Empowered Patient Podcast

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 se

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 m

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 tr

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

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 t

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 App

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

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

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

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 imp

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, c

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 li

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 Caroli

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 som

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 activate

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

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 po

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

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 differ

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 w