Empowered Patient Podcast

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 p

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 tr

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

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 an

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 th

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 o

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

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,

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

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 n

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

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 th

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 fro

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 fee

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 wor

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 necessa

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 th

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 p

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

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 a