Empowered Patient Podcast

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 th

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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 Down

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

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 #digitalh

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

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 Download the transcript here

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 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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here  

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 Download the transcript here        

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here

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 Download the transcript here