Empowered Patient Podcast

David Dodd, CEO of GeoVax,  highlights the need for next-generation vaccines, specifically multi-antigen and T cell-focused technologies, to provide better protection for immunocompromised populations. Their pipeline includes a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, an Mpox/Smallpox vaccine, and a gene therapy for solid tumors. A priority for GeoVax is to develop new manufacturing processes to significantly accelerate vaccine production, increase yield, and reduce costs. David explains, "Multi-antigen vaccines become critically important, especially for populations for whom the existing approach in vaccines, meaning single-antigen vaccines or antibody-focused or antibody-only vaccines, is inadequate. And to clarify that, there are approximately 40 million adults in the United States, about 10 times that number worldwide, who suffer from various medical conditions, such as blood cancers. They may have renal disease, diabetes, or be HIV positive. They may also have weakened immune systems, they could have multiple sclero

Rick Davis, patient advocate and Founder of AnCan, is building and operating virtual peer-to-peer support groups to allow patients to connect with others who have direct experience with their condition.  These groups can provide accurate information, foster connections among participants, and serve as a check on medical misinformation. With the growing acceptance of virtual meetings, this approach overcomes geographic, physical, and psychosocial barriers that might otherwise prevent participants from attending on-site meetings. Rick explains, "The mission is to make each person and each patient a better advocate for themselves. That's really what we try to do, and we do that through empowering patients with peer knowledge. We introduce patients to other peers who have been through what these people are facing right now, not only patients, but also their care partners, and through their experience, we hope that these patients and care partners will become more expert in managing their own situation."   "In 20

Bob Farrell, CEO of mPulse, is using digital technology, data analytics and AI to improve the relationship between health plans and their members in order to improve health outcomes and operational efficiency. Bob introduces the concept of HXI, Health Experience and Insights, as a framework that unites data, intelligence, and personalized communication to provide tools to enage members at the best time and by the preferred methods with appropriate information at the right time. Analyzing claims data enables plans to identify high-risk patients, promote preventive care, and build health literacy. Bob explains, "The mission of mPulse, and this has really been the mission of the company since its founding in 2015, is to improve the health outcomes of our customers' members and patients. So we're looking to close gaps in care. We're looking to increase literacy so that members and patients can understand their health plans. So providers can take charge of healthcare and improve those outcomes. And while we're do

Rick Pierce, Co-Founder and CEO of Decoy Therapeutics. is using AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and is developing broad-acting antivirals using peptide conjugates that target a shared invasion mechanism of hundreds of viruses.  The company is using small language models and a high-speed peptide synthesizer to dramatically reduce drug creation time. Rick predicts that the future of drug discovery will combine AI-driven design with advanced biological models, such as organoids, to better predict drug toxicity and efficacy. Rick explains, "Decoy Therapeutics was founded years ago, during the COVID era. And what we've learned during that was that in order to develop drugs rapidly and scale up their manufacturing, we needed to use machine learning and AI. And the drugs that we're looking at developing today as a result of that are broad-acting antivirals that can be used against multiple viruses. So one drug can be used against multiple viruses like Flu, COVID, and RSV." "So we chose antivira

Dr. Kumar Dharmarajan, cardiologist and geriatrician and Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at World Class Health, is  bringing concierge healthcare to employees of self-insured companies.   The platform includes a global network of top-tier doctors and nurse navigators. Directly negotiating with providers reduces costs and reduces administrative and financial friction for patients seeking planned procedures. The model also reduces friction for physicians by providing them with complete patient records and ensuring prompt payment. Kumar explains, "We are a global, medically led center of excellence platform. So, by that, we have top doctors and top hospitals around the world, including the United States and many other countries, and we help patients access that network. We have pre-negotiated rates via our nurse navigators. We really believe in the power of nurses to help patients make healthcare decisions that may be valuable and important to them. And those nurses will work with the patient before, during

Brent Dial, Founder and CEO of Beek Health, has built a platform that addresses patient information fragmentation by aggregating data from patient portals and providing direct access to lab testing. Health literacy is key to preventing chronic diseases, and AI is being used to scale the delivery of personalized health information. Identifying relevant biomarkers and early warning signs supports proactive health management that can alter long-term health outcomes. Brent explains, "Beek Health is re-imagining healthcare by finally putting the individual at the center of their health journey. While we talk about patient-centric or customer-centric or shared decision-making, it's not real in practice, and it's for good and for very clear reasons. There's information asymmetry, there's information overload, and then information is quite fragmented." "Currently, we have three subscription tiers. The first option is the basic plan, which gives you platform access to synthesize and connect with multiple patient port

Dr. Asher Eghbali, Co-Founder of Fuerte, has developed a platform to address the significant communication challenges between healthcare providers and pharmaceutical industry representatives. The goal is to streamline this relationship by replacing inefficient scheduling methods, and eliminate miscommunication and missed meetings to reduce frustrations and wasted time. The app is designed to combine professional networking with social media elements, including user profiles and notifications, to help build stronger, long-lasting professional relationships that benefit everyone involved. Asher explains, "Within the life science companies and pharmaceutical reps, as we know, they're working very hard to commercialize medications and new drugs, new therapies that come out there that they want to get into patients' hands. But sometimes they have a very hard time scheduling and putting in time to go to the doctor's office. Traditionally, they conduct a lunch-and-learn session or a coffee consult, where they come

Scott Pescatore, Executive VP of the Rare Diseases Business at Recordati, is focused on rare and ultra-orphan diseases with high unmet needs by acquiring promising compounds from other companies and advancing them through development and approval. An example is the company's drug Isturisa, acquired from Novartis, which is an FDA-approved effective treatment for patients with Cushing syndrome, a rare endocrine condition. Raising awareness of rare diseases among physicians, patients, and the general public is a priority for Recordati to improve diagnosis rates and clinical trial participation, and to encourage more research and funding in the rare disease space. Scott explains, "We have two primary divisions at Recordati. One is our specialty primary care business, and the other is the rare disease business, which I have the honor and privilege to look after. And we have a very simple sort of work ethic or business mantra, if you will, and that's focused on the few. And we really dedicate ourselves to focusing

Martin Burns, CEO of Bruin Biometrics, is focused on preventing pressure injuries, which are often not detected through visual and tactile assessments because damage starts invisibly under the skin. The Bruin scanner technology identifies pressure injuries by measuring sub-epidermal moisture, which can predict later tissue death, highlighting the condition that can be treated before it develops further. This handheld device is skin tone agnostic, addressing a significant health disparity and providing an objective number indicating the presence of excess fluid, allowing clinicians to act quickly. Martin explains, "They are surprisingly common, and I emphasize surprisingly because pressure injuries are typically not talked about in the mainstream, but actually they affect about three to three and a half million patients a year in the US. And really shockingly, of those three to three and a half million, about 60,000 people die from them every year. So think about that as in the list of the top 10 leading caus

Robert Jacks, President and CEO of Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, identifies that an elevated cortisol level is a newly recognized cause of treatment-resistant type 2 diabetes. A significant portion of patients with diabetes who do not respond to standard treatments, including GLP-1 agonists, have underlying high cortisol. Sparrow has developed a drug designed to lower cortisol levels inside cells, directly addressing the underlying driver of the disease, and to be used as a complement to existing treatments. This concept of targeting cortisol-driven resistance could be extended to other conditions, such as treatment-resistant hypertension. Robert explains, "I feel as though Sparrow has come full circle, actually, with the mechanism of our drug. Originally, we have a drug that targets HSD-1. We can talk about what that is, but it's involved in intracellular cortisol regulation. This was a class of drugs that was originally developed targeting cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes. And the drugs had some mo

Jesse Levey, CEO and Founder of Longevity Health, has a focus on extending the health span not just the lifespan of more people by providing access to tools and preventative health information. Lessons learned from expensive concierge medical services are being applied to a broader population, driving down health costs and democratizing longevity medicine. Using AI to build a scalable and personalized approach to wellness not just sick care, Longevity Health aims to make an AI doctor available around the globe.  Jesse explains, "Our mission is to help a billion people live to a hundred in good health. That's the vision. And the way that we get there is by building an AI doctor trains of ed on longevity medicine and distributed around the world. We have a three-phased business model. Phase one is to take the sort of hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year longevity concierge experience and deliver it for $10,000. So we've taken this really high-end experience that combines an executive physical with a longevity concier

Sean Cassidy, CEO and Co-Founder of Lucem Health, is applying AI to identify patients at high risk of undiagnosed conditions like cancer and diabetes.  The goal is to facilitate earlier diagnosis and treatment by flagging patients that need screening based on the AI plaform's ability to analyze EHR data and demographics of diverse patient populations to ensure broad scalability. This technology was designed to integrate into existing clinical workflows for established screening procedures rather than making direct treatment recommendations.  Sean explains, "The origin of the company, the idea for the company, originated within Mayo Clinic in about 2020. Mayo Clinic has faced a challenge, and I think sometimes continues to face a challenge that a lot of researchers in AI have faced, which is how do you get promising AI in a clinical context from the so-called bench to the bedside? How do you get it from the lab into clinical practice? And what they realized was that while the data science and the AI part of i

Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and Founder of Biotricity, has designed a direct-to-consumer service to shift healthcare from a reactive to a preventive model by simplifying and accelerating access to remote cardiac screening. Applying AI to sift through patient data allows the cardiologist to focus on clinically relevant information and to identify sporadic, intermittent heart issues that are often difficult to detect using traditional heart screening techniques.  Waqaas predicts an expansion of specialized solutions using AI and large datasets to support clinicians and patients in the drive to identify early signs of disease. Waqaas explains, "The thing that we've been focused on is, as you know, heart issues. We've talked extensively about heart issues, which are the number one killer. And so what we've done now is we've collected this massive dataset, but we're trying to look at the nuances of those needles in a haystack. So it's not about the individuals who have arrhythmias to catch. It's about the ones who

Neil Klompas, President and CEO of Augurex, has a mission to improve the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases, with a primary focus on axial spondyloarthritis, a form of inflammatory back pain that is often misdiagnosed. The Augurex blood test SpineStat is designed to differentiate axSpA from mechanical back pain by identifying a specific biomarker present in axSpA. Currently, there is an average nine-year delay from the onset of symptoms to an accurate diagnosis of axSpA, causing irreversible spinal damage and years of using drugs and therapy with no benefit. Neil explains, "I think we're all familiar with back pain. Some of the NIH data and WHO data out there show that almost 28% of adult Americans live with chronic back pain, back pain lasting more than three months. It can be a real journey to figure out what the drivers are, with some patients really never getting resolution, resulting in pain management and, in some cases, even opioid pain management. But if you dive deeper into that category of back pain,

Dr. Petri Bono, Chief Medical Officer at Faron Pharmaceuticals, describes the development of bexmarilimad, a novel first-in-class immunotherapy that, unlike existing checkpoint inhibitors targeting T cells, targets the Clever 1 receptor on macrophages. This treatment is designed to reprogram the tumor microenvironment by switching marcophages from suppressive to active, enabling the patient's immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. The primary disease target is higher-risk Myelodysplastic syndromes because the cancer cells in virtually all MDS patients express the Clever 1 target. Petri explains, "We are developing a completely new type of treatment. Currently, cancer patients are treated with immunotherapies called checkpoint inhibitors that target immune checkpoints. But our approach is targeting completely different cells, not T cells, but rather macrophages. And that's why we are first in class with a novel mode of action. And that's why it's important that these macrophages are shown to, for

Todd Doze, CEO of Janus Health, specializes in bringing AI to hospitals to connect the hospital revenue cycle management with the overall patient experience. Automating some manual RCM tasks, such as prior authorizations and referrals,  has led to significant reductions in claim denials, faster processing times, fewer errors, and better compliance with recent legislation. Challenges remain to ensure the AI model's accuracy and to demonstrate clear ROI and a direct impact on the hospital's revenue. Todd explains, "Today at Janus, we focus on helping providers improve their operational and financial efficiency. We work with about 250 acute care hospitals across the country, servicing some of the largest health systems in the nation by providing automations and AI-driven operational intelligence. This gives management insight into what their revenue cycle folks are doing to ensure they're taking the optimal paths to adjudicate claims and also automating as much of the laborious, tedious work that goes into trea

Susan Grant, Chief Clinical Officer at symplr, reviews findings from their annual Compass Survey, which revealed the significant challenges hospitals face, driven by financial pressures, clinician burnout, and operational inefficiencies.  Fragmented technology systems create significant administrative burdens, and there is growing recognition that unifying healthcare operations and strategically implementing AI are crucial to streamlining workflows. Clinicians' involvement in the design and implementation of new processes and procedures is essential to ensure that patients' real-world needs are properly addressed. Susan explains, "The annual Compass Survey, is actually our fourth survey that we've done here at symplr, and the goal of the survey is to drive awareness around the need for and benefits of streamlining healthcare operations software. So it's a way to get feedback from our customers, clients, and leaders out in the healthcare world."  "I've been a Chief Nurse for the last 30 years in different hea

Fawad Butt, Co-Founder and CEO of Penguin AI,  is addressing the workflow challenges faced by healthcare payers and providers, particularly in prior authorizations and claims adjudications. These processes are inefficient and often yield inconsistent results because human reviewers interpret rules differently, and patients are denied care due to minor administrative errors.   Penguin AI is bringing consistency and speed to adjudication, breaking down data silos and handling non-clinical administrative work, enabling agents to address patient-specific problems and ensure accuracy and safety. Fawad explains, "When you look at the healthcare ecosystem, there are obviously the pharma side, the payer side, the provider side, and the PBN side. So there are lots of areas where opportunities exist. We think payers and providers are especially challenged, and I think the area where they struggle is in the administrative workflow. And these are things like prior authorization and risk adjustment, claims adjudication,

Alexander Tsiaras, CEO and Founder of StoryMD, is addressing the critical problem of the fragmented health information landscape. The StoryMD platform unifies a patient's health history, including clinical records, wearable data, and personal diary entries, along with relevant data from a vast validated medical library of text and strong visualizations.  This provides a coherent narrative about the patient that informs the patient, their healthcare providers, and caregivers, enabling more informed decisions and better outcomes. Alexander explains, "So one of the huge problems that we have in healthcare is that when people go through a health journey, they have to cobble information together from so many disparate sources. You get a PDF here, you get a URL there, you get a screenshot somewhere else. And fundamentally, what happens is that you're trying to cobble the story of your journey together, and it's totally fragmented. You get fragmented medical records, you get fragmented information, and you share fr

Seth Cohen, President of Cedar, is addressing the affordability of health care by shifting the emphasis from billing functionality to patient financial navigation by using technology to connect patients to underutilized financial resources. The Cedar Cover platform is designed to identify and enroll eligible uninsured or underinsured patients into Medicaid, ACA, available pharmaceutical copay subsidies, and untapped Health Savings Accounts, which can be used retrospectively to cover previous medical and ongoing bills, benefiting the patient and providers. An AI agent handles patient service calls to help patients navigate the challenges of connecting to these resources and identifying new coverage options in these uncertain times. Seth explains, "Cedar is the largest independent solution focused entirely on the patient financial experience in healthcare. As you probably know, in the revenue cycle space, there are lots of vendors out there selling solutions up and down the revenue cycle, mostly with an emphas