Empowered Patient Podcast

Russ Thomas, the CEO of Availity, and Oron Afek, CEO and Co-Founder of Vim, join me in discussing the benefits of breaking down information silos of the payers and care providers and bringing real-time data to the point of care.  By integrating actionable patient information at the right point of time, providers are better informed to improve patient outcomes. Russ explains, "Availity, for the last 21 years now, has been in the business of developing connectivity and relationships between health plans and providers. I know we're going to talk a lot today about the really cool program we've embarked upon with Oron and the Vim team. But at our core, we sit in the center of the relationship between health plans and providers and communicate all types of health information between these critical constituents." Oron elaborates, "One of the goals for the Availity-Vim partnership is to really drive behavioral change based on real-time decision-making. It is to intercept at the point of care, at the point of intent,

Avihai Sodri is the Co-Founder and CEO of Antidote Health, which takes a digital HMO approach to bring 24/7 healthcare to a broad audience.  Their target patients include both insured people and those who are uninsured, anyone who requires a one-time service or care for a chronic condition. Avihai says, "So, in a very significant sense, we're not reinventing the wheel. So we're talking about processes and best practices in providing healthcare in a very traditional way, I would say. But we're injecting a lot of technology with our decision support systems and the way that our bot collects information from the patient, and we are adding more digital processes more on the administrative side of things. So, if you take all this together, with the alignment of interest, then we can create a real disruption. And without changing dramatically, the way that healthcare is being provided, but the fact that we are using telehealth to provide the healthcare." @AntidoteAI #AntidoteHealth #AI #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine

Michael Boerner is the Founder and CEO of Engage Technologies Group, which uses short-form videos to educate and motivate patients. It might be for someone with a diagnosed disease or a surgical process where it's a need for pre-operative or post-operative information.  Their mobile intelligence platform is designed to deliver content to patients at the moment when it makes the most sense on their preferred screen. Michael explains, "So when we transform lives by delivering wisdom, it's in the format of short-form video. What we find is people love video, they just don't want it to be long. So, we found that the best way to be able to educate someone is with kind of the three biggest consumer behavioral shifts." "But short-form video, what's tough about brief videos, about 90 seconds, is you can't really talk about anything super complex in 90 seconds, but you can if you put the videos together in what we call an arc or an arc of engagement, a sequence of video content. That allows someone to be able to tap n

Dr. Sameer Berry is the Chief Medical Officer of Oshi Health, and he shines a light on the challenges patients face from gastrointestinal conditions and the lack of effective treatments available from doctors for GI-related symptoms. While the reimbursement and payment model discourages a team approach to treating these patients, Oshi Health is taking a multidisciplinary integrated healthcare approach with a focus on the enteric nervous system.  Sameer explains, "Where this comes from is the understanding that anatomically, there's actually an entirely separate nervous system that exists in the GI tract, and it's called the enteric nervous system. So, these are nerve cells, the same types of nerve cells that are in your spinal cord, in your brain, those nerve cells are in your gut. And just like the nerves in your brain respond to environmental stressors that might cause you to feel anxious, depressed, sad, happy, these nerves that are in your gut can respond to environmental stressors. But instead of causing

Dr. Jacob Hascalovici is the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Clearing which is in the business of transforming chronic pain care.  While some chronic pain has no cure, there are many strategies that can be used to manage the symptoms and improve the quality of life of a patient. One of the key goals of Clearing is to leverage the use of technology to help remove obstacles in the chronic pain care environment. Jacob explains, "When we think about individual treatments in isolation, we call that unimodal care. I'd say that on an individual basis, the effectiveness of a treatment is limited. I rarely see patients with chronic pain who have a 100% response to a single therapy. But when we employ multimodal therapies where we have home exercise or physical therapy, plus a topical, plus an oral, plus an injection, that's when we start to see a very effective treatment strategy and plan." "Pain is a very personal experience. It's highly subjective, it's deeply personal, and there is a multitude of factors th

Sam Lee, interim Co-CEO and President, and Jim Martin, interim Co-CEO and CFO of Cocrystal Pharma. They're a clinical stage biotech company using their proprietary drug development platform to create novel antiviral therapeutics to treat seasonal influenza and pandemic viral infections like COVID-19. Jim explains, "There are vaccines, and then there are therapeutics. We are a therapeutic company. We don't produce vaccines. Vaccines are more preventative. What we do is, once you get the illness, we stop the illness through our compounds. So as a therapeutic, you do need that one-two punch of both vaccines and therapeutics. And in the case of influenza, we have every year people getting vaccines, which are good. But the therapeutics that are necessary are far and few between." Sam elaborates, "So our compounds, the compound IDs of CC-42344, we're currently doing phase one study in Australia, this compound has an outstanding drug-resistant profile. We have not been able to isolate the drug-resistance strains fro

Brian Culley is the CEO of Lineage Cell Therapeutics which is developing cell therapy for Dry AMD, a common condition and one of the leading causes of blindness, and to restore the functional capacity of hearing and the spine. Brian explains, "Conceptually, what we're doing is manufacturing the type of cell that has been lost due to aging or disease or trauma, and in doing so, in transplanting those cells, we're looking to restore function. This is what we saw in the setting of the eye, and this is what we're looking to replicate in the setting of the ear." "Lineage has a fundamental technology that allows us to manufacture these specific cell types. That technology is capable of manufacturing not just auditory neurons and retinal cells, as we talked about today, but we also can manufacture the cells of your spinal cord. We have treated 25 people who suffered a traumatic spinal cord injury, and we are working to replace those cells so that they can regain function, operate their own wheelchair, dress, and fee

Alon Ben-Noon is the Co-Founder and CEO of NeuroSense Therapeutics, which is working on ALS therapy and other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. They are working on a disease-modifying drug PrimeC and have identified a large set of biomarkers that are related to ALS progression and the mechanisms of PrimeC. Alon explains, "Our lead candidate is called PrimeC. It's a novel formulation that consists of two FDA-approved drugs not related to ALS. We found that when these drugs are combined together in unique doses, they had the quality to treat ALS and tackle ALS in several forms. This formulation aims to maximize the synergism that we found to have between these compounds and as I mentioned, to tackle multiple targets in order to eventually create a clinical benefit for the patients." "We are advancing with identifying biomarkers and progressing there very nicely. We identified a large set of biomarkers that relates both to the disease progression and to the mechanisms of PrimeC. We wor

Dr. Maryann Lauletta is the Chief Medical Officer of Dina,  re-imagining healthcare with a home-first model using technology and community-based solutions.  Their 50-state network provides access to different providers of medical and home setting solutions to aid care coordinators in creating a safe home environment. Maryann elaborates, "We have to realize that the home is not a controlled setting, as you experience in a hospital setting or a skilled nursing facility. There are a lot of things that pop up that you need to be prepared for. Patients may not have adequate equipment at home, and they may not have adequate access to food, heating, and cooling. There could be pest infestations. They need access to transportation. You need to figure out how to coordinate with sometimes four or five or more different providers and be able to share information about that patient in real-time and on the go. I think that's something we don't always talk about or realize." "In the hospital, you're not worrying or necessa

Enam Noor is the Founder and CEO of Insightin Health,  empowering health plans to drive action through connected data. Working with health insurance companies with a focus on direct-to-consumer health plan products, Insightin is creating a data ecosystem that allows access by providers, payers, and patients. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, that data can be used to design treatment plans using their Next Best Action strategy. Enam explains, "We try to create real-time insight around that information to drive healthier behavior, improve the member engagement, the population health part of preventative care management. In the senior population, when it comes to Medicare, there are a lot of chronic conditions. Preventative care management plays a big role in staying healthy. In general, what our clients expect out of our involvement is building that lifetime member value and are really extracting the best way to be healthier. Then eventually, it's a win-win for everybody." "Our platform has th

Michael Smith is the Chief Commercial Officer of Sonendo, a commercial-stage medtech company taking on saving teeth from tooth decay by driving changes in root canal surgery and outcomes.  The GentleWave procedure brings innovation to root canal therapy by using a software-controlled fluid management system that can predictably clean and disinfect the inside of the tooth. Michael elaborates, "If you think about dentistry, you can probably categorize it into three distinct segments -- those companies who move teeth, so the orthodontic companies, those who replace teeth, the implant companies, and then those who are focused on saving teeth. That's really been our focus. Tooth decay's the most prevalent chronic disease globally. So our mission is to save teeth and improve lives." "I think that the reality is that root canal therapy is an end-stage of the disease state. It starts with something that's much more minor. The alternative really is that the tooth is extracted. So any technology that can improve that p

Dr. John Bellettiere is the assistant professor of epidemiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego. Alexis Garduno is a third-year student in the UC San Diego and San Diego State University joint doctoral program in public health and the first author in a multi-institutional research effort better to understand the impact of physical activity on health. Their recently released study analyzed data about the total steps taken per day, the intensity of the walking, and the risk of development of Type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women. Study results indicated that for each 2,000 additional steps per day, there was a 12% reduction in diabetes risk. John elaborates, "Well, we set out to understand how steps per day was related to incident diabetes in older women. Long have we known that physical activity is important for the prevention of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But for a long time, we have not been able to measure with

Dr. Katherine Iscoe is the Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Human Imaging.  AHI has developed image processing technology for the body, face, and skin along with health-related risk assessment models for their individual healthcare partners. The analysis of these images can identify early warning signs for a wide range of diseases, including determining if a mole on the skin is benign or potentially cancerous. Katherine explains, "It's big technology in a very small space, that's for sure. We have developed an on-device capturing technology, where we use the phone's camera to capture images of the human body, or it could be the face. And then we take the information that's stored within those images." "Often, we look at a photograph, and we just think, "That's very pretty." Still, there's so much data within those images, and we use that data to process that information within the device. So that's quite important because the images never leave the device." "The output of this processing of data is incredibly a

Dr. Travis Mickle is the President and CEO of KemPharm, a clinical clinical-stage specialty pharmaceutical company. KemPharm is building on their successful launch of AZSTARYS for ADHD to treat rare sleep disorders like idiopathic hypersomnia as well as sleep disorders that are a symptom of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Travis explains, "We focused most of our history in the CNS area on a broad base, but idiopathic hypersomnia is now a rare sleep disorder. In the past, we focused on ADHD and pain and larger patient populations. But now, I think, we're focusing more on specific needs of patients with severe, debilitating diseases." "As an example, our lead product that just got approved last year, AZSTARYS, for ADHD, we thought, well, perhaps it would be better if that product could last longer, as well as have less abuseability." "That prodrug now makes the basis for our KP1077 for idiopathic hypersomnia. So, you can see how one product can actually have an impact in many different areas when you

John Glasspool is the CEO of Anthos Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on high-risk cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Anthos is developing innovative therapies for treating thrombosis or more commonly known as clots that are caused by a stroke or heart attack. The current agents, while protecting from a clot, also cause more frequent bleeding. The main unmet need is to give protection from the clots while not having the patient bleed.  John explains, "People that are at risk of these are elderly people who obviously have some changes in the dynamics of their vessels. The other area that's of particular common occurrence is in patients undergoing cancer. And even, in fact, the development of a clot sometimes is the first sign for patients with cancer in their disease prognosis and diagnosis." "We're developing a factor XI agent. In fact, it's a dual activity factor XI and XIa. What that really means from a patient perspective is we believe that we can pharmacologically uncoup

Dr. Robert Foster is the CEO and Founder of Hepion Pharmaceutical which is developing Rencofilstat, a drug in the category of cyclophilin inhibition to target cyclophilins a specific type of enzyme that is present in all humans. These cyclophilins perform a number of functions and are responsible to some extent for the formation of collagen which can lead to events like inflammation and scarring of the liver as well as other liver diseases. Robert explains, "Liver disease is, unfortunately, way too common. A lot of us are used to eating fatty foods, lots of sugars, processed foods, things like that. It tends to lead to fatty liver disease, which is just way too prevalent. We estimate one in four people globally that have a fatty liver. Then if we let it progress by not losing weight, exercising, and doing all the right things from a dietary standpoint and just a general health standpoint, it can lead to something called NASH. "NASH is an acronym that stands for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. Probably about 20

Dave Rosa is the President and CEO of NeuroOne and an entrepreneur with extensive experience in the medical device industry.  NeuroOne is developing and commercializing thin-film high-definition electrode technology that can dramatically improve neurosurgery where typically, multiple surgeries are needed for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Using a photolithographic process to print out these circuits is a distinct advantage over the outdated approach to manufacturing electrodes by hand. Dave elaborates, "Another key piece of what we're looking to accomplish is to really reduce the number of surgeries that a patient has to undergo by combining multiple functions using the same device. So, when I refer to electrode functions, what I'm really talking about is the ability to record electrical activity in the brain, or other areas of the body, stimulate the tissue for therapeutic purposes, or perform an ablation, which is basically destroying problematic tissue that patients would have if they had epilepsy.

Tim Dyer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Addex Therapeutics, which is focusing on the pharmacology known as allosteric modulation. This emerging class of small molecule drugs known as allosteric modulators is being explored for treating central nervous system and neurologic disorders, particularly movement disorders like dyskinesia associated with Parkinson's and dystonia. Addex did not invent allosteric modulation but is pioneering the screening technologies to find these difficult to locate molecules. Tim explains, "In the conventional world, which people probably know a lot about, are the orthosteric agonists and antagonists. These molecules are binding to the active site. The way to understand, in simple terms, the difference between an allosteric and an orthosteric drug is to use an analogy of the dimmer light switch." "If you think about the dimmer light switch, you're initially turning the light on-- that would be the orthosteric agonist. Turning the light off would be the orthosteric antagonist, and what

Erica Jain is the Co-Founder and CEO of Healthie, a software as a service (SaaS) platform and family of APIs that allow healthcare providers to move more easily to a digital environment to interact with patients. Erica explains, "Healthie serves organizations in over 25 specialties and verticals and healthcare. We got started in the nutrition and behavioral health space, and we have thousands of dietitians and health coaches that use our platform to deliver longitudinal care. We also work with digital healthcare startups, universities, and grocery stores, all of whom are popping up in scaling these virtual first experiences." "The beauty of the problem that we solve is that companies are able to come to us, save two years and millions of dollars to prop up and scale the virtual care delivery. And by virtue of us having both an out-of-the-box solution, but coupling that with an API first experience means that really, we're able to see our organizations get started with us, experiment with us, and figure out ho

Eric Adams is the CEO and President of InMed Pharmaceuticals, exploring the benefits of rare cannabinoids from the cannabis plant. We have these naturally occurring cannabinoids in our body and a number of receptors throughout our body that respond to this class of compounds. Because these rare cannabinoids exist in low quantities in the plant, they have been hard to isolate or extract, which has limited research into their therapeutic value. InMed has developed ways to economically manufacture bioidentical compounds and investigate potential benefits for treating eye and skin disorders. Eric elaborates, "InMed Pharmaceuticals is a global leader in the manufacturing, clinical development, and commercialization of non-intoxicating, rare cannabinoids. We have two branches to the company. One is the pharmaceutical drug development program where we're taking the traditional clinical trial, FDA pathway approach to bringing important medicines to market for hard t  treat diseases. On the other hand, we also have a