Empowered Patient Podcast

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 condit

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

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 tes

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 swelli

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, i

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 actual

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

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

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 h

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 disea

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 commun

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 i

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

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 p

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

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

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 #AIPlatfor

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

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 ther

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 emer