Empowered Patient Podcast

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 direct

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 #DrugTarget

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

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

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 #Pandemic

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 #dia

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 #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

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 GrayMat

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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.s

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 #YourHealthinYo

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 Download the transcript here  

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 Download the transc