Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Sonia Chopra, endodontist and Founder of Ballantyne Endodontics is an expert on alleviating tooth pain. Sonia points out the advantages of using the Sonendo GentleWave procedure to change outcomes and expectations of root canal pain. Not only is this procedure more effective and faster, but it also requires just one dental appointment instead of multiple visits, freeing up resources to handle more patients and respond more quickly to emergencies. Sonia elaborates, "It's really important to understand our world of endo because we deal with tooth pain. And I would say about 80%, a good majority of patients seek us, dentists, out when they have pain, so having that deep understanding of tooth pain is really important. Plus, we are the specialty that saves teeth, and in my opinion, just based on my own experience and being born without eight teeth, saving teeth has really become a very important topic for me." "I started my practice back in 2008 before GentleWave came onto the scene. I implemented GentleWave

Keri Yale Head of Patient Centricity and Engagement at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, brings deep understanding of the need for pharmaceutical companies to be patient-centric in their culture and focus, including all the employees who do not deal directly with patients. Patient engagement is defined as engaging and listening to patients while integrating their input into the design of clinical trials and the development of products and resources for patients and doctors.    Keri elaborates, "I was just thinking recently about how much the work that I've done over the past two decades has come full circle to the work that I just mentioned that I do today. I started at BI in sales. I was working in Los Angeles, and it was the height of the AIDS epidemic. I was calling on AIDS service organizations because we had HIV/AIDS medications, and I was meeting a number of people who were truly inspirational. One of those people who inspired me the most was the director at the time of an organization called Being

Gregg Church is the President of 4medica, a 24-year-old company that is in the business of aggregating datasets to create an accurate longitudinal view of a patient's health record. The number of different legacy systems that were not initially designed for interoperability is only part of the problem. In the current environment, there is an average 20% duplication rate creating confusion for care providers and payers and potentially causing harm to the patient. Gregg elaborates, "It's going to depend on the organization and how much effort they place into it. But when we look at data coming in from different disparate systems and silos, believe it or not, most of what we see is still double-digit, meaning it's above the 10% duplication rate. We've seen use cases that get up closer to 25%, 30%, especially in the commercial lab and laboratory arena because they deal with so many different outside systems. You've got practices on their own EMRs. You've got other laboratories that may use that lab for reference

Dr. Kent Smith, the Chief Executive Officer at Sleep Dallas, raises concerns about the impact of sleep disorders and untreated sleep apnea. He emphasizes that physicians don't always ask patients about the quality of their sleep and that dentists have more time with patients to explore the underlying reasons for inadequate deep sleep. Kent explains, "I think many in healthcare aren't aware that poor sleep or ineffective sleep or lack of sleep, or unhealthy sleep, can have a severe impact on someone's health. I mean, just cutting the number of hours of sleep can increase cardiovascular disease." "So then, when you start talking about unhealthy sleep, yes it can lead to diabetes, sudden cardiac death, high blood pressure, depression, and acid reflux. The body needs oxygen. And if the body's not getting oxygen during sleep, then all kinds of bad things can happen." "I ask every one of my patients, how many hours of sleep do you get? What time do you go to sleep, and what time do you wake up? It's amazing how man

Dr. Tomasz George, Chief Scientific Officer of Virax Biolabs, has developed a novel test process that assesses adaptive immune responses to viruses. This information can inform decisions by patients and doctors on how to most effectively produce an immune response and boost personal protection from the next virus outbreak. An app delivers data about how an individual might respond to a virus and sends notices of specific viruses in a geographic location, along with links to diet and lifestyle suggestions. Tomasz explains, "We also distribute and sell other viral testing products that look at viruses at different stages of infection and also your immunity at different stages. We intend to provide a subscription service in the next few months that actually allows you to test for these viruses on an ongoing basis, depending on which new viruses are at the moment. And this allows you to determine whether you would expect to cope with these viruses or not if you came in contact with them." "We have a number of dif

Asaf Zviran is the CEO, CSO, and Co-Founder of C2i Genomics which is both a technology company and a diagnostic company. C2i is providing a decentralized, cloud-based platform that allows global genomic labs, health centers, and pharma companies to do whole-genome sequencing on cancer patient tissue or blood. This technology uses the genomic data to determine the best options for treatment and to monitor treatment response. Asaf explains, "The way that we look at the cancer detection is in a holistic way. We're actually detecting huge amounts of features across the genome in a very, very sensitive and accurate manner. Many clinical trials have been showing that the C2i whole-genome approach is much more sensitive and accurate than any other technology that is currently in development." "Whole-genome, I think is a new category in medical genomics in general. Whole-genome allows us to very comprehensively extract everything, all of the variants, all of the genomic changes, in the patient blood. And then the cha

Dr. Noura Abul-Husn is the VP of Genomic Health, and Amy Sturm the Director of Population Health Genomics at 23andMe. With over 13 million customers, 23andMe has built a database that can provide customized and personalized genetic information to individuals that can indicate health predispositions. This kind of information can lead to strategies to reduce the risk of diseases, manage diseases more appropriately, and even prevent diseases. Noura explains, "Well, 23andMe has been delivering results that could lead to critical healthcare decisions, as you said, for a long time now. And the way people are using that today is typically to bring that information to their trusted healthcare provider to find out what next steps they ought to take based on that information. It could be information that indicates they're at a higher risk for cancer, for example, or for high cholesterol. I think in most cases, we do deliver, from the 23andMe side, information about what that result means for the person, for their healt

Dr. Jamie Colbert is the Senior Vice President of Care Delivery at Memora Health, a technology company automating manual tasks and administrative functions that take up so much time for healthcare providers. It is creating an environment that promotes interoperability with existing electronic medical record systems and other sources of patient data to improve patient care and provide guidance for patients to self-manage their complex conditions. Jamie explains, "In terms of the support that patients are receiving, Memora is really helping to provide a lot of additional support that you just couldn't get from having to rely on manual phone calls from your provider's office because providers just don't have the time. The providers are overwhelmed, and they're trying to get through their day and just see the patients that are in front of them in the office. But with Memora, you can automate a lot of those check-ins and support such that you, as a provider team, know that your patients are still well cared for an

Christian Lillis is the Executive Director of the Peggy Lillis Foundation -PLF - is on a mission to raise awareness about the highly contagious disease Clostridium difficile and to get C. diff recognized as a nationally notifiable disease. The Foundation is also providing a nutrition and lifestyle guide to give patients the ability to know what to eat to prevent recurrence and help prevent C. diff and other infections. Chris explains, "We've had some polls done that show about a third of Americans have heard of C. diff. They've heard the term. That doesn't necessarily mean that they understand it. Just because we hear a lot of things doesn't mean we have great knowledge about them. So, I'll address just a little bit about the disease itself, so people have a sense of it. C. diff is the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in healthcare settings. There are about half a million infections every year, and at this point, there are about 25 to 30,000 deaths each year. And something that I find remarkable is th

Jim Pursley is the President of Hinge Health, which offers a digital musculoskeletal solution to help individuals alleviate pain, avoid surgery, and reduce the need for opioids for acute and chronic pain. Hinge is also shining a light on those struggling with neurological and mental health challenges and how those conditions are exacerbating chronic pain and driving abuse of opioids. Jim elaborates, "We have developed a solution that offers virtual physical therapy. It's the elegant integration of hardware, software, and clinical services delivered by exceptional clinicians, physical therapists, health coaches, orthopedic surgeons, dieticians, registered nurses, et cetera. We use sensor technology and advanced computer vision, as well as the Hinge Health software, to deliver physical therapy remotely and virtually in the convenience of somebody's home or wherever they find most convenient." "Low-income populations, for example, are 40% more likely to use opioids for MSK pain relief than high-income groups. At

Dr. Arthur Suckow is the Co-Founder and CEO of DTx Pharma, in search of an approach to administering sRNA therapeutics using a solution of fatty acids, which every cell in the body has a mechanism to take up. Leveraging those mechanisms, receptors, and transporters, the DTx concept is to trick the cells into bringing the sRNA molecules in so they can repress the expression of disease-causing genes. Arthur explains, "Well, the one that everyone is familiar with now because it's on the front page of the news almost every day are mRNA modalities where you put a gene essentially back into cells. The poster child for that is putting the spike protein in to generate a vaccine response. But that's not what we do. We actually inhibit the expression of disease-causing genes. When you have an extra copy or a mutant protein that mucks up cellular function, we try to inhibit the expression of those genes. And those are called sRNA or antisense therapeutics. We specifically focus on the flavor called siRNA as our kind of

Dr. Carl Cameron is the Chief Medical Officer at MVP Health Care, a health services company in the northeast, developing innovative solutions for Medicare enrollees to help them get the care they need by thinking of patients as consumers.  Using Care Guides, MVP is solving problems and clarifying benefits for consumers to keep them healthy and out of the hospital. Carl explains, "One thing we did in trying to understand the customers, the potential customers of the health plan, is we tried to put our biases behind us. We then tried to think in advance about what the customers' needs were. We went out, and we did a large survey of over 1,000 potential customers to really try to understand, for a health plan that they were going to join, or potentially going to join, what are the most important things that they would consider, and what were their fears about changing health plans." "Through our Care Guide, we proactively call each customer and connect with each customer ahead of time to encourage them right fro

Dr. Ray Lee is the CEO of Teclison, focused on overcoming the limitations of existing immunotherapy for treating liver cancer in part caused by the fact that the liver is a highly immunotolerant organ. The key is to make the tumor a low-oxygen environment and delivering a drug that only works on the tumor. Ray elaborates, "First, let me explain what the TATE represents. It stands for the Trans-arterial TEC-001 Embolization. TEC-001 is the pipeline compound we've been trying to develop. This compound is a so-called prodrug. In other words, by itself, it has a low activity. But once in the low-oxygen environment, the drug is going to be activated. What we're trying to develop is to create a very innovative way to convert the tumor into an environment with low oxygen. And this low-oxygen environment is exclusive within the tumor but not in the normal liver nor in the systemic organs." "So once they have this catheter in place, they will inject our drugs, the TEC-001, directly through the catheter into the tumor

Clark Lagemann is the CEO of Avidon Health, developing technologies for healthcare providers and payers in order to deliver personalized health improvement plans for employees.  Health coaches deploy digital tools to address the challenges of substance abuse and stress in order to find the root causes of problems and find paths to behavior change. Clark explains, "Well, the first thing is you need to create a culture in which your employees feel comfortable sharing and speaking about the challenges they're facing. Absenteeism, everyone knows when Billy's not at work, but presenteeism is much more difficult to identify. There are so many employees right now that are back at the office that aren't able to effectively deliver objectives and outcomes for the organization." "Everything connects into the overall person. If you look at some of the data, the chronic healthcare conditions that we see today, it's a problem. But if you look at the root cause, it's stress. It's bad sleep, poor nutrition, and lack of phys

Amir Jafri is the CEO and Founder of Immunicom, targeting the molecules and proteins produced by cancer. Using a subtractive approach, Immunicom has developed technology intended to remove the elements that are suppressing the immune system and allowing the tumor to shield itself from the immune system. After treatment, patients in clinical trials are seeing immune cells infiltrate their solid tumor cancers. Amir explains, "What we will do is then design our own molecules that will neutralize what the molecule of cancer is producing. But instead of making our molecule into a drug, which is normally what would happen, we actually put it into this proprietary liquid cartridge that we have. It's got a liquid chemical matrix, and there's like a little cartridge, and our molecule goes in there. That cartridge attaches to what's called a plasmapheresis machine." "Now, that machine is very similar to a dialysis machine. These machines exist all over the world and they've been around for 30 years. The patient sits do

Ming Li is the Chief Strategy Officer at Alvotech, a biosimilar-only company developing biosimilar drugs to provide lower-cost alternatives in the global marketplace. Biosimilars are analogous to generic medicines, but these drugs are complex molecules developed and produced out of living systems, requiring sophisticated manufacturing processes and often litigation. The bulk of success in biologics has been in oncology, immunology, gastrointestinal diseases, asthma, and osteoporosis. Ming explains, "Biosimilars are somewhat analogous to generic medicines in that they are slightly less expensive to develop than it would be to develop a new molecule. They can be offered at a lower price to patients and healthcare systems. So, we are focusing on developing these more affordable biosimilars. We really think that there's an opportunity here because as biologics have become the standard of care across many different areas, they've also become a large portion of the costs when you look at pharma more broadly." "In t

Phillip Bogdanovich is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cipher Skin, developing wearable biometric monitoring technology for a wide range of applications. Their BioSleeve is providing data without the wires generally required to collect bio-signals. Development is underway for using this next-to-skin device to be embedded into clothing to capture a variety of biometrics. Phillip explains, "Cipher Skin is a hardware-enabled SaaS tool. We're focused on providing really good patient outcomes and strengthening the patient/provider bond in the interest of providing best-in-class care. The hardware piece to this is important because, as a hardware-enabled SaaS company, it means that we have significantly better control of the biometric collection device and so better control over the data that's produced." "The BioSleeve is a clothing-based tool, right now, to your point, in its current form and factor. It is a sleeve for the upper and lower extremity. We're working on devices for the rest of the body. It's a next-to-skin

Mark Manfredi is the CEO and President of Ikena Oncology, which is exploring the Hippo Pathway and how it relates to the RAS Pathway and RAS Network in order to inhibit genes that are associated with cancer initiation, progression, and cancer cell survival. Ikena is learning a great deal about drugging these pathways for therapeutic intervention and therapeutic resistance for NF2 mutant cancers. Mark elaborates, "We're working on two interconnected pathways. One is called the Hippo Pathway, and the other is called the RAS Pathway. Together we call it the Hippo and RAS Onco Signaling Network because there's a connectivity between these two pathways. We built a deep institutional knowledge as well as tools to enable us to get the right drug to the right patient." "We follow the science from all angles, including the biologic, so a deep understanding of the mechanism and how it relates to cancer patients as well as chemical. So the best approach to targeting different nodes. This includes targeting individual ta

Dr. Peter Traber is the Chief Medical officer at Selecta Biosciences, which is enabling and increasing the effectiveness of gene therapy by inhibiting the body's immune response. Their drug platform ImmTOR is a nano-encapsulated immunomodulatory drug that causes the immune system to be tolerant of antigens and inhibits the immune response. This approach may overcome an important hurdle in gene therapy and biologic therapy by allowing repeated dosing. Peter explains, "Our immune response is very robust, and it's hard to get around it. So in order to make these therapies, either proteins or gene therapy, more effective and safer, we are tolerizing the individual to those therapies with this platform." "So I'll give you an example from our phase three program in chronic refractory gout. We're using an enzyme to treat refractory gout, which decreases the uric acid, but it's a yeast-derived enzyme. It's an enzyme that humans don't have, and therefore it's highly immunogenic. If you give it to a human, it's only ef

Dr. Ryan Lee, Chairman of the Department of Radiology at the Einstein Healthcare Network, now part of Jefferson health, and Dr. Peter Seidensticker, the VP of Medical Affairs and Clinical Development at Bayer Radiology join me to talk about how Bayer's Calantic Digital Solutions is empowering radiologists. Applying AI to the workflow allows the radiologist to improve efficiency, reduce fatigue, and focus on the most important suspicious markers. Ryan explains, "You specifically asked about the role of the radiologist. I think traditionally, people think of a radiologist as somebody who looks at images and then generates a report. But these days, the American College of Radiology – ACR-- has something called imaging 3.0. What that really means is that we, as radiologists are much more than just a report. We're involved from the beginning of ordering of the study, all the way to the communication of the results. Not just the actual interpretation of the image themselves. So I think there is a much more holistic