in the last 20 years or so showing that oculometrics, namely, micro measurements of the eyes, are extremely good as a proxy both for currently used endpoints like UPDRS and EDSS that I mentioned earlier. But also in phenotyping patients, looking at the difference between secondary progressive MS and repeating, remitting MS or the subtypes, four or five subtypes of Alzheimer's, just being able to look at those oculometrics or ocular measures, being able to identify the subtype of the disease is a great proxy for the standard scale."
@NeuraLight #NeuraLight #AI #Oculometric #OcularMeasures #NeurologicalDiseases #NeurodegenerativeDisease #Parkinsons #MS #MultipleSclerosis #Alzheimers #Dementia #ClinicalTrials #NeurologicalEvaluation
NeuraLight.ai
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Jesús Martin-Garcia is the CEO of GeNeuro, a Swiss-based clinical stage company focused on novel approaches for treating autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. While previously considered junk DNA, human endogenous retroviruses are now being seen in a new light as they represent 8% of human DNA and play a role in locking viral reproduction.
Jesús explains, "Our mission is really to focus on and to defeat neurodegenerative diseases. We have an original approach, and we believe because we are based on leveraging the biology of human endogenous retroviruses, which are the traces that are left in our DNA by the virus contaminations that affected our ancestors. We believe they play a major role in neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, ALS, and now recent data has shown, long-COVID."
"Yes, that was frankly a surprise for us. It was a discovery led by some academic groups in the US and Europe that showed that SARS-CoV-2, remember I told you at the beginning, this interaction between exogenous viruses in our cells, and the fact that some of them were able to de-repress pathogenic proteins. SARS-CoV-2 was shown to be able to de-repress W-ENV, which is basically the same protein that we see in the brain of MS patients. But this time, it was really, I would say a more diverse de-repression - a stronger expression in lymphocytes in the blood, on endothelial cells of the brain, the heart, and the lung, and also all the way up to microglia, the brain, in some patients that had died from COVID."
@GeneuroO #Geneuro #Temelimab #HERVs #LongCOVID #ALS #MS #MultipleSclerosis #NIH #Retroviruses
Geneuro.com
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Jesús Martin-Garcia is the CEO of GeNeuro, a Swiss-based clinical stage company focused on novel approaches for treating autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. While previously considered junk DNA, human endogenous retroviruses are now being seen in a new light as they represent 8% of human DNA and play a role in locking viral reproduction.
Jesús explains, "Our mission is really to focus on and to defeat neurodegenerative diseases. We have an original approach, and we believe because we are based on leveraging the biology of human endogenous retroviruses, which are the traces that are left in our DNA by the virus contaminations that affected our ancestors. We believe they play a major role in neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, ALS, and now recent data has shown, long-COVID."
"Yes, that was frankly a surprise for us. It was a discovery led by some academic groups in the US and Europe that showed that SARS-CoV-2, remember I told you at the beginning, this interaction between exogenous viruses in our cells, and the fact that some of them were able to de-repress pathogenic proteins. SARS-CoV-2 was shown to be able to de-repress W-ENV, which is basically the same protein that we see in the brain of MS patients. But this time, it was really, I would say a more diverse de-repression - a stronger expression in lymphocytes in the blood, on endothelial cells of the brain, the heart, and the lung, and also all the way up to microglia, the brain, in some patients that had died from COVID."
@GeneuroO #Geneuro #Temelimab #HERVs #LongCOVID #ALS #MS #MultipleSclerosis #NIH #Retroviruses
Geneuro.com
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Steve Palma is the President of Medical Cost Solutions at Goodroot and we talk about what medical billing errors have to do with increasing healthcare costs. Steve also shines a light on hospital financial assistance programs and how they are not being used enough to help patients pay high medical bills.
Steve provides some details, "Well, the billing errors include the cost of payers overpaying or underpaying claims, and the cost to the providers in billing correctly and then dealing with all the administrative headaches around audits by payers, and getting that claim ultimately right. These add a tremendous amount of administrative cost on both sides. It ends up getting passed to the consumer."
"You'll hear some people on the health plan side say it's all abusive provider billing practices, whether it's fraud or potentially maximizing coding in a complex coding environment. On the provider side, often, they'll say it's health plans intentionally underpaying or playing their own types of games."
"I think, over the years, what I've really come to conclude, is that, for the most part, people on the health plans and the providers are trying to do the right thing, from a coding perspective, but it's extremely complicated. So, the complication of the billing, the regulatory environment where payers have to pay those claims very, very quickly and get them out the door, it just causes an error on both sides, frankly."
@Goodroot4 #goodroot #healthcare #healthcarereform #reinventinghealthcare #medicaldebt
GoodrootInc.com
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Steve Palma is the President of Medical Cost Solutions at Goodroot and we talk about what medical billing errors have to do with increasing healthcare costs. Steve also shines a light on hospital financial assistance programs and how they are not being used enough to help patients pay high medical bills.
Steve provides some details, "Well, the billing errors include the cost of payers overpaying or underpaying claims, and the cost to the providers in billing correctly and then dealing with all the administrative headaches around audits by payers, and getting that claim ultimately right. These add a tremendous amount of administrative cost on both sides. It ends up getting passed to the consumer."
"You'll hear some people on the health plan side say it's all abusive provider billing practices, whether it's fraud or potentially maximizing coding in a complex coding environment. On the provider side, often, they'll say it's health plans intentionally underpaying or playing their own types of games."
"I think, over the years, what I've really come to conclude, is that, for the most part, people on the health plans and the providers are trying to do the right thing, from a coding perspective, but it's extremely complicated. So, the complication of the billing, the regulatory environment where payers have to pay those claims very, very quickly and get them out the door, it just causes an error on both sides, frankly."
@Goodroot4 #goodroot #healthcare #healthcarereform #reinventinghealthcare #medicaldebt
GoodrootInc.com
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Dr. John Dobak is the President and CEO of DermTech which is leading the genomic revolution in dermatology to more accurately determine the presence of skin cancer. Their noninvasive platform changes the protocol for assessing a suspicious mole from visual review and surgically removing tissue to genomic analysis and using broader objective data before treatment is determined.
John elaborates, "Genomics is fundamentally changing the way medicine is practiced, and it is particularly changing cancer care and how cancer is detected and treated. We're really bringing that revolution to the dermatologist. We do that with our noninvasive genomics platform. We have something called the Smart Sticker, which is a special adhesive patch that can collect the sample of the skin noninvasively. And it feels a lot like scotch tape, you just press it on the skin, and you lift it off. And from that skin sample, the tissue we've collected, we can run a variety of genomic analyses, and that allows us to determine whether or not cancer might be present in a mole, for example."
"Our first product in the market is specifically for melanoma skin cancer. That's the most deadly of skin cancers. It's the most concerning skin cancer. It's a real problem. Doctors don't want to miss melanoma because it can lead to higher mortality in a patient. But melanoma skin cancer can also be cured very effectively if it's found early. So, the 99% of patients that have melanoma detected at the earliest stages have a 5 to 10-year survival."
@DermTech #DermTech #Dermatology #DermTechIt #PrecisionGenomics #SkinExams #Melanoma #SkinCancer #MelanomaDetection #EarlyDetection #SkinHealth #SanDiego
DermTech.com
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Dr. John Dobak is the President and CEO of DermTech which is leading the genomic revolution in dermatology to more accurately determine the presence of skin cancer. Their noninvasive platform changes the protocol for assessing a suspicious mole from visual review and surgically removing tissue to genomic analysis and using broader objective data before treatment is determined.
John elaborates, "Genomics is fundamentally changing the way medicine is practiced, and it is particularly changing cancer care and how cancer is detected and treated. We're really bringing that revolution to the dermatologist. We do that with our noninvasive genomics platform. We have something called the Smart Sticker, which is a special adhesive patch that can collect the sample of the skin noninvasively. And it feels a lot like scotch tape, you just press it on the skin, and you lift it off. And from that skin sample, the tissue we've collected, we can run a variety of genomic analyses, and that allows us to determine whether or not cancer might be present in a mole, for example."
"Our first product in the market is specifically for melanoma skin cancer. That's the most deadly of skin cancers. It's the most concerning skin cancer. It's a real problem. Doctors don't want to miss melanoma because it can lead to higher mortality in a patient. But melanoma skin cancer can also be cured very effectively if it's found early. So, the 99% of patients that have melanoma detected at the earliest stages have a 5 to 10-year survival."
@DermTech #DermTech #Dermatology #DermTechIt #PrecisionGenomics #SkinExams #Melanoma #SkinCancer #MelanomaDetection #EarlyDetection #SkinHealth #SanDiego
DermTech.com
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Tom Isett is the CEO of iBio which is pioneering the next generation of biopharmaceuticals. Their goal is to reduce the cost, time, and risk of failure involved with drug discovery and development by using a plant-based recombinant protein manufacturing platform to create small and large batches of desired proteins. Tom shares his career journey from working with the USDA to iBio where he is back to working with the little leafy green guys again.
Tom explains, "We are a biotech, so we're a developer of biopharmaceuticals, specifically focused in oncology, fibrosis, and infectious diseases, where we're really trying to address some of the bigger unmet medical needs out there. But what I think really makes us unique is how we develop these new medicines, molecules, and candidates. We use plants to produce these new drug candidates."
"And as we move forward, we also use artificial intelligence for the design of the molecules. So the combination of the two winds up putting us in the position where we have this really strong design capability. Given the nature of our plant-based production system and the technologies that we employ, we get a certain speed component, so we can do it more quickly than other manufacturing systems. This is why we call the technology FastPharming."
"This FastPharming system just uses plants. It's actually a relative of tobacco. It was originally from Australia, a little weed, and we like that because it grows quickly and it puts most of its energy into its leaves. So, we skip that whole step of all this time it takes to get it to produce the protein of interest."
#iBio #FastPharming #ProteinDrugs #Biopharmaceuticals #DrugManufacturing #BioProcessing #Pharmatech #AI
ibioinc.com
Listen to the podcast here
Tom Isett is the CEO of iBio which is pioneering the next generation of biopharmaceuticals. Their goal is to reduce the cost, time, and risk of failure involved with drug discovery and development by using a plant-based recombinant protein manufacturing platform to create small and large batches of desired proteins. Tom shares his career journey from working with the USDA to iBio where he is back to working with the little leafy green guys again.
Tom explains, "We are a biotech, so we're a developer of biopharmaceuticals, specifically focused in oncology, fibrosis, and infectious diseases, where we're really trying to address some of the bigger unmet medical needs out there. But what I think really makes us unique is how we develop these new medicines, molecules, and candidates. We use plants to produce these new drug candidates."
"And as we move forward, we also use artificial intelligence for the design of the molecules. So the combination of the two winds up putting us in the position where we have this really strong design capability. Given the nature of our plant-based production system and the technologies that we employ, we get a certain speed component, so we can do it more quickly than other manufacturing systems. This is why we call the technology FastPharming."
"This FastPharming system just uses plants. It's actually a relative of tobacco. It was originally from Australia, a little weed, and we like that because it grows quickly and it puts most of its energy into its leaves. So, we skip that whole step of all this time it takes to get it to produce the protein of interest."
#iBio #FastPharming #ProteinDrugs #Biopharmaceuticals #DrugManufacturing #BioProcessing #Pharmatech #AI
ibioinc.com
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Paula Ragan is the CEO and President of X4 Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on the rare disease WHIM Syndrome. Patients have a deficiency in their immune system, and as a result, this diminishes their ability to fight chronic infections, and they have a higher risk for severe cancers.
Paula explains, "If one thinks about doing the right test, it's easy to diagnose, and the right test is doing genetic sequencing. There are commercially available panels, so it exists for the patient and physician communities. The current challenge is getting the physicians to recognize the test is needed. And then to also enable payment. X4 has done a great job in providing free testing through our PATH4WARD program."
"Our lead candidate is called mavorixafor, and it's an oral once-daily capsule. And the amazing thing is its mechanism. What it does is binds to a receptor called CXCR4. And it basically shuts it down a little bit. It's kind of blunting the signaling that normally exists in the cell. And for these patients with WHIM syndrome, their disease is literally caused by too much signaling, by profound over signaling of CXCR4. So we can give them a once-daily capsule that blunts that effect and really then restores the more normalized function of the immune system so that they can combat infections and hopefully minimize their cancer risk."
@X4Pharma #WHIMSyndrome #ChronicNeutropenia #CXCR4 #Waldenstrom #RareDisease
X4pharma.com
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Paula Ragan is the CEO and President of X4 Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on the rare disease WHIM Syndrome. Patients have a deficiency in their immune system, and as a result, this diminishes their ability to fight chronic infections, and they have a higher risk for severe cancers.
Paula explains, "If one thinks about doing the right test, it's easy to diagnose, and the right test is doing genetic sequencing. There are commercially available panels, so it exists for the patient and physician communities. The current challenge is getting the physicians to recognize the test is needed. And then to also enable payment. X4 has done a great job in providing free testing through our PATH4WARD program."
"Our lead candidate is called mavorixafor, and it's an oral once-daily capsule. And the amazing thing is its mechanism. What it does is binds to a receptor called CXCR4. And it basically shuts it down a little bit. It's kind of blunting the signaling that normally exists in the cell. And for these patients with WHIM syndrome, their disease is literally caused by too much signaling, by profound over signaling of CXCR4. So we can give them a once-daily capsule that blunts that effect and really then restores the more normalized function of the immune system so that they can combat infections and hopefully minimize their cancer risk."
@X4Pharma #WHIMSyndrome #ChronicNeutropenia #CXCR4 #Waldenstrom #RareDisease
X4pharma.com
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Dr. Luca Benatti is the CEO of EryDel, a biotech company developing and commercializing cell-therapy treatments for rare diseases using autologous red blood cell encapsulation technology to deliver drugs. With a focus on the rare genetic disease Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT), Erydel has just completed a multi-center, multi-national phase III trial for the disease. Their symptomatic treatment has been shown to delay the progression of the disease and could be part of a regular immunoglobulin therapy session for these patients.
Luca explains, "The first characteristic of our technology since there are similar technologies that utilize red blood cells to deliver therapeutics, is that we are the only one that has developed a technology that can work at the bedside. So, it's really the only one that can use the patient's blood, and we don't need to have a centralized lab. The beauty of this technology is that it is the only one that can use a sustained release formulations technology - that is, the one that is actually being developed for Ataxia Telangiectasia - on which we have completed phase III study results."
"So, from the time of blood withdrawal from the patients and for our lead product, we take 50 milliliters of blood from the patient, a small amount, and within a couple of hours, patients can go home. They are only required to stay for the blood withdrawal and the blood infusions. The rest of the process is done by a small machine that is fully automated and operated by trained personnel."
#EryDel #AtaxiaTelangiectasia #EryDex #RareDisease #AT
EryDel.com
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Dr. Luca Benatti is the CEO of EryDel, a biotech company developing and commercializing cell-therapy treatments for rare diseases using autologous red blood cell encapsulation technology to deliver drugs. With a focus on the rare genetic disease Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT), Erydel has just completed a multi-center, multi-national phase III trial for the disease. Their symptomatic treatment has been shown to delay the progression of the disease and could be part of a regular immunoglobulin therapy session for these patients.
Luca explains, "The first characteristic of our technology since there are similar technologies that utilize red blood cells to deliver therapeutics, is that we are the only one that has developed a technology that can work at the bedside. So, it's really the only one that can use the patient's blood, and we don't need to have a centralized lab. The beauty of this technology is that it is the only one that can use a sustained release formulations technology - that is, the one that is actually being developed for Ataxia Telangiectasia - on which we have completed phase III study results."
"So, from the time of blood withdrawal from the patients and for our lead product, we take 50 milliliters of blood from the patient, a small amount, and within a couple of hours, patients can go home. They are only required to stay for the blood withdrawal and the blood infusions. The rest of the process is done by a small machine that is fully automated and operated by trained personnel."
#EryDel #AtaxiaTelangiectasia #EryDex #RareDisease #AT
EryDel.com
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Eliav Shaked, CEO, and Catherine Bornbaum, Head of Clinical Operations and Partnerships at RetiSpec are using hyperspectral retinal imaging to find more accurate and earlier biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases. As part of a regular eye exam, this non-invasive test can be administered by an ophthalmologist or optometrist using existing retinal cameras with the data being analyzed using AI to identify unique molecule signatures.
Eliav explains, "What's unique about hyperspectral imaging or specifically hyperspectral retinal imaging is the fact that it's a tool that measures different coloring of elements in a much more detailed way. So, while we humans are limited to seeing and interpreting only three colors, hyperspectral retinal imaging can cover more than a hundred different colors in a very precise way. And it's really our way to get much more content from the back of the eye. And what RetiSpec is doing with that data is we're integrating our very own artificial intelligence that allows us to recognize patterns that no human eye can see."
Catherine elaborates, "We are focused right now on identifying the markers for Alzheimer's disease through this hyperspectral retinal imaging. But because of the close connection between the retina and the brain, we believe that there are also a number of other indications and specifically neurologic conditions that can be detected using this approach for things like ALS, MS, Parkinson's disease, CTE, and a number of conditions."
@RetiSpec @EliavShaked @CathBornbaum #RetiSpec #EarlyAlzheimersDetection #AlzheimersDisease #RetinalScans #HyperspectralImaging
RetiSpec.com
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Eliav Shaked, CEO, and Catherine Bornbaum, Head of Clinical Operations and Partnerships at RetiSpec are using hyperspectral retinal imaging to find more accurate and earlier biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases. As part of a regular eye exam, this non-invasive test can be administered by an ophthalmologist or optometrist using existing retinal cameras with the data being analyzed using AI to identify unique molecule signatures.
Eliav explains, "What's unique about hyperspectral imaging or specifically hyperspectral retinal imaging is the fact that it's a tool that measures different coloring of elements in a much more detailed way. So, while we humans are limited to seeing and interpreting only three colors, hyperspectral retinal imaging can cover more than a hundred different colors in a very precise way. And it's really our way to get much more content from the back of the eye. And what RetiSpec is doing with that data is we're integrating our very own artificial intelligence that allows us to recognize patterns that no human eye can see."
Catherine elaborates, "We are focused right now on identifying the markers for Alzheimer's disease through this hyperspectral retinal imaging. But because of the close connection between the retina and the brain, we believe that there are also a number of other indications and specifically neurologic conditions that can be detected using this approach for things like ALS, MS, Parkinson's disease, CTE, and a number of conditions."
@RetiSpec @EliavShaked @CathBornbaum #RetiSpec #EarlyAlzheimersDetection #AlzheimersDisease #RetinalScans #HyperspectralImaging
RetiSpec.com
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Dr. Sam Asgarian is the Chief Medical Officer of Scipher Medicine which is predicting drug response with precision immunology by building on the work of the Human Genome Project. Now that the human genome has been mapped, the next challenge is how to turn that information into use cases that are applicable in treating specific diseases.
Sam explains, "The goal for us is to figure out which part, very specifically, of the autoimmune system is overacting and analyze that through a simple blood sample. We can take the blood in just a simple lab draw, just like other blood work, and analyze areas of perturbation or areas where the immune system specifically is overacting. That gives the physician enough to then treat it with a prescription that focuses only on that specific area which, of course, in the immune system is critically important because it's still serving a very important goal of protecting that person against disease. You don't want to shut down the overall immune system. You just want to quiet the area that's leading to that rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis."
"I think in this early onset of what we have out there, our goal is leading with the diagnostics, giving the physician a treatment selection or therapy selection tests to get them out of trial and error and into this world of precision immunology."
@ScipherMedicine #ScipherMedicine #PrecisionImmunology #PrismRA #Diagnostics #RheumatoidArthritis #AutoimmuneDiseases #AutoimmuneDisorders #IrritableBowelDiseases #HumanGenomeProject
ScipherMedicine.com
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Dr. Sam Asgarian is the Chief Medical Officer of Scipher Medicine which is predicting drug response with precision immunology by building on the work of the Human Genome Project. Now that the human genome has been mapped, the next challenge is how to turn that information into use cases that are applicable in treating specific diseases.
Sam explains, "The goal for us is to figure out which part, very specifically, of the autoimmune system is overacting and analyze that through a simple blood sample. We can take the blood in just a simple lab draw, just like other blood work, and analyze areas of perturbation or areas where the immune system specifically is overacting. That gives the physician enough to then treat it with a prescription that focuses only on that specific area which, of course, in the immune system is critically important because it's still serving a very important goal of protecting that person against disease. You don't want to shut down the overall immune system. You just want to quiet the area that's leading to that rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis."
"I think in this early onset of what we have out there, our goal is leading with the diagnostics, giving the physician a treatment selection or therapy selection tests to get them out of trial and error and into this world of precision immunology."
@ScipherMedicine #ScipherMedicine #PrecisionImmunology #PrismRA #Diagnostics #RheumatoidArthritis #AutoimmuneDiseases #AutoimmuneDisorders #IrritableBowelDiseases #HumanGenomeProject
ScipherMedicine.com
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Sunny Jain is the Founder and CEO of Floré by Sun Genomics and is driven to better understand the microbe cells that live inside of our intestinal tract and all around our body. With a history of working at Illumina, Sunny is studying the DNA from those cells, the microbiome, to understand their function and how they contribute to our overall health.
Sunny explains, "Sun Genomics has created the world's only precision probiotic, And it utilizes AI, DNA sequencing, biome chromatics, and e-health technology. Our technology helps us build the largest database of microbiomes that are sequenced via metagenomics, or whole genome sequencing, to understand the modulatory effects or the changing effects that food ingredients and probiotics can have for 80 plus million Americans that suffer from gut health issues every year."
"So, you truly are unique, from a gut microbiome perspective. Our human DNA is 99.9 percent similar. So, we're very identical from a human DNA perspective. But the DNA from microbes of the gut, you're maybe 10 percent similar, and you are 90 percent unique from the gut microbiome."
"And this is really where I think precision medicine can enable a lot of advancement to our human health. It is really within that large, vast difference where we will be able to find much more customized solutions."
@SunGenomics #SunGenomics #GutHealth #Probiotics #Microflora #CustomizedProbiotics #Microbiome #SanDiego
Flore.com
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Sunny Jain is the Founder and CEO of Floré by Sun Genomics and is driven to better understand the microbe cells that live inside of our intestinal tract and all around our body. With a history of working at Illumina, Sunny is studying the DNA from those cells, the microbiome, to understand their function and how they contribute to our overall health.
Sunny explains, "Sun Genomics has created the world's only precision probiotic, And it utilizes AI, DNA sequencing, biome chromatics, and e-health technology. Our technology helps us build the largest database of microbiomes that are sequenced via metagenomics, or whole genome sequencing, to understand the modulatory effects or the changing effects that food ingredients and probiotics can have for 80 plus million Americans that suffer from gut health issues every year."
"So, you truly are unique, from a gut microbiome perspective. Our human DNA is 99.9 percent similar. So, we're very identical from a human DNA perspective. But the DNA from microbes of the gut, you're maybe 10 percent similar, and you are 90 percent unique from the gut microbiome."
"And this is really where I think precision medicine can enable a lot of advancement to our human health. It is really within that large, vast difference where we will be able to find much more customized solutions."
@SunGenomics #SunGenomics #GutHealth #Probiotics #Microflora #CustomizedProbiotics #Microbiome #SanDiego
Flore.com
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Dr. John Krakauer is the Chief Medical Advisor at MindMaze, pioneers in digital neurotherapeutics focused on brain health and recovery from neurological diseases and injuries.
John explains, "What we really mean by digital neurotherapeutics is the belief that one can actually administer a medicine in a way that's different from pharmacology, different from surgery or devices. But in fact, consider software as a pill so that you can actually have a software experience, an immersive gaming-like experience that can actually have an effect on a disease, in particular, neurological conditions in a way comparable to other medical approaches."
"So MindMaze really would like to create immersive gaming software that allows the nervous system after injury or disease to undergo such change. We're different, I think, in so much that we realize that you can't just be an app on a phone or a tablet. You have to be in an immersive full-body experience that combines exercise, cognitive challenge, and skill learning. And so, we're creating that kind of digital therapeutic experience."
@MindMazeTech #ImmersiveTherapy #NeurologicalDiseases #NeurologicalInjuries #DigitalHealth
MindMaze.com
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Tim Clackson is the President and CEO of Theseus Pharmaceuticals which has a mission to outsmart cancer resistance by developing pan-variant tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) that are designed to hit different types of cancer cell mutations. The goals of the therapy are to delay treatment resistant cancer as well as effectively deal with the variety of cancer mutations once they have occurred.
Tim explains, "The unfortunate truth is that nearly all types of tumors at some point are going to develop resistance. We are at this stage now where some tumors that are caught early can be really cured and go into long-term remission. Still, there's a substantial portion of tumor types and certainly those that are caught a little bit later that unfortunately show an almost inevitable evolution of resistance. So, then the challenge becomes, can you delay how long that resistance takes to emerge? And then can you come up with therapies or approaches that will hopefully substantially prolong the post resistance treatment with a different therapy?"
"So kinase is a name for a family of proteins that often goes bad in cancer. Often the mutations are in kinases, and our approach is really to develop what are called kinase inhibitors, tyrosine kinase inhibitors or TKIs. There are many TKIs already developed, but we believe that it's really important to develop a particular kind that we call a pan-variant inhibitor. So that is a molecule that is designed to hit any of the different flavors of resistance cancer that you can find in a patient. Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems in cancer treatment, especially when you have a cancer with a particular driver, is that you find multiple different types of resistance in the same patient."
@ThereusRX #GastrointestinalStromalTumors #GIST #Cancer #Oncology
Theseusrx.com
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Tim Clackson is the President and CEO of Theseus Pharmaceuticals which has a mission to outsmart cancer resistance by developing pan-variant tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) that are designed to hit different types of cancer cell mutations. The goals of the therapy are to delay treatment resistant cancer as well as effectively deal with the variety of cancer mutations once they have occurred.
Tim explains, "The unfortunate truth is that nearly all types of tumors at some point are going to develop resistance. We are at this stage now where some tumors that are caught early can be really cured and go into long-term remission. Still, there's a substantial portion of tumor types and certainly those that are caught a little bit later that unfortunately show an almost inevitable evolution of resistance. So, then the challenge becomes, can you delay how long that resistance takes to emerge? And then can you come up with therapies or approaches that will hopefully substantially prolong the post resistance treatment with a different therapy?"
"So kinase is a name for a family of proteins that often goes bad in cancer. Often the mutations are in kinases, and our approach is really to develop what are called kinase inhibitors, tyrosine kinase inhibitors or TKIs. There are many TKIs already developed, but we believe that it's really important to develop a particular kind that we call a pan-variant inhibitor. So that is a molecule that is designed to hit any of the different flavors of resistance cancer that you can find in a patient. Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems in cancer treatment, especially when you have a cancer with a particular driver, is that you find multiple different types of resistance in the same patient."
@ThereusRX #GastrointestinalStromalTumors #GIST #Cancer #Oncology
Theseusrx.com
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Dr. John Krakauer is the Chief Medical Advisor at MindMaze, pioneers in digital neurotherapeutics focused on brain health and recovery from neurological diseases and injuries.
John explains, "What we really mean by digital neurotherapeutics is the belief that one can actually administer a medicine in a way that's different from pharmacology, different from surgery or devices. But in fact, consider software as a pill so that you can actually have a software experience, an immersive gaming-like experience that can actually have an effect on a disease, in particular, neurological conditions in a way comparable to other medical approaches."
"So MindMaze really would like to create immersive gaming software that allows the nervous system after injury or disease to undergo such change. We're different, I think, in so much that we realize that you can't just be an app on a phone or a tablet. You have to be in an immersive full-body experience that combines exercise, cognitive challenge, and skill learning. And so, we're creating that kind of digital therapeutic experience."
@MindMazeTech #ImmersiveTherapy #NeurologicalDiseases #NeurologicalInjuries #DigitalHealth
MindMaze.com
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Emee Baldwin, Founder of Poppy's Purpose, is a nursing student and patient advocate with a success story about getting the attention of care providers and elected officials to re-evaluate the rules regarding patient visitation rights, particularly in the age of COVID-19. Emee and her family worked with their local representatives to make a law in Alabama where no patient will be alone every day.
Emee elaborates, "So, last November, November of 2020, my grandfather, known to me as Poppy, was diagnosed with COVID-19. This was new to us, and it was new to everyone at the time. But to start with the background story, I was used to seeing my Poppy every single day. I grew up on a small family farm, so we were very close. If I didn't see him every day, I at least heard from him every day, so when he was first admitted to the hospital with COVID-19, that first week, he was just on a regular floor up here in Huntsville, Alabama, which is where I live and where I go to school. So it was really odd being two miles away from him and not being able to get in to see him."
"Ultimately, he ended up passing away after a little over three weeks, and he was in the hospital just a little over three weeks, completely by himself. My grandfather was very involved in politics here in Alabama, so at his funeral, we had a lot of politicians there, a lot of legislators there. Right after the service was over, they came up to us, and they were like, "We've seen the hurt that your family went through. We saw it firsthand through you, and we want to make a change. We want to help y'all to overcome this. That way, other families don't have to battle what you went through."
@Emee_Elizabeth #PatientAdvocate #COVID #COVID19 #PatientRights
poppyspurpose.org
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Emee Baldwin, Founder of Poppy's Purpose, is a nursing student and patient advocate with a success story about getting the attention of care providers and elected officials to re-evaluate the rules regarding patient visitation rights, particularly in the age of COVID-19. Emee and her family worked with their local representatives to make a law in Alabama where no patient will be alone every day.
Emee elaborates, "So, last November, November of 2020, my grandfather, known to me as Poppy, was diagnosed with COVID-19. This was new to us, and it was new to everyone at the time. But to start with the background story, I was used to seeing my Poppy every single day. I grew up on a small family farm, so we were very close. If I didn't see him every day, I at least heard from him every day, so when he was first admitted to the hospital with COVID-19, that first week, he was just on a regular floor up here in Huntsville, Alabama, which is where I live and where I go to school. So it was really odd being two miles away from him and not being able to get in to see him."
"Ultimately, he ended up passing away after a little over three weeks, and he was in the hospital just a little over three weeks, completely by himself. My grandfather was very involved in politics here in Alabama, so at his funeral, we had a lot of politicians there, a lot of legislators there. Right after the service was over, they came up to us, and they were like, "We've seen the hurt that your family went through. We saw it firsthand through you, and we want to make a change. We want to help y'all to overcome this. That way, other families don't have to battle what you went through."
@Emee_Elizabeth #PatientAdvocate #COVID #COVID19 #PatientRights
poppyspurpose.org
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Hamid Khoja is the Chief Scientific Officer of FibroBiologics which is developing regenerative medicine using fibroblasts which are one of the most abundant cells in the human body. While stem cell therapy has gotten significant attention, fibroblasts are easier to source and grow.
Hamid elaborates, "Just to give you a sense of some of the capabilities of fibroblasts. They behave very similarly in many aspects to stem cells, which we're very well aware of. What makes fibroblasts significantly interesting for us and for therapeutic purposes is that they can also differentiate into many different cell types."
"So the CybroCell is the product name that we've given our tolerogenic fibroblasts, cells that have been specifically cultured for use in degenerative disc disease. But we've also tested this same product in a clinical trial for multiple sclerosis. So we have done limited trials for safety for both degenerative disc disease and multiple sclerosis, and the results have been very promising."
#FibroBiologics #Fibroblasts #DegenerativeDiscDisease #DDD #MultipleSclerosis #MS #MultipleSclerosisTreatment #StemCellAlternative
FibroBiologics.com
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Hamid Khoja is the Chief Scientific Officer of FibroBiologics which is developing regenerative medicine using fibroblasts which are one of the most abundant cells in the human body. While stem cell therapy has gotten significant attention, fibroblasts are easier to source and grow.
Hamid elaborates, "Just to give you a sense of some of the capabilities of fibroblasts. They behave very similarly in many aspects to stem cells, which we're very well aware of. What makes fibroblasts significantly interesting for us and for therapeutic purposes is that they can also differentiate into many different cell types."
"So the CybroCell is the product name that we've given our tolerogenic fibroblasts, cells that have been specifically cultured for use in degenerative disc disease. But we've also tested this same product in a clinical trial for multiple sclerosis. So we have done limited trials for safety for both degenerative disc disease and multiple sclerosis, and the results have been very promising."
#FibroBiologics #Fibroblasts #DegenerativeDiscDisease #DDD #MultipleSclerosis #MS #MultipleSclerosisTreatment #StemCellAlternative
FibroBiologics.com
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Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge with a mission to support participants in clinical trials, particularly for patients with rare diseases. Since many rare diseases require a patient caregiver to accompany a trial participant, Clincierge also manages the logistics for both of those people. The result of these patient-centric efforts is greater diversity in recruitment, higher retention rates, and higher participant satisfaction.
Scott explains, "The purpose for Clincierge is to improve clinical trial performance by improving the patient experience. Depending upon the disease state, different patients require different types of support to enable them to participate in a clinical trial. It may be a geographic location for a family so that a pediatric patient can participate in a trial. It may be language barriers, so we provide interpreters. Along with that relocation may come the need for housing that's funded, prepaid, meal stipends, ground transportation, visa services."
"So what we do is look at each individual patient's need and design the services that support them, enable them to get to the clinical trial visits so that they can participate, and the research team can get their outcomes data."
@Clincierge #Clincierge #RareDisease #RareDiseaseDay #RareDiseaseMonth #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalTrialResearch #PatientCentricity #PatientEngagement #PatientExperience #PTEXP
Clincierge.com
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Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge with a mission to support participants in clinical trials, particularly for patients with rare diseases. Since many rare diseases require a patient caregiver to accompany a trial participant, Clincierge also manages the logistics for both of those people. The result of these patient-centric efforts is greater diversity in recruitment, higher retention rates, and higher participant satisfaction.
Scott explains, "The purpose for Clincierge is to improve clinical trial performance by improving the patient experience. Depending upon the disease state, different patients require different types of support to enable them to participate in a clinical trial. It may be a geographic location for a family so that a pediatric patient can participate in a trial. It may be language barriers, so we provide interpreters. Along with that relocation may come the need for housing that's funded, prepaid, meal stipends, ground transportation, visa services."
"So what we do is look at each individual patient's need and design the services that support them, enable them to get to the clinical trial visits so that they can participate, and the research team can get their outcomes data."
@Clincierge #Clincierge #RareDisease #RareDiseaseDay #RareDiseaseMonth #ClinicalTrials #ClinicalTrialResearch #PatientCentricity #PatientEngagement #PatientExperience #PTEXP
Clincierge.com
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Sandy Macrae Ph.D. is the CEO of Sangamo Therapeutics which has a unique technology called zinc finger. This allows them to find and modify a particular DNA either to delete a faulty gene or to help enhance one that isn't producing enough or turn one down when it's producing too much. While currently focusing on rare diseases like hemophilia, Sangamo is also moving into treating neurodegenerative diseases, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and kidney transplants with genomic medicine and cell therapy.
Sandy explains, "Sangamo has been at the forefront of genomic medicine for 26 years now, and the world has changed so much and is now embracing genomic medicines as one of the key parts of the tools that we have to address serious diseases."
"I think in the future, there'll be three kinds of medicines. There will be the medicines you take or inject, there'll be the vaccines that prevent disease, and then there'll be genomic medicines that will help solve some of the long problems from our genomic DNA that so many patients struggle with. So I think it's going to be a fundamental core part of what we do. It's important, though, to say these are early days, and every patient that volunteers we are immensely grateful to. We learn from each patient on a daily basis, and it helps us all move these medicines forward."
@SangamoTX #CellTherapy #ZincFinger #GeneTherapy #GeneRegulation #GenomicMedicine #RareDiseases #RareDiseaseMonth
Sangamo.com
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Sandy Macrae Ph.D. is the CEO of Sangamo Therapeutics which has a unique technology called zinc finger. This allows them to find and modify a particular DNA either to delete a faulty gene or to help enhance one that isn't producing enough or turn one down when it's producing too much. While currently focusing on rare diseases like hemophilia, Sangamo is also moving into treating neurodegenerative diseases, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and kidney transplants with genomic medicine and cell therapy.
Sandy explains, "Sangamo has been at the forefront of genomic medicine for 26 years now, and the world has changed so much and is now embracing genomic medicines as one of the key parts of the tools that we have to address serious diseases."
"I think in the future, there'll be three kinds of medicines. There will be the medicines you take or inject, there'll be the vaccines that prevent disease, and then there'll be genomic medicines that will help solve some of the long problems from our genomic DNA that so many patients struggle with. So I think it's going to be a fundamental core part of what we do. It's important, though, to say these are early days, and every patient that volunteers we are immensely grateful to. We learn from each patient on a daily basis, and it helps us all move these medicines forward."
@SangamoTX #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #GeneRegulation #ZincFinger #GenomicMedicine #RareDiseases #RareDiseaseMonth
Sangamo.com
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Chris Calhoun is the CEO of Paracrine Cell Therapy which has a different approach to regenerative medicine. This biologic approach uses an autologous cell therapy approach, taking a mixture of a patient's own cells, not just one cell type to address underlying pathologies through multiple mechanisms of action. Using a device that sits at the point of care, fat is extracted and the cells are processed and put back in the patient in about an hour.
Chris explains, "It's interesting that if you look at the evolution of most of the therapies out there today, drug therapies and so forth, they generally treat the symptoms, and they target one mechanism. We're taking a very different approach. We're looking at treating complex conditions and diseases where there are multiple underlying issues or conditions or pathologies, depending on how you want to look at it. We think that this sort of silver bullet approach doesn't necessarily work to address more complex diseases where you've got these multiple underlying conditions."
"Well, it's an emerging field, so I think there are various approaches. We're really the unique company out there that's focused on this heterogeneous or this mixed cell population approach to regenerative medicine via device. Probably the most important distinction ... well, there's two. One, I think the clinical benefits of this mixed cell population are becoming clear, and second is the economic aspect of it. We are not isolating these cells and growing them in a laboratory, and engineering them in any specific way that ultimately ends up costing orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars per treatment or sequence of treatments for a single patient."
#Paracrine #RegenerativeMedicine #CellTherapy #AutologousCellTherapy
Paracrine.com
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Chris Calhoun is the CEO of Paracrine Cell Therapy which has a different approach to regenerative medicine. This biologic approach uses an autologous cell therapy approach, taking a mixture of a patient's own cells, not just one cell type to address underlying pathologies through multiple mechanisms of action. Using a device that sits at the point of care, fat is extracted and the cells are processed and put back in the patient in about an hour.
Chris explains, "It's interesting that if you look at the evolution of most of the therapies out there today, drug therapies and so forth, they generally treat the symptoms, and they target one mechanism. We're taking a very different approach. We're looking at treating complex conditions and diseases where there are multiple underlying issues or conditions or pathologies, depending on how you want to look at it. We think that this sort of silver bullet approach doesn't necessarily work to address more complex diseases where you've got these multiple underlying conditions."
"Well, it's an emerging field, so I think there are various approaches. We're really the unique company out there that's focused on this heterogeneous or this mixed cell population approach to regenerative medicine via device. Probably the most important distinction ... well, there's two. One, I think the clinical benefits of this mixed cell population are becoming clear, and second is the economic aspect of it. We are not isolating these cells and growing them in a laboratory, and engineering them in any specific way that ultimately ends up costing orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars per treatment or sequence of treatments for a single patient."
#Paracrine #RegenerativeMedicine #CellTherapy #AutologousCellTherapy
Paracrine.com
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Jan D'Alvise is the President and CEO of Acasti Pharma, a late-stage specialty pharma company addressing rare and orphan diseases. The topic today is the treatment of the rare disease SAH, otherwise known as subarachnoid hemorrhage with GTX-104, a reformulation of the existing drug nimodipine. We also talk about reformulating and repurposing drugs for the rare neurodegenerative disorder ataxia-telangiectasia A-T that affects young children and for treating postherpetic neuralgia, the severe nerve pain that persists in some patients after they have a shingles infection.
Jan explains, "So an aneurysm in the brain is known as subarachnoid hemorrhage. Now you could have bleeding on the brain caused by other things, but if it's caused by a burst aneurysm, it's known as subarachnoid hemorrhage or SAH."
"So I mentioned that nimodipine is the standard of care today, and all patients who present with SAH are put on nimodipine post-surgery. The nimodipine is very potent, so you have to carefully monitor it. The problem today is that it's only available as an oral drug. Most of these patients are unconscious, so the nursing staff has to take a capsule, mix it with some liquid and actually give it to the patient through a nasogastric tube. So they literally put it through the nose, down the throat to deliver it into the stomach."
"What we've done is we have figured out a very clever way of solubilizing nimodipine, so providing it in a formulation that can be delivered via an intravenous infusion. These patients are very sick, they're in an intensive care unit, so they're all already on an IV. They're getting other drugs via IV, they're getting fluids, so it's very easy to hook our drug up to an IV."
"The key thing about it is because the nimodipine is then going directly into the bloodstream, you can get much tighter control of the amount of nimodipine that's actually going into the patient and being absorbed."
#AcastiPharma $ASCT #SubArachnoidHemorrhage #SAH #GTX104 #Nimodipine #AtaxiaTelangiectasia #AT #Bupivacaine #PostherpeticNeuralgia #RareDiseases
acastipharma.com
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Jan D'Alvise is the President and CEO of Acasti Pharma, a late-stage specialty pharma company addressing rare and orphan diseases. The topic today is the treatment of the rare disease SAH, otherwise known as subarachnoid hemorrhage with GTX-104, a reformulation of the existing drug nimodipine. We also talk about reformulating and repurposing drugs for the rare neurodegenerative disorder ataxia-telangiectasia A-T that affects young children and for treating postherpetic neuralgia, the severe nerve pain that persists in some patients after they have a shingles infection.
Jan explains, "So an aneurysm in the brain is known as subarachnoid hemorrhage. Now you could have bleeding on the brain caused by other things, but if it's caused by a burst aneurysm, it's known as subarachnoid hemorrhage or SAH."
"So I mentioned that nimodipine is the standard of care today, and all patients who present with SAH are put on nimodipine post-surgery. The nimodipine is very potent, so you have to carefully monitor it. The problem today is that it's only available as an oral drug. Most of these patients are unconscious, so the nursing staff has to take a capsule, mix it with some liquid and actually give it to the patient through a nasogastric tube. So they literally put it through the nose, down the throat to deliver it into the stomach."
"What we've done is we have figured out a very clever way of solubilizing nimodipine, so providing it in a formulation that can be delivered via an intravenous infusion. These patients are very sick, they're in an intensive care unit, so they're all already on an IV. They're getting other drugs via IV, they're getting fluids, so it's very easy to hook our drug up to an IV."
"The key thing about it is because the nimodipine is then going directly into the bloodstream, you can get much tighter control of the amount of nimodipine that's actually going into the patient and being absorbed."
#AcastiPharma $ASCT #SubArachnoidHemorrhage #SAH #GTX104 #Nimodipine #AtaxiaTelangiectasia #AT #Bupivacaine #PostherpeticNeuralgia #RareDiseases
acastipharma.com
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Ted Karkus is the CEO of ProPhase Labs, which is in the battle to provide rapid results from PCR tests for COVID-19. While expecting a winter spike, Ted has been surprised at the record-breaking demand the latest Omicron variant has created. ProPhase Labs has recently acquired Nebula Genomics to provide whole genome sequencing direct to consumers to help guide medical treatment and educate people about diseases they may be predisposed to.
Ted explains, "So, the issue with regard to turnaround times really has more to do with the number of employees you have, and it's very difficult, particularly in this environment, to find qualified lab techs, particularly in the state of New York, if not across the nation. So, we had these tremendous out-of-the-blue spike COVID incidents. The amount of testing, the request for testing went through the roof. All the labs in the country, and certainly in the state of New York, were overwhelmed."
"As you can see, it's not just about the amount of time it takes to process a test with PCR, which is probably four to six hours. It's what the capacity for your lab is. We have three shifts working 24/7, but understand that there was a period in December where the number of specimens that came in, each of our customers, the amount of specimens they sent into us was like double or triple what it had just been a few weeks earlier."
"What we do is provide whole genome sequencing direct to consumers. The future of medicine is all about precision medicine or personalized medicine. It's all about using your genetic makeup to understand what are the best drugs and therapies that will optimally work to treat your condition. We provide whole genome sequencing for $300. So, we're the low-cost provider. Right now, our turnaround times are about six weeks."
#ProPhaseLabs #COVID19 #COVID #COVIDTesting #PCRCOVIDTest #PCRTest #Omicron
ProPhaseLabs.com
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Ted Karkus is the CEO of ProPhase Labs, which is in the battle to provide rapid results from PCR tests for COVID-19. While expecting a winter spike, Ted has been surprised at the record-breaking demand the latest Omicron variant has created. ProPhase Labs has recently acquired Nebula Genomics to provide whole genome sequencing direct to consumers to help guide medical treatment and educate people about diseases they may be predisposed to.
Ted explains, "So, the issue with regard to turnaround times really has more to do with the number of employees you have, and it's very difficult, particularly in this environment, to find qualified lab techs, particularly in the state of New York, if not across the nation. So, we had these tremendous out-of-the-blue spike COVID incidents. The amount of testing, the request for testing went through the roof. All the labs in the country, and certainly in the state of New York, were overwhelmed."
"As you can see, it's not just about the amount of time it takes to process a test with PCR, which is probably four to six hours. It's what the capacity for your lab is. We have three shifts working 24/7, but understand that there was a period in December where the number of specimens that came in, each of our customers, the amount of specimens they sent into us was like double or triple what it had just been a few weeks earlier."
"What we do is provide whole genome sequencing direct to consumers. The future of medicine is all about precision medicine or personalized medicine. It's all about using your genetic makeup to understand what are the best drugs and therapies that will optimally work to treat your condition. We provide whole genome sequencing for $300. So, we're the low-cost provider. Right now, our turnaround times are about six weeks."
#ProPhaseLabs #COVID19 #COVID #COVIDTesting #PCRCOVIDTest #PCRTest #Omicron
ProPhaseLabs.com
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Wim Souverijns is the Chief Community Engagement and Commercial Officer at Pharvaris and is focusing on HAE or hereditary angioedema a rare disease that impacts the cells as recurrent angioedema or swelling episodes. These patients go through unpredictable swellings in their body at the extremities, in the abdomen, and in the facial area.
Wim explains, "The cause of HAE is a deficiency or dysfunction in a particular enzyme called the C1-inhibitor, and there are tools to detect this deficiency or dysfunction. The levels of C1 inhibitor are measured and, based on these levels, patients with this condition are identified. That deficiency leads to a cascade of biochemical events, whereby the ultimate culprit for these swellings is a molecule called bradykinin. Bradykinin will connect to a receptor called a B2-receptor, and by doing that, it will signal to the cell that it should vasodilate - the cell basically opens its pores - meaning fluid is being taken up into the cell, into the tissue, leading to the swelling."
"The last approach addresses the penultimate event in the cascade by preventing the actual bradykinin in the plasma to connect to the B2-receptor. This is where Pharvaris is focused. We're trying to avoid bradykinin from activating the receptor, thereby avoiding swelling in the tissue. So, there are three different categories, and we are focusing on really on that bottom one, the bradykinin, because our therapy competes for the receptor."
#Pharvaris #HAE #HereditaryAngioedema #Bradykinin #RareDisease
Pharvaris.com
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Wim Souverijns is the Chief Community Engagement and Commercial Officer at Pharvaris and is focusing on HAE or hereditary angioedema a rare disease that impacts the cells as recurrent angioedema or swelling episodes. These patients go through unpredictable swellings in their body at the extremities, in the abdomen, and in the facial area.
Wim explains, "The cause of HAE is a deficiency or dysfunction in a particular enzyme called the C1-inhibitor, and there are tools to detect this deficiency or dysfunction. The levels of C1 inhibitor are measured and, based on these levels, patients with this condition are identified. That deficiency leads to a cascade of biochemical events, whereby the ultimate culprit for these swellings is a molecule called bradykinin. Bradykinin will connect to a receptor called a B2-receptor, and by doing that, it will signal to the cell that it should vasodilate - the cell basically opens its pores - meaning fluid is being taken up into the cell, into the tissue, leading to the swelling."
"The last approach addresses the penultimate event in the cascade by preventing the actual bradykinin in the plasma to connect to the B2-receptor. This is where Pharvaris is focused. We're trying to avoid bradykinin from activating the receptor, thereby avoiding swelling in the tissue. So, there are three different categories, and we are focusing on really on that bottom one, the bradykinin, because our therapy competes for the receptor."
#Pharvaris #HAE #HereditaryAngioedema #Bradykinin #RareDisease
Pharvaris.com
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Amit Kumar is the President and CEO of Anixa Biosciences and is working on a prophylactic vaccine to prevent the onset of breast cancer rather than a therapeutic vaccine to fight the solid tumors. Anixa is also working on CAR-T therapy for solid tumors and using artificial intelligence and machine learning to discover compounds to treat COVID-19.
Amit elaborates, "We believe that trying to destroy cancer cells as they arise in a patient's body is much easier than waiting until that cancer becomes a large tumor mass with trillions of cells. As you know, cancer starts off with one single cell that becomes aberrant. Then it reproduces, it becomes two cells, four cells, eight cells, and so on, eventually becoming a tumor that is comprised of millions to trillions of cells. So if we try and destroy a tumor that's millions and trillions of cells, it's very difficult."
"You have a tumor microenvironment, you have a very immunosuppressive environment in that tumor, and it's very hard to address that tumor. However, if you could destroy those cells as they arise at the two-cell, four-cell, or handful-of-cell stage, then you could eliminate the tumor from ever arising. The cells never have a chance to become a tumor. That's what we're trying to do with our breast cancer vaccine."
"This is a therapeutic as opposed to a vaccine against coronavirus. We believe that the coronavirus is going to be an endemic disease, and there will always be a need for therapeutics. We want to be able to have a therapeutic that can be easily distributed, it's room-temperature-stable, unlike the vaccines, which require a cold chain, and something very inexpensive that can be taken by mouth."
@AnixaBio #CancerVaccine #CART #Immunotherapy #BreastCancer #COVID19 #COVIDTherapeutic
Anixa.com
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Amit Kumar is the President and CEO of Anixa Biosciences and is working on a prophylactic vaccine to prevent the onset of breast cancer rather than a therapeutic vaccine to fight the solid tumors. Anixa is also working on CAR-T therapy for solid tumors and using artificial intelligence and machine learning to discover compounds to treat COVID-19.
Amit elaborates, "We believe that trying to destroy cancer cells as they arise in a patient's body is much easier than waiting until that cancer becomes a large tumor mass with trillions of cells. As you know, cancer starts off with one single cell that becomes aberrant. Then it reproduces, it becomes two cells, four cells, eight cells, and so on, eventually becoming a tumor that is comprised of millions to trillions of cells. So if we try and destroy a tumor that's millions and trillions of cells, it's very difficult."
"You have a tumor microenvironment, you have a very immunosuppressive environment in that tumor, and it's very hard to address that tumor. However, if you could destroy those cells as they arise at the two-cell, four-cell, or handful-of-cell stage, then you could eliminate the tumor from ever arising. The cells never have a chance to become a tumor. That's what we're trying to do with our breast cancer vaccine."
"This is a therapeutic as opposed to a vaccine against coronavirus. We believe that the coronavirus is going to be an endemic disease, and there will always be a need for therapeutics. We want to be able to have a therapeutic that can be easily distributed, it's room-temperature-stable, unlike the vaccines, which require a cold chain, and something very inexpensive that can be taken by mouth."
@AnixaBio #CancerVaccine #CART #Immunotherapy #BreastCancer #COVID19 #COVIDTherapeutic
Anixa.com
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Chris Young is the Head of Product at Force Therapeutics and is focusing on presenting information to patients before and after surgery, particularly those undergoing musculoskeletal related treatments. The key to patient engagement is presenting the right information in the right form at the right time to keep patients on track with their medications and rehab and to help manage their expectations about pain and recovery time.
Chris elaborates, "And so when we talk about digital health 2.0, what we want to do is take advantage of the fact that the majority of patients have a behavior-changing device in their pocket. So a lot of patients are going to be walking around with an iPhone or an Android in their pocket. And the way that we can present information in real-time based on their needs, we feel like that with that behavior-changing device in their pocket, we can truly help them ingest information. We can do more than just kind of present this cold, clinical kind of information in front of them, and actually try to create true behavioral change. So I think that's really where the importance of design and health tech comes into play."
"I would say that the preoperative window, particularly around up to a week, especially when it's surgical care, a week before surgery, is really, really important. You want to do a couple of things, especially in the move towards same-day discharge. You'll often see, especially with hip and knee replacement, that there is a move towards same-day discharge. You're leaving the hospital or the ASC after about six hours. We want to make sure that you feel adequately prepped for when you get home. So a lot of what we're going to do is present that information."
@ForceTherEx #ForceTherapeutics #DIgitalHealth #PatientEngagement #CareManagement
ForceTherapeutics.com
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Chris Young is the Head of Product at Force Therapeutics and is focusing on presenting information to patients before and after surgery, particularly those undergoing musculoskeletal related treatments. The key to patient engagement is presenting the right information in the right form at the right time to keep patients on track with their medications and rehab and to help manage their expectations about pain and recovery time.
Chris elaborates, "And so when we talk about digital health 2.0, what we want to do is take advantage of the fact that the majority of patients have a behavior-changing device in their pocket. So a lot of patients are going to be walking around with an iPhone or an Android in their pocket. And the way that we can present information in real-time based on their needs, we feel like that with that behavior-changing device in their pocket, we can truly help them ingest information. We can do more than just kind of present this cold, clinical kind of information in front of them, and actually try to create true behavioral change. So I think that's really where the importance of design and health tech comes into play."
"I would say that the preoperative window, particularly around up to a week, especially when it's surgical care, a week before surgery, is really, really important. You want to do a couple of things, especially in the move towards same-day discharge. You'll often see, especially with hip and knee replacement, that there is a move towards same-day discharge. You're leaving the hospital or the ASC after about six hours. We want to make sure that you feel adequately prepped for when you get home. So a lot of what we're going to do is present that information."
@ForceTherEx #ForceTherapeutics #DIgitalHealth #PatientEngagement #CareManagement
ForceTherapeutics.com
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Matt Murphy is the EVP of Network and Clinical Content at Cohere Health, innovators in utilization management and prior authorization for tests, services, and drugs. By taking a patient-first approach means reviewing cases on behalf of the Cohere health plan clients as well as with an eye to the health outcomes of patients.
Matt explains," Utilization management really evolved as an adversarial exercise with health plans pitted against physicians. And if you think about the key areas where it's impacting patients and physicians more broadly, really it's three things. First is delays in care and access. Really there shouldn't be anything coming in between a patient and the care they need as long as it's clinically appropriate. So I'd say that's probably the first issue."
"A few weeks ago, we reported out jointly with Humana, one of our first clients, on the impact we had in year one, and it was tremendous in terms of medical expense savings. But I think it goes back to the philosophical differences people have in utilization management."
"On one side, you have a number of folks who think that the only way to drive down medical expense is to deny services versus our vision, which is if you truly are driving the right clinical care for patients and the highest value care, you're inherently going to have lower expense. So I think if you can kind of transition across that philosophical boundary into the focus on clinical outcomes, you inherently save money."
@CohereHealth #PriorAuthorization #UtilizationManagement
coherehealth.com
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Matt Murphy is the EVP of Network and Clinical Content at Cohere Health, innovators in utilization management and prior authorization for tests, services, and drugs. By taking a patient-first approach means reviewing cases on behalf of the Cohere health plan clients as well as with an eye to the health outcomes of patients.
Matt explains," Utilization management really evolved as an adversarial exercise with health plans pitted against physicians. And if you think about the key areas where it's impacting patients and physicians more broadly, really it's three things. First is delays in care and access. Really there shouldn't be anything coming in between a patient and the care they need as long as it's clinically appropriate. So I'd say that's probably the first issue."
"A few weeks ago, we reported out jointly with Humana, one of our first clients, on the impact we had in year one, and it was tremendous in terms of medical expense savings. But I think it goes back to the philosophical differences people have in utilization management."
"On one side, you have a number of folks who think that the only way to drive down medical expense is to deny services versus our vision, which is if you truly are driving the right clinical care for patients and the highest value care, you're inherently going to have lower expense. So I think if you can kind of transition across that philosophical boundary into the focus on clinical outcomes, you inherently save money."
@CohereHealth #PriorAuthorization #UtilizationManagement
coherehealth.com
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Steven Goh is the CEO of Achiko which is developing a COVID-19 test based around using a DNA aptamer, a small strand of oligonucleotides, as an alternative to using an antigen. When saliva is placed in a colloidal solution and read by a spectrophotometer, smart software can then classify if the person is likely to be COVID positive or negative.
Steven elaborates, "The sum of it all is that we believe that we've got possibly one of the tests with the best value for the money. It looks like the cost per test at scale may only be tens of cents. The sensitivity at very low viral loads... And the customer experience is great. It starts with a minty mouthwash and spit in a tube and scan on a spectrophotometer, and hopefully, in a year with the generation three or four product, it'll end up being scanned on your phone."
"In the future, given the advantages that using aptamers give us, yes, we are looking at a polymorphic set of tests where we could actually be able to identify the full range of respiratory diseases and give you a classification. So, one test we'll be able to, in about a year from now, we hope we'll be able to tell if you've got bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, SARS, MERS, which variant of COVID. We believe that's technically possible, given the technology stack that we're using."
@achikoag #Achiko #COVID19 #COVID19Tests #COVID #Aptamex
Achiko.com
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Steven Goh is the CEO of Achiko which is developing a COVID-19 test based around using a DNA aptamer, a small strand of oligonucleotides, as an alternative to using an antigen. When saliva is placed in a colloidal solution and read by a spectrophotometer, smart software can then classify if the person is likely to be COVID positive or negative.
Steven elaborates, "The sum of it all is that we believe that we've got possibly one of the tests with the best value for the money. It looks like the cost per test at scale may only be tens of cents. The sensitivity at very low viral loads... And the customer experience is great. It starts with a minty mouthwash and spit in a tube and scan on a spectrophotometer, and hopefully, in a year with the generation three or four product, it'll end up being scanned on your phone."
"In the future, given the advantages that using aptamers give us, yes, we are looking at a polymorphic set of tests where we could actually be able to identify the full range of respiratory diseases and give you a classification. So, one test we'll be able to, in about a year from now, we hope we'll be able to tell if you've got bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, SARS, MERS, which variant of COVID. We believe that's technically possible, given the technology stack that we're using."
@achikoag #Achiko #COVID19 #COVID19Tests #COVID #Aptamex
Achiko.com
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Angie Franks is the CEO of ABOUT, an innovative healthcare technology company, formally known as Central Logic. ABOUT is solving the problem of getting acute patients to the optimal setting of care as they move into and out of the hospital and then to a post-acute facility or their own home.
Angie explains, "Well, a big contributor to physician burnout is really all of the work. I would call it almost unnecessary friction and noise in their day-to-day jobs. So if we take a use case that ABOUT solves every day for health systems across the country, it is addressing the problem of interfacility patient transfers."
"When our solution is not in place, the noise and the friction on the clinical staff at the accepting location is tremendous."
"All of this noise to get the decision made is just extra work sitting on clinicians' plates that can be handled in a centralized hub, a support service hub on behalf of the health system. We can take all of that work and all of that noise so that the clinicians inside the hospital system can focus on taking care of the patients under their charge while the access center, which operates as a centralized hub and shared service center for the entire health system, can take all of those calls."
"Well, much of this process operates like the 1960s with sticky notes, whiteboards, post-it notes, phone calls, nurses writing information on their hands, and making a lot of calls."
@ABOUT_est2005 #Hospitals #InterfacilityPatientTransfer
abouthealthcare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Angie Franks is the CEO of ABOUT, an innovative healthcare technology company, formally known as Central Logic. ABOUT is solving the problem of getting acute patients to the optimal setting of care as they move into and out of the hospital and then to a post-acute facility or their own home.
Angie explains, "Well, a big contributor to physician burnout is really all of the work. I would call it almost unnecessary friction and noise in their day-to-day jobs. So if we take a use case that ABOUT solves every day for health systems across the country, it is addressing the problem of interfacility patient transfers."
"When our solution is not in place, the noise and the friction on the clinical staff at the accepting location is tremendous."
"All of this noise to get the decision made is just extra work sitting on clinicians' plates that can be handled in a centralized hub, a support service hub on behalf of the health system. We can take all of that work and all of that noise so that the clinicians inside the hospital system can focus on taking care of the patients under their charge while the access center, which operates as a centralized hub and shared service center for the entire health system, can take all of those calls."
"Well, much of this process operates like the 1960s with sticky notes, whiteboards, post-it notes, phone calls, nurses writing information on their hands, and making a lot of calls."
@About_est2005 #Hospitals #InterfacilityPatientTransfer
abouthealthcare.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Dolca Thomas is the Executive VP of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Equillium, targeting autoimmune diseases where patients do not have a medicine that can lead to complete remission. In development, is the drug itolizumab considered a first-in-class, that focuses on the specific target and impacts what is known in the immune response as costimulation.
Dolca elaborates, "Right now, at Equillium, we're focusing on three difficult to treat autoimmune diseases. The first is graft-versus-host disease. This is a condition that develops in patients after they've had a bone marrow transplant where the donor cells that are used to treat the malignancy, the cancer that the patient has, then, later on, starts to attack the cells that belong to the patient. This is a disease that can occur anytime from immediately after transplant up to 100 days post-transplant"
"The second area where we're focused on is related to autoimmune disorders and diseases is lupus nephritis. Lupus nephritis is a disease that typically impacts women, young women, and women of color."
"The third area of focus for us as it relates to difficult to treat autoimmune diseases is asthma. There's still a need for other new therapies to help the 60% of patients that aren't positively impacted as it relates to their asthmatic control."
@EquilliumBio #Equillium #AutoimmuneDiseases #AutoimmuneDisorders #Nephritis #aGVHD #GraftversusHostDisease #Itolizumab #LupusNephritis #CD6ALCAM #RareDisease #SanDiego
equilliumbio.com
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Dr. Dolca Thomas is the Executive VP of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Equillium, targeting autoimmune diseases where patients do not have a medicine that can lead to complete remission. In development, is the drug itolizumab considered a first-in-class, that focuses on the specific target and impacts what is known in the immune response as costimulation.
Dolca elaborates, "Right now, at Equillium, we're focusing on three difficult to treat autoimmune diseases. The first is graft-versus-host disease. This is a condition that develops in patients after they've had a bone marrow transplant where the donor cells that are used to treat the malignancy, the cancer that the patient has, then, later on, starts to attack the cells that belong to the patient. This is a disease that can occur anytime from immediately after transplant up to 100 days post-transplant"
"The second area where we're focused on is related to autoimmune disorders and diseases is lupus nephritis. Lupus nephritis is a disease that typically impacts women, young women, and women of color."
"The third area of focus for us as it relates to difficult to treat autoimmune diseases is asthma. There's still a need for other new therapies to help the 60% of patients that aren't positively impacted as it relates to their asthmatic control."
@EquilliumBio #Equillium #AutoimmuneDiseases #AutoimmuneDisorders #Nephritis #aGVHD #GraftversusHostDisease #Itolizumab #LupusNephritis #CD6ALCAM #RareDisease #SanDiego
equilliumbio.com
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Tom Lemberg is the Founder and CEO of Curebase and was recently included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2022 for leading positive global change in healthcare. Curebase is shaking up the world of clinical trials by providing software for patients making it easy for them to participate from home, software for doctors that makes it easy for them to participate in the research, along with a virtual research site model that has grown even more valuable due to the pandemic.
Tom explains, "In terms of what Curebase does, we're a full platform for what's called a decentralized clinical trial. So, that means taking trials out of the elite institutions and bringing them to patients at home. We have an app for patients which guides them through things like discovering trials, submitting data at home, connecting medical records, scheduling telemedicine appointments, conducting telemedicine appointments, and participating in treatments from home."
"We also have software for physicians. So we've brought over 100 community physicians, so sort of first-time researchers, into the clinical trial world using our software to make it easy for them to participate."
"Through the software and our virtual site model, we've really reduced the barriers to participation for patients and doctors, and that's what gets us into the idea of Bring Your Own Physician. So, Bring Your Own Physician is something that we're really pioneering. It's the idea that a patient could discover a clinical trial on the internet, sign up at home using our app or any other technology, and they could then participate with their own doctor."
@CurebaseDCT #DCT #DecentralizedDigitalTrials #ClinicalResearch #ClinicalTrials #BYOP #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine
Curebase.com
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Tom Lemberg is the Founder and CEO of Curebase and was recently included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2022 for leading positive global change in healthcare. Curebase is shaking up the world of clinical trials by providing software for patients making it easy for them to participate from home, software for doctors that makes it easy for them to participate in the research, along with a virtual research site model that has grown even more valuable due to the pandemic.
Tom explains, "In terms of what Curebase does, we're a full platform for what's called a decentralized clinical trial. So, that means taking trials out of the elite institutions and bringing them to patients at home. We have an app for patients which guides them through things like discovering trials, submitting data at home, connecting medical records, scheduling telemedicine appointments, conducting telemedicine appointments, and participating in treatments from home."
"We also have software for physicians. So we've brought over 100 community physicians, so sort of first-time researchers, into the clinical trial world using our software to make it easy for them to participate."
"Through the software and our virtual site model, we've really reduced the barriers to participation for patients and doctors, and that's what gets us into the idea of Bring Your Own Physician. So, Bring Your Own Physician is something that we're really pioneering. It's the idea that a patient could discover a clinical trial on the internet, sign up at home using our app or any other technology, and they could then participate with their own doctor."
@CurebaseDCT #DCT #DecentralizedDigitalTrials #ClinicalResearch #ClinicalTrials #BYOP #DigitalTherapeutics #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine
Curebase.com
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Dr. Joseph O'Donnell is the Chief Medical Officer at Phosplatin Therapeutics founded to develop a drug with platinum in it to kill cancer cells. Phosplatin is in clinical trials with PT-112 which is the first cancer therapy molecule that has a pyrophosphate on it and works by harnessing the immune system and causing immunogenic cell death.
Dr. Joe explains, "This drug is in this space that's really burgeoning called immuno-oncology, where we're using immune agents to stimulate the immune system to actually affect the cancer, to actually knock down the cancer. And this is one that has a different mechanism than some of the other agents and lots of potential to be used in combination to produce synergy with those other agents in this very exciting space."
"So, the checkpoint inhibitors are one group of drugs that seems to be interesting to combine with PT-112, and I suspect we'll see more of that in the future. But just PT-112 by itself, it has this effect called producing immunogenic cell death. That's a way in which a drug causes cancer cells to die by activating the immune system, the adaptive immune system, to actually attack the tumor and actually devour it. And so that's one of the properties that the PT-112 has."
@Phosplatin #Oncology #ImmunoOncology #Cancer #CancerTherapeutics #ICD #ImmunogenicCellDeath #Chemotherapy #CheckPointInhibitors #Innovation #NYBiotech
Phosplatin.com
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Dr. Joseph O'Donnell is the Chief Medical Officer at Phosplatin Therapeutics founded to develop a drug with platinum in it to kill cancer cells. Phosplatin is in clinical trials with PT-112 which is the first cancer therapy molecule that has a pyrophosphate on it and works by harnessing the immune system and causing immunogenic cell death.
Dr. Joe explains, "This drug is in this space that's really burgeoning called immuno-oncology, where we're using immune agents to stimulate the immune system to actually affect the cancer, to actually knock down the cancer. And this is one that has a different mechanism than some of the other agents and lots of potential to be used in combination to produce synergy with those other agents in this very exciting space."
"So, the checkpoint inhibitors are one group of drugs that seems to be interesting to combine with PT-112, and I suspect we'll see more of that in the future. But just PT-112 by itself, it has this effect called producing immunogenic cell death. That's a way in which a drug causes cancer cells to die by activating the immune system, the adaptive immune system, to actually attack the tumor and actually devour it. And so that's one of the properties that the PT-112 has."
@Phosplatin #Oncology #ImmunoOncology #Cancer #CancerTherapeutics #ICD #ImmunogenicCellDeath #Chemotherapy #CheckPointInhibitors #Innovation #NYBiotech
Phosplatin.com
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Alain Moussy is the Co-Founder and CEO of AB Science a clinical-stage company designing and developing novel drugs to address diseases with high unmet medical needs. Masitinib, their drug in development is being investigated in neurological diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and multiple sclerosis as well for severe forms of COVID-19 and as an antiviral anti-protease in ambulatory COVID-19 patients.
Alain explains, "We have started two such studies in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease, which is well known across the world, and another one in a rare disease called Mastocytosis, and those two studies are up and running. We have also started a phase 2 in COVID with masitinib after the University of Chicago discovered that masitinib is actually a potent antiviral against the virus, which was actually a surprise for us. Now that we have this data, we are developing masitinib for COVID as an antiviral. And you know, Karen, we need an antiviral along with the vaccine to fight this pandemic."
"The development of masitinib in Covid was not anticipated because our drug was not designed to be an antiviral. It's just that the structure of the protease of the virus has a strong affinity with the structure of our compound by chance. The co-crystallizations of the protease of the virus with masitinib, which has been done by the University of Chicago, show that they match."
#ABScience #COVID19 #Masitinib #AntiviralDrug #ALS #Alzheimers #MS
AB-Science.com
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Alain Moussy is the Co-Founder and CEO of AB Science a clinical-stage company designing and developing novel drugs to address diseases with high unmet medical needs. Masitinib, their drug in development is being investigated in neurological diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and multiple sclerosis as well for severe forms of COVID-19 and as an antiviral anti-protease in ambulatory COVID-19 patients.
Alain explains, "We have started two such studies in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease, which is well known across the world, and another one in a rare disease called Mastocytosis, and those two studies are up and running. We have also started a phase 2 in COVID with masitinib after the University of Chicago discovered that masitinib is actually a potent antiviral against the virus, which was actually a surprise for us. Now that we have this data, we are developing masitinib for COVID as an antiviral. And you know, Karen, we need an antiviral along with the vaccine to fight this pandemic."
"The development of masitinib in Covid was not anticipated because our drug was not designed to be an antiviral. It's just that the structure of the protease of the virus has a strong affinity with the structure of our compound by chance. The co-crystallizations of the protease of the virus with masitinib, which has been done by the University of Chicago, show that they match."
#ABScience #COVID19 #Masitinib #AntiviralDrug #ALS #Alzheimers #MS
AB-Science.com
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Dr. Abigail Hirsch is the Co-Founder of Lin Health which is bringing innovative chronic pain treatments to a broader audience thanks to their digital behavioral health platform. Lin Health members get specifically designed pain management plans and virtual access for support from a deep team of medical experts.
Abigail explains, "Then, let's get to the treatments that work for chronic pain. There's a seminal study that came out in JAMA this past fall, looking at a treatment called PRT, pain reprocessing therapy. There are some other papers with similar findings for similar therapies, but these are behavioral health techniques that were designed specifically to help turn down the pain processing system."
"There are very specific techniques that may look a little bit like some other things in behavioral health, a little bit like a cognitive-behavioral approach, a little bit like a mindfulness approach. Still, they actually are quite different because they were designed specifically to help the pain processing pathways learn to settle down the degree to which they're signaling pain, and they're incredibly effective."
#LinHealth #ChronicPain #PainProcessing #DigitalHealth #Telehealth #Telemedicine
Lin.Health
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Dr. Abigail Hirsch is the Co-Founder of Lin Health which is bringing innovative chronic pain treatments to a broader audience thanks to their digital behavioral health platform. Lin Health members get specifically designed pain management plans and virtual access for support from a deep team of medical experts.
Abigail explains, "Then, let's get to the treatments that work for chronic pain. There's a seminal study that came out in JAMA this past fall, looking at a treatment called PRT, pain reprocessing therapy. There are some other papers with similar findings for similar therapies, but these are behavioral health techniques that were designed specifically to help turn down the pain processing system."
"There are very specific techniques that may look a little bit like some other things in behavioral health, a little bit like a cognitive-behavioral approach, a little bit like a mindfulness approach. Still, they actually are quite different because they were designed specifically to help the pain processing pathways learn to settle down the degree to which they're signaling pain, and they're incredibly effective."
#LinHealth #ChronicPain #PainProcessing #DigitalHealth #Telehealth #Telemedicine
Lin.Health
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Dr. Hing Wong is the Founder and CEO of HCW Biologics and a pioneer in the field of inflammaging which recognizes that as we age, chronic inflammation can trigger a range of age-related diseases. Their proprietary platform TOBI is using a unique Tissue FactOr-Based Scaffold to build multifunctional fusion molecules to put a variety of immunotherapeutic molecules together in a drug using subcutaneous injection.
Hing explains, "There is a lot of really strong scientific evidence demonstrating that when we get old, we basically accumulate chronic inflammation. This chronic inflammation with aging basically makes up the word inflammaging. What it does is the accumulation of chronic inflammation and is the cause of a lot of major diseases in humans, such as cancer, neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease also diabetes. So our mission is to try to find drugs, immunotherapeutic in particular, to disrupt this inflammaging in a sense to disrupt the chronic inflammation accumulation during the aging process."
"Our idea is to get rid of these chronic inflammation sources induced by chemotherapy. So, on the one hand, you can enhance the chemotherapy's efficacy against cancer and also can completely eliminate the side effects caused by the chemotherapy. So that's another reason we chose cancer being our first indication."
#HCW #Inflammaging #Aging #Longevity #HealthSpan #LifeSpan
HCWbiologics.com
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Dr. Hing Wong is the Founder and CEO of HCW Biologics and a pioneer in the field of inflammaging which recognizes that as we age, chronic inflammation can trigger a range of age-related diseases. Their proprietary platform TOBI is using a unique Tissue FactOr-Based Scaffold to build multifunctional fusion molecules to put a variety of immunotherapeutic molecules together in a drug using subcutaneous injection.
Hing explains, "There is a lot of really strong scientific evidence demonstrating that when we get old, we basically accumulate chronic inflammation. This chronic inflammation with aging basically makes up the word inflammaging. What it does is the accumulation of chronic inflammation and is the cause of a lot of major diseases in humans, such as cancer, neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease also diabetes. So our mission is to try to find drugs, immunotherapeutic in particular, to disrupt this inflammaging in a sense to disrupt the chronic inflammation accumulation during the aging process."
"Our idea is to get rid of these chronic inflammation sources induced by chemotherapy. So, on the one hand, you can enhance the chemotherapy's efficacy against cancer and also can completely eliminate the side effects caused by the chemotherapy. So that's another reason we chose cancer being our first indication."
#HCW #Inflammaging #Aging #Longevity #HealthSpan #LifeSpan
HCWbiologics.com
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Joško Bobanović is a Partner, Industrial Biotechnology funds at Sofinnova Partners, a leading European venture capital firm in the life sciences. The focus of this group is finding companies that are applying the mature tools that were initially developed for healthcare into industrial disciplines, specifically, applications in food, chemicals, agriculture, and materials.
Joško explains, "In the 20 years from then to now, we have shaved multiple zeros from the cost of sequencing. That's equally true for other areas of biotechnology. That shift has allowed us to open up the application from what we tend to call red biotech, red coming from the blood, in terms of healthcare, to other angles of biotech."
"They often come in color-coded. You have the white biotech, green biotech, and blue biotech. The white one is industrial applications or products that are produced in the chemical industry. Then you have the green biotech, which focuses on and deals with plants. Then you have the blue biotech, which is oriented towards the ocean and typically focuses on algae and similar things. That's kind of how we look at biotech opportunities beyond just healthcare."
@SofinnovaVC #SofinnovaPartners #IndustrialBiotechnology #IndustrialBiotech #DNAScript #Sustainability #Environmentalimpact
sofinnovapartners.com
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Joško Bobanović is a Partner, Industrial Biotechnology funds at Sofinnova Partners, a leading European venture capital firm in the life sciences. The focus of this group is finding companies that are applying the mature tools that were initially developed for healthcare into industrial disciplines, specifically, applications in food, chemicals, agriculture, and materials.
Joško explains, "In the 20 years from then to now, we have shaved multiple zeros from the cost of sequencing. That's equally true for other areas of biotechnology. That shift has allowed us to open up the application from what we tend to call red biotech, red coming from the blood, in terms of healthcare, to other angles of biotech."
"They often come in color-coded. You have the white biotech, green biotech, and blue biotech. The white one is industrial applications or products that are produced in the chemical industry. Then you have the green biotech, which focuses on and deals with plants. Then you have the blue biotech, which is oriented towards the ocean and typically focuses on algae and similar things. That's kind of how we look at biotech opportunities beyond just healthcare."
@SofinnovaVC #SofinnovaPartners #IndustrialBiotechnology #IndustrialBiotech #DNAScript #Sustainability #Environmentalimpact
sofinnovapartners.com
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Tzvia Bader is the CEO and Co-Founder of TrialJectory which is an Ai-powered tech platform that matches cancer patients with the right clinical trials for their exact diagnosis. TrialJectory also gives pharmaceutical companies and CROs access to patient insights to allow them to effectively design and recruit for clinical trials.
Tzvia explains, "TrialJectory can really be the place where you can easily see all your options, understand all your options, and act upon your options. And by that remove barriers that exist today in patient access to clinical trials and patient access to the most advanced precision offering that exists today for cancer patients."
"I think it's taking some things that have been partially provided, not integrated, and also taking it to the next level of really using smart technology and leveraging it to really personalize it and help and make it relevant and to the patient themselves."
#Cancer #PatientChampion #CancerCare #CancerTreatment #CancerJourney #ClinicalTrials #AI #AIPlatform #DiversityinClinicalTrials
TrialJectory.com
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Tzvia Bader is the CEO and Co-Founder of TrialJectory which is an Ai-powered tech platform that matches cancer patients with the right clinical trials for their exact diagnosis. TrialJectory also gives pharmaceutical companies and CROs access to patient insights to allow them to effectively design and recruit for clinical trials.
Tzvia explains, "TrialJectory can really be the place where you can easily see all your options, understand all your options, and act upon your options. And by that remove barriers that exist today in patient access to clinical trials and patient access to the most advanced precision offering that exists today for cancer patients."
"I think it's taking some things that have been partially provided, not integrated, and also taking it to the next level of really using smart technology and leveraging it to really personalize it and help and make it relevant and to the patient themselves."
#Cancer #PatientChampion #CancerCare #CancerTreatment #CancerJourney #ClinicalTrials #AI #AIPlatform #DiversityinClinicalTrials
TrialJectory.com
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Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and DVP, Global Medical Affairs in Vascular for Abbott and is back on the podcast to talk about their Beyond Intervention global research. This second annual survey looks at hurdles in the patient journey to see where improvements can be made in the patient experience.
Nick explains, "So the year two survey, again, global survey, we went to 13 different geographies, conducted nearly 2000 interviews, half of which with patients, about a quarter with physicians, and then probably slightly less with healthcare leaders or administrators. And we really focused on that upstream portion of the patient journey, from people becoming patients, the awareness and development of symptoms, how that led to interfacing with healthcare, and then diagnostic testing."
"The uncomfortable truth is that patients simply are not getting a good experience. If we look at patients with coronary disease or peripheral arterial disease, there is a huge disconnect between the quality of care that both physicians and healthcare administrators think they're providing and what the patients perceive they are achieving. And we see that for both groups, but there's even more of a disconnect for patients with peripheral arterial disease."
@AbbottCardio #ClinicalTrials #VascularDisease #PAD #PeripheralArteryDisease #CAD #CoronaryArteryDisease #PatientJourney
Abbott.com
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Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and DVP, Global Medical Affairs in Vascular for Abbott and is back on the podcast to talk about their Beyond Intervention global research. This second annual survey looks at hurdles in the patient journey to see where improvements can be made in the patient experience.
Nick explains, "So the year two survey, again, global survey, we went to 13 different geographies, conducted nearly 2000 interviews, half of which with patients, about a quarter with physicians, and then probably slightly less with healthcare leaders or administrators. And we really focused on that upstream portion of the patient journey, from people becoming patients, the awareness and development of symptoms, how that led to interfacing with healthcare, and then diagnostic testing."
"The uncomfortable truth is that patients simply are not getting a good experience. If we look at patients with coronary disease or peripheral arterial disease, there is a huge disconnect between the quality of care that both physicians and healthcare administrators think they're providing and what the patients perceive they are achieving. And we see that for both groups, but there's even more of a disconnect for patients with peripheral arterial disease."
@AbbottCardio #ClinicalTrials #VascularDisease #PAD #PeripheralArteryDisease #CAD #CoronaryArteryDisease #PatientJourney
Abbott.com
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Dr. Dan Gold is the President and CEO of MEI Pharma and is tackling non-Hodgkin's B cell lymphoma to bring a therapy to patients minimizing the toxicities that are associated with current treatments. Their drug candidate zandelisib is a P13K delta inhibitor. It is being studied in lymphoma in B cells to determine if this is a way to block signaling and diminish the malignant capacity of the B cell.
Dan explains, "We sort of think of lymphoma in two flavors. it's either a more chronic disease, or it's a more aggressive disease, and then there is sort of a spectrum that spans that. In the less aggressive, we call it indolent diseases, the patients will live with these cancers for many, many years. "
"So for the cancers that we treat most commonly or that we're studying most commonly, they're more of the indolent variety. It is interesting because the fact that it's indolent, the patients will respond to therapies. But, eventually, the efficacy of that therapy will wane, and they'll need something else. But there are a number of options that can be staged over the years, again, to keep that cancer at bay, or at least minimally invasive and minimally problematic for many, many years. That's the area that we're focusing all of our energies on currently."
"What we have done, and what we have strived to do is to diminish those toxicities so that the patient will stay on the drug as long as possible. So what we've kind of pioneered for this class of drugs, because of the properties of zandelisib, is that we initially give the patient the drug on a daily basis for a couple of months to get that tumor at bay and shrink it as much as we can."
@MEI_Pharma $MEIP #Lymphoma #BloodCancer #P13K #P13KDelta #OptimizedDosing #SanDiego
meipharma.com
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Dr. Dan Gold is the President and CEO of MEI Pharma and is tackling non-Hodgkin's B cell lymphoma to bring a therapy to patients minimizing the toxicities that are associated with current treatments. Their drug candidate zandelisib is a P13K delta inhibitor. It is being studied in lymphoma in B cells to determine if this is a way to block signaling and diminish the malignant capacity of the B cell.
Dan explains, "We sort of think of lymphoma in two flavors. it's either a more chronic disease, or it's a more aggressive disease, and then there is sort of a spectrum that spans that. In the less aggressive, we call it indolent diseases, the patients will live with these cancers for many, many years. "
"So for the cancers that we treat most commonly or that we're studying most commonly, they're more of the indolent variety. It is interesting because the fact that it's indolent, the patients will respond to therapies. But, eventually, the efficacy of that therapy will wane, and they'll need something else. But there are a number of options that can be staged over the years, again, to keep that cancer at bay, or at least minimally invasive and minimally problematic for many, many years. That's the area that we're focusing all of our energies on currently."
"What we have done, and what we have strived to do is to diminish those toxicities so that the patient will stay on the drug as long as possible. So what we've kind of pioneered for this class of drugs, because of the properties of zandelisib, is that we initially give the patient the drug on a daily basis for a couple of months to get that tumor at bay and shrink it as much as we can."
@MEI_Pharma $MEIP #Lymphoma #BloodCancer #P13K #P13KDelta #OptimizedDosing #SanDiego
meipharma.com
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Justin Miller is the VP of Customer Success at eVisit and has recently returned from a tour of client sites to see how telehealth is functioning particularly in the real-world application of the Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport (ET3) emergency medical response model. eVisit is the only end-to-end enterprise care delivery platform built for hospitals and healthcare systems with a focus on the virtual care space.
Justin explains, "So Emergency Triage, Treat and Transport is effectively a model where telehealth is now engaged in this innovative approach to care delivery. And so typically, a medic would show up after a 911 call on someone's doorstep, sometimes on the worst day of someone's life, right? But they're showing up in these situations that are sometimes things like motor vehicle accidents. Sometimes they're things like, I'm having a behavioral health crisis. Sometimes they are things like, I actually don't have a primary care physician, and I believe that I need care right away, but it isn't emergency. That whole continuum ends up making a 911 call on a regular basis."
"GMR, Global Medical Response, is the company that has effectively taken telehealth and placed it with their medics and inside ambulances. When someone shows up on scene, they can do a quick assessment and verify if this person should be transported because it's a highly emergent situation, or if this person is actually appropriate to treat via virtual care. And if indeed they are able to be treated via virtual care, they would conduct a brief intake and get that person with a doctor right away."
@eVisit #VirtualCare #DigitalHealth #Telehealth #Telemedicine
evisit.com
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Justin Miller is the VP of Customer Success at eVisit and has recently returned from a tour of client sites to see how telehealth is functioning particularly in the real-world application of the Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport (ET3) emergency medical response model. eVisit is the only end-to-end enterprise care delivery platform built for hospitals and healthcare systems with a focus on the virtual care space.
Justin explains, "So Emergency Triage, Treat and Transport is effectively a model where telehealth is now engaged in this innovative approach to care delivery. And so typically, a medic would show up after a 911 call on someone's doorstep, sometimes on the worst day of someone's life, right? But they're showing up in these situations that are sometimes things like motor vehicle accidents. Sometimes they're things like, I'm having a behavioral health crisis. Sometimes they are things like, I actually don't have a primary care physician, and I believe that I need care right away, but it isn't emergency. That whole continuum ends up making a 911 call on a regular basis."
"GMR, Global Medical Response, is the company that has effectively taken telehealth and placed it with their medics and inside ambulances. When someone shows up on scene, they can do a quick assessment and verify if this person should be transported because it's a highly emergent situation, or if this person is actually appropriate to treat via virtual care. And if indeed they are able to be treated via virtual care, they would conduct a brief intake and get that person with a doctor right away."
@eVisit #VirtualCare #DigitalHealth #Telehealth #Telemedicine
evisit.com
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Bill Hinshaw is the President and CEO of Axcella Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech company founded by Flagship Pioneering, Founder of Moderna. Using their platform to create compositions of endogenous metabolic modulators, EMMs, Axcella has generated two liver programs including 1125 for treating NASH. Preclinical and clinical data led them to test 1125 for long COVID fatigue in conjunction with Dr. Betty Raman Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford.
Bill explains, "So 1125 is a composition of amino acids and their derivatives, which is put together to address specific biologies. And we have tested it all the way into phase 2b in NASH patients. And what we've seen is it has an effect on important energy aspects, so bioenergetics, along with inflammatory redox, and immune and muscle functions."
"And what happens, in this case, is that basically, the virus comes in, hijacks the mitochondria to help it reproduce or redirect its efforts towards producing more virus. And when it does that, it damages the cell itself and its ability to create energy."
"Dr. Raman likes to talk about the fact that there's a battery, think of it as a rechargeable battery but unfortunately, in this case, the battery is damaged and it can't hold its charge. And so what 1125 is looking to do is to repair the battery's processes through areas like fatty acid oxidation, ATP generation, immune enhancement, as well as inflammatory reduction."
#Axcella #AxcellaLongCovid #AxcellaTherapeutics #OxfordLongCOVID #LongCOVID #COVID19 #COVID #ChronicFatigueLongCOVID #LongHaulers #ClinicalTrials
AxcellaTx.com
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Bill Hinshaw is the President and CEO of Axcella Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech company founded by Flagship Pioneering, Founder of Moderna. Using their platform to create compositions of endogenous metabolic modulators, EMMs, Axcella has generated two liver programs including 1125 for treating NASH. Preclinical and clinical data led them to test 1125 for long COVID fatigue in conjunction with Dr. Betty Raman Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford.
Bill explains, "So 1125 is a composition of amino acids and their derivatives, which is put together to address specific biologies. And we have tested it all the way into phase 2b in NASH patients. And what we've seen is it has an effect on important energy aspects, so bioenergetics, along with inflammatory redox, and immune and muscle functions."
"And what happens, in this case, is that basically, the virus comes in, hijacks the mitochondria to help it reproduce or redirect its efforts towards producing more virus. And when it does that, it damages the cell itself and its ability to create energy."
"Dr. Raman likes to talk about the fact that there's a battery, think of it as a rechargeable battery but unfortunately, in this case, the battery is damaged and it can't hold its charge. And so what 1125 is looking to do is to repair the battery's processes through areas like fatty acid oxidation, ATP generation, immune enhancement, as well as inflammatory reduction."
#Axcella #AxcellaLongCovid #AxcellaTherapeutics #OxfordLongCOVID #LongCOVID #COVID19 #COVID #ChronicFatigueLongCOVID #LongHaulers #ClinicalTrials
AxcellaTx.com
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Dr. Betty Raman is the Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford and has been studying the effects of COVID-19 since the pandemic began to better understand the effects of COVID on multiple organ systems.
Betty elaborates, "At Oxford, we've led a program where hundreds of patients recovering from COVID-19 volunteered to participate in our study. We undertook comprehensive assessments on magnetic resonance imaging, as well as cardiopulmonary exercise testing and blood tests."
"What has come out from all this work is that a significant proportion of people recovering from moderate to severe and even mild COVID continue to experience lingering symptoms of fatigue, pain in various parts of the body, breathlessness and difficulty breathing. Some patients also report post-exertional breathlessness, post-exertional malaise."
"So, we were quite interested in this new drug that Axcella wanted to test out, which had potential benefits for mitochondrial dysfunction, which we think may be playing a role in some symptoms that long COVID patients have experienced. And so, we have designed a study, which is aimed at fatigue dominant long COVID patients who are recovering from COVID-19 and continue to experience symptoms of fatigue. And we're going to see whether this new treatment has any effects on symptoms of fatigue in patients."
@BR_CMR #LongCovid #ChronicFatigueLongCovid #OxfordLongCovid #AxcellaLongCovid #LongHaulers #COVID19 #COVID #ClinicalTrials
Rdm.ox.ac.uk
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Dr. Betty Raman is the Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford and has been studying the effects of COVID-19 since the pandemic began to better understand the effects of COVID on multiple organ systems.
Betty elaborates, "At Oxford, we've led a program where hundreds of patients recovering from COVID-19 volunteered to participate in our study. We undertook comprehensive assessments on magnetic resonance imaging, as well as cardiopulmonary exercise testing and blood tests."
"What has come out from all this work is that a significant proportion of people recovering from moderate to severe and even mild COVID continue to experience lingering symptoms of fatigue, pain in various parts of the body, breathlessness and difficulty breathing. Some patients also report post-exertional breathlessness, post-exertional malaise."
"So, we were quite interested in this new drug that Axcella wanted to test out, which had potential benefits for mitochondrial dysfunction, which we think may be playing a role in some symptoms that long COVID patients have experienced. And so, we have designed a study, which is aimed at fatigue dominant long COVID patients who are recovering from COVID-19 and continue to experience symptoms of fatigue. And we're going to see whether this new treatment has any effects on symptoms of fatigue in patients."
@BR_CMR #LongCovid #ChronicFatigueLongCovid #OxfordLongCovid #AxcellaLongCovid #LongHaulers #COVID19 #COVID #ClinicalTrials
Rdm.ox.ac.uk
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Dr. Antonia Chen is the Director of Research for the Division of Adult Reconstruction and a surgeon performing total joint arthroplasty in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital. In addition to informing surgeons and other healthcare professionals about ways to avoid surgical site infections, Antonia emphasizes there is also a need to educate patients about preoperative actions to optimize them for surgery.
Antonia explains, "Surgical site infections unfortunately still plague us today, and they basically are infections that happen after surgery. It can happen in any patient and after any surgery. There are some surgeries that have a higher likelihood of it and some surgeries that don't. What happens is that after we make a cut through the skin due to surgery, the bacteria on your skin that is natural can actually get into your wound and potentially cause a surgical site infection or SSI."
"It's really nice to have something inside the wound to prevent the bacteria from growing. So Ethicon has a Plus Antibacterial suture, and it is the only commercially available suture that can prevent persistent risk from surgical infection by reducing the risk of infection."
"I really appreciate Ethicon for putting together a campaign they call Zero Starts With One. The idea is that we want to go to zero surgical site infections, and it starts with one person at a time, one prevention at a time, one patient, one healthcare provider at a time."
@BrighamWomens #SurgicalSiteInfections #ZeroStartsWithOne #Ethicon
brighamandwomens.org
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Dr. Antonia Chen is the Director of Research for the Division of Adult Reconstruction and a surgeon performing total joint arthroplasty in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital. In addition to informing surgeons and other healthcare professionals about ways to avoid surgical site infections, Antonia emphasizes there is also a need to educate patients about preoperative actions to optimize them for surgery.
Antonia explains, "Surgical site infections unfortunately still plague us today, and they basically are infections that happen after surgery. It can happen in any patient and after any surgery. There are some surgeries that have a higher likelihood of it and some surgeries that don't. What happens is that after we make a cut through the skin due to surgery, the bacteria on your skin that is natural can actually get into your wound and potentially cause a surgical site infection or SSI."
"It's really nice to have something inside the wound to prevent the bacteria from growing. So Ethicon has a Plus Antibacterial suture, and it is the only commercially available suture that can prevent persistent risk from surgical infection by reducing the risk of infection."
"I really appreciate Ethicon for putting together a campaign they call Zero Starts With One. The idea is that we want to go to zero surgical site infections, and it starts with one person at a time, one prevention at a time, one patient, one healthcare provider at a time."
@BrighamWomens #SurgicalSiteInfections #ZeroStartsWithOne #Ethicon
brighamandwomens.org
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Dan Greenleaf is the President and CEO of Modivcare and is presenting a complete solution for vulnerable patients whose healthcare outcomes are most affected by recognized social determinants of health.
Dan elaborates, "But our view is it's not necessarily about the clinical intervention. It's about having access to the healthcare system through transportation. It's about getting a nutritious meal on a daily basis or meals on a daily basis. It's about in the event you need somebody to help you with activities of daily living that we can provide that member a caregiver. Or it's about remote monitoring where we have a way to be in kind of a constant conversation with that patient about whether it be their vitals, whether it be about medications, or whether it be about personal emergency response systems."
"We're a one-of-a-kind company doing what we're doing right now. I joined this company two years ago. It was largely a transportation company, but it did have access to 25 million lives at the time. We're 30 million now. And it became abundantly clear to me that our payers, our states, our members, our case managers all want a holistic solution and a one-stop-shop for our members."
@Modivcare #SupportiveCare #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #HealthEquity #PersonalCare #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #nemt #FoodInsecurity
Modivcare.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Dan Greenleaf is the President and CEO of Modivcare and is presenting a complete solution for vulnerable patients whose healthcare outcomes are most affected by recognized social determinants of health.
Dan elaborates, "But our view is it's not necessarily about the clinical intervention. It's about having access to the healthcare system through transportation. It's about getting a nutritious meal on a daily basis or meals on a daily basis. It's about in the event you need somebody to help you with activities of daily living that we can provide that member a caregiver. Or it's about remote monitoring where we have a way to be in kind of a constant conversation with that patient about whether it be their vitals, whether it be about medications, or whether it be about personal emergency response systems."
"We're a one-of-a-kind company doing what we're doing right now. I joined this company two years ago. It was largely a transportation company, but it did have access to 25 million lives at the time. We're 30 million now. And it became abundantly clear to me that our payers, our states, our members, our case managers all want a holistic solution and a one-stop-shop for our members."
@Modivcare #SupportiveCare #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #HealthEquity #PersonalCare #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #nemt #FoodInsecurity
Modivcare.com
Download the transcript here.
Kathy Lee-Sepsick is the President, CEO, and Founder of Femasys, and not looking at minor levels of improvement in women's healthcare, but products and technologies that change the standard of care. With a focus on reproductive health, they are looking at infertility as well as a permanent birth control option for women.
Kathy explains, "So one of our major products is called FemVue. And what we did here is another example of what we're trying to do in these other product categories. We have developed a way to move an essential test for infertility diagnosis from radiology back to her GYN, utilizing ultrasound. So FemVue offers a saline and air contrast, or we call it bubbles, where those bubbles enable the evaluation and viewing of her fallopian tubes, which is suspect when a physician is evaluating all potential infertility factors."
"And at the same time, we are also advancing through clinical trial work, our FemBloc solution, which is our permanent birth control option for women. And both of those are delivered in an office environment. OBGYNs are performing the FemBloc procedure, and that's performed domestically as well in an active clinical trial."
@FemasysInc #ReproductiveHealth #WomensHealth #BirthControl #Infertility #FemBloc #FemVue
Femasys.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kathy Lee-Sepsick is the President, CEO, and Founder of Femasys, and not looking at minor levels of improvement in women's healthcare, but products and technologies that change the standard of care. With a focus on reproductive health, they are looking at infertility as well as a permanent birth control option for women.
Kathy explains, "So one of our major products is called FemVue. And what we did here is another example of what we're trying to do in these other product categories. We have developed a way to move an essential test for infertility diagnosis from radiology back to her GYN, utilizing ultrasound. So FemVue offers a saline and air contrast, or we call it bubbles, where those bubbles enable the evaluation and viewing of her fallopian tubes, which is suspect when a physician is evaluating all potential infertility factors."
"And at the same time, we are also advancing through clinical trial work, our FemBloc solution, which is our permanent birth control option for women. And both of those are delivered in an office environment. OBGYNs are performing the FemBloc procedure, and that's performed domestically as well in an active clinical trial."
@FemasysInc #ReproductiveHealth #WomensHealth #BirthControl #Infertility #FemBloc #FemVue
Femasys.com
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Dr. Aharona Shuali is the Vice President of Medical Affairs at Nucleix developing a liquid biopsy to detect cancer. It can be a blood test or a urine test that looks at DNA, but it doesn't look at DNA as mutations. Rather, it's looking to detect changes in methylation which are small molecules that are sitting on the DNA and have shown to be much more important than mutations in the early detection of cancer.
Aharona explains, "What we do is a unique approach that is actually using enzymes. We have a very good signal-to-noise ratio. So I'll just talk a little bit about the standard. It is usually bisulfite, and bisulfite is a chemical that is very harsh. So it usually degrades, it ruins up to 90% of the DNA, and then it also introduces a lot of noise. So when you find the low amount of DNA in the blood that is coming from the tumor, if you treat it with bisulfite, you actually are going to destroy most of it. Then what is remaining is going to be very hard to tell if this is a real signal or it's actually noise."
"However, our platform is using a proprietary enzymatic-based approach, which actually does not destroy the DNA at all and has very low noise. So we believe that this approach can tell you, even with very minute amounts of DNA floating in the blood coming from the tumor, we'll be able to detect the signal from the tumor itself."
@nucleix2 #LungCancer #BladderCancer #LungEpiCheck #SanDiego
Nucleix.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Aharona Shuali is the Vice President of Medical Affairs at Nucleix developing a liquid biopsy to detect cancer. It can be a blood test or a urine test that looks at DNA, but it doesn't look at DNA as mutations. Rather, it's looking to detect changes in methylation which are small molecules that are sitting on the DNA and have shown to be much more important than mutations in the early detection of cancer.
Aharona explains, "What we do is a unique approach that is actually using enzymes. We have a very good signal-to-noise ratio. So I'll just talk a little bit about the standard. It is usually bisulfite, and bisulfite is a chemical that is very harsh. So it usually degrades, it ruins up to 90% of the DNA, and then it also introduces a lot of noise. So when you find the low amount of DNA in the blood that is coming from the tumor, if you treat it with bisulfite, you actually are going to destroy most of it. Then what is remaining is going to be very hard to tell if this is a real signal or it's actually noise."
"However, our platform is using a proprietary enzymatic-based approach, which actually does not destroy the DNA at all and has very low noise. So we believe that this approach can tell you, even with very minute amounts of DNA floating in the blood coming from the tumor, we'll be able to detect the signal from the tumor itself."
@nucleix2 #LungCancer #BladderCancer #LungEpiCheck #SanDiego
Nucleix.com
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Nataly Youssef Ph.D. is the Co-Founder of Reclaim Health trained as an industrial engineer, with expertise in operations research, AI, and big data.
Nataly explains, "So this is the genesis of Reclaim. Really being able to provide that tool for patients, to be able to be well informed about both their health insurance and then to be able to manage their healthcare bills in the very context of that health insurance, all data-driven basically. This is all personalized to their own claims data, to their own information, and to provide them with these actionable items, actionable recommendations, in the context of their own journey."
"We sort of say, most of the people that I ask recommended X, Y, and Z, and that's why I'm going with X, Y, and Z. But imagine AI doing exactly the same, but at a scale of asking millions of people that could look like you. And, as a result, be able to really democratize these insights of all of our experiences and being able to make it available to each one of us. But the importance not only is in the AI, but it's how you actually represent the insights from AI so that they are actionable for someone."
@reclaimapp #HealthInsurance #DigitalHealth #HealthSavings #AIinHealth #AI
ReclaimHealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Nataly Youssef Ph.D. is the Co-Founder of Reclaim Health trained as an industrial engineer, with expertise in operations research, AI, and big data.
Nataly explains, "So this is the genesis of Reclaim. Really being able to provide that tool for patients, to be able to be well informed about both their health insurance and then to be able to manage their healthcare bills in the very context of that health insurance, all data-driven basically. This is all personalized to their own claims data, to their own information, and to provide them with these actionable items, actionable recommendations, in the context of their own journey."
"We sort of say, most of the people that I ask recommended X, Y, and Z, and that's why I'm going with X, Y, and Z. But imagine AI doing exactly the same, but at a scale of asking millions of people that could look like you. And, as a result, be able to really democratize these insights of all of our experiences and being able to make it available to each one of us. But the importance not only is in the AI, but it's how you actually represent the insights from AI so that they are actionable for someone."
@reclaimapp #HealthInsurance #DigitalHealth #HealthSavings #AIinHealth #AI
ReclaimHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq is the Founder and CEO of Biotricity and a leader in the development of mobile cardiac telemetry, MCT, devices to provide real-time, continuous monitoring of at-risk patients.
Waqaas explains, "One of the core areas that we strongly focus on is long-term data collection in this real-time intelligent monitoring. When you talk about our core product, which is Bioflux, which is used for diagnostics, we are talking about a device that has built-in algorithms, that's FDA cleared, as well as the algorithms to collect data from a patient, determine if there is an emergency or an anomaly, and then alert somebody for emergency response.
"Most importantly, we have three channels of data. Three channels of data means that we have three different views of the heart. What that does is that it creates more data. More data means better accuracy and a better diagnosis. The standard in the MCT space is actually two channels. With three contact points, two channels. To get three contact points, you need five access points. That's what everybody else is doing in the industry. But then patients don't like five connectivity points. These devices are just more cumbersome to wear. What we did at Biotricity, which is incredibly unique, is to create a three channel, three contact point system, which is proprietary to us. This leads to better algorithms and better analytics."
@Biotricity_Inc $BTCY #MedTech #MedicalDevice #Healthcare #ChronicDisease #Cardiology #CardiacCare #Diagnostics #Prevention #Patient
Biotricity.com
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Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq is the Founder and CEO of Biotricity and a leader in the development of mobile cardiac telemetry, MCT, devices to provide real-time, continuous monitoring of at-risk patients.
Waqaas explains, "One of the core areas that we strongly focus on is long-term data collection in this real-time intelligent monitoring. When you talk about our core product, which is Bioflux, which is used for diagnostics, we are talking about a device that has built-in algorithms, that's FDA cleared, as well as the algorithms to collect data from a patient, determine if there is an emergency or an anomaly, and then alert somebody for emergency response.
"Most importantly, we have three channels of data. Three channels of data means that we have three different views of the heart. What that does is that it creates more data. More data means better accuracy and a better diagnosis. The standard in the MCT space is actually two channels. With three contact points, two channels. To get three contact points, you need five access points. That's what everybody else is doing in the industry. But then patients don't like five connectivity points. These devices are just more cumbersome to wear. What we did at Biotricity, which is incredibly unique, is to create a three channel, three contact point system, which is proprietary to us. This leads to better algorithms and better analytics."
@Biotricity_Inc $BTCY #MedTech #MedicalDevice #Healthcare #ChronicDisease #Cardiology #CardiacCare #Diagnostics #Prevention #Patient
Biotricity.com
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Dr. Jennifer Jones-McMeans is the Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott's Vascular Business. She talks about recently released data from their Beyond Intervention Survey of 1800 stakeholders including 1289 vascular disease patients, 408 healthcare physicians, and 173 healthcare leaders from across 13 countries. The study looked particularly at Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) and Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) which revealed these diseases disproportionately affect Black, Latino, and Native Americans.
Jennifer reports, "I think what Beyond Intervention allowed us to do is to see what the patient is feeling, experiencing, and how does that differ from what your healthcare provider or your healthcare leader is saying? Because one of the key findings that we found was that patient experience is maybe not as good as the healthcare provider may be thinking it is."
"And we know that when you look at these social determinants, and they can be anything from socioeconomic status, availability to care, education, impact of income, they all collide. And many times in certain areas, they can collide with race and ethnicity. So when you put people in an environment that is not supportive of health and that you're just reaching so many of the things that I spoke of before, you put them at risk for development of diseases, such as PAD and CAD."
@AbbottCardio #ClinicalTrials #VascularDisease #PAD #PeripheralArteryDisease #CAD #CoronaryArteryDisease #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth
Abbott.com
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Dr. Jennifer Jones-McMeans is the Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott's Vascular Business. She talks about recently released data from their Beyond Intervention Survey of 1800 stakeholders including 1289 vascular disease patients, 408 healthcare physicians, and 173 healthcare leaders from across 13 countries. The study looked particularly at Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) and Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) which revealed these diseases disproportionately affect Black, Latino, and Native Americans.
Jennifer reports, "I think what Beyond Intervention allowed us to do is to see what the patient is feeling, experiencing, and how does that differ from what your healthcare provider or your healthcare leader is saying? Because one of the key findings that we found was that patient experience is maybe not as good as the healthcare provider may be thinking it is."
"And we know that when you look at these social determinants, and they can be anything from socioeconomic status, availability to care, education, impact of income, they all collide. And many times in certain areas, they can collide with race and ethnicity. So when you put people in an environment that is not supportive of health and that you're just reaching so many of the things that I spoke of before, you put them at risk for development of diseases, such as PAD and CAD."
@AbbottCardio #ClinicalTrials #VascularDisease #PAD #PeripheralArteryDisease #CAD #CoronaryArteryDisease #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth
Abbott.com
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Lauren Walrath is Vice President of Public Affairs in North America, and Susan Thiele is Director of Advocacy and Brand Communications at Kyowa Kirin, a Japan-based global specialty pharmaceutical company known for its cutting-edge scientific discoveries in four therapeutic areas including neurology, nephrology, hematological cancers, and immunology.
Lauren explains their approach to patient-centric discovery, "In advocacy, we're really trying to find where the gaps are and how we can best work with partners to make long-term and sustainable improvements for patients. So that can be in the form of starting new research, funding new grants, addressing disparities, working on developing new education programs. Generally, we're looking for meaningful opportunities to help patients and their families on their journey from diagnosis to treatment. We work closely with the advocates, and we bring all of that understanding back to our teams here at Kyowa Kirin so that we really can engage our cross-functional partners in doing more to help the patients we serve."
Susan elaborates, "And then there is Jim and Jeffrey who have Sézary syndrome, which is a more serious form of CTCL that affects less than 5% of the patients. What we've done is we've captured their journeys in their own voice, the journey to diagnosis, their experience on treatment, and ultimately what they've learned along the way, what really keeps them motivated to not give up. And people can now hear those stories by going to POTELIGEO.com."
#KyowaKirin #KKNA #DrugDevelopment #RareDiseases #Antibodies #immunology #Cancer #CTCL #Neurology #ParkinsonsDisease #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Nephrology #HematologicalCancers #SezarySyndrome
KyowaKirin.com
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Lauren Walrath is Vice President of Public Affairs in North America, and Susan Thiele is Director of Advocacy and Brand Communications at Kyowa Kirin, a Japan-based global specialty pharmaceutical company known for its cutting-edge scientific discoveries in four therapeutic areas including neurology, nephrology, hematological cancers, and immunology.
Lauren explains their approach to patient-centric discovery, "In advocacy, we're really trying to find where the gaps are and how we can best work with partners to make long-term and sustainable improvements for patients. So that can be in the form of starting new research, funding new grants, addressing disparities, working on developing new education programs. Generally, we're looking for meaningful opportunities to help patients and their families on their journey from diagnosis to treatment. We work closely with the advocates, and we bring all of that understanding back to our teams here at Kyowa Kirin so that we really can engage our cross-functional partners in doing more to help the patients we serve."
Susan elaborates, "And then there is Jim and Jeffrey who have Sézary syndrome, which is a more serious form of CTCL that affects less than 5% of the patients. What we've done is we've captured their journeys in their own voice, the journey to diagnosis, their experience on treatment, and ultimately what they've learned along the way, what really keeps them motivated to not give up. And people can now hear those stories by going to POTELIGEO.com."
#KyowaKirin #KKNA #DrugDevelopment #RareDiseases #Antibodies #immunology #Cancer #CTCL #Neurology #ParkinsonsDisease #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Nephrology #HematologicalCancers #SezarySyndrome
KyowaKirin.com
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Dr. Colin Banas is the Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst a health IT company that's been around for over 21 years. Started as an e-prescribing platform and developed expertise in medication management.
Colin explains, "What we as a company are hoping to do is empower patients by connecting the dots to help them get on therapy and stay on therapy. And so, one of the core things that we do as a company is around price transparency."
"And when I say price transparency, what I'm really talking about is serving up data to the multiple parties involved in prescribing decisions. When I mention price transparency for a provider, for example, what I'm saying is at the moment of making that decision to write that prescription, ostensibly with the patient in front of me, or the encounter happening, so much of it now is virtual via telehealth. But at the moment of making that prescription decision, I can see what the patient's copay will be, what they're out of pocket will be. And that really lends itself to having a conversation at that moment in time."
@DrFirst #PriceTransparency #Healthcare #Hospitals #HCTransparency #HealthcareCosts
DrFirst.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Colin Banas is the Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst a health IT company that's been around for over 21 years. Started as an e-prescribing platform and developed expertise in medication management.
Colin explains, "What we as a company are hoping to do is empower patients by connecting the dots to help them get on therapy and stay on therapy. And so, one of the core things that we do as a company is around price transparency."
"And when I say price transparency, what I'm really talking about is serving up data to the multiple parties involved in prescribing decisions. When I mention price transparency for a provider, for example, what I'm saying is at the moment of making that decision to write that prescription, ostensibly with the patient in front of me, or the encounter happening, so much of it now is virtual via telehealth. But at the moment of making that prescription decision, I can see what the patient's copay will be, what they're out of pocket will be. And that really lends itself to having a conversation at that moment in time."
@DrFirst #PriceTransparency #Healthcare #Hospitals #HCTransparency #HealthcareCosts
DrFirst.com
Download the transcript here.
Bob Connelly is the CEO of Elicio Therapeutics which has figured out how to deliver immunotherapies from vaccines into the lymph nodes where they are activated to defeat cancer and infectious diseases.
Bob says, "Our overall mission is to treat many different types of cancers primarily, but even to bring our technology into other areas like infectious diseases by engaging the lymph nodes, which are really the command center for the immune response in our body."
"And to date, they really have not been a part of the cancer immunotherapy revolution that's really started over the last ten years and is very exciting. We're using a technology that initially is focused on KRAS mutation-driven cancers, which comprise 25% of all solid tumors. So we're in a trial right now where we have colorectal cancer patients, we have pancreatic cancer patients, but our lead program can apply in lung cancer, ovarian cancer, bile duct cancer."
"In our bodies, albumin is a very large protein that is constantly circulating throughout the body from lymph node to lymph node. We basically hitchhike on that albumin. We've developed a technology that allows us to hitchhike on that albumin to the lymph nodes, and then hop off into the lymph node, be taken up into the lymph node where all the various aspects of the lymph node can then be brought to bear, to activate the therapeutic, expand it, and send it out on its mission."
@ElicioTX #CancerVaccine #PancreaticCancer #Immunotherapy #lymphnodetargeting #Vaccines #KRASMutation
Elicio.com
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Bob Connelly is the CEO of Elicio Therapeutics which has figured out how to deliver immunotherapies from vaccines into the lymph nodes where they are activated to defeat cancer and infectious diseases.
Bob says, "Our overall mission is to treat many different types of cancers primarily, but even to bring our technology into other areas like infectious diseases by engaging the lymph nodes, which are really the command center for the immune response in our body."
"And to date, they really have not been a part of the cancer immunotherapy revolution that's really started over the last ten years and is very exciting. We're using a technology that initially is focused on KRAS mutation-driven cancers, which comprise 25% of all solid tumors. So we're in a trial right now where we have colorectal cancer patients, we have pancreatic cancer patients, but our lead program can apply in lung cancer, ovarian cancer, bile duct cancer."
"In our bodies, albumin is a very large protein that is constantly circulating throughout the body from lymph node to lymph node. We basically hitchhike on that albumin. We've developed a technology that allows us to hitchhike on that albumin to the lymph nodes, and then hop off into the lymph node, be taken up into the lymph node where all the various aspects of the lymph node can then be brought to bear, to activate the therapeutic, expand it, and send it out on its mission."
@ElicioTX #CancerVaccine #PancreaticCancer #Immunotherapy #lymphnodetargeting #Vaccines #KRASMutation
Elicio.com
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Dr. Peter Altman is the President and CEO of BioCardia and emphasizes that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the Western world. BioCardia is developing technologies to treat cardiovascular diseases with cell and cell-derived therapies which allow for precise cell delivery in the heart and technologies associated with optimizing the selection of patients to find those most likely to respond to the therapy.
Peter explains, "In this setting, I think what's unique is there's a technology around that cell processing and around the cell delivery. I think what's most unique is these are autologous cells, as we've said, and because of how we're doing this, we can achieve, in appropriate patients with this point-of-care processing and the efficient delivery, we can deliver and create dosage forms that are not only more significant than others historically but are very inexpensive to provide for the patients. And that means it can have a real boon to the healthcare system."
"Most autologous therapies they talk about are enormously expensive because it requires the cells to be shipped to a centralized laboratory and manipulated and processed and handled. And that impacts, really, the quality of the cells and can impact the safety because they're exposed to laboratories where many other cells are involved."
"By processing them at point-of-care in, really, an almost closed system that's disposable, the patient's cells never leave the cardiac suite in which the procedure is performed, and the disposable cartridge in which they're processed is discarded. So they'll never be in an environment where they would be exposed to any other patient's cells."
#BioCardia $BCDA #CardiAMP #HeartFailure #CellTherapy
BioCardia.com
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Dr. Peter Altman is the President and CEO of BioCardia and emphasizes that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the Western world. BioCardia is developing technologies to treat cardiovascular diseases with cell and cell-derived therapies which allow for precise cell delivery in the heart and technologies associated with optimizing the selection of patients to find those most likely to respond to the therapy.
Peter explains, "In this setting, I think what's unique is there's a technology around that cell processing and around the cell delivery. I think what's most unique is these are autologous cells, as we've said, and because of how we're doing this, we can achieve, in appropriate patients with this point-of-care processing and the efficient delivery, we can deliver and create dosage forms that are not only more significant than others historically but are very inexpensive to provide for the patients. And that means it can have a real boon to the healthcare system."
"Most autologous therapies they talk about are enormously expensive because it requires the cells to be shipped to a centralized laboratory and manipulated and processed and handled. And that impacts, really, the quality of the cells and can impact the safety because they're exposed to laboratories where many other cells are involved."
"By processing them at point-of-care in, really, an almost closed system that's disposable, the patient's cells never leave the cardiac suite in which the procedure is performed, and the disposable cartridge in which they're processed is discarded. So they'll never be in an environment where they would be exposed to any other patient's cells."
#BioCardia $BCDA #CardiAMP #HeartFailure #CellTherapy
BioCardia.com
Download the transcript here
Walter Wolf is the author of The Right Rehab: A Guide to Addiction and Mental Illness Recovery When Crisis Hits Your Family and also an interventionist. He has written this book to highlight options for those with addictions and family members and friends who want to help find an effective treatment.
Walter explains, "There are lots of books about addiction, about the clinical aspect of it, but there were no books whatsoever, there were no guides about how you get the right treatment for the right individual. So a few years go by, and ironically I'm now an interventionist and a treatment placement specialist. People come to me not only to intervene with loved ones because they need to go to treatment but also I match people up with the right treatment facility for them."
"Until just recently, the conventional wisdom was that if somebody had an addiction, well, that was because that was a choice on that individual's part, and that choice meant that person had very low morals, had very low character. But in fact, we know now that addiction is actually a disease, and it's not something that people choose to do. In fact, it has very similar relapse rates, for example, diabetes or asthma or hypertension."
#WalterWolf #Rehab #Addiction #Intervention #Interventionist #Recovery #RecoveryJourney #DrugAddiction #Opioids #ProcessAddiction #SubstanceAbuse
The Right Rehab
Listen to the podcast here
Walter Wolf is the author of The Right Rehab: A Guide to Addiction and Mental Illness Recovery When Crisis Hits Your Family and also an interventionist. He has written this book to highlight options for those with addictions and family members and friends who want to help find an effective treatment.
Walter explains, "There are lots of books about addiction, about the clinical aspect of it, but there were no books whatsoever, there were no guides about how you get the right treatment for the right individual. So a few years go by, and ironically I'm now an interventionist and a treatment placement specialist. People come to me not only to intervene with loved ones because they need to go to treatment but also I match people up with the right treatment facility for them."
"Until just recently, the conventional wisdom was that if somebody had an addiction, well, that was because that was a choice on that individual's part, and that choice meant that person had very low morals, had very low character. But in fact, we know now that addiction is actually a disease, and it's not something that people choose to do. In fact, it has very similar relapse rates, for example, diabetes or asthma or hypertension."
#WalterWolf #Rehab #Addiction #Intervention #Interventionist #Recovery #RecoveryJourney #DrugAddiction #Opioids #ProcessAddiction #SubstanceAbuse
The Right Rehab
Download the transcript here
Boro Dropulić is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Caring Cross, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development and manufacturing of advanced medicines to improve access to cures for all patients independent of where they live.
Boro explains, "One way to reduce the cost is by manufacturing the product locally at, what we call, the clinical place-of-care rather than using a centralized manufacturing model that has traditionally been used for drug distribution. By using automated devices to ensure the consistency of the products while they're being made, for example, CAR-T cell products, they can be produced at a fraction of the cost than when they're made centrally, even a 10th of the cost with current cost and materials."
"Once the CAR-T cell product is made, it is then reinfused back to the patient to have its anti-tumor effects. The most effective CAR-T cell products so far are autologous, meaning that they are from the patient's own cells and return back to the patient. There have been five FDA CAR-T cell products targeting diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma that have been approved, and all are autologous CAR-T cell products."
"I think there's a whole range of opportunities with gene therapies because we're trying to address the genetic defect rather than trying to treat the symptoms of disease, which many drugs do. So I think there are enormous opportunities for CAR-T cells and other gene therapies to actually be transformative and really help patients with single administration therapies. Because these cells are living medicines, they live in the body and have long-term effects."
@Caring_Cross @GatesFoundation @amfAR @iasociety @globalgti #HIVcure #CARTcell #Immunotherapy #CaringCross
CaringCross.org
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Boro Dropulić is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Caring Cross, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development and manufacturing of advanced medicines to improve access to cures for all patients independent of where they live.
Boro explains, "One way to reduce the cost is by manufacturing the product locally at, what we call, the clinical place-of-care rather than using a centralized manufacturing model that has traditionally been used for drug distribution. By using automated devices to ensure the consistency of the products while they're being made, for example, CAR-T cell products, they can be produced at a fraction of the cost than when they're made centrally, even a 10th of the cost with current cost and materials."
"Once the CAR-T cell product is made, it is then reinfused back to the patient to have its anti-tumor effects. The most effective CAR-T cell products so far are autologous, meaning that they are from the patient's own cells and return back to the patient. There have been five FDA CAR-T cell products targeting diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma that have been approved, and all are autologous CAR-T cell products."
"I think there's a whole range of opportunities with gene therapies because we're trying to address the genetic defect rather than trying to treat the symptoms of disease, which many drugs do. So I think there are enormous opportunities for CAR-T cells and other gene therapies to actually be transformative and really help patients with single administration therapies. Because these cells are living medicines, they live in the body and have long-term effects."
@Caring_Cross @GatesFoundation @amfAR @iasociety @globalgti #HIVcure #CARTcell #Immunotherapy #CaringCross
CaringCross.org
Download the transcript here
Amir Raza is the Vice President, Strategic Services at Encora and is working with technology-enabled companies to design and support patient engagement, telehealth, remote patient monitoring, digital clinical trials, and connected care solutions.
Amir explains, "So, if you peel back the onion on the statement, we are a product engineering services company. I think what it unveils is four core capabilities that support that assertion. The first is the ability to build underlying digital platforms. The second is having mastery of data because data is increasingly crucial and critical, certainly within the empowered patient, consumer engagement, patient engagement space. I mean, data is the oil of that industry. So, all things data."
"Then, of course, I think the other key capability that comes into play when you're designing these kinds of platforms is CX, or what is known in the industry as CX/UX, which is consumer experience and user experience. How do you design delightful, intuitive products? Finally, I think the core competence, which is the scaffolding that holds these first three capabilities together, is around what's known as dev sec ops and cloud ops."
@EncoraInc #Techtalks #MedTech #SoftwareDevelopment #Healthcare #Healthtech #DigitalHealth
Encora.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Amir Raza is the Vice President, Strategic Services at Encora and is working with technology-enabled companies to design and support patient engagement, telehealth, remote patient monitoring, digital clinical trials, and connected care solutions.
Amir explains, "So, if you peel back the onion on the statement, we are a product engineering services company. I think what it unveils is four core capabilities that support that assertion. The first is the ability to build underlying digital platforms. The second is having mastery of data because data is increasingly crucial and critical, certainly within the empowered patient, consumer engagement, patient engagement space. I mean, data is the oil of that industry. So, all things data."
"Then, of course, I think the other key capability that comes into play when you're designing these kinds of platforms is CX, or what is known in the industry as CX/UX, which is consumer experience and user experience. How do you design delightful, intuitive products? Finally, I think the core competence, which is the scaffolding that holds these first three capabilities together, is around what's known as dev sec ops and cloud ops."
@EncoraInc #Techtalks #MedTech #SoftwareDevelopment #Healthcare #Healthtech #DigitalHealth
Encora.com
Download the transcript here.
Khalid Al-Maskari is the CEO of Health Information Management Systems (HiMS) and a thought leader in healthcare informatics. Behavioral healthcare is an area that Khalid has identified as ripe for innovation and where integration of systems needs to be better focused on transparency and the coordination of the care of patients.
Khalid says, "So in behavioral healthcare, a lot of the communication is between care coordinators and case managers. And most of it traditionally has been on the side of the healthcare providers having a lot of information, and then patients communicate with them. But the communication typically is long-term communication. It's not instantaneous. A lot of times, the patients have to request that information rather than them having access to it directly. So it's a longer process, unlike going to a PCP for a specific issue, behavioral health typically is a long-term process."
"One of the things that COVID made clear is that behavioral health patients are ready to be more active and participate in their healthcare. The other part that has accelerated also is the use of technology and machine learning. So there's a lot of data. There's very little, in my opinion, kind of looking at that data and translating it into something that would improve both the patient and the provider side."
@HMSFirst #EHR #IntegratedHealthcare #BehavioralHealthcare #PatientEngagement #HealthTech #BehavioralHealth #COVID19
HMSFirst.com
Listen to the podcast here
Khalid Al-Maskari is the CEO of Health Information Management Systems (HiMS) and a thought leader in healthcare informatics. Behavioral healthcare is an area that Khalid has identified as ripe for innovation and where integration of systems needs to be better focused on transparency and the coordination of the care of patients.
Khalid says, "So in behavioral healthcare, a lot of the communication is between care coordinators and case managers. And most of it traditionally has been on the side of the healthcare providers having a lot of information, and then patients communicate with them. But the communication typically is long-term communication. It's not instantaneous. A lot of times, the patients have to request that information rather than them having access to it directly. So it's a longer process, unlike going to a PCP for a specific issue, behavioral health typically is a long-term process."
"One of the things that COVID made clear is that behavioral health patients are ready to be more active and participate in their healthcare. The other part that has accelerated also is the use of technology and machine learning. So there's a lot of data. There's very little, in my opinion, kind of looking at that data and translating it into something that would improve both the patient and the provider side."
@HMSFirst #EHR #IntegratedHealthcare #BehavioralHealthcare #PatientEngagement #HealthTech #BehavioralHealth #COVID19
HMSFirst.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Paul Peter Tak is the President and CEO of Candel Therapeutics which is focused on educating the immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells in patients with a solid tumor. Candel is developing immunotherapies using engineered oncolytic viruses for prostate cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and eye cancer.
Paul Peter explains, "Viruses probably got a bad reputation during the pandemic, but you can actually use them to do something beneficial to a patient, and that's what we are doing. So, using molecular engineering, we change the viruses in such a way that they infect the tumor cells and that they induce cell death. They kill the tumor cells in a way that activates the patient's own immune system, which is basically a very natural way to fight cancer."
"So, at the same time, we change the so-called tumor microenvironment from a cold tumor, a tumor that is not very active in terms of immune activity, into a hot tumor where we activate a whole variety of immune cells. And that's an optimal way to immunize the patient against the patient's own variety of so-called cancer neoantigens, the molecules that are being recognized by the patient's immune system."
#CandelTherapeutics #Oncology #OncolyticVirus #Immunotherapy #LungCancer #ProstateCancer #BrainCancer #Glioma #PancreaticCancer #EyeCancer #Cancer
CandelTx.com
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Dr. Paul Peter Tak is the President and CEO of Candel Therapeutics which is focused on educating the immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells in patients with a solid tumor. Candel is developing immunotherapies using engineered oncolytic viruses for prostate cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and eye cancer.
Paul Peter explains, "Viruses probably got a bad reputation during the pandemic, but you can actually use them to do something beneficial to a patient, and that's what we are doing. So, using molecular engineering, we change the viruses in such a way that they infect the tumor cells and that they induce cell death. They kill the tumor cells in a way that activates the patient's own immune system, which is basically a very natural way to fight cancer."
"So, at the same time, we change the so-called tumor microenvironment from a cold tumor, a tumor that is not very active in terms of immune activity, into a hot tumor where we activate a whole variety of immune cells. And that's an optimal way to immunize the patient against the patient's own variety of so-called cancer neoantigens, the molecules that are being recognized by the patient's immune system."
#CandelTherapeutics #Oncology #OncolyticVirus #Immunotherapy #LungCancer #ProstateCancer #BrainCancer #Glioma #PancreaticCancer #EyeCancer #Cancer
CandelTx.com
Download the transcript here
Bronwyn Spira is the CEO of Force Therapeutics which is supplying tools to manage procedure-based care. CMS created CMMI, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to evaluate new alternate payment models and service delivery models that were designed to reward high-value, high-quality care while also reducing payments. They would reduce the payments to clinicians who were not meeting the performance standards but preferentially reimburse high-quality and high-value providers. And these were called alternate payment models or APMs.
Bronwyn explains, "I think the important key here is that in order to reward quality, you first have to be able to measure quality and collect quality measures. So this is where patient-reported outcome measures and performance measures become so key. You actually now need those measures to submit for reimbursement based upon the services you're providing."
"And this has changed provided behavior in a big way because before these APMS were implemented, a lot of providers actually didn't even have organized ways to collect or report quality measures, patient-reported outcomes. Some of them were using pieces of paper or mailing them to patients' homes and then spending a lot of money on nurses or medical assistants who would then have to input the data into some kind of a system."
@ForceTherEx #carecoordination #carepathways #careredesign #COVID19 #digitalcare #HospitalatHome #patientengagement #patientexperience #PhysicalTherapy #PROMS #Recovery #Rehab #RehabatHome #Rehabilitation #RehabTherapy #Treatment #ValueBasedCare
ForceTherapeutics.com
Listen to the podcast here
Bronwyn Spira is the CEO of Force Therapeutics which is supplying tools to manage procedure-based care. CMS created CMMI, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to evaluate new alternate payment models and service delivery models that were designed to reward high-value, high-quality care while also reducing payments. They would reduce the payments to clinicians who were not meeting the performance standards but preferentially reimburse high-quality and high-value providers. And these were called alternate payment models or APMs.
Bronwyn explains, "I think the important key here is that in order to reward quality, you first have to be able to measure quality and collect quality measures. So this is where patient-reported outcome measures and performance measures become so key. You actually now need those measures to submit for reimbursement based upon the services you're providing."
"And this has changed provided behavior in a big way because before these APMS were implemented, a lot of providers actually didn't even have organized ways to collect or report quality measures, patient-reported outcomes. Some of them were using pieces of paper or mailing them to patients' homes and then spending a lot of money on nurses or medical assistants who would then have to input the data into some kind of a system."
@ForceTherEx #carecoordination #carepathways #careredesign #COVID19 #digitalcare #HospitalatHome #patientengagement #patientexperience #PhysicalTherapy #PROMS #Recovery #Rehab #RehabatHome #Rehabilitation #RehabTherapy #Treatment #ValueBasedCare
ForceTherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Matt Walz is the CEO of Trialbee which is empowering patients through a more inclusive trial process. The Trialbee Honey product provides three user experiences on top of one common data architecture linking the patient, the test sites, and the sponsors providing real-time information about enrollment and how a study is performing. The Trialbee Hive product uses real-world data to model outreach to a hyper-targeted audience.
Matt explains, "In terms of remote participation for studies, COVID brought to light the fact that there are tools and methods that have been available to allow patients to participate more and collect data more during clinical research without having to have frequent visits to a site. Not in all cases, but in a number of cases. And that also accelerated timelines to get to the point where you can seek a regulatory authority approval."
"One of the things we've done in some of our studies, and this really comes down to how you do outreach for recruitment, is we've started to look at rare diseases that have unique symptoms. And so Pompe disease, for example, has a set of rather unique characteristics. We recently recruited for Pompe disease where rather than just look for patients or try to recruit patients that have already been diagnosed but to actually do outreach based on the symptoms."
@Trialbee #ClinicalTrials #TrialRecruitment #RareDisease #COVID19
Trialbee.com
Listen to the podcast here
Matt Walz is the CEO of Trialbee which is empowering patients through a more inclusive trial process. The Trialbee Honey product provides three user experiences on top of one common data architecture linking the patient, the test sites, and the sponsors providing real-time information about enrollment and how a study is performing. The Trialbee Hive product uses real-world data to model outreach to a hyper-targeted audience.
Matt explains, "In terms of remote participation for studies, COVID brought to light the fact that there are tools and methods that have been available to allow patients to participate more and collect data more during clinical research without having to have frequent visits to a site. Not in all cases, but in a number of cases. And that also accelerated timelines to get to the point where you can seek a regulatory authority approval."
"One of the things we've done in some of our studies, and this really comes down to how you do outreach for recruitment, is we've started to look at rare diseases that have unique symptoms. And so Pompe disease, for example, has a set of rather unique characteristics. We recently recruited for Pompe disease where rather than just look for patients or try to recruit patients that have already been diagnosed but to actually do outreach based on the symptoms."
@Trialbee #ClinicalTrials #TrialRecruitment #RareDisease #COVID19
Trialbee.com
Download the transcript here
Sheeza Hussain is the Chief Commercial Officer of Biofourmis which is developing a hospital-at-home model for health systems that is even more in demand due to the stress of COVID-19 patients. In addition to acute care, Biofourmis is also applying its remote monitoring technology to post-acute and chronic care.
Sheeza explains, "When we think about hospital-at-home, we think about acute level type care-at-home. It's not about being cared for exactly as you would be in a hospital. But it's for those patients who still, for all intents and purposes, need to be monitored and need to be admitted to a hospital. But instead, they get to go home. They get monitoring equipment, they get to go to the comfort of their own bed, and they're still visited by clinicians or physicians every day in person as is a requirement for some of the reimbursement."
"So when it comes to hospital-at-home, it's about in our case, a patch and we're device agnostic. We offer a patch that the patient wears on their chest, and it is continuously capturing data, things like the single-lead ECG, heart rate, respiratory rate. And that is feeding our analytics engine and allowing us to be able to establish a personalized baseline for each and every patient."
@Biofourmis #HospitalatHome #RemoteCare #CareatHome #PatientMonitoring #PostAcute #ChronicCare #Hospitals
Biofourmis.com
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Sheeza Hussain is the Chief Commercial Officer of Biofourmis which is developing a hospital-at-home model for health systems that is even more in demand due to the stress of COVID-19 patients. In addition to acute care, Biofourmis is also applying its remote monitoring technology to post-acute and chronic care.
Sheeza explains, "When we think about hospital-at-home, we think about acute level type care-at-home. It's not about being cared for exactly as you would be in a hospital. But it's for those patients who still, for all intents and purposes, need to be monitored and need to be admitted to a hospital. But instead, they get to go home. They get monitoring equipment, they get to go to the comfort of their own bed, and they're still visited by clinicians or physicians every day in person as is a requirement for some of the reimbursement."
"So when it comes to hospital-at-home, it's about in our case, a patch and we're device agnostic. We offer a patch that the patient wears on their chest, and it is continuously capturing data, things like the single-lead ECG, heart rate, respiratory rate. And that is feeding our analytics engine and allowing us to be able to establish a personalized baseline for each and every patient."
@Biofourmis #HospitalatHome #RemoteCare #CareatHome #PatientMonitoring #PostAcute #ChronicCare #Hospitals
Biofourmis.com
Download the transcript here
Tomer Shussman is CEO and Hila Glick, VP of Physical Therapy and Customer Experience of OneStep and we talk about the ways OneStep is set to augment PT for both patients and their physical therapists using the patient's smartphone. OneStep is a smartphone-based digital physical therapy service that provides around-the-clock dedicated physical therapy courses, clinical-grade motion analysis, and real-time feedback and progress reports of patients. Using the smartphone as the gait lab equivalent, OneStep is able to measure walking in all kinds of environments and when performing day-to-day activities.
Tomer explains, "What we are doing, and in that way, we are changing physical therapies substantially, in that we are enabling physical therapy to continue outside of the clinic. So, we augment the physical therapists, allowing them to treat more patients from the convenience of home, for both the PT and the patient. And that way, we enable the patients to, for example, exercise five minutes a day, their own time, build life-lasting habits, instead of having to drive to the clinic and then meet the PT once a week, every week."
Hila says, "While physical therapy is a practice that you do with hands-on, I was amazed to see how wonderful and meaningful results you can get with working remotely and what amazing connections and tremendous results are possible for walking and recovery when you work with a PT remotely."
@DigitalOneStep #GaitAnalysis #MotionAnalysis #PT #PhysicalTherapy #DigitalHealth
OneStep.co
Listen to the podcast here
Tomer Shussman is CEO and Hila Glick, VP of Physical Therapy and Customer Experience of OneStep and we talk about the ways OneStep is set to augment PT for both patients and their physical therapists using the patient's smartphone. OneStep is a smartphone-based digital physical therapy service that provides around-the-clock dedicated physical therapy courses, clinical-grade motion analysis, and real-time feedback and progress reports of patients. Using the smartphone as the gait lab equivalent, OneStep is able to measure walking in all kinds of environments and when performing day-to-day activities.
Tomer explains, "What we are doing, and in that way, we are changing physical therapies substantially, in that we are enabling physical therapy to continue outside of the clinic. So, we augment the physical therapists, allowing them to treat more patients from the convenience of home, for both the PT and the patient. And that way, we enable the patients to, for example, exercise five minutes a day, their own time, build life-lasting habits, instead of having to drive to the clinic and then meet the PT once a week, every week."
Hila says, "While physical therapy is a practice that you do with hands-on, I was amazed to see how wonderful and meaningful results you can get with working remotely and what amazing connections and tremendous results are possible for walking and recovery when you work with a PT remotely."
@DigitalOneStep #GaitAnalysis #MotionAnalysis #PT #PhysicalTherapy #DigitalHealth
OneStep.co
Download the transcript here
Mike Gladstone is the Global President of Inflammation & Immunology at Pfizer. We talk about conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and atopic dermatitis (AD) and how minority patients with these conditions are often misdiagnosed.
Mike explains, "Well, it turns out that a lot of these diseases are completely unseen, or those diseases that are seen are just not well understood. And the reason why is, for instance, if I look at someone suffering from atopic dermatitis, for example, you may see some of the symptoms that they have, and those are bad enough, some of the redness and scratching and so forth. But what you don't know and what you don't see is how the patients suffer sometimes. They have the stares from others, they feel those stares, they feel the distance. They feel the judgment from others who see their condition, but it also goes much deeper than that. What you don't see for those patients is the constant itching."
"Now, Black and Hispanic children are also more likely than White children to miss school because of AD, and they're likely to report uncontrolled or longer duration AD. And despite the prevalence of skin conditions like this with minority individuals, they're underrepresented in medical dermatology textbooks and clinical research."
@Pfizer #ChronicConditions #AtopicDermatitis #Dermatology #HealthEquity #HealthInnovation #DigitalHealth #AFib
Pfizer.com
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Mike Gladstone is the Global President of Inflammation & Immunology at Pfizer. We talk about conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and atopic dermatitis (AD) and how minority patients with these conditions are often misdiagnosed.
Mike explains, "Well, it turns out that a lot of these diseases are completely unseen, or those diseases that are seen are just not well understood. And the reason why is, for instance, if I look at someone suffering from atopic dermatitis, for example, you may see some of the symptoms that they have, and those are bad enough, some of the redness and scratching and so forth. But what you don't know and what you don't see is how the patients suffer sometimes. They have the stares from others, they feel those stares, they feel the distance. They feel the judgment from others who see their condition, but it also goes much deeper than that. What you don't see for those patients is the constant itching."
"Now, Black and Hispanic children are also more likely than White children to miss school because of AD, and they're likely to report uncontrolled or longer duration AD. And despite the prevalence of skin conditions like this with minority individuals, they're underrepresented in medical dermatology textbooks and clinical research."
@Pfizer #ChronicConditions #AtopicDermatitis #Dermatology #HealthEquity #HealthInnovation #DigitalHealth #AFib
Pfizer.com
Download the transcript here
Kleanthis Xanthopoulos is Co-Founder and CEO of Shoreline Biosciences. He talks about the Shoreline cell therapy platform that uses standardized manufacturing of allogeneic induced pluripotent stem cells to create an effective treatment to kill tumor cells with multiple advantages over autologous T-cell therapies.
Kleanthis explains, "We are focusing specifically on two different effector cells, Natural Killers and Macrophages, and we derive them from a platform which is induced pluripotent stem cells. This gives us the ability to really engineer the NK cells and Macrophages that we derive from iPSC, so they become allogeneic standardized, meaning they can be introduced to any patient and then are targeted and specific."
"Initial clinical results are showing us that iPSC derived NK cells don't appear to have the kind of side effects that you see with T-cells. So we are very, very excited about that. And we are seeing that there's a different dimension in cell therapies that can be served very, very nicely through these allogeneic pluripotent stem cell based therapies."
After the interview, Shoreline announced it has raised $140 million in its latest fundraising round.
#ShorelineBio #ShoreBiosciences #Oncology #Immunotherapy #NKCells #iPSC #Macrophages #SanDiego
Shorelinebio.com
Listen to the podcast here
Kleanthis Xanthopoulos is Co-Founder and CEO of Shoreline Biosciences. He talks about the Shoreline cell therapy platform that uses standardized manufacturing of allogeneic induced pluripotent stem cells to create an effective treatment to kill tumor cells with multiple advantages over autologous T-cell therapies.
Kleanthis explains, "We are focusing specifically on two different effector cells, Natural Killers and Macrophages, and we derive them from a platform which is induced pluripotent stem cells. This gives us the ability to really engineer the NK cells and Macrophages that we derive from iPSC, so they become allogeneic standardized, meaning they can be introduced to any patient and then are targeted and specific."
"Initial clinical results are showing us that iPSC derived NK cells don't appear to have the kind of side effects that you see with T-cells. So we are very, very excited about that. And we are seeing that there's a different dimension in cell therapies that can be served very, very nicely through these allogeneic pluripotent stem cell based therapies."
After the interview, Shoreline announced it has raised $140 million in its latest fundraising round.
#ShorelineBio #ShoreBiosciences #Oncology #Immunotherapy #NKCells #iPSC #Macrophages #SanDiego
Shorelinebio.com
Download the transcript here
Francois Michelon is the CEO of ENDRA Life Sciences and describes the thermoacoustic enhanced ultrasound -TAEUS-technology ENDRA is developing to provide a safe and cost-effective way to measure the fat in the liver and diagnose non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD is overtaking hepatitis as the world's leading root cause of the need for liver transplants. Current diagnostic options are using expensive MRI machines or performing a liver biopsy.
Francois says, "There are no blood tests that currently we're aware of that can measure fat in your liver. It's not like cholesterol that floats around in your bloodstream. You have to measure it directly, and it doesn't even deposit uniformly in your liver."
"ENDRA's technology uses a combination of radiofrequency pulses, which are akin to an MRI going in. Those radiofrequency pulses get absorbed differently into tissues. And we've been able to decode the sonic sound waves that come back out of tissues from that absorption of radiofrequency."
"As a result, we can do things that are very different from ultrasound, including measuring fat in the liver, along with other things like showing tissue temperature change to guide thermal ablative surgeries and other things that we have in our roadmap."
@ENDRALifeSci #NAFLD #NASH #LiverDisease #Ultrasound #TAEUS
ENDRAInc.com
Listen to the podcast here
Francois Michelon is the CEO of ENDRA Life Sciences and describes the thermoacoustic enhanced ultrasound -TAEUS-technology ENDRA is developing to provide a safe and cost-effective way to measure the fat in the liver and diagnose non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD is overtaking hepatitis as the world's leading root cause of the need for liver transplants. Current diagnostic options are using expensive MRI machines or performing a liver biopsy.
Francois says, "There are no blood tests that currently we're aware of that can measure fat in your liver. It's not like cholesterol that floats around in your bloodstream. You have to measure it directly, and it doesn't even deposit uniformly in your liver."
"ENDRA's technology uses a combination of radiofrequency pulses, which are akin to an MRI going in. Those radiofrequency pulses get absorbed differently into tissues. And we've been able to decode the sonic sound waves that come back out of tissues from that absorption of radiofrequency."
"As a result, we can do things that are very different from ultrasound, including measuring fat in the liver, along with other things like showing tissue temperature change to guide thermal ablative surgeries and other things that we have in our roadmap."
@ENDRALifeSci #NAFLD #NASH #LiverDisease #Ultrasound #TAEUS
ENDRAInc.com
Download the transcript here
Amy Fan is Co-Founder of Twentyeight Health a telemedicine startup successfully expanding its model to provide affordable reproductive healthcare to women in underserved communities.
Amy explains, "For example, many people coming from underserved communities, especially ones 30 years old or below, are living in multi-generational households, so privacy can be really difficult to come across. So being able to message your doctor directly is actually a more flexible model for them than, for example, doing a video consultation with the doctor."
"The other piece we focus on is affordability. We are one of the only telehealth companies that accept Medicaid, and unfortunately for individuals with Medicaid, it's very difficult to see a doctor in person. One in three doctors do not accept new Medicaid patients, and 45% of women between 20-30 years old do not have a primary care provider. So when you have those two combined, it ends up being very difficult for someone with Medicaid to see any healthcare professionals."
#WomensHealth #ReproductiveHealthcare #SexualHealthcare #BirthControl #Medicaid #Telehealth #Telemedicine
TwentyeightHealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Amy Fan is Co-Founder of Twentyeight Health a telemedicine startup successfully expanding its model to provide affordable reproductive healthcare to women in underserved communities.
Amy explains, "For example, many people coming from underserved communities, especially ones 30 years old or below, are living in multi-generational households, so privacy can be really difficult to come across. So being able to message your doctor directly is actually a more flexible model for them than, for example, doing a video consultation with the doctor."
"The other piece we focus on is affordability. We are one of the only telehealth companies that accept Medicaid, and unfortunately for individuals with Medicaid, it's very difficult to see a doctor in person. One in three doctors do not accept new Medicaid patients, and 45% of women between 20-30 years old do not have a primary care provider. So when you have those two combined, it ends up being very difficult for someone with Medicaid to see any healthcare professionals."
#WomensHealth #ReproductiveHealthcare #SexualHealthcare #BirthControl #Medicaid #Telehealth #Telemedicine
TwentyeightHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Karen Zaderej is the President, CEO, and Chairman of Axogen Inc. leader in the science of peripheral nerve regeneration and repair. Surgeons have always been challenged to restore feeling in damaged peripheral nerves due to accidents and surgical procedures.
Karen says, "Traditionally, they've removed the nerves that give you sensation for your foot to allow you, for example, to move your hand or have sensation in your fingers. Obviously, there are downsides to that, but moving your hand is probably more important for the patient. So that would have been the gold standard."
"So, you'd have two procedures, one to remove the nerve and another to fix the injury site. Today, what we're doing is providing surgeons an off-the-shelf opportunity to be able to do that same repair of the cut nerve and bridging of the gap, but to do it without taking another nerve from out of your body."
@Axogen #RegenerativeMedicine #NerveDamage #NerveRepair #PeripheralNerves #Nerves
AxogenInc.com
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Karen Zaderej is the President, CEO, and Chairman of Axogen Inc. leader in the science of peripheral nerve regeneration and repair. Surgeons have always been challenged to restore feeling in damaged peripheral nerves due to accidents and surgical procedures.
Karen says, "Traditionally, they've removed the nerves that give you sensation for your foot to allow you, for example, to move your hand or have sensation in your fingers. Obviously, there are downsides to that, but moving your hand is probably more important for the patient. So that would have been the gold standard."
"So, you'd have two procedures, one to remove the nerve and another to fix the injury site. Today, what we're doing is providing surgeons an off-the-shelf opportunity to be able to do that same repair of the cut nerve and bridging of the gap, but to do it without taking another nerve from out of your body."
@Axogen #RegenerativeMedicine #NerveDamage #NerveRepair #PeripheralNerves #Nerves
AxogenInc.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Mike Dulin is currently the Chief Medical Officer for Gray Matter Analytics and a professor at UNC Charlotte in the Department of Public Health Sciences where he directs the Academy for Population Health Innovation. He emphasizes that almost 80% of health outcomes are driven by social determinants. In addition to the traditional environmental determinants including access to food, transportation, a safe place to exercise, and health care, the strength of the patient's social network needs to be considered as well.
Mike explains, "Perhaps most importantly, and one area that we don't consider a lot is the social network. But often, your behaviors are driven by your social network, your peers, your friends, your family members. Their behaviors are really important in terms of shaping and determining yours. We've even found things like depression and mood can run through a social network. Well, other important factors like smoking and exercise and a healthy diet are also determined by your social network."
"The other component that I think is extremely important for us to remember as healthcare providers is that the data and the collection of the data can also cause stigma. People often may be embarrassed about not having access to certain services or unwilling to share it, or feel like it's not something that they can share directly with their physician."
@GrayMatterData #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #HealthcareAnalytics #PersonalizedMedicine
GrayMatterAnalytics.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Mike Dulin is currently the Chief Medical Officer for Gray Matter Analytics and a professor at UNC Charlotte in the Department of Public Health Sciences where he directs the Academy for Population Health Innovation. He emphasizes that almost 80% of health outcomes are driven by social determinants. In addition to the traditional environmental determinants including access to food, transportation, a safe place to exercise, and health care, the strength of the patient's social network needs to be considered as well.
Mike explains, "Perhaps most importantly, and one area that we don't consider a lot is the social network. But often, your behaviors are driven by your social network, your peers, your friends, your family members. Their behaviors are really important in terms of shaping and determining yours. We've even found things like depression and mood can run through a social network. Well, other important factors like smoking and exercise and a healthy diet are also determined by your social network."
"The other component that I think is extremely important for us to remember as healthcare providers is that the data and the collection of the data can also cause stigma. People often may be embarrassed about not having access to certain services or unwilling to share it, or feel like it's not something that they can share directly with their physician."
@GrayMatterData #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #HealthcareAnalytics #PersonalizedMedicine
GrayMatterAnalytics.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Nicole Wulf is a clinical pharmacist at FDB and has recently published a study of the current evidence regarding iodine containing compounds and iodine allergy cross-reactivity. Overall they found that there was a lack of evidence that iodine is an allergen and can cause hypersensitivity reactions particularly from contrast media used in imaging.
Nicole explains, "In my job, I'm always looking for ways in which we can improve the allergy alerts for clinicians. This is one thing that I have some questions about, and it made a lot of sense because iodine is part of the thyroid hormone in the body. So to me, it didn't make any sense for us to continue to let people spread the myth that iodine could be an allergen."
"I started pulling the literature and looking at it. It made a lot of sense that this was something that we needed to stop telling people that iodine was an allergen and that we shouldn't be putting it on patient profiles anymore because it was affecting patient care. People might not get the imaging studies they need or not the prescribed amiodarone, even though it's the best choice to treat their rhythm abnormalities."
"Some of the goal was definitely to educate clinicians to stop asking patients, are you allergic to iodine. Or when you're doing an imaging study, stop asking, are you allergic to seafood or shellfish, because they are totally unrelated. The seafood and shellfish reaction is the result of an allergy to a protein, not the iodine."
@FDB_US #ClinicalResearch #IodineAllergy #ImagingTests #MedSafety #PtSafety
FDBHealth.com
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Dr. Nicole Wulf is a clinical pharmacist at FDB and has recently published a study of the current evidence regarding iodine containing compounds and iodine allergy cross-reactivity. Overall they found that there was a lack of evidence that iodine is an allergen and can cause hypersensitivity reactions particularly from contrast media used in imaging.
Nicole explains, "In my job, I'm always looking for ways in which we can improve the allergy alerts for clinicians. This is one thing that I have some questions about, and it made a lot of sense because iodine is part of the thyroid hormone in the body. So to me, it didn't make any sense for us to continue to let people spread the myth that iodine could be an allergen."
"I started pulling the literature and looking at it. It made a lot of sense that this was something that we needed to stop telling people that iodine was an allergen and that we shouldn't be putting it on patient profiles anymore because it was affecting patient care. People might not get the imaging studies they need or not the prescribed amiodarone, even though it's the best choice to treat their rhythm abnormalities."
"Some of the goal was definitely to educate clinicians to stop asking patients, are you allergic to iodine. Or when you're doing an imaging study, stop asking, are you allergic to seafood or shellfish, because they are totally unrelated. The seafood and shellfish reaction is the result of an allergy to a protein, not the iodine."
@FDB_US #ClinicalResearch #IodineAllergy #ImagingTests #MedSafety #PtSafety
FDBHealth.com
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Palak Shah is a physical therapist and Co-Founder of Luna who is attacking the problem of providing physical therapy to the growing population of patients with the need to receive in-person care by a physical therapist.
Palak explains, "What is super different about Luna is that we're not a home health agency. We're bringing out physical therapy to patient homes for all our patients in 19 states and 32 metro markets today. Having about 1,200 therapists on the platform now throughout the country, bringing technology and high-quality care from the therapists, is Luna's superpower. The vision here is what we're trying to bring with technology and these amazing quality therapists is to reimagine the physical therapy experience."
"All of Luna's therapists are moonlighting with Luna, more than 95% and hence the name Luna. So they are working at outpatient clinics today that are in our community, but also have this amazing opportunity to participate with an organization like Luna that allows them supplemental income."
@GetLunaCare #COVID19 #HomePhysicalTherapy #HospitalatHome #PhysicalTherapist #PT #PhysicalTherapy #Recovery #Rehab #RehabatHome #Rehabilitation #RehabTherapy #Treatment
GetLuna.com
Listen to the podcast here
Palak Shah is a physical therapist and Co-Founder of Luna who is attacking the problem of providing physical therapy to the growing population of patients with the need to receive in-person care by a physical therapist.
Palak explains, "What is super different about Luna is that we're not a home health agency. We're bringing out physical therapy to patient homes for all our patients in 19 states and 32 metro markets today. Having about 1,200 therapists on the platform now throughout the country, bringing technology and high-quality care from the therapists, is Luna's superpower. The vision here is what we're trying to bring with technology and these amazing quality therapists is to reimagine the physical therapy experience."
"All of Luna's therapists are moonlighting with Luna, more than 95% and hence the name Luna. So they are working at outpatient clinics today that are in our community, but also have this amazing opportunity to participate with an organization like Luna that allows them supplemental income."
@GetLunaCare #COVID19 #HomePhysicalTherapy #HospitalatHome #PhysicalTherapist #PT #PhysicalTherapy #Recovery #Rehab #RehabatHome #Rehabilitation #RehabTherapy #Treatment
GetLuna.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Daniel Schneeberger is the CEO of Anebulo Pharmaceuticals and is determined to find an antidote to acute cannabinoid intoxication, a growing problem for people of all ages as well as emergency rooms around the country.
Daniel says, "THC acts mostly in the brain, it crosses the blood-brain barrier and binds to the CB1 receptor, and it activates that CB1 receptor. Our drug also goes to the brain and binds to the same receptor, much more tightly, up to 100x more tightly, and blocks it so that THC has no chance to act on that receptor anymore. One of the most important properties of our drug, too, is rapid absorption with oral dosing. So we feel very good about the drug candidate."
"These drugs, CB1 antagonists, were originally developed for weight loss in the treatment of diabetes back around 2007, 2008. They were never approved by the FDA because with chronic dosing, there was an increased frequency of depression, it was 9%, it was 5% with placebo. Back then, the FDA was very concerned that chronic dosing in such a large patient population might potentially be unsafe. For our drug, it's a one-time dose, and those mood effects only showed up with chronic dosing."
@AnebuloP #CannabisIntoxication #AcuteCannabisIntoxication #Cannabinoids #SyntheticCannabinoids #SubstanceAbuseDisorders
Anebulo Pharmaceuticals
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Dr. Daniel Schneeberger is the CEO of Anebulo Pharmaceuticals and is determined to find an antidote to acute cannabinoid intoxication, a growing problem for people of all ages as well as emergency rooms around the country.
Daniel says, "THC acts mostly in the brain, it crosses the blood-brain barrier and binds to the CB1 receptor, and it activates that CB1 receptor. Our drug also goes to the brain and binds to the same receptor, much more tightly, up to 100x more tightly, and blocks it so that THC has no chance to act on that receptor anymore. One of the most important properties of our drug, too, is rapid absorption with oral dosing. So we feel very good about the drug candidate."
"These drugs, CB1 antagonists, were originally developed for weight loss in the treatment of diabetes back around 2007, 2008. They were never approved by the FDA because with chronic dosing, there was an increased frequency of depression, it was 9%, it was 5% with placebo. Back then, the FDA was very concerned that chronic dosing in such a large patient population might potentially be unsafe. For our drug, it's a one-time dose, and those mood effects only showed up with chronic dosing."
@AnebuloP #CannabisIntoxication #AcuteCannabisIntoxication #Cannabinoids #SyntheticCannabinoids #SubstanceAbuseDisorders
Anebulo Pharmaceuticals
Download the transcript here
Gary Rotman and Bruce Barnet are Co-Founders of SiMPL Technology, a company designing and selling simple tech products for seniors and their caregivers. With a particular focus on people with cognitive challenges and discomfort with digital technology, SiMPL is bringing solutions to the market that solve such challenges as medication adherence and media access.
Gary is an inventor and explains, "So, I've been in the timepiece industry for most of my career, over 35 years, so one of the products I developed was a talking clock, and you can set the alarm by voice. In the meantime, like many other people, my father was diagnosed with dementia back in 2010, Alzheimer's dementia, and I woke up one day with this aha moment to put personalized messages in the clock. So, when my mother isn't home, and my dad forgets his meds and doesn't want to end up back in the hospital, this talking clock would announce in my mother's voice, "Honey, take your pills now.".
Bruce says, "So the things that we think are easy, are not easy for a person that's been afflicted with dementia. Even to the point of when a person grew up as I did, I'm 70 years old, grew up seeing an analog clock with a long hand and a short hand. Today, everything is digital. A person with dementia, who's remembering what it was like to be 14 or 20 years old, doesn't understand how to connect the dots on digital, so it needs to be LED if it's going to be in that type of form at all. You really have to think about what it is that they consider normal at a certain age."
#SiMPL #SiMPLTechnology #GaryRotman #BruceBarnet #Rosie2.0 #DementiaCareProgram #Alzheimers #Dementia
SMPLTEC.com
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Gary Rotman and Bruce Barnet are Co-Founders of SiMPL Technology, a company designing and selling simple tech products for seniors and their caregivers. With a particular focus on people with cognitive challenges and discomfort with digital technology, SiMPL is bringing solutions to the market that solve such challenges as medication adherence and media access.
Gary is an inventor and explains, "So, I've been in the timepiece industry for most of my career, over 35 years, so one of the products I developed was a talking clock, and you can set the alarm by voice. In the meantime, like many other people, my father was diagnosed with dementia back in 2010, Alzheimer's dementia, and I woke up one day with this aha moment to put personalized messages in the clock. So, when my mother isn't home, and my dad forgets his meds and doesn't want to end up back in the hospital, this talking clock would announce in my mother's voice, "Honey, take your pills now.".
Bruce says, "So the things that we think are easy, are not easy for a person that's been afflicted with dementia. Even to the point of when a person grew up as I did, I'm 70 years old, grew up seeing an analog clock with a long hand and a short hand. Today, everything is digital. A person with dementia, who's remembering what it was like to be 14 or 20 years old, doesn't understand how to connect the dots on digital, so it needs to be LED if it's going to be in that type of form at all. You really have to think about what it is that they consider normal at a certain age."
#SiMPL #SiMPLTechnology #GaryRotman #BruceBarnet #Rosie2.0 #DementiaCareProgram #Alzheimers #Dementia
SMPLTEC.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and DVP Global Medical Affairs for Vascular at Abbott. With the launch of the Ultreon software 1.0, Abbott is bringing a new level of analysis to their Optical Coherence Tomography intracoronary imaging tool.
Nick explains, "And the idea of this software package is, on top of this best-in-class in terms of resolution imaging technology to help physicians, the Ultreon software augments physician decision-making to effectively enable them to do a better job, but more easily."
"Optical Coherence Tomography already existed. A very powerful tool, as I said. A very high degree of precision and accuracy in measurement. However, one of the issues with OCT is that, as well as understanding how to actually physically use the catheter, which is reasonably straightforward, it's very similar to other devices that interventional cardiologists use, but they then have to learn to interpret the images you get out. So acquiring the pictures is relatively straightforward, but then how do you interpret these detailed pictures?"
"You still need to know how to use the catheter, but the Ultreon 1.0 software uses machine learning algorithms. That's artificial intelligence, if you like, where we've taught the software over hundreds and hundreds of different OCT pictures. We taught it - what is calcification? What is that hardened narrowing? And also, where is what we call the external elastic lamina?"
@AbbottCardio #OCT #OpticalCoherenceTomography #angiograms #UltreonSoftware #medicalimaging #coronaryhealth
Abbott.com
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Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and DVP Global Medical Affairs for Vascular at Abbott. With the launch of the Ultreon software 1.0, Abbott is bringing a new level of analysis to their Optical Coherence Tomography intracoronary imaging tool.
Nick explains, "And the idea of this software package is, on top of this best-in-class in terms of resolution imaging technology to help physicians, the Ultreon software augments physician decision-making to effectively enable them to do a better job, but more easily."
"Optical Coherence Tomography already existed. A very powerful tool, as I said. A very high degree of precision and accuracy in measurement. However, one of the issues with OCT is that, as well as understanding how to actually physically use the catheter, which is reasonably straightforward, it's very similar to other devices that interventional cardiologists use, but they then have to learn to interpret the images you get out. So acquiring the pictures is relatively straightforward, but then how do you interpret these detailed pictures?"
"You still need to know how to use the catheter, but the Ultreon 1.0 software uses machine learning algorithms. That's artificial intelligence, if you like, where we've taught the software over hundreds and hundreds of different OCT pictures. We taught it - what is calcification? What is that hardened narrowing? And also, where is what we call the external elastic lamina?"
@AbbottCardio #OCT #OpticalCoherenceTomography #angiograms #UltreonSoftware #medicalimaging #Angioplasty #coronaryhealth
Abbott.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Mike Dudley is President and CEO of QpexBiopharma and seeing drug-resistant infections occurring inside the hospital as well as outside the hospital. Qpex is developing IV and oral drugs that are designed to overcome resistance mechanisms in bacteria that render penicillin-like drugs inactive.
Mike explains, "We deliver our drug in combination with existing antibiotics that have already been proven safe and effective as first-line therapies but have lost their usefulness due to resistant bacteria. And we want to be able to give them via vein for the sickest patients who can't take oral drugs. But also we want to be delivering them using an oral formulation in our product so they can be taken orally."
"We call the IV product OMNIvance, which provides that coverage for very, very sick patients. And then an oral product, which we call ORAvance that can be then delivered orally, and it can be useful for stepping down hospitalized patients or even treating infections in the community setting where you don't have to go to the hospital and can remain at home."
@QpexBio #QpexBio #AMR #AntimicrobialResistance #InfectiousDisease #SanDiego
QpexBio.com
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Dr. Mike Dudley is President and CEO of QpexBiopharma and seeing drug-resistant infections occurring inside the hospital as well as outside the hospital. Qpex is developing IV and oral drugs that are designed to overcome resistance mechanisms in bacteria that render penicillin-like drugs inactive.
Mike explains, "We deliver our drug in combination with existing antibiotics that have already been proven safe and effective as first-line therapies but have lost their usefulness due to resistant bacteria. And we want to be able to give them via vein for the sickest patients who can't take oral drugs. But also we want to be delivering them using an oral formulation in our product so they can be taken orally."
"We call the IV product OMNIvance, which provides that coverage for very, very sick patients. And then an oral product, which we call ORAvance that can be then delivered orally, and it can be useful for stepping down hospitalized patients or even treating infections in the community setting where you don't have to go to the hospital and can remain at home."
@QpexBio #QpexBio #AMR #AntimicrobialResistance #InfectiousDisease #SanDiego
QpexBio.com
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Francesca Rinaldo MD Ph.D. is the Director of Clinical Quality and Innovation at Sharecare, a health and wellness engagement platform. Their SmartOmix solution allows researchers to build, launch, manage and analyze data from clinical studies using a participant-centric mobile application that leverages all the technological components of a smartphone including text-based reporting, photo, video, and audio samples.
Francesca explains, "So, in my opinion, the future of clinical research is really three things: it's decentralized, it's digital-first, and it's widely inclusive. So, I think technology will impact researchers, patients, and doctors and a number of different ways. It will impact researchers because it will give them access to data that will provide a much more comprehensive view of health and wellness, as well as how disease trajectories change for study participants."
"It will also impact patients because it will accelerate the cycle from research to care, fast-track insights, and novel approaches to therapy or new drugs into the system for participants. And as we said before, it will also decrease many barriers for patients to participate in clinical research and increase the validity of the evidence generated because the research will be conducted in much more diverse populations of patients."
@SharecareInc #Sharecare #AI #ClinicalResearch #FutureisDigitalHealth #FutureofHealthcare #FutureofClinicalResearch #AIinHealth #TechinHealthcare #VirtualCare #Telemedicine #PatientCentric #HybridHealthcare #AllTogetherBetter
Sharecare.com
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Francesca Rinaldo MD Ph.D. is the Director of Clinical Quality and Innovation at Sharecare, a health and wellness engagement platform. Their SmartOmix solution allows researchers to build, launch, manage and analyze data from clinical studies using a participant-centric mobile application that leverages all the technological components of a smartphone including text-based reporting, photo, video, and audio samples.
Francesca explains, "So, in my opinion, the future of clinical research is really three things: it's decentralized, it's digital-first, and it's widely inclusive. So, I think technology will impact researchers, patients, and doctors and a number of different ways. It will impact researchers because it will give them access to data that will provide a much more comprehensive view of health and wellness, as well as how disease trajectories change for study participants."
"It will also impact patients because it will accelerate the cycle from research to care, fast-track insights, and novel approaches to therapy or new drugs into the system for participants. And as we said before, it will also decrease many barriers for patients to participate in clinical research and increase the validity of the evidence generated because the research will be conducted in much more diverse populations of patients."
@SharecareInc #Sharecare #AI #ClinicalResearch #FutureisDigitalHealth #FutureofHealthcare #FutureofClinicalResearch #AIinHealth #TechinHealthcare #VirtualCare #Telemedicine #PatientCentric #HybridHealthcare #AllTogetherBetter
Sharecare.com
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Sam Meraj is the Senior Director of Quality, Safety, and Reporting at Walmart, including their in-store pharmacies, optical, primary care, dental, and other health services.
Sam explains, " We do keep in mind the social determinants of health. We provide a lot of linguistic support, language translation services, and we always keep health equity in mind when we are providing these services."
"I think a lot is being done to address health equity, but yet we have an opportunity to do a lot more. In terms of addressing the language barriers that I was talking about or the cultural barriers to continued education, one thing to keep in mind is that negative experiences with healthcare are unfortunately more common in these groups. And some social determinants of health, again, have historically made it difficult for them to have equal access to healthcare. So I think that it's important for individual providers as well as systems to be aware and intentional about addressing these gaps and sharing the right information to build trust and address some of these disparities."
#Walmart #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #HealthEquity #COVID19 #PopulationHealth
Walmart.com
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Sam Meraj is the Senior Director of Quality, Safety, and Reporting at Walmart, including their in-store pharmacies, optical, primary care, dental, and other health services.
Sam explains, " We do keep in mind the social determinants of health. We provide a lot of linguistic support, language translation services, and we always keep health equity in mind when we are providing these services."
"I think a lot is being done to address health equity, but yet we have an opportunity to do a lot more. In terms of addressing the language barriers that I was talking about or the cultural barriers to continued education, one thing to keep in mind is that negative experiences with healthcare are unfortunately more common in these groups. And some social determinants of health, again, have historically made it difficult for them to have equal access to healthcare. So I think that it's important for individual providers as well as systems to be aware and intentional about addressing these gaps and sharing the right information to build trust and address some of these disparities."
#Walmart #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #HealthEquity #COVID19 #PopulationHealth
Walmart.com
Download the transcript here
Ali Dianaty is Vice President of Product Innovation at Medtronic Diabetes and reflects on the explosion of developments for treating diabetes that has allowed patients to manage their diabetes in a way that fits their lifestyle.
Ali explains, "We also make smart insulin pens, which allow people to do a better job of dosing their insulin. Of course, one of the big fears is that insulin can be a very dangerous drug. Think of it as if you give yourself too much, you can put yourself into harm's way. If you don't give yourself enough, it's the same thing. So, dosing that properly is super important."
"We offer pumps that help do that more automatically, as well, in terms of dosing that insulin. And then, we also offer continuous glucose monitors that measure how much glucose is in someone's body. Then ultimately, we bring all of that together into some sophisticated algorithms as a system to automatically dose people's insulin. So again, with the premise of forgetting their disease. All of these things are intended to try to minimize the work going into managing diabetes, and quite frankly, to make things easier for them."
@MDT_Diabetes #Medtronic #Diabetes #t1d #t2d #Diabetestech #DiabetesManagement #Type1 #InsulinPump #CGM #medtech
MedtronicDiabetes.com
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Ali Dianaty is Vice President of Product Innovation at Medtronic Diabetes and reflects on the explosion of developments for treating diabetes that has allowed patients to manage their diabetes in a way that fits their lifestyle.
Ali explains, "We also make smart insulin pens, which allow people to do a better job of dosing their insulin. Of course, one of the big fears is that insulin can be a very dangerous drug. Think of it as if you give yourself too much, you can put yourself into harm's way. If you don't give yourself enough, it's the same thing. So, dosing that properly is super important."
"We offer pumps that help do that more automatically, as well, in terms of dosing that insulin. And then, we also offer continuous glucose monitors that measure how much glucose is in someone's body. Then ultimately, we bring all of that together into some sophisticated algorithms as a system to automatically dose people's insulin. So again, with the premise of forgetting their disease. All of these things are intended to try to minimize the work going into managing diabetes, and quite frankly, to make things easier for them."
@MDT_Diabetes #Medtronic #Diabetes #t1d #t2d #Diabetestech #DiabetesManagement #Type1 #InsulinPump #CGM #medtech
MedtronicDiabetes.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Heidi Jannenga PT, DPT, ACT, is the Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer at WebPT. She points out that healthcare providers should be more aware of the benefits of physical therapy and how technology and telehealth are making PT more accessible for a broader audience.
Heidi explains. "This past year, with the whole COVID thing that's going on and continues to go on, we also launched a virtual visit platform. We can do telehealth with patients while they're at home so that it doesn't always have to mean that you have to get yourself to a clinic, especially those in rural areas and such. It really now has expanded our reach in terms of connecting with more patients who could benefit from physical therapist care.
"I think that it's going to take a little while for us to find the happy medium between in-person visits and virtual. By no means do I think that 100% of care from a physical therapist can be done virtually because of the nature of our clinical expertise."
@WebPT #PT #PhysicalTherapy #RehabTherapy #Telehealth #COVID19
WebPT.com
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Dr. Heidi Jannenga PT, DPT, ACT, is the Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer at WebPT. She points out that healthcare providers should be more aware of the benefits of physical therapy and how technology and telehealth are making PT more accessible for a broader audience.
Heidi explains. "This past year, with the whole COVID thing that's going on and continues to go on, we also launched a virtual visit platform. We can do telehealth with patients while they're at home so that it doesn't always have to mean that you have to get yourself to a clinic, especially those in rural areas and such. It really now has expanded our reach in terms of connecting with more patients who could benefit from physical therapist care.
"I think that it's going to take a little while for us to find the happy medium between in-person visits and virtual. By no means do I think that 100% of care from a physical therapist can be done virtually because of the nature of our clinical expertise."
@WebPT #PT #PhysicalTherapy #RehabTherapy #Telehealth #COVID19
WebPT.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Harvey Kaufman is the Senior Medical Director at Quest Diagnostics and has recently published a study on cancer diagnoses during the pandemic. Data points to a significant impact of COVID-19 on the rate of cancer screenings and the need to better identify those most at risk for a wide range of cancers.
Harvey explains, "There's a couple of things that we can do differently. One is we learned through the pandemic, the power of telemedicine, that we can do a lot of things through Zoom, and even without the visual, we can do the audio portion and engage people in questionnaires and asking about their health and such."
"We can't do certain things remotely like a mammogram or a colonoscopy or biopsies and other procedures, but there are things that we can do. We can try to identify people who are at higher risk and prioritize them over other individuals. If we don't re-engage in healthcare, there will be more and more people who will present at more advanced stages, require more aggressive therapy, and have a higher rate of death."
@QuestDX #QuestDiagnostics #cancer #CancerAwareness #COVID19 #CancerDiagnosis #ReturntoCare #CancerScreening
QuestDiagnostics.com
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Dr. Harvey Kaufman is the Senior Medical Director at Quest Diagnostics and has recently published a study on cancer diagnoses during the pandemic. Data points to a significant impact of COVID-19 on the rate of cancer screenings and the need to better identify those most at risk for a wide range of cancers.
Harvey explains, "There's a couple of things that we can do differently. One is we learned through the pandemic, the power of telemedicine, that we can do a lot of things through Zoom, and even without the visual, we can do the audio portion and engage people in questionnaires and asking about their health and such."
"We can't do certain things remotely like a mammogram or a colonoscopy or biopsies and other procedures, but there are things that we can do. We can try to identify people who are at higher risk and prioritize them over other individuals. If we don't re-engage in healthcare, there will be more and more people who will present at more advanced stages, require more aggressive therapy, and have a higher rate of death."
@QuestDX #QuestDiagnostics #cancer #CancerAwareness #COVID19 #CancerDiagnosis #ReturntoCare #CancerScreening
QuestDiagnostics.com
Download the transcript here
Alana McGolrick DNP is the Chief Nursing Officer at PeriGen and focused on reducing preventable maternal and newborn deaths using technology and AI to support labor and delivery activities. The PeriWatch Vigilance platform removes bias and provides objective assessment to those clinicians and physicians monitoring the physiological changes in patients and their fetuses.
Alana explains, "I have been a fetal monitoring geek for my entire life in labor and delivery. I've always been fascinated with the labor and delivery process. When we do monitor our patients, we put these monitors on the patient's abdomen, so on their pregnant belly, and we're looking at uterine contractions, we're looking at the fetal heart rate. Then we're also monitoring mom's vital signs and how she's progressing in labor."
"There's a number of different factors that we analyze while we're in the intrapartum stage, labor, and delivery, watching how our patient is progressing. One of our patients happens to be invisible, right? We only have the fetal heart rate as a sign of wellbeing or some sort of duress. They can go in the exact opposite direction for us."
@PeriGen #PeriWatch #PeriWatchVigilance #MaternalMortality #NewbornMortality #AI #LaborandDelivery
PeriGen.com
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Alana McGolrick DNP is the Chief Nursing Officer at PeriGen and focused on reducing preventable maternal and newborn deaths using technology and AI to support labor and delivery activities. The PeriWatch Vigilance platform removes bias and provides objective assessment to those clinicians and physicians monitoring the physiological changes in patients and their fetuses.
Alana explains, "I have been a fetal monitoring geek for my entire life in labor and delivery. I've always been fascinated with the labor and delivery process. When we do monitor our patients, we put these monitors on the patient's abdomen, so on their pregnant belly, and we're looking at uterine contractions, we're looking at the fetal heart rate. Then we're also monitoring mom's vital signs and how she's progressing in labor."
"There's a number of different factors that we analyze while we're in the intrapartum stage, labor, and delivery, watching how our patient is progressing. One of our patients happens to be invisible, right? We only have the fetal heart rate as a sign of wellbeing or some sort of duress. They can go in the exact opposite direction for us."
@PeriGen #PeriWatch #PeriWatchVigilance #MaternalMortality #NewbornMortality #AI #LaborandDelivery
PeriGen.com
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Rosemary Kennedy is the Chief Health Information Officer at Connect America, where data collection, predictive analytics, remote monitoring, human intervention, and promotion of patient care circles are all part of the solution for keeping seniors out of the hospital and independent as possible.
Rosemary explains, "There are probably three areas in terms of them achieving your goal and living independently and safely in your home. And you've identified one of them, this connected care management platform in the home that involves a system of integrated technologies."
"We see that one in every ten admissions to the hospital are related to the fact that individuals are not adherent to their medication regimen. The second area is in interaction with their care circles and using technology for that. We have seen with COVID that individuals want to be connected to family, friends, neighbors. They want to do it in an easy way, and this includes voice video chat that they can interoperate with the people that are important to them in terms of needs related to food, support, transportation."
#ConnectedHealth #SeniorHealthcare #ConnectedCare #RPM #COVID19 #HealthTech
ConnectAmerica.com
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Rosemary Kennedy is the Chief Health Information Officer at Connect America, where data collection, predictive analytics, remote monitoring, human intervention, and promotion of patient care circles are all part of the solution for keeping seniors out of the hospital and independent as possible.
Rosemary explains, "There are probably three areas in terms of them achieving your goal and living independently and safely in your home. And you've identified one of them, this connected care management platform in the home that involves a system of integrated technologies."
"We see that one in every ten admissions to the hospital are related to the fact that individuals are not adherent to their medication regimen. The second area is in interaction with their care circles and using technology for that. We have seen with COVID that individuals want to be connected to family, friends, neighbors. They want to do it in an easy way, and this includes voice video chat that they can interoperate with the people that are important to them in terms of needs related to food, support, transportation."
#ConnectedHealth #SeniorHealthcare #ConnectedCare #RPM #COVID19 #HealthTech
ConnectAmerica.com
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Andy Kidd MD is the President and COO and soon to be CEO of Aptinyx. With a focus on Pain Awareness Month, Andy provides a view into the world of treating long-term chronic pain and the necessary innovations to treat the cause of chronic pain in conditions like diabetic peripheral neuropathy and fibromyalgia.
Andy explains, "So we've discovered and are developing a new drug that has a new mechanism for chronic pain. And actually, it really takes that problem of what is happening in the brain head-on because our drug works in the brain, particularly in the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. That is really responsible for how we control and regulate our behavior, what we pay attention to, what we don't pay attention to, how our emotions are affected by things that we're sensing in the environment, and things like that. So we are really trying to tackle this part of the chronic pain problem that has been probably under-recognized in the past and for which there really aren't any good therapies right now."
"The goal would be that our drug works as it is supposed to, and it works on a receptor called the NMDA receptor in the brain, which is basically responsible for how the brain cells communicate and connect to each other. By boosting its activity, the goal would be to restore normal function, some of these parts of the brain that may then help the patient reduce the perception of pain. It may help the patient with some of the consequences of the pain around those things like sleep and mood and cognition."
@Aptinyx #PainAwarenessMonth #NMDA #CNS #Brain #Innovation #PainTherapies #PTSD #ChronicPain #CognitiveImpairment
Aptinyx.com
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Andy Kidd MD is the President and COO and soon to be CEO of Aptinyx. With a focus on Pain Awareness Month, Andy provides a view into the world of treating long-term chronic pain and the necessary innovations to treat the cause of chronic pain in conditions like diabetic peripheral neuropathy and fibromyalgia.
Andy explains, "So we've discovered and are developing a new drug that has a new mechanism for chronic pain. And actually, it really takes that problem of what is happening in the brain head-on because our drug works in the brain, particularly in the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. That is really responsible for how we control and regulate our behavior, what we pay attention to, what we don't pay attention to, how our emotions are affected by things that we're sensing in the environment, and things like that. So we are really trying to tackle this part of the chronic pain problem that has been probably under-recognized in the past and for which there really aren't any good therapies right now."
"The goal would be that our drug works as it is supposed to, and it works on a receptor called the NMDA receptor in the brain, which is basically responsible for how the brain cells communicate and connect to each other. By boosting its activity, the goal would be to restore normal function, some of these parts of the brain that may then help the patient reduce the perception of pain. It may help the patient with some of the consequences of the pain around those things like sleep and mood and cognition."
@Aptinyx #PainAwarenessMonth #NMDA #CNS #Brain #Innovation #PainTherapies #PTSD #ChronicPain #CognitiveImpairment
Aptinyx.com
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Jessica Magana is the Product Manager of Lightbeam Health Solutions, a population health management company. Jessica shines a light on the biggest changes coming from CMS in risk adjustment for Medicare Advantage in 2022. Organizations need to understand the technical requirements behind the way diagnosed base risk scores will be calculated and the impact of delayed healthcare due to COVID-19.
Jessica explains, "Lightbeam is a platform that facilitates end-to-end population health management for our ACOs, payers, provider groups, health systems, and some other healthcare organizations. Just some highlights about the platform and what it provides are provider alignment, tools for engagement, and satisfaction rates. It allows for some two-way information sharing. It has been proven to lower utilization rates and improve risk and coding opportunities; it also helps to improve quality scores for HEDIS and Star measures."
"Another important change that I think is very important is around some of the quality bonus program changes. Due to COVID-19, a public health emergency has been awarded. CMS is now promoting some new changes that are going to impact some of those Star ratings."
@LightbeamHealth #LightbeamHealth #assessment #caremanagement #Healthcare #HealthIT #Payer #PayerProvider #PopHealth #PopulationHealth #referral #VBC #MedicareAdvantage #MA #COVID19
Lightbeamhealth.com
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Jessica Magana is the Product Manager of Lightbeam Health Solutions, a population health management company. Jessica shines a light on the biggest changes coming from CMS in risk adjustment for Medicare Advantage in 2022. Organizations need to understand the technical requirements behind the way diagnosed base risk scores will be calculated and the impact of delayed healthcare due to COVID-19.
Jessica explains, "Lightbeam is a platform that facilitates end-to-end population health management for our ACOs, payers, provider groups, health systems, and some other healthcare organizations. Just some highlights about the platform and what it provides are provider alignment, tools for engagement, and satisfaction rates. It allows for some two-way information sharing. It has been proven to lower utilization rates and improve risk and coding opportunities; it also helps to improve quality scores for HEDIS and Star measures."
"Another important change that I think is very important is around some of the quality bonus program changes. Due to COVID-19, a public health emergency has been awarded. CMS is now promoting some new changes that are going to impact some of those Star ratings."
@LightbeamHealth #LightbeamHealth #assessment #caremanagement #Healthcare #HealthIT #Payer #PayerProvider #PopHealth #PopulationHealth #referral #VBC #MedicareAdvantage #MA #COVID19
Lightbeamhealth.com
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Dr. Hugh Rienhoff is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Imago BioSciences. He and his team are developing their lead asset bomedemstat for the treatment of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) which are rare blood cancers.
Hugh explains, "So MPNs, myeloproliferative neoplasms, are actually a family of diseases that include myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera, and essential thrombocythemia. And they're all characterized by an elevation of one element in the blood or another different cell type."
"But they're all related in the sense that they share a family of very limited mutations. And those mutations, in one of three genes, typically arise in patients who are in their 50s or 60s and those mutations occur in the blood stem cells."
"They're not hereditary, typically. They're what we call somatic mutations arising in blood stem cells. And they are called neoplastic diseases, which is a Greek name for cancer, but they typically are much more indolent than your typical bone marrow cancers, like leukemia, which are almost fulminant by comparison."
@Imagobiorx #ImagoBioSciences #MPN #MPNSM #EssentialThrombocythemia #myelofibrosis #bomedemstat #LSD1 #BloodCancer #RareDisease
ImagoBio.com
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Dr. Hugh Rienhoff is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Imago BioSciences. He and his team are developing their lead asset bomedemstat for the treatment of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) which are rare blood cancers.
Hugh explains, "So MPNs, myeloproliferative neoplasms, are actually a family of diseases that include myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera, and essential thrombocythemia. And they're all characterized by an elevation of one element in the blood or another different cell type."
"But they're all related in the sense that they share a family of very limited mutations. And those mutations, in one of three genes, typically arise in patients who are in their 50s or 60s and those mutations occur in the blood stem cells."
"They're not hereditary, typically. They're what we call somatic mutations arising in blood stem cells. And they are called neoplastic diseases, which is a Greek name for cancer, but they typically are much more indolent than your typical bone marrow cancers, like leukemia, which are almost fulminant by comparison."
@Imagobiorx #ImagoBioSciences #MPN #MPNSM #EssentialThrombocythemia #myelofibrosis #bomedemstat #LSD1 #BloodCancer #RareDisease
ImagoBio.com
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Eric Rock is the Founder and CEO of Vivify Health and a pioneer in the application of remote patient monitoring, consumer electronics, and biometric devices combined with virtual visits to connect patients and providers outside the hospital setting.
Eric explains, "Fortunately, Vivify, from our beginning days, created a solution that encompassed a connected tablet with a very unique and simple experience that spoke to the patient and connected to the provider. It made it incredibly simple regardless of your age. With an average age of 77 across our customer base, where that product was applied to, we knew this market well. And many were entering the market saying, "Okay, well, I can just give them an app to download." Well, that's a very quick failure in that population."
"So, understanding the complexities of distributing devices to patients that we're all responsible for and even getting those devices returned in most cases is a big part of the services and value that Vivify brings to the table. So it is a very simple solution for seniors with all of that backend technology support logistics, and an incredible experience for the provider as well. It's simple for everybody involved as it would be for an in-person visit, while at the same time we manage all of that technology headache. And we've done that very well for over a decade."
@VivifyHealth @ericlrock #DigitalHealth #telehealth #telemedicine #remotepatientmonitoring #RPM #VirtualHealthcare
VivifyHealth.com
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Eric Rock is the Founder and CEO of Vivify Health and a pioneer in the application of remote patient monitoring, consumer electronics, and biometric devices combined with virtual visits to connect patients and providers outside the hospital setting.
Eric explains, "Fortunately, Vivify, from our beginning days, created a solution that encompassed a connected tablet with a very unique and simple experience that spoke to the patient and connected to the provider. It made it incredibly simple regardless of your age. With an average age of 77 across our customer base, where that product was applied to, we knew this market well. And many were entering the market saying, "Okay, well, I can just give them an app to download." Well, that's a very quick failure in that population."
"So, understanding the complexities of distributing devices to patients that we're all responsible for and even getting those devices returned in most cases is a big part of the services and value that Vivify brings to the table. So it is a very simple solution for seniors with all of that backend technology support logistics, and an incredible experience for the provider as well. It's simple for everybody involved as it would be for an in-person visit, while at the same time we manage all of that technology headache. And we've done that very well for over a decade."
@VivifyHealth @ericlrock #DigitalHealth #telehealth #telemedicine #remotepatientmonitoring #RPM #VirtualHealthcare
VivifyHealth.com
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Craig Parker is the Chief Executive Officer at Surrozen. Their research in the Wnt pathway and proteins identified these are critical to maintaining tissues in our body and are found in tissues as diverse as the lung, intestine, liver, sensory hair cells, and the eye. The company is first targeting a patient population with a severe alcoholic injury to the liver who are not eligible for transplant but would benefit from regeneration in their liver.
Craig explains, "It really starts with a signal outside the cell that gets transmitted inside the cell by this Wnt signaling pathway, which in turn activates a number of genes that are responsible for these processes, like tissue repair or embryonic development, or renewal of stem cells."
"The Wnt proteins actually don't dissolve very well in the circulation, and they really only act within a few cells distance from where they're produced. What made this pathway very difficult to try to modulate for therapeutic use is that these proteins, you can't just copy one of these proteins and inject it and have it activate this path in a distanced cell. These proteins are quite unique in the way they only work one or two cells away from where they're produced."
#Surrozen #wntpathway #wntproteins
Surrozen.com
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Craig Parker is the Chief Executive Officer at Surrozen. Their research in the Wnt pathway and proteins identified these are critical to maintaining tissues in our body and are found in tissues as diverse as the lung, intestine, liver, sensory hair cells, and the eye. The company is first targeting a patient population with a severe alcoholic injury to the liver who are not eligible for transplant but would benefit from regeneration in their liver.
Craig explains, "It really starts with a signal outside the cell that gets transmitted inside the cell by this Wnt signaling pathway, which in turn activates a number of genes that are responsible for these processes, like tissue repair or embryonic development, or renewal of stem cells."
"The Wnt proteins actually don't dissolve very well in the circulation, and they really only act within a few cells distance from where they're produced. What made this pathway very difficult to try to modulate for therapeutic use is that these proteins, you can't just copy one of these proteins and inject it and have it activate this path in a distanced cell. These proteins are quite unique in the way they only work one or two cells away from where they're produced."
#Surrozen #wntpathway #wntproteins
Surrozen.com
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Dr. Richard Watson is a Co-Founder of Motient and has taken on the challenge of creating an efficient solution to solve the puzzle of how to move patients from one place to another with a focus on rural healthcare and rural hospitals. Motient was founded as a medical transport company that did air and ground transport. They have now created Mission Control which is even more critical in this time of the Delta resurgence to help manage decisions in the care of all patients.
Richard says, "The sending facility environment is different than the receiving facility. That's different from the EMS transport people. And everybody's got their head down doing solid work, but the idea that we could actually link arms and make that work better, improve the outcomes, improve patient care. I don't think that was something that was the focus. I mean, we're too busy measuring other things in the system to understand how that affects patient care. But every aspect of quality and sustainability is affected how patients move in the system."
#PatientTransfer #RuralHealth #RuralHealthCare #RuralHospitals #Healthcare #EmergencyMedicine #HealthIT
Motient.io
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Dr. Richard Watson is a Co-Founder of Motient and has taken on the challenge of creating an efficient solution to solve the puzzle of how to move patients from one place to another with a focus on rural healthcare and rural hospitals. Motient was founded as a medical transport company that did air and ground transport. They have now created Mission Control which is even more critical in this time of the Delta resurgence to help manage decisions in the care of all patients.
Richard says, "The sending facility environment is different than the receiving facility. That's different from the EMS transport people. And everybody's got their head down doing solid work, but the idea that we could actually link arms and make that work better, improve the outcomes, improve patient care. I don't think that was something that was the focus. I mean, we're too busy measuring other things in the system to understand how that affects patient care. But every aspect of quality and sustainability is affected how patients move in the system."
#PatientTransfer #RuralHealth #RuralHealthCare #RuralHospitals #Healthcare #EmergencyMedicine #HealthIT
Motient.io
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David Katz is the Chief Scientific Officer at Sparrow Pharmaceuticals. He is exploring the possibility of blocking the formation of intracellular steroids to reduce the side effects of steroid medicines and conditions related to the overproduction of cortisol in the body in such diseases as Cushing's Syndrome and autonomous cortisol secretion.
David says, "Cortisol is made in an organ called the adrenal, and then it circulates throughout the body. And endocrinologists tend to think about the cortisol that's circulating as really being the effector of both the good effects, so immune suppression that you want in a patient who has a transplanted organ or an autoimmune disease, as well as all the bad effects."
"What we recognize actually is that most of the receptors of cortisol are within the cell and that it's the steroid that's in the cell that matters. And most of that actually is made by a different pathway, by an enzyme called HSD1, which is the target of our drug."
"And the magic of that is the immune suppressive actions of the steroids almost uniquely seem to be dependent on systemic steroids more than the intracellular steroids. And so, by blocking the formation of this pool of intracellular steroids by inhibiting HSD1, we can block many of the bad effects without necessarily meaningfully altering the desired effect in patients who are taking steroid medicines."
@SparrowPharma #Steroids #Corticosteroids #Cortisol #CushingsSyndrome #PolymyalgiaRheumatica #IntracellularSteroids #RareDiseases
SparrowPharma.com
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David Katz is the Chief Scientific Officer at Sparrow Pharmaceuticals. He is exploring the possibility of blocking the formation of intracellular steroids to reduce the side effects of steroid medicines and conditions related to the overproduction of cortisol in the body in such diseases as Cushing's Syndrome and autonomous cortisol secretion.
David says, "Cortisol is made in an organ called the adrenal, and then it circulates throughout the body. And endocrinologists tend to think about the cortisol that's circulating as really being the effector of both the good effects, so immune suppression that you want in a patient who has a transplanted organ or an autoimmune disease, as well as all the bad effects."
"What we recognize actually is that most of the receptors of cortisol are within the cell and that it's the steroid that's in the cell that matters. And most of that actually is made by a different pathway, by an enzyme called HSD1, which is the target of our drug."
"And the magic of that is the immune suppressive actions of the steroids almost uniquely seem to be dependent on systemic steroids more than the intracellular steroids. And so, by blocking the formation of this pool of intracellular steroids by inhibiting HSD1, we can block many of the bad effects without necessarily meaningfully altering the desired effect in patients who are taking steroid medicines."
@SparrowPharma #Steroids #Corticosteroids #Cortisol #CushingsSyndrome #PolymyalgiaRheumatica #IntracellularSteroids #RareDiseases
SparrowPharma.com
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Hideki Garren MD Ph.D. is the Chief Medical Officer at Prothena with a mission to advance the pipeline of candidates for neurodegenerative and protein amyloid diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. We talk about the recent FDA approval of aducanumab and its impact on research.
Hideki says, "As we've shown at the AAIC, the Alzheimer's Association International Conference last week in Denver, we highlighted two out of three of our Alzheimer's disease potential treatments. One of them is PRX012, which is our anti-Aβ antibody. The second one that we showed there was a dual, Aβ-tau vaccine. And then thirdly, we have an anti-tau antibody, which is being developed. It was not shown at the AAIC, but we're also developing that. So these three molecules we're developing for Alzheimer's disease. And this momentum has really applied to us as well."
#Prothena #Alzheimers #aduhelm #ProteinAmyloidDiseases #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Vaccines #AAIC21
Prothena.com
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Hideki Garren MD Ph.D. is the Chief Medical Officer at Prothena with a mission to advance the pipeline of candidates for neurodegenerative and protein amyloid diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. We talk about the recent FDA approval of aducanumab and its impact on research.
Hideki says, "As we've shown at the AAIC, the Alzheimer's Association International Conference last week in Denver, we highlighted two out of three of our Alzheimer's disease potential treatments. One of them is PRX012, which is our anti-Aβ antibody. The second one that we showed there was a dual, Aβ-tau vaccine. And then thirdly, we have an anti-tau antibody, which is being developed. It was not shown at the AAIC, but we're also developing that. So these three molecules we're developing for Alzheimer's disease. And this momentum has really applied to us as well."
#Prothena #Alzheimers #aduhelm #ProteinAmyloidDiseases #NeurodegenerativeDiseases #Vaccines #AAIC21
Prothena.com
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Karen Chen is the Chief Executive Officer of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation. With a background in drug development having worked in pharma and biotech in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Karen brings a deep understanding of the value of treating rare diseases that are genetically defined.
Karen explains, "The foundation is a little unusual as far as a nonprofit because we are really focused on our sole mission, which is to accelerate the development of treatments for SMA. And unlike other organizations, we're really not focused on raising awareness or raising funds as much as some of our sister SMA nonprofits. So we have really partnered with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for SMA. And SMA is one of the leading genetic causes of death in young children. It's actually the leading genetic killer of children."
"So even though there are three types, four if you include the adult form of SMA, it's all caused by the same underlying missing gene. The differences in severity are really a result of this backup gene that I talked about, SMN2."
#SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #RareDisease #SMN2 #Evrysdi #Spinraza #Genentech #Biogen #SMAAwarenessMonth
SMAFoundation.org
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Karen Chen is the Chief Executive Officer of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation. With a background in drug development having worked in pharma and biotech in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Karen brings a deep understanding of the value of treating rare diseases that are genetically defined.
Karen explains, "The foundation is a little unusual as far as a nonprofit because we are really focused on our sole mission, which is to accelerate the development of treatments for SMA. And unlike other organizations, we're really not focused on raising awareness or raising funds as much as some of our sister SMA nonprofits. So we have really partnered with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for SMA. And SMA is one of the leading genetic causes of death in young children. It's actually the leading genetic killer of children."
"So even though there are three types, four if you include the adult form of SMA, it's all caused by the same underlying missing gene. The differences in severity are really a result of this backup gene that I talked about, SMN2."
#SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #RareDisease #SMN2 #Evrysdi #Spinraza #Genentech #Biogen #SMAAwarenessMonth
SMAFoundation.org
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Sanjay Shukla is the President and CEO of aTyr Pharma, focusing on the extracellular functionality and signaling pathways of tRNA synthetases. The lead clinical product candidate ATYR1923 is a potential disease-modifying therapy for patients with severe inflammatory lung diseases, including interstitial lung disease pulmonary sarcoidosis.
Sanjay explains, "Dr. Schimmel, for many years, has been really interested in an enzyme in all of our bodies called tRNA synthetases. These are basic building block enzymes that help us make proteins. They work inside the cell by shepherding an amino acid to a tRNA, and this, in turn, helps us make proteins. For many years, it was thought to be a kind of well-understood class of enzymes."
"Dr. Schimmel discovered, and he published this in both Science and Nature papers about 12 years ago, was for some reason these enzymes break apart into fragments. Those fragments migrate out of the cell, and they travel to different tissues and organ systems in our bodies, and there they play a very different role, a nonenzymatic role. In fact, they are mostly involved in controlling local immune environments. So our job at aTyr is to really look at this new protein class of therapeutics and determine where they might best fit in helping patients and different disease pathways."
#aTyrPharma #PulmonarySarcoidosis #ILD #Cancer #Immunology #RareDisease #tRNA #Bispecificantibody $LIFE
aTyrPharma.com
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Sanjay Shukla is the President and CEO of aTyr Pharma, focusing on the extracellular functionality and signaling pathways of tRNA synthetases. The lead clinical product candidate ATYR1923 is a potential disease-modifying therapy for patients with severe inflammatory lung diseases, including interstitial lung disease pulmonary sarcoidosis.
Sanjay explains, "Dr. Schimmel, for many years, has been really interested in an enzyme in all of our bodies called tRNA synthetases. These are basic building block enzymes that help us make proteins. They work inside the cell by shepherding an amino acid to a tRNA, and this, in turn, helps us make proteins. For many years, it was thought to be a kind of well-understood class of enzymes."
"Dr. Schimmel discovered, and he published this in both Science and Nature papers about 12 years ago, was for some reason these enzymes break apart into fragments. Those fragments migrate out of the cell, and they travel to different tissues and organ systems in our bodies, and there they play a very different role, a nonenzymatic role. In fact, they are mostly involved in controlling local immune environments. So our job at aTyr is to really look at this new protein class of therapeutics and determine where they might best fit in helping patients and different disease pathways."
#aTyrPharma #PulmonarySarcoidosis #ILD #Cancer #Immunology #raredisease #tRNA #Bispecificantibody $LIFE
aTyrPharma.com
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Dr. Elizabeth Marshall is the Director of Clinical Analytics at Linguamatics an IQVIA company, where she is responsible for clinical oversight of all healthcare projects with a focus on the application of Natural Language Processing in drug development and healthcare. NLP is a type of artificial intelligence that is concerned with the interaction between computers and human language with an ability to find linguistic patterns in unstructured data.
Liz says, "I commonly work with teams of people that don't always understand the subject matter. There was one time when I was told certain corpora of patients' data had no mention of pain, which as a physician immediately made me suspicious, and a red flag."
"So I dug a little deeper into the data and found the data came from rheumatology. So I knew there had to be some abbreviation or something. Something was missing. For some reason, this group decided to abbreviate pain as PX, which is not a common way of abbreviating it. So, we changed the algorithm, and as you can imagine, the pain was everywhere in the records."
@Linguamatics #NaturalLanguageProcessing #NLP #ML #MachineLearning #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #SDOH #EHR
Linguamatics.com
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Dr. Elizabeth Marshall is the Director of Clinical Analytics at Linguamatics an IQVIA company, where she is responsible for clinical oversight of all healthcare projects with a focus on the application of Natural Language Processing in drug development and healthcare. NLP is a type of artificial intelligence that is concerned with the interaction between computers and human language with an ability to find linguistic patterns in unstructured data.
Liz says, "I commonly work with teams of people that don't always understand the subject matter. There was one time when I was told certain corpora of patients' data had no mention of pain, which as a physician immediately made me suspicious, and a red flag."
"So I dug a little deeper into the data and found the data came from rheumatology. So I knew there had to be some abbreviation or something. Something was missing. For some reason, this group decided to abbreviate pain as PX, which is not a common way of abbreviating it. So, we changed the algorithm, and as you can imagine, the pain was everywhere in the records."
@Linguamatics #NaturalLanguageProcessing #NLP #ML #MachineLearning #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #SDOH #EHR
Linguamatics.com
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Dan Temple is a patient advocate for those with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and he shares his treatment journey and actions he has taken to raise awareness about SMA. We also talk about the drug treatments that have come onto the scene since he was first diagnosed when Dan was 2 years old. He is now 49.
Dan says, "Like I said, very important was that my lung function improved. I probably gained about ten years back from what I lost. I'm still on a feeding tube, but I couldn't eat by mouth for seven years, and the drugs helped my muscles start working better. So I can eat and drink by mouth a little bit. I don't do it a lot, but it's nice to be able to do it occasionally and have some food that I enjoy. And my hand, of course. The one finger I have is kept pretty strong. Thank God because if I lose that, I've got nothing."
"In general, it's kept me from getting worse, and when the drugs came along, I was at the point health-wise where I probably didn't have a lot of time left. My lungs were getting so weak that I was going to have to be on a respirator soon. So, basically, the Spinraza and Evrysdi both saved my life and gave me another 20 years, probably."
#SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #RareDisease #Evrysdi #Spinraza #MDA #MuscularDystrophyAssociation #PatientAdvocate #Genentech #Biogen #SMAAwarenessMonth
Dan Temple is a patient advocate for those with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and he shares his treatment journey and actions he has taken to raise awareness about SMA. We also talk about the drug treatments that have come onto the scene since he was first diagnosed when Dan was 2 years old. He is now 49.
Dan says, "Like I said, very important was that my lung function improved. I probably gained about ten years back from what I lost. I'm still on a feeding tube, but I couldn't eat by mouth for seven years, and the drugs helped my muscles start working better. So I can eat and drink by mouth a little bit. I don't do it a lot, but it's nice to be able to do it occasionally and have some food that I enjoy. And my hand, of course. The one finger I have is kept pretty strong. Thank God because if I lose that, I've got nothing."
"In general, it's kept me from getting worse, and when the drugs came along, I was at the point health-wise where I probably didn't have a lot of time left. My lungs were getting so weak that I was going to have to be on a respirator soon. So, basically, the Spinraza and Evrysdi both saved my life and gave me another 20 years, probably."
#SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #RareDisease #Evrysdi #Spinraza #MDA #MuscularDystrophyAssociation #PatientAdvocate #Genentech #Biogen #SMAAwarenessMonth
Professor Florian Solzbacher is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Blackrock Neurotech and is focused on expanding the options, understanding, and marketing of brain computer interfaces and neuro devices.
I asked Florian about their new project underway with Northwestern University and DARPA called the NTRAIN Project. He said, "The key driving force behind that project is to try and help counter the effects of jet lag and dysfunctions in the circadian rhythm. All those of us who have been traveling internationally a lot will know that it usually takes you a few days to adjust your inner clock to a different time zone that you're in."
"What has been shown in initial research is that there are ways to help adjust the internal clock by essentially generating some of those same peptides that regulate our circadian rhythm. Then releasing them into the bloodstream on demand essentially sends clear clock signals through the body that allow you to adjust faster than you normally would."
@BlackrockMicro #innovation #Neuroscience #Neurotechnology #BCI #Technology #Neurotech #RestoringFunction #TouchAgain #FeelAgain #TalkAgain #MoveAgain #BCIPioneer #braincomputerinterface #Research
BlackrockNeurotech.com
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Professor Florian Solzbacher is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Blackrock Neurotech and is focused on expanding the options, understanding, and marketing of brain computer interfaces and neuro devices.
I asked Florian about their new project underway with Northwestern University and DARPA called the NTRAIN Project. He said, "The key driving force behind that project is to try and help counter the effects of jet lag and dysfunctions in the circadian rhythm. All those of us who have been traveling internationally a lot will know that it usually takes you a few days to adjust your inner clock to a different time zone that you're in."
"What has been shown in initial research is that there are ways to help adjust the internal clock by essentially generating some of those same peptides that regulate our circadian rhythm. Then releasing them into the bloodstream on demand essentially sends clear clock signals through the body that allow you to adjust faster than you normally would."
@BlackrockMicro #innovation #Neuroscience #Neurotechnology #BCI #Technology #Neurotech #RestoringFunction #TouchAgain #FeelAgain #TalkAgain #MoveAgain #BCIPioneer #braincomputerinterface #Research
BlackrockNeurotech.com
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Dr. Oleg Bess is the Founder and CEO of 4medica and a practicing OB/GYN, and a strong believer in allowing patients to have easy access to their health data in order to equalize healthcare across all categories of patients.
Oleg says, "4medica's mission is really to formulate a one patient, one record paradigm, where we are able to access a number of data sources for a patient. We have the engine that is able to, on-the-fly, real-time actually, add these records into the correct chart. Even in this country where there's no unique identifier for patients, we're able to look at all kinds of demographics data for the patient and on-the-fly place that record into the correct chart."
@4medica #DataQuality #DataAccess #Healthcare #HealthIT #SDOH #Outcomes #DigitalHealth
4medica.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Oleg Bess is the Founder and CEO of 4medica and a practicing OB/GYN, and a strong believer in allowing patients to have easy access to their health data in order to equalize healthcare across all categories of patients.
Oleg says, "4medica's mission is really to formulate a one patient, one record paradigm, where we are able to access a number of data sources for a patient. We have the engine that is able to, on-the-fly, real-time actually, add these records into the correct chart. Even in this country where there's no unique identifier for patients, we're able to look at all kinds of demographics data for the patient and on-the-fly place that record into the correct chart."
@4medica #DataQuality #DataAccess #Healthcare #HealthIT #SDOH #Outcomes #DigitalHealth
4medica.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Steve Worland is President and CEO of eFFECTOR Therapeutics a pioneer in the Genomics 3.0 category putting to work the research on selective translation regulator inhibitors (STRIs) and the key ways that cancer cells change their behavior and also change the immune system.
Steve says, "There are two revolutions in cancer in the last 10 to 15 years-- targeted therapies and immunotherapies. And we think STRIs is a third way to compliment one or both of those. And really with the idea here is that you could control a cancer for a long period of time. It's very hard to completely eradicate every tumor and every cancer cell in your body.
"But if you can restore control, your immune system can control the cancer. Hopefully, patients can live for years knowing they have the disease but not having it debilitate their daily life."
#eFFECTORTherapeutics #NSCLC #STRIs #cancer #SPAC
eFFECTOR.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Steve Worland is President and CEO of eFFECTOR Therapeutics a pioneer in the Genomics 3.0 category putting to work the research on selective translation regulator inhibitors (STRIs) and the key ways that cancer cells change their behavior and also change the immune system.
Steve says, "There are two revolutions in cancer in the last 10 to 15 years-- targeted therapies and immunotherapies. And we think STRIs is a third way to compliment one or both of those. And really with the idea here is that you could control a cancer for a long period of time. It's very hard to completely eradicate every tumor and every cancer cell in your body.
"But if you can restore control, your immune system can control the cancer. Hopefully, patients can live for years knowing they have the disease but not having it debilitate their daily life."
#eFFECTORTherapeutics #NSCLC #STRIs #cancer #SPAC
eFFECTOR.com
Download the transcript here
Bret Larsen is the CEO and Co-Founder of eVisit, a virtual care platform that is serving the largest health systems in the country to establish remote access for a telemedicine solution that works for patients as well as hospitals, doctors, and administrators.
Bret says, "One of the things the pandemic accelerated in a big, big way was the consumerization of care. It forced us, as consumers, not patients, but consumers, to look for more options. With many physical encounters being closed or highly limited, we had to start looking for other options."
"I strongly believe that the future exam room will be your living room, or your bedroom, or somewhere where you can be diagnosed and suggested treatment, and then directed to the most appropriate point of care, whether that be an asynchronous interaction, a synchronous interaction, or the physical exam room at the hospital. So, the interoperability piece is enormous. It stands to accelerate the improvement of patient outcomes in a big, big way."
The eVisit Enterprise Virtual Care Platform was named the Solo Leader by Forrester Research in The Forrester Wave ™: Virtual Care Platforms for Digital Health, Q1 2021. Download your complimentary report here.
@BretALarsen @eVisit #Telehealth #VirtualCare #Telemedicine #DigitalHealth
eVisit.com
Listen to the podcast here
Bret Larsen is the CEO and Co-Founder of eVisit, a virtual care platform that is serving the largest health systems in the country to establish remote access for a telemedicine solution that works for patients as well as hospitals, doctors, and administrators.
Bret says, "One of the things the pandemic accelerated in a big, big way was the consumerization of care. It forced us, as consumers, not patients, but consumers, to look for more options. With many physical encounters being closed or highly limited, we had to start looking for other options."
"I strongly believe that the future exam room will be your living room, or your bedroom, or somewhere where you can be diagnosed and suggested treatment, and then directed to the most appropriate point of care, whether that be an asynchronous interaction, a synchronous interaction, or the physical exam room at the hospital. So, the interoperability piece is enormous. It stands to accelerate the improvement of patient outcomes in a big, big way."
The eVisit Enterprise Virtual Care Platform was named the Solo Leader by Forrester Research in The Forrester Wave ™: Virtual Care Platforms for Digital Health, Q1 2021. Download your complimentary report here.
@BretALarsen @eVisit #Telehealth #VirtualCare #Telemedicine #DigitalHealth
eVisit.com
Download the transcript here
John Zaleski Ph.D. NREMT, CAP, CPHIMS is the head of clinical informatics at Capsule. The topic is medical device integration to track progress and improve hospital care with continuous patient data collection and surveillance with prompts for action.
John says, "Aside from the physics of actually connecting and pulling the data, there are all sorts of IT-related issues of how to store the data, how to correctly format the data for communication. Now, there are standards that have been developed over the years that are in use today that tend to make those types of challenges less formidable. But having data access from any location in the hospital continues to be a little bit of a challenge in terms of lower acuity settings versus higher acuity settings."
"And so you have a mix of devices that do communicate, a mix of devices that communicate in a proprietary manner, and then medical devices that communicate more ubiquitously using standards like Health Level 7, various flavors of the Health Level 7 standard. It's a mishmash. But as time goes on and devices are migrated out of the environment, and newer ones are migrated in, they typically are adhering to a standard, which is a flavor of HL7."
#ActionableInsights #ConnectedCare #ClinicianBurnout #HealthIT #MedicalDeviceIntegration #PtSafety #CapsuleTech
CapsuleTech.com
Listen to the podcast here
John Zaleski Ph.D. NREMT, CAP, CPHIMS is the head of clinical informatics at Capsule. The topic is medical device integration to track progress and improve hospital care with continuous patient data collection and surveillance with prompts for action.
John says, "Aside from the physics of actually connecting and pulling the data, there are all sorts of IT-related issues of how to store the data, how to correctly format the data for communication. Now, there are standards that have been developed over the years that are in use today that tend to make those types of challenges less formidable. But having data access from any location in the hospital continues to be a little bit of a challenge in terms of lower acuity settings versus higher acuity settings."
"And so you have a mix of devices that do communicate, a mix of devices that communicate in a proprietary manner, and then medical devices that communicate more ubiquitously using standards like Health Level 7, various flavors of the Health Level 7 standard. It's a mishmash. But as time goes on and devices are migrated out of the environment, and newer ones are migrated in, they typically are adhering to a standard, which is a flavor of HL7."
#ActionableInsights #ConnectedCare #ClinicianBurnout #HealthIT #MedicalDeviceIntegration #PtSafety #CapsuleTech
CapsuleTech.com
Download the transcript here
Emily Parks is a behavioral and patient advocate and the Founder of POP! --Pissed Off Patients-- with a mission to educate healthcare professionals and patients about medical PTSD. Born with a rare intestinal illness called Myopathic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, her own medical journey has led to awareness about medical PTSD and the drive to pursue a Ph.D. in medical trauma and become a patient advocate.
Emily says, "I find as an adult, a lot of the trauma that I've received in the healthcare system and interacting with the healthcare system has impacted me in how I socialize with both providers and non-providers as much as friends."
"Socially, it's impacted my thinking style. It's impacted my ability to trust and connect with others. And so that is what POP! is about. What is Medical PTSD, and how does it manifest in you? What are some coping mechanisms?"
#MedicalPTSD #PTSD #PTSDAwareness #MedicalTrauma #PatientSafety #PatientExperience #RareDisease
POPMedicalPTSD.org
Listen to the podcast here
Emily Parks is a behavioral and patient advocate and the Founder of POP! --Pissed Off Patients-- with a mission to educate healthcare professionals and patients about medical PTSD. Born with a rare intestinal illness called Myopathic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, her own medical journey has led to awareness about medical PTSD and the drive to pursue a Ph.D. in medical trauma and become a patient advocate.
Emily says, "I find as an adult, a lot of the trauma that I've received in the healthcare system and interacting with the healthcare system has impacted me in how I socialize with both providers and non-providers as much as friends."
"Socially, it's impacted my thinking style. It's impacted my ability to trust and connect with others. And so that is what POP! is about. What is Medical PTSD, and how does it manifest in you? What are some coping mechanisms?"
#MedicalPTSD #PTSD #PTSDAwareness #MedicalTrauma #PatientSafety #PatientExperience #RareDisease
POPMedicalPTSD.org
Download the transcript here
James McArthur Ph.D. is the CEO of PepGen and talks about applying their enhanced delivery cell-penetrating peptide technology to treat rare genetic neuromuscular diseases. The lead diseases PepGen is focused on are Duchenne muscular dystrophy, treatable with an exon 51 skipping oligonucleotide, as well as myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), both rare genetic diseases with high unmet medical needs.
James says. "For a long period of time, we've known that we can fundamentally change the outcome of many diseases with oligonucleotide therapeutics. But the great challenge has been getting enough of these oligos, as they're often called, into the cells where they need to do essentially the job of changing disease outcomes."
#PepGenPioneers #Oligonucleotide #Neuromuscular #RareDiseases #DuchenneMscularDystrophy #MyotonicDystrophy #DM1 #DMD
Pepgen.com
Listen to the podcast here
James McArthur Ph.D. is the CEO of PepGen and talks about applying their enhanced delivery cell-penetrating peptide technology to treat rare genetic neuromuscular diseases. The lead diseases PepGen is focused on are Duchenne muscular dystrophy, treatable with an exon 51 skipping oligonucleotide, as well as myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), both rare genetic diseases with high unmet medical needs.
James says. "For a long period of time, we've known that we can fundamentally change the outcome of many diseases with oligonucleotide therapeutics. But the great challenge has been getting enough of these oligos, as they're often called, into the cells where they need to do essentially the job of changing disease outcomes."
#PepGenPioneers #Oligonucleotide #Neuromuscular #RareDiseases #DuchenneMscularDystrophy #MyotonicDystrophy #DM1 #DMD
Pepgen.com
Download the transcript here
Glenn Mattes is the CEO of TFF Pharmaceuticals, with a hybrid business model developing an internal portfolio of products and also working with external partners to apply thin film freezing technology. The first compounds are voriconazole, an antifungal being developed for treating invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, and tacrolimus, for lung transplant patients. Other compounds are targeting COVID-19.
Glenn says, "So our thin film freezing technology has the ability to transform pharmaceutical products, mostly solid pharmaceutical products, into dry powder formulations. One characteristic that is common to most pharmaceutical compounds is that they're rather poorly water absorbed. So when they are made into a drug, the ability to get enough product into the bloodstream or the plasma means you have to dose the compound at a pretty high level, and you butt up against sort of the adverse events profile."
"So, by using thin film freezing, you ultimately can lead to a lower dose of the drug being administered directly to the lung. Therefore you have the opportunity to improve on the efficacy and safety profile of the product that you're working on."
$TFFP #ThinFilmFreezing #InhalableTherapies #Voriconazole #Tacrolimus #COVID19
TFFPharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Glenn Mattes is the CEO of TFF Pharmaceuticals, with a hybrid business model developing an internal portfolio of products and also working with external partners to apply thin film freezing technology. The first compounds are voriconazole, an antifungal being developed for treating invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, and tacrolimus, for lung transplant patients. Other compounds are targeting COVID-19.
Glenn says, "So our thin film freezing technology has the ability to transform pharmaceutical products, mostly solid pharmaceutical products, into dry powder formulations. One characteristic that is common to most pharmaceutical compounds is that they're rather poorly water absorbed. So when they are made into a drug, the ability to get enough product into the bloodstream or the plasma means you have to dose the compound at a pretty high level, and you butt up against sort of the adverse events profile."
"So, by using thin film freezing, you ultimately can lead to a lower dose of the drug being administered directly to the lung. Therefore you have the opportunity to improve on the efficacy and safety profile of the product that you're working on."
$TFFP #ThinFilmFreezing #InhalableTherapies #Voriconazole #Tacrolimus #COVID19
TFFPharma.com
Download the transcript here
Alain Maiore is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mnemo Therapeutics and has a mission to change the future of cell therapy. The Mnemo platform EnfiniT is an integrated drug discovery engine that combines T-cell engineering technologies with greater target identification to transform the body's immune response to overcome currently incurable diseases.
Mnemo has just raised $90 million in a Series A round, the largest round to date in France.
Alain says, "I think our job is to make sure that whatever technology we put together, everyone that is in need of having access to these drugs gets access to these drugs. So it is our responsibility to combine the technologies and medical development and the manufacturing of these drugs so that we can size the necessity of financial performance and shoulder reward with accessibility to every patient. That responsibility is increasingly important in the world that is opening to us."
@MnemoTx #MnemoTherapeutics #EnfiniT #Cancer #BloodCancer #CellTherapies #SolidTumors #DrugTargeting #TCells #Immunetherapies #epigenetics #CarTCells
Mnemo-tx.com
Listen to the podcast here
Alain Maiore is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mnemo Therapeutics and has a mission to change the future of cell therapy. The Mnemo platform EnfiniT is an integrated drug discovery engine that combines T-cell engineering technologies with greater target identification to transform the body's immune response to overcome currently incurable diseases.
Mnemo has just raised $90 million in a Series A round, the largest round to date in France.
Alain says, "I think our job is to make sure that whatever technology we put together, everyone that is in need of having access to these drugs gets access to these drugs. So it is our responsibility to combine the technologies and medical development and the manufacturing of these drugs so that we can size the necessity of financial performance and shoulder reward with accessibility to every patient. That responsibility is increasingly important in the world that is opening to us."
@MnemoTx #MnemoTherapeutics #EnfiniT #Cancer #BloodCancer #CellTherapies #SolidTumors #DrugTargeting #TCells #Immunetherapies #epigenetics #CarTCells
Mnemo-tx.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza is Co-Founder and CEO of Aelis Farma, a biotechnology company targeting disorders induced by external cannabinoids, the chemical compounds contained in cannabis. These cannabis-related disorders include addiction, cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, and psychosis and are related to how the CB1 receptor is stimulated by cannabinoids.
Pier says, "The CB1 is a very interesting receptor for several reasons. First of all, is one of the neurotransmitter receptors the most expressed in the brain. So in your brain, one of the neurotransmitter receptors that you have the most of is the CB1 that is consequently involved in a large number of functions."
"Another thing that is interesting about these receptors is that people are all different, you, me, even your son and daughter are different. However, we all share something that is absolutely identical in all of us--that is, the CB1 because the receptor CB1 has no variance between human beings. It's one of the few receptors that is 100% identical in everyone."
Listen to the podcast and download the transcript to gain insight into the new molecules being developed as inhibitors of bad activity of the CB1 receptor.
#AelisFarma #cannabis #cannabisdisorders #braindisorders #CUD #CIP #cannabinoids
AelisFarma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza is Co-Founder and CEO of Aelis Farma, a biotechnology company targeting disorders induced by external cannabinoids, the chemical compounds contained in cannabis. These cannabis-related disorders include addiction, cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, and psychosis and are related to how the CB1 receptor is stimulated by cannabinoids.
Pier says, "The CB1 is a very interesting receptor for several reasons. First of all, is one of the neurotransmitter receptors the most expressed in the brain. So in your brain, one of the neurotransmitter receptors that you have the most of is the CB1 that is consequently involved in a large number of functions."
"Another thing that is interesting about these receptors is that people are all different, you, me, even your son and daughter are different. However, we all share something that is absolutely identical in all of us--that is, the CB1 because the receptor CB1 has no variance between human beings. It's one of the few receptors that is 100% identical in everyone."
Listen to the podcast and download the transcript to gain insight into the new molecules being developed as inhibitors of bad activity of the CB1 receptor.
#AelisFarma #cannabis #cannabisdisorders #braindisorders #CUD #CIP #cannabinoids
AelisFarma.com
Download the transcript here.
Jim Joyce is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Sigyn Therapeutics, and we talk about removing inflammatory targets from the bloodstream with advanced blood purification technology.
Jim says, "The next transformative step in the recipe of blood purification is the advancement of devices that can address the sources of inflammation, which could be a viral or a bacterial source, in concert with the depletion of inflammatory cytokines and other modulators from the bloodstream."
"You need the ability to quickly modulate down these inflammatory cytokines, but you also need to be able to address the source of inflammation. The source of inflammation continues to stimulate the immune response. The source of inflammation in COVID-19 is obviously the viral pathogen itself and related bacterial infections. We're very focused on looking at bacterial toxins as well."
#BloodPurification #COVID19 #Cytokinestorm #Cytokine #Sepsis #Innovation #MedTwitter
SigynTherapeutics.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jim Joyce is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Sigyn Therapeutics, and we talk about removing inflammatory targets from the bloodstream with advanced blood purification technology.
Jim says, "The next transformative step in the recipe of blood purification is the advancement of devices that can address the sources of inflammation, which could be a viral or a bacterial source, in concert with the depletion of inflammatory cytokines and other modulators from the bloodstream."
"You need the ability to quickly modulate down these inflammatory cytokines, but you also need to be able to address the source of inflammation. The source of inflammation continues to stimulate the immune response. The source of inflammation in COVID-19 is obviously the viral pathogen itself and related bacterial infections. We're very focused on looking at bacterial toxins as well."
#BloodPurification #COVID19 #Cytokinestorm #Cytokine #Sepsis #Innovation #MedTwitter
SigynTherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and Divisional Vice President of Global Medical Affairs at Abbott's Vascular Business. Nick points out the need to make sure the blood vessel is properly closed up at the end of a procedure to ensure no complications. While the Abbott device Perclose™ has been around for quite some time, the ProStyle™ is the new version of it and is a unique suture mediated closure system.
Nick reminds us that, "The old way of doing this is simply to press. Now pressing on the artery, usually, you have to press for at least 10 minutes. If it's done properly, that seals things very nicely, but there are many, many factors that affect the availability of what we call manual compression to seal these punctures. They include where the puncture was, how many times the physician needed to attempt to puncture the vessel before they got into it."
Nick confirms this is the way bleeding has been stopped for hundreds of years and that pressing on the groin is medieval. We talk about how this new approach is a way to effectively close the puncture site in an artery or vein with sutures that allow for primary intentional healing.
@AbbottCardio #AbbottCardio #Perclose #ProStyle #VascularClosure #VascularRepair
Abbott.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and Divisional Vice President of Global Medical Affairs at Abbott's Vascular Business. Nick points out the need to make sure the blood vessel is properly closed up at the end of a procedure to ensure no complications. While the Abbott device Perclose™ has been around for quite some time, the ProStyle™ is the new version of it and is a unique suture mediated closure system.
Nick reminds us that, "The old way of doing this is simply to press. Now pressing on the artery, usually, you have to press for at least 10 minutes. If it's done properly, that seals things very nicely, but there are many, many factors that affect the availability of what we call manual compression to seal these punctures. They include where the puncture was, how many times the physician needed to attempt to puncture the vessel before they got into it."
Nick confirms this is the way bleeding has been stopped for hundreds of years and that pressing on the groin is medieval. We talk about how this new approach is a way to effectively close the puncture site in an artery or vein with sutures that allow for primary intentional healing.
@AbbottCardio #AbbottCardio #Perclose #ProStyle #VascularClosure #VascularRepair
Abbott.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Marc Semigran is the Chief Medical Officer of Renovacor and shines a light on BAG3-associated cardiomyopathy and the cardiac gene therapy in development to treat this rare genetic disease.
Marc explains, "So, what we are focusing on are patients who have a genetic or familial origin of their dilated cardiomyopathy. Our first target is a gene described as BAG3, which is an important protein within the cardiac muscle cells. And some patients with heart failure have the heart failure because the gene that they have is mutated and is not able to fully express a functional protein."
"We are studying our lead asset, which is REN-001, a modified virus that we believe will specifically target the heart. This will insert into the cardiac muscle cells a good copy of the BAG3 gene, which can then be expressed and allow those cardiac muscle cells to begin to function normally."
#Renovacor #GeneTherapy #DilatedCardiomyopathy #DCM #BAG3 #RareDisease
Renovacor.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Marc Semigran is the Chief Medical Officer of Renovacor and shines a light on BAG3-associated cardiomyopathy and the cardiac gene therapy in development to treat this rare genetic disease.
Marc explains, "So, what we are focusing on are patients who have a genetic or familial origin of their dilated cardiomyopathy. Our first target is a gene described as BAG3, which is an important protein within the cardiac muscle cells. And some patients with heart failure have the heart failure because the gene that they have is mutated and is not able to fully express a functional protein."
"We are studying our lead asset, which is REN-001, a modified virus that we believe will specifically target the heart. This will insert into the cardiac muscle cells a good copy of the BAG3 gene, which can then be expressed and allow those cardiac muscle cells to begin to function normally."
#Renovacor #GeneTherapy #DilatedCardiomyopathy #DCM #BAG3 #RareDisease
Renovacor.com
Download the transcript here
Koenraad Wiedhaup, Founder and CEO of Leyden Labs, and his team have taken a proactive approach to overcome the challenges of protecting people from known viruses and new viruses. They are developing intranasal sprays containing biological molecules that can temporarily protect against a broad range of viruses. This approach is between a vaccine that often gives long-term protection and a therapeutic necessary once someone is infected.
Koenraad says, "This actually gives people the autonomy to protect themselves and to take the nasal spray. And with that, they protect themselves but also others by not transmitting the virus. And indeed, therefore, the additional benefit is that you don't need a healthcare professional to do that. So, which of course, makes such a rollout also easier in the developed world, in places like the US and Europe. But also in more remote areas, where that might be even more important because of the limited availability of healthcare professionals."
@LeydenLabs #LeydenLabs #PandemicPreparedness #coronaviruses #COVID19 #IntranasalMedicine #antiviral #viruses
LeydenLabs.com
Listen to the podcast here
Koenraad Wiedhaup, Founder and CEO of Leyden Labs, and his team have taken a proactive approach to overcome the challenges of protecting people from known viruses and new viruses. They are developing intranasal sprays containing biological molecules that can temporarily protect against a broad range of viruses. This approach is between a vaccine that often gives long-term protection and a therapeutic necessary once someone is infected.
Koenraad says, "This actually gives people the autonomy to protect themselves and to take the nasal spray. And with that, they protect themselves but also others by not transmitting the virus. And indeed, therefore, the additional benefit is that you don't need a healthcare professional to do that. So, which of course, makes such a rollout also easier in the developed world, in places like the US and Europe. But also in more remote areas, where that might be even more important because of the limited availability of healthcare professionals."
@LeydenLabs #LeydenLabs #PandemicPreparedness #coronaviruses #COVID19 #IntranasalMedicine #antiviral #viruses
LeydenLabs.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ryan Mathis is the Vice President of Commercial Strategy at PolarityTE, focusing on bringing regenerative medicine into clinical practice, particularly for treating diabetic foot ulcers and other forms of complex wounds.
Ryan says, "So, we're trying to solve this problem by developing SkinTE, which is revolutionizing the science for these hard-to-close wounds. The product itself is an autologous product, meaning we use a patient's own skin to produce the product. Within your skin, there are regenerative cellular populations themselves, most highly focused around your hair follicles, that have the ability to heal wounds. And so, when you normally get a cut, those cells mobilize and move up towards the surface of the skin and heal the wounds."
Listen to the podcast or read the transcript to find out how this innovative treatment creates a paste that gives the wound the ability to heal from the inside out.
@PolarityTE #regenerativemedicine #tissueengineering #skin #woundcare #woundhealing #complexwound #diabetic #diabeticfootulcers
PolarityTE.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ryan Mathis is the Vice President of Commercial Strategy at PolarityTE, focusing on bringing regenerative medicine into clinical practice, particularly for treating diabetic foot ulcers and other forms of complex wounds.
Ryan says, "So, we're trying to solve this problem by developing SkinTE, which is revolutionizing the science for these hard-to-close wounds. The product itself is an autologous product, meaning we use a patient's own skin to produce the product. Within your skin, there are regenerative cellular populations themselves, most highly focused around your hair follicles, that have the ability to heal wounds. And so, when you normally get a cut, those cells mobilize and move up towards the surface of the skin and heal the wounds."
Listen to the podcast or read the transcript to find out how this innovative treatment creates a paste that gives the wound the ability to heal from the inside out.
@PolarityTE #regenerativemedicine #tissueengineering #skin #woundcare #woundhealing #complexwound #diabetic #diabeticfootulcers
PolarityTE.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Rob Rohatsch is the Chief Medical Officer at Solv Health and is building an omnichannel strategy for patients, providers, and payers. This approach enables the patients to get urgent or on-demand care from a telehealth visit or the next available in-person visit at a convenient location. The Starbucks model of making it increasingly easy to get the drink of your choice informs the model to meet patients where they are in their lives.
Bob says, "So, we answer three fundamental questions for the patient, which is where should I go? How much is it going to cost? And when can I be seen? So by answering those three fundamental questions really unlocks a lot of power for the patient in the marketplace."
@solvhealth #digitalhealth #urgentcare #telehealth #outpatient #ambulatorycare
SolvHealth.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Rob Rohatsch is the Chief Medical Officer at Solv Health and is building an omnichannel strategy for patients, providers, and payers. This approach enables the patients to get urgent or on-demand care from a telehealth visit or the next available in-person visit at a convenient location. The Starbucks model of making it increasingly easy to get the drink of your choice informs the model to meet patients where they are in their lives.
Bob says, "So, we answer three fundamental questions for the patient, which is where should I go? How much is it going to cost? And when can I be seen? So by answering those three fundamental questions really unlocks a lot of power for the patient in the marketplace."
@solvhealth #digitalhealth #urgentcare #telehealth #outpatient #ambulatorycare
SolvHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Bill Hagstrom is the CEO and Founder of Octave Bioscience, looking at ways to dynamically assess patients with multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases to manage their treatment plan better.
Bill says, "There's an enormous opportunity to take a personalized approach to managing these patients. MS and these other neurodegenerative diseases are known to have a lot of heterogeneity and have trajectories that can vary dramatically."
At the same time, Octave is developing pathway models so a physician can see where a patient is in their overall journey and look at acute decision nodes, and access decision support tools.
#OctaveBioscience #MS #multiplesclerosis #neurodegenerativediseases #bloodbasedbiomarkers #biomarkers #symptomology #digitalhealth #personalizedmedicine
OctaveBio.com
Listen to the podcast here
Bill Hagstrom is the CEO and Founder of Octave Bioscience, looking at ways to dynamically assess patients with multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases to manage their treatment plan better.
Bill says, "There's an enormous opportunity to take a personalized approach to managing these patients. MS and these other neurodegenerative diseases are known to have a lot of heterogeneity and have trajectories that can vary dramatically."
At the same time, Octave is developing pathway models so a physician can see where a patient is in their overall journey and look at acute decision nodes, and access decision support tools.
#OctaveBioscience #personalizedmedicine #MS #multiplesclerosis #neurodegenerativediseases #bloodbasedbiomarkers #biomarkers #symptomology #digitalhealth
OctaveBio.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Andrew Newberg is a doctor at the Thomas Jefferson University's Institute of Integrative Health and the author, along with Dr. Daniel Monti of the new book Brain Weaver: Creating the Fabric for a Healthy Mind Through Integrative Medicine.
This engaging book shines a light on the connection between brain health and diet, the need to take advantage of weaknesses and strengths in each individual, and the value of mind-body practices.
Dr. Newberg says, "The first thing that we always talk to our patients about is that we really function as human beings. We have four different dimensions. We have a biological dimension, a psychological dimension, a social dimension, and a spiritual dimension."
"When we talk about brain health, while the brain is arguably more in our biology domain, we really have to understand brain health in a very integrative way and take all of these different dimensions of who we are as individuals into account if we are going to keep our brain as healthy as possible."
Find the book online or at your local bookstore.
#brainhealth #mindbody #integrativemedicine #neuroplasticity #microbiome #gutmicrobiome
Brain Weaver: Creating the Fabric for a Healthy Mind Through Integrative Medicine
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Andrew Newberg is a doctor at the Thomas Jefferson University's Institute of Integrative Health and the author, along with Dr. Daniel Monti of the new book Brain Weaver: Creating the Fabric for a Healthy Mind Through Integrative Medicine.
This engaging book shines a light on the connection between brain health and diet, the need to take advantage of weaknesses and strengths in each individual, and the value of mind-body practices.
Dr. Newberg says, "The first thing that we always talk to our patients about is that we really function as human beings. We have four different dimensions. We have a biological dimension, a psychological dimension, a social dimension, and a spiritual dimension."
"When we talk about brain health, while the brain is arguably more in our biology domain, we really have to understand brain health in a very integrative way and take all of these different dimensions of who we are as individuals into account if we are going to keep our brain as healthy as possible."
Find the book online or at your local bookstore.
#brainhealth #mindbody #integrativemedicine #neuroplasticity #microbiome #gutmicrobiome
Brain Weaver: Creating the Fabric for a Healthy Mind Through Integrative Medicine
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Sheila Talton is the Founder and CEO of Gray Matter Analytics, a healthcare-focused company that offers analytics as a service (AaaS) to healthcare systems and insurers to help them manage their quality measures, metrics, and risks related to value-based care.
To be the best provider of care requires the ability to measure, predict and improve services based on medical and behavioral data, combined with social determinants of health, to ensure that all data is leveraged to provide better outcomes.
Sheila says, "Whether those metrics are tied to the admissions or length of stay and other components of the clinical treatments, most health systems are actually managing how well they're performing on Excel spreadsheets. As you can imagine, you cannot manage multiple risk-based contracts because the average provider will have at least 20, 30, sometimes even 50 different contracts with different metrics."
@GrayMatterData #DigitalHealth #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #AaaS #ValueBasedCare #WholePersonCare
GrayMatterAnalytics.com
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Sheila Talton is the Founder and CEO of Gray Matter Analytics, a healthcare-focused company that offers analytics as a service (AaaS) to healthcare systems and insurers to help them manage their quality measures, metrics, and risks related to value-based care.
To be the best provider of care requires the ability to measure, predict and improve services based on medical and behavioral data, combined with social determinants of health, to ensure that all data is leveraged to provide better outcomes.
Sheila says, "Whether those metrics are tied to the admissions or length of stay and other components of the clinical treatments, most health systems are actually managing how well they're performing on Excel spreadsheets. As you can imagine, you cannot manage multiple risk-based contracts because the average provider will have at least 20, 30, sometimes even 50 different contracts with different metrics."
@GrayMatterData #DigitalHealth #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #AaaS #ValueBasedCare #WholePersonCare
GrayMatterAnalytics.com
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Dr. Jennifer Gudeman was hired for the newly formed role of Vice President, Medical and Clinical Affairs at Avadel Pharmaceuticals. We talk about the clinical development of their lead investigational product FT218 to treat the rare disease narcolepsy. Optimized the drug delivery release of sodium oxybate with their proprietary controlled-release technology allows for a single bedtime dose.
While the FDA nearly 20 years ago approved sodium oxybate to treat cataplexy and excessive daytime sleepiness, the drug was an immediate-release medication requiring a middle-of-the-night dose. After a successful Phase 3 clinical trial, Avadel's ongoing open-label study, RESTORE, is providing evidence that points to more restorative sleep across a broad audience.
@AvadelPharma $AVDL #narcolepsy #rarediseases #cataplexy #sleepdisorders #sleep #EDS #neurotwitter
Avadel.com
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Dr. Jennifer Gudeman was hired for the newly formed role of Vice President, Medical and Clinical Affairs at Avadel Pharmaceuticals. We talk about the clinical development of their lead investigational product FT218 to treat the rare disease narcolepsy. Optimized the drug delivery release of sodium oxybate with their proprietary controlled-release technology allows for a single bedtime dose.
While the FDA nearly 20 years ago approved sodium oxybate to treat cataplexy and excessive daytime sleepiness, the drug was an immediate-release medication requiring a middle-of-the-night dose. After a successful Phase 3 clinical trial, Avadel's ongoing open-label study, RESTORE, is providing evidence that points to more restorative sleep across a broad audience.
@AvadelPharma $AVDL #narcolepsy #cataplexy #sleepdisorders #sleep #EDS #neurotwitter #rarediseases
Avadel.com
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Greg Miller is Vice President of industry strategy for healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk. We talk about the role of contact centers in personalizing inbound and outbound encounters with patients. Integrating the Talkdesk software with the Epic EHR platform gives hospitals and health systems the ability to get a complete picture of a patient.
Talkdesk makes it easy for patients to use the web, email, text, mobile apps, and virtual and live agents to schedule appointments, ask clinical questions, fill prescriptions, and coordinate billing and claims processing. It also gives healthcare enterprises the ability to be proactive with patients and build stronger relationships using artificial intelligence and human interaction.
@talkdesk #talkdesk #contactcenter #patientexperience #healthcareIT #digitalhealth #AI
Talkdesk.com
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Greg Miller is Vice President of industry strategy for healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk. We talk about the role of contact centers in personalizing inbound and outbound encounters with patients. Integrating the Talkdesk software with the Epic EHR platform gives hospitals and health systems the ability to get a complete picture of a patient.
Talkdesk makes it easy for patients to use the web, email, text, mobile apps, and virtual and live agents to schedule appointments, ask clinical questions, fill prescriptions, and coordinate billing and claims processing. It also gives healthcare enterprises the ability to be proactive with patients and build stronger relationships using artificial intelligence and human interaction.
@talkdesk #talkdesk #contactcenter #patientexperience #healthcareIT #digitalhealth #AI
Talkdesk.com
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Pierre Pellier is CEO of CTMA and is driven to provide better access to innovative and potentially life-saving therapies to more patients. The key is to shorten the duration of clinical trials by more quickly and efficiently identifying and recruiting potentially eligible participants.
Using the CT-Scout platform on a mobile device, doctors are prompted to ask, during a consultation, a few selected questions to determine whether a particular patient might be eligible for any of the numerous studies running at their site. Removing the need to remember major inclusion and exclusion criteria encourages doctors and investigators to broaden the search and increase recruitment.
@CScoutTm #CTMA #clinicaltrials #patientrecruitment
CTMA.fr
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Pierre Pellier is CEO of CTMA and is driven to provide better access to innovative and potentially life-saving therapies to more patients. The key is to shorten the duration of clinical trials by more quickly and efficiently identifying and recruiting potentially eligible participants.
Using the CT-Scout platform on a mobile device, doctors are prompted to ask, during a consultation, a few selected questions to determine whether a particular patient might be eligible for any of the numerous studies running at their site. Removing the need to remember major inclusion and exclusion criteria encourages doctors and investigators to broaden the search and increase recruitment.
@CScoutTm #CTMA #clinicaltrials #patientrecruitment
CTMA.fr
Download the transcript here
Mike Rea is the Founder and CEO of IDEA Pharma and Founder of Protodigm, created to develop a new way of progressing drug development. With a fundamental understanding of what goes wrong in early-stage pharmaceutical development, Mike is eager to do more diverse opportunity-seeking for assets in early phase trials. The skunkworks model draws decision and data scientists as well as the pharma people to think outside the box.
As Mike says "But I think often in drug development, you get the silos, and people are encouraged to play nicely within the silos. The idea of taking a group of loosely structured, enthusiastic people creating an affinity group that focuses on what could you do differently for an asset, doesn't happen and it's quite hard to do within the confines of the organization."
@ProtodigmLabs #Protodigm #skunkworks #NextGenCRO #drugdevelopment
Protodigm.co
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Mike Rea is the Founder and CEO of IDEA Pharma and Founder of Protodigm, created to develop a new way of progressing drug development. With a fundamental understanding of what goes wrong in early-stage pharmaceutical development, Mike is eager to do more diverse opportunity-seeking for assets in early phase trials. The skunkworks model draws decision and data scientists as well as the pharma people to think outside the box.
As Mike says "But I think often in drug development, you get the silos and people are encouraged to play nicely within the silos. The idea of taking a group of loosely structured, enthusiastic people creating an affinity group that focuses on what could you do differently for an asset, doesn't happen and it's quite hard to do within the confines of the organization."
@ProtodigmLabs #Protodigm #skunkworks #NextGenCRO #drugdevelopment
Protodigm.co
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Renee Agular-Lucander is CEO of Calliditas Therapeutics a Sweden-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the rare kidney disease IgA nephropathy. While there is a genetic predisposition for this autoimmune disease, it is still not clear what triggers the condition and there is no current cure.
Renee talks about:
- Lead drug candidate Nefecon which starts at the top of the disease cascade in the ileum part of the small intestine. Delivering this disease-modifying agent directly interrupts and disrupts the beginning of the disease
- How clinical trial data is showing the value of addressing the gut-renal axis and treating this indication in an organ-specific way
- Other orphan indications that might benefit from this approach
- What the FDA priority review of Nefecon potentially means for the 1 in every 4 adults with IgAN who will eventually succumb to kidney failure.
@Calliditas1 #IgANephropathy #IgAN #Kidney #KidneyDisease #EndStageRenalDisease #AutoimmuneDisease #Nefecon #RareDisease
Calliditas.se/en
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Renee Agular-Lucander is CEO of Calliditas Therapeutics a Sweden-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the rare kidney disease IgA nephropathy. While there is a genetic predisposition for this autoimmune disease, it is still not clear what triggers the condition and there is no current cure.
Renee talks about:
- Lead drug candidate Nefecon which starts at the top of the disease cascade in the ileum part of the small intestine. Delivering this disease-modifying agent directly interrupts and disrupts the beginning of the disease
- How clinical trial data is showing the value of addressing the gut-renal axis and treating this indication in an organ-specific way
- Other orphan indications that might benefit from this approach
- What the FDA priority review of Nefecon potentially means for the 1 in every 4 adults with IgAN who will eventually succumb to kidney failure.
@Calliditas1 #IgANephropathy #IgAN #Kidney #KidneyDisease #EndStageRenalDisease #AutoimmuneDisease #Nefecon #RareDisease
Calliditas.se/en
Download the transcript here
Omri Shor is Founder and CEO of Medisafe and focused on bringing resources to pharmaceutical companies so that they can better manage the entire patient journey from prescription of a specific medication throughout their daily routines and lifestyle choices. Integrating Medisafe into the engagement with patients allows key data to be collected about patterns of adherence and potential obstacles to drug adherence. Clinicians and pharmacists are also connecting through the Medisafe platform to help manage patients, particularly with comorbidities and to reduce time spent on routine tasks.
Omri emphasizes the need for patients to receive a personalized plan of action that provides real-time real-life support combining the human and digital connections. COVID-19 further illustrated the benefits of digital health technology to connect patients with the kind of support necessary to keep them on track and connected to care providers.
@medisafeApp #Medisafe App #MedicationAdherence #PatientExperience #YourHealthinYourHands #DigitalHealth #DigitalTherapeutics #COVID19
Medisafe.com
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Omri Shor is Founder and CEO of Medisafe and focused on bringing resources to pharmaceutical companies so that they can better manage the entire patient journey from prescription of a specific medication throughout their daily routines and lifestyle choices. Integrating Medisafe into the engagement with patients allows key data to be collected about patterns of adherence and potential obstacles to drug adherence. Clinicians and pharmacists are also connecting through the Medisafe platform to help manage patients, particularly with comorbidities and to reduce time spent on routine tasks.
Omri emphasizes the need for patients to receive a personalized plan of action that provides real-time real-life support combining the human and digital connections. COVID-19 further illustrated the benefits of digital health technology to connect patients with the kind of support necessary to keep them on track and connected to care providers.
@medisafeApp #Medisafe App #MedicationAdherence #PatientExperience #YourHealthinYourHands #DigitalHealth #DigitalTherapeutics #COVID19
Medisafe.com
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Tom Hallam PhD is CEO of Palisade Bio a late stage biopharmaceutical company with a focus on gastrointestinal complications from major surgery and getting patients out of the hospital more quickly. With discoveries about how digestive enzymes can hurt a patient's gastrointestinal tract, their lead asset LB1148 is a liquid that the patient drinks prior to surgery. This drug coats the entire gastrointestinal tract and inhibits digestive enzymes preventing them from attacking underlying tissue.
Palisade is also working on a breakthrough platform technology with the ability for the first time to measure the activity of digestive enzymes when they leak from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood of patients. Since these enzymes belong in the GI tract, when they appear in the blood, they can cause long-term chronic diseases and severe health consequences for patients.
@PalisadeBio #GI #gastrointestinal #ileus #adhesions #surgicalcomplications #microbiome
Palisadebio.com
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Tom Hallam PhD is CEO of Palisade Bio a late stage biopharmaceutical company with a focus on gastrointestinal complications from major surgery and getting patients out of the hospital more quickly. With discoveries about how digestive enzymes can hurt a patient's gastrointestinal tract, their lead asset LB1148 is a liquid that the patient drinks prior to surgery. This drug coats the entire gastrointestinal tract and inhibits digestive enzymes preventing them from attacking underlying tissue.
Palisade is also working on a breakthrough platform technology with the ability for the first time to measure the activity of digestive enzymes when they leak from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood of patients. Since these enzymes belong in the GI tract, when they appear in the blood, they can cause long-term chronic diseases and severe health consequences for patients.
@PalisadeBio #GI #gastrointestinal #ileus #adhesions #surgicalcomplications #microbiome
Palisadebio.com
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Adam Sachs is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vicarious Surgical a next generation robotics company that is developing a disruptive medical technology platform. Their goal is to increase the efficiency of legacy surgical robotics, improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs. Vicarious Surgical's novel approach to surgery uses a combination of proprietary miniaturized surgical robots and virtual reality to transport surgeons inside the patient when performing minimally invasive surgery.
The first indication being targeted is ventral hernia repair for which Vicarious has been granted Breakthrough Device Special designation from the FDA. The Vicarious system, with nine-degrees of freedom for each arm of the robot, can actually operate from inside of the abdomen out. Surgeons are enthusiastic about the ability to work facing any direction from any incision site.
#VicariousSurgery #VR #VirtualReality #robots #surgicalrobotics #herniarepair #ventralherniarepair #SPAC
VicariousSurgery.com
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Adam Sachs is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vicarious Surgical a next generation robotics company that is developing a disruptive medical technology platform. Their goal is to increase the efficiency of legacy surgical robotics, improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs. Vicarious Surgical's novel approach to surgery uses a combination of proprietary miniaturized surgical robots and virtual reality to transport surgeons inside the patient when performing minimally invasive surgery.
The first indication being targeted is ventral hernia repair for which Vicarious has been granted Breakthrough Device Special designation from the FDA. The Vicarious system, with nine-degrees of freedom for each arm of the robot, can actually operate from inside of the abdomen out. Surgeons are enthusiastic about the ability to work facing any direction from any incision site.
#VicariousSurgery #VR #VirtualReality #robots #surgicalrobotics #herniarepair #ventralherniarepair #SPAC
VicariousSurgery.com
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Dr. Kishlay Anand is a practicing cardiologist and Founder and President of Apricus Health, a healthcare provider with a focus on having a dedicated care navigator work with patients to help them on their healthcare journey. This includes coordinating appointments with primary care physicians, specialists, remote monitoring, medication refills, updates on community resources and education about chronic conditions. Not only does this benefit patients but also doctors as it reduces paperwork and allows them to focus on transitioning from fee-for-service to value-based care.
Apricus is developing digital health technology tailored to the unique challenges seniors and those with chronic conditions face. Of particular interest is the senior patient population which due to COVID-19 has had a chance to experience virtual doctor visits and telehealth interactions which have proven to be very popular.
@Apricus_Health #digitalhealth #telemedicine #telehealth #personalizedmedicine #MedTech
ApricusHealth.com
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Dr. Kishlay Anand is a practicing cardiologist and Founder and President of Apricus Health, a healthcare provider with a focus on having a dedicated care navigator work with patients to help them on their healthcare journey. This includes coordinating appointments with primary care physicians, specialists, remote monitoring, medication refills, updates on community resources and education about chronic conditions. Not only does this benefit patients but also doctors as it reduces paperwork and allows them to focus on transitioning from fee-for-service to value-based care.
Apricus is developing digital health technology tailored to the unique challenges seniors and those with chronic conditions face. Of particular interest is the senior patient population which due to COVID-19 has had a chance to experience virtual doctor visits and telehealth interactions which have proven to be very popular.
@Apricus_Health #digitalhealth #telemedicine #telehealth #personalizedmedicine #MedTech
ApricusHealth.com
Download the transcript here
John Schwartz is Chief Revenue Officer at HSBlox and he strongly believes that care coordination is essential for all patients. The challenge is how can healthcare stakeholders improve the delivery of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) to better serve vulnerable people. Aligning medical and social care needs is a messy issue and there needs to be a stronger recognition of how much the environment determines health of a population.
HSBlox enables SDOH risk-stratification, care coordination and appropriate data sharing through its digital health platform. It applies AI, machine learning and blockchain technologies to streamline SDOH processes of data exchange, patient consent management and referral optimization.
@blox_hs #HSBlox #VBC #AI #valuebasedcare #healthcareAI #healthcaredata #patientadherence #SDOH #socialdeterminantsofhealth #populationhealth #precisionhealth #DistributedLedgerTechnology
HSBlox.com
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John Schwartz is Chief Revenue Officer at HSBlox and he strongly believes that care coordination is essential for all patients. The challenge is how can healthcare stakeholders improve the delivery of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) to better serve vulnerable people. Aligning medical and social care needs is a messy issue and there needs to be a stronger recognition of how much the environment determines health of a population.
HSBlox enables SDOH risk-stratification, care coordination and appropriate data sharing through its digital health platform. It applies AI, machine learning and blockchain technologies to streamline SDOH processes of data exchange, patient consent management and referral optimization.
@blox_hs #HSBlox #VBC #AI #valuebasedcare #healthcareAI #healthcaredata #patientadherence #SDOH #socialdeterminantsofhealth #populationhealth #precisionhealth #DistributedLedgerTechnology
HSBlox.com
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Dr. Ian Walters is CEO of Portage Biotech is building a pipeline of novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer particularly for patients who do not respond to current therapies. The key is stimulating a type of immune cell called invariant natural killer T-cell which works with the adaptive immune system to create a broad immune response and stronger immune surveillance to help stop cancer from forming in the body.
Having contributed to bringing five new blockbuster cancer drugs to patients, Ian and his team are working to hit all key components for every different tumor type for a long-term response and possible cure. They think their drug could have potential in settings that wouldn't respond to just pure NK cell therapy.
#ImmunoOncology #Cancer #iNKT #biotech $PRTG
PortageBiotech.com
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Dr. Ian Walters is CEO of Portage Biotech is building a pipeline of novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer particularly for patients who do not respond to current therapies. The key is stimulating a type of immune cell called invariant natural killer T-cell which works with the adaptive immune system to create a broad immune response and stronger immune surveillance to help stop cancer from forming in the body.
Having contributed to bringing five new blockbuster cancer drugs to patients, Ian and his team are working to hit all key components for every different tumor type for a long-term response and possible cure. They think their drug could have potential in settings that wouldn't respond to just pure NK cell therapy.
#ImmunoOncology #Cancer #iNKT #biotech $PRTG
PortageBiotech.com
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Manolo Bellotto, PhD is General Manager and President Gain Therapeutics and dedicated to redefining drug discovery through the use of supercomputers and proprietary algorithms to understand rare diseases and diseases where there is a high medical need related to protein misfolding. These indications include cancer, neurodegenerative, metabolic and inflammatory diseases.
While traditional drug discovery around protein misfolding was through high-throughput screening, Gain can efficiently identify a select group of molecules that can potentially correct misfolding or induce misfolding of specific proteins. In a short period of time, using a personalized approach in each different target, they have the biological characterization to see if they can intervene on the protein, potentially leading to a pharmacological solution.
@GainThera #ProteinMisfolding #DrugDiscovery #RareDisease #Oncology #LysosomalStorageDisorders #Neurodegenerative #Supercomputer #technology #ComputationalChemistry
GainTherapeutics.com
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Manolo Bellotto, PhD is General Manager and President Gain Therapeutics and dedicated to redefining drug discovery through the use of supercomputers and proprietary algorithms to understand rare diseases and diseases where there is a high medical need related to protein misfolding. These indications include cancer, neurodegenerative, metabolic and inflammatory diseases.
While traditional drug discovery around protein misfolding was through high-throughput screening, Gain can efficiently identify a select group of molecules that can potentially correct misfolding or induce misfolding of specific proteins. In a short period of time, using a personalized approach in each different target, they have the biological characterization to see if they can intervene on the protein, potentially leading to a pharmacological solution.
@GainThera #ProteinMisfolding #DrugDiscovery #RareDisease #Oncology #LysosomalStorageDisorders #Neurodegenerative #Supercomputer #technology #ComputationalChemistry
GainTherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Tim Aumueller is the Co-CEO of Avidon Health and an expert on combining digital solutions and human coaching to help patients living with chronic diseases make lifestyle changes. While drugs will most likely always be part of a treatment plan, direct behavior change science is demonstrating the impact that healthy behaviors have on prevention and mitigation of chronic diseases especially those related to obesity.
With a focus on the different elements of meaningful engagement, Avidon is deploying Engagement Rx to take into account learning style and preferred method of communication to provide the appropriate mixture of personalized support and online guidance. The key is to see the patient as more than the medical condition and coming up with an approach that fits with their lifestyle and encourages healthy behavior changes. It is also critical to measure progress and when goals are accomplished.
@Avidonhealth #digitalhealth #mhealth #chronicdiseases #precisionmedicine #personalizedmedicine
AvidonHealth.com
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Tim Aumueller is the Co-CEO of Avidon Health and an expert on combining digital solutions and human coaching to help patients living with chronic diseases make lifestyle changes. While drugs will most likely always be part of a treatment plan, direct behavior change science is demonstrating the impact that healthy behaviors have on prevention and mitigation of chronic diseases especially those related to obesity.
With a focus on the different elements of meaningful engagement, Avidon is deploying Engagement Rx to take into account learning style and preferred method of communication to provide the appropriate mixture of personalized support and online guidance. The key is to see the patient as more than the medical condition and coming up with an approach that fits with their lifestyle and encourages healthy behavior changes. It is also critical to measure progress and when goals are accomplished.
@Avidonhealth #digitalhealth #mhealth #chronicdiseases #precisionmedicine #personalizedmedicine
AvidonHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Kate Burke is Senior Medical Advisor at PatientsLikeMe and Jed is a patient leader, advocate and patient with a range of conditions including ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and Lyme disease. They join me on the podcast to talk about the robust online community PatientsLikeMe and how it helps patients with rare diseases take charge of their health and helps life science organizations better understand patient needs.
By integrating medical data from a variety of sources, the site helps patients share that data with their care team and make more informed healthcare choices. The community also encourages connections amongst those suffering from the same rare disease and facilitates participation in virtual or semi-virtual clinical trials.
COVID-19 forced a re-evaluation of the power of online access for this community. Many of the barriers for participating in live group activities have been removed by going online and both Kate and Jed agree the changes are here to stay.
@PatientsLikeMe #rarediseases #digitalhealth #ankylosingspondylitis #AS #COVID19
PatientsLikeMe.com
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Dr. Kate Burke is Senior Medical Advisor at PatientsLikeMe and Jed is a patient leader, advocate and patient with a range of conditions including ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and Lyme disease. They join me on the podcast to talk about the robust online community PatientsLikeMe and how it helps patients with rare diseases take charge of their health and helps life science organizations better understand patient needs.
By integrating medical data from a variety of sources, the site helps patients share that data with their care team and make more informed healthcare choices. The community also encourages connections amongst those suffering from the same rare disease and facilitates participation in virtual or semi-virtual clinical trials.
COVID-19 forced a re-evaluation of the power of online access for this community. Many of the barriers for participating in live group activities have been removed by going online and both Kate and Jed agree the changes are here to stay.
@PatientsLikeMe #rarediseases #digitalhealth #ankylosingspondylitis #AS #COVID19
PatientsLikeMe.com
Download the transcript here
Vlado Bosanac is Co-Founder of Advanced Human Imaging, a B2B tech company based in Australia. Using the camera on a smart phone, their applications can accurately track 12,000 data points across the human form to give a number of the markers that a doctor would look at. Giving this sort of information to individuals allows them to understand their health in a new way and facilitates preventative care, telehealth visits and chronic disease monitoring.
One of the applications DermaScan is a unique patient AI technology that draws on the world's largest skin database and can identify 588 different skin conditions across 133 categories. and provides early warning signs of skin cancer and other skin conditions. FaceScan uses transdermal imaging to image the blood flow within the face to report back vital signs.
Working with health app developers, insurers, care groups and health and fitness organizations, Advanced Human Imaging is finding ways to encourage participation through gamification and rewards to empower users to track progress and changes.
@MyFiziq #mhealth #telehealth #personalizedmedicine #skincancer #diabetesmonitoring #digitalhealth
AdvancedHumanImaging.com
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Vlado Bosanac is Co-Founder of Advanced Human Imaging, a B2B tech company based in Australia. Using the camera on a smart phone, their applications can accurately track 12,000 data points across the human form to give a number of the markers that a doctor would look at. Giving this sort of information to individuals allows them to understand their health in a new way and facilitates preventative care, telehealth visits and chronic disease monitoring.
One of the applications DermaScan is a unique patient AI technology that draws on the world's largest skin database and can identify 588 different skin conditions across 133 categories. and provides early warning signs of skin cancer and other skin conditions. FaceScan uses transdermal imaging to image the blood flow within the face to report back vital signs.
Working with health app developers, insurers, care groups and health and fitness organizations, Advanced Human Imaging is finding ways to encourage participation through gamification and rewards to empower users to track progress and changes.
@MyFiziq #mhealth #telehealth #personalizedmedicine #skincancer #diabetesmonitoring #digitalhealth
AdvancedHumanImaging.com
Download the transcript here
Kistein Monkhouse is the Founder of Patient Orator, a start-up that is focused on providing services to racial and ethnic minorities, lower-income communities, the elderly, LGBT communities and other people who are marginalized or underrepresented in receiving healthcare.
With a focus on systemic racism and implicit bias, this app is being developed to help patients overcome communication barriers, data silos, and the imbalance of power between the patient and medical professionals. Addressing the social determinants of health SDOH is top of mind in the improvement of population health particularly in the age of COVID-19.
@patientorator #patientdata #populationhealth #precisionhealth #socialdeterminantsofhealth #SDOH #healthcaredata #COVID19
PatientOrator.com
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Kistein Monkhouse is the Founder of Patient Orator, a start-up that is focused on providing services to racial and ethnic minorities, lower-income communities, the elderly, LGBT communities and other people who are marginalized or underrepresented in receiving healthcare.
With a focus on systemic racism and implicit bias, this app is being developed to help patients overcome communication barriers, data silos, and the imbalance of power between the patient and medical professionals. Addressing the social determinants of health SDOH is top of mind in the improvement of population health particularly in the age of COVID-19.
@patientorator #patientdata #populationhealth #precisionhealth #socialdeterminantsofhealth #SDOH #healthcaredata #COVID19
PatientOrator.com
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Dr. Marc Hedrick, President and CEO, PLUS Therapeutics describes the challenges of fighting brain cancers like glioblastoma. The PLUS lead investigational asset Rhenium NanoLiposome (RNL) delivers radiation directly to the tumor using a method called Convection Enhanced Delivery. This approach allows the neurosurgeon to put catheters directly into the brain by using stereotactic brain biopsy, imaging and software driven planning bypassing the normal structures and delivering 20 or more times the amount of radiation than can be delivered by external beam radiation.
@PLUStxinc #braincancer #braintumor #GBM #Glioblastoma #RNL #Oncology #RareDisease #Neurosurgery #Nanotechnology #radiotherapy #pharmaceuticals #NIH #FDA #OrphanDrug #FastTrack $PSTV
PLUSTherapeutics.com
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Dr. Marc Hedrick, President and CEO, PLUS Therapeutics describes the challenges of fighting brain cancers like glioblastoma. The PLUS lead investigational asset Rhenium NanoLiposome (RNL) delivers radiation directly to the tumor using a method called Convection Enhanced Delivery. This approach allows the neurosurgeon to put catheters directly into the brain by using stereotactic brain biopsy, imaging and software driven planning bypassing the normal structures and delivering 20 or more times the amount of radiation than can be delivered by external beam radiation.
@PLUStxinc #braincancer #braintumor #GBM #Glioblastoma #RNL #Oncology #RareDisease #Neurosurgery #Nanotechnology #radiotherapy #pharmaceuticals #NIH #FDA #OrphanDrug #FastTrack $PSTV
PLUSTherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
John Mulcahy PhD, President and CEO, SiteOne Therapeutics talks about broadening their pipeline from acute pain to hypersensitivity disorders like chronic cough and itching. Approach is to inhibit voltage-gated subtype sodium channel Nav1.7, a genetically validated target for pain. Stopping the pain signal in the peripheral nervous system before it gets to the spinal cord avoids some of the liabilities with existing pain medication like opioids. Lead candidate is now an intravenous analgesic showing proof of concept for the treatment of acute pain and itch.
#pain #hypersensitivity #sodiumchannels #opioids
SiteOneTherapeutics.com
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John Mulcahy PhD, President and CEO, SiteOne Therapeutics talks about broadening their pipeline from acute pain to hypersensitivity disorders like chronic cough and itching. Approach is to inhibit voltage-gated subtype sodium channel Nav1.7, a genetically validated target for pain. Stopping the pain signal in the peripheral nervous system before it gets to the spinal cord avoids some of the liabilities with existing pain medication like opioids. Lead candidate is now an intravenous analgesic showing proof of concept for the treatment of acute pain and itch.
#pain #hypersensitivity #sodiumchannels #opioids
SiteOneTherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Michael McCullar, CEO and Hong Tang, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer OnQuality Pharmaceuticals describe the pipeline they are building to address unmet clinical needs in the area of oncology supportive care for skin rashes such as Hand-Foot Skin Reaction and GI toxicities like chemotherapy-induced diarrhea. As leaders in the emerging oncodermatology and oncogastroenterology fields, the mission is to develop cancer supportive care drugs to deal with the most common toxicities to make it easier for patients to tolerate their cancer treatments.
@OnQualityRx #cancer #cancertherapy #cancerresearch #chemotherapy #supportivecare #cancertherapeutics #pharma
OnQualityRx.com
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Michael McCullar, CEO and Hong Tang, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer OnQuality Pharmaceuticals describe the pipeline they are building to address unmet clinical needs in the area of oncology supportive care for skin rashes such as Hand-Foot Skin Reaction and GI toxicities like chemotherapy-induced diarrhea. As leaders in the emerging oncodermatology and oncogastroenterology fields, the mission is to develop cancer supportive care drugs to deal with the most common toxicities to make it easier for patients to tolerate their cancer treatments.
@OnQualityRx #cancer #cancertherapy #cancerresearch #chemotherapy #supportivecare #cancertherapeutics #pharma
OnQualityRx.com
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Richard Brand, Chief Financial Officer, DiaCarta discusses precision molecular diagnostics that are being used for early detection of cancer. By using liquid biopsy technology, blood draw can be used for early detection and monitoring of people who have cancer and avoiding the need for a physical biopsy. Also a radiation therapy and chemotherapy tests are supporting personalized medicine for those undergoing treatment who are at the extreme tails of the population - either very sensitive to it or have a very robust response - so as to better determine appropriate dosage.
@DiaCarta_DX #DiaCarta #liquidbiopsy #earlycancerdetection #precisionmedicine #personalizedmedicine #coloncancer
DiaCarta.com
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Richard Brand, Chief Financial Officer, DiaCarta discusses precision molecular diagnostics that are being used for early detection of cancer. By using liquid biopsy technology, blood draw can be used for early detection and monitoring of people who have cancer and avoiding the need for a physical biopsy. Also a radiation therapy and chemotherapy tests are supporting personalized medicine for those undergoing treatment who are at the extreme tails of the population - either very sensitive to it or have a very robust response - so as to better determine appropriate dosage.
@DiaCarta_DX #DiaCarta #liquidbiopsy #earlycancerdetection #precisionmedicine #personalizedmedicine #coloncancer
DiaCarta.com
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Rick Anderson, President and General Manager of North America, DarioHealth discusses how the company is leading the way on digital therapeutics combining digital technologies, artificial intelligence, software, and human coaching to help people manage chronic conditions including hypertension, diabetes, obesity and back pain. Patients are getting digital coaching, specific suggestions, feedback and support on the device of their choice through dynamic personalized programs. Studies across a variety of conditions are showing consistent improvement, maintenance, and significant reduction in pain.
@DarioHealth #ChronicConditionManagement #DigitalHealth #AI #DigitalTherapeutics #BackPain #Diabetes #DiabetesManagement
DarioHealth.com
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Rick Anderson, President and General Manager of North America, DarioHealth discusses how the company is leading the way on digital therapeutics combining digital technologies, artificial intelligence, software, and human coaching to help people manage chronic conditions including hypertension, diabetes, obesity and back pain. Patients are getting digital coaching, specific suggestions, feedback and support on the device of their choice through dynamic personalized programs. Studies across a variety of conditions are showing consistent improvement, maintenance, and significant reduction in pain.
@DarioHealth #ChronicConditionManagement #DigitalHealth #AI #DigitalTherapeutics #BackPain #Diabetes #DiabetesManagement
DarioHealth.com
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Ron Chiarello PhD, Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Alveo Technologies talks about the need for a low-cost, easy-to-use diagnostic platform to allow more people to detect and manage an infectious disease like COVID-19. Winning the XPRIZE Rapid COVID-19 Testing Competition has highlighted their be.well diagnostic platform which uses an at-home system to take a nasal swab that gets placed in a disposable cartridge that goes into an analyzer that communicates to a mobile device with RNA-based test results in less than 30 minutes.
#COVID19 #COVIDVaccine #COVIDTesting #InfectiousDisease #PublicHealth
AlveoTechnologies.com
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Ron Chiarello PhD, Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Alveo Technologies talks about the need for a low-cost, easy-to-use diagnostic platform to allow more people to detect and manage an infectious disease like COVID-19. Winning the XPRIZE Rapid COVID-19 Testing Competition has highlighted their be.well diagnostic platform which uses an at-home system to take a nasal swab that gets placed in a disposable cartridge that goes into an analyzer that communicates to a mobile device with RNA-based test results in less than 30 minutes.
#COVID19 #COVIDVaccine #COVIDTesting #InfectiousDisease #PublicHealth
AlveoTechnologies.com
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Dr. R.J. Tesi, President and CEO, INmune Bio shines light on the complexity of the immune system by pointing out that while much work has been done on the adaptive immune system, the key to treating Alzheimer's might be to address the dysregulated innate immune system due to chronic inflammation. R.J. talks about developing XPro1595 a second generation selective TNF inhibitor which is designed to reduce inflammatory activity in the brain. They are also validating novel neuroimaging techniques and biomarkers to help predict which patients may respond to treating neuroinflammation as an underlying cause of their Alzheimer's.
@INmuneBio #neuroinflammation #Alzheimers #cytokine #biotech #clinicaltrial #biomarkers #InnateImmuneSystem
INmuneBio.com
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Dr. R.J. Tesi, President and CEO, INmune Bio shines light on the complexity of the immune system by pointing out that while much work has been done on the adaptive immune system, the key to treating Alzheimer's might be to address the dysregulated innate immune system due to chronic inflammation. R.J. talks about developing XPro1595 a second generation selective TNF inhibitor which is designed to reduce inflammatory activity in the brain. They are also validating novel neuroimaging techniques and biomarkers to help predict which patients may respond to treating neuroinflammation as an underlying cause of their Alzheimer's.
@INmuneBio #neuroinflammation #Alzheimers #cytokine #biotech #clinicaltrial #biomarkers #InnateImmuneSystem
INmuneBio.com
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Mary Guillermin, Director of Communications and Senior Pellin Practicioner at the Pellin Institute International and author talks about her book John Guillermin: The Man, The Myth, The Movies a story about her husband the British writer and film director of such films as King Kong, The Towering Inferno, The Blue Max and Rapture. Mary talks about her own experience dealing with depression, the need to understand the mood swings of those with bipolar disease particularly of those creatives types like John, and why we need to destigmatize mental health care.
#WildMan #MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #BiPolarAwareness #Worldbipolarday #OldHollywood #Knownforhistemper #JohnGuillermin
John Guillermin: The Man, The Myth, The Movies by Mary Guillermin
PellinInstitute.com
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Mary Guillermin, Director of Communications and Senior Pellin Practicioner at the Pellin Institute International and author talks about her book John Guillermin: The Man, The Myth, The Movies a story about her husband the British writer and film director of such films as King Kong, The Towering Inferno, The Blue Max and Rapture. Mary talks about her own experience dealing with depression, the need to understand the mood swings of those with bipolar disease particularly of those creatives types like John, and why we need to destigmatize mental health care.
#WildMan #MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #BiPolarAwareness #Worldbipolarday #OldHollywood #Knownforhistemper #JohnGuillermin
John Guillermin: The Man, The Myth, The Movies by Mary Guillermin
PellinInstitute.com
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Stephanie Culler PhD, Co-Founder and CEO, Persephone Biosciences describes how the microbiome, the microbes that exist in our GI tract, impacts our overall health and specifically the immune system. Their goal is to leverage the impact of a healthy microbiome to improve the effectiveness of drugs and vaccines. By creating the VOICES study, Persephone is looking at a representative population to look at the connection between the microbiome and clearance of viral infections as well as vaccine efficacy to better understand how the microbiome is impacting a patient's response to the COVID-19 vaccines.
@persephonebio #GutMicrobiome #Microbiome #COVID19 #vaccine
PersephoneBiosciences.com
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Stephanie Culler PhD, Co-Founder and CEO, Persephone Biosciences describes how the microbiome, the microbes that exist in our GI tract, impacts our overall health and specifically the immune system. Their goal is to leverage the impact of a healthy microbiome to improve the effectiveness of drugs and vaccines. By creating the VOICES study, Persephone is looking at a representative population to look at the connection between the microbiome and clearance of viral infections as well as vaccine efficacy to better understand how the microbiome is impacting a patient's response to the COVID-19 vaccines.
@persephonebio #GutMicrobiome #Microbiome #COVID19 #vaccine
PersephoneBiosciences.com
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Maria Maccecchini PhD, Founder, President, CEO, Annovis Bio has been on the path to find a way to protect nerve cells to maintain overall health. Lead therapy ANVS401 (phase 2) is designed to treat Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases by tapping into the brain's defense mechanism to get rid of toxic proteins that impair axonal transport, the body's information highway. Affecting the manufacture of amyloid, tau and alpha-synuclein, the treatment is lowering inflammation and showing statistical improvement in function.
#Alzheimers #Parkinsons #axonaltransport
Annovisbio.com
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Maria Maccecchini PhD, Founder, President, CEO, Annovis Bio has been on the path to find a way to protect nerve cells to maintain overall health. Lead therapy ANVS401 (phase 2) is designed to treat Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases by tapping into the brain's defense mechanism to get rid of toxic proteins that impair axonal transport, the body's information highway. Affecting the manufacture of amyloid, tau and alpha-synuclein, the treatment is lowering inflammation and showing statistical improvement in function.
#Alzheimers #Parkinsons #axonaltransport
Annovisbio.com
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Usama Malik, CEO, Fore Biotherapeutics is aiming to treat patients with rare cancer mutations with a hyper targeted precision or personalized approach by using the Fore AI-based technology platform to investigate which drugs might work best for each mutation. While most cancer companies focus only on the most prevalent mutations, Fore is expanding the search by looking at hundreds of mutations to identify driver mutations that actively contribute to the growth of tumors. Fore is in search of unaddressed patient populations and patients where existing therapeutics are not working.
#ForeBiotherapeutics #cancer #raredisease #oncology #BRAF #precisionmedicine #personalizedmedicine #DriverMutations
Fore.Bio
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Usama Malik, CEO, Fore Biotherapeutics is aiming to treat patients with rare cancer mutations with a hyper targeted precision or personalized approach by using the Fore AI-based technology platform to investigate which drugs might work best for each mutation. While most cancer companies focus only on the most prevalent mutations, Fore is expanding the search by looking at hundreds of mutations to identify driver mutations that actively contribute to the growth of tumors. Fore is in search of unaddressed patient populations and patients where existing therapeutics are not working.
#ForeBiotherapeutics #cancer #raredisease #oncology #BRAF #precisionmedicine #personalizedmedicine #DriverMutations
Fore.Bio
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Kurt Workman, Co-Founder and CEO, Owlet describes a digital healthcare platform for parents of infants that is part of a connected nursery ecosystem providing critical and reassuring real-time and archived data about the baby. The pulse oximetry technology in their anchor product Smart Sock allows parents to track the baby's heart rate, oxygen levels, information about movement, sleep quality and skin temperature and notifies the parent in real-time if they need to check on the baby. This new source of data about babies, once they have left the hospital and are home, is being used by researchers to study infant cardiac issues and high risk as well as presumably healthy babies.
@owletbabycare #newparent #newdad #newmom #baby #babyregistry #sleeptraining #digitalhealth
OwletCare.com
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Kurt Workman, Co-Founder and CEO, Owlet describes a digital healthcare platform for parents of infants that is part of a connected nursery ecosystem providing critical and reassuring real time and archived data about the baby. The pulse oximetry technology in their anchor product Smart Sock allows parents to track the baby's heart rate, oxygen levels, information about movement, sleep quality and skin temperature and notifies the parent in real-time if they need to check on the baby. This new source of data about babies, once they have left the hospital and are home, is being used by researchers to study infant cardiac issues and high risk as well as presumably healthy babies.
@owletbabycare #newparent #newdad #newmom #baby #babyregistry #sleeptraining #digitalhealth
OwletCare.com
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Luke Smith, Client Operations Analyst, Central Logic and the Director of the Arizona Surge Line finally has time to reflect on the work that went into managing access to hospitals and post-acute care for patients suffering from COVID-10 throughout the state of Arizona, at one point the number 1 hot spot in the world for positivity. The Surge Line Access Center worked with public and private organizations to expeditiously transfer patients from a diverse population to the level of care they needed as well as get them back home safely.
@CentralLogic #HealthSystems #PatientOutcomes #HealthIT #PublicHealth #Arizona #COVID19 #RevenueCapture #ClinicianEffectiveness #Hospitals #BedVisibility #PatientExperience
CentralLogic.com
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Luke Smith, Client Operations Analyst, Central Logic and the Director of the Arizona Surge Line finally has time to reflect on the work that went into managing access to hospitals and post-acute care for patients suffering from COVID-10 throughout the state of Arizona, at one point the number 1 hot spot in the world for positivity. The Surge Line Access Center worked with public and private organizations to expeditiously transfer patients from a diverse population to the level of care they needed as well as get them back home safely.
@CentralLogic #HealthSystems #PatientOutcomes #HealthIT #PublicHealth #Arizona #COVID19 #RevenueCapture #ClinicianEffectiveness #Hospitals #BedVisibility #PatientExperience
CentralLogic.com
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Amy Grover, Director of Patient Advocacy, Catalyst Pharmaceuticals works primarily with patients suffering from Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome LEMS an ultra-rare disease which is very similar to a larger rare disease myasthenia gravis MG. Working with the patient community and patient advocacy groups, Catalyst is providing support, tools and resources that for the most part have moved online during the pandemic. As a seasoned patient advocate, Amy is aware of how unique each patient's journey is and how important their participation is in driving research.
@CatalystForRare #RareReason #rarediseases #LEMS #MG #patientadvocate
CatalystPharma.com
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Amy Grover, Director of Patient Advocacy, Catalyst Pharmaceuticals works primarily with patients suffering from Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome LEMS an ultra-rare disease which is very similar to a larger rare disease myasthenia gravis MG. Working with the patient community and patient advocacy groups, Catalyst is providing support, tools and resources that for the most part have moved online during the pandemic. As a seasoned patient advocate, Amy is aware of how unique each patient's journey is and how important their participation is in driving research.
@CatalystForRare #RareReason #rarediseases #LEMS #MG #patientadvocate
CatalystPharma.com
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Sally Embrey, Vice President Public Health and Health Tech, DataRobot is applying knowledge from work as an enterprise AI company to attacking the problem of containing and defeating COVID-19. ContagionNET was created to identify leading and lagging indicators of the next COVID-19 hotspot and to help people understand their status, risk and ability to spread the disease. Combining science, testing data and AI-based technology, models have been created and used by NIH, HHS, FDA and other partners to better allocate resources, recruit for vaccine trials, and make more accurate long-term forecasts.
@ContagionNET #DataRobot #COVID19 #pandemic #NIH #PopulationHealth #AI #VaccineTrials #COVIDHotSpots
DataRobot.com
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Sally Embrey, Vice President Public Health and Health Tech, DataRobot is applying knowledge from work as an enterprise AI company to attacking the problem of containing and defeating COVID-19. ContagionNET was created to identify leading and lagging indicators of the next COVID-19 hotspot and to help people understand their status, risk and ability to spread the disease. Combining science, testing data and AI-based technology, models have been created and used by NIH, HHS, FDA and other partners to better allocate resources, recruit for vaccine trials, and make more accurate long-term forecasts.
@ContagionNET #DataRobot #COVID19 #pandemic #NIH #PopulationHealth #AI #VaccineTrials #COVIDHotSpots
DataRobot.com
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Dr. Stephen Brannan, Chief Medical Officer, Karuna Therapeutics discusses the need for creating and delivering transformative medicines for people living with psychiatric and neurological conditions particularly schizophrenia. Pairing the muscarinic agonist with a pan-cholinergic antagonist that does not cross into the central nervous system, KarXT is mitigating the peripheral side effects like weight gain and sedation but still retaining the benefits from muscarinic agonist.
@KarunaPharma $KRTX #NeuroTwitter #CNS #schizophrenia #schizoprenia #Neuroscience
KarunaTX.com
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Dr. Stephen Brannan, Chief Medical Officer, Karuna Therapeutics discusses the need for creating and delivering transformative medicines for people living with psychiatric and neurological conditions particularly schizophrenia. Pairing the muscarinic agonist with a pan-cholinergic antagonist that does not cross into the central nervous system, KarXT is mitigating the peripheral side effects like weight gain and sedation but still retaining the benefits from muscarinic agonist.
@KarunaPharma $KRTX #NeuroTwitter #CNS #schizophrenia #schizoprenia #Neuroscience
KarunaTX.com
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Jonathan Rigby, CEO, Revolo Biotherapeutics discusses the company's revolutionary therapies powered to reset the immune system to achieve superior long-term remission for patients with autoimmune and allergic diseases, with less frequent chronic dosing and without suppression of the immune system. A goal that others have not been able to reach. Revolo Bio's platform drug candidates '1805 and '1104 are in development for rheumatoid arthritis, uveitis, eosinophilic esophagitis and allergic diseases.
@RevoloBio #AutoimmuneDisease #AllergicDisease #RheumatoidArthritis #Uveitis #EosinophilicEsophagitis
RevoloBio.com
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Jonathan Rigby, CEO, Revolo Biotherapeutics discusses the company's revolutionary therapies powered to reset the immune system to achieve superior long-term remission for patients with autoimmune and allergic diseases, with less frequent chronic dosing and without suppression of the immune system. A goal that others have not been able to reach. Revolo Bio's platform drug candidates '1805 and '1104 are in development for rheumatoid arthritis, uveitis, eosinophilic esophagitis and allergic diseases.
@RevoloBio #AutoimmuneDisease #AllergicDisease #RheumatoidArthritis #Uveitis #EosinophilicEsophagitis
RevoloBio.com
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Anthony Comfort, VP Product Management, VisiQuate reflects on how far science and technology have come in helping monitor the health of diabetics with a new understanding of chemical changes in the body as well as cognitive and behavioral aspects. With the change from manual monitoring blood glucose readings to continuous data streaming in real time, patients and endocrinologists are able to stitch together data from a variety of sources to come up with personalized plans. Applying AI-enabled models and working with payers, providers and medical device companies, the goal is to optimize outcomes for patients and reduce costs.
@VisiQuate #DigitalTransformation #AI #COVID19 #DiabetesManagement #DigitalHealth #precisionmedicine
VisiQuate.com
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Anthony Comfort, VP Product Management, VisiQuate reflects on how far science and technology have come in helping monitor the health of diabetics with a new understanding of chemical changes in the body as well as cognitive and behavioral aspects. With the change from manual monitoring blood glucose readings to continuous data streaming in real time, patients and endocrinologists are able to stitch together data from a variety of sources to come up with personalized plans. Applying AI-enabled models and working with payers, providers and medical device companies, the goal is to optimize outcomes for patients and reduce costs.
@VisiQuate #DigitalTransformation #AI #COVID19 #DiabetesManagement #DigitalHealth #precisionmedicine
VisiQuate.com
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Derek Maetzold, President and CEO, Castle Biosciences is harnessing the power of genomics to understand the biology of skin cancer. Castle has developed genomic tests to determine how aggressive melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma are in order to better inform dermatologist and patients about intervention decisions. With both diagnostic and prognostic tests and assist from artificial intelligence machine learning-based algorithms, calculations are made for assessing the risk of developing metastatic disease for each individual patient.
@CastleBio #SkinCancer #Melanoma #SquamousCellCarcinoma #GenomicTesting #Dermatology
CastleBiosciences.com
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Derek Maetzold, President and CEO, Castle Biosciences is harnessing the power of genomics to understand the biology of skin cancer. Castle has developed genomic tests to determine how aggressive melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma are in order to better inform dermatologist and patients about intervention decisions. With both diagnostic and prognostic tests and assist from artificial intelligence machine learning-based algorithms, calculations are made for assessing the risk of developing metastatic disease for each individual patient.
@CastleBio #SkinCancer #Melanoma #SquamousCellCarcinoma #GenomicTesting #Dermatology
CastleBiosciences.com
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Len May, CEO, EndoCanna Health is aggressively exploring the genes that are associated with metabolism of cannabinoids and aiming for a better understanding of the endocannabinoid system to guide the use of cannabis for a wide range of conditions and disorders. With an eye to the complexity of the cannabis plant, EndoCanna has developed a test to determine an individual's genotype and endocompatibility to identify possible drug interactions, adverse effects and benefits of an optimal ratio of cannabinoids and terpenes endo-aligned dosage.
#cannabis #EndocannabinoidSystem #endocompatibility #terpenes #cannabinoids #THC #CBD
EndoDNA.com
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Len May, CEO, EndoCanna Health is aggressively exploring the genes that are associated with metabolism of cannabinoids and aiming for a better understanding of the endocannabinoid system to guide the use of cannabis for a wide range of conditions and disorders. With an eye to the complexity of the cannabis plant, EndoCanna has developed a test to determine an individual's genotype and endocompatibility to identify possible drug interactions, adverse effects and benefits of an optimal ratio of cannabinoids and terpenes endo-aligned dosage.
#cannabis #EndocannabinoidSystem #endocompatibility #terpenes #cannabinoids #THC #CBD
EndoDNA.com
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Evan Levine, Co-Founder and CEO, PsyBio Therapeutics is pursuing a paradigm shift in the treatment of mental illness and other neurological disorders by using psychedelics and hallucinogenics. PsyBio biosynthesizes psilocybin and other psychoactive drugs from different plants and fungi from genetically-modified bacteria. Under the influence of an anxiogenic molecule in a controlled setting, early clinical trials are showing a change in consciousness and rewiring of the brain to be able to address issues such as depression, anxiety, PTSD and substance abuse.
#Psychedelics #Psilocybin #Hallucinogenics #neuropsychiatricdisorders #tryptamines #PTSD #depression
PsyBioLife.com
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Evan Levine, Co-Founder and CEO, PsyBio Therapeutics is pursuing a paradigm shift in the treatment of mental illness and other neurological disorders by using psychedelics and hallucinogenics. PsyBio biosynthesizes psilocybin and other psychoactive drugs from different plants and fungi from genetically-modified bacteria. Under the influence of an anxiogenic molecule in a controlled setting, early clinical trials are showing a change in consciousness and rewiring of the brain to be able to address issues such as depression, anxiety, PTSD and substance abuse.
#Psychedelics #Psilocybin #Hallucinogenics #neuropsychiatricdisorders #tryptamines #PTSD #depression
PsyBioLife.com
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Michael Tkach, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Behavioral Health Officer, Affinity describes a variety of models for large-scale population healthcare management for Return to Work/Stay at Work in this time of COVID-19. With continuous monitoring, testing and data analysis, risk assessment is being used to keep companies aware of adherence to guidelines and regulations and the physical and mental health of their employees. In addition, Affinity is rolling out pop-up COVID Clinics in business settings and in communities with limited healthcare options to provide testing and COVID related information.
@AffinityRTW #MentalHealthMonday #COVID19Testing #workplacetesting #returntowork #WorkplaceMentalHealth #humanresources #mentalhealth
AffinityReturntoWork.com/rtw
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Michael Tkach, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Behavioral Health Officer, Affinity describes a variety of models for large-scale population healthcare management for Return to Work/Stay at Work in this time of COVID-19. With continuous monitoring, testing and data analysis, risk assessment is being used to keep companies aware of adherence to guidelines and regulations and the physical and mental health of their employees. In addition, Affinity is rolling out pop-up COVID Clinics in business settings and in communities with limited healthcare options to provide testing and COVID related information.
@AffinityRTW #MentalHealthMonday #COVID19Testing #workplacetesting #returntowork #WorkplaceMentalHealth #humanresources #mentalhealth
AffinityReturntoWork.com/rtw
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Dr. Greg Rippon, Vice President and Chief Medical Partner of Neurology, Genentech shines light on SMA, spinal muscular atrophy, a severe inherited progressive neuromuscular disease and one of the most common rare diseases affecting babies. With the introduction of Evrysdi to the treatment options for SMA, an oral treatment is being tested to increase the production of the functional survival motor neuron protein and thus benefit patients in their motor functioning.
@genentech #genentech #SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #Evrysdi #raredisease
GENE.com
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Dr. Greg Rippon, Vice President and Chief Medical Partner of Neurology, Genentech shines light on SMA, spinal muscular atrophy, a severe inherited progressive neuromuscular disease and one of the most common rare diseases affecting babies. With the introduction of Evrysdi to the treatment options for SMA, an oral treatment is being tested to increase the production of the functional survival motor neuron protein and thus benefit patients in their motor functioning.
@genentech #genentech #SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #Evrysdi #raredisease
GENE.com
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Dr. Sudarshan Hebbar, Chief Medical Officer, CalciMedica talks about developing drugs that are focused on targeting CRAC channels, calcium release activated calcium channels, in order to modulate these channels to help treat diseases that have a significant inflammatory component. Initially developed drugs for acute pancreatitis targeting both the pancreas and the lung. Now conducting large trial in patients with severe and critical COVID-19 as many of the mechanisms that are shared in the development of lung disease with COVID-19 are shared with acute pancreatitis. Strong evidence that their drug Auxora might be effective for a variety of disorders that cause lung injury.
@CalciMedicaInc #COVID19 #CriticalCare #inflammatorydiseases #pancreatitis #CRACChannelinhibitors
CalciMedica.com
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Dr. Sudarshan Hebbar, Chief Medical Officer, CalciMedica talks about developing drugs that are focused on targeting CRAC channels, calcium release activated calcium channels, in order to modulate these channels to help treat diseases that have a significant inflammatory component. Initially developed drugs for acute pancreatitis targeting both the pancreas and the lung. Now conducting large trial in patients with severe and critical COVID-19 as many of the mechanisms that are shared in the development of lung disease with COVID-19 are shared with acute pancreatitis. Strong evidence that their drug Auxora might be effective for a variety of disorders that cause lung injury.
@CalciMedicaInc #COVID19 #CriticalCare #inflammatorydiseases #pancreatitis #CRACChannelinhibitors
CalciMedica.com
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Dr. Aaron Koenig, Senior Medical Director and Mike Quirk, Vice President of pharmacology Sage Therapeutics focus on disorders of cognition and diseases that reflect determinants of impaired cognition such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's. Their drug Sage-718, a novel mechanism of action, targets a protein in the brain, the NMDA receptor, thought to be the brain's coincidence detector designed to link together information that flows from different neural pathways and perhaps correct some of the symptoms causing functional impairment.
@SageBiotech #Alzheimers #Parkinsons #Huntingtons #executivefunction #cognition #neurodegeneration
SageRx.com
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Dr. Aaron Koenig, Senior Medical Director and Mike Quirk, Vice President of pharmacology Sage Therapeutics focus on disorders of cognition and diseases that reflect determinants of impaired cognition such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's. Their drug Sage-718, a novel mechanism of action, targets a protein in the brain, the NMDA receptor, thought to be the brain's coincidence detector designed to link together information that flows from different neural pathways and perhaps correct some of the symptoms causing functional impairment.
@SageBiotech #Alzheimers #Parkinsons #Huntingtons #executivefunction #cognition #neurodegeneration
SageRx.com
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Dr. Travis Mickle President and CEO KemPharm describes the development of AZSTARYS, the stimulant-based methylphenidate prodrug treatment for ADHD one of the most common central nervous system diseases. This prodrug stimulates the norepinephrine dopamine reuptake inhibitor improving concentration, executive function, and irritability and provides for long-acting effect and protection from abuse as it is broken down in the lower GI. Travis' personal experience with ADHD and raising children with ADHD gives him a deep understanding of the challenges facing patients as well as their physicians.
@kempharm #Kempharm $KMPH #ADHD #CNS
KemPharm.com
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Dr. Travis Mickle President and CEO KemPharm describes the development of AZSTARYS, the stimulant-based methylphenidate prodrug treatment for ADHD one of the most common central nervous system diseases. This prodrug stimulates the norepinephrine dopamine reuptake inhibitor improving concentration, executive function, and irritability and provides for long-acting effect and protection from abuse as it is broken down in the lower GI. Travis' personal experience with ADHD and raising children with ADHD gives him a deep understanding of the challenges facing patients as well as their physicians.
@kempharm #Kempharm $KMPH #ADHD #CNS
KemPharm.com
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Mark Allen, Co-Founder and CEO, Elevian is looking to disrupt the longevity business by developing a recombinant GDF11 to treat and prevent multiple age-related diseases. The first application being investigated is for stroke recovery drawing on the discovery that GDF11 decreases with age and when replenished, returns the brain to a healthier pattern of vascularization. Not looking to extend just the life span, the goal is to target the aging process and extend the healthy lifespan.
@ElevianInc #aging #StrokeRecovery #AgeRelatedDisease #GDF11
Elevian.com
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Dr. Mark Allen, Co-Founder and CEO, Elevian is looking to disrupt the longevity business by developing a recombinant GDF11 to treat and prevent multiple age-related diseases. The first application being investigated is for stroke recovery drawing on the discovery that GDF11 decreases with age and when replenished, returns the brain to a healthier pattern of vascularization. Not looking to extend just the life span, the goal is to target the aging process and extend the healthy lifespan.
@ElevianInc #aging #StrokeRecovery #AgeRelatedDisease #GDF11
Elevian.com
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Dr. Steve Kanes, Chief Medical Officer, Sage Therapeutics takes the view that mental disorders and brain health disorders need to be treated like any other medicine. Driving this paradigm shift is the development of breakthrough zuranalone, an oral limited-time treatment to replace taking medicine chronically for those suffering from major depressive disorder. Clinical trials are showing when people do experience recurrences of MDD and episodes are treated when they occur, there are long and prolonged benefits.
@SageBiotech #depression #MajorDepressiveDisorder #MDD #postpartum
SageRx.com
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Dr. Steve Kanes, Chief Medical Officer, Sage Therapeutics takes the view that mental disorders and brain health disorders need to be treated like any other medicine. Driving this paradigm shift is the development of breakthrough zuranalone, an oral limited-time treatment to replace taking medicine chronically for those suffering from major depressive disorder. Clinical trials are showing when people do experience recurrences of MDD and episodes are treated when they occur, there are long and prolonged benefits.
@SageBiotech #postpartum #depression #MajorDepressiveDisorder #MDD
SageRx.com
Download the transcript here.
Louis Martinez, Chief Information Officer, EHR Data shines a light on the decentralization of healthcare data collected by providers, insurance carriers, pharmacists and other medical service providers. With a goal of centralizing disparate health data and providing access at point of care, EHR is using blockchain to collect data globally to allow easy access for patients with an ability to grant permission for access to doctors and other health professionals. The pandemic is driving the need to reduce healthcare costs by eliminating redundant efforts and treatments not in the patient's best interest or long-term wellness and for patients to share data to address population health emergencies.
#EHRData #myEHRstory #Wavemaker #COVID19 #blockchain
EHRData.com
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Louis Martinez, Chief Information Officer, EHR Data shines a light on the decentralization of healthcare data collected by providers, insurance carriers, pharmacists and other medical service providers. With a goal of centralizing disparate health data and providing access at point of care, EHR is using blockchain to collect data globally to allow easy access for patients with an ability to grant permission for access to doctors and other health professionals. The pandemic is driving the need to reduce healthcare costs by eliminating redundant efforts and treatments not in the patient's best interest or long-term wellness and for patients to share data to address population health emergencies.
#EHRData #myEHRstory #Wavemaker #COVID19 #blockchain
EHRData.com
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Vu Truong, CEO, Aridis Pharmaceuticals is taking on the challenge of making an inhaled monoclonal antibody to treat COVID-19 to allow for the easier patient access. Drawing on their work in infectious diseases and with a number of monoclonal antibodies candidates to treat bacteria infection associated with superbugs and antibiotic resistance, Aridis is finding ways to overcome lack of usage of similar potent antibodies from Regeneron and Eli Lilly to combat the coronavirus.
@Aridis_Pharma #AridisPharma #Aridis #Superbugs #AMR #InfectiousDisease #COVID19 #mAb #MonoclonalAntibody #immunotherapy #RespiratoryInfections #CoronavirusVariants
AridisPharma.com
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Vu Truong, CEO, Aridis Pharmaceuticals is taking on the challenge of making an inhaled monoclonal antibody to treat COVID-19 to allow for the easier patient access. Drawing on their work in infectious diseases and with a number of monoclonal antibodies candidates to treat bacteria infection associated with superbugs and antibiotic resistance, Aridis is finding ways to overcome lack of usage of similar potent antibodies from Regeneron and Eli Lilly to combat the coronavirus.
@Aridis_Pharma #AridisPharma #Aridis #Superbugs #AMR #InfectiousDisease #COVID19 #mAb #MonoclonalAntibody #immunotherapy #RespiratoryInfections #CoronavirusVariants
AridisPharma.com
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Niloy Sanyal, Chief Marketing Officer, LeanTaaS is focused on the current state of the healthcare system in this wartime environment. In light of COVID-19 challenges particularly for those patients needing acute care, the need to optimize use of operating rooms, ICU beds, infusion chairs, and medical professionals requires more attention to improving capacity utilization. Planning for a post pandemic peacetime era using AI tools will give patients quicker access to scarce capacity and drive up medical staff satisfaction.
@LeanTaaS #LeanTaaS #COVID19 #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
LeanTaaS.com
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Niloy Sanyal, Chief Marketing Officer, LeanTaaS is focused on the current state of the healthcare system in this wartime environment. In light of COVID-19 challenges particularly for those patients needing acute care, the need to optimize use of operating rooms, ICU beds, infusion chairs, and medical professionals requires more attention to improving capacity utilization. Planning for a post pandemic peacetime era using AI tools will give patients quicker access to scarce capacity and drive up medical staff satisfaction.
@LeanTaaS #LeanTaaS #COVID19 #DigitalHealth #HealthTech
LeanTaaS.com
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Mariya Pylypiv, Founder and Co-Chairwoman, UpHealth talks about empowering patients suffering from chronic conditions with a global comprehensive digital health technology and tech-enabled services platform. Working with care providers, health systems and payers, UpHealth is addressing the complex medical, behavioral, and social challenges of this fast-growing population with many unmet needs. The mission of UpHealth and their related companies is to provide high quality, affordable and accessible care to people around the world.
@UpHealth #Thrasys #UpHealth #Glocal #SPAC #DigitalHealth #COVID19 #HumanizeHealthcare #BeTheChange #healthequity #digitaltransformation
UpHealthinc.com
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Mariya Pylypiv, Founder and Co-Chairwoman, UpHealth talks about empowering patients suffering from chronic conditions with a global comprehensive digital health technology and tech-enabled services platform. Working with care providers, health systems and payers, UpHealth is addressing the complex medical, behavioral, and social challenges of this fast-growing population with many unmet needs. The mission of UpHealth and their related companies is to provide high quality, affordable and accessible care to people around the world.
@UpHealth #Thrasys #Glocal #SPAC #DigitalHealth #COVID19 #HumanizeHealthcare #BeTheChange #healthequity #digitaltransformation
UpHealthinc.com
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Lynne Georgopoulos, VP Regulatory Strategy, Certara describes the company's platform to optimize pediatric drug development using biosimulation. With an eye on pediatric diseases, Certara is employing modeling and simulation to determine how a drug developed for adults may be metabolized in children, including neonates. They are also operationalizing clinical trials to be more efficient and potentially less invasive which is important when working with young children.
@certara #biosimulation #RACEforChildren #rarediseases #pediatriconcology
Certara.com
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Lynne Georgopoulos, VP Regulatory Strategy, Certara describes the company's platform to optimize pediatric drug development using biosimulation. With an eye on pediatric diseases, Certara is employing modeling and simulation to determine how a drug developed for adults may be metabolized in children, including neonates. They are also operationalizing clinical trials to be more efficient and potentially less invasive which is important when working with young children.
@certara #biosimulation #RACEforChildren #rarediseases #pediatriconcology
Certara.com
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Dr. Romina Ghassemi, chiropractor and founder of Think Healthy is an expert on posture and is raising awareness about the need to address the health of the full spine along with solutions to address stress and related diseases. Her traditional business has been with the aging population to reduce pain and insure mobility. COVID-19 has increased the need to address the importance of good posture with more people working from home in make-shift arrangements as well as healthcare professionals dealing with long hours and burn-out.
#ThinkHealthy #COVID19 #stress #chiropractor
ThinkHealthy.com
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Dr. Romina Ghassemi, chiropractor and founder of Think Healthy is an expert on posture and is raising awareness about the need to address the health of the full spine along with solutions to address stress and related diseases. Her traditional business has been with the aging population to reduce pain and insure mobility. COVID-19 has increased the need to address the importance of good posture with more people working from home in make-shift arrangements as well as healthcare professionals dealing with long hours and burn-out.
#ThinkHealthy #COVID19 #stress #chiropractor
ThinkHealthy.com
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Mark Mortenson, Chief Science Officer, Clene Nanomedicine is combining physics with biology to develop its bioenergetic nanocatalyst drug candidates that accelerate neurorepair for patients with neurodegenerative disease. Using gold nanocrystals, the company is able to amplify bioenergetic reactions in patients that ultimately drive intracellular biological reactions. The company’s lead candidate, CNM-Au8, is a bioenergetic nanocatalyst powered to support critical intracellular biological reactions that repair and reverse neuronal damage resulting from neurodegenerative disease such as chronic optic neuropathy in patients with multiple sclerosis and the disease progression in patients with ALS.
$CLNN #nanomedicine #nanotherapeutics #neurodegenerativediseases #bioenergetic
Clene.com
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Mark Mortenson, Chief Science Officer, Clene Nanomedicine is combining physics with biology to develop its bioenergetic nanocatalyst drug candidates that accelerate neurorepair for patients with neurodegenerative disease. Using gold nanocrystals, the company is able to amplify bioenergetic reactions in patients that ultimately drive intracellular biological reactions. The company’s lead candidate, CNM-Au8, is a bioenergetic nanocatalyst powered to support critical intracellular biological reactions that repair and reverse neuronal damage resulting from neurodegenerative disease such as chronic optic neuropathy in patients with multiple sclerosis and the disease progression in patients with ALS.
$CLNN #nanomedicine #nanotherapeutics #neurodegenerativediseases #bioenergetic
Clene.com
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Martin Cooper, inventor, entrepreneur, and author of Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity reminds us of the twisted path the mobile phone has taken from the early roots of beepers, pagers, and car phones to the current form allowing for mobile health innovations. As the inventor of the DynaTAC, the first portable mobile phone brought to the market by Motorola, Marty is excited about the work of Dr. Eric Topol a world leader in using mobile devices for promoting good health and disease prevention.
#digitalhealth #healthtech @EricTopol #mobilephones
Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity by Martin Cooper RosettaBooks (January 2021)
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Martin Cooper, inventor, entrepreneur, and author of Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity reminds us of the twisted path the mobile phone has taken from the early roots of beepers, pagers, and car phones to the current form allowing for mobile health innovations. As the inventor of the DynaTAC, the first portable mobile phone brought to the market by Motorola, Marty is excited about the work of Dr. Eric Topol a world leader in using mobile devices for promoting good health and disease prevention.
#digitalhealth #healthtech @EricTopol
Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity by Martin Cooper RosettaBooks (January 2021)
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Walt Ellenberger, Senior Director of Business Development and Strategic Alliance, SAP, sheds light on the new challenges in the healthcare environment as a result of COVID-19 on top of the move from quantity to quality of service and the changes already underway from being a doctor-centric to patient focused delivery approach. One of the biggest COVID related healthcare shifts was from reactively providing care to proactively managing demand. While clinical staff burnout has always been an issue, the pandemic has raised awareness about traumatic related disorders especially of frontline workers.
@SAPHealth #HCLDR #digitalhealth #patientexperience #bigdata #healthtech #COVID19
SAP.com
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Walt Ellenberger, Senior Director of Business Development and Strategic Alliance, SAP, sheds light on the new challenges in the healthcare environment as a result of COVID-19 on top of the move from quantity to quality of service and the changes already underway from being a doctor-centric to patient focused delivery approach. One of the biggest COVID related healthcare shifts was from reactively providing care to proactively managing demand. While clinical staff burnout has always been an issue, the pandemic has raised awareness about traumatic related disorders especially of frontline workers.
@SAPHealth #HCLDR #digitalhealth #patientexperience #bigdata #healthtech #COVID19
SAP.com
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Mary Henschel, Director of Home Health Strategy, PointClickCare brings an understanding of the value of technology to the long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) and home health environments. Looking at the spectrum of required care from short-term rehabilitation, to skilled nursing facilities, to bringing the SNF experience to the patient's home, Mary is focused on improving communication and information flow in traditional care models as well as working on creating new models for home health.
@PointClickCare #homehealth #carecoordination #careathome
PointClickCare.com
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Mary Henschel, Director of Home Health Strategy, PointClickCare brings an understanding of the value of technology to the long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) and home health environments. Looking at the spectrum of required care from short-term rehabilitation, to skilled nursing facilities, to bringing the SNF experience to the patient's home, Mary is focused on improving communication and information flow in traditional care models as well as working on creating new models for home health.
@PointClickCare #homehealth #carecoordination #careathome
PointClickCare.com
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Dr. Nick West, Chief Medical Officer and DVP, Global Medical Affairs, Vascular Division, Abbott reveals the advances over traditional angiograms that Abbott is bringing to the market that change the ability to see inside blood vessels. Using the Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to examine coronary arteries, cardiologists are able to see high resolution intracoronary images to help make better decisions about necessary procedures. Creating a virtual environment using the technology from the Oculus-go googles, Abbott is conducting virtual-reality training allowing VR-training to be incorporated on demand into the busy schedules of clinicians.
@AbbottCardio #OCTimaging #VirtualReality #CardioTwitter
Abbott.com
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Dr. Nick West, Chief Medical Officer and DVP, Global Medical Affairs, Vascular Division, Abbott reveals the advances over traditional angiograms that Abbott is bringing to the market that change the ability to see inside blood vessels. Using the Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to examine coronary arteries, cardiologists are able to see high resolution intracoronary images to help make better decisions about necessary procedures. Creating a virtual environment using the technology from the Oculus-go googles, Abbott is conducting virtual-reality training .allowing VR-training to be incorporated on demand into the busy schedules of clinicians.
@AbbottCardio #OCTimaging #VirtualReality #CardioTwitter
Abbott.com
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James Sapirstein, President and CEO, AzurRx BioPharma, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in therapies for gastrointestinal diseases talks about turning their focus to the virus that causes COVID-19. With a background in drug development for HIV and infectious diseases, James describes their approach to developing an oral agent targeted to COVID-19 long-haulers. AzurRx is working on an indication for COVID-19 of gastrointestinal issues that is showing that the Sars-CoV-2 virus stores itself in the reservoirs inside the human body including the gastrointestinal tract.
@azurrx #AzurRxBioPharma #COVID19 #GIDrugs #GIDiseases #COVIDLongHaulers $AZRX
AzurRx.com
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James Sapirstein, President and CEO, AzurRx BioPharma, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in therapies for gastrointestinal diseases talks about turning their focus to the virus that causes COVID-19. With a background in drug development for HIV and infectious diseases, James describes their approach to developing an oral agent targeted to COVID-19 long-haulers. AzurRx is working on an indication for COVID-19 of gastrointestinal issues that is showing that the Sars-CoV-2 virus stores itself in the reservoirs inside the human body including the gastrointestinal tract.
@azurrx #AzurRxBioPharma #COVID19 #GIDrugs #GIDiseases #COVIDLongHaulers $AZRX
AzurRx.com
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Christophe Bancel, Co-Founder and CEO, TISSIUM is determined to change the way body and tissue repair during surgical procedures is conducted. Rather than the old techniques such as suturing, stapling and screwing that induce trauma to the body, TISSIUM believes that tissue reconstruction should be atraumatic. Inventing a new bio material based on polymer chemistry, TISSIUM is showing dramatic results in peripheral nerve damage repair where surgeons insert the nerve into a tiny chamber made out of the polymer through 3D printing.
@TISSIUMtech #tissuereconstruction #bodyrepair
TISSIUM.com
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Christophe Bancel, Co-Founder and CEO, TISSIUM is determined to change the way body and tissue repair during surgical procedures is conducted. Rather than the old techniques such as suturing, stapling and screwing that induce trauma to the body, TISSIUM believes that tissue reconstruction should be atraumatic. Inventing a new bio material based on polymer chemistry, TISSIUM is showing dramatic results in peripheral nerve damage repair where surgeons insert the nerve into a tiny chamber made out of the polymer through 3D printing.
@TISSIUMtech #tissuereconstruction #bodyrepair
TISSIUM.com
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Joseph Hernandez, Founder and CEO, Blue Water Vaccines identifies the underlying discover about the nature of the influenza virus which is driving the development of a novel universal flu vaccine that would be administered once for lifelong immunization. The economic and health implications of this vaccine include overcoming challenges of manufacturing, storage, allocation, shipping and administering the yearly flu vaccine, all issues highlighted by the recent efforts to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine.
#BlueWaterVaccines #universalfluvaccine #influenza #flu #COVID19
BlueWaterVaccines.com
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Joseph Hernandez, Founder and CEO, Blue Water Vaccines identifies the underlying discover about the nature of the influenza virus which is driving the development of a novel universal flu vaccine that would be administered once for lifelong immunization. The economic and health implications of this vaccine include overcoming challenges of manufacturing, storage, allocation, shipping and administering the yearly flu vaccine, all issues highlighted by the recent efforts to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine.
#BlueWaterVaccines #universalfluvaccine #influenza #flu #COVID19
BlueWaterVaccines.com
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Scott Megaffin, CEO, Adastra Pharmaceuticals has taken on the challenge of developing first-in-class innovative therapeutics for the treatment of cancers with high unmet needs such as high-grade gliomas. He talks about the Phase 1b clinical trial conducted by the National Cancer Institute evaluating zotiraciclib, a potent oral cyclin-dependent kinase 9 inhibitor in combination with temozolomide in patients with recurrent brain cancer and possibly in the future to treat first-line glioma and other forms of glioma as well.
#Glioblastoma #braintumor #drugdevelopment #braincancer #NCI
AdastraRx.com
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Scott Megaffin, CEO, Adastra Pharmaceuticals has taken on the challenge of developing first-in-class innovative therapeutics for the treatment of cancers with high unmet needs such as high-grade gliomas. He talks about the Phase 1b clinical trial conducted by the National Cancer Institute evaluating zotiraciclib, a potent oral cyclin-dependent kinase 9 inhibitor in combination with temozolomide in patients with recurrent brain cancer and possibly in the future to treat first-line glioma and other forms of glioma as well.
#Glioblastoma #braintumor #drugdevelopment #braincancer #NCI
AdastraRx.com
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Eric Rosow, CEO and Co-Founder, Diameter Health shines light on the new ONC Cures Act and the significance of the Patient Access rule that mandates interoperability technology standards for payers. The primary purpose of the interoperability rules is to enable patients to have secure access to their own health data. The rules also establish the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) a standard to facilitate working with clinical data often characterized by inconsistency and presented in a variety of formats.
@diameterhealth #Optuminsight. #healthdata. #FHIR. #HL7
DIameterHealth.com
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Eric Rosow, CEO and Co-Founder, Diameter Health shines light on the new ONC Cures Act and the significance of the Patient Access rule that mandates interoperability technology standards for payers. The primary purpose of the interoperability rules is to enable patients to have secure access to their own health data. The rules also establish the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) a standard to facilitate working with clinical data often characterized by inconsistency and presented in a variety of formats.
@diameterhealth #Optuminsight. #healthdata. #FHIR. #HL7
DIameterHealth.com
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Maina Bhaman, Partner, Capital Funds, Sofinnova Partners has a long record as a successful healthcare investor in oncology, hearing, cardiovascular and cell and gene therapy. She talks about their recent investments in Myricx Pharma, a startup from Imperial College and the Francis Crick Institute in London focused on inhibiting the NMT enzyme to kill MYC-driven cancer cells and Catamaran Bio focusing on CAR-NK cells to kill solid tumors by addressing the tumor microenvironment.
#SofinnovaPartners #Biotech #Funding #CARNK #Cancer
SofinnovaPartners.com
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Maina Bhaman, Partner, Capital Funds, Sofinnova Partners has a long record as a successful healthcare investor in oncology, hearing, cardiovascular and cell and gene therapy. She talks about their recent investments in Myricx Pharma, a startup from Imperial College and the Francis Crick Institute in London focused on inhibiting the NMT enzyme to kill MYC-driven cancer cells and Catamaran Bio focusing on CAR-NK cells to kill solid tumors by addressing the tumor microenvironment.
#SofinnovaPartners #Biotech #Funding #CARNK #Cancer
SofinnovaPartners.com
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Edouard Gasser, CEO, Tilak Healthcare comes from the video gaming industry and is applying his knowledge about engaging mobile game players to an audience of those suffering from eye diseases of aging like AMD, age-related macular disease, or diabetic retinopathy. Using the OdySight game prescribed by an ophthalmologist, patients are tracked to determine changes in vision through a medical module and puzzle game with data going back to the physician and patient with calls to action when necessary.
@TilakHealthcare #TilakHealthcare #OdySight #techforgood #ophthalmology
Tilakhealthcare.com
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Edouard Gasser, CEO, Tilak Healthcare comes from the video gaming industry and is applying his knowledge about engaging mobile game players to an audience of those suffering from eye diseases of aging like AMD, age-related macular disease, or diabetic retinopathy. Using the OdySight game prescribed by an ophthalmologist, patients are tracked to determine changes in vision through a medical module and puzzle game with data going back to the physician and patient with calls to action when necessary.
@TilakHealthcare #TilakHealthcare #OdySight #techforgood #ophthalmology
Tilakhealthcare.com
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Adam Sabloff, CEO and Founder, VirtualHealth works with health plans and care managers to facilitate strong relationships with patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid. The HELIOS® care management platform aggregates data across the healthcare continuum to create a centralized patient record allowing for interventions and preventative actions in the most complex populations of the underserved, underprivileged and elderly people with multiple chronic conditions. COVID-19 has accelerated the use of digital health tools to improve outcomes for patients and reduce costs for healthcare providers.
@VirtualHealth_ #CareManagment #HealthTech #SDOH #healthequity #proactivehealthcare #COVID19
VirtualHealth.com
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Adam Sabloff, CEO and Founder, VirtualHealth works with health plans and care managers to facilitate strong relationships with patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid. The HELIOS® care management platform aggregates data across the healthcare continuum to create a centralized patient record allowing for interventions and preventative actions in the most complex populations of the underserved, underprivileged and elderly people with multiple chronic conditions. COVID-19 has accelerated the use of digital health tools to improve outcomes for patients and reduce costs for healthcare providers.
@VirtualHealth_ #CareManagment #HealthTech #SDOH #healthequity #proactivehealthcare #COVID19
VirtualHealth.com
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Dr. Charles Keller, Scientific Director, Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute is working with a diverse team in this non-profit biotech to make all childhood cancers universally survivable. Filling the preclinical gap, cc-TDI is moving drugs for pediatric brain tumors and muscle cancers into national clinical trials. Charles also sheds light on the incentives and obligations legislated in the Creating Hope Act that insures childhood cancers though rare, are given the same consideration for study as adult cancers.
@cctdilab #childhoodcancer #pediatriccancer #cancer #braintumor
cc-TDI.org
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Dr. Charles Keller, Scientific Director, Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute is working with a diverse team in this non-profit biotech to make all childhood cancers universally survivable. Filling the preclinical gap, cc-TDI is moving drugs for pediatric brain tumors and muscle cancers into national clinical trials. Charles also sheds light on the incentives and obligations legislated in the Creating Hope Act that insures childhood cancers though rare, are given the same consideration for study as adult cancers.
@cctdilab #childhoodcancer #pediatriccancer #cancer #braintumor
cc-TDI.org
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Dr. Teresa Girolami, Founder and CEO, BelRed Internal Medicine and Co-Founder Sound Health Solutions is an internist in Washington State and on the staff at Evergreen Hospital, the first hospital in the US to identify the COVID-19 virus. She points out lessons learned about the use of ventilators, the value of testing, caring for those with mild COVID-19 symptoms, recognizing how obesity puts patients at a significantly higher risk of dying from COVID-19, and keeping safety features in place to continue to limit spreading of disease.
#COVID19 #pandemic #coronavirus
BelRedIM.com
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Dr. Teresa Girolami, Founder and CEO, BelRed Internal Medicine and Co-Founder Sound Health Solutions is an internist in Washington State and on the staff at Evergreen Hospital, the first hospital in the US to identify the COVID-19 virus. She points out lessons learned about the use of ventilators, the value of testing, caring for those with mild COVID-19 symptoms, recognizing how obesity puts patients at a significantly higher risk of dying from COVID-19, and keeping safety features in place to continue to limit spreading of disease.
#COVID19 #pandemic #coronavirus
BelRedIM.com
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Dr. Jonathan Javitt, Founder, Chairman and CEO, NeuroRx talks about drawing on their work developing novel therapeutics for bipolar depression and respiratory disease to focus on a therapy, aviptadil also known as ZYESAMI, for critical COVID-19 especially those with advanced comorbidities. This peptide hormone VIP enters the alveolar type II rare cell in the lung and blocks the replication of the SARs-CoV-2 virus and the production of inflammatory cytokines. Available through the FDA Expanded Access protocol, this drug is showing a nine-fold difference in survival and recovery from respiratory failure compared to patients with best available standard of care.
@neurorxpharma #aviptadil #RLF-100 #ZYESAMI #coronavirus #COVID19 #drugdevelopment #pandemic $NRXP
NeuroRxPharma.com
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Dr. Jonathan Javitt, Founder, Chairman and CEO, NeuroRx talks about drawing on their work developing novel therapeutics for bipolar depression and respiratory disease to focus on a therapy, aviptadil also known as ZYESAMI, for critical COVID-19 especially those with advanced comorbidities. This peptide hormone VIP enters the alveolar type II rare cell in the lung and blocks the replication of the SARs-CoV-2 virus and the production of inflammatory cytokines. Available through the FDA Expanded Access protocol, this drug is showing a nine-fold difference in survival and recovery from respiratory failure compared to patients with best available standard of care.
@neurorxpharma #aviptadil #RLF-100 #ZYESAMI #coronavirus #COVID19 #drugdevelopment #pandemic $NRXP
NeuroRxPharma.com
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Lillian Phelps, Senior Director of Product Management, Availity shines light on the new HHS rules about price transparency for hospitals and health plans. These organizations now need to publish their standard rates as well as their contracted rates along with pricing for bundled services for over 70 specific services. As the nation's largest health information network, Availity works with providers and health plans to enable real-time generation of understandable data for patients and healthcare providers to inform better medical decisions.
@availity #pricetransparency
Availity.com
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Lillian Phelps, Senior Director of Product Management, Availity shines light on the new HHS rules about price transparency for hospitals and health plans. These organizations now need to publish their standard rates as well as their contracted rates along with pricing for bundled services for over 70 specific services. As the nation's largest health information network, Availity works with providers and health plans to enable real-time generation of understandable data for patients and healthcare providers to inform better medical decisions.
@availity #pricetransparency
Availity.com
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Ian Chan, CEO, Abpro is developing a drug which is a COVID-19 neutralizing antibody that has demonstrated strong binding affinity for COVID-19 in a Phase 2/3 global trial. Using the Diverse Immune Platform, an advanced antibody discovery platform, Abpro is drawing on years of successful work developing neutralizing monoclonal antibody therapies for treating traditionally difficult to access cancers, eye disease and autoimmune diseases. In addition to vaccines, COVID-19 therapeutics are essential for keeping the disease from progressing particularly for those most at risk.
@abpro #COVID19 #antibodytherapies #monoclonalantibodies
Abpro.com
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Ian Chan, CEO, Abpro is developing a drug which is a COVID-19 neutralizing antibody that has demonstrated strong binding affinity for COVID-19 in a Phase 2/3 global trial. Using the Diverse Immune Platform, an advanced antibody discovery platform, Abpro is drawing on years of successful work developing neutralizing monoclonal antibody therapies for treating traditionally difficult to access cancers, eye disease and autoimmune diseases. In addition to vaccines, COVID-19 therapeutics are essential for keeping the disease from progressing particularly for those most at risk.
@abpro #COVID19 #antibodytherapies #monoclonalantibodies
Abpro.com
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Hope Johnson, Administrator Perioperative Services, Lehigh Valley Health Network has deployed the Vocera Ease app to facilitate updates for family members about patient progress in surgery. Since they began implementing this solution in 2017, LVNH was prepared for the increased restrictions from COVID-19 on the ability of doctors and nurses to communicate about patient status. In addition to using this app for surgery patients, value is also being seen in situations requiring lengthy procedures or for patients in intensive care.
@lvhn #Vocera #COVID19
LVHN.org
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Hope Johnson, Administrator Perioperative Services, Lehigh Valley Health Network has deployed the Vocera Ease app to facilitate updates for family members about patient progress in surgery. Since they began implementing this solution in 2017, LVNH was prepared for the increased restrictions from COVID-19 on the ability of doctors and nurses to communicate about patient status. In addition to using this app for surgery patients, value is also being seen in situations requiring lengthy procedures or for patients in intensive care.
@lvhn #Vocera #COVID19
LVHN.org
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Joseph Sardano, Founder and CEO, Sensus Healthcare presents compelling data on the effectiveness of a non-surgical alternative to Mohs surgery for treating skin cancer and keloids. Using Superficial Radiation Therapy otherwise known as photon radiotherapy, the Sensus SRT system allows for non-invasive treatments without leaving a scar. In the age of COVID-19, dermatologists are finding this an excellent alternative to surgery particularly to treat those over 65 with pre-existing conditions.
@Sensushealth #skincancer #Keloid #Mohs #SRT #COVID19
Sensushealthcare.com
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Joseph Sardano, Founder and CEO, Sensus Healthcare presents compelling data on the effectiveness of a non-surgical alternative to Mohs surgery for treating skin cancer and keloids. Using Superficial Radiation Therapy otherwise known as photon radiotherapy, the Sensus SRT system allows for non-invasive treatments without leaving a scar. In the age of COVID-19, dermatologists are finding this an excellent alternative to surgery particularly to treat those over 65 with pre-existing conditions.
@Sensushealth #skincancer #Keloid #Mohs #SRT #COVID19
Sensushealthcare.com
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Dr. Saran Saund, Chief Business Officer, Oncotelic Therapeutics is an immuno-oncology company dedicated to developing RNA cancer therapies for melanoma and pancreatic cancer using their nano molecular therapy platform. Using AI they recently screened several of their own molecules and ethnobotanicals for COVID-19. As a result Oncotelic has developed a compound based on an ancient ayurvedic artemisinin-based therapy using the active ingredient from the plant artemisia, also known as sweet wormwood. The tablet formulation of ARTIVeda would allow for efficient distribution to a global audience at a fraction of the cost of current therapies like Remdesivir.
#Oncotelic #COVID19 #COVIDTherapies #ARTIVeda
Oncotelic.com
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Dr. Saran Saund, Chief Business Officer, Oncotelic Therapeutics is an immuno-oncology company dedicated to developing RNA cancer therapies for melanoma and pancreatic cancer using their nano molecular therapy platform. Using AI they recently screened several of their own molecules and ethnobotanicals for COVID-19. As a result Oncotelic has developed a compound based on an ancient ayurvedic artemisinin-based therapy using the active ingredient from the plant artemisia, also known as sweet wormwood. The tablet formulation of ARTIVeda would allow for efficient distribution to a global audience at a fraction of the cost of current therapies like Remdesivir.
#Oncotelic #COVID19 #COVIDTherapies #ARTIVeda
Oncotelic.com
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Alain Moussy, Co-Founder and CEO, AB Science has applied their lead compound Masitinib to target mast cells and macrophage, also known when presenting with CNS as microglia, from the innate immune system to treat Lou Gehrig's disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, tumors, and pancreatic cancer. Now AB Science is turning their attention to fighting the cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients by targeting and blocking mast cells and macrophages which are known to contribute to the inflammation.
#masitinib #PancreaticCancer #COVID19 #Alzheimers
AB-Science.com
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Alain Moussy, Co-Founder and CEO, AB Science has applied their lead compound Masitinib to target mast cells and macrophage, also known when presenting with CNS as microglia, from the innate immune system to treat Lou Gehrig's disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, tumors, and pancreatic cancer. Now AB Science is turning their attention to fighting the cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients by targeting and blocking mast cells and macrophages which are known to contribute to the inflammation.
#masitinib #PancreaticCancer #COVID19 #Alzheimers
AB-Science.com
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Dr. David Solomon, CEO, Pharnext is deploying their innovative drug discovery platform that uses genetic data, big data and AI to determine combinations that are novel and non-obvious to find treatments for rare diseases. With a focus on Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a rare neurologic peripheral neuropathy with no current treatments, Pharnext is seeing their drug PXT3003 stabilize patients with CMT1A, strengthen nerve transduction and also cause significant clinical improvement.
@pharnext #pharnext #drugdiscovery #CMT #PXT3003
Pharnext.com
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Dr. David Solomon, CEO, Pharnext is deploying their innovative drug discovery platform that uses genetic data, big data and AI to determine combinations that are novel and non-obvious to find treatments for rare diseases. With a focus on Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a rare neurologic peripheral neuropathy with no current treatments, Pharnext is seeing their drug PXT3003 stabilize patients with CMT1A, strengthen nerve transduction and also cause significant clinical improvement.
@pharnext #pharnext #drugdiscovery #CMT #PXT3003
Pharnext.com
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Sean Tucker, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Vaxart is on a mission to expand the choices for a COVID-19 vaccine by producing an effective oral vaccine in tablet form which would allow for more efficient distribution and ease of administering particularly to needle-adverse people. Building on experience developing an oral tablet for an influenza vaccine, Vaxart has created a technology to trick the immune system in the intestine to recognize the protein as something that needed to mount immune response and then develop memory so that it works as a vaccine.
#Vaxart #COVIDVaccine #COVIDTabletVaccine #COVIDORalVaccine #PillVaccineAgainstPandemic #warmCOVIDVaccine
Vaxart.com
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Sean Tucker, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Vaxart is on a mission to expand the choices for a COVID-19 vaccine by producing an effective oral vaccine in tablet form which would allow for more efficient distribution and ease of administering particularly to needle-adverse people. Building on experience developing an oral tablet for an influenza vaccine, Vaxart has created a technology to trick the immune system in the intestine to recognize the protein as something that needed to mount immune response and then develop memory so that it works as a vaccine.
#Vaxart #COVIDVaccine #COVIDTabletVaccine #COVIDORalVaccine #PillVaccineAgainstPandemic #warmCOVIDVaccine
Vaxart.com
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Luke Wilson VP Constella Intelligence talks about the digital risk protection space and the increasing attacks on healthcare networks in large part due to opportunities created for cyber criminals by COVID-19. With a lack of awareness about the need for good cyber hygiene and the explosion of new online activities, hospitals and other large healthcare institutions are seeing ransomware and nefarious online activities growing at an alarming rate. This interview was recorded right before 4iQ and ALTO joined to form Constella Intelligence.
@ConstellaIntel #COVID19 #cybercrime #digitalrisk #cyberhygiene
ConstellaIntelligence.com
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Luke Wilson VP Constella Intelligence talks about the digital risk protection space and the increasing attacks on healthcare networks in large part due to opportunities created for cyber criminals by COVID-19. With a lack of awareness about the need for good cyber hygiene and the explosion of new online activities, hospitals and other large healthcare institutions are seeing ransomware and nefarious online activities growing at an alarming rate. This interview was recorded right before 4iQ and ALTO joined to form Constella Intelligence.
@ConstellaIntel #COVID19 #cybercrime #digitalrisk #digitalhygiene
ConstellaIntelligence.com
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Dr. Jim Woody, CEO, 180 Life Sciences is one of four world-renowned scientists that have come together to form 180 LS to focus on treating inflammation, fibrosis and pain. Jim discusses the company's lead clinical program using anti-TNF to treat Dupuytren's contracture, a fibrotic disease of the hand. With a goal of preventing the fibrosis, Jim is drawing on his early invention of the first anti-TNF drug that worked in rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and psoriasis with an eye to preventing frozen shoulder as well.
#fibrosis #inflammation #Dupuytren #antiTNF
180LifeSciences.com
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Dr. Jim Woody, CEO, 180 Life Sciences is one of four world-renowned scientists that have come together to form 180 LS to focus on treating inflammation, fibrosis and pain. Jim discusses the company's lead clinical program using anti-TNF to treat Dupuytren's contracture, a fibrotic disease of the hand. With a goal of preventing the fibrosis, Jim is drawing on his early invention of the first anti-TNF drug that worked in rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and psoriasis with an eye to preventing frozen shoulder as well.
#fibrosis #inflammation #Dupuytren #antiTNF
180LifeSciences.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Robert Cobuzzi, CEO, Diffusion Pharmaceuticals describes the evolution of the thinking about treating hypoxia and low oxygen conditions caused by a variety of diseases and conditions. With modified crocetin derived from the spice saffron harvested from Crocus sativus, Diffusion has come up with a compound Trans-Sodium Crocetinate --TSC--to treat hypoxic conditions related to peripheral artery disease, blockages of peripheral arteries, brain cancer and other types of solid tumors, strokes and respiratory diseases like COVID-19.
@diffusionpharma #crocetinate #TSC #hypoxia #hypoxic #lowoxygen #COVID19
Diffusionpharma.com
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Dr. Robert Cobuzzi, CEO, Diffusion Pharmaceuticals describes the evolution of the thinking about treating hypoxia and low oxygen conditions caused by a variety of diseases and conditions. With modified crocetin derived from the spice saffron harvested from Crocus sativus, Diffusion has come up with a compound Trans-Sodium Crocetinate --TSC--to treat hypoxic conditions related to peripheral artery disease, blockages of peripheral arteries, brain cancer and other types of solid tumors, strokes and respiratory diseases like COVID-19.
@diffusionpharma #crocetinate #TSC #hypoxia #hypoxic #lowoxygen #COVID19
Diffusionpharma.com
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Dr. Joan Kapusnik-Uner, Vice President Clinical Content, First Databank is an expert on drug labeling and is concerned about opioid misuse and overdoses. She talks about the significance of the AMA recommendation that having an opioid reversal medication called Naloxone be available for all patients prescribed opioid pain relievers in order to really reduce opioid deaths particularly in this time of COVID-19. FIrst Databank has recently published an auxiliary label that goes on an opioid prescription that says the patient should ask the pharmacist about getting Naloxone.
@FDB_US #COVID19 #OpioidEpidemic #OpioidCrisis #Opioids #Naloxone #NaloxoneSavesLives #Overdose #OverdoseAware #MedSafety #DrugSafety
FDBHealth.com
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Dr. Joan Kapusnik-Uner, Vice President Clinical Content, First Databank is an expert on drug labeling and is concerned about opioid misuse and overdoses. She talks about the significance of the AMA recommendation that having an opioid reversal medication called Naloxone be available for all patients prescribed opioid pain relievers in order to really reduce opioid deaths particularly in this time of COVID-19. FIrst Databank has recently published an auxiliary label that goes on an opioid prescription that says the patient should ask the pharmacist about getting Naloxone.
@FDB_US #COVID19 #OpioidEpidemic #OpioidCrisis #Opioids #Naloxone #NaloxoneSavesLives #Overdose #OverdoseAware #MedSafety #DrugSafety
FDBHealth.com
Download the transcript here.
Bob Hutchens, President and CEO, StemBioSys talks about their work building a set of tools that are being used around the world by pharmaceutical companies in early-stage drug discovery. CELLvo and CELLvo Matrix Plus are technologies that grow cells from amniotic fluid from natural births and reverse-engineer them into pluripotent stem cells. Overcoming challenges of turning these cells into cardiomyocyte cells researchers are able to more quickly and accurately determine drug safety on mature adult cardiomyocyte. This technology can produce more accurate readings than animal models and more quickly produce cells that are a strong predictor of drug efficacy and drug safety.
@StemBioSys #StemBioSys #CellvoMatrixPlus #DrugToxicityScreening #Stemcells
StemBioSys.com
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Bob Hutchens, President and CEO, StemBioSys talks about their work building a set of tools that are being used around the world by pharmaceutical companies in early-stage drug discovery. CELLvo and CELLvo Matrix Plus are technologies that grow cells from amniotic fluid from natural births and reverse-engineer them into pluripotent stem cells. Overcoming challenges of turning these cells into cardiomyocyte cells researchers are able to more quickly and accurately determine drug safety on mature adult cardiomyocyte. This technology can produce more accurate readings than animal models and more quickly produce cells that are a strong predictor of drug efficacy and drug safety.
@StemBioSys #StemBioSys #CellvoMatrixPlus #DrugToxicityScreening #Stemcells
StemBioSys.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Caroline DeFilippo, practicing internist and associate medical director, CareMount Medical addresses the need for healthcare professionals to have end-of-life conversations with patients sooner than later. With tips for practitioners, Caroline addresses the need to see the whole patient not just the body parts and how palliative care conversations are becoming more necessary with the impact of COVID-19 on seniors as well as those who think that they are never going to die.
@caremountmed #endoflife #hospice #COVID19
Caremountmedical.com
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Dr. Caroline DeFilippo, practicing internist and associate medical director, CareMount Medical addresses the need for healthcare professionals to have end-of-life conversations with patients sooner than later. With tips for practitioners, Caroline addresses the need to see the whole patient not just the body parts and how palliative care conversations are becoming more necessary with the impact of COVID-19 on seniors as well as those who think that they are never going to die.
@caremountmed #endoflife #hospice #COVID19
Caremountmedical.com
Download the transcript here
Cathy Kuhn PharmD, Director of Strategy Consulting, Updox has a deep understanding of the communications needs of pharmacists, healthcare providers, and patients and what issues can be addressed by moving from paper to digital. Updox is creating a secure virtual care online environment to encourage the reduction of reliance on paper forms and faxes, a shift which is gaining more wide-spread acceptance particularly in the age of COVID-19.
@Updox #pharmacists #Pharmacy #PharmacistsProvideCare #digitalhealth #telehealth #COVID19
Updox.com
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Cathy Kuhn PharmD, Director of Strategy Consulting, Updox has a deep understanding of the communications needs of pharmacists, healthcare providers, and patients and what issues can be addressed by moving from paper to digital. Updox is creating a secure virtual care online environment to encourage the reduction of reliance on paper forms and faxes, a shift which is gaining more wide-spread acceptance particularly in the age of COVID-19.
@Updox #pharmacists #Pharmacy #PharmacistsProvideCare #digitalhealth #telehealth #COVID19
Updox.com
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Daniel O'Connor, CEO, OncoSec Immunotherapies describes their intratumoral therapy where the drug is injected directly into tumors instead of a systemic treatment thereby avoiding toxicities while also seeing tumors shrink that are not being directly treated, the abscopal effect. OncoSec is using electroporation to deliver interleukin-12 into cells. IL-12 is considered to be one of the most potent cytokines to fight cancer and their drug TAVO is being tested in conjunction with KEYTRUDA to help patients with melanoma not responding to current treatments.
@oncosec #oncology #cancer #interleukin-12 #IL-12 #melanoma #breastcancer #TAVO #immunotherapy $ONCS
OncoSec.com
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Daniel O'Connor, CEO, OncoSec Immunotherapies describes their intratumoral therapy where the drug is injected directly into tumors instead of a systemic treatment thereby avoiding toxicities while also seeing tumors shrink that are not being directly treated, the abscopal effect. OncoSec is using electroporation to deliver interleukin-12 into cells. IL-12 is considered to be one of the most potent cytokines to fight cancer and their drug TAVO is being tested in conjunction with KEYTRUDA to help patients with melanoma not responding to current treatments.
@oncosec #oncology #cancer #interleukin-12 #IL-12 #melanoma #breastcancer #TAVO #immunotherapy $ONCS
OncoSec.com
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Dr. Bill Audeh, medical oncologist and Chief Medical Officer, Agendia left his 30 year career of medical practice treating breast cancer patients to join Agendia because of the exciting opportunities for precision medicine to treat breast cancer. With technology that allows for genomic testing of the cancer tumors, it can be determined how likely it is that the cancer could spread and identifies what's driving the cancer's growth. With this data, physicians can be informed about the best treatment for each individual patient.
@agendia #precisionmedicine #genomictesting #breastcancer
Agendia.com
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Dr. Bill Audeh, medical oncologist and Chief Medical Officer, Agendia left his 30 year career of medical practice treating breast cancer patients to join Agendia because of the exciting opportunities for precision medicine to treat breast cancer. With technology that allows for genomic testing of the cancer tumors, it can be determined how likely it is that the cancer could spread and identifies what's driving the cancer's growth. With this data, physicians can be informed about the best treatment for each individual patient.
@agendia #precisionmedicine #genomictesting #breastcancer
Agendia.com
Download the transcript here
Catherine Rivier, Co-Founder Sentia Medical is an expert on stressors and the impact physical, emotional, and infectious or inflammatory stressors have on the brain and the body. Her research along with her late husband at the Salk Institute in San Diego led to the discovery of the main stress hormone CRF. Sentia is now developing astressins - compounds that will counter some of the effects of stressor on the body. Their focus is treating irritable bowel syndrome, a key stressor-induced gastrointestinal disease.
#SentiaMedical #IBS #CRF #stressors
SentiaMedical.com
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Catherine Rivier, Co-Founder Sentia Medical is an expert on stressors and the impact physical, emotional, and infectious or inflammatory stressors have on the brain and the body. Her research along with her late husband at the Salk Institute in San Diego led to the discovery of the main stress hormone CRF. Sentia is now developing astressins - compounds that will counter some of the effects of stressor on the body. Their focus is treating irritable bowel syndrome, a key stressor-induced gastrointestinal disease.
#SentiaMedical #IBS #CRF #stressors
SentiaMedical.com
Download the transcript here
Tara Davis Director of Community Health, Rimidi has deep expertise in the development and evaluation of public health prevention programs. She explains why it has become exponentially more difficult to ensure minorities, low income, rural and patients living with chronic conditions to receive even basic care they need as a result of being disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Tara emphasizes the essential role technology must play in enabling data-driven healthcare and how the expanding use of mobile devices is leading to more opportunities to help vulnerable populations who need care.
#COVID19 #digitalhealth #telehealth
Rimidi.com
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Tara Davis Director of Community Health, Rimidi has deep expertise in the development and evaluation of public health prevention programs. She explains why it has become exponentially more difficult to ensure minorities, low income, rural and patients living with chronic conditions to receive even basic care they need as a result of being disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Tara emphasizes the essential role technology must play in enabling data-driven healthcare and how the expanding use of mobile devices is leading to more opportunities to help vulnerable populations who need care.
#COVID19 #digitalhealth #telehealth
Rimidi.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Sheri Prentiss, physician and founder LIVE Today Foundation and Rick Carreon, CEO and President, Impedimed are excited about their partnership to raise awareness about early diagnosis and treatment of lymphedema to prevent it from becoming a chronic condition. The Impedimed device conducts a simple and fast test to detect small fluid shifts of lymphatic fluid building. Results alert doctors about the presence of lymphedema allowing them to stop the progression or reverse it. Working together, Sheri and Rick are educating clinicians and patients about this life changing approach for five and a half million cancer survivors living with lymphedema in the US today.
@LIVETodayDotOrg. @Impedimed #lymphedema #breastcancer
LIVE-today.org
Impedimed.com
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Dr. Sheri Prentiss, physician and founder LIVE Today Foundation and Rick Carreon, CEO and President, Impedimed are excited about their partnership to raise awareness about early diagnosis and treatment of lymphedema to prevent it from becoming a chronic condition. The Impedimed device conducts a simple and fast test to detect small fluid shifts of lymphatic fluid building. Results alert doctors about the presence of lymphedema allowing them to stop the progression or reverse it. Working together, Sheri and Rick are educating clinicians and patients about this life changing approach for five and a half million cancer survivors living with lymphedema in the US today.
@LIVETodayDotOrg. @Impedimed #lymphedema #breastcancer
LIVE-today.org
Impedimed.com
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Christian Pierret, former French Minister of Industry and member of the board of different biotech and MedTech European companies gives a report on the recent in-person and virtual HealthTech Innovation Days held in Paris in October 2020. Now in it's second year, HTID attracted international participants, global pharmaceutical companies, and investors in life sciences, MedTech, biotech and digital technology. COVID-19 is not only a crisis for this community but a challenge to invent and create new R&D to breakthrough the current landscape.
@HTID_Paris #HTID #HealthTechInnovationDays #healthcare #COVID19
HTDI-Paris.com
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Christian Pierret, former French Minister of Industry and member of the board of different biotech and MedTech European companies gives a report on the recent in-person and virtual HealthTech Innovation Days held in Paris in October 2020. Now in it's second year, HTID attracted international participants, global pharmaceutical companies, and investors in life sciences, MedTech, biotech and digital technology. COVID-19 is not only a crisis for this community but a challenge to invent and create new R&D to breakthrough the current landscape.
@HTID_Paris #HTID #HealthTechInnovationDays #healthcare #COVID19
HTDI-Paris.com
Download the transcript here
Greg Hammer MD is a pediatric intensive care physician, pediatric anesthesiologist, Stanford University Medical Center professor, student of Buddhism and author of GAIN Without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Health Care Professionals. Greg talks about the impact of chronic stress and the wide variety of stressors affecting health care workers as well as those isolated at home. He also introduces the four pillars of his GAIN strategy-- gratitude, acceptance, intention and non-judgment-- and how he incorporates these principles into his own life.
@greghammerMD #COVID19
GregHammerMD.com
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Greg Hammer MD is a pediatric intensive care physician, pediatric anesthesiologist, Stanford University Medical Center professor, student of Buddhism and author of GAIN Without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Health Care Professionals. Greg talks about the impact of chronic stress and the wide variety of stressors affecting health care workers as well as those isolated at home. He also introduces the four pillars of his GAIN strategy-- gratitude, acceptance, intention and non-judgment-- and how he incorporates these principles into his own life.
@greghammerMD #COVID19
GregHammerMD.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Kevin de la Roza is a pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist and entrepreneur who has developed the Vocera Ease app that allows for care team members and family to stay in touch during the hospitalization of a patient. Especially in the time of COVID-19 and changes in access to the waiting room, this app is a valuable one-way communications tool so that nurses and doctors can share real-time updates and videos and initiate a video chat with family members to keep them aware of progress while their loved one is in the hospital.
@VoceraEASE @Vocera #COVID19
Vocera.com
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Dr. Kevin de la Roza is a pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist and entrepreneur who has developed the Vocera Ease app that allows for care team members and family to stay in touch during the hospitalization of a patient. Especially in the time of COVID-19 and changes in access to the waiting room, this app is a valuable one-way communications tool so that nurses and doctors can share real-time updates and videos and initiate a video chat with family members to keep them aware of progress while their loved one is in the hospital.
@VoceraEase. @Vocera #COVID19
Vocera.com
Download the transcript here.
Cam Deemer, President, DrFirst shines light on the world of drug pricing and the lack of cost transparency for both doctors and patients. DrFirst is working with Prime Therapeutics, a PBM primarily focused on BlueCross and BlueShield, to integrate their data and provide drug price transparency to now 90% of covered lives. Cost is the number one reason people do not fill a prescription and patients are more likely to abandon an expensive prescription. Doctors and patients need to have an informed conversation about costs of therapy versus benefits of a particular drug.
@DrFirst #pricetransparency #medadherence #medicaladherence
DrFirst.com
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Cam Deemer, President, DrFirst shines light on the world of drug pricing and the lack of cost transparency for both doctors and patients. DrFirst is working with Prime Therapeutics, a PBM primarily focused on BlueCross and BlueShield, to integrate their data and provide drug price transparency to now 90% of covered lives. Cost is the number one reason people do not fill a prescription and patients are more likely to abandon an expensive prescription. Doctors and patients need to have an informed conversation about costs of therapy versus benefits of a particular drug.
@DrFirst #pricetransparency #medadherence #medicaladherence
DrFirst.com
Download the transcript here
Matt Shields was a healthy, competitive athlete and designer of the world's largest telescope when he had a widowmaker heart attack. Saved by the implantation of an Abbott XIENCE stent, Matt was able resume his active life in Australia. During his convalescence, Matt realized that his knowledge about component tracking from his work looking into space could be applied to supply chain management in the healthcare world. Working with Abbott and healthcare professionals in Australia and the US, Matt and team are harnessing the power of Salesforce to deploy an app that provides real-time informatics to dramatically change the way stock is managed including those XIENCE stents.
@epicheartsmatt @AbbottCardio
#XIENCE #DES #DAPT #CardioTwitter #Abbott
EpicHearts.com.au
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Matt Shields was a healthy, competitive athlete and designer of the world's largest telescope when he had a widowmaker heart attack. Saved by the implantation of an Abbott XIENCE stent, Matt was able resume his active life in Australia. During his convalescence, Matt realized that his knowledge about component tracking from his work looking into space could be applied to supply chain management in the healthcare world. Working with Abbott and healthcare professionals in Australia and the US, Matt and team are harnessing the power of Salesforce to deploy an app that provides real-time informatics to dramatically change the way stock is managed including those XIENCE stents.
@epicheartsmatt @AbbottCardio
#XIENCE #DES #DAPT #CardioTwitter #Abbott
EpicHearts.com.au
Download the transcript here
Gabe jones, CEO and Co-Founder Proprio Vision is working with a diverse team to bring a robotic surgical navigation system using mixed reality, AI and immersive tech to the medical field to help make super surgeons. Proprio's technology exponentially improves instrumental accuracy, surgical navigation by creating 3D canvas of a patient's brain and spine. Gabe is a former Wall Street M&A broker who spent time with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation before turning his time to Proprio and the application of transformative Light Field Imaging technology.
@proprio_vision #LightFieldimaging #AI #GatesFoundation
Propriovision.com
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Gabe jones, CEO and Co-Founder Proprio Vision is working with a diverse team to bring a robotic surgical navigation system using mixed reality, AI and immersive tech to the medical field to help make super surgeons. Proprio's technology exponentially improves instrumental accuracy, surgical navigation by creating 3D canvas of a patient's brain and spine. Gabe is a former Wall Street M&A broker who spent time with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation before turning his time to Proprio and the application of transformative Light Field Imaging technology.
@proprio_vision #LightFieldimaging #AI #GatesFoundation
Propriovision.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Scott Sigman, orthopedic surgeon and co-founder OrthoLazer Centers has learned how effective the laser can be from his work on acute injuries, chronic inflammatory conditions and around the time of surgery. As a result, he decided to pursue the idea that laser could be used to treat the cytokine storm in patients suffering from COVID-19 pneumonia. Using an FDA approved laser Scott is pursing early trials with the help of other researchers to test the idea of using laser for COVID-19 to block the formation of the cytokine.
#COVID19 #Pneumonia #LaserTherapy #cytokinestorm
OrthoLazer.com
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Dr. Scott Sigman, orthopedic surgeon and co-founder OrthoLazer Centers has learned how effective the laser can be from his work on acute injuries, chronic inflammatory conditions and around the time of surgery. As a result, he decided to pursue the idea that laser could be used to treat the cytokine storm in patients suffering from COVID-19 pneumonia. Using an FDA approved laser Scott is pursing early trials with the help of other researchers to test the idea of using laser for COVID-19 to block the formation of the cytokine.
#COVID19 #Pneumonia #LaserTherapy #cytokinestorm
OrthoLazer.com
Download the transcript here
Mark Campbell, Vice President, Clinical Solutions RxBenefits on their technology-enabled prescription benefits services being offered to self-funded employer groups who are managing their own benefits. COVID-19 has driven changes in enrollment and demand for services as well changing the number of prescriptions and average cost of a prescription and might have a dramatic impact for employers in 2021.
#pharmaceuticals #PBM #PBO #genericdrugs #COVDI19
RxBenefits.com
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Mark Campbell, Vice President, Clinical Solutions RxBenefits on their technology-enabled prescription benefits services being offered to self-funded employer groups who are managing their own benefits. COVID-19 has driven changes in enrollment and demand for services as well changing the number of prescriptions and average cost of a prescription and might have a dramatic impact for employers in 2021.
#pharmaceuticals #PBM #PBO #genericdrugs #COVDI19
RxBenefits.com
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Nishi Rawat, Senior Vice President, Appriss Health and Co-Founder OpenBeds shines a light on the challenges of finding appropriate substance abuse disorder and mental health treatment especially in light of the additional challenges from COVID-19. Instead of a clinician facing network, development of a consumer friendly interface allows the patient and their caregivers to have access to information to make an informed decision about the right level of treatment.
#StandUpForRecovery #RecoveryMovement #FindHelpwithTC
OpenBeds.net
recovertogether.withgoogle.com
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Dr. Nishi Rawat, Senior Vice President, Appriss Health and Co-Founder OpenBeds shines a light on the challenges of finding appropriate substance abuse disorder and mental health treatment especially in light of the additional challenges from COVID-19. Instead of a clinician facing network, development of a consumer friendly interface allows the patient and their caregivers to have access to information to make an informed decision about the right level of treatment.
#StandUpForRecovery #RecoveryMovement #FindHelpwithTC
OpenBeds.net
recovertogether.withgoogle.com
Download the transcript here
Rahul Aras, CEO, Iterion Therapeutics, describes their lead product Tegavivint, a potent selective inhibitor of nuclear beta-catenin, a high-value oncology target because of its role in cell proliferation, differentiation, immune evasion and other aspects of cancer development. An early clinical study in patients with the rare disease Desmoid tumors has showed that their tumor stabilized and reversed in size. Progress is being driven by recent understanding of the role of TBL1 in driving oncogenic activity of beta-catenin.
#IterionTherapeutics #Tegavivint #cancer #DesmoidTumors #nuclearbetacatenin #TBL1
Iteriontherapeutics.com
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Rahul Aras, CEO, Iterion Therapeutics, describes their lead product Tegavivint, a potent selective inhibitor of nuclear beta-catenin, a high-value oncology target because of its role in cell proliferation, differentiation, immune evasion and other aspects of cancer development. An early clinical study in patients with the rare disease Desmoid tumors has showed that their tumor stabilized and reversed in size. Progress is being driven by recent understanding of the role of TBL1 in driving oncogenic activity of beta-catenin.
#IterionTherapeutics #Tegavivint #cancer #DesmoidTumors #nuclearbetacatenin #TBL1
Iteriontherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here
Ryan McQuaid, CEO and Co-Founder, PlushCare describes the digital longitudinal primary care platform they have developed to promote strong relationships between doctors and patients. With an eye to moving telehealth to the next level, PlushCare is focusing on improving healthcare intelligence, preventative actions and ongoing and chronic conditions instead of the historical transaction-based dispatch model of care. COVID-19 is accelerating the interest in virtual primary care with a significant increase in visits for mental health.
@PlushCare #telehealth #COVID19 #digitalhealth #telemedicine
PlushCare.com
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Ryan McQuaid, CEO and Co-Founder, PlushCare describes the digital longitudinal primary care platform they have developed to promote strong relationships between doctors and patients. With an eye to moving telehealth to the next level, PlushCare is focusing on improving healthcare intelligence, preventative actions and ongoing and chronic conditions instead of the historical transaction-based dispatch model of care. COVID-19 is accelerating the interest in virtual primary care with a significant increase in visits for mental health.
@PlushCare #telehealth #COVID19 #digitalhealth #telemedicine
PlushCare.com
Download the transcript here
Bernard Gilly PhD, CEO and Co-Founder, GenSight Biologics talks about the innovative gene therapy treatments GenSight is developing to fight blinding diseases. Bernard sheds light on treating Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON), a mitochondrial rare disease as well as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Their goal is to change the lives of patients who are either losing their sight or have lost their sight because of a neurodegenerative condition in their retina.
@GenSightBio #blindness #LHON #RP #retinitispigmentosa #augmentedvision
GenSight-Biologics.com
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Bernard Gilly PhD, CEO and Co-Founder, GenSight Biologics talks about the innovative gene therapy treatments GenSight is developing to fight blinding diseases. Bernard sheds light on treating Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON), a mitochondrial rare disease as well as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Their goal is to change the lives of patients who are either losing their sight or have lost their sight because of a neurodegenerative condition in their retina.
@GenSightBio #blindness #LHON #RP #retinitispigmentosa #augmentedvision
GenSight-Biologics.com
Download the transcript here.
Scott McFarland, CEO, IntegriMedical has taken on the challenge of needle phobia and safe and secure disposal of sharp objects in clinics and in the field. Needle free technology is allowing healthcare professionals to quickly administer vaccinations with a greener approach allowing regular biohazard disposal. Working with vaccine and biologic manufacturers this needle free approach may be instrumental in the rapid deployment of a COVID-19 vaccine.
#MedicalDevice #PatientSafety #LifeScience #MedTech #Innovation #COVID19 #vaccines
Integrimedical.com
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Scott McFarland, CEO, IntegriMedical has taken on the challenge of needle phobia and safe and secure disposal of sharp objects in clinics and in the field. Needle-free technology is allowing healthcare professionals to quickly administer vaccinations with a greener approach allowing regular biohazard disposal. Working with vaccine and biologic manufacturers this needle-free approach may be instrumental in the rapid deployment of a COVID-19 vaccine.
#MedicalDevice #PatientSafety #LifeScience #MedTech #Innovation #COVID19 #vaccines
Integrimedical.com
Download the transcript here
Melvie Berkery, Executive Director, St. Marie's Hospice in Detroit talks about the complexities and issues surrounding End of Life Care particularly when healthcare has been upended due to COVID-19. With a mission to help patients and family members make this transition, Melvie explains their philosophy about providing physical, emotional, social and spiritual support. She also reflects on how technology is being embraced by patients and caregivers and the need to address the End of Life Care needs of the African-American population.
#EndofLifeCare #hospice
StMarieshospice.org
Listen to the podcast here.
Melvie Berkery, Executive Director, St. Marie's Hospice in Detroit talks about the complexities and issues surrounding End of Life Care particularly when healthcare has been upended due to COVID-19. With a mission to help patients and family members make this transition, Melvie explains their philosophy about providing physical, emotional, social and spiritual support. She also reflects on how technology is being embraced by patients and caregivers and the need to address the End of Life Care needs of the African-American population.
#EndofLifeCare #hospice
StMarieshospice.org
Download the transcript here.
Jill Sisco, President, Acromegaly Community talks about her experience with acromegaly beginning in her early twenties. She reveals how difficult it is to diagnose this condition, available therapies, and advancements in turning injectable medications into oral treatments. As a patient advocate for those who suffer from this rare disease, Jill has created five closed Facebook groups to support men, women, and family and loved ones who are affected by acromegaly.
#acromegaly #pituitary #raredisease #PatientAdvocate #PatientAdvocacy
Acromegalycommunity.org
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Jill Sisco, President, Acromegaly Community talks about her experience with acromegaly beginning in her early twenties. She reveals how difficult it is to diagnose this condition, available therapies, and advancements in turning injectable medications into oral treatments. As a patient advocate for those who suffer from this rare disease, Jill has created five closed Facebook groups to support men, women, and family and loved ones who are affected by acromegaly.
#acromegaly #pituitary #raredisease #PatientAdvocate #PatientAdvocacy
Acromegalycommunity.org
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Dr. John Poothullil, is an expert on diabetes and cancer as well as an author. He talks about his newest book When Your Child Has Cancer and what we have learned about the causes and possible treatments for cancers that strike children. With an eye to improving the immune system of the child, Dr. John reminds us that precancerous and cancer cells often are found in the body but the immune system is designed to destroy them. He also provides tips for caregivers of children with cancer to empower all to join in the fight for recovery.
#cancer #childhoodcancer #childhoodcancerawareness
DrJohnHealth.com
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Dr. John Poothullil, is an expert on diabetes and cancer as well as an author. He talks about his newest book When Your Child Has Cancer and what we have learned about the causes and possible treatments for cancers that strike children. With an eye to improving the immune system of the child, Dr. John reminds us that precancerous and cancer cells often are found in the body but the immune system is designed to destroy them. He also provides tips for caregivers of children with cancer to empower all to join in the fight for recovery.
#cancer #childhoodcancer #childhoodcancerawareness
DrJohnHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Jim Archetto, Vice President Gaumard Scientific describes the range of simulators available to train healthcare professionals in routine medical procedures as well as rarely seen scenarios. Simulation becomes vital in the education process during these days of COVID-19. Life-like patient simulators are being used to train physicians and nurses to insert an IV, deliver babies, treat newborns, and respond to adult critical care needs. These medical robots are changing the face of healthcare education.
@GaumardinFocus #COVID19 #medicalrobots #medicalsimulators
Gaumard.com
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Jim Archetto, Vice President Gaumard Scientific describes the range of simulators available to train healthcare professionals in routine medical procedures as well as rarely seen scenarios. Simulation becomes vital in the education process during these days of COVID-19. Life-like patient simulators are being used to train physicians and nurses to insert an IV, deliver babies, treat newborns, and respond to adult critical care needs. These medical robots are changing the face of healthcare education.
@GaumardinFocus #COVID19 #medicalrobots #medicalsimulators
Gaumard.com
Download the transcript here.
Craig Fraser, CEO and President, Windtree Therapeutics talks about acute heart failure, the number one reason for hospitalization in people over 65 and the fact that there has been little innovation in trying to improve cardiac function. Developing a novel dual action drug called istaroxime, Windtree is addressing both parts of the cycles of the heart - increasing blood pressure and also lowering the heart rate. After using a diuretic, administration of ista is producing positive data for better function of the heart.
@windtreetx #AHF #HeartFailure #cardiovascular
Windtreetx.com
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Craig Fraser, CEO and President, Windtree Therapeutics talks about acute heart failure, the number one reason for hospitalization in people over 65 and the fact that there has been little innovation in trying to improve cardiac function. Developing a novel dual action drug called istaroxime, Windtree is addressing both parts of the cycles of the heart - increasing blood pressure and also lowering the heart rate. After using a diuretic, administration of ista is producing positive data for better function of the heart.
@windtreetx #AHF #HeartFailure #cardiovascular
Windtreetx.com
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Maryvonne Hiance, President, and Christian Policard, Board Member, HealthTech For Care talk about the upcoming HealthTech Innovation Days taking place virtually as well as in-person in Paris. Attendance is expected to dramatically increase over the participation at the first event held last year, in part driven by the needs revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the ability of international investors, scientists, and pharma and biotech experts to participate online. The key mission is to drive collaboration and funding for the next generation of medical therapies.
@HTID_Paris #HTID #healthtechforcare #innovation #conference
HTID-Paris.com
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Maryvonne Hiance, President, and Christian Policard, Board Member, HealthTech For Care talk about the upcoming HealthTech Innovation Days taking place virtually as well as in-person in Paris. Attendance is expected to dramatically increase over the participation at the first event held last year, in part driven by the needs revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the ability of international investors, scientists, and pharma and biotech experts to participate online. The key mission is to drive collaboration and funding for the next generation of medical therapies.
@HTID_Paris #HTID #healthtechforcare #innovation #conference
HTID-Paris.com
Download the transcript here.
Spiro Rombotis, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals dives into the insights about cell cycle check point control that have led to the development of fadraciclib, a potent orally and intravenously available inhibitor of CDK2 and CDK9 cancer pathways. Drawing on the vision of the company's founding scientist, Professor Sir David Lane, the mission of Cyclacel is to provide cancer patients with a treatment that allows them to live with their cancer and not die from it.
#Cyclacel #fadra #cancer #solidtumors
Cyclacel.com
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Spiro Rombotis, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals dives into the insights about cell cycle check point control that have led to the development of fadraciclib, a potent orally and intravenously available inhibitor of CDK2 and CDK9 cancer pathways. Drawing on the vision of the company's founding scientist, Professor Sir David Lane, the mission of Cyclacel is to provide cancer patients with a treatment that allows them to live with their cancer and not die from it.
#Cyclacel #fadra #cancer #solidtumors
Cyclacel.com
Download the transcript here
Fred Colen, Chief Executive Officer, Neovasc sheds light on the four classes of angina and how the quality of life deteriorates for patients suffering from symptoms. Looking for the fundamental reason for the chronic condition of refractory angina has led Neovasc to address the small blood vessels inside the myocardium, the muscle of the heart. With their interventional cardiology procedure, the implanted device increases the pressure inside these small arteries and improves all symptoms.
@neovasc #RefractoryAngina #angina #heartdisease
Neovasc.com
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Fred Colen, Chief Executive Officer, Neovasc sheds light on the four classes of angina and how the quality of life deteriorates for patients suffering from symptoms. Looking for the fundamental reason for the chronic condition of refractory angina has led Neovasc to address the small blood vessels inside the myocardium, the muscle of the heart. With their interventional cardiology procedure, the implanted device increases the pressure inside these small arteries and improves all symptoms.
@neovasc #RefractoryAngina #angina #heartdisease
Neovasc.com
Download the transcript here
Brian Culley, CEO, Lineage Cell Therapeutics talks about the risk we all face from developing age-related macular degeneration - both wet AMD and dry AMD. While there are treatments for wet AMD, currently there is no interventional approved treatment for dry AMD. Lineage is developing a ground-breaking treatment for dry AMD that includes injecting new retina cells into the back of the eye which then multiply and repair and even reverse the damage to the eye.
@LineageCell #AMD #WetAMD #DryAMD #eyehealth #celltherapy
LineageCell.com
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Brian Culley, CEO, Lineage Cell Therapeutics talks about the risk we all face from developing age-related macular degeneration - both wet AMD and dry AMD. While there are treatments for wet AMD, currently there is no interventional approved treatment for dry AMD. Lineage is developing a ground-breaking treatment for dry AMD that includes injecting new retina cells into the back of the eye which then multiply and repair and even reverse the damage to the eye.
@LineageCell #AMD #WetAMD #DryAMD #eyehealth #celltherapy
LineageCell.com
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Omri Shor, CEO and co-founder, Medisafe talks about the different aspects of medication adherence and challenges faced by patients trying to maintain their drug therapy schedules. With an eye towards personalized medicine, Medisafe strives to build bridges and integrate healthcare services for patients to allow them to better track and manage their health particularly In the age of COVID-19 when patients as well as caregivers are facing new challenges. While being HIPAA and GDPR compliant, Medisafe can also provide valuable information to drug manufacturers and doctors about common barriers to drug adherence.
@medisafeapp #precisionsmedicine #medicationadherence #COVID19
Medisafe.com
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Omri Shor, CEO and co-founder, Medisafe talks about the different aspects of medication adherence and challenges faced by patients trying to maintain their drug therapy schedules. With an eye towards personalized medicine, Medisafe strives to build bridges and integrate healthcare services for patients to allow them to better track and manage their health particularly In the age of COVID-19 when patients as well as caregivers are facing new challenges. While being HIPAA and GDPR compliant, Medisafe can also provide valuable information to drug manufacturers and doctors about common barriers to drug adherence.
@medisafeapp #precisionsmedicine #medicationadherence #COVID19
Medisafe.com
Download the the transcript here.
Raj Kannan, CEO, Chiasma is focused on bringing to market oral formulations to patients that face significant challenges with their existing injectable therapies. Targeting those suffering from the rare disease acromegaly, recent approval of MYCAPSSA brings the first and only oral somatostatin analog to a predominantly injectable dominated market. Their proprietary delivery technology solves the problem of getting peptides through the stomach and delivering the medication to the intestine. Chiasma is excited about the potential of MYCAPSSA being a new standard of pharmacological care.
#acromegaly #raredisease #ChronicDisorder #biotechnews
Chiasma.com
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Raj Kannan, CEO, Chiasma is focused on bringing to market oral formulations to patients that face significant challenges with their existing injectable therapies. Targeting those suffering from the rare disease acromegaly, recent approval of MYCAPSSA brings the first and only oral somatostatin analog to a predominantly injectable dominated market. Their proprietary delivery technology solves the problem of getting peptides through the stomach and delivering the medication to the intestine. Chiasma is excited about the potential of MYCAPSSA being a new standard of pharmacological care.
#acromegaly #raredisease #ChronicDisorder #biotechnews
Chiasma.com
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Marcy Rogers, CEO and Founder, SpineMark is targeting traumatic brain injuries suffered by athletes, kids, seniors and those getting a concussion from an accident or engagement in a military action. Marcy points out this problem is often ignored and currently there are no treatments for concussions except rest. SpineMark is developing a breakthrough drug that is a nanoparticle inhaled through the nose and delivered directly to the brain to start working on reducing inflammation and hopefully prevent secondary concussion syndrome.
#spinemark #concussions #concussion #traumaticbraininjuries
SpineMark.com
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Marcy Rogers, CEO and Founder, SpineMark is targeting traumatic brain injuries suffered by athletes, kids, seniors and those getting a concussion from an accident or engagement in a military action. Marcy points out this problem is often ignored and currently there are no treatments for concussions except rest. SpineMark is developing a breakthrough drug that is a nanoparticle inhaled through the nose and delivered directly to the brain to start working on reducing inflammation and hopefully prevent secondary concussion syndrome.
#spinemark #concussions #concussion #traumaticbraininjuries
SpineMark.com
Download the transcript here.
Harrison Brown Co-Founder and CEO, HeadCheck Health wants to make it easy to better identify, diagnose, manage and clear people who have suffered from a concussion to allow them to resume their regular activities. While sports teams and other organizations have developed a concussion protocol for managing those who suffer from a head injury, most often the rules are not followed. Patients and athletes are often asked if they have suffered a concussion and HeadCheck wants to provide baseline information as well as indicators of those most at risk for suffering another concussion to assist healthcare providers make more informed decisions.
@HeadCheckHealth #concussions #concussion #health #digitalhealth #mhealth
HeadCheckHealth.com
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Harrison Brown Co-Founder and CEO, HeadCheck Health wants to make it easy to better identify, diagnose, manage and clear people who have suffered from a concussion to allow them to resume their regular activities. While sports teams and other organizations have developed a concussion protocol for managing those who suffer from a head injury, most often the rules are not followed. Patients and athletes are often asked if they have suffered a concussion and HeadCheck wants to provide baseline information as well as indicators of those most at risk for suffering another concussion to assist healthcare providers make more informed decisions.
@HeadCheckHealth #concussions #concussion #health #digitalhealth #mhealth
HeadCheckHealth.com
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Dr. Jay Anders, Chief Medical Officer, Medicomp Systems addresses how COVID-19 has revealed weaknesses in the US healthcare system and the need to address the challenges from the lack of interoperability and accurate point-of-care information. With an eye to the use of artificial intelligence and remembering that the smartest computer in an exam room sits between the physician's ears, Jay sees many opportunities for AI to make patient health data actionable.
@medicompsys #COVID19 #AI #DigitalHealth
Medicomp.com
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Dr. Jay Anders, Chief Medical Officer, Medicomp Systems addresses how COVID-19 has revealed weaknesses in the US healthcare system and the need to address the challenges from the lack of interoperability and accurate point-of-care information. With an eye to the use of artificial intelligence and remembering that the smartest computer in an exam room sits between the physician's ears, Jay sees many opportunities for AI to make patient health data actionable.
@medicompsys #COVID19 #AI #DigitalHealth
Medicomp.com
Download the transcript here.
Chris Bradley, CEO and Co-Founder, Loki Therapeutics talks about a new generation of cancer immune therapy that takes advantage of the body's ability to fight antigens it already recognizes from a previous childhood vaccination. The delivery mechanism uses an attenuated bacteria listeria monocytogenes that colonizes the tumor and triggers the body's immune system through naive T cells. Early data is showing effectiveness for advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer and advanced metastatic ovarian cancer with potential for treating other solid tumors.
#LokiTherapeutics #MemoryTCells #immunotherapy #ovariancancer #pancreaticCancer #Cancer
LokiTX.com
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Chris Bradley, CEO and Co-Founder, Loki Therapeutics talks about a new generation of cancer immune therapy that takes advantage of the body's ability to fight antigens it already recognizes from a previous childhood vaccination. The delivery mechanism uses an attenuated bacteria listeria monocytogenes that colonizes the tumor and triggers the body's immune system through naive T cells. Early data is showing effectiveness for advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer and advanced metastatic ovarian cancer with potential for treating other solid tumors.
#LokiTherapeutics #MemoryTCells #immunotherapy #ovariancancer #pancreaticCancer #Cancer
LokiTX.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. David Mayer, CEO, Patient Safety Movement Foundation is an advocate for awareness of preventable medical harm in healthcare and steps that need to be taken to keep both patients and healthcare workers safe. With a focus on transparency to allow patients to make informed decisions, Dave emphasizes the need to address gaps in quality and safety data. To inform a larger audience about World Patient Safety Day September 17, Dave is virtually walking across the country and has attracted an international team to walk and run with him through the use of the app Charity Miles.
@plan4zero @WalkforPTSafety #uniteforsafecare
UniteForSafeCare.org
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Dr. David Mayer, CEO, Patient Safety Movement Foundation is an advocate for awareness of preventable medical harm in healthcare and steps that need to be taken to keep both patients and healthcare workers safe. With a focus on transparency to allow patients to make informed decisions, Dave emphasizes the need to address gaps in quality and safety data. To inform a larger audience about World Patient Safety Day September 17, Dave is virtually walking across the country and has attracted an international team to walk and run with him through the use of the app Charity Miles.
@plan4zero @WalkforPTSafety #uniteforsafecare
UniteForSafeCare.org
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Tim Rodell, Chief Executive Officer, Aethlon Medical brings us up to speed on the work at Aethlon in developing immunotherapeutic technologies using their Hemopurifier to clear a virus as well as exosomes in patients with cancer as blood flows through the nanofibers of the Hemopurifier cartridge. With more recent understanding of the role of exosomes in the spread of cancer, Aethlon is exploring the advantage of adding treatment with Hemopurifier to make more patients respond to Keytruda. With an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) from the FDA, Aethlon is opening clinical trials on treating COVID-19 with Hemopurifier to remove the SARS-CoV-2 COVID virus from the circulation.
@aethlon_medical #immunotherapy #cancer #exosomes #Infectiousdiseases #COVID19
AethlonMedical.com
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Dr. Tim Rodell, Chief Executive Officer, Aethlon Medical brings us up to speed on the work at Aethlon in developing immunotherapeutic technologies using their Hemopurifier to clear a virus as well as exosomes in patients with cancer as blood flows through the nanofibers of the Hemopurifier cartridge. With more recent understanding of the role of exosomes in the spread of cancer, Aethlon is exploring the advantage of adding treatment with Hemopurifier to make more patients respond to Keytruda. With an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) from the FDA, Aethlon is opening clinical trials on treating COVID-19 with Hemopurifier to remove the SARS-CoV-2 COVID virus from the circulation.
@aethlon_medical #immunotherapy #cancer #exosomes #Infectiousdiseases #COVID19
AethlonMedical.com
Download the transcript here.
David Hochman, CEO and Founder, Orchestra BioMed is bringing a partnership model to promote healthcare innovation particularly in the field of drug eluting balloons. Their lead product Virtue Sirolimus Angiofusion Balloon (SAB) is delivering an established therapeutic agent in interventional cardiology during balloon angioplasty without needing a stent permanent implant. This unique drug delivery solution encapsulates the drug in a balloon that has no coating and delivers the drug through micropores in the balloon to deliver the intended dose.
#CoronaryDisease #Angioplasty #InstentRestenosis #MedTech
OrchestraBioMed.com
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David Hochman, CEO and Founder, Orchestra BioMed is bringing a partnership model to promote healthcare innovation particularly in the field of drug eluting balloons. Their lead product Virtue Sirolimus Angiofusion Balloon (SAB) is delivering an established therapeutic agent in interventional cardiology during balloon angioplasty without needing a stent permanent implant. This unique drug delivery solution encapsulates the drug in a balloon that has no coating and delivers the drug through micropores in the balloon to deliver the intended dose.
#CoronaryDisease #Angioplasty #InstentRestenosis #MedTech
OrchestraBioMed.com
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Paula Ragan, CEO and President, X4 Pharmamceuticals is developing innovative approaches to treat patients suffering from rare diseases with an initial focus on WHIM syndrome, a rare disease of the immune system that has a basis in a genetic mutation. X4 is also focused on a rare form of lymphoma called Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, a blood cancer also caused or driven by a gene mutation. The X4 drug mavorixafor is in capsule form and is a lifelong therapy that revs up the immune system by attaching to white blood cells.
#WHIMSyndrome #WHIM #RareGeneticDiseases #mavorixafor #CXCRA #Waldenstrom
X4Pharma.com
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Paula Ragan, CEO and President, X4 Pharmaceuticals is developing innovative approaches to treat patients suffering from rare diseases with an initial focus on WHIM syndrome, a rare disease of the immune system that has a basis in a genetic mutation. X4 is also focused on a rare form of lymphoma called Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, a blood cancer also caused or driven by a gene mutation. The X4 drug mavorixafor is in capsule form and is a lifelong therapy that revs up the immune system by attaching to white blood cells.
#WHIMSyndrome #WHIM #RareGeneticDiseases #mavorixafor #CXCRA #Waldenstrom
X4Pharma.com
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Amit Kumaris President and CEO, Anixa Biosciences, a Silicon Valley based biopharmaceutical company focused on the prevention and treatment of cancer and now developing novel treatments for COVID-19. Using high performance computing, molecular modeling and virtual testing techniques, Anixa is focusing exclusively on the genetics and machinery of the virus and developing a new drug from scratch that targets the operation of the virus itself and can be formulated as a pill. Amit discusses the latest developments in Anixa's COVID-19 drug discovery program and the race underway to develop new therapeutics and vaccines.
@AnixaBio #COVID19 #coronavirus #COVID19Therapeutics
Anixa.com
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Amit Kumaris President and CEO, Anixa Biosciences, a Silicon Valley based biopharmaceutical company focused on the prevention and treatment of cancer and now developing novel treatments for COVID-19. Using high performance computing, molecular modeling and virtual testing techniques, Anixa is focusing exclusively on the genetics and machinery of the virus and developing a new drug from scratch that targets the operation of the virus itself and can be formulated as a pill. Amit discusses the latest developments in Anixa's COVID-19 drug discovery program and the race underway to develop new therapeutics and vaccines.
@AnixaBio #COVID19 #coronavirus #COVID19Therapeutics
Anixa.com
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Dr. Juan Dominguez-Bendala is Director of Stem Cell Development of Translational Research and Research Associate Professor of Surgery at the UHealth Diabetes Research Institute, Miami Miller School of Medicine. Juan talks about their recent research on the regeneration of the human pancreas using an innovative approach to keeping human pancreatic slices alive for a long time compared to current techniques where cells die quickly. This additional time allows researchers to explore beta cell regeneration in human cells to better understand how to treat type 1 diabetes.
@DiabetesResearch #diabetes #type1diabetes #pancreas
DiabetesResearch.org
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Dr. Juan Dominguez-Bendala is Director of Stem Cell Development of Translational Research and Research Associate Professor of Surgery at the UHealth Diabetes Research Institute, Miami Miller School of Medicine. Juan talks about their recent research on the regeneration of the human pancreas using an innovative approach to keeping human pancreatic slices alive for a long time compared to current techniques where cells die quickly. This additional time allows researchers to explore beta cell regeneration in human cells to better understand how to treat type 1 diabetes.
@DiabetesResearch #diabetes #type1diabetes #pancreas
DiabetesResearch.org
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Dr. Cameron Durrant, Chairman and CEO, Humanigen explains the condition called cytokine storm and how their research into GMCSF, the master switch of the cytokine storm, has led to the development of the drug lenzilumab, LENZ, that neutralizes GMCSF. Adding LENZ to Remdesivir has shown promising results in early clinical trials and Humanigen recently announced they have signed an agreement with the National Institutes of Health to test LENZ in a larger trial in the search for a therapeutic for COVID-19.
@humanigen #cytokinestorm #COVID19 #LENZ #Remdesivir #NIH
Humanigen.com
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Dr. Cameron Durrant, Chairman and CEO, Humanigen explains the condition called cytokine storm and how their research into GMCSF, the master switch of the cytokine storm, has led to the development of the drug lenzilumab, LENZ, that neutralizes GMCSF. Adding LENZ to Remdesivir has shown promising results in early clinical trials and Humanigen recently announced they have signed an agreement with the National Institutes of Health to test LENZ in a larger trial in the search for a therapeutic for COVID-19.
@humanigen #cytokinestorm #COVID19 #LENZ #Remdesivir #NIH
Humanigen.com
Download the transcript here
Dietrich Stephan PhD, CEO, NeuBase Therapeutics discusses the history of research into the genetic basis of all diseases, NeuBase's PATrOL™ platform allowing for intelligent design of drugs that engage with a malfunctioning gene, and the company's therapies in development for Huntington's disease and myotonic dystrophy, which Dr. Stephan describes as "heat seeking missiles" because they are so specific and targeted to the broken gene of interest.
@NeuBaseinc #RareDisease #GeneSilencing #HuntingtonsDisease #DM1 $NBSE
NeuBaseTherapeutics.com
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Dietrich Stephan PhD, CEO, NeuBase Therapeutics discusses the history of research into the genetic basis of all diseases, NeuBase's PATrOL™ platform allowing for intelligent design of drugs that engage with a malfunctioning gene, and the company's therapies in development for Huntington's disease and myotonic dystrophy, which Dr. Stephan describes as "heat seeking missiles" because they are so specific and targeted to the broken gene of interest.
@NeuBaseinc #RareDisease #GeneSilencing #HuntingtonsDisease #DM1 $NBSE
NeuBaseTherapeutics.com
Download the transcript here.
John Dimos, CEO, Fountain Therapeutics describes their approach to the treatment of age-associated diseases and points out that there is a big difference between chronological and biological age. In the search for finding a way to intervene in the aging process, Fountain is taking a hypothesis-free approach and with the aid of artificial intelligence, they are looking at cells holistically to find potential therapeutics that make old cells look and act more like young cells.
@FountainTX #aging #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #DrugDiscovery #AgingTherapeutics #DiseasesofAging
FountainTX.com
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John Dimos, CEO, Fountain Therapeutics describes their approach to the treatment of age-associated diseases and points out that there is a big difference between chronological and biological age. In the search for finding a way to intervene in the aging process, Fountain is taking a hypothesis-free approach and with the aid of artificial intelligence, they are looking at cells holistically to find potential therapeutics that make old cells look and act more like young cells.
@FountainTX #aging #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #DrugDiscovery #AgingTherapeutics #DiseasesofAging
FountainTX.com
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Anne Whitaker, CEO, Aerami Therapeutics talks about imatinib their inhaled treatment for the rare disease pulmonary arterial hypertension which could potentially be the first therapy on the market to actually reverse the disease. First approved as a cancer therapy, imatinib stops the progression of the stiffening and thickening of the blood vessels in the lungs and is delivered using a breath-activated, Bluetooth enabled, hand-held nebulizer device delivering the drug centrally in the lung and in the peripheral area.
@aeramiTx #inhaledtherapies #RespiratoryDiseases #PulmonaryArterialHypertension #PAH #imatinib
Aerami.com
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Anne Whitaker, CEO, Aerami Therapeutics talks about imatinib their inhaled treatment for the rare disease pulmonary arterial hypertension which could potentially be the first therapy on the market to actually reverse the disease. First approved as a cancer therapy, imatinib stops the progression of the stiffening and thickening of the blood vessels in the lungs and is delivered using a breath-activated, Bluetooth enabled, hand-held nebulizer device delivering the drug centrally in the lung and in the peripheral area.
@aeramiTx #inhaledtherapies #RespiratoryDiseases #PulmonaryArterialHypertension #PAH #imatinib
Aerami.com
Download the transcript here
Apostolos Stathopoulos, CEO, ERC-Belgium talks about using immunotherapy to treat glioblastoma, the most malignant of all gliomas or brain cancers. ERC's therapy, which stimulates the patient's immune system to mount an immune response against the tumor cells, has demonstrated a clinically meaningful survival benefit with minimal toxicity and unprecedented regressions of this deadly disease.
#ERC #immunotherapy #glioblastoma #cancer
ERC-Immunotherapy.com
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Apostolos Stathopoulos, CEO, ERC-Belgium talks about using immunotherapy to treat glioblastoma, the most malignant of all gliomas or brain cancers. ERC's therapy, which stimulates the patient's immune system to mount an immune response against the tumor cells, has demonstrated a clinically meaningful survival benefit with minimal toxicity and unprecedented regressions of this deadly disease.
#ERC #immunotherapy #glioblastoma #cancer
ERC-Immunotherapy.com
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Ayla Annac, CEO and Co-Founder, InvivoSciences shines light on the next generation of precision medicine and explains how IVS is personalizing the drug development process with patient-derived and gene-edited human samples. The company's Novel Heart Tissue on a chip platform NuHeart™ enables rapid identification of the safety and efficacy profile of a given treatment for a specific patient group. IVS is saving time and money in developing new therapies while increasing the success rate of approval for cardio safe therapies.
#COVID19 #ChronicHeartFailure
InvivoSciences.com
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Ayla Annac, CEO and Co-Founder, InvivoSciences shines light on the next generation of precision medicine and explains how IVS is personalizing the drug development process with patient-derived and gene-edited human samples. The company's Novel Heart Tissue on a chip platform NuHeart™ enables rapid identification of the safety and efficacy profile of a given treatment for a specific patient group. IVS is saving time and money in developing new therapies while increasing the success rate of approval for cardio safe therapies.
#COVID19 #ChronicHeartFailure
InvivoSciences.com
Download the transcript here
Mel Kaspin Blume is a copywriter and storyteller and the author of Screens, Beans and Quarantines, a free downloadable children's book addressing the questions kids have about the impact of COVID-19. With a six year old daughter and three year old son, Mel decided to make up a story to help parents open up the conversation with their kids about the changes in their lives. Mel also shares how her previous work as Head of Copy at Disney Consumer Products informs her ability to get the attention of both kids and parents with relevant short and snappy dialogue.
#COVID19
OnceUponABlume.com
Listen to the podcast here
Mel Kaspin Blume is a copywriter and storyteller and the author of Screens, Beans and Quarantines, a free downloadable children's book addressing the questions kids have about the impact of COVID-19. With a six year old daughter and three year old son, Mel decided to make up a story to help parents open up the conversation with their kids about the changes in their lives. Mel also shares how her previous work as Head of Copy at Disney Consumer Products informs her ability to get the attention of both kids and parents with relevant short and snappy dialogue.
#COVID19
OnceUponABlume.com
Download the transcript here
Pascal Descargues PhD, Founder and CEO, Genoskin talks about bringing the only living injectable human platform to the market to enable clinical testing of drugs for efficacy and toxicity by biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Their standardized platform uses real human skin tissue to test the consequences of drugs administered topically or injected in the skin. Currently Genoskin is also looking at using their platform to test the immunological signature induced by a COVID-19 vaccine candidate to predict if a vaccine can be effective.
@genoskin #genoskin #skin #drugtesting #vaccines #clinicaltesting
Genoskin.com
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Pascal Descargues PhD, Founder and CEO, Genoskin talks about bringing the only living injectable human platform to the market to enable clinical testing of drugs for efficacy and toxicity by biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Their standardized platform uses real human skin tissue to test the consequences of drugs administered topically or injected in the skin. Currently Genoskin is also looking at using their platform to test the immunological signature induced by a COVID-19 vaccine candidate to predict if a vaccine can be effective.
@genoskin #genoskin #skin #drugtesting #vaccines #clinicaltesting
Genoskin.com
Download the transcript here.
Jens Hennecke, Chief Business Officer, SOTIO explains how this biotech company is developing the next generation of immunotherapies with a focus on a new compound called SO-C101 based on the cytokine IL-15, the key cytokine that activates T-cells and NK cells. In clinical trials, this drug, a modified IL-15 does not cause unwanted side effects like similar products to treat solid tumors and is a superagonist with a much better potency to activate memory T-cells, cytotoxic T-cells and NK cells.
#SOTIO #immunotherapies #IL15
SOTIO.com
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Jens Hennecke, Chief Business Officer, SOTIO explains how this biotech company is developing the next generation of immunotherapies with a focus on a new compound called SO-C101 based on the cytokine IL-15, the key cytokine that activates T-cells and NK cells. In clinical trials, this drug, a modified IL-15 does not cause unwanted side effects like similar products to treat solid tumors and is a superagonist with a much better potency to activate memory T-cells, cytotoxic T-cells and NK cells.
#SOTIO #immunotherapies #IL15
SOTIO.com
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Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, Onconova Therapeutics discusses Rigosertib, a drug that has the potential to downregulate the RAS pathway, the most commonly mutated gene in cancer. Rigosertib is a proprietary phase 3 small molecule, currently being evaluated in second-line treatment of patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and refractory higher-risk MDS patients. Also known as pre-leukemia, MDS is a cancer of the bone marrow stem cell and the mission of Onconova is to prolong the lives of those suffering from this disease.
@Onconova_ONTX
#cancer #oncology #RAS #MDS #PreLeukemia #Leukemia $ONTX
Onconova.com
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Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, Onconova Therapeutics discusses Rigosertib, a drug that has the potential to downregulate the RAS pathway, the most commonly mutated gene in cancer. Rigosertib is a proprietary phase 3 small molecule, currently being evaluated in second-line treatment of patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and refractory higher-risk MDS patients. Also known as pre-leukemia, MDS is a cancer of the bone marrow stem cell and the mission of Onconova is to prolong the lives of those suffering from this disease.
@Onconova_ONTX
#cancer #oncology #RAS #MDS #PreLeukemia #Leukemia $ONTX
Onconova.com
Download the transcript here
Elizabeth Jeffords, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer and Eva Czirr, Associate Director, Alkahest talk about how they are applying their expertise in age-related and neurodegenerative and cognitive diseases to treating chronic kidney disease particularly end stage renal disease. With a focus on cognitive impairment related to inefficient dialysis, Alkahest is decoding the protein beta-2 microglobulin to determine if alleviation of a massive overload of the protein can benefit patients.
@alkahestinc #CKD #ESRD #B2M
Alkahest.com
Listen to the podcast here
Elizabeth Jeffords, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer and Eva Czirr, Associate Director, Alkahest talk about how they are applying their expertise in age-related and neurodegenerative and cognitive diseases to treating chronic kidney disease particularly end stage renal disease. With a focus on cognitive impairment related to inefficient dialysis, Alkahest is decoding the protein beta-2 microglobulin to determine if alleviation of a massive overload of the protein can benefit patients.
@alkahestinc #CKD #ESRD #B2M
Alkahest.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Jordan Dubow, Chief Medical Officer, Avadel Pharmaceuticals, intent on improving drug delivery technology, is focusing on narcolepsy, a disease that causes severe excessive sleepiness and in many cases cataplexy. While there seems to be a genetic predisposition for narcolepsy, like many neurological diseases, this rare disease is difficult to diagnose with medicines that treat daytime sleepiness and cataplexy episodes presenting significant limitations. Avadel's once-nightly FT218 is an extended release long acting version of sodium oxybate that treats both features of the disease and allows patients to get a full night sleep without need for middle of the night dosing.
@AvadelPharma #narcolepsy #SleepDisorder #EDS #cataplexy
Avadel.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Jordan Dubow, Chief Medical Officer, Avadel Pharmaceuticals, intent on improving drug delivery technology, is focusing on narcolepsy, a disease that causes severe excessive sleepiness and in many cases cataplexy. While there seems to be a genetic predisposition for narcolepsy, like many neurological diseases, this rare disease is difficult to diagnose with medicines that treat daytime sleepiness and cataplexy episodes presenting significant limitations. Avadel's once-nightly FT218 is an extended release long acting version of sodium oxybate that treats both features of the disease and allows patients to get a full night sleep without need for middle of the night dosing.
@AvadelPharma #narcolepsy #SleepDisorder #EDS #cataplexy
Avadel.com
Download the transcript here.
Mary Millard, Infection Prevention Advocate, became a patient advocate after suffering acute septic shock from a hospital procedure where she was infected with pseudomonas, a very powerful Gram negative bug, a bacteria that remains in her body. Mary talks about why she is intent on educating healthcare providers about the prevention of hospital acquired infections through better procedures and innovative surfaces. She also describes her work speaking at microbiology and infectious diseases conferences to inform pharmaceutical companies and infectious disease doctors about the need to continue development of antibiotics to treat sepsis infections.
@HAISurvivor
#Sepsis #antibioticresistance #infections #superbugs
MaryMillard.org
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Mary Millard, Infection Prevention Advocate, became a patient advocate after suffering acute septic shock from a hospital procedure where she was infected with pseudomonas, a very powerful Gram negative bug, a bacteria that remains in her body. Mary talks about why she is intent on educating healthcare providers about the prevention of hospital acquired infections through better procedures and innovative surfaces. She also describes her work speaking at microbiology and infectious diseases conferences to inform pharmaceutical companies and infectious disease doctors about the need to continue development of antibiotics to treat sepsis infections.
@HAISurvivor
#Sepsis #antibioticresistance #infections #superbugs
MaryMillard.org
Download the transcript here
Michele Dilizia, Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs and Microbiology, Recce Pharmaceuticals discusses why Recce is focused on developing a new class of broad spectrum synthetic polymer-antibiotics that can be used repeatedly against a wide range of bacteria without contributing to antibiotic resistance. Michele also speaks to how Recce® 327, Recce's lead asset, is designed to empower doctors with a near universal treatment that can kill multiple types of bacteria in the blood, even superbugs, that can cause sepsis.
@ReccePharma $RCE
#antibioticresistance #syntheticantibodies #infections #superbugs #sepsis
Recce.com.au
Listen to the podcast here.
Michele Dilizia, Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs and Microbiology, Recce Pharmaceuticals discusses why Recce is focused on developing a new class of broad spectrum synthetic polymer-antibiotics that can be used repeatedly against a wide range of bacteria without contributing to antibiotic resistance. Michele also speaks to how Recce® 327, Recce's lead asset, is designed to empower doctors with a near universal treatment that can kill multiple types of bacteria in the blood, even superbugs, that can cause sepsis.
@ReccePharma
#antibioticresistance #syntheticantibodies #infections #superbugs #sepsis
Recce.com.au
Download the transcript here.
Seth Lederman, MD, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Tonix Pharmaceuticals brings us up to speed on the work at Tonix in developing new COVID-19 vaccines based on their live, synthetic horsepox vector system with a focus on vaccinating the subgroup of healthy people who are not pregnant and have a working immune system. Seth talks about the advantages of using live replicating virus vaccines as well as how immuno-oncology is informing their approach to stimulating T-cells to fight infectious diseases. In addition, new medicines are being developed to treat fibromyalgia and PTSD.
@TonixPharma
#COVID19 #vaccines #PTSD #fibromyalgia #pain
TonixPharma.com
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Seth Lederman, MD, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Tonix Pharmaceuticals brings us up to speed on the work at Tonix in developing new COVID-19 vaccines based on their live, synthetic horsepox vector system with a focus on vaccinating the subgroup of healthy people who are not pregnant and have a working immune system. Seth talks about the advantages of using live replicating virus vaccines as well as how immuno-oncology is informing their approach to stimulating T-cells to fight infectious diseases. In addition, new medicines are being developed to treat fibromyalgia and PTSD.
@TonixPharma
#COVID19 #vaccines #PTSD #fibromyalgia #pain
TonixPharma.com
Download the transcript here
Thierry Abribat, Founder and CEO, Amolyt Pharma is developing a portfolio of products of peptides for rare endocrine and metabolic disorders. Their first project is a peptide hormone that is a parathyroid hormone being developed to treat hypoparathyroidism, a condition most often suffered by middle aged women and likely caused by thyroid surgery when the parathyroid glands are also removed. The alternate treatment being developed will address the current short term and long term burden these patients are facing with conventional therapy by better managing blood calcium, decreasing elimination of calcium through the kidneys and maintaining bone integrity.
@AmolytPharma
#TherapeuticPeptides #RareDiseases #EndocrineDisease #MetabolicDisease #Endocrinology #Hypoparathyroidism #Hypopara
AmolytPharma.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Thierry Abribat, Founder and CEO, Amolyt Pharma is developing a portfolio of products of peptides for rare endocrine and metabolic disorders. Their first project is a peptide hormone that is a parathyroid hormone being developed to treat hypoparathyroidism, a condition most often suffered by middle aged women and likely caused by thyroid surgery when the parathyroid glands are also removed. The alternate treatment being developed will address the current short term and long term burden these patients are facing with conventional therapy by better managing blood calcium, decreasing elimination of calcium through the kidneys and maintaining bone integrity.
@AmolytPharma
#TherapeuticPeptides #RareDiseases #EndocrineDisease #MetabolicDisease #Endocrinology #Hypoparathyroidism #Hypopara
AmolytPharma.com
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Edith Perez, Chief Medical Officer, Bolt Biotherapeutics discusses an innovative new platform for the treatment of patients with cancer. The Boltbody™ platform uses a combination of tumor targeting antibodies and localized stimulation of the immune system, or immune stimulating antibody conjugates, to fight cancer. Bolt's preclinical data show that in addition to killing the tumor, there is an immunological memory which helps to prevent tumors from growing back. Dr. Perez also discusses Bolt's first target HER2-expressing cancers, how the Boltbody™ platform is overcoming challenges treating this cancer and Bolt's current Phase 1 clinical trial.
@BoltBio #HER2 #Cancer #Boltbody
BoltBio.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Edith Perez, Chief Medical Officer, Bolt Biotherapeutics discusses an innovative new platform for the treatment of patients with cancer. The Boltbody™ platform uses a combination of tumor targeting antibodies and localized stimulation of the immune system, or immune stimulating antibody conjugates, to fight cancer. Bolt's preclinical data show that in addition to killing the tumor, there is an immunological memory which helps to prevent tumors from growing back. Dr. Perez also discusses Bolt's first target HER2-expressing cancers, how the Boltbody™ platform is overcoming challenges treating this cancer and Bolt's current Phase 1 clinical trial.
@BoltBio #HER2 #Cancer #Boltbody
BoltBio.com
Download the transcript here.
Mike Clayman, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Flexion Therapeutics brings us up to speed on the work at Flexion developing and commercializing new treatments for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) including osteoarthritis (OA) knee pain. Mike also talks about how the company has been adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic to get their drug Zilretta out to patients in need.
@FlexionInc #musculoskeletaldisorder #OAK #kneepain #osteoarthritisofknee #MSD #COVID19
FlexionTherapeutics.com
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Mike Clayman, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Flexion Therapeutics brings us up to speed on the work at Flexion developing and commercializing new treatments for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) including osteoarthritis (OA) knee pain. Mike also talks about how the company has been adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic to get their drug Zilretta out to patients in need.
@FlexionInc #musculoskeletaldisorder #OAK #kneepain #osteoarthritisofknee #MSD #COVID19
FlexionTherapeutics.com
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Lucia Faccio, Partner for the Sofinnova Telethon Fund at Sofinnova Partners talks about the recent creation of the Sofinnova Telethon Fund in Italy dedicated to early-stage investments in biotechnology companies that are addressing unmet medical needs of those suffering from rare and genetic diseases. Lucia is particularly enthusiastic about a recent investment in Genespire, company with a game changing technology providing a platform that is a lentiviral gene therapy for treatment of metabolic diseases and another gene editing platform with a focus on treating primary immunodeficiencies.
#SofinnovaPartners #Biotech #geneticdiseases #Funding
SofinnovaPartners.com
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Lucia Faccio, Partner for the Sofinnova Telethon Fund at Sofinnova Partners talks about the recent creation of the Sofinnova Telethon Fund in Italy dedicated to early-stage investments in biotechnology companies that are addressing unmet medical needs of those suffering from rare and genetic diseases. Lucia is particularly enthusiastic about a recent investment in Genespire, company with a game changing technology providing a platform that is a lentiviral gene therapy for treatment of metabolic diseases and another gene editing platform with a focus on treating primary immunodeficiencies.
#SofinnovaPartners #Biotech #geneticdiseases #Funding
SofinnovaPartners.com
Download the transcript here
Myron Kowal, Owner and CEO, and Nick Garofoli, Director of Operations and Technology, RCare have developed wireless advanced nurse call systems that have been in use in a wide variety of hospital and assisted care settings. As a response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Myron and Nick describe the work they have done to deploy a rapid response solution to field hospitals allowing them to set up a 40-bed hospital in 15 minutes with the ability to track patients and beds using mobile technology with a user-friendly interface.
@ResponseCare #Nurses #COVID19 #RapidResponse
RCareInc.com
Download the transcript here
Myron Kowal, Owner and CEO, and Nick Garofoli, Director of Operations and Technology, RCare have developed wireless advanced nurse call systems that have been in use in a wide variety of hospital and assisted care settings. As a response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Myron and Nick describe the work they have done to deploy a rapid response solution to field hospitals allowing them to set up a 40-bed hospital in 15 minutes with the ability to track patients and beds using mobile technology with a user-friendly interface.
@ResponseCare #Nurses #COVID19 #RapidResponse
RCareInc.com
Download the transcript here
Arya Massarat, Harvey Mudd College Class of 2020 graduated with Bachelor of Science degree in mathematical and computational biology and is continuing his studies at the University of California San Diego in the PhD program in bioinformatics and system biology. Arya talks about the reasons he has chosen to become a scientist, the value of his internship at the Salk Institute, and the need for an interdisciplinary approach combining math, computer science and biology to manage and make sense of the vast amount of biological data that is being generated.
@HarveyMudd @SalkInstitute @UCSDBiosciences
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Arya Massarat, Harvey Mudd College Class of 2020 graduated with Bachelor of Science degree in mathematical and computational biology and is continuing his studies at the University of California San Diego in the PhD program in bioinformatics and system biology. Arya talks about the reasons he has chosen to become a scientist, the value of his internship at the Salk Institute, and the need for an interdisciplinary approach combining math, computer science and biology to manage and make sense of the vast amount of biological data that is being generated.
@HarveyMudd @SalkInstitute @UCSDBiosciences
Download the transcript here
Rhonda Collins, DNP, RN, FAAN and Chief Nursing Officer, Vocera is deeply concerned about the mental anguish and physical burdens that COVID-19 has placed on nurses and other front-line healthcare workers. She talks about ways in which hospitals can ease the stress by providing contextual information that the healthcare worker can immediately act on, the need to use technology to help mitigate cognitive overload, and ways in which healthcare workers can build their own resilience to the additional challenges that COVID-19 has added to their daily lives.
@RhondaCNO @VoceraComm #cognitiveoverload #COVID19
Vocera.com
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Rhonda Collins, DNP, RN, FAAN and Chief Nursing Officer, Vocera is deeply concerned about the mental anguish and physical burdens that COVID-19 has placed on nurses and other front-line healthcare workers. She talks about ways in which hospitals can ease the stress by providing contextual information that the healthcare worker can immediately act on, the need to use technology to help mitigate cognitive overload, and ways in which healthcare workers can build their own resilience to the additional challenges that COVID-19 has added to their daily lives.
@RhondaCNO @VoceraComm #cognitiveoverload #COVID19
Vocera.com
Download the transcript here
Sonny Hsiao, CEO, President, and Co-Founder Acepodia Biotech discusses how Acepodia is transforming the cell therapy landscape through a flexible and cost-effective platform that can be used to develop potent treatments for a broad range of indications. Sonny describes how they are applying this technology to enhance and energize immune cells with antibodies so that the immune cells can bind to tumor cells and overcome the challenges of treating solid tumors.
@acepodiainc
#CellTherapy #Antibody #AntibodyCellConjugation #CancerTherapy #CancerTreatment #oncology
Acepodia.com
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Sonny Hsiao, CEO, President, and Co-Founder Acepodia Biotech discusses how Acepodia is transforming the cell therapy landscape through a flexible and cost-effective platform that can be used to develop potent treatments for a broad range of indications. Sonny describes how they are applying this technology to enhance and energize immune cells with antibodies so that the immune cells can bind to tumor cells and overcome the challenges of treating solid tumors.
@acepodiainc
#CellTherapy #Antibody #AntibodyCellConjugation #CancerTherapy #CancerTreatment #oncology
Acepodia.com
Download the transcript here
Eddie Sullivan, President, CEO, Co-Founder, SAb Biotherapeutics talks about their innovative technology to generate targeted highly potent immunotherapies on a large scale. SAb is producing fully human polyclonal antibodies targeted to COVID-19 without the need for convalescent plasma blood donations by using genetically engineered cattle which produce the fully human antibodies.
@SABBantibody
#COVID19 #immunotherapies #antibodies
SAbbiotherapeutics.com/covid-19
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Eddie Sullivan, President, CEO, Co-Founder, SAb Biotherapeutics talks about their innovative technology to generate targeted highly potent immunotherapies on a large scale. SAb is producing fully human polyclonal antibodies targeted to COVID-19 without the need for convalescent plasma blood donations by using genetically engineered cattle which produce the fully human antibodies.
@SABBantibody
#COVID19 #immunotherapies #antibodies
SAbbiotherapeutics.com/covid-19
Download the transcript here
Dr. Laurence Cooper, CEO, Ziopharm Oncology points to earlier work in immunotherapy to explain the advances in cancer treatment that revolve around the genetic engineering of cells to control gene expression and manipulation of the DNA of cells such as T-cells to go after cancer cells. The next generation immunotherapy will allow cells and agents to adapt in real time to overcome resistance and empower T-cells to go after the cancer weak spots.
@ziopharm
#cancer #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #oncology
Ziopharm.com
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Dr. Laurence Cooper, CEO, Ziopharm Oncology points to earlier work in immunotherapy to explain the advances in cancer treatment that revolve around the genetic engineering of cells to control gene expression and manipulation of the DNA of cells such as T-cells to go after cancer cells. The next generation immunotherapy will allow cells and agents to adapt in real time to overcome resistance and empower T-cells to go after the cancer weak spots.
@ziopharm
#cancer #CancerResearch #Immunotherapy #oncology
Ziopharm.com
Download the transcript here
Laura Mitchell, CEO, GrandCare has been working for many years to bring digital technology to the aging population and those facilities that are supporting senior housing communities. While remote sensing and telehealth have seen significant growth, COVID-19 has accelerated the need for family members, caregivers, and healthcare professionals to have remote access to seniors as well as the disabled. While necessity is the mother of invention, crisis may be the father of adoption.
@LauraHMitchell @GrandCare #GrandCare #COVID19 #telemedicine #telehealth #DigitalHealth
GrandCare.com
Listen to the podcast here
Laura Mitchell, CEO, GrandCare has been working for many years to bring digital technology to the aging population and those facilities that are supporting senior housing communities. While remote sensing and telehealth have seen significant growth, COVID-19 has accelerated the need for family members, caregivers, and healthcare professionals to have remote access to seniors as well as the disabled. While necessity is the mother of invention, crisis may be the father of adoption.
@LauraHMitchell @GrandCare #GrandCare #COVID19 #telemedicine #telehealth #digitalhealth
GrandCare.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. George Shapiro, Chief Medical Officer, Organicell describes the regenerative medicine challenges to regenerate tissue and avoid surgery in patients. Organicall is using extracellular vesicles and perinatal derived nano-particles from amniotic fluid taken in the operating room from planned C-section US births. Their technology has strong anti-inflammatory benefits and keeps the cytokine release syndrome from a virus or other causes to a minimum. George also describes the origins of the discovery of the power of the nano-particles found in the amniotic fluid.
@OrganicellTM
#organicell #COVID19 #exosome #SARS #biotechnology
Organicell.com
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Dr. George Shapiro, Chief Medical Officer, Organicell describes the regenerative medicine challenges to regenerate tissue and avoid surgery in patients. Organicall is using extracellular vesicles and perinatal derived nano-particles from amniotic fluid taken in the operating room from planned C-section US births. Their technology has strong anti-inflammatory benefits and keeps the cytokine release syndrome from a virus or other causes to a minimum. George also describes the origins of the discovery of the power of the nano-particles found in the amniotic fluid.
@OrganicellTM
#organicell #COVID19 #exosome #SARS #biotechnology
Organicell.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Mark Erlander, CEO, Cardiff Oncology identifies the unmet needs of those suffering from metastatic colorectal cancer who have the oncogene KRAS mutation that hyper-drives the tumor growth. Mark talks about the company's investigational drug, onvansertib that is being evaluated in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Onvansertib is a first-in-class, third-generation, oral and highly-selective inhibitor of PLK1, an enzyme that is over-expressed in most types of cancers. Onvansertib works synergistically in combination with approved chemotherapies and targeted therapeutics.
@CardiffOncology
#onvansertib #cancer #oncology #drugdevelopment #colorectalcancer #KRAS
Cardiffoncology.com
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Dr. Mark Erlander, CEO, Cardiff Oncology identifies the unmet needs of those suffering from metastatic colorectal cancer who have the oncogene KRAS mutation that hyper-drives the tumor growth. Mark talks about the company's investigational drug, onvansertib that is being evaluated in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Onvansertib is a first-in-class, third-generation, oral and highly-selective inhibitor of PLK1, an enzyme that is over-expressed in most types of cancers. Onvansertib works synergistically in combination with approved chemotherapies and targeted therapeutics.
@CardiffOncology
#onvansertib #cancer #oncology #drugdevelopment #colorectalcancer #KRAS
Cardiffoncology.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Rachna Patel moved from a career as an emergency room doctor to become a medical marijuana doctor treating patients with a combination of cannabinoids like CBD and THC. She shares her insights about how the brain processes pain, how cannabinoids can reduce inflammation in the body, and how cannabinoids can impact the emotional processing of the pain. Dr. Patel also talks about the use of cannabis in conjunction with prescription pain medication to better manage symptoms. She is also the author of The CBD Oil Solution.
#cannabis #cannabinoids. #CBD #THC
DocPatels.com
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Dr. Rachna Patel moved from a career as an emergency room doctor to become a medical marijuana doctor treating patients with a combination of cannabinoids like CBD and THC. She shares her insights about how the brain processes pain, how cannabinoids can reduce inflammation in the body, and how cannabinoids can impact the emotional processing of the pain. Dr. Patel also talks about the use of cannabis in conjunction with prescription pain medication to better manage symptoms. She is also the author of The CBD Oil Solution.
#cannabis #cannabinoids. #CBD #THC
DocPatels.com
Download the transcript here
Jeff Stein, President and CEO, Cidara Therapeutics talks about their antifungal platform rezafungin now in Phase 3 clinical development to address the needs of the vulnerable population of patients hospitalized for something else who get a life-threatening fungal infection in the hospital. Jeff also explains their Cloudbreak Antiviral Conjugates platform that is being used to target influenza and COVID-19. Cidara is not developing vaccines or monoclonal antibodies rather long-acting drugs that are virucidal and that recruit the immune system to clean up the infection. He also clearly describes the differences between fungi and viruses.
@CidaraThera @JeffStein
#coronavirus #COVID19 #influenza #fungalinfections #antifungal #antiviral
Cidara.com
Listen to the podcast here
Jeff Stein, President and CEO, Cidara Therapeutics talks about their antifungal platform rezafungin now in Phase 3 clinical development to address the needs of the vulnerable population of patients hospitalized for something else who get a life-threatening fungal infection in the hospital. Jeff also explains their Cloudbreak Antiviral Conjugates platform that is being used to target influenza and COVID-19. Cidara is not developing vaccines or monoclonal antibodies rather long-acting drugs that are virucidal and that recruit the immune system to clean up the infection. He also clearly describes the differences between fungi and viruses.
@CidaraThera @JeffStein
#coronavirus #COVID19 #influenza #fungalinfections #antifungal #antiviral
Cidara.com
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Dr. Barbara Klencke, Chief Development Officer, Sierra Oncology talks about the development of momelotinib for myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer. Momelotinib's unique mechanism of action allows it to address all three key symptoms of myelofibrosis, including the debilitating anemia which can be exacerbated by currently available therapies. The Phase 3 MOMENTUM Clinical Trial evaluating momelotinib for patients with MF is currently recruiting globally. To learn more: momentumtrial.com
#myelofibrosis #JAKInhibitor #ClinicalTrial #RareCancer
SierraOncology.com
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Dr. Barbara Klencke, Chief Development Officer, Sierra Oncology talks about the development of momelotinib for myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer. Momelotinib's unique mechanism of action allows it to address all three key symptoms of myelofibrosis, including the debilitating anemia which can be exacerbated by currently available therapies. The Phase 3 MOMENTUM Clinical Trial evaluating momelotinib for patients with MF is currently recruiting globally. To learn more: momentumtrial.com
#myelofibrosis #JAKInhibitor #ClinicalTrial #RareCancer
SierraOncology.com
Download the transcript here
Robert Ferguson, nutritionist, author, Health Ambassador to StayHealthy, and creator of DietFreeLife talks about the risk factors and pre-existing health inequalities in the African American community that have led to a high rate of infection from COVID-19. Robert is particularly focused on excess body fat and the impact of what we eat on diabetes, cancer and hypertension. He emphasizes the need to be more health conscious and to resist peer pressure, questionable sources of health information and diet fads.
@dietfreelife #COVID19 #StayHealthy #dietfreelife
DietFreeLife.com
Listen to the podcast here
Robert Ferguson, nutritionist, author, Health Ambassador to StayHealthy, and creator of DietFreeLife talks about the risk factors and pre-existing health inequalities in the African American community that have led to a high rate of infection from COVID-19. Robert is particularly focused on excess body fat and the impact of what we eat on diabetes, cancer and hypertension. He emphasizes the need to be more health conscious and to resist peer pressure, questionable sources of health information and diet fads.
@dietfreelife #COVID19 #StayHealthy #dietfreelife
DietFreeLife.com
Download the transcript here
Andreas Boeckl, founder, Dispersa Labs is bringing to the market Sula, breathable cannabis, which is inhaled from measured doses using a device that does not require combustion. This approach to dosing medical cannabis for specific conditions like neurological disorders, stress, anxiety, PTSD, and pain provides much faster relief than edible cannabis and allows for more flexibility for where the cannabis can be administered. Andreas also emphasizes the value of this solution for researchers who are studying the use of cannabinoids.
@breathesula #cannabis #Sula #cannabinoids #PTSD
Breathesula.com
Listen to the podcast here
Andreas Boeckl, founder, Dispersa Labs is bringing to the market Sula, breathable cannabis, which is inhaled from measured doses using a device that does not require combustion. This approach to dosing medical cannabis for specific conditions like neurological disorders, stress, anxiety, PTSD, and pain provides much faster relief than edible cannabis and allows for more flexibility for where the cannabis can be administered. Andreas also emphasizes the value of this solution for researchers who are studying the use of cannabinoids.
@breathesula #cannabis #BreatheSula #PTSD #cannabinoids
Breathesula.com
Download the transcript here
Laurent Levy, CEO, Nanobiotix talks about using nanoparticles and nanotechnology to destroy cancer cells by bringing a physics perspective to drug development. The Nanobiotix technology has demonstrated improvement in the efficacy of radiation therapy for patients with soft tissue sarcoma, with an intention to expand across oncology, reducing the side effects and potentially reducing duration of the radiation.
#nanobiotix #nanomedicine #cancer #radiationtherapy
Nanobiotix.com
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Laurent Levy, CEO, Nanobiotix talks about using nanoparticles and nanotechnology to destroy cancer cells by bringing a physics perspective to drug development. The Nanobiotix technology has demonstrated improvement in the efficacy of radiation therapy for patients with soft tissue sarcoma, with an intention to expand across oncology, reducing the side effects and potentially reducing duration of the radiation.
#nanobiotix #nanomedicine #cancer #radiationtherapy
Nanobiotix.com
Download the transcript here
Nancy Hornberger, EVP, ElectrifAi, worked with IBM and the Watson Group earlier in her career. She brings expertise about data and the health care industry to a company that is using advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to drive profit improvement, increase performance and reduce risk. We talk about the role of ML and Ai in helping to balance system demands by managing healthcare providers and staff and streamlining processes by reducing the mundane work of looking at raw data and images so that clinicians can make better and faster diagnostic decisions.
@ElectrifAi #Ai #ML #COVID19
ElectrifAi.net
Listen to the podcast here
Nancy Hornberger, EVP, ElectrifAi, worked with IBM and the Watson Group earlier in her career. She brings expertise about data and the health care industry to a company that is using advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to drive profit improvement, increase performance and reduce risk. We talk about the role of ML and Ai in helping to balance system demands by managing healthcare providers and staff and streamlining processes by reducing the mundane work of looking at raw data and images so that clinicians can make better and faster diagnostic decisions.
@ElectrifAi #Ai #ML #COVID19
ElectrifAi.net
Download the transcript here
Dr. Werner Rein, Chief Medical Officer, Theranexus shines a light on their evolving understanding of central nervous and neurological system diseases, the discovery of the glial system in the brain and the connection between the glial cells and neurons, and the drive to find compound combinations that can be modulated to treat sleep-wake disorder, cognitive decline and chronic pain.
#CNS #glialcells #neurology
Theranexus.com
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Dr. Werner Rein, Chief Medical Officer, Theranexus shines a light on their evolving understanding of central nervous and neurological system diseases, the discovery of the glial system in the brain and the connection between the glial cells and neurons, and the drive to find compound combinations that can be modulated to treat sleep-wake disorder, cognitive decline and chronic pain.
#CNS #glialcells #neurology
Theranexus.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Andrea Madrigrano is a general surgeon with an expertise in breast cancer at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Dr. Madrigrano shines a light on how hospitals have determined what are non-essential surgeries in these times of the COVID virus, how women are dealing with delayed surgeries related to their breast cancer, alternative therapies that are buying some time for women while they wait for restrictions to lift, and the opportunity for research comparing results from current innovations with more traditional approaches.
@Madrigrano_am
#breastcancer #cancer #COVID19
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Andrea Madrigrano is a general surgeon with an expertise in breast cancer at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Dr. Madrigrano shines a light on how hospitals have determined what are non-essential surgeries in these times of the COVID virus, how women are dealing with delayed surgeries related to their breast cancer, alternative therapies that are buying some time for women while they wait for restrictions to lift, and the opportunity for research comparing results from current innovations with more traditional approaches.
@Madrigrano_am
#breastcancer #cancer #COVID19
Download the transcript here
Daniel Cohen, Founder, Pharnext discusses how the French biopharma company is using its artificial intelligence (AI) driven platform to identify drugs that have already been approved which can be used in combination to fight COVID-19. Dr. Cohen who lead Pharnext as CEO for over a decade has recently left that role to become Chairman of Pharnext's Scientific Advisory Board in order to focus on his true passion--maximizing the potential of Pharnext's Pleotherapy platform.
#pharnext #pleotherapy #COVID19 #drugdiscovery #AI
Pharnext.com
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Daniel Cohen, Founder, Pharnext discusses how the French biopharma company is using its artificial intelligence (AI) driven platform to identify drugs that have already been approved which can be used in combination to fight COVID-19. Dr. Cohen who lead Pharnext as CEO for over a decade has recently left that role to become Chairman of Pharnext's Scientific Advisory Board in order to focus on his true passion--maximizing the potential of Pharnext's Pleotherapy platform.
#pharnext #pleotherapy #COVID19 #drugdiscovery #AI
Pharnext.com
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Maurice Zauderer, CEO, Vaccinex discusses pepinemab, the antibody drug being developed by Vaccinex for treatment of Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease and lung cancer. Maurice also touches on the relationship between neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, and the commonalities that allow for a treatment like pepinemab to have a potential benefit in both therapeutic areas.
@vaccinex $VCNX #immunotherapy #rarediseases #cancer
Vaccinex.com
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Maurice Zauderer, CEO, Vaccinex discusses pepinemab, the antibody drug being developed by Vaccinex for treatment of Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease and lung cancer. Maurice also touches on the relationship between neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, and the commonalities that allow for a treatment like pepinemab to have a potential benefit in both therapeutic areas.
@vaccinex $VCNX #immunotherapy #rarediseases #cancer
Vaccinex.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. John Poothullil is an expert on diabetes and author with many books on the subject of diabetes, cancer, and diet. He shares insights about why type 2 diabetes is considered such a high risk factor for COVID-19 and how the coronavirus attacks the body. He also discusses the challenges of identifying the correct antibodies to fight the disease and provides advice for people with type 2 diabetes as well as everyone else about social distancing, diets and exercise in these stressful times.
#COVID19 #coronavirus #diabetes #type2diabetes
DrJohnOnHealth.com
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Dr. John Poothullil is an expert on diabetes and author with many books on the subject of diabetes, cancer, and diet. He shares insights about why type 2 diabetes is considered such a high risk factor for COVID-19 and how the coronavirus attacks the body. He also discusses the challenges of identifying the correct antibodies to fight the disease and provides advice for people with type 2 diabetes as well as everyone else about social distancing, diets and exercise in these stressful times.
#COVID19 #coronavirus #diabetes #type2diabetes
DrJohnOnHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Este Geraghty, Chief Medical Officer, Esri emphasizes the importance of location in tracking and understanding the spread of COVID-19. Esri is providing geo-spatial visualization tools to world-wide public health organizations, hospitals, and businesses to help them see how the pandemic is impacting them in real time. This GIS data is also enabling some existing predictive models to include a spatial perspective which can reveal new connections and hot-spots needing action.
@Esri_health #Esri #Coronavirus #COVID19 #GIS
Esri.com
coronavirus-resources.esri.com
Seeing what others* can't***
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Este Geraghty, Chief Medical Officer, Esri emphasizes the importance of location in tracking and understanding the spread of COVID-19. Esri is providing geo-spatial visualization tools to world-wide public health organizations, hospitals, and businesses to help them see how the pandemic is impacting them in real time. This GIS data is also enabling some existing predictive models to include a spatial perspective which can reveal new connections and hot-spots needing action.
@Esri_health #Esri #Coronavirus #COVID19 #GIS
Esri.com
coronavirus-resources.esri.com
Seeing what others* can't***
Download the transcript here
Linda Fischer, Vice President of Product Strategy, DrFirst shines the light on the challenges of those who are fighting a relapse of addiction after they have received treatment in a traditional setting for substance abuse. With conditions and restrictions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telemedicine is becoming even more relevant as a way to connect doctors and patients and continue the support that can be drawn from others fighting these mental health issues.
@DrFirst #Coronavirus #COVID19
DrFirst.com
Listen to the podcast here
Linda Fischer, Vice President of Product Strategy, DrFirst shines the light on the challenges of those who are fighting a relapse of addiction after they have received treatment in a traditional setting for substance abuse. With conditions and restrictions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telemedicine is becoming even more relevant as a way to connect doctors and patients and continue the support that can be drawn from others fighting these mental health issues.
@DrFirst #Coronavirus. #COVID19
DrFirst.com
Download the transcript here
Maria Picone, Founder, TREND.community and Shelley Bowen, Founder and Director, Barth Syndrome Foundation explain the challenges doctors face in diagnosing a rare disease like Barth Syndrome, the need to educate doctors about symptoms and warning signs of rare diseases, the need for genetic testing to further inform about the possibilities of a rare disease, and the work that is being done to inform patients and their parents about the resources available to support their efforts to find a treatment.
@TRENDcommunity @BarthSyndrome #rarediseases #BarthSyndrome #GeneticDisease
TREND.community
BarthSyndrome.org
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Maria Picone, Founder, TREND.community and Shelley Bowen, Founder and Director, Barth Syndrome Foundation explain the challenges doctors face in diagnosing a rare disease like Barth Syndrome, the need to educate doctors about symptoms and warning signs of rare diseases, the need for genetic testing to further inform about the possibilities of a rare disease, and the work that is being done to inform patients and their parents about the resources available to support their efforts to find a treatment.
@TRENDcommunity @BarthSyndrome #rarediseases #BarthSyndrome #GeneticDisease
TREND.community
BarthSyndrome.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Gregory Frost, Chairman and CEO, EXUMA Biotech, shares his insights into the tremendous progress made in developing autologous CAR-T therapies, as well as the challenges that remain for cell therapies surrounding safety and accessibility. EXUMA's rapid point of care platform has the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of CAR-T production for both liquid and solid tumors. Greg also describes their logic-gated CAR-T technology which may help avoid potential on-target, off-tumor toxicity in solid tumor malignancies such as gastric, breast and ovarian cancers.
@EXUMABiotech
#EXUMABiotech #CART #CellTherapy #immunotherapy
EXUMABio.com
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Dr. Gregory Frost, Chairman and CEO, EXUMA Biotech, shares his insights into the tremendous progress made in developing autologous CAR-T therapies, as well as the challenges that remain for cell therapies surrounding safety and accessibility. EXUMA's rapid point of care platform has the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of CAR-T production for both liquid and solid tumors. Greg also describes their logic-gated CAR-T technology which may help avoid potential on-target, off-tumor toxicity in solid tumor malignancies such as gastric, breast and ovarian cancers.
@EXUMABiotech
#EXUMABiotech #CART #CellTherapy #immunotherapy
EXUMABio.com
Download the transcript here
Geert Kersten, CEO, Cel-Sci draws on his history working on cancer immunotherapy to talk about the opportunities for treating the COVID-19 virus by generating the right kind of immune response without additional inflammation. Entering into a partnership with the University of Georgia Center for Vaccines and Immunology, Cel-Sci is using their LEAPS technology to apply their knowledge from work done with the US government on H1N1 to see if they can treat patients with coronavirus.
@CelSciCorp
#COVID19 #Coronavirus #Immunotherapy #TCells
Cel-Sci.com
Listen to the podcast here
Geert Kersten, CEO, Cel-Sci draws on his history working on cancer immunotherapy to talk about the opportunities for treating the COVID-19 virus by generating the right kind of immune response without additional inflammation. Entering into a partnership with the University of Georgia Center for Vaccines and Immunology, Cel-Sci is using their LEAPS technology to apply their knowledge from work done with the US government on H1N1 to see if they can treat patients with coronavirus.
@CelSciCorp
#COVID19 #Coronavirus #Immunotherapy #TCells
Cel-Sci.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. William Frey, Senior Research Director, Center for Memory and Aging, HealthPartners Neuroscience Center shares his insights about delivering therapeutic agents to the brain by-passing the blood-brain barrier. Based on an unusual dream he had in 1989, Bill has been on the path to discover and patent a noninvasive intranasal method of delivering drugs to the brain to treat Alzheimer's and other brain disorders. Bill also warns that we should be looking at how COVID-19 is reaching the brain and any long-term impact the virus might have.
Center for Memory and Aging
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Dr. William Frey, Senior Research Director, Center for Memory and Aging, HealthPartners Neuroscience Center shares his insights about delivering therapeutic agents to the brain by-passing the blood-brain barrier. Based on an unusual dream he had in 1989, Bill has been on the path to discover and patent a noninvasive intranasal method of delivering drugs to the brain to treat Alzheimer's and other brain disorders. Bill also warns that we should be looking at how COVID-19 is reaching the brain and any long-term impact the virus might have.
Center for Memory and Aging
Download the transcript here
Sanjeev Luther, President and CEO, Rafael Pharmaceuticals discusses how tumor cell metabolism has recently attracted substantial attention as an area for the development of drugs to treat cancer. Rafael is a company leading the field of cancer metabolism with their drug CPI-613 (devimistat) currently being tested in Phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials for patients with rare cancers, including pancreatic cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and Burkitt's lymphoma.
@RafaelPharma
#RafaelPharma #cancermetabolism #pancreaticcancer #CPI613
RafaelPharma.com
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Sanjeev Luther, President and CEO, Rafael Pharmaceuticals discusses how tumor cell metabolism has recently attracted substantial attention as an area for the development of drugs to treat cancer. Rafael is a company leading the field of cancer metabolism with their drug CPI-613 (devimistat) currently being tested in Phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials for patients with rare cancers, including pancreatic cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and Burkitt's lymphoma.
@RafaelPharma
#RafaelPharma #cancermetabolism #pancreaticcancer #CPI613
RafaelPharma.com
Download the transcript here
David Arthur, CEO, Salarius Pharmaceuticals explains the role of our epigenome and what happens when someone is suffering from an epigenetic illness such as Ewing's sarcoma. A whole series of cancers can trace their cause back to the body misreading genes and that leads to dysregulation of genetic expression. With few options to treat Ewing's sarcoma, a rare orphan pediatric disease, Salarius is testing a new treatment that can provide hope to patients by inhibiting the LSD1 enzyme and effectively addressing the dysregulation.
@salariuspharma
#ewingsarcoma #ewingssarcoma #rarediseases
Salariuspharma.com
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David Arthur, CEO, Salarius Pharmaceuticals explains the role of our epigenome and what happens when someone is suffering from an epigenetic illness such as Ewing's sarcoma. A whole series of cancers can trace their cause back to the body misreading genes and that leads to dysregulation of genetic expression. With few options to treat Ewing's sarcoma, a rare orphan pediatric disease, Salarius is testing a new treatment that can provide hope to patients by inhibiting the LSD1 enzyme and effectively addressing the dysregulation.
@salariuspharma
#ewingsarcoma #ewingssarcoma #rarediseases
Salariuspharma.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Andrea Madrigrano is a general surgeon with an expertise in breast cancer at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. She shares her concern about the high rate of re-excision, the need for a second operation, after a lumpectomy to save the breast with early-stage cancer. Dr. Madrigrano discusses how the Kubtec Mozart 3D tomosynthesis unit allows surgeons to make more informed decisions in near real time cutting re-excision rates in half.
#breastcancer #cancer #KubtecMozart #lumpectomy
@madrigrano_am
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Dr. Andrea Madrigrano is a general surgeon with an expertise in breast cancer at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. She shares her concern about the high rate of re-excision, the need for a second operation, after a lumpectomy to save the breast with early-stage cancer. Dr. Madrigrano discusses how the Kubtec Mozart 3D tomosynthesis unit allows surgeons to make more informed decisions in near real time cutting re-excision rates in half.
#breastcancer #cancer #KubtecMozart #lumpectomy
@madrigrano_am
Download the transcript here
Tim Moran, CEO, Motus GI talks about their focus on endoscopy solutions that improve clinical outcomes for patients facing a critical colonoscopy while in the hospital. The Pure-Vu system developed by Motus GI is a disposable sleeve that fits on the top of their reusable scope to allow irrigation and suction evacuation. This enhancement can save time by eliminating delays in conducting the colonoscopy as well as reducing costs and need for additional time in the hospital.
@Motus_GI
#colonoscopy
MotusGI.com
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Tim Moran, CEO, Motus GI talks about their focus on endoscopy solutions that improve clinical outcomes for patients facing a critical colonoscopy while in the hospital. The Pure-Vu system developed by Motus GI is a disposable sleeve that fits on the top of their reusable scope to allow irrigation and suction evacuation. This enhancement can save time by eliminating delays in conducting the colonoscopy as well as reducing costs and need for additional time in the hospital.
@Motus_GI
#colonoscopy
MotusGI.com
Download the transcript here
Greg Merril, CEO, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics describes useful viruses that host on and kill bacteria acting as nature's natural antibiotic. Phage therapy actually predates antibiotics but recent research has enabled scientist to better identify which phage will have the desired impact on specific bacteria. Greg talks about how modern phage therapy, drawing on a large collection of phage, might become the best way to treat recalcitrant, chronic infections where antibiotics have failed. Greg's father Carl Merril spent the majority of his career at NIH working on basic research on phage beginning in the mid 1960s.
#phagetherapy #phage #antibiotics #viruses
APhage.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Greg Merril, CEO, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics describes useful viruses that host on and kill bacteria acting as nature's natural antibiotic. Phage therapy actually predates antibiotics but recent research has enabled scientist to better identify which phage will have the desired impact on specific bacteria. Greg talks about how modern phage therapy, drawing on a large collection of phage, might become the best way to treat recalcitrant, chronic infections where antibiotics have failed. Greg's father Carl Merril spent the majority of his career at NIH working on basic research on phage beginning in the mid 1960s.
#phagetherapy #phage #antibiotics #viruses
APhage.com
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Hartmut Ehrlich, CEO, Abivax gives an update of the French biotech's phase-2b clinical trial drug candidate ABX464 which has shown impressive results. Dr. Ehrlich discusses how this revolutionary small molecule for oral administration has shown strong anti-inflammatory effects to solve the unmet needs of patients with inflammatory conditions like ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and arthritis by using the body's own immune system to fight the diseases.
@abivax #abivax #inflammation #IBD #rheum
Abivax.com
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Dr. Hartmut Ehrlich, CEO, Abivax gives an update of the French biotech's phase-2b clinical trial drug candidate ABX464 which has shown impressive results. Dr. Ehrlich discusses how this revolutionary small molecule for oral administration has shown strong anti-inflammatory effects to solve the unmet needs of patients with inflammatory conditions like ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and arthritis by using the body's own immune system to fight the diseases.
@abivax #abivax #inflammation #IBD #rheum
Abivax.com
Download the transcript here
Michelle Sexton Naturopathic Doctor is an assistant adjunct professor in the department of anesthesiology in the UCSD health system. She also has a clinical naturopathic and holistic practice working with patients who are looking to understand the underlying cause of disease and to treat the cause rather than the symptom. Drawing on her understanding of the endocannabinoid system, Michelle explains how THC, the primary compound of cannabis, can be effective for treating pain, seizures, and opioid addiction.
#cannabis #endocannabinoid #painmanagement
MSextonND.com
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Michelle Sexton Naturopathic Doctor is an assistant adjunct professor in the department of anesthesiology in the UCSD health system. She also has a clinical naturopathic and holistic practice working with patients who are looking to understand the underlying cause of disease and to treat the cause rather than the symptom. Drawing on her understanding of the endocannabinoid system, Michelle explains how THC, the primary compound of cannabis, can be effective for treating pain, seizures, and opioid addiction.
#cannabis #endocannabinoid #painmanagement
MSextonND.com
Download the transcript here
Jeff Wolf, CEO, Heat Biologics describes the vaccine platform Heat has developed originally for oncology and their licensing agreement with the University of Miami to use the same vaccine approach for NIH-funded studies against Zika, malaria, and HIV against the Coronavirus. Their novel approach is using allogeneic off-the-shelf contained cell based therapy that delivers a potent cell protein called GP96 that secretes antigens to activate T cells to attack the COVID-19 virus.
#Coronavirus. #COVID19
HeatBio.com
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Jeff Wolf, CEO, Heat Biologics describes the vaccine platform Heat has developed originally for oncology and their licensing agreement with the University of Miami to use the same vaccine approach for NIH-funded studies against Zika, malaria, and HIV against the Coronavirus. Their novel approach is using allogeneic off-the-shelf contained cell based therapy that delivers a potent cell protein called GP96 that secretes antigens to activate T cells to attack the virus.
#Coronavirus #COVID19
HeatBio.com
Download the transcript here
Jovan Stevovic, founder, Chino.io provides a window into the challenges of protecting health data, how the European Union is handling security and privacy of healthcare data, and the high standards set by the new GDPR regulation. Jovan also addresses the need by researchers for population health data, why the European insurance companies are mandated to provide insurance to everyone and the need to educate all stakeholders involved in healthcare and health to protect against inside and outside invasion.
@chino_API
Chino.io
Listen to the podcast here.
Jovan Stevovic, founder, Chino.io provides a window into the challenges of protecting health data, how the European Union is handling security and privacy of healthcare data, and the high standards set by the new GDPR regulation. Jovan also addresses the need by researchers for population health data, why the European insurance companies are mandated to provide insurance to everyone and the need to educate all stakeholders involved in healthcare and health to protect against inside and outside invasion.
@chino_API
Chino.io
Download the transcript here
Monique Elwell, COO and Co-Founder, Storyvine shares insights about how big and small pharma, medical device developers, healthcare providers, health insurance companies and non-profits are using this guided video tool to capture authentic stories from patients which can then be used in telling a broader view of personal experiences. Monique talks about how patients are being encouraged to share intimate, vulnerable moments to help educate researchers as well as those facing similar health challenges.
@StoryvineInc
Storyvine.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Monique Elwell, COO and Co-Founder, Storyvine shares insights about how big and small pharma, medical device developers, healthcare providers, health insurance companies and non-profits are using this guided video tool to capture authentic stories from patients which can then be used in telling a broader view of personal experiences. Monique talks about how patients are being encouraged to share intimate, vulnerable moments to help educate researchers as well as those facing similar health challenges.
@StoryvineInc
Storyvine.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Yair Saperstein, co-founder and CEO, avoMD is also chief resident in the department of medicine in the New York City Health and Hospital system. Yair talks about the innovative online tool avoMD is developing to provide relevant portions of guidelines so that doctors can get specific help with the clinical scenario at hand. Yair also explains they are creating an ecosystem that is editable by doctors and providing a way for best practices in hospitals to be more accessible with the goal of improving success at point of care.
@avocadoDOC
avoMD.io
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Dr. Yair Saperstein, co-founder and CEO, avoMD is also chief resident in the department of medicine in the New York City Health and Hospital system. Yair talks about the innovative online tool avoMD is developing to provide relevant portions of guidelines so that doctors can get specific help with the clinical scenario at hand. Yair also explains they are creating an ecosystem that is editable by doctors and providing a way for best practices in hospitals to be more accessible with the goal of improving success at point of care.
@avocadoDOC
avoMD.io
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Gil Van Bokkelen, founder and CEO, Athersys a clinical stage biotech company, talks about developing cell therapies and regenerative medicine as alternatives to conventional standards of medical intervention and treatment using their MultiStem cell therapy platform. Gil explains how cell therapies work by providing multi-dimensional solutions and regenerative medicine therapies differ from traditional pharmaceuticals or biologics designed to do one very specific thing. He also talks about how MultiStem has shown dramatic impact on stroke victims and on acute respiratory distress syndrome and inflammation in the lungs and their related work with lung transplant centers.
@Athersys #regenerativemedicine #ARDS
Athersys.com
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Dr. Gil Van Bokkelen, founder and CEO, Athersys a clinical stage biotech company, talks about developing cell therapies and regenerative medicine as alternatives to conventional standards of medical intervention and treatment using their MultiStem cell therapy platform. Gil explains how cell therapies work by providing multi-dimensional solutions and how regenerative medicine therapies differ from traditional pharmaceuticals or biologics designed to do one very specific thing. He also talks about how MultiStem has shown dramatic impact on stroke victims and on acute respiratory distress syndrome and inflammation in the lungs and their related work with lung transplant centers.
@Athersys #regenerativemedicine #ARDS
Athersys.com
Download the transcript here
Jack Stover, CEO, Interpace Biosciences describes the changing landscape of drug development with the introduction of genetic data, creation of advanced diagnostic tests for pancreatic, thyroid, lung and esophageal cancers, and the resulting implications for treatment plans. He also explains their work with big pharma companies in the area of immuno-oncology to determine potential partnerships with other drug candidates.
@InterpaceBIO #IDXG #immunooncology #cancer
Interpace.com
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Jack Stover, CEO, Interpace Biosciences describes the changing landscape of drug development with the introduction of genetic data, creation of advanced diagnostic tests for pancreatic, thyroid, lung and esophageal cancers, and the resulting implications for treatment plans. He also explains their work with big pharma companies in the area of immuno-oncology to determine potential partnerships with other drug candidates.
@InterpaceBIO #IDXG #immunooncology #cancer
Interpace.com
Download the transcript here
David Johnson, CEO and co-founder, GigaGen discusses the company's recombinant intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy in development to treat patients with primary immune deficiencies and its potential to overcome limitations of current IVIG plasma-based therapies. David describes how GigaGen's recombinant IVIG is not tied to plasma supplies and has the potential to provide a high purity, consistent and ultimately safer treatment alternative for patients in need.
#primaryimmunedeficiency #IVIG #antibody #PolyclonalAntibodies
@Gigageninc
GigaGen.com
Listen to the podcast here
Page 1 of the Interview with David Johnson GigaGen
Karen Jagoda:
Welcome to the EmpoweredPatientPodcast.com show. I'm Karen Jagoda, and my guest today is David Johnson. He's the CEO and co-founder of GigaGen, that's G-I-G-A G-E-N.com. And Dave is an inventor, he's an entrepreneur and is an expert in single cell immunology. And we're talking today about IVIG therapies for patients with primary immune deficiencies. And Dave, I want to welcome you to the show today. I really appreciate you taking a few minutes.
David Johnson:
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Karen Jagoda:
So let's start off by just explaining what IVIG is and how medications are made up that are in this form.
David Johnson:
IVIG currently is derived from plasma of human donors. So what happens is thousands of plasma donors go into collection facilities and the facilities collect plasma from these individuals, and then pools of these donors' plasma get subjected to a manufacturing process where antibodies are extracted from the plasma. And believe it or not, this is actually a drug that's given to patients who have immune deficiencies. And what that means is that these are people who can't make enough antibody or don't make the right kinds of antibodies and therefore need these supplements from the plasma of these donors.
Karen Jagoda:
And so why are these therapies so important? People can't get the same benefit from taking some kind of pill?
David Johnson:
No. Well, if you think about it, this is a chronic disease. And so people have this for their entire lives. Most people get diagnosed in their 20s or maybe 30s. And the only other real alternative is to take antibiotics, for example Cipro, for the rest of your life. And as you could imagine, if you take Cipro, it's fairly toxic, and also eventually you get resistant bacteria, actually pretty quickly. So doctors really have no other choice right now but to use these IVIG therapies.
Karen Jagoda:
So part of the reason it's interesting to talk to you is not only the work that you're doing to change the world of IVIG, but also there's a shortage of traditional IVIG therapies across the country. So first, tell us a little bit about why there's a shortage and then how your therapy is aiming to overcome those kind of shortages in the future.
David Johnson:
Yeah, as you can imagine, people are busy and it can be difficult to get donors to go into the collection facilities to donate plasma. You get some financial reimbursement for going and donating, but it can be really difficult to collect enough plasma to create enough antibody that would meet the demand. Another issue is that outside of the US, it can be difficult to collect plasma sometimes because of infectious disease outbreaks. For example, China has difficulty collecting plasma. You can imagine with the coronavirus outbreak, it's going to be even more difficult. Then some places in Europe you can't give people any compensation for plasma donations, so that makes it harder to collect. So all around, there's growing demand for IVIG products, but not really growing plasma supply. So it's a big problem that, somehow it needs to be solved one way or another.
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David Johnson, CEO and co-founder, GigaGen discusses the company's recombinant intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy in development to treat patients with primary immune deficiencies and its potential to overcome limitations of current IVIG plasma-based therapies. David describes how GigaGen's recombinant IVIG is not tied to plasma supplies and has the potential to provide a high purity, consistent and ultimately safer treatment alternative for patients in need.
#primaryimmunedeficiency #IVIG #antibody #PolyclonalAntibodies
@GigaGeninc
GigaGen.com
Download the entire transcript here
Page 1 of the Interview with David Johnson GigaGen
Karen Jagoda:
Welcome to the EmpoweredPatientPodcast.com show. I'm Karen Jagoda, and my guest today is David Johnson. He's the CEO and co-founder of GigaGen, that's G-I-G-A G-E-N.com. And Dave is an inventor, he's an entrepreneur and is an expert in single cell immunology. And we're talking today about IVIG therapies for patients with primary immune deficiencies. And Dave, I want to welcome you to the show today. I really appreciate you taking a few minutes.
David Johnson:
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Karen Jagoda:
So let's start off by just explaining what IVIG is and how medications are made up that are in this form.
David Johnson:
IVIG currently is derived from plasma of human donors. So what happens is thousands of plasma donors go into collection facilities and the facilities collect plasma from these individuals, and then pools of these donors' plasma get subjected to a manufacturing process where antibodies are extracted from the plasma. And believe it or not, this is actually a drug that's given to patients who have immune deficiencies. And what that means is that these are people who can't make enough antibody or don't make the right kinds of antibodies and therefore need these supplements from the plasma of these donors.
Karen Jagoda:
And so why are these therapies so important? People can't get the same benefit from taking some kind of pill?
David Johnson:
No. Well, if you think about it, this is a chronic disease. And so people have this for their entire lives. Most people get diagnosed in their 20s or maybe 30s. And the only other real alternative is to take antibiotics, for example Cipro, for the rest of your life. And as you could imagine, if you take Cipro, it's fairly toxic, and also eventually you get resistant bacteria, actually pretty quickly. So doctors really have no other choice right now but to use these IVIG therapies.
Karen Jagoda:
So part of the reason it's interesting to talk to you is not only the work that you're doing to change the world of IVIG, but also there's a shortage of traditional IVIG therapies across the country. So first, tell us a little bit about why there's a shortage and then how your therapy is aiming to overcome those kind of shortages in the future.
David Johnson:
Yeah, as you can imagine, people are busy and it can be difficult to get donors to go into the collection facilities to donate plasma. You get some financial reimbursement for going and donating, but it can be really difficult to collect enough plasma to create enough antibody that would meet the demand. Another issue is that outside of the US, it can be difficult to collect plasma sometimes because of infectious disease outbreaks. For example, China has difficulty collecting plasma. You can imagine with the coronavirus outbreak, it's going to be even more difficult. Then some places in Europe you can't give people any compensation for plasma donations, so that makes it harder to collect. So all around, there's growing demand for IVIG products, but not really growing plasma supply. So it's a big problem that, somehow it needs to be solved one way or another.
Download the entire transcript.
Dan Passeri, CEO, Cue Biopharma discusses their proprietary Immuno-STAT(TM) platform. Cue Biopharma is engineering a novel class of injectable biologics to selectively engage and modulate targeted T cells within the body to transform the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The platform is designed to harness the body's intrinsic immune system response without the need for ex vivo manipulation. Cue is currently conducting a Phase 1 study in HPV16-driven head and neck cancer and partnering with Merck to develop treatments for autoimmune diseases.
#immunooncology #HNSCC. #TCells
@CueBiopharma
CueBiopharma.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Download the entire transcript from this episode page
TRANSCRIPT Page 1:
Karen Jagoda:
Welcome to the empoweredpatientpodcast.com show. I'm Karen Jagoda, and my guest today is Dan Passeri. He's the CEO of Cue Biopharma. That's cuebiopharma.com. And I recently talked with Anish Suri, who is the Chief Scientific Officer at Cue, and I thought it was such an interesting story that I thought it was also a good idea to get the CEO of the company on the show to give us a little bit of an update and perhaps a little bit more in the way of details. So welcome to the show today, Dan.
Dan Passeri:
Thanks, Karen. Appreciate it.
Karen Jagoda:
So let's just talk a little bit about where Cue fits into the landscape of immuno-oncology companies.
Dan Passeri:
Sure. Immuno-oncology is obviously a very broad, encompassing category, and what it really covers is any approach that is meant to stimulate the immune system in some manner, that is meant to have clinical activity against cancer. And there's a myriad of approaches, but ultimately, no matter what approach is being taken, the objective is to stimulate the effective components of the immune system that can identify and attack cancer.
Dan Passeri:
What we do is actually quite distinctive in that the majority of approaches have tried to stimulate T-cells in various ways by taking them out of the body, for instance. And we've all heard of all these various cell therapy approaches, CAR T being the best publicized and characterized. And that's where you're taking T-cells out of the patient, you're genetically altering them to have a particular receptor that recognizes cancer, and infusing them back in.
Dan Passeri:
There are also cell therapy approaches where they take the cells out and use particular proteins that are represented on cancer, and then those T-cells will recognize that protein, and they use something called IL-2, Interleukin-2. It's an approved drug called proleukin, and they'll stimulate the T-cells, and then they infuse them back into the body.
Dan Passeri:
What we're doing is quite a different approach, and we believe it's a transformative approach in that we are using a biologic engineering category to stimulate T-cells directly in the patient's body. So it basically removes the need for having to extract T-cells out of the patient and the cumbersome manipulations, and we believe what we'll have is a potential breakthrough in the space where we can use our biologic to engage the desired T-cells. Now, that is only those T-cells that will recognize the protein on the cancer, activate those T-cells, and make many copies of them so that they then will identify the tumor cells, attack them, and destroy them. So that's the broad overview of what we're doing.
Karen Jagoda:
So when I heard you describe what you're up to, it sounded like there were lots of advantages. One, a time factor. You don't have to take the cells out and put them back in the body after a certain period of time. But also it sounds like you might be able to reduce the unintended consequences or the side effects. Can you say a little bit about what goes on when you approach the cancer in this way?
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Dan Passeri, CEO, Cue Biopharma discusses their proprietary Immuno-STAT(TM) platform. Cue Biopharma is engineering a novel class of injectable biologics to selectively engage and modulate targeted T cells within the body to transform the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The platform is designed to harness the body's intrinsic immune system response without the need for ex vivo manipulation. Cue is currently conducting a Phase 1 study in HPV16-driven head and neck cancer and partnering with Merck to develop treatments for autoimmune diseases.
#immunooncology #HNSCC #TCells
@CueBiopharma
CueBiopharma.com
Download the entire transcript here
Page 1 of Transcript
Karen Jagoda:
Welcome to the empoweredpatientpodcast.com show. I'm Karen Jagoda, and my guest today is Dan Passeri. He's the CEO of Cue Biopharma. That's cuebiopharma.com. And I recently talked with Anish Suri, who is the Chief Scientific Officer at Cue, and I thought it was such an interesting story that I thought it was also a good idea to get the CEO of the company on the show to give us a little bit of an update and perhaps a little bit more in the way of details. So welcome to the show today, Dan.
Dan Passeri:
Thanks, Karen. Appreciate it.
Karen Jagoda:
So let's just talk a little bit about where Cue fits into the landscape of immuno-oncology companies.
Dan Passeri:
Sure. Immuno-oncology is obviously a very broad, encompassing category, and what it really covers is any approach that is meant to stimulate the immune system in some manner, that is meant to have clinical activity against cancer. And there's a myriad of approaches, but ultimately, no matter what approach is being taken, the objective is to stimulate the effective components of the immune system that can identify and attack cancer.
Dan Passeri:
What we do is actually quite distinctive in that the majority of approaches have tried to stimulate T-cells in various ways by taking them out of the body, for instance. And we've all heard of all these various cell therapy approaches, CAR T being the best publicized and characterized. And that's where you're taking T-cells out of the patient, you're genetically altering them to have a particular receptor that recognizes cancer, and infusing them back in.
Dan Passeri:
There are also cell therapy approaches where they take the cells out and use particular proteins that are represented on cancer, and then those T-cells will recognize that protein, and they use something called IL-2, Interleukin-2. It's an approved drug called proleukin, and they'll stimulate the T-cells, and then they infuse them back into the body.
Dan Passeri:
What we're doing is quite a different approach, and we believe it's a transformative approach in that we are using a biologic engineering category to stimulate T-cells directly in the patient's body. So it basically removes the need for having to extract T-cells out of the patient and the cumbersome manipulations, and we believe what we'll have is a potential breakthrough in the space where we can use our biologic to engage the desired T-cells. Now, that is only those T-cells that will recognize the protein on the cancer, activate those T-cells, and make many copies of them so that they then will identify the tumor cells, attack them, and destroy them. So that's the broad overview of what we're doing.
Dr. Arnold Saperstein, Chief Medical Officer, Cecelia Health talks about how they are empowering diabetics to manage their disease as well as overall healthcare using personalized human to human coaching based on an individual's background, age and specific needs. Their mission is to address challenges of medication compliance, insuring patients understand the role of diet and nutrition, and working with patients to remove barriers to the effective use of technology to help control their conditions.
@CeceliaHealth
#diabetes #mobilehealth
CeceliaHealth.com
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Dr. Arnold Saperstein, Chief Medical Officer, Cecelia Health talks about how they are empowering diabetics to manage their disease as well as overall healthcare using personalized human to human coaching based on an individual's background, age and specific needs. Their mission is to address challenges of medication compliance, insuring patients understand the role of diet and nutrition, and working with patients to remove barriers to the effective use of technology to help control their conditions.
@CeceliaHealth
#diabetes #mobilehealth
CeceliaHealth.com
Download the transcript here
Kinnari Patel, Chief Operating Officer, Rocket Pharmaceuticals discusses how Rocket is focused on creating new options for patients contending with rare genetic diseases. Rocket is advancing several gene therapies for rare pediatric diseases and Kinnari provides insights into how the company is tackling the unique challenges facing patients with rare diseases, their caregivers and the community at large. This February 29th Rocket Pharma is hosting a Rare Disease Day event featuring patient discussions and opportunities for patients and families to engage with physicians and researchers in the NY healthcare community.
@RocketPharma
#RareDiseaseDay #RareDiseases #GeneticDisease #GeneTherapy #FanconiAnemia #DanonDisease #PatientFocused
RocketPharma.com
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TREND.Community
Kinnari Patel, Chief Operating Officer, Rocket Pharmaceuticals discusses how Rocket is focused on creating new options for patients contending with rare genetic diseases. Rocket is advancing several gene therapies for rare pediatric diseases and Kinnari provides insights into how the company is tackling the unique challenges facing patients with rare diseases, their caregivers and the community at large. This February 29th Rocket Pharma is hosting a Rare Disease Day event featuring patient discussions and opportunities for patients and families to engage with physicians and researchers in the NY healthcare community.
@RocketPharma
#RareDiseaseDay #RareDiseases #GeneticDisease #GeneTherapy #FanconiAnemia #DanonDisease #PatientFocused
RocketPharma.com
Download the transcript here
Renee Ryan, CEO, Cala Health talks about the focus of Cala on using electricity as medicine by developing wearable electronics to treat tremors in the hands of essential tremor patients. Using neuromodulation technology, they have developed a device that includes a stimulator and a signal that is sent across two nerves in the wrist to read the frequency of the tremors and allow the patient to reduce tremors on demand.
@calahealth
#mobilehealth #essentialtremors #neuromodulation
Cala Health
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Renee Ryan, CEO, Cala Health talks about the focus of Cala on using electricity as medicine by developing wearable electronics to treat tremors in the hands of essential tremor patients. Using neuromodulation technology, they have developed a device that includes a stimulator and a signal that is sent across two nerves in the wrist to read the frequency of the tremors and allow the patient to reduce tremors on demand.
@calahealth
#mobilehealth #essentialtremors #neuromodulation
Cala Health
Download the transcript here
James Brown DVM, CEO, DURECT Corporation talks about how DURECT is advancing epigenetic therapies to treat alcoholic hepatitis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The company's lead asset, DUR-928 has demonstrated promising therapeutic potential treating patients with alcoholic hepatitis, a life-threatening acute liver disease caused by chronic alcohol abuse with no approved drugs for treatment. Dr. Brown also talks about his background as a doctor of veterinary medicine and his goal to continue developing medicines that improve the lives of others.
#AlcoholicHepatits #Epigenetic #NASH #LiverDisease
DURECT.com
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Sponsored by
James Brown DVM, CEO, DURECT Corporation talks about how DURECT is advancing epigenetic therapies to treat alcoholic hepatitis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The company's lead asset, DUR-928 has demonstrated promising therapeutic potential treating patients with alcoholic hepatitis, a life-threatening acute liver disease caused by chronic alcohol abuse with no approved drugs for treatment. Dr. Brown also talks about his background as a doctor of veterinary medicine and his goal to continue developing medicines that improve the lives of others.
#AlcoholicHepatits #Epigenetic #NASH #LiverDisease
DURECT.com
Download the transcript here
Maria Picone, co-founder TREND.Community and Antonio Maltese, student with Huntington's Disease talk about the challenges of finding valid information about rare diseases, the value of community support in discovering novel approaches to treatments, providing evidence to pharmaceutical companies about little understood symptoms, and advocating for awareness about rare diseases particularly during Rare Disease week and Rare Disease Day February 29.
#rarediseases #huntingtonsdisease
HopeForHuntingtons.com
TREND.Community
Listen to the podcast here
Maria Picone, co-founder TREND.Community and Antonio Maltese, student with Huntington's Disease talk about the challenges of finding valid information about rare diseases, the value of community support in discovering novel approaches to treatments, providing evidence to pharmaceutical companies about little understood symptoms, and advocating for awareness about rare diseases particularly during Rare Disease week and Rare Disease Day February 29.
#rarediseases #huntingtonsdisease
HopeForHuntingtons.com
TREND.Community
Download the transcript here
Brad Margus, CEO, Cerevance talks about discovering and developing novel therapies for central nervous system diseases using the Cerevance powerful NETSseq target discovery platform and their large collection of human brain tissue samples. Brad explains why the brain is such a challenging organ to study and their efforts to understand brain cell loss in such diseases as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
#brain #CNSdisorders #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #NETSseq
Cevevance.com
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Sponsored by
Brad Margus, CEO, Cerevance talks about discovering and developing novel therapies for central nervous system diseases using the Cerevance powerful NETSseq target discovery platform and their large collection of human brain tissue samples. Brad explains why the brain is such a challenging organ to study and their efforts to understand brain cell loss in such diseases as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
#brain #CNSdisorders #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #NETSseq
Cevevance.com
Download the transcript here
Brad Robinson, CEO, Predictive Technology Group talks about the company's work focusing on women's health and why they decided to focus on this neglected field that has significant unmet medical needs. Brad discusses the importance of genetics in informing a woman's course of care. Brad also talks about the company's subsidiaries Predictive Analytics, Predictive Laboratories, and Predictive Biotech and how the synergy between these entities is instrumental in helping women and their clinicians address endometriosis and other reproductive health concerns.
#womenshealth #endometriosis #infertility #fertility #genetics #pregnancy #preeclampsia
PredTechGroup.com
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Sponsored by:
TREND.Community
Brad Robinson, CEO, Predictive Technology Group talks about the company's work focusing on women's health and why they decided to focus on this neglected field that has significant unmet medical needs. Brad discusses the importance of genetics in informing a woman's course of care. Brad also talks about the company's subsidiaries Predictive Analytics, Predictive Laboratories, and Predictive Biotech and how the synergy between these entities is instrumental in helping women and their clinicians address endometriosis and other reproductive health concerns.
#womenshealth #endometriosis #infertility #fertility #genetics #pregnancy #preeclampsia
PredTechGroup.com
Download the transcript here
Ulf Jungnelius MD, CEO, Isofol Medical discusses the increasing incidence of colorectal cancer as a global issue and the current challenges in treating this devastating disease. Dr. Jungnelius also talks about the company's drug candidate, arfolitixorin, currently being studied in a global Phase 3 clinical trial with the aim to improve the efficacy of standard of care chemotherapy for advanced colorectal cancer.
#colorectalcancer #CRC #ColonCancer #MetastaticColorectalCancer #chemotherapy #FirstLineTreatment
Isofolmedical.com
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Sponsored by:
TREND.Community
Ulf Jungnelius MD, CEO, Isofol Medical discusses the increasing incidence of colorectal cancer as a global issue and the current challenges in treating this devastating disease. Dr. Jungnelius also talks about the company's drug candidate, arfolitixorin, currently being studied in a global Phase 3 clinical trial with the aim to improve the efficacy of standard of care chemotherapy for advanced colorectal cancer.
#colorectalcancer #CRC #ColonCancer #MetastaticColorectalCancer #chemotherapy #FirstLineTreatment
Isofolmedical.com
Download the transcript here
Purnanand Sarma, CEO, Immunome discusses why a lot of cancers still remain untreatable today and the company's new approach to fight cancer by tapping into the body's natural immune response against disease. Sarma further talks about why Immunome chose to look at cancer through the lens of the B-cell in order to identify novel antibody-target pairs.
#BCell #Antibody #ImmuneResponse #cancer
Immunome.com
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Purnanand Sarma, CEO, Immunome discusses why a lot of cancers still remain untreatable today and the company's new approach to fight cancer by tapping into the body's natural immune response against disease. Sarma further talks about why Immunome chose to look at cancer through the lens of the B-cell in order to identify novel antibody-target pairs.
#BCell #Antibody #ImmuneResponse #cancer
Immunome.com
Download the transcript here
Filippo Petti, CEO, Celyad discusses how the company is broadening precision medicine by developing CAR-T immunotherapies to express a natural killer receptor that can recognize and target multiple ligands expressed in up to 80% of all cancers. Filippo talks about the value to cancer patients of both personalized (autologous) and off the shelf (allogeneic) CAR-T therapies and CYAD-101, Celyad's allogeneic CAR-T therapy, that demonstrated for the first time ever, clinical effectiveness in solid tumors.
@CelyadSA
#CAR_T #NKCells #cancer #immunotherapy #CellTherapy #solidtumors #Tcell #CYAD101 #allogeneic $CYAD
Celyad.com
Listen to the podcast here
Sponsored by TREND.Community
Filippo Petti, CEO, Celyad discusses how the company is broadening precision medicine by developing CAR-T immunotherapies to express a natural killer receptor that can recognize and target multiple ligands expressed in up to 80% of all cancers. Filippo talks about the value to cancer patients of both personalized (autologous) and off the shelf (allogeneic) CAR-T therapies and CYAD-101, Celyad's allogeneic CAR-T therapy, that demonstrated for the first time ever, clinical effectiveness in solid tumors.
@CelyadSA
#CAR_T #NKCells #cancer #immunotherapy #CellTherapy #solidtumors #Tcell #CYAD101 #allogeneic $CYAD
Celyad.com
Download the transcript here
Nevan Elam, J.D. CEO and co-founder Rezolute, Inc. talks about their work developing therapeutics for congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare pediatric disease and for diabetic macular edema, a vision-related complication of diabetes. With a background of working with technology businesses, Nevan reflects on lessons learned and differences in drivers of innovation in the computer and biotech worlds.
@rezolutebio
#RareDisease #PediatricDisease #DME #DiabeticMacularEdema #Diabetes #hyperinsulinism
RezoluteBio.com
Listen to the podcast here
Sponsored by TREND.Community
Nevan Elam, J.D. CEO and co-founder Rezolute, Inc. talks about their work developing therapeutics for congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare pediatric disease and for diabetic macular edema, a vision-related complication of diabetes. With a background of working with technology businesses, Nevan reflects on lessons learned and differences in drivers of innovation in the computer and biotech worlds.
@rezolutebio
#RareDisease #PediatricDisease #DME #DiabeticMacularEdema #Diabetes #hyperinsulinism
RezoluteBio.com
Download the transcript here
Anat Cohen-Dayag PhD chief executive officer, Compugen discusses the current immune-oncology treatment landscape, with only 20-30% of patients responding to currently available treatments, and the missing link that she believes her company may have found to improve the success rate. Anat talks about how Compugen's computational discovery platform works to discover new drug targets for treating solid tumors and how lead candidate COM701 has shown encouraging early stage results to date.
#immuno-oncology #cancer. #colorectalcancer
Compugen
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Anat Cohen-Dayag PhD chief executive officer, Compugen discusses the current immune-oncology treatment landscape, with only 20-30% of patients responding to currently available treatments, and the missing link that she believes her company may have found to improve the success rate. Anat talks about how Compugen's computational discovery platform works to discover new drug targets for treating solid tumors and how lead candidate COM701 has shown encouraging early stage results to date.
#immuno-oncology #cancer. #colorectalcancer
Compugen
Download the transcript here
Ronnie Andrews, CEO, Oncocyte discusses the company's mission to answer critical questions along the cancer care continuum through the use of their molecular tests for diagnosis and treatment of early stage lung cancer. Ronnie also talks about the changes in cancer care over the past 20 years and the potential these tests have to positively impact patients in the future.
@oncocyteLBX
#moleculardiagnostics #lungcancer #liquidbiopsy #earlydetection
Oncocyte.com
Listen to the podcast here
Ronnie Andrews, CEO, Oncocyte discusses the company's mission to answer critical questions along the cancer care continuum through the use of their molecular tests for diagnosis and treatment of early stage lung cancer. Ronnie also talks about the changes in cancer care over the past 20 years and the potential these tests have to positively impact patients in the future.
@oncocyteLBX
#moleculardiagnostics #lungcancer #liquidbiopsy #earlydetection
Oncocyte.com
Download the transcript here
Brad Younggren MD, Chief Medical Officer, 98point6 talks about what happens when a company fundamentally changes the way patients interact with doctors by providing 24/7 on-line access to medical professionals aided by the camera and attachments on mobile devices to further inform the diagnosis and treatment plan. With enthusiastic support from traditional primary care doctors, this new model of on-demand care is showing effectiveness for addressing emergency as well as chronic conditions.
@98point6inc
98point6.com
Listen to the podcast here
Brad Younggren MD, Chief Medical Officer, 98point6 talks about what happens when a company fundamentally changes the way patients interact with doctors by providing 24/7 on-line access to medical professionals aided by the camera and attachments on mobile devices to further inform the diagnosis and treatment plan. With enthusiastic support from traditional primary care doctors, this new model of on-demand care is showing effectiveness for addressing emergency as well as chronic conditions.
@98point6inc
98point6.com
Download the transcript here
Usama Malik, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Immunomedics discusses the challenges of developing effective medicines for people with triple negative breast cancer as well as Immunomedics' development of antibody-drug conjugates, directed therapies which have potential to provide new options for those with hard to treat cancers.
@immunomedicsinc
#breastcancer #TNBC #HER2 #TripleNegative #bladdercancer #urothelial
Immunomedics.com
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Usama Malik, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Immunomedics discusses the challenges of developing effective medicines for people with triple negative breast cancer as well as Immunomedics' development of antibody-drug conjugates, directed therapies which have potential to provide new options for those with hard to treat cancers.
@immunomedicsinc
#breastcancer #TNBC #HER2 #TripleNegative #bladdercancer #urothelial
Immunomedics.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Asher Nathan, CEO of NeoTX talks about the company's work developing immunotherapies for a wide range of solid tumors using their proprietary Selective T Cell Redirection (STR) platform. This technology enables therapies that bind a genetically engineered super antigen to the tumor surface which trigger a native, controlled immune response that can kill the cancer with potentially fewer side effects than currently available therapies. Asher discusses the company's lead STR molecule, NAP, which is being developed to treat advanced cancers. NAP, which has potential as both a monotherapy and in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, is currently in a Phase 1B clinical trial in collaboration with AstraZeneca.
#immunotherapy #immunotherapies #AntiCancer #SolidTumors #Tcell #Antigen #Cancer #Monotherapy #Checkpointinhibitors #Immunomodulators
NeoTX.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Asher Nathan, CEO of NeoTX talks about the company's work developing immunotherapies for a wide range of solid tumors using their proprietary Selective T Cell Redirection (STR) platform. This technology enables therapies that bind a genetically engineered super antigen to the tumor surface which trigger a native, controlled immune response that can kill the cancer with potentially fewer side effects than currently available therapies. Asher discusses the company's lead STR molecule, NAP, which is being developed to treat advanced cancers. NAP, which has potential as both a monotherapy and in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, is currently in a Phase 1B clinical trial in collaboration with AstraZeneca.
#immunotherapy #immunotherapies #AntiCancer #SolidTumors #Tcell #Antigen #Cancer #Monotherapy #Checkpointinhibitors #Immunomodulators
NeoTX.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Nader Pourhassan, is Director, President, and CEO, CytoDyn, a late-stage biotechnology company developing leronlimab (PRO 140), a targeted therapy with the potential to treat multiple diseases. Nader highlights CytoDyn's ongoing clinical trial evaluating leronlimab for metastatic triple negative breast cancer (mTNBC) and the company's plans to submit a Biologics License Agreement (BLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for leronlimab in combination with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to treat patients suffering from HIV.
@CytoDyn
#HIV #mTNBC #TNBC #Leronlimab
CytoDyn.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Nader Pourhassan, is Director, President, and CEO, CytoDyn, a late-stage biotechnology company developing leronlimab (PRO 140), a targeted therapy with the potential to treat multiple diseases. Nader highlights CytoDyn's ongoing clinical trial evaluating leronlimab for metastatic triple negative breast cancer (mTNBC) and the company's plans to submit a Biologics License Agreement (BLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for leronlimab in combination with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to treat patients suffering from HIV.
@CytoDyn
#HIV #mTNBC #TNBC #Leronlimab
CytoDyn.com
Download the transcript here
Janet Lee is a patient advocate for those suffering from Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) and is on a mission to educate healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers about the delayed manifestations of this disease. This is also a story about a mother who was not vaccinated for Rubella and who gave birth to Janet who was born with extreme hearing loss and suffers from other complications from CRS. Thanks to her mother's intensive training and love, Janet learned to read lips was able to communicate with me on Skype to allow us to record this podcast.
Search on Facebook for CRS (Congenital Rubella Syndrome) for an invitation to join Janet's private group.
Listen to the podcast here
Janet Lee is a patient advocate for those suffering from Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) and is on a mission to educate healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers about the delayed manifestations of this disease. This is also a story about a mother who was not vaccinated for Rubella and who gave birth to Janet who was born with extreme hearing loss and suffers from other complications from CRS. Thanks to her mother's intensive training and love, Janet learned to read lips was able to communicate with me on Skype to allow us to record this podcast.
Search on Facebook for CRS (Congenital Rubella Syndrome) for an invitation to join Janet's private group.
Read the transcript here
Dr. Rob Mordkin is Chief Medical Officer for LetsGetChecked.com and Chief of Urology at the Virginia Hospital Center. We talk about his strong belief in giving individuals access to in-home health testing to allow them to check on warning signs, confirm findings of other lab tests, and provide on-going monitoring of chronic conditions. With or without a primary care doctor, patients can order tests, have results reviewed by a physician, discuss findings with a nurse, and if necessary, receive a prescription.
@LetsGetChecked
LetsGetChecked.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Rob Mordkin is Chief Medical Officer for LetsGetChecked.com and Chief of Urology at the Virginia Hospital Center. We talk about his strong belief in giving individuals access to in-home health testing to allow them to check on warning signs, confirm findings of other lab tests, and provide on-going monitoring of chronic conditions. With or without a primary care doctor, patients can order tests, have results reviewed by a physician, discuss findings with a nurse, and if necessary, receive a prescription.
@LetsGetChecked
LetsGetChecked.com
Read the transcript here
Mike Wenger, Vice President of Patient Engagement, TrialScope is thinking about ways to improve the clinical trials process by focusing more on the patients that are being recruited, tracked and retained. We talk about the need to overcome challenges of enrollment, helping patients find the right clinical trial, and reducing the costs related to the time-consuming process of conducting clinical trials.
@TrialScope
TrialScope.com
Listen to the podcast here
Mike Wenger, Vice President of Patient Engagement, TrialScope is thinking about ways to improve the clinical trials process by focusing more on the patients that are being recruited, tracked and retained. We talk about the need to overcome challenges of enrollment, helping patients find the right clinical trial, and reducing the costs related to the time-consuming process of conducting clinical trials.
@TrialScope
TrialScope.com
Read the transcript here
Anish Suri, President and Chief Scientific Officer, Cue Biopharma discusses their proprietary Immuno-STAT(tm) platform. Cue Biopharma is engineering a novel class of injectable biologics to selectively engage and modulate targeted T cells within the body to transform the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The company's proprietary platform Immuno-STAT(tm) (Selective Targeting and Alteration of T cells) is designed to harness the body's intrinsic immune system without the need for ex vivo manipulation. The company is currently conducting a Phase 1 study in HPV16-driven head and neck cancer and partnering with Merck to develop treatments for autoimmune diseases.
@cuebiopharma
#immunooncology #HNSCC #TCells
CueBiopharma.com
Listen to the podcast here
Anish Suri, President and Chief Scientific Officer, Cue Biopharma discusses their proprietary Immuno-STAT(tm) platform. Cue Biopharma is engineering a novel class of injectable biologics to selectively engage and modulate targeted T cells within the body to transform the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The company's proprietary platform Immuno-STAT(tm) (Selective Targeting and Alteration of T cells) is designed to harness the body's intrinsic immune system without the need for ex vivo manipulation. The company is currently conducting a Phase 1 study in HPV16-driven head and neck cancer and partnering with Merck to develop treatments for autoimmune diseases.
@CueBiopharma
#immunooncology #HNSCC #TCells
CueBiopharma.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Igor Grant, Director, Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California San Diego talks about the need for basic science studies on new indications and promises of cannabinoids, potential medical effects of both THC and CBD, the uptick in funding for clinical studies, relative safety of cannabis compared to other drugs, and which diseases and chronic conditions are currently being effectively treated with some form of cannabis.
CMCR.UCSD.edu
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Dr. Igor Grant, Director, Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California San Diego talks about the need for basic science studies on new indications and promises of cannabinoids, potential medical effects of both THC and CBD, the uptick in funding for clinical studies, relative safety of cannabis compared to other drugs, and which diseases and chronic conditions are currently being effectively treated with some form of cannabis.
CMCR.UCSD.edu
Download the transcript here
Dr. Mark Scholz, author and medical oncologist specializes in prostate cancer and he is determined to change the way the most common cancer in men is being diagnosed and treated. Currently, prostate cancer is the only cancer treatment managed by a surgeon and not an oncologist, reflecting the days when the only answer was for the urologist to operate. Publishing a self-administered test and providing information about alternative treatments and side-effects, Mark is eager to change the way patients and doctors attack this disease.
#prostatecancer #cancer #oncology
ProstateOncology.com
PCRI.org
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Mark Scholz, author and medical oncologist specializes in prostate cancer and he is determined to change the way the most common cancer in men is being diagnosed and treated. Currently, prostate cancer is the only cancer treatment managed by a surgeon and not an oncologist, reflecting the days when the only answer was for the urologist to operate. Publishing a self-administered test and providing information about alternative treatments and side-effects, Mark is eager to change the way patients and doctors attack this disease.
#prostatecancer #cancer #oncology
ProstateOncology.com
PCRI.org
Download the transcript here
Dr. Andrea Trescot, Chief Medical Officer, Stimwave has focused on pain for many years and she shares her passion for the latest innovations in stimulating the spinal column to provide a rapid treatment for chronic pain and provide an effective alternative to opioids. With innovations in miniaturization, batteries, and wireless interfaces, Stimwave is expanding the pain targets to include peripheral nerve stimulation to address such conditions as osteoarthritis of the knee and chronic facial pain.
@ stimwave
#neurostimulation #neuromodulation #ChronicPain #opioids
Stimwave.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Andrea Trescot, Chief Medical Officer, Stimwave has focused on pain for many years and she shares her passion for the latest innovations in stimulating the spinal column to provide a rapid treatment for chronic pain and provide an effective alternative to opioids. With innovations in miniaturization, batteries, and wireless interfaces, Stimwave is expanding the pain targets to include peripheral nerve stimulation to address such conditions as osteoarthritis of the knee and chronic facial pain.
@ stimwave
#neurostimulation #neuromodulation #ChronicPain #opioids
Stimwave.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Guy Chamberland, CEO, Tetra Bio-Pharma discusses why Tetra is focusing on developing cannabinoid-based therapies to help relieve chronic and breakthrough pain in patients with advanced cancers. He also speaks to how important it is to shorten the time to pain relief for those who are suffering. In the current climate of opioid abuse, Tetra is looking to help both doctors and patients with new options for their candidate therapies.
@TetraBioPharma
#cannabinoid #biopharma #advancedcancer #breakthroughpain
Tetra Bio-Pharma
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Guy Chamberland, CEO, Tetra Bio-Pharma discusses why Tetra is focusing on developing cannabinoid-based therapies to help relieve chronic and breakthrough pain in patients with advanced cancers. He also speaks to how important it is to shorten the time to pain relief for those who are suffering. In the current climate of opioid abuse, Tetra is looking to help both doctors and patients with new options for their candidate therapies.
@TetraBioPharma
#cannabinoid #biopharma #advancedcancer #breakthroughpain
Tetra Bio-Pharma
Download the transcript here
Dale Gieringer, Director, California NORML talks about some of the many reasons there has not been more research done on the uses for cannabis to treat a wide variety of diseases and chronic conditions. We met at the recent 2nd Annual Cannabis and Health Symposium a gathering of researchers and other stakeholders presenting on basic and clinical science discovery and therapeutics. With many years in the fight to better understand the active elements of cannabis, Dale also reminds us of the value of anecdotal evidence and the history of work in this field.
@CaliforniaNORML
CaNORML.org
Listen to the podcast here
Dale Gieringer, Director, California NORML talks about some of the many reasons there has not been more research done on the uses for cannabis to treat a wide variety of diseases and chronic conditions. We met at the recent 2nd Annual Cannabis and Health Symposium a gathering of researchers and other stakeholders presenting on basic and clinical science discovery and therapeutics. With many years in the fight to better understand the active elements of cannabis, Dale also reminds us of the value of anecdotal evidence and the history of work in this field.
@CaliforniaNORML
CaNORML.org
Download the transcript here.
Jenna Balestrini is Head of Cell Bioprocessing and Precision Medicine at Draper, the not-for-profit MIT spin-off engineering lab. Working with scientists and engineers, Jenna describes their efforts addressing the time and costs related to immunotherapy treatments by looking at manufacturing limitations, applying new engineering physics to speed up the process, and utilizing machine learning and AI to improve current cell therapy platforms and to build platforms for next generation cell therapies.
@draperlab
Draper.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Jenna Balestrini is Head of Cell Bioprocessing and Precision Medicine at Draper, the not-for-profit MIT spin-off engineering lab. Working with scientists and engineers, Jenna describes their efforts addressing the time and costs related to immunotherapy treatments by looking at manufacturing limitations, applying new engineering physics to speed up the process, and utilizing machine learning and AI to improve current cell therapy platforms and to build platforms for next generation cell therapies.
@draperlab
#precisionmedicine
Draper.com
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Uchenna Umeh, pediatrician and CEO Teen Alive talks about the challenges of talking with teens about depression and suicidal thoughts, ways in which parents, teachers and friends can help teens express their pain and frustrations in positive ways, and warning signs of suicide in teens as well as adults. On a positive note, Dr. Umeh believes suicide is 100% preventable.
@UchennaUmeh9
TeenAlive.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Uchenna Umeh, pediatrician and CEO Teen Alive talks about the challenges of talking with teens about depression and suicidal thoughts, ways in which parents, teachers and friends can help teens express their pain and frustrations in positive ways, and warning signs of suicide in teens as well as adults. On a positive note, Dr. Umeh believes suicide is 100% preventable.
@uchennaumeh9
TeenAlive.com
Download the transcript here
Thomas Lingelbach, CEO, Valneva talks about their work developing and commercializing vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. This biotech company is in development of a Lyme disease vaccine and vaccines for mosquito-borne illnesses such as Zika and chikungunya. Thomas talks about the challenges of testing vaccines to prevent a disease within a healthy population and why it is impossible to eliminate all the vectors that can transmit a disease.
@ValnevaSE
#Lyme #LymeDisease #chikungunya
Valneva.com
Listen to the podcast here
Additional links:
Chikungunya Fact Sheet
Lyme Fact Sheet
World Health Organization Zika virus resources
World Health Organization Japanese encephalitis resources
Thomas Lingelbach, CEO, Valneva talks about their work developing and commercializing vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. This biotech company is in development of a Lyme disease vaccine and vaccines for mosquito-borne illnesses such as Zika and chikungunya. Thomas talks about the challenges of testing vaccines to prevent a disease within a healthy population and why it is impossible to eliminate all the vectors that can transmit a disease.
@ValnevaSE
#Lyme #LymeDisease #chikungunya
Valneva.com
Download the transcript here
Additional links:
Chikungunya Fact Sheet
Lyme Fact Sheet
World Health Organization Zika virus resources
World Health Organization Japanese encephalitis resources
Maria Picone, Co-Founder and CEO, TREND Community was inspired to start TREND because her daughter was suffering from the rare disease Prader-Willi syndrome. She realized there was a big gap between what doctors were telling her and what was being written about in literature and on social media. She decided to tap into the wisdom of caregivers to grow the knowledge base about this and other rare diseases to uncover unrecognized aspects of symptoms and develop new treatment options.
@trendcommunity
#rarediseases
TREND.community
Listen to the podcast here.
Maria Picone, Co-Founder and CEO, TREND Community was inspired to start TREND because her daughter was suffering from the rare disease Prader-Willi syndrome. She realized there was a big gap between what doctors were telling her and what was being written about in literature and on social media. She decided to tap into the wisdom of caregivers to grow the knowledge base about this and other rare diseases to uncover unrecognized aspects of symptoms and develop new treatment options.
@trendcommunity
TREND.community
Download the transcript here
Dr. Barry Rose, orthopedic surgeon and Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation has many years of experience treating patients who come to him to fix a problem. Barry talks about how it is essential for doctors to look at the whole patient and treat their pain in a way that works for each individual person and addresses fear. He is also very enthusiastic about Western medical practitioners becoming more aware of Eastern modalities to help people reduce their stress.
Author of The Cutting Edge of Compassion: How Physicians, Health Professionals and Patients Can Build Healing Relationships Based on Trust
DrBarryRose.com
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Barry Rose, orthopedic surgeon and Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation has many years of experience treating patients who come to him to fix a problem. Barry talks about how it is essential for doctors to look at the whole patient and treat their pain in a way that works for each individual person and addresses fear. He is also very enthusiastic about Western medical practitioners becoming more aware of Eastern modalities to help people reduce their stress.
Author of The Cutting Edge of Compassion: How Physicians, Health Professionals and Patients Can Build Healing Relationships Based on Trust
@drbarryrose
DrBarryRose.com
Download the transcript here
Dr. Ralph Kern, Chief Medical Officer, BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics talks about their late stage clinical programs in treating ALS and MS using stem cells derived from bone marrow as well as the promise of using their technology platform to manufacture the cells to develop therapies for other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Huntington's Disease and autism. While not a cure, this therapy using repair molecules is focused on stabilizing and preventing further deterioration.
#BrainStormALS
#BCLI #ALS #EndALS
BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics
Listen to the podcast here
Dr. Ralph Kern, Chief Medical Officer, BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics talks about their late stage clinical programs in treating ALS and MS using stem cells derived from bone marrow as well as the promise of using their technology platform to manufacture the cells to develop therapies for other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Huntington's Disease and autism. While not a cure, this therapy using repair molecules is focused on stabilizing and preventing further deterioration.
#BrainStormALS
#BCLI #ALS #EndALS
BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics
Download the transcript here
Lincoln Nguyen, CEO, Karuna Labs discusses their work in pain management using virtual reality to build immersive environments to aid in retraining the brain to overcome learned pain behaviors. Of particular concern is the fear of movement of those suffering from chronic pain and addressing real dangers for additional injury and those that are threat signals from the brain related to the original cause of the pain. Since opioids have not proven to help chronic pain long term, innovations with VR are showing exciting real relief.
Karuna Labs
Listen to the podcast here.
Lincoln Nguyen, CEO, Karuna Labs discusses their work in pain management using virtual reality to build immersive environments to aid in retraining the brain to overcome learned pain behaviors. Of particular concern is the fear of movement of those suffering from chronic pain and addressing real dangers for additional injury and those that are threat signals from the brain related to the original cause of the pain. Since opioids have not proven to help chronic pain long term, innovations with VR are showing exciting real relief.
#VR
Karuna Labs
Download the transcript of the interview here
Sean Berman, Cell Surgical Network talks about the advances in stem cell therapies that are allowing doctors to treat orthopedic conditions and inflammatory diseases. He describes how stem cells are isolated and harvested and in turn used in therapies for many parts of the body. Still being tested in clinical trials, stem cell therapies have become more accepted and considered an option earlier in a treatment plan.
Cell Surgical Network
Listen to the podcast here
Sean Berman, Cell Surgical Network talks about the advances in stem cell therapies that are allowing doctors to treat orthopedic conditions and inflammatory diseases. He describes how stem cells are isolated and harvested and in turn used in therapies for many parts of the body. Still being tested in clinical trials, stem cell therapies have become more accepted and considered an option earlier in a treatment plan.
Cell Surgical Network
Download the transcript here
Nassim Usman, CEO, Catalyst Biosciences discusses the problem of Hemophilia, a rare and debilitating disease in which patients have a genetic deficiency in their ability to prevent bleeding. Currently, these patients must receive cumbersome bi-weekly IV infusions of clotting factor replacement therapy and may still bleed. Catalyst is developing a solution to give these patients a better and more convenient treatment particularly for inhibitor patients who have developed antibodies to their replacement therapy.
@catalystbio
#hemophilia #catalystbio #subQ #biotech
Catalyst Biosciences
Listen to the podcast here.
Nassim Usman, CEO, Catalyst Biosciences discusses the problem of Hemophilia, a rare disease in which patients have a genetic deficiency in their ability to prevent bleeding. Currently, these patients must receive cumbersome bi-weekly IV infusions of clotting factor replacement therapy and may still bleed. Catalyst is developing a solution to give these patients a better and more convenient treatment particularly for inhibitor patients who have developed antibodies to their replacement therapy.
@catalystbio
#hemophilia #catalystbio #subQ #biotech
Catalyst Biosciences
Download the transcript here.
Sam Liu, Vice President Marketing, VivaLNK talks about the current state of health wearables and how they are powering the growth of remote patient monitoring (RPM), how continuous monitoring changes the relationship between doctors and patients, and advances in sensors which will make it easier for patients to comply with reporting and treatment plans.
@viva_LNK
VivaLNK.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Sam Liu, Vice President Marketing, VivaLNK talks about the current state of health wearables and how they are powering the growth of remote patient monitoring (RPM), how continuous monitoring changes the relationship between doctors and patients, and advances in sensors which will make it easier for patients to comply with reporting and treatment plans.
@viva_LNK
VivaLNK.com
Download the transcript here.
Chris Hutchison, CEO, Cheetah Medical discusses the importance of a non-invasive, easy to use way to assess if a patient will respond positively to IV fluids in emergencies and in other critical care situations, and how Cheetah Medical devices are empowering healthcare providers by providing real time, continuous information to allow them to dose fluids safely, dynamically and with confidence they are doing no harm.
@Cheetah_Medical
#IVFluid #FluidManagement #sepsis #criticalcare
Cheetah Medical
Listen to the podcast here.
Chris Hutchison, CEO, Cheetah Medical discusses the importance of a non-invasive, easy to use way to assess if a patient will respond positively to IV fluids in emergencies and in other critical care situations, and how Cheetah Medical devices are empowering healthcare providers by providing real time, continuous information to allow them to dose fluids safely, dynamically and with confidence they are doing no harm.
@Cheetah_Medical
#IVFluid #FluidManagement #sepsis #criticalcare
Cheetah Medical
Download the transcript here.
Alexis Peyroles, CEO, OSE Immunotherapeutics talks about the important role the immune system plays in the development of a number of diseases. OSE is a biotechnology company focused on the therapies that control the immune system for treatment of cancers and autoimmune diseases. We discuss how drugs that regulate the immune system can provide the basis for the next generation of oncology and autoimmune disease treatments.
@OSEImmuno
#autoimmune #ImmunoOncology #Oncology #OSE_IMMUNO
OSE Immunotherapeutics
Listen to the podcast here
Alexis Peyroles, CEO, OSE Immunotherapeutics talks about the important role the immune system plays in the development of a number of diseases. OSE is a biotechnology company focused on the therapies that control the immune system for treatment of cancers and autoimmune diseases. We discuss how drugs that regulate the immune system can provide the basis for the next generation of oncology and autoimmune disease treatments.
@OSEImmuno
#autoimmune #ImmunoOncology #Oncology #OSE_IMMUNO
OSE Immunotherapeutics
Download the transcript here
Dr. Tony Fiorino, Chief Medical Officer, electroCore discusses the challenge of managing and preventing primary and secondary headaches particularly migraines, the science behind the electroCore non-invasive vagus nerve stimulator gammaCore(TM) and understanding the neurological triggers and mechanisms of headache disorders.
@electroCoreVNS
#migraine #headaches #neuromodulation #non-invasive #vagusnervestimulation #neurology
electroCore.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Tony Fiorino, Chief Medical Officer, electroCore discusses the challenge of managing and preventing primary and secondary headaches particularly migraines, the science behind the electroCore non-invasive vagus nerve stimulator gammaCore(TM) and understanding the neurological triggers and mechanisms of headache disorders.
@electroCoreVNS
#migraine #headaches #neuromodulation #non-invasive #vagusnervestimulation #neurology
electroCore.com
Download the transcript here.
Dr. Costas Hadjipanayis, Director of Neurosurgical Oncology for Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital discusses his experience working with the advanced robotically-controlled digital microscope, Modus V, from Synaptive Medical and how this technology was used recently to successfully remove a 19-year old woman's rare brain tumor. Dr. H talks about the advantages to using this technology prior to surgery and during surgery, and how doctors need to think about embracing new devices and techniques to more accurately address medical challenges.
@SynaptiveMed
#BrainSurgery #Neurosurgery #PrecisionMedicine #RoboticSurgery #ModusV
Synaptive Medical
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Costas Hadjipanayis, Director of Neurosurgical Oncology for Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital discusses his experience working with the advanced robotically-controlled digital microscope, Modus V, from Synaptive Medical and how this technology was used recently to successfully remove a 19-year old woman's rare brain tumor. Dr. H talks about the advantages to using this technology prior to surgery and during surgery, and how doctors need to think about embracing new devices and techniques to more accurately address medical challenges.
@SynaptiveMed
#BrainSurgery #Neurosurgery #PrecisionMedicine #RoboticSurgery #ModusV
Synaptive Medical
Download the transcript here.
Isaac Israel, CEO, Kitov Pharmaceuticals talks about how the development of new cancer treatments is an active and rapidly changing field and how Kitov is focusing on making cancer treatments more effective for patients. They are developing combination therapies that can help overcome cancers' ability to develop resistance to treatment. Kitov is working on two innovative cancer treatments soon to be advanced to clinical trials.
#oncology #immunoOncology
Kitov Pharmaceuticals
Listen to the podcast here.
Isaac Israel, CEO, Kitov Pharmaceuticals talks about how the development of new cancer treatments is an active and rapidly changing field and how Kitov is focusing on making cancer treatments more effective for patients. They are developing combination therapies that can help overcome cancers' ability to develop resistance to treatment. Kitov is working on two innovative cancer treatments soon to be advanced to clinical trials.
#oncology #immunoOncology
Kitov Pharmaceuticals
Download the transcript here.
Gilead Raday, COO, Redhill Biopharma, a specialty biopharmaceutical company primarily focused on gastrointestinal (GI) diseases talks about the growing problem of antibiotic resistance and the challenges this presents treating H. pylori infections, which affects about half of the global population. Redhill is working to bring Talicia, a new treatment for H. pylori to market potentially this year giving patients a new effective option for H. pylori infection.
#RDHL $RDHL #Hpylori #IBD #GI
@RedHillBio
Redhillbio.com
Listen to the podcast here.
Gilead Raday, COO, Redhill Biopharma, a specialty biopharmaceutical company primarily focused on gastrointestinal (GI) diseases talks about the growing problem of antibiotic resistance and the challenges this presents treating H. pylori infections, which affects about half of the global population. Redhill is working to bring Talicia, a new treatment for H. pylori to market potentially this year giving patients a new effective option for H. pyloriinfection.
#RDHL $RDHL #Hpylori #IBD #GI
@RedHillBio
Redhillbio.com
Download the transcript here.
Paul Kohlhaas, Founder, Molecule is passionate about creating a network for the decentralization of the process of researching new molecules and developing new molecular compounds using blockchain to track and reward all those who participate. With the current pharma innovation crisis and rising costs of drug development, new methods are needed to break down silos and overcome challenges of drug resistance and treating rare diseases.
@molecule_to
Molecule.to
Download the transcript here.
Paul Kohlhaas, Founder, Molecule is passionate about creating a network for the decentralization of the process of researching new molecules and developing new molecular compounds using blockchain to track and reward all those who participate. With the current pharma innovation crisis and rising costs of drug development, new methods are needed to break down silos and overcome challenges of drug resistance and treating rare diseases.
@molecule_to
Molecule.to
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Nerissa Kreher, Chief Medical Officer, Tiburio discusses the company's lead asset, TBR-760 as a novel treatment option for patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA), which are rare neuroendocrine tumors located in the pituitary gland. She also speaks about the challenges facing patients even after surgical or radiation treatments for these pituitary tumors. Download the transcript. Listen to the podcast here.
@TiburioT
#neuroendocrine #pituitaryadenoma #chiefmedicalofficer #raredisease #NFPA
Tiburio Therapeutics
Dr. Nerissa Kreher, Chief Medical Officer, Tiburio discusses the company's lead asset, TBR-760 as a novel treatment option for patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA), which are rare neuroendocrine tumors located in the pituitary gland. She also speaks about the challenges facing patients even after surgical or radiation treatments for these pituitary tumors.
@TiburioT
#neuroendocrine #pituitaryadenoma #chiefmedicalofficer #raredisease #NFPA
Tiburio Therapeutics
Download the PDF file of the interview here.
Venkat Nelabhotla, Chief Executive Officer, Vyome Therapeutics discusses the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance in medicine and how Vyome is working to tackle resistant dermatological conditions using their understanding of the skin microbiome.
Focusing first on acne, Vyome is developing VB-1953, a topical gel capable of killing resistant strains of P. acnes to help deliver solutions to the more than 10 million patients in the US, and more world-wide, with antibiotic resistant acne.
@vyometx
Vyome Therapeutics
Download the transcript.
Listen to the podcast here.
Venkat Nelabhotla, Chief Executive Officer, Vyome Therapeutics discusses the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance in medicine and how Vyome is working to tackle resistant dermatological conditions using their understanding of the skin microbiome. Focusing first on acne, Vyome is developing VB-1953, a topical gel capable of killing resistant strains of P. acnes to help deliver solutions to the more than 10 million patients in the US, and more world-wide, with antibiotic resistant acne.
@vyometx
Vyome Therapeutics
Dr. Greg van Wyk, CMO and recently appointed CEO, Noxopharm talks about the Company's current milestones and upcoming news related to its lead clinical drug candidate, Veyonda, a chemotherapy and radiation enhancer that is being studied in men with late stage metastatic prostate cancer and that may have broad applicability in other cancer types. Greg notes the explosion of mergers and acquisitions particularly in the oncology space due to increasing interest in combining one or more molecules in treatments.
Read the transcript here and listen to the podcast with this link.
Dr. Greg van Wyk, CMO and recently appointed CEO, Noxopharm talks about the Company's current milestones and upcoming news related to its lead clinical drug candidate, Veyonda, a chemotherapy and radiation enhancer that is being studied in men with late stage metastatic prostate cancer and that may have broad applicability in other cancer types. Greg notes the explosion of mergers and acquisitions particularly in the oncology space due to increasing interest in combining one or more molecules in treatments.
@Noxopharm
#prostatecancer #cancer #chemotherapy #radiation
Noxopharm
Terri Wingham, Founder, A Fresh Chapter was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer when she was in her 30's. As a result she founded A Fresh Chapter, giving cancer survivors and caregivers an opportunity to travel to foreign and US destinations to get outside of their comfort zone and discover new possibilities, community and purpose. These odysseys are supplemented by online resources and financial underwriting from corporate sponsors including Eli Lilly.
@afreshchapter
#cancer
A Fresh Chapter
Preston Klassen, MD Chief Medical Officer, Arena Pharmaceuticals talks about the challenges of treating Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) and Arena's developmental therapies for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. We also talk about the development of a treatment for related gastrointestinal pain with a non-opioid alternative.
#Arena #Ulcerativecolitis #GI #IBD #crohns
@ArenaPharm
Arena Pharmaceuticals
Arena Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Jean-Marc Steens, Chief Medical Officer, Abivax reports on clinical results that continue to show advances in the chronic treatment and maintenance of moderate to severe ulcerative colitis using a new small molecule ABX464 in an oral treatment and potential applications for other inflammatory and neurological diseases.
Jean-Marc also explains how another molecule ABX196 is being tested to determine if it might increase the outcome of treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common liver cancer, in conjunction with Opdivo a checkpoint inhibitor that is being developed with Scripps Research, University of Chicago and BYU.
Read the transcript and listen to the podcast.
Dr. Jean-Marc Steens, Chief Medical Officer, Abivax reports on clinical results that continue to show advances in the chronic treatment and maintenance of moderate to severe ulcerative colitis using a new small molecule ABX464 in an oral treatment and potential applications for other inflammatory and neurological diseases.
Jean-Marc also explains how another molecule ABX196 is being tested to determine if it might increase the outcome of treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common liver cancer, in conjunction with Opdivo a checkpoint inhibitor that is being developed with Scripps Research, University of Chicago and BYU.
#ulcerativecolitis
Abivax
Bob Anderson PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, ImmusanT is an internationally recognized leader in celiac disease research. He talks about the underlying causes of celiac, who is most likely to have an acquired immune response to fragments of the gluten protein, educating doctors about the need to test for celiac, the Phase 2 clinical trial results for Nexvax2 a therapeutic vaccine to treat celiac, and how the ImmusanT platform technology is allowing development of therapeutic vaccines for diabetes and other autoimmune conditions.
@ImmusanT
#celiac #celiacdisease #diabetes #autoimmunediseases #tcell #glutenpeptides #peptides #gluten #immunology
ImmusanT
Amit Etkin MD PhD is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford School of Medicine and expert in the neural basis of emotional disorders. He talks about a recent study published in Science Translational Medicine, of which he was the lead author physician, on his research that lead to the discovery of the first imaging biomaker for PTSD. Using fMRI and TMS with EEG, Amit was able to identify which patients were most likely to be helped by different treatment plans for post-traumatic stress disorder.
This research was funded in part by Cohen Veterans Bioscience, a translational research organization dedicated to fast-tracking personalized diagnostics and therapeutics for brain health.
Cohen Veterans Bioscience
Dr. Vimal Mehta, CEO and Founder, BioXcel Therapeutics talks about using artificial intelligence approaches in the development of drugs. BioXcel's two most advanced clinical development programs are (1) BXCL501, a sublingual thin film formulation designed for acute treatment of agitation resulting from neurological and psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer's and opioid addiction and (2) BXCL701, an immuno-oncology agent designed for the treatment of a rare form of prostate cancer and for treatment of pancreatic cancer.
BioXCel Therapeutics
Marina Baroff, Senior Director, Service Innovation at Steps Through OC shines a light on the need to provide physical as well as emotional support to women living with ovarian cancer and their caregivers. Marina talks about this new program of The Clearity Foundation with seed funding provided by the Susan Poorman Blackie Ovarian Cancer Foundation that matches patients and their caregivers with a professional ovarian cancer counselor at no charge. This is not a support group but rather online, personalized treatment plans based on science and tailored to each person's unique situation.
@stepsthrough
@clearityfnd
StepsThrough.org
ClearityFoundation.org
Dr. Jay Venkatesan, CEO, Angion, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, discusses the company's work in organ self-repair and their initial focus in the nephrology space. The company's lead candidate ANG-3777 is a small molecule that mimics a protein to stimulate this self-repair and regeneration following injury. Angion's therapeutic programs modulate the natural repair pathways of the body to fill unmet medical needs across many indications, including acute kidney injury, kidney transplantation, and chronic kidney disease.
#organinjury #organtransplant #acutekidneyinjury #chronickidneydisease
Angion
William Annett, CEO, OncoCyte discusses the exciting work the company is doing in the liquid biopsy space. They have developed DetermaVu™ a liquid biopsy test for lung cancer, which studies show has the potential to detect the absence of cancer by analyzing a simple blood sample. This technique allows individuals to potentially avoid risky, expensive lung biopsies. The company recently announced promising R&D validation data and is planning to make the test available to patients and physicians later this year.
@OncocyteLbx
#LiquidBiopsy #LungCancer #DetermaVu
OncoCyte.com
Dr. Hartmut Ehrlich, CEO of Abivax discusses the exciting new progress that this French biotechnology company has observed in clinical trials of their most advanced clinical drug candidate, ABX464. Originally designed to treat HIV by reducing the viral reservoir, Abivax determined the molecule could also be a game-changing treatment in a variety of inflammatory conditions like ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and arthritis.
#Abivax #ABVX #HIV #UlcerativeColitis #UC #inflammation #IBD
Abivax.com
Anna Landre is a Georgetown University sophomore who has a rare disease, spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and is a wheelchair user. In addition to being a full time student, Anna serves as Commissioner of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission where she advocates for people with disabilities and to improve accessibility on the Georgetown campus and in the district. She talks about educating elected officials about possible ways to overcome challenges for those in wheelchairs and raising awareness about those living with rare diseases.
#onestepaway #SMA #cureSMA
Graham Kelly, CEO, Noxopharm discusses the company's lead clinical asset, Veyonda, a first-in-class chemotherapy and radiation enhancer that has immuno-oncology properties. Veyonda has potential utility across solid tumors and boosts the effect of radiation therapy 2-3x in cancer cells. It has already shown positive results in patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer.
#oncology #prostatecancer #radiation #chemotherapy
@Noxopharm
Noxopharm
Jani Tuomi, Co-Founder, imaware and Kelly O'Neill, author and rheumatoid arthritis warrior talk about how at-home blood testing can empower patients with vital information to inform their discussions with doctors. Both talk about how easy self testing for rheumatoid arthritis is a smart way to follow up on early warning signs of this often undiagnosed disease.
#rheumatoidarthritis
@imaware_health
@rawarrior
imaware.health
Rheumatoid Arthritis Unmasked: 10 Dangers of Rheumatoid Disease
Frank Ochberg MD is a psychiatrist, pioneer in trauma science, and co-founder of the Trust for Trauma Journalism, an organization with the goal of providing funding to advance exemplary reporting and the care of journalists who are bearing witness to violence, conflict and tragedy. We talk about journalists as first responders, recognizing and treating their PTSD, and how all of us process trauma.
#PTSD
Trust for Trauma Journalism
Dr. Dan Alkon, President and Chief Scientific Officer, Neurotrope is an internationally recognized pioneer in research on brain based neural networks, the molecular basis of memory and degenerative brain disorders. Neurotrope has seen very promising results in clinical trials with Bryostatin-1 with patients with advanced Alzheimer's disease, in many cases reversing the damage done to synapses and improving memory. They are on the path to attacking the progression of Alzheimer's and not just treating the symptoms.
#neurotrope #alzheimersdisease #alzheimers #biotechnology #biotech #pharma
@Neurotrope1
Neurotrope.com
Bob Geho, CEO, Diasome discusses the current treatments for diabetes and the nearly 100 year history of insulin. He talks about the company's hepatocyte directed vesicle (HDV) nanotechnology that can be added to any insulin to lessen the instances of high and low blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. HDV nanotechnology can be added to any insulin to improve its safety and efficacy by targeting specific organs and in this case, restoring the liver's natural role in blood glucose control.
#Type1Diabetes #Type2Diabetes #Diabetes #Insulin
@diasome
Diasome.com
Brad Younggren MD, Chief Medical Officer, 98point was trained as an emergency medicine doctor and has brought his expertise to the online world of on-demand primary care. Brad talks about the value of giving patients access to accurate resources at any time of the day to diagnose symptoms, recommend treatment, escalate to other medical professionals, and help manage chronic conditions. Using a mobile app and artificial intelligence along with real primary care doctors, 98point is encouraging patients of all ages to take more direct control of their own health.
@98point6inc
98Point6.com
JP Milon is CEO of Paris-based Quantum Genomics, a company developing a treatment for patients with hypertension that is resistant to currently available medications. Over-represented in populations with resistant hypertension, minorities often suffer severe complications as a result of having perpetual high blood pressure. JP discusses firibastat, Quantum Genomic's experimental drug which works by acting on the part of the brain that lowers blood pressure and could potentially help these under-served patients.
#hypertension #cardiology #treatmentresistance #biotech
Quantum Genomics
Anders Rabbe, CEO, Isofol Medical discusses the developments of new therapies for patients with advanced colorectal cancer, a devastating disease with limited treatment options. Isofol is developing arfolitixorin to increase the efficacy of standard of care chemotherapy and is actively enrolling patients in a global Phase 3 clinical trial.
#CRC #ColonCancer #ColorectalCancer #FightCRC #FightCancer
Isofol Medical
Tony Winders, founder, The Winders Group, reports back from the recent CES show where he spent time investigating the accessibility, digital health and fitness wearables offerings. He came away with great insights about how large consumer packaged goods companies are entering the market with products designed for consumers of all ages driven by artificial intelligence and lessons learned from early developers of smart Internet connected devices.
@TonyWinders
#CES2019
The Winders Group
Masha and Claire founders of Tasty High Chef are gourmet personal chefs and event planners in San Diego. They are developing cannabis infused meals from fresh, nutritious food to address a wide variety of needs of medical cannabis users as well as to create cannabis infused dining experiences for special occasions for recreational users over 21. This is a story of Masha's passion for using delicious food as medicine and Claire's experience as a medical researcher to create a wow experience.
TastyHighChef.com
Kirby Brady, Director Research, San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. shares recent research about the abundance of healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, medical device developers, and artificial intelligence and big data experts that have made San Diego a world-renowned hub of precision health. The report also reveals the number of start-ups that have been created to translate basic research into functional digital health solutions.
@SDRegionalEDC
PrecisionHealthSD.com
Jesús Martin-Garcia, CEO, GeNeuro discusses the need for new treatment approaches for multiple sclerosis (MS), a long lasting, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that affects 2.5 million people worldwide. GeNeuro is developing a potential new approach for treating disease progression, the largest unmet medical need in MS, by seeking to block mechanisms suspected of driving neurodegeneration.
#MultipleSclerosis #MS $GNRO
GeNeuro.com
Dr. Patrik De Haes, CEO, Oxurion discusses the need for new treatments for diabetic eye disease, a leading cause of blindness in people of working age worldwide. About half of patients living with diabetic eye disease respond poorly or do not respond at all to the current standard of care. Oxurion is working to advance its clinical development and is partnering with advocacy groups around the world to increase patients' access to potential therapies.
@Oxurion
Oxurion.com
Elad Kedar, CEO, Orasis discusses CSF-1, the company's corrective eye drop being developed for the treatment of presbyopia as an alternative to reading glasses. Presbyopia, the inability to focus on near objects, is common after the age of 40 and affects more than 1.8 billion people worldwide. While glasses have been used for hundreds of years to correct vision, ophthalmologists are excited about these innovative eye drops that will change eye care.
Orasis-Pharma.com
Dr. Chorom Pak, President and CEO, LynxBio was a finalist in the John G. Watson Quick Pitch Competition presented by the Tech Coast Angels and the San Diego Venture Group. She talks about using an advanced approach to diagnosing cancer by using a standard-of-care biopsy to create a living model of a patient's cancer, including the patient's own microenvironment, to rapidly identify effective treatment options.
@lynxbio
@TCASanDiego
@SDVG
Lynx Biosciences
Shiv Shukla, Founder and CEO, NeuraLace Medical is a healthcare entrepreneur with a passion for finding a new treatment for managing chronic neuropathic pain and the winner of the John G. Watson Quick Pitch Competition presented by the Tech Coast Angels and San Diego Venture Group. Their Axon Therapy is currently being tested with the VA where patients receive recurring non-invasive treatments that have dramatically reduced the need for opioids for chronic pain.
#QuickPitch18
@TCASanDiego
@SDVG
NeuraLace Medical
Alex Ovadia, CEO, Check-Cap discusses C-Scan® the first and only preparation-free screening method for the prevention of colorectal cancer (CRC) through the detection of pre-cancerous polyps. This patient-friendly screening method uses an ingestible x-ray capsule and has the potential to dramatically increase screening adherence and reduce the overall incidence of CRC.
@CheckCap_
Check-Cap
Avanish Vellanki, Co-Founder and CEO, Rain Therapeutics talks about developing targeted therapies for patients across a range of cancers. Their lead program tarloxotinib is currently being developed for non-small cell lung cancer patients with EGFR/Exon 20 mutations. Avanish fills us in on what makes tarloxotinib so unique, how it has the potential to help patients who currently have no viable treatment options and the future of precision medicine in treating cancers.
@Rain_Thera
Rain Therapeutics
Joanne Jarrett MD is a retired family physician, blogger, mom, wife and entrepreneur and talks with me about her provocative blog post Three Ways We May Be Teaching Our Kids To Be Liars. Joanne points out that dishonesty is a misguided short-cut when attempting to avoid hurt feelings and that kids need to learn to balance kindness and social grace with authentic response to actions. This includes telling the truth about bullying, medical conditions, and life style choices in conversations about socially acceptable behavior versus accuracy of feelings.
CozyClothesBlog.com
Gilead Raday, COO, RedHill Biopharma discusses development of the next generation of effective therapies for gastrointestinal disorders and cancer that affect millions of people worldwide. This includes treatment for H. pylori infections which can cause ulcers and gastric cancer, the first-ever therapy for Crohn's disease that targets the hypothesized bacterial cause of the disorder, and additional therapies for IBS-D and gastroenteritis.
@RedHillBio
RedHill Biopharma
Vik Panda, VP Marketing, Adherium talks about their Hailie sensors which allow patients and doctors to track use of inhalers and help manage chronic respiratory illnesses like asthma and COPD. With a smart case for the inhaler and a mobile app, patients get alerts, nudges and data to help them adhere to a plan to keep rescue inhaler use to a minimum. Vik also shares additional insights about human behavior, what drives people to remember to take their medications and how technology can support medication adherence.
@GetHailie
HailieAdherium
Ryan Lanclos, Director of Public Safety Industries, Esri talks about how drone data is changing the way first responders are able to prioritize resources in the event of a hurricane or other disaster. Small drones are allowing safer analysis of damage with the ability to feed the real time data into predictive models that are able to create maps and visualizations that can help public safety officials and citizens to take action and think about options for recovery.
@esri
Esri
Dr. Anish Bhatnagar, CEO of Soleno Therapeutics, discusses Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disease that among other difficult symptoms, most markedly renders patients perpetually starving because of a dysfunctional neural pathway in the brain. This state, otherwise known as hyperphagia, can bring patients to the brink of severe sickness from overeating despite bring full, or from eating garbage, spoiled food, or sometimes even inedible objects. Anish talks about the hardships that this disease inflicts on its patients and its patients’ loved ones raising them, and about DCCR, the experimental treatment his company is developing to address this significantly unmet need for patients struggling with PWS.
#Prader-Willi #PWS #SolenoTx #SLNO #RareDisease #DCCR
Soleno Therapeutics
Dr. Niels Riedemann, Co-founder and CEO of InflaRx, discusses the pervasive problem of inflammation in a host of diseases, and how InflaRx is tackling this problem with their clinical-stage antibody therapy, IFX-1. InflaRx believes that they have found the key to addressing inflammation across a range of diseases, in the form of a molecule in the blood, complement factor C5a. Their main focus is on using IFX-1, a monoclonal antibody, to block C5a and prevent its action in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), a devastating autoimmune disorder that manifests on the skin, to reduce inflammatory lesions and potentially prove an ability of IFX-1 to work in different inflammatory conditions.
#inflammation #InflaRx #complementsystem #HS #immunology #IFX1
InflaRx.com
Greg Duncan, CEO, Celtaxsys tells us about the work the company is doing to help reduce pulmonary exacerbations in patients with cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a rare genetic life-threatening disease that affects over 70,000 people worldwide. Pulmonary exacerbations are sudden, severe respiratory events that ultimately lead to lung function decline. Celtaxsys’ lead candidate, once-daily anti-inflammatory acebilustat, which the company is currently progressing to Phase 3 development, has the potential to prevent lung function decline by reducing the frequency of pulmonary exacerbations.
#cysticfibrosis #CFresearch #RareDisease #CFAware #acebilustat
Celtaxsys.com
Suma M. Krishnan, Founder and COO, Krystal Biotech discusses their approach to treating rare genetic skin diseases that lack any truly effective treatments. Krystal is developing the first ever topically applied gene therapy for the rare disease epidermolysis, a genetic condition characterized by extremely fragile skin that leads to devastating physical developments. Krystal is looking to apply their novel gene therapy to treat a wide range of skin conditions for those of all ages.
#RareDisease #EpidermolysisBullosa #Ichthyosis #GeneTherapy #Dermatology #FightEB #IchthyosisAwareness
Krystal Biotech
Christian Wilde, medical author and researcher has been studying the historical and medicinal benefits of turmeric. Evidence from cultures where turmeric is used regularly in cooking points to a wide range of benefits of this spice. Used in a concentrated form, this supplement seems to have a very positive impact on diseases that are related to inflammation and growth of tumors. With no obvious side-effects and little chance for an overdose, this supplement is getting more attention from drug developers and doctors.
MyHeartBook.com
Joel Wishkovsky, Founder and CEO, Simple Contacts shares his passion for changing the healthcare model to provide affordable care using telemedicine particularly to treat low-risk patients. Simple Contacts is an online model that allows those who wear contact lenses to take an online eye exam reviewed by a real doctor, and re-order lenses between visits to an eye doctor's office. With support from ophthalmologists, Joel is providing inexpensive eye healthcare that fits into the busy life of patients.
@SimpleContacts
SimpleContacts.com
Pierre Laurin, B.Sc.Pharm., M.Sc is President and CEO, Prometic Life Sciences, a company working to address varying forms of fibrosis. Pierre points out how much researchers have learned about fibrosis just over the last 10 years and how it is more common than you may think attacking vital organs for a variety of reasons. We also learn about what Prometic is doing to tackle highly progressive fibrotic diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and the ultra-rare condition Alström syndrome.
#fibrosis #ipf #alstromsyndrome
Prometic Life Sciences
Crime Analysis Police Officer Adele Gardner is a gang intelligence expert who is working with Randy Raymond, a geographic information specialist in the Detroit public schools community district. They are applying GIS, visualization tools, and sentiment analysis of social media posts to drive rapid response and proactive communication to address guns in schools, gang violence, natural disasters, and threats by kids to harm themselves and others.
#Esri
Dave Domzalski, CEO, Foamix Pharmaceuticals reminds us that acne is the most common skin condition affecting 50 million people in the US alone, how little has changed in the treatment of outbreaks, and how side effects of commonly prescribed acne treatments often result in many people discontinuing use leaving their acne unresolved. Foamix is in late stage development of a topical form of minocycline, usually prescribed as an oral antibiotic, that is applied directly to the skin as a foam and that is showing fewer side-effects and greater impact.
#acne #acneprone #AcneAwareness #skincare #clearskin #dermatology #dermatologist
Foamix Pharmaceuticals
Suzanne Shugg is CEO and Co-Founder, Teleplus Healthcare, a professor at Rutgers University teaching adult medicine, and director of a preventative cardiology clinic. We talk about how telemedicine is allowing care provider teams to treat and support those with chronic diseases, advantages doctors enjoy from using telemedicine to prioritize response to patients, and the role of predictive models and AI in early detection and prevention.
Teleplus Healthcare
Cathy Miller is a patient advocate, field hockey coach and a medical mystery. She talks about her journey in trying to find proper diagnoses, her relationship with doctors who struggle to figure out what is causing her conditions including Cushing's Disease and Myasthenia Gravis, and her drive to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.
Cushing's Support & Research Foundation
Dr. Steve Steinhubl, is Director of Digital Medicine at the Scripps Translational Science Institute and director of a team that is partnering with the All of Us Research Program, an NIH led national research effort that aims to advance individualized prevention, treatment and care for people of all backgrounds. We talk about their plan to recruit one million participants as citizen-scientists, the value of capturing real time health metrics, and how digital health tools will become more robust as mobile and sensor technologies evolve.
#JoinAllofUs
JoinAllofUs.org
Scripps Translational Science Institute
Claire Wachter is a professional in the online advertising world, an Ironman triathlete and is beating breast cancer having cared for her mom who also suffered from the same disease. With a focus on exercise and finding new ways to keep moving, Claire is on the path to healing. For example, instead of taking the subway in Manhattan, she now rides a bike to her office. Good diet, discipline and a supportive community are also part of her treatment plan.
Dr. Ernesto Gutierrez, Chief Medical Officer, Rehealth and the World Stem Cells Clinic offers stem cell therapies in Cancun Mexico to a global audience. We talk about using regenerative medicine to address aging and maintaining a healthy body, who is most helped by stem cell therapy, and the rigorous testing and oversight of this emerging treatments.
Rehealth.com
World Stem Cells Clinic
Denver Lough MD PhD is the President, CEO, CSO and Chairman of PolarityTE, a company looking to transform the regenerative medicine space. Denver shares his thoughts and insights on the most exciting and recent developments in regenerative medicine, including the work of his company PolarityTE, founded by a group of Johns Hopkins physician scientists. Denver discusses how PolarityTE is expanding the regenerative medicine space, building upon early foundational stem cell research, to be the first to produce fully functional, full thickness tissue across a number of tissue types. We also talk about the FDA regulatory landscape and outstanding challenges in the field.
@PolarityTE
#PolarityTE
#regenerativemedicine
PolarityTE.com
Amy Dahm is a Cushing's syndrome survivor and patient advocate for those suffering from rare diseases. Coming from a career as a management consultant and diplomat at the State Department, Amy is applying her skills to find the right treatments for her own Cushing's disease and post-operative adrenal insufficiency. Amy takes her medical alert dog Sam with her when she is lobbying for more research funding for rare diseases and raising awareness with doctors and patients.
Cushing's Support and Research Foundation
Addison's Disease Self-Help Group
Roeland Pater, founder, Nori Health is bringing to market an innovative approach to help patients make smarter lifestyle choices to better manage their Crohn's or Colitis condition. Using Nori, a chatbot coach, patients are asked relevant questions and receive personal advice for small changes that can lead to an improved quality of life by decreasing symptoms. The more accurate patients are, the better the advice and the more valuable Nori becomes for the whole community of those affected by the diseases.
@norihealth
Nori Health
Karen Knops MD is a palliative care physician and speaker with a specialty in improving communication between doctors and patients especially during difficult times. We talk about the challenges doctors face when starting a conversation with a patient to better understand the real story--no difficult patients but difficult problems. We also shine a light on the biases and blind-spots that doctors might have particularly when treating patients with chronic diseases. Karen is helping doctors ask better questions and give bad news with a eye to healing, treatments and a plan for next steps.
@KMKnops
ASCEND Framework
Heather Metcalf PhD is the Director of Research and Analysis for the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Accelerator and Project Lead for the STEM to Market project. She is joined by Tawni Koutchesfahani, an accomplished healthcare executive and board member of STEM to Market. The topic is cultural and gender biases that are creating obstacles for women entrepreneurs in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics arena. The challenge is how to overcome resistance from venture capitalists to investing in a woman owned company using best practices for intentional investing.
@STEMtoMarket
@AWISNational
STEM to Market
AWIS
Joanne Jarrett MD shares her insights about being a hospital patient from both the patient and doctor's point of view. Hospitalization comes in different varieties -- planned and unplanned-- and it pays to know how the hospital works to keep the sense of confusion and frustration to minimum. With so much going on behind the scenes, it is often hard to figure out what the plan is and how close a patient is to being released to go home. But what are hospitals doing to keep patient and their families informed on a real time basis? Don't forget that device to let you communicate with a loved one in the outside world.
Cozyclothesblog.com
Hillary Theakston, Executive Director, Clearity Foundation spoke at the recent Future of Genomic Medicine conference produced by the Scripps Translational Science Institute and The Scripps Research Institute. The Clearity Foundation is a great example of precision medicine in action as the Foundation produces a Tumor Blueprint for those with ovarian cancer who enroll in their program. This tumor profile can help patients and their doctors identify appropriate clinical trials, the most likely to succeed treatment, and enhance the growing genomic database of ovarian cancer mutations and drugs most likely to be effective for each individual.
@clearityfnd
Clearity Foundation
Katie Ernst lawyer and founder MissTreated.org has done the research and points out the overt and sub-conscious bias against women by doctors and those conducting medical research. Complaints by women are often not taken seriously by doctors because of the lack of research on diseases that strike women and the inclination to explain away pain as a figment of their imagination.
@misskatieernst
MissTreated.org
Nawal Ouzren, CEO, Sensorion talks about recent studies that have shown the dramatic impact of hearing loss on the elderly as well as children putting all at risk for social isolation. For kids hearing loss can hinder their social development, and for seniors it can increase their risk for dementia. Nawal talks about the research at Sensorion and their lead clinical candidate SENS-401 which is showing great promise to prevent hearing loss particularly in children being treated for cancer.
#hearingloss #Sensorion #SENS401 #InnerEarDisease
@sensorionpharma
Sensorion
Rita Starritt MD, an internal medicine specialist in the field of addiction, shares her frustration and concerns about factors driving addiction to opioids, challenges doctors face when dealing with addicts, impact of direct to consumer drug ads, her patients in the methadone clinic, and her on-the-ground work at orphanages in third world countries.
DrStarritt.com
Ron Chabot CEO, Tomorrow Today and Ed Bleu, lead substance abuse counselor in Massachusetts jails bring a view of how treatment and care of addicts needs to be updated. Ron and Ed are working on a new project that challenges the current disease model of addiction to one that empowers the person and provides community and online resources to help address the root causes of problems and provide a strong support system to change behavior.
Addicts Like Me: Tomorrow Today
Recoverreality.com
Marisol Moon MD is a regenerative medicine doctor and is enthusiastic about the impact regenerative medicine treatments can have on alleviating chronic joint pain. With an explanation of some regenerative medicine treatments for pain and impact of aging, Dr. Moon also provides some insights about picking a good regenerative medicine doctor and which patients the treatments might help the most.
NuMoonPRP.com
Roma Patel MD, Chief Ophthalmologist for the Sacramento VA and assistant professor at the University of CA Davis emphasizes that there are treatments for delaying the full impact of glaucoma but that the condition needs to be found early. Glaucoma is a silent disease that presents no early warning signs but can be found in an eye exam. Roma also talks about how rewarding her work is with the veterans and the special eye problems vets face having served in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
#glaucoma
Dr. Roma Patel
Joanne Jarrett MD, a retired family physician and blogger, has come up with 26 things good doctors wish their patients knew about them as doctors, as human beings, and as patients themselves. Of particular concern is the need to understand that doctors are juggling busy stressful schedules everyday, that some doctors might suffer from PTSD, how doctors often wonder what happened to patients long after their last visit, and what annoys doctors and patients alike. As for running into a doctor in a social or public encounter, say hello and don't worry about them remembering your last examination.
CozyClothesBlog.com for Things Good Doctors Wish Their Patients Knew
Rachna Patel MD, known as the medical marijuana doctor, talks about why she is pursuing the use of cannabis in her medical practice and shares her insights about how marijuana can be used to alleviate physical and emotional pain, which patients are most likely to be helped by a medical marijuana treatment plan, advantages of cannabis over opioids, and who should use THC and CBD with caution.
@DrRachnaPatel
DrRachnaPatel.com
Ron Chabot, CEO, Addicts Like Me and Director of Business Development, Interventional Protocol Solution shares his own compelling journey from a stellar career in telemedicine to addiction and jail time to rehab that has brought him to developing the technology platform for the AddictsLike.Me support group and community with a focus on addressing multiple needs of those addicted to opioids and other substances. Ron is creating a platform for addicts to connect with other addicts with access to critical and non-critical resources while developing protocols for doctors focused on addiction.
@BostonBiolife
AddictsLike.me
Interventional Protocol Solution
BostonBiolife
Larry Wagner, National Development Manager, CAREstream America talks about using their PRO-NOX nitrous oxide and oxygen solution to relax patients and allow them to inhale the gas on demand. From plastic surgery to regenerative medicine using nitrous oxide in procedures for pain management is between sedation and anesthesia and is seen as an analgesia that is generally safe for patients as well as the doctors who are administering the gas.
CAREstream America
Boston Biolife
Cory Kidd PhD Founder and CEO Catalia Health has been exploring the use of robots and artificial intelligence for improving healthcare for over 20 years. He and his team have taken on the challenge of figuring out why people don't stay with a drug regimen for chronic conditions. Using the robot Mabu, they are able to personalize the interaction with patients to encourage healthier habits and gather data about barriers to adherence.
@CoryK @CataliaHealth
#robot #AI #Heartfailure
Catalia Health
Marty Driscoll, CEO of Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals, discusses treatments for the hepatitis B virus, a disease suffered by 250 million people globally who are chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus. Marty talks about what a functional cure for chronically infected patients means, and what Spring Bank is doing to help those affected. Spring Bank is developing a new oral drug named inarigivir that is a selective immunomodulator/encapsidation inhibitor. Inarigivir could become a key component of a future safe and simple combination treatment in an effort to substantially increase functional cure rates for patients with chronic hepatitis B and reduce their need for daily drugs.
@springbankpharm
#HBV #HepatitisB #Functionalcure #inarigivir
Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals
Michelle Niedziela, PhD, Scientific Director, HCD Research reveals the testing that pharmaceutical companies engage in to insure that tv and print ads reach their target audience. For over 20 years, HCD has been conducting research with health care professionals, patients, and caregivers using traditional market research as well as applied neuroscience tools to test engagement, understanding, and use of words and images to offer hope as well as information. It all comes down to helping pharmaceuticals develop emotional appeal and helping patients and doctors remember the name of the drug.
@HCDNeuroscience
#neuromarketing #consumer #mrx
HCD Research
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a method of noninvasive neuromodulation being used to treat depression. Joe Perekupka, VP of Sales Operationsat Brainsway discusses their proprietary deep TMS (dTMS) technology which is able to affect areas of the brain previously unreachable by standard TMS. The Brainsway Helmet is a device approved for treatment of the many Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) patients who have failed at least one drug-based regimen. Joe discusses the reality of MDD, the significance of dTMS technology, and the benefit it brings to those who are seeking remission from MDD.
@Brainsway
#depression #MDD #mentalhealth #NAMI #mentalhealthawareness #depressionawareness #depressionisreal
Brainsway.com
Joe Krieger, President, Boston Biolife shines light on the robust world of regenerative medicine. He describes how many of the medical breakthroughs have come about because experts in diverse disciplines came together to figure out how to help the body heal itself. One key driver has been advances in sports medicine where efforts have been made to avoid surgery and replacement of body parts. Joe and his team run training programs for scientists, technology and healthcare providers to drive advances in stem cell therapies and biologics.
@Biolife
Biolife.com
Graham Dodge, Co-Founder and CEO, Sickweather is part detective and part entrepreneur. He and his team are harvesting real time data from social media to identify early warning signs of the outbreak of the flu or allergy season. Using this social surveillance along with other reported health related and historical data, Sickweather is informing individuals about their risk of getting an infectious disease based on their physical location. The question is does this kind of information change behavior or just make people nervous. The pharmaceutical companies are also using this data to inform about ad buys and promotions.
@Sickweather
Sickweather.com
Patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (NCFBE), a progressive pulmonary disease, currently have no treatment options in the US. Nancy Pecota, CFO of Aradigm Corporation, discusses NCFBE and what Aradigm is doing to help these patients and possibly others who have an un-diagnosed condition . Their inhalable drug Linhaliq™ is currently on the fast track for FDA approval for NCFBE. Nancy discusses Aradigm’s progress to provide an effective treatment option and prevent future infections in these patients.
#bronchiectasis #NCFBE #Linhaliq #Aradigm #pulmonarydisease
Aradigm.com
Raj Oswal, Founder, O.Connect is enthusiastic about the potential of an event app to not only provide an online version of the conference program but also to encourage networking and sharing on social media while also providing access to speakers and presentations. With an expertise in developing apps for the scientific community, Raj is particularly interested in breaking down the barriers that separate researchers from the business side of the healthcare industry so that all get the most out of time spent at events.
#DigiMed17
@OConnectApp
OConnectApp.com
David Herzberg PhD, associate professor of history, SUNY- University at Buffalo reminds us that opioid addiction is not a new phenomenon and in fact there have been waves of addiction to sedatives, stimulants and pain killers over the last 150 years. David points out how we often view physical dependency on a drug versus drug addiction with racial and economic bias. He also warns that history tells us that the current opioid epidemic most likely will continue until we better address real pain and suffering of all patients.
DavidHerzberg.com
#opiodcrisis
Vision impairment is a major factor contributing to loss of independent living for otherwise healthy seniors. Dr. Jason Slakter, M.D. leading expert ophthalmologist and CEO of Ohr Pharmaceutical, Inc. explains how wet age-related macular degeneration (wet-AMD) affects the eye, genetic and environmental factors for developing wet-AMD, and measures that can be taken to delay the onset of the disease. Dr. Slakter also talks about advances in treatments and the promise of a new eye drop that is being tested in clinical trials.
@OhrPharma
OhrPharmaceutical.com
#MacularDegeneration #AMD #wetAMD #EyeDisease
#Ophthalmology #medicine #eyeinfo
Arsen Marsoobian also known as Papa Soob has written a soon to be published book A Heartbeat Away/ Are You Ready? We talk about some of the key elements of being ready for the end of life by being satisfied with relationships and reconciliation with friends and family so there are no regrets. We also talk about what kinds of legacies people can leave and taking control over the narrative about how we are remembered.
Don't Die
A Heartbeat Away
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is more common than the Zika virus, yet few people know about the irreversible birth defects congenital CMV infection can cause. Jeff Baxter, CEO of VBI Vaccines, talks about the risks CMV poses to pregnant women and their unborn babies. Currently, there is no way to prevent contracting CMV during pregnancy and the irreversible birth defects that can result. Thankfully, VBI Vaccines is currently developing a vaccine to prevent CMV. If successful, this could be given to all adolescent-aged young women as a preventive measure.
@VBIVaccines
VBIVaccines.com
#CMV #congenitalCMV #CMVawareness
#vaccine #CMVinfection #stopCMV
VB
Nathan Price, Associate Director, Institute for Systems Biology reminds us that biology is still a data poor science though it is changing with advancements in technology and genomics. Nathan is working on the Pioneer 100 Project to build personal dense data clouds to help researchers design better predictive risk models in a drive towards scientific wellness.
@ISBNathanPrice
#DigiMed17
Institute for Systems Biology
Jason Hwang, founder, Lemonaid Health and renowned healthcare innovator talks about bringing disruptive solutions to the healthcare marketplace. Lemonaid uses an asynchronous analysis model where patients submit symptoms and requests for medications online. Submissions are automatically reviewed quickly, overseen by doctors when necessary, and prescriptions sent to pharmacies for treatment. The focus of the service is on common health challenges like sinus infections and the flu to ongoing concerns like birth control and hair loss. The mission is to lower costs and make health care more accessible and convenient.
@drjhwang
#DigiMed17
Lemonaidhealth.com
Nick Desai, co-founder, Heal.com talks about taking advantage of the trend to miniaturize medical equipment to allow them to build a business model where the doctor comes to a patient's home, office, or hotel room within two hours 365 days a year. Heal is promoting price transparency, accepts most medical insurance, and is providing rapid response with well-equipped high quality doctors scheduled through the Heal mobile app, web site or by phone. Service available in limited areas with some restrictions on patients who are accepted.
@healapp
#DigiMed17
Heal.com
Noga Leviner, Co-Founder, PicnicHealth knows how important it is to be able to have access to complete medical records and is creating a company that can search for old medical files as well as provide a dashboard to manage new data. In order to get optimal care, PicnicHealth is providing clients with a service that searches medical data on paper, film and in digital format and gives access to the patient, current doctors, and appropriate family members. The biggest challenge seems to be reading the handwriting of doctors in order to digitize office visit notes.
@picnichealth
#DigiMed17
PicnicHealth
Melissa Menke, Founder and CEO, Access Afya is a digital health activist in Nairobi Kenya where she has set up micro-clinics in the informal settlements to bring health services to an under-served community. They are using digital diagnostic tools and mobile devices to send text and voice alerts to patients where there is near universal access to a phone or smart device. Melissa is also bringing 21st Century medicine to neighborhoods, schools, and factories using mobile units. Part of the secret to her success is the engagement of those in the community to participate in the program as volunteers and workers.
@accessafya
#DigiMED17
#DigitalHealth
Access Afya
Dr. Dror Harats,Founder and CEO of VBL Therapeutics, talks about the limitations of current treatments for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (rGBM), the most common and deadliest form of brain cancer in adults and the challenges in developing new treatments to combat this devastating disease. The good news is that their lead candidate, a biologic agent called VB-111, is in late-stage clinical development for rGBM and showing great promise. He discusses the unique mechanism of VB-111 that he hopes could hold the key not only to treating rGBM, but many types of cancer.
@VBL Therapeutic
#GBM. #Glioblastoma.
#BrainTumor #BrainCancer. #Cancer
VBL Therapeutics VBLRX.com
Jay Patel, Clinical Transformation Officer, SeniorLink talks about caregiver readiness and the difference a confident caregiver can make in the life of a patient or aging loved one. Primary concerns are the health of the caregiver and the social and medical support teams that give caregivers the ability to respond rapidly to changes.
@SeniorLinkInc
SeniorLink.com
Jill Gilbert, Producer, Digital Health Summit talks about new solutions that are being tested to improve medical care and outcomes. She points to challenges presented by embedded legacy systems and how digital health entrepreneurs are creatively proving that new models of care do work and can be integrated into existing solutions. From her perspective, there is a great deal of discussion about precision medicine but still a long way to go to make it a reality. Key topic for their January Digital Health Summit, in conjunction with CES in Las Vegas, is the brain.
@DHSummit
Digital Health Summit
Howard Rose, Founder and CEO, Firsthand Technology has 20 years of experience finding therapeutic uses of Virtual Reality (VR) for healthcare. Howard talks about how technologies have become friendlier, faster, more mobile and less costly to allow for VR applications to be offered to address a range of types of pain and anxiety and reduce the need for drugs.
@FirsthandTech
Firsthand Technology
Heidi Rataj is an award-winning documentary producer and director and a caregiver for her mom. Heidi talks about her own fear of aging and the search for a new narrative for seniors as they age. While we need to be respectful of all journeys, activating seniors to allow them to accomplish goals is key to a healthier individual and society. She also points out how digital technology plays a role in coordinating care and enabling people to age in place.
@UCSDHealthyAging
Reflect PBS Mini-Series
Barry McDonogh, Senior Vice President, Sales and Business Development, TruTag Technologies talks about their new on-dose microtags and authentication process that insures pharmaceutical brand integrity and safety for the consumer. This technology adds minimal cost to drug manufacturing and is a strong deterrent to counterfeit drugs coming into the market.
@TruTags
#BIO17
TruTags.com
Judith Sheft, Associate Vice President for Technology and Enterprise Development, New Jersey Innovation Institute talks about how a small state like New Jersey is working with public and private universities to bring new technology to the healthcare market. With a background in chip technology, Judith is particularly interested in how digital health is changing the experience of patients as well as how doctors are facing the challenge of using new methods to diagnose and treat patients.
@NewJerseyII
New Jersey Innovation Institute
#BIO2017
A.J. Michaels is a seniors real estate specialist and he shares insights about how seniors and almost seniors are thinking about aging in place, downsizing, and how decisions about housing are so often put off until a crisis hits. He also points out some helpful options for retro-fitting a home to address concerns about falls, mobility and grooming.
Aging.ucsd.edu
Salma Jutt, Vice President of Marketing US, Orexigen Theraputics talks about their obesity drug CONTRAVE and how it works on two areas of the brain to reduce hunger and cravings. This is a drug for those committed to stick to a regime of exercise and diet and can help keep the weight off. A growing business in this age of selfies where there is an increasing interest in improving appearances and nearly unlimited opportunities to satisfy cravings for the wrong foods.
CONTRAVE.com
Jason Shelton, CEO, Telomere Diagnostics and developer of TeloYears is bringing to market a way to measure the health of the cells in our body. Using a blood test to determine the length of the telomeres at the end of the chromosomes, a person's TeloYears is computed and compared to others of the same chronological age. This biomarker of overall health is a relatively new test of body functions and could provide valuable information about slowing down the aging clock.
@teloyears
Telomere Diagnostics
TeloYears.com
Brinda Rana PhD is participating in the analysis of data from the NASA Twins Study that focused on identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly. Scott recently become the first US astronaut to spend a year in space while Mark, also an astronaut, remained on earth. The study is beginning to shed light on the physical effects of extremely stressful space travel which seem to correlate to the aging process and the onset of certain diseases. In addition to learning about how the human body might respond to a long trip to Mars, scientists are also learning about how to identify molecular markers for better treatment and prevention of diseases on earth.
#NASAtwins
NASA Twins Study
Stein Institute for Research on Aging UCSD
Kim Walpole reports on the recent Clinical Trials Patient Experience Summit where there was a recognition that clinical trials really need to be more patient-centric. Stories from patients and those who design and manage trials reveal burdens that can be overcome by using technology and the Internet of things. One key take-away--the medical research industry needs to make it easier for people to want to participate in clinical trials.
@kimbeela
Clinical Trials Patient Experience Summit
Trials.ai
Brad Ellison, Head of the Healthcare Practice at Phone2Action has a deep understanding of what drives protests about healthcare issues having previously worked as legislative counsel to a member of the House of Representatives. We talk about recent protests by scientists and doctors and how healthcare activists need to educate and identify stories that will drive home their messages. Key to creating a successful protest is growing a community that responds to a call to action.
@Phone2Action
#AHCA
Phone2Action.com
Dr. Dilip Jeste is a geriatric neuropsychiatrist, Director of the Stein Institute for Research on Aging and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the University of California San Diego. He reflects on the need to have more conversations about successful dying in addition to our focus on successful aging. Part of that conversation needs to consider what digital messages are left for loved ones and the public. While we can not control death, we can control our legacies and how we are remembered. It looks like there is an emerging industry for documenting and preserving our digital afterlife.
@ucsdhealthaging
HealthSciences.ucsd.edu/research/aging
Dr. Este Geraghty, Chief Medical Officer and Health Solutions Director, Esri talks about how GIS tools are mapping opioid-related mortality, prescription rates, and use by patients to help public health officials and medical care providers better understand abuses, triggers for use, and ways to safely dispose of unwanted drugs. Este also gives a little preview of topics to be covered at the July 10-14 2017 Esri International Users Conference.
@Esri_health
Esri.com
Laura Mitchell, Laura Mitchell Consulting, is an expert on the convergence of technology and the aging population. We talk about the move from one-to-one care to a zone-care giving environment augmented by sensors and wearables, how use of technology can be encouraged by caregivers or dismissed as not relevant, and the move towards continuous monitoring.
@LauraHMitchell
LMCllc.us
Ryan Leung one of the winners in the recent University of California San Diego HealthHack talks about the need to grow nutrient rich vegetables in refugee camps. Working with his team, Ryan came up with the idea for Rooted in Refugees: A Hanging Garden Project that would provide a smart solution for using limited land and water and give the refugees the satisfaction of growing of their own food to supplement other provisions.
UCHealthHack
Pranav Singh is an undergraduate in the department of Bio-Engineering at the University of California San Diego and the winner of the recent UCSD HealthHack. Pranav's team came up with a plan, Blueprints for Life: Design Solutions for Refugee Health. Their central idea is to allow the community of refugees in camps to organize and tap into expertise that can improve the life of all. Pranav is excited about the tools that bio-engineering is bringing to addressing global health challenges and encouraged by their success in the HealthHack.
@UCSD
UCSD HealthHack
Ben Tien is a graduate student in the department of bio-engineering at the University of California San Diego and a winner in the refugee category at the recent UCSD HealthHack. Ben talks about how his team came up with the solution of a sexual assault alarm bracelet that would provide light, an emergency siren and a way to mark an assailant. Ben also explains his passion for improving global health through the use of bio-engineering to come up with cost-effective innovative solutions.
UCSD HealthHack
Paul Knoepfler PhD, Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy, University of California Davis is also the author of the new book GMO Sapiens: The Life-Changing Science of Designer Babies and talks with me about what stem cells can do to help create new cancer therapies as well as grow organoids in the lab to test drugs. I heard Paul speak at the recent Future of Genomic Medicine Conference produced by the Scripps Translational Science Institute.
@UCDavis
#FOGM17
@ScrippsSTSI
GMO Sapiens: The Life-Changing Science of Designer Babies
Ed Boyden PhD, Associate Professor, Media Lab and McGovern Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology is exploring how light can be used to treat neurological diseases using non-invasive devices and genetic engineering. He talks about the emerging field of neurotechnology, bringing together problem experts and solutions experts to find cures and treatments for brain diseases, and the need for more investigation of the mind/body connection. I talked with Ed at the recent Future of Genomic Medicine Conference held in La Jolla CA by the Scripps Translational Science Institute.
@EdBoyden3
#FOGM17
@ScrippsSTSI
Syntheticneurobiology.org
Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, is assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, physician at Columbia University Medical Center and author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer and the recently published The Gene: An Intimate History. I heard Sid speak at the 10th Annual Future of Genomic Medicine Conference and in this short interview he admits that he is surprised that his books have become so popular with general audiences but that scientists need to talk up to people and assume they can understand more about the implications of genetic breakthroughs.
@DrSidMukherjee
#FOGM17
@ScrippsSTSI
Sher Ali Butt, CEO, CB Therapeutics was presenting at a recent University of California San Diego IGNITE Innovator & Entrepreneur conference. He was there to highlight their novel way of producing cannabinoids in yeast bypassing the need for land, water and other elements involved with growing cannabis plants to extract the cannabinoids. Using biosynthesis technologies they are able to produce CBD isolate with a high level of purity in under 6 days costing on average $5/gram of pure compounds. Now it is up to the medical profession to find new ways to use CBD instead of opiates and other pain medications.
@CBTherapeutics
CB Therapeutics
Niranjanaa Jeeva talks about the March 4-5 UC Health Hackathon that will focus on improving health in low-resource communities and creative ways to address health care needs of refugees. Now in it's third year, this competitive event mixes individuals with medical and technology expertise and awards prize money to teams that show the most innovative solutions to critical medical problems.
#UCHealthHack
UC Health Hack
Jefferson McMillan, Manager, Healthcare Analytics, Enterprise Data Warehouse, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University is an expert in geo-spatial visualization and getting data tools into the hands of a wide variety of people. He takes delight in working with end-users when they realize that by looking at patient data in new ways they can find early warning signs of disease outbreaks and see relevance to social media chatter to community health.
@NUFeinbergMed
Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern University
Jonathan Mack PhD, Program Coordinator Health Care Informatics Program, University of San Diego is excited about the diversity of skills that are needed in the ever expanding health care information technology industry. He shines a light on the increased risk from cyber attacks on health information, the reduction of medical errors thanks to electronic records, and the kinds of jobs that are being created for health care providers with strong technology experience.
@UofSanDiego
hcinformatics.sandiego.edu
Ruth Bush PhD, Associate Professor, Beyster Institute for Nursing Research at the University of San Diego talks about changing expectations for patient portals by care providers and patients, who really has access to online health information, and possibilities for new approaches to clinical trials. Ruth also talks about the kinds of skills that are needed in the health care informatics industry.
@UofSanDiego
#HealthIT
University of San Diego Beyster Institute
CJ Barton, VP Sales, Kinvey talks about why clients who have tried to design apps most appreciate the value Kinvey brings to the development of HIPAA and security compliant mobile apps being used by hospitals, pharmaceuticals, insurance companies and other healthcare providers. He also talks about innovative mobile health apps for pets that their humans seem to enjoy and that are not required to meet all the standards for moving electronic health information of their owners.
@Kinvey
#HITSummit
Kinvey.com
Fintan Connolly, founder, TakeTen, a start-up in Belfast Northern Ireland is addressing the growing problem of children of all ages who are experiencing stress and anxiety. This innovative app is particularly useful for kids with learning, social, and emotional disabilities by having the camera in a mobile device detect heart rhythm, giving the user visual feedback about how their body is reacting, and providing a language for expressing feelings. TakeTen is working with teachers and parents to give kids a strategy for dealing with failure and stress brought on by life as well as social media.
@TakeTenTeam
#InvestNorthernIreland
#Belfast
@CONNECTinSD
TakeTenTeam.com
Eros Lazzerini Denchi PhD, Associate Professor, The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) talks about his exciting discovery of a protein that fine-tunes the cellular clock and impacts aging and the development of cancer. The novel protein TZAP binds the ends of chromosomes and controls a process called telomere trimming. Eros provides a little perspective about the long journey in our understanding of telomeres and telomerase and the intriguing questions that this new discovery opens up.
@scrippsresearch
TZAP: A telomere-associated protein involved in telomere length control Science January 12, 2017 Eros Lazzerini Denchi and Julia Su Zhou Li
The Scripps Research Institute
Elizabeth Blackburn PhD was trained as a molecular biologist and is currently the President of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. She is the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking discovery of telomeres that protect the end of chromosomes and the enzyme telomerase that produces the telomeres' DNA.
Liz and her co-author Elissa Epel, PhD have translated this basic research into a book The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer that provides a way for the general consumer to understand the science of telomeres and genetics and how lifestyle choices can impact the health of the cells in the body.
Originally from Tasmania, Australia Liz also reflects on whether there is a genetic predisposition for becoming a scientist.
Salk.edu
The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD and Elissa Epel, PhD
Brian Pak Yan Leung, neuroscience PhD candidate in the neuroscience graduate program at the University of Southern California. He is also a PhD student at the University of Zurich in the Department of Experimental Immunology. Brian talks about how those with a variety of backgrounds are drawn to the USC interdisciplinary neuroscience program and the upside down approach that makes classes so exciting.
#neuroscience
NGP.USC.edu
Tony Ricci, PhD, Director of Neuroscience Graduate Training Program at the Stanford University School of Medicine talks about how most of their students are new to neuroscience and the program's emphasis on interaction and collaboration between students and teachers. He also reflects on how the field of neuroscience is getting broader and how the prefix 'neuro' could be put in front of just about any field.
@StanfordMed
Stanford Medicine
@SfNTweets
#SfN16
Michael Rowling, COO, ProtoKinetics explains that measuring and evaluating how someone is walking can be an early predictor for diseases. He notes that wearables are limited in their ability to measure differences in those who are slowing down. Gait mat technology and associated software evaluates gait and balance by directly measuring footsteps for better diagnosis of such conditions as Parkinson's and stroke and can be used to help prevent falls.
@Protokinetics
ProtoKinetics
Gait and Balance Academy
Dr. Jon Pierce-Shimomura, Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Texas Austin talks about their unique program that pairs neuroscience graduate students with those that suffer from neurological diseases to better understand the whole patient and provide opportunities for everyone to learn about treating the ill and disabled.
#neuroscience
@SfNTweets
#SfN16
University of Texas Austin Graduate School of Neuroscience
Renee Cockerham PhD is the Neuroscience Program Manager at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. I talked with Renee at the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience about how enthusiasm for science is hard to teach but other skills can be learned. She also emphasizes that diverse backgrounds are needed in the growing field of neuroscience as they prepare the next generation of scientists.
#neuroscience
@SfNTweets
#SfN16
Lifesciences.umaryland.edu/neuroscience
Greg Gage, CEO and Co-Founder, Backyard Brains talks about bringing affordable neuroscience tools to kids and classrooms to stimulate thinking about how our brain communicates with our senses. I met Greg at the recent annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience where his fun experiments were a stark contrast to the high tech expensive equipment on the show floor being sold for clinical research.
@BackyardBrains
#Neuroscience
@SfNtweets
#SfN16
Backyard Brains
Kim Walpole, co-founder and CEO, Trials.ai an EvoNexus portfolio company that is replacing paper based clinical trial systems with digital access to the hundreds of data points from participants, leveraging artificial intelligence to allow for more efficient trials, and providing transparency for patients and researchers.
@evonexus
Trials.ai
Robin Smith, CEO, Orig3n, a genomics company that is bringing personalized genetic analysis to consumers to inform about lifestyle choices and risks. With a broader mission to get a snapshot of humanity to support regenerative medicine efforts and find clues to rare diseases, they are collecting genetic material from cheek swabs and blood samples from a wide range of groups. My sample was collected at the recent Exponential Medicine conference and opened a door into a whole new kind of conversation about health and wellness.
@Orig3n_Inc
@ExponentialMed
#XMed
Orig3n.com
Arnon Zamir, Chief Change Maker, Tikkun Olam Makers talks about creating virtual and physical communities to address the neglected problems of the disabled. With a mission to use available technology and to openly share the results, volunteers come together with those with disabilities in Makeathons to come up with creative solutions. Arnon is most excited about 3-D printing which can empower people in remote places to replicate designs and add their own innovations.
#XMED
@ExponentialMed
TOMGlobal.org
Dexter Ang, CEO, Pison Technology, an MIT start-up is developing breakthrough technology using electromyography or EMG to detect nerve signals with sensors that allow command of compatible devices. Dexter began his quest to address the needs of ALS patients by placing sensors on their bodies that use wi-fi to control a computer, phone or wheelchair by having the patient think about the muscle movement. The possibilities for all humans are endless.
@pisontechnology
#XMED
@exponentialMed
Pison Technology
Nadeem Sarwar PhD, President, Eisai AiM Institute talks about the dramatic changes taking place in the development of targeted theraputics because of the introduction of human genomic data rather than just relying on animal testing, building more sophisticated drug discovery models, and how the timing of intervention is shifting to earlier in the disease cycle.
@EisaiUS
Eisai
Edwin Chau Senior Sales Manager Affymetrix eBioscience was exhibiting at the Festival of Genomics California and took the time to talk about their ground-breaking microarray solutions and other tools that are helping researchers increase their efficiency and get a better picture of disease.
@ebioscience
#FestivalofGenomics
ebioscience.affymetrix.com
David Winternheimer, PhD Business Development, DxTerity talks to me from the show floor of the recent Festival of Genomics California where he demonstrates how easy it is for patients to get a blood sample to participate in research initiatives that are using rich diagnostic data from their genomic testing to investigate a wide range of diseases.
#FestivalofGenomics
DxTerity.com
Ali Torkamani, PhD Director of Genome Informatics and Drug Discovery,The Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) and Assistant Professor of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute is the co-author of a study on the Wellderly--those over 80 who have never suffered any major disease. The focus on healthspan and not just lifespan is being enhanced by exploring genomic data of the Wellderly phenotype as well as lifestyle choices and environment.
@ScrippsSTSI
The Scripps Translational Science Institute
Dr. Ezra Cohen, Professor Division of Hematology/Oncology Department of Medicine University of California San Diego and Associate Director for Translational Science at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center shines light on the newest innovations in immunotheraphy for treating cancer, using precise cellular therapies and check point inhibitors to reactivate the immune system to attack cancer cells, and the promise of being able to prevent cancer using personalized vaccines.
@UCSDHealth
UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center
UC San Diego Health Services
Presentation on Immuotheraphy
Dr. Tom Cowan, holistic physician and founder of Dr. Cowan's Garden Powders talks about how vegetable powders were first seen as a gourmet seasoning and now are being used to provide more diversity and nutrition for a wide audience. He also talks about harvesting and dehydrating sea vegetables like nori to make them more accessible, and why calories don't matter.
@DrCowansGarden
Dr. Cowan's Garden Powders
Kevin Stewart, Managing Partner State and Local Government, GIS Inc. talks about technology that is in place in cities and states to track and control vector borne diseases like the Zika virus, how important citizen engagement is for reporting problems, and value of maps for raising awareness and educating populations at risk.
@GISIncorporated
@Esri_health
#ZikaVirus
GIS Inc.
Zika.gisinc.com
Esri
Dr. Steve Steinhubl Director of Digital Medicine, the Scripps Translational Science Institute talks about the NIH Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program that will be officially launched this fall to recruit 1 million people in the most ambitious medical research program in US history. The goal is to create a rich data base feed by genetic information and patient data collected using smart phones and sensors to help define the new model for the future of healthcare.
@ScrippsSTSI
Scripps Translational Science Institute
Go here to register to receive more information from NIH:
PMI Cohort Program Participation
Jonathan Dotson host of The Ability Show talks about the impact of the Paralympics in London 2012 and the anticipation for the upcoming Paralympics in Rio in September. Jonathan is wheel-chair bound and knows how important participation in competitive sports is for those who are disabled.
Facebook.com/TheAbilityShow
Penny Wing, CEO and Founder, Brojure talks about her start-up that gives hospice patients the ability to create multi-media presentations that can be shared and enhanced by friends and family.
@Brojure
Brojure
John Audette, Co-Founder and President, Amplion talks about how biomarkers are starting to be used by pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies to create more effective drug treatments and tests that use liquid biopsies for early detection of cancer.
@Amplion
#precisionmedicine
#biomarkers
Amplion
Sonny Beech, Senior Business Development, GIS Inc. talks about the reasons indoor navigation has been slow to catch on, how the technology that tracks sensors or smart phones indoors is being used for emergency response training, and innovative uses for tracking patients and caregivers in care facilities to spot troubling trends and ways to improve service.
@GISIncorporated
#Esri_health
@esri
GIS Inc.
Eric Klasson, CEO, Snaptrends talks about listening to social media to look for smarter ways to deploy first response resources in times of emergency. He also talks about social media tracking and Esri GIS tools that are being put into place to track the spread of the Zika virus through people who attend the Olympics in Rio.
@Snaptrends
@esristartups
#Esri_health
Snaptrends
Chad Minteer, Mobile GIS Software Solutions Manager, Electronic Data Solutions talks about mosquito and other vector control efforts that are being aided by GIS tools, using geographic visualization to inform about threats to health like the Zika virus, and who is reporting and has access to mosquito activity data.
@esri_health
@esri_humanservices
Elecdata.com
Katija Lamia PhD is an assistant professor at The Scripps Research Institute and doing research into the connection between circadian clocks and metabolic disease and cancer. Her research has revealed that there are different internal biological clocks that govern every organ which might influence chronic diseases, weight gain and effectiveness of drugs.
@Scrippsresearch
The Scripps Research Institute
Corinna Davidson, patient advocate, talks about her struggles with United Healthcare to get recommended care services for her husband with ALS, a neurodegenerative disease. Corinna reveals what she has learned about the lack of transparency and oversight for insurance companies when they are making life or death decisions.
@myUHC
@ALSAssociation
Carey Kauffman, CEO, Well Self 360 talks about the value of volunteers and the different roles they can play in the healthcare system, finding support groups for a wide range of disease states, and extending the care team to include family, friends, co-workers, and care givers.
Well Self 360
Andrew Su PhD is Associate Professor, Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute and leader of the Su Lab looking at ways to apply bioinformatics approaches to biological discovery. Andrew talks about the tools the lab is developing to engage citizen scientists in discrete tasks that can be handled uniquely by humans and not computers.
@AndrewSu
@ScrippsResearch
@ScrippsSTSI
Scripps Research Institute
Su Lab
Mark2Cure.org
GeneGames.org
Dr. Glenn Wollman, medical guide and host of the Magical Medical Tour reveals there is no code for a death related to human error, on the public safety need to track and understand the cause of medical errors that result in death, and how patients need to educate themselves as the best defense against preventable errors.
Magical Medical Tour
Paddy Barrett, MD is a clinical scholar at the Scripps Translational Science Institute, host of the podcast The Doctor Paradox, and co-author of an article in The Lancet on the 200th anniversary of the invention of the stethoscope. Paddy talks about the early resistance to the use of the stethoscope, advancements in mobile ultrasound devices, and benefits for doctors and patients to see real-time pictures and not just depend on faint sounds heard only by the highly trained.
@Paddy_Barrett
@paradox_doctor
The Doctor Paradox
To Truly Look Inside published in The Lancet
Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI)
Ray Kingman, CEO and Founder, Semcasting talks about how healthcare and insurance companies are using a more data driven approach to create and place ads in order to find patients, caregivers and doctors across all devices at the best time and place. Ray also explains how privacy of patients is assured while for example, using public information to identify and target consumers who are close to a specific hospital or doctor's office.
@semcasting
Semcasting
Amy Blatt, biologist and international expert in geography, GIS and public health and author of Health, Science and Place: A New Model talks about the need to include where a person lives, works, and plays to understand their health, how geo-spatial medicine experts look at mass gatherings and the Rio 2016 Olympics, and that volunteered geographic health information is a big part of the citizen science movement.
@esri_health
HealthGIS
Health, Science and Place: A New Model
Paul Coates PhD, Director of the Office of Dietary Supplements at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) talks about why dietary supplements are considered food by the FDA and what that means for consumers, changing attitudes about the effectiveness of supplements including botanicals, and opportunities for nutrigenomics where research is focusing on identifying interaction between nutrients and the genome.
@NIH_ODS
Dietary Supplements: What You Need to Know
Full List of Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets
Dietary Supplement Label Database
Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health
Dr. Thomas Cowan, holistic physician and author and founder of Dr. Cowan's Garden Powders on the need for eating roots, leaves and flowers from vegetables, why diversity in our diets matters, and lessons learned from traditional eaters who ate a wide range of seasonal vegetables. Dr. Cowan has created these vegetable powders to help people get more of the health benefits that plants have to offer in a convenient and potentially sneaky way.
Dr Cowans Garden
Stuart Tomc, Vice President Human Nutrition, CV Sciences on the consumer market for hemp-derived CBD oil as well as possibilities for pharmaceutical-grade cannabidiol extracts. With the relatively recent discovery of the central regulatory system called the Endocannabinoid System in the human body, Stuart talks about the promise of CBD to address a wide range of conditions.
@CV_Sciences
CV Sciences
Dr. Este Geraghty, Chief Medical Officer and Health Solutions Director, Esri on working with international health organizations to apply spatial analysis to address emergencies, the spread of epidemics, and preventable diseases. Este also previews topics that will be included in the Esri International Users Conference June 27-July 1, 2016 in San Diego.
@esri_health
healthGIS
Esri
Nick Macchione, Director, Health and Human Services Agency, San Diego County, CA on the diversity of the population in San Diego with it's 4 distinct weather zones and threats of fires, extreme heat and earthquakes. Nick reveals how gathering data from a wide range of sources and using GIS data and predictive analytics is allowing them to see data-driven improvements in the health and safety of the citizens most at need.
@SDCountyHHSA
@Esri_health
HealthGIS
SanDiegoCounty.gov
Chris Fulcher PhD Director of the Center for Applied Research and Environmental Systems, Division of Applied Social Sciences, University of Missouri talks about the development of the Community Commons online tool using open data from federal and local sources to address Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA). Applying GIS and data visualization provides the kind of granularity needed to understand the complexity of the health of a community.
@communitycommon
@esri_health
healthGIS
Community Commons
Dr. Lidia Schapira, Editor-in-Chief Cancer.net and Fergal McGovern CEO Visible Thread on the challenge of getting patients and caregivers accurate health information that is accessible and understandable. Lidia and Fergal provide thoughtful observations about the challenges of providing accurate cancer related information to an international online audience on Cancer.net which was created by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
@cancerdotnet
@visiblethread
Cancer.net
Visible Thread
Andrew Schroeder PhD, Director of Research and Analysis, Direct Relief discusses the global spread of Zika and other mosquito borne viral diseases, impact of climate change on insects, and using real-time maps to prevent and mitigate epidemics by getting medicine to the right place at the right time.
@DirectRelief
@esri_health
DirectRelief.org
esri.com
Dr. Nancy Hardt drew on her experience as an OB/GYN and pathologist to map at risk neighborhoods in Gainesville, FL in coordination with the Sheriff to identify the correlation between domestic violence and health of the population with reflections on how location visualization can reveal surprises and promote cooperation.
A Sheriff and a Doctor Team Up To Map Childhood Trauma
@Esri_health
Bill Roth, Founder and President, Blue Fin Group, consultants to the healthcare industry, talks about the impact of expiring blockbuster drugs, appealing to specialty populations, getting to value based outcomes for expensive drugs, and how patients need to be more accountable for their own health.
@bluefingroup
Blue Fin Group
Summer Collins, VP of Population Health Data Strategies, Dr. Angela Moemeka, VP and Medical Director of Community Health, and Aijaz Syed, Visualization Specialist, Children's Health on using visualization and GIS to better understand health neighborhoods and identify social determinants of health with insights about their Wellness at WIC program for under-served children under 5 years of age.
@ChildrensTheOne
@esri_health
HealthGIS
Childrens.com
Todd Schuble, Manager of GIS Research for the University of Chicago's Division of Social Sciences and senior lecturer in the University of Chicago's Committee on Geographical Studies talks about how time and transportation options are key when measuring health service accessibility, what drives choices about care providers, and value of taking an asset census of community resources to promote healthier life-styles as demonstrated by the HealthERX project in Chicago.
@UChicago_GiS
GIS.uchicago.edu
HealthERX
Dave Chase, Managing Partner Healthfundr and widely published author on healthcare transformation emphasizes the need for changes in the process of delivery of healthcare in order to take full advantage of technology innovations with examples of proactive care models that can put out a spark before it turns into a full "fire".
@ChaseDave
HealthFundr.com
95 Theses for a New Health Ecosystem
Dora Barilla, President and Co-Founder, HC2 Strategies on how location impacts the health of a community, how mapping technology can integrate vast amounts of relevant environmental, social and patient data, the right to health not just healthcare, and seeing patient care in a more holistic way.
@esri_health
HC2 Strategies
Curt Becker, Co-Founder and CEO, Molecular Assemblies is a pioneer in the world of synthesizing DNA and has now started this new company to develop higher quality synthetic DNA in a process that does not require toxic chemicals and opens to doors to more advance use of synthetic DNA in precision medicine research.
@CurtBecker
@molassemblies
Molecular Assemblies
Laurence Girard, CEO and Co-Founder, Fruit Street explains how their telemedicine solution provides medical and health professionals with tools that are often reimbursed by insurance companies, can be used to help modify patient behavior, and are embraced by patients particularly the virtual food diary.
@lgirardsf
FruitStreet.com
Jefferson McMillan, Manager, Business Intelligence and Clinical Analytics, Children's National Health System talks about how GIS tools are revealing hidden patterns related to pediatric burns, childhood obesity and chronic diseases, using digital tools to get outside the 4 walls of the hospital to provide better care, and how innovation is built into their mission since the founding of the institution in 1870.
@Childrenshealth
@HealthMapJeff
@Esri_Health
ChildrensNational.org
Esri.com
Kian Saneii, CEO and Chairman, Independa on using the television as a platform to provide medical and social features that can vastly improve quality of life of population aging in place. Will virtual reality be a hit with seniors with limited mobility?
@Independa
Independa.com
Daniel Kraft MD Founding Executive Director & Chair of Exponential Medicine and Faculty Chair for Medicine at Singularity University talks about how integration of health data is leading to precision drugs and personalized therapies with the real power to treat and prevent still on the horizon.
@daniel_kraft
@exponentialmed
Exponential Medicine
Singularity University
Dr. Glenn Wollman, medical guide and host of the Magical Medical Tour reflects on the big picture of how robots and humans are working together now and might in the future, use of artificial intelligence in supporting senior health, and the importance of the human touch.
Facebook.com/TheMedicalGuide
MagicalMedicalTour.com
Alex Philp PhD, Founder and Chief Science Officer, Upstream Health Systems on the insights from visualization of geo-spatial health data, testing hypotheses about population health to move from treatment to prevention, international initiatives to improve population health, and why where you live matters.
@BigDataAlex
Upstream Health Systems
Tim Abou-Sayed MD, VP Physician Engagment, Interpreta on working with ACOs and insurance companies to implement precision medicine into individual and population healthcare with an example of a start-up working with doctors to integrate all forms of patient data.
Interpreta
Fruit Street
Robin Zander delves into what keeps people from learning new skills, breaking down silos of thinking to come up with new solutions, and the value of dancing for those of all ages.
@RobinPZander
RobinPZander.com
Singularity University
Anna McCollister-Slipp talks about the growing makers movement of coders, medical device experts, patients, and parents who are addressing the needs of diabetics to receive real time actionable data with affordable solutions.
@AnnaMcSlipp
@NightscoutFound
HackingDiabetes.org
Abhinav Gautam, MD Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder, Carevoyance on using economic data with geo-spatial visualization tools to improve hospital administration and identify untapped potential in the local market.
@carevoyance
Carevoyance
Rob McCray, President and CEO, Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance on including patients earlier in the medical product development cycle, risks and efficacy of continuous evaluation compared to traditional clinical trial models, and democratizing access to patient and doctor data.
@WLSA_ORG
Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance
Dr. Steve Steinhubl, Director of Digital Medicine, Scripps Translational Science Institutelooks back on his recent conference on transforming medicine, reflects on how much more evidence is needed about the effectiveness of mobile health strategies and how eager researchers, doctors, and patients are for innovative uses of new technology to improve care.
@SteveSteinhubl
@ScrippsSTSI
Scripps Translational Science Institute
Ming-Hsiang Tsou, Ph.D. Professor, Geography Department San Diego State University and Founding Director, Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age talks about using geo-location data from Tweets to identify early outbreaks of the flu, beginning to use mapping and spatial analysis in cancer research, and combining electronic medical records with GIS tools to improve population health.
@MingTsou
SocialMedia.SDSU.edu
Esri
Rosalind Picard, Chairman and Co-Founder Empatica on putting the lab on the person not the person in the lab, advances in electrodermal activity (EDA) sensors that are bringing wristband monitors to consumers as well as researchers, and the value of real time information about brain and body functions to potentially predicate and address triggers and life-threatening situations.
@RosalindPicard
@Empatica
Empatica
Myron Kowal, Founder and President, RCare talks about the value of passive tracking to support mobility of seniors, using behavioral data to prevent and address emergencies, and advances in wireless location identification to facilitate faster response.
@responsecare
RCareInc.com
Harry Edelson, Edelson Technology Partners and author of the new book Positivity: How to be Happier, Healthier, Smarter and More Prosperous** on the need to stay engaged and stretch the mind to stay healthy, how everyone can be smarter about their own health, and how the placebo effect can be used to overcome life challenges.
Edelson Technology Partners
Positivity: How to be Happier, Healthier, Smarter and More Prosperous by Harry Edelson
Jonathan Honiball, Senior Director, Customer Research, PCG talks about the challenges of medical device development, using genomic data for personalized treatments, impact of the miniaturization of sensors, and privacy and hacking concerns due to the changing functions of medical devices.
@PCGFirm
PCG
Wendy Nilsen, PhD. Program Director of the Smart and Connected Health, National Science Foundation explains the role of the NSF in funding basic research on the convergence of technology and healthcare, challenge and promise of developing personalized health programs, and addressing the need to prevent and not just treat diseases.
@NSF
NSF.gov
Santosh Kumar PhD, Center Director NIH Center for Excellence for Mobile Sensor Data-To-Knowledge University of Memphis talks about addressing health needs through awareness of body functions and the natural environment and developing predictive models to provide proactive and reactive information for patients and caregivers.
@MD2Korg
MD2K.org
Anna McCollister-Slipp, co-founder Galileo Analytics and Chief Advocate, Participatory Research, Scripps Translational Science Institute talks about using tools from the financial industry to analyze complex health data and leading research and development efforts into new scientific frontiers while enabling patients to actively pariticpate in their own treatments.
@AnnaMcSlipp
Galileo Analytics
Brenda Wiederhold PhD, Executive Director, Virtual Realtiy Medical Center reveals how she is using bio-feedback and virtual reality technology to help patients overcome a fear of flying and other phobias and panic disorders, which patients are helped most by this treatment and creating new pathways in the brain.
@VirtualBrenda
VRPhobia
Dr. Este Geraghty, Chief Medical Officer and Health Solutions Director, Esri highlights the value of visualization and maps to analyze health related data and why place matters when trying to understand individual as well as population health challenges.
@estegeraghty
Esri
Gary Conkright, CEO and Co-Founder, PhysIQ talks about seeing the body as a complex system, using machine learning technology to improve identification of early warning signs, creating personalized baseline body-function norms and the value of sensors that are providing ICU quality data.
@physIQ_health
PhysIQ
Donna Spruijt-Metz PhD, Director USC mHealth Collaboratory discusses the use of sensors and self-reported data to provide just in time adaptive intervention to address obesity particularly in children.
@MetzLab
Metz Lab
Walter De Brouwer, PhD, CEO, Scanadu talks about democratizing medicine by introducing consumer products that can test vital signs and vital fluids, the need to study health as it changes, and the value of real-time data in creating personalized baselines and influencing behavior.
@Scanadu
Scanadu
Adam Pellegrini, Vice President of Digital Health, Walgreens.com Motivating and rewarding healthy behavior by integrating personal data allows Walgreens to provide more convenient 24/7 service, popularity of scan to refill and other mobile app functions, and the changing role of the pharmacists.
Dr. Steven Steinhubl, Director of Digital Medicine, Scripps Translational Science Institute stsiweb.org @SteveSteinhubl Preview of the upcoming Transforming Medicine: Evidence-Driven mHealth conference where the goal will be to jumpstart efforts to drive development of evidence-based mobile health solutions.
Tony Rindsberg, CMO, Soci meetsoci.com @meetsoci Using innovative content scoring model to improve quality of social media posts and engagement particularly for health related and rapid response online activities.
Dr. Glenn Wollman, Medical Guide and Host MagicalMedicalTour.com glennwollman.com Innovations in medical mobile apps, opportunities for doctors and patients to improve understanding of conditions and personalize care, and what makes a good medical mobile app.
Marni Bartlett, Ph.D., Founder and Lead Scientist, Emotient Emotient.com @emotientinc Study conducted by the University of California San Diego reveals value of using facial coding to better understand pain in children and using facial signals to detect genuine emotions and to reduce bias in treatment.
Devin Gross, CEO, Emmi Solutions emmisolutions.com @emmisolutions Providing a platform for healthcare providers to enable patients and doctors to build stronger relationships using technology to drive efficiencies and improve care.
Wearable Medical Devices Get Miniaturized Robert Stone, CEO and Founder and Larry Czapla, Chairman, MedicalDesignSolutions.com Dramatic change in the use of sensors in medical devices and wearables due to miniaturization and other advances in technology and the need for wearables to be easy to use.
Sanjay Nichani, CEO, Pelfunc.com Heart Rate Touch app accurately measures heart rate using the iPhone camera and Squeak16 allows for annotation of images and creation of videos with uses for medical advice.
Rob McCray, President and CEO, Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance wirelesslifesciences.org@WLSA_ORG Upcoming 10th Annual Convergence Summit brings together medical, technology and policy thought leaders to drive partnerships and innovation in connected health and the move from data collection to knowledge about appropriate medical treatments.
Dr. Denee Jordan Clinical Psychologist AlreadyWell.com @AlreadyWell Need to reward what works and developing and maintaining respect for ourselves leads to better health.