Empowered Patient Podcast

Yishai Knobel is the Co-Founder and CEO of HelpAround, which is focused on the interoperability of data from providers, payers, vendors, and pharmacies that are part of the specialty patient journey. The HelpAround gateway enables patients to quickly get appropriate drugs with all necessary support to ensure patients can fill specialty prescriptions and stay on their therapy. Yishai explains, "What we did is basically connect all these silos and create a gateway in the middle that basically gets the right information from all the vendors and makes sure that it is served to the patient in a way that is appropriate and manageable and consumable and actionable. For example, if the patient leaves the office, some of these vendors are not allowed to reach out to the patient until they have a consent signature from the patient that says, "Yes, I'm willing for the pharma company and their proxies to reach out to me." Collecting that consent at the right time is a critical step." "Just really automating and digitizin

Joe Hernandez is the Chairman and CEO of Blue Water Vaccines, a spinoff deploying technology from Oxford University. The original focus was on creating a universal flu vaccine that, with one shot, would provide immunity for all the known variations of influenza throughout an individual's lifetime. While continuing vaccine development with partners such as St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Blue Water has expanded its portfolio by identifying transformative vaccines in academic and research labs that can be preventative and prevent long-term diseases. Joe elaborates, "Where we come in as corporate entities is that we take those technologies and really move them to the next level of development. We find out how we can manufacture them in a way that allows us to create enough material for broad distribution. We design clinical trials, we execute clinical trials, and we deal with the regulatory agencies to get the product approved. Then ultimately, we commercialize with commercial partners. That's kind of the modali

Dr. Bill Williams is the President and CEO of BriaCell, which is bringing a cellular approach to cancer immunotherapy. Building on their knowledge about HLA molecules, BriaCell is genetically engineering multiple HLA types of therapy to match the HLA types of cancer patients. Breast cancer and other cancers like prostate cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma are being explored for treatment with this approach. Individuals have up to 14 different HLA molecules, and BriaCell has seen that a single match is a strong predictor of the success of treatment. Bill elaborates, "So, what we notice is that with our cellular therapy, we can predict patients that are very likely to respond based on the HLA type of a patient matching the HLA type of our cellular therapy  The way that we do this, practically speaking, is we take our cells, grow them under GMP conditions, good manufacturing practice conditions  Then after we harvest them, we irradiate them so they can't grow anymore, but they're still alive  They are viable, but

Tom Gibbs is the Director of Debiopharm's Innovation Fund, which is focused on in-licensing early-stage assets to help innovators bridge the gap between invention and bringing solutions to market. Investments are being made in technology that might help in drug development and digital technology that is enhancing the patient treatment pathway. Tom elaborates, "Debiopharm is actually a quite successful pharma company that most people haven't heard of. And this is really down to the business model. We were set up more than 40 years ago with the idea of taking molecules that have been dropped in development, bringing them into the clinic, proving that they really worked, and then getting them out to as many patients as possible. And so, the business model then is an in-licensing model where we go around the world looking for new compounds, typically at a pre-clinical stage, then we in-license them and develop them with our own money." "We invested in a company based out of California called VeriSIM Life, and the

Trisha Bordelon is a patient advocate and active participant with the PatientsLikeMe organization. Trisha talks about her journey from when the doctors first diagnosed multiple sclerosis through her attempts to find an effective medication.  Along the way, she discovered some genetic and environmental factors in developing this disease.  She also found a community of patients and advocates on PatientsLikeMe, where she found guidance and where she shares resources and advocacy support. Trisha explains, "I found PatientsLikeMe just by surfing the internet, and I didn't want somebody else to go through what I went through when I was first diagnosed. My doctor, when I was diagnosed with MS, handed me two brochures. One was for Copaxone, and the other one was for, I believe, Avonex. And he said, "Take these home, take a look at them, come back next week, and we'll decide which medicine you're going to start on." I didn't know anything about MS, in my mind's eye, since I had a relative that had it, I'm thinking, "O

Stan Abel is the Chief Executive Officer of ProJenX, working on developing therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons that are dying in ALS and other brain and neurological diseases. Their drug prosetin is optimized to be bioavailable and administered in a small amount of liquid which is an advantage to someone living with ALS. Research is showing promise in increasing motor neuron survival in other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and perhaps Alzheimer's. Stan explains, "In ALS, we need the therapeutics to get into the brain to access the motor neurons where the pathology is taking place and where those motor neurons are dying. The team at Columbia actually optimized a family of compounds. Not only were they screening these drugs to see that they were neuroprotective, and in these ALS models, they could see that we were actually really improving the survival of motor neurons in vitro, which means basically in a Petri dish. They optimized the compound so that it would easily cro

Dr. Stacia Woodcock is Clinical Cannabis Pharmacist at Curaleaf, which is bringing medical and adult use of cannabis to several states throughout the country.  Their model is to include a pharmacist in their dispensaries to educate practitioners and patients on the ways to use and manage cannabis products to address their concerns.  Curaleaf is also developing products that take a more nuanced view of the elements of the plant to explore how the use of minor cannabinoids can support everyday wellness and pain management without undesirable effects. Stacia explains, "So the Plant Precision line is five different formulations of the minor cannabinoids. The first one is CBG, which is cannabigerol, and CBG is a soothing anti-inflammatory. It can be really beneficial for people that have stomach issues, gut issues, and people that work out and want faster recovery from working out. It can help soothe all of that inflammation. It's for the active, involved person or someone who maybe has some stomach troubles, whic

Jason Matuszewski, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, and Andrew Van Vurst, Chief Operating Officer of BioStem Technologies have a vision to change the paradigm on the use of perinatal tissue for advanced wound care. Their initial target is complex wounds in the lower extremity region, specifically focusing on diabetic foot ulcers, venous ulcers, and pressure ulcers using a perinatal tissue allograft to promote healing. Jason explains, "In general, non-healing and complex wounds share similar characteristics, high levels of protease, elevated inflammatory markers, low growth factor activity, and reduced cellular proliferation." "Chronic non-healing wounds are wounds that have failed to progress through a timely sequence of repair or proceed through the wound healing process without restoring anatomic or functional results. A large amount of these wounds add a huge burden on cost. Specifically, our initial market, Medicare patients, things of that nature, add up to the tune of almost $25 billio

Sharon L. Rogers Ph.D. is the CEO of AmyriAD Therapeutics and has a deep understanding of the development of drugs to address the impact of Alzheimer's disease. Currently, the most common treatment is Aricept which Sharon developed and brought to market in 1996. Based on recent research, it does not appear that disease modification leads to clinical benefit or reduction in the progression of the disease. Sharon explains, "We're not doing anything that's going to modify the underlying progression of the disease, at least that we know of. This is a relentless disease, and sooner or later, it will run its course, and the outcome is ultimately fatal. But, we can buy time for people. Whenever you can improve function, you can reduce reliance on skilled nursing care. You can reduce reliance on the caregiver and the burden that it brings to the loved ones of the patients. You can prolong the time to nursing home placement, which is just really horrible for everyone involved, the families and the patients." "It is a

Jack Hoppin Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer and John Babich Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer, and Co-Founders of Ratio Therapeutics aim to develop and produce best-in-class radiopharmaceuticals. Harnessing the power of radiation by making it into an injectable drug, Ratio is creating a way to find tumor cells anywhere in the body. John explains, "And what we are doing, which is quite unique, is creating a platform of small molecules that can be radiolabeled with a variety of different isotopes. And these radioactive isotopes carry the ability to deliver different types of radiation -- beta particles and alpha particles. They have different toxicities and different lengths, so they travel in the tissue. And by combining the right molecules for the delivery with the right isotope, we're hoping to optimize the ability to control the tumor to basically put it into remission while maintaining a high quality of life. And we do that latter component by making sure that the injected material doesn't go to

Dr. Robert Ross is the CEO of Surface Oncology, which is focused on immune modulation in the treatment of cancers. Their hypothesis is that IL-27, a cytokine, is telling the immune system to ignore the cancer and providing a hiding place for the cancer cells. By administering their drug SRF 388 to bind up all the IL-27, the immune system can properly identify and fight the cancer. Robert explains, "SRF 388, all of these drugs, have such needlessly complicated names when they get started, but SRF 388 is an antibody. It's a protein that basically is trying to neutralize a cytokine. Cytokines are proteins in the body that the immune system uses to talk to other cells in the immune system. There are cytokines that stimulate the immune system, that make the immune system act more robustly, and there are cytokines that suppress the immune system. These are proteins that make the immune system go awry, for lack of a better word." "We know, and we've used for a long time, drugs to try to mimic the effect of cytokines

Greg Frost is the Chairman and CEO of EXUMA Biotech, which is working on a cancer cellular therapy that can be administered in a patient without lymphodepletion from chemotherapy. Traditionally, it was thought that some cells needed to be eliminated before new cells could be introduced. EXUMA is working on a rapid point of care, rPOC, technology that will allow this approach to be expanded to various cancers and readily available to patients. Greg explains, "What we came to realize was that if we were to take our gene-loaded lymphocytes, and rather than putting them directly in the bloodstream, if we allowed them to start through what we call a synthetic lymph node or a local injection site, that those cells could get the programming and expansion where they were rather than just going straight in the bloodstream and every cell was diluted out into different locations in the body." "If they could start in one location together as a team, you had a much better chance of, when they would get into the lymphatics

Dr. Robert Gish is the Medical Advisor to Helio Genomics and the Medical Director of the Hepatitis B Foundation and is looking for answers to questions related to who is most at risk for liver cancer.  He is also working to improve blood testing to diagnose liver cancer earlier by looking for tumor material that shows methylated DNA changes. Robert explains, "So, one of the biggest messages I would have is the deficiency in surveillance for liver cancer. Screening is the first test, and surveillance is ongoing testing. Some people get confused with the word screening, unfortunately. We are not testing patients for liver cancer anywhere near what we should. Probably 20%, one out of five, people are getting proper surveillance when they're at risk for liver cancer." "Let's talk about at risk. That's a second message. Identifying people with risk, which is cirrhosis, 80%, 85% of people with liver cancer have cirrhosis, is also inadequate. We need to teach people how to find out if somebody has cirrhosis without

Dr. Paul Peter Tak is the CEO and President of Candel Therapeutics, developing innovative immunotherapies for patients with solid tumors that are difficult to treat, like brain cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer. This approach induces cell death in cancer cells at the site of injection, and it also trains cells to look for tumor cells migrating throughout the body. Paul Peter explains, "The approach we call oncolytic viral immunotherapy. The name already indicates that we use viruses here for a good purpose, actually, to treat cancer. And immunotherapy indicates that we try to activate the patient's own immune system to fight cancer at the site of the injection, as well as at the site of the un-injected distant metastasis. Basically, you can see it as a form of what we call in situ vaccination. In situ means at the place of the injection." "We kill the tumor cells at the site of the injection, and we do that in a way that's immunogenic. That means that we activate the i

Dr. Samantha Dale Strasser Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Pepper Bio, uses a transomic perspective with a global functional causal lens on genomic data to drive insights throughout the drug discovery process and identify the best treatments for patients. The goal is to go beyond the traditional understanding of diseases to unlock opportunities and solutions not considered in the past. Samantha explains, "So, I mentioned the genome is fantastic because it looks at instructions, but it looks at what can happen. It doesn't look at what is happening. And so looking up those data layers, bringing us to phosphoproteomics, brings functional context of fundamentally what proteins are doing and how that impacts disease and treatment selection." "The second facet that we drive forward here at Pepper is bringing a global context. So just kind of genomics itself is obviously a massive data set of hundreds of thousands of genes. But then you look at bringing in context from transomics, as well as proteomics an

Dr. Miguel Grillo, Prosthodontic Specialists of San Diego raises awareness about the importance of proper chewing and the role teeth play in overall health. Finding periodontal disease at an early stage means measures can be taken to save teeth. Patients with the late-stage disease and those with cosmetic concerns now have more options for permanent solutions to restore their smiles. Miguel explains, "So prosthodontist is a specialty within dentistry. What we specialize in is the reconstruction of the mouth. So when it gets to the point where others cannot handle a case due to complexity, it could be medical, restorative, or behavioral issues. Then we basically take it from there, and we do large restorations of the mouth with implants, partials, dentures, or crowns or veneers. And we're in the business of making things work better, function well, and giving people their lives back." "I think you can pick up a lot of clues just by looking at somebody's smile and seeing the teeth, how long the teeth are, if th

Chuck Sawyer is the Special Assistant to the President at Northwestern Health Sciences University, NWHSU, located in Bloomington, Minnesota. Chuck argues for a different approach to pain management given the opioid epidemic and the overuse of opioid narcotics to treat acute pain and chronic pain. Of particular concern is extending the use of chiropractic treatments and acupuncture for Medicaid and Medicare patients. Chuck explains, "And fast forward to the present day, we now have ten programs, with our chiropractic program continuing to be the largest. But we've added acupuncture at both the master's and doctoral levels, and we have a program in therapeutic massage. More recently, programs in other allied health careers including medical assisting, medical laboratory science, radiologic technology, and radiation therapy. We have a post-bachelors pre-health program for students with bachelor's degrees who are seeking enrollment in medical schools and dental schools, and two online programs just launched in in

Dr. Jon Morrow, Senior VP of Medical Affairs and Informatics, and Daniel Blumenthal, Vice President of Strategy at MDClone, shed light on the meaning of synthetic data for drug discovery and patient care. Using both original data and statistical models of the data, researchers and clinicians can quickly gain insights that can impact patient care, facilitate collaborations and partnerships, and dramatically shorten the time required for product development. Daniel explains, "Actually, the system is able to produce synthetic data on the fly on demand. It reacts to the end user's request for data. So, if I'm an end user and I want to build a population, I want to look at a population of patients with diabetes and understand the medications they were on and lab tests that were drawn about them. To understand their disease trajectory over time. I'm able to define that, and the way our engine works is it actually can take that original population. But without sharing that population, as John articulated at the begi

Ardy Arianpour, CEO and Co-Founder of SEQSTER, is breaking down health data silos using their enterprise operating system, which aggregates disparate health data sources, including real-world data, into a single 360-degree view of a patient in real-time. This integrated approach with a Digital Front Door solves many challenges for life sciences, patient engagement, and data interoperability. Ardy elaborates, "We have achieved nationwide coverage of electronic health records from hospitals and medical groups, as well as genomic DNA labs, wearables, remote patient monitoring sensors, pharmacy data, and even social determinants of health data. And we have this very unique customizable white label approach where SEQSTER provides accelerated access to de-identified tokenized real-time data and comprehensive curated data to address critical needs across the healthcare continuum." "For about five years, nobody wanted to work with us. We were just building, building, building, being visionary, as we thought. Then the

Alex Nepogodiev is a Divisional Vice President of Abbott Vascular Business and shares insights about the need for stents with larger diameters. In the past, physicians would have to take a smaller diameter stent and follow up with another catheter to expand that stent to a larger size and to match the vessel. This procedure added an additional step and risk. Alex explains, "Some of the bigger challenges today are, of course, the variation in anatomy and the complexity of some of those narrowings that we have in our heart. Cardiovascular disease, obviously, impacts a lot of patients, and myself included, and it's important for us not only to maintain good health but also go for appropriate and timely checkups. And when the cardiologist finds a narrowing in our heart, they initiate the procedure by first doing an x-ray or an angiogram before proceeding to insert a stent. And once they do that, they can also use other imaging modalities to look more closely at the vessel." "So XIENCE Skypoint large vessel sizes