Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Ryan Mathis is the Vice President of Commercial Strategy at PolarityTE, focusing on bringing regenerative medicine into clinical practice, particularly for treating diabetic foot ulcers and other forms of complex wounds. Ryan says, "So, we're trying to solve this problem by developing SkinTE, which is revolutionizing the science for these hard-to-close wounds. The product itself is an autologous product, meaning we use a patient's own skin to produce the product.  Within your skin, there are regenerative cellular populations themselves, most highly focused around your hair follicles, that have the ability to heal wounds. And so, when you normally get a cut, those cells mobilize and move up towards the surface of the skin and heal the wounds." Listen to the podcast or read the transcript to find out how this innovative treatment creates a paste that gives the wound the ability to heal from the inside out. @PolarityTE #regenerativemedicine #tissueengineering #skin #woundcare #woundhealing #complexwound #dia

Dr. Rob Rohatsch is the Chief Medical Officer at Solv Health and is building an omnichannel strategy for patients, providers, and payers. This approach enables the patients to get urgent or on-demand care from a telehealth visit or the next available in-person visit at a convenient location.  The Starbucks model of making it increasingly easy to get the drink of your choice informs the model to meet patients where they are in their lives. Bob says, "So, we answer three fundamental questions for the patient, which is where should I go? How much is it going to cost? And when can I be seen? So by answering those three fundamental questions really unlocks a lot of power for the patient in the marketplace." @solvhealth #digitalhealth #urgentcare #telehealth #outpatient #ambulatorycare SolvHealth.com Download the transcript here

Bill Hagstrom is the CEO and Founder of Octave Bioscience, looking at ways to dynamically assess patients with multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases to manage their treatment plan better. Bill says, "There's an enormous opportunity to take a personalized approach to managing these patients. MS and these other neurodegenerative diseases are known to have a lot of heterogeneity and have trajectories that can vary dramatically." At the same time, Octave is developing pathway models so a physician can see where a patient is in their overall journey and look at acute decision nodes, and access decision support tools. #OctaveBioscience #personalizedmedicine #MS #multiplesclerosis #neurodegenerativediseases #bloodbasedbiomarkers #biomarkers #symptomology #digitalhealth  OctaveBio.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Andrew Newberg is a doctor at the Thomas Jefferson University's Institute of Integrative Health and the author, along with Dr. Daniel Monti of the new book Brain Weaver: Creating the Fabric for a Healthy Mind Through Integrative Medicine. This engaging book shines a light on the connection between brain health and diet, the need to take advantage of weaknesses and strengths in each individual, and the value of mind-body practices. Dr. Newberg says, "The first thing that we always talk to our patients about is that we really function as human beings. We have four different dimensions. We have a biological dimension, a psychological dimension, a social dimension, and a spiritual dimension." "When we talk about brain health, while the brain is arguably more in our biology domain, we really have to understand brain health in a very integrative way and take all of these different dimensions of who we are as individuals into account if we are going to keep our brain as healthy as possible." Find the book online

Sheila Talton is the Founder and CEO of Gray Matter Analytics, a healthcare-focused company that offers analytics as a service (AaaS) to healthcare systems and insurers to help them manage their quality measures, metrics, and risks related to value-based care. To be the best provider of care requires the ability to measure, predict and improve services based on medical and behavioral data, combined with social determinants of health, to ensure that all data is leveraged to provide better outcomes. Sheila says, "Whether those metrics are tied to the admissions or length of stay and other components of the clinical treatments, most health systems are actually managing how well they're performing on Excel spreadsheets. As you can imagine, you cannot manage multiple risk-based contracts because the average provider will have at least 20, 30, sometimes even 50 different contracts with different metrics." @GrayMatterData #DigitalHealth #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #SDOH #AaaS #ValueBasedCare #WholePersonCare GrayMat

Dr. Jennifer Gudeman was hired for the newly formed role of Vice President, Medical and Clinical Affairs at Avadel Pharmaceuticals. We talk about the clinical development of their lead investigational product FT218 to treat the rare disease narcolepsy. Optimized the drug delivery release of sodium oxybate with their proprietary controlled-release technology allows for a single bedtime dose. While the FDA nearly 20 years ago approved sodium oxybate to treat cataplexy and excessive daytime sleepiness, the drug was an immediate-release medication requiring a middle-of-the-night dose. After a successful Phase 3 clinical trial, Avadel's ongoing open-label study, RESTORE, is providing evidence that points to more restorative sleep across a broad audience. @AvadelPharma $AVDL #narcolepsy #cataplexy #sleepdisorders #sleep #EDS #neurotwitter #rarediseases Avadel.com Download the transcript here

Greg Miller is Vice President of industry strategy for healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk. We talk about the role of contact centers in personalizing inbound and outbound encounters with patients. Integrating the Talkdesk software with the Epic EHR platform gives hospitals and health systems the ability to get a complete picture of a patient. Talkdesk makes it easy for patients to use the web, email, text, mobile apps, and virtual and live agents to schedule appointments, ask clinical questions, fill prescriptions, and coordinate billing and claims processing. It also gives healthcare enterprises the ability to be proactive with patients and build stronger relationships using artificial intelligence and human interaction. @talkdesk #talkdesk #contactcenter #patientexperience #healthcareIT #digitalhealth #AI Talkdesk.com Download the transcript here

Pierre Pellier is CEO of CTMA and is driven to provide better access to innovative and potentially life-saving therapies to more patients. The key is to shorten the duration of clinical trials by more quickly and efficiently identifying and recruiting potentially eligible participants. Using the CT-Scout platform on a mobile device, doctors are prompted to ask, during a consultation, a few selected questions to determine whether a particular patient might be eligible for any of the numerous studies running at their site. Removing the need to remember major inclusion and exclusion criteria encourages doctors and investigators to broaden the search and increase recruitment. @CScoutTm #CTMA #clinicaltrials #patientrecruitment CTMA.fr Download the transcript here

Mike Rea is the Founder and CEO of IDEA Pharma and Founder of Protodigm, created to develop a new way of progressing drug development. With a fundamental understanding of what goes wrong in early-stage pharmaceutical development, Mike is eager to do more diverse opportunity-seeking for assets in early phase trials. The skunkworks model draws decision and data scientists as well as the pharma people to think outside the box. As Mike says "But I think often in drug development, you get the silos and people are encouraged to play nicely within the silos. The idea of taking a group of loosely structured, enthusiastic people creating an affinity group that focuses on what could you do differently for an asset, doesn't happen and it's quite hard to do within the confines of the organization." @ProtodigmLabs #Protodigm #skunkworks #NextGenCRO #drugdevelopment Protodigm.co Download the transcript here

Renee Agular-Lucander is CEO of Calliditas Therapeutics a Sweden-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the rare kidney disease IgA nephropathy. While there is a genetic predisposition for this autoimmune disease, it is still not clear what triggers the condition and there is no current cure. Renee talks about: Lead drug candidate Nefecon which starts at the top of the disease cascade in the ileum part of the small intestine. Delivering this disease-modifying agent directly interrupts and disrupts the beginning of the disease How clinical trial data is showing the value of addressing the gut-renal axis and treating this indication in an organ-specific way Other orphan indications that might benefit from this approach What the FDA priority review of Nefecon potentially means for the 1 in every 4 adults with IgAN who will eventually succumb to kidney failure. @Calliditas1 #IgANephropathy #IgAN #Kidney #KidneyDisease #EndStageRenalDisease #AutoimmuneDisease #Nefecon #RareDisease Calliditas.s

Omri Shor is Founder and CEO of Medisafe and focused on bringing resources to pharmaceutical companies so that they can better manage the entire patient journey from prescription of a specific medication throughout their daily routines and lifestyle choices.  Integrating Medisafe into the engagement with patients allows key data to be collected about patterns of adherence and potential obstacles to drug adherence. Clinicians and pharmacists are also connecting through the Medisafe platform to help manage patients, particularly with comorbidities and to reduce time spent on routine tasks. Omri emphasizes the need for patients to receive a personalized plan of action that provides real-time real-life support combining the human and digital connections. COVID-19 further illustrated the benefits of digital health technology to connect patients with the kind of support necessary to keep them on track and connected to care providers. @medisafeApp #Medisafe App #MedicationAdherence #PatientExperience #YourHealthinYo

Tom Hallam PhD is CEO of Palisade Bio a late stage biopharmaceutical company with a focus on gastrointestinal complications from major surgery and getting patients out of the hospital more quickly. With discoveries about how digestive enzymes can hurt a patient's gastrointestinal tract, their lead asset LB1148 is a liquid that the patient drinks prior to surgery. This drug coats the entire gastrointestinal tract and inhibits digestive enzymes preventing them from attacking underlying tissue. Palisade is also working on a breakthrough platform technology with the ability for the first time to measure the activity of digestive enzymes when they leak from the  gastrointestinal tract into the blood of patients. Since these enzymes belong in the GI tract, when they appear in the blood, they can cause long-term chronic diseases and severe health consequences for patients. @PalisadeBio #GI #gastrointestinal #ileus #adhesions #surgicalcomplications #microbiome Palisadebio.com Download the transcript here  

Adam Sachs is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vicarious Surgical a next generation robotics company that is developing a disruptive medical technology platform. Their goal is to increase the efficiency of legacy surgical robotics, improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.  Vicarious Surgical's novel approach to surgery uses a combination of proprietary miniaturized surgical robots and virtual reality to transport surgeons inside the patient when performing minimally invasive surgery. The first indication being targeted is ventral hernia repair for which Vicarious has been granted Breakthrough Device Special designation from the FDA. The Vicarious system, with nine-degrees of freedom for each arm of the robot, can actually operate from inside of the abdomen out. Surgeons are enthusiastic about the ability to work facing any direction from any incision site. #VicariousSurgery #VR #VirtualReality #robots #surgicalrobotics #herniarepair #ventralherniarepair #SPAC VicariousSurgery.com Download the transc

Dr. Kishlay Anand is a practicing cardiologist and Founder and President of Apricus Health, a healthcare provider with a focus on having a dedicated care navigator work with patients to help them on their healthcare journey.  This includes coordinating appointments with primary care physicians, specialists, remote monitoring, medication refills, updates on community resources and education about chronic conditions. Not only does this benefit patients but also doctors as it reduces paperwork and allows them to focus on transitioning from fee-for-service to value-based care. Apricus is developing digital health technology tailored to the unique challenges seniors and those with chronic conditions face. Of particular interest is the senior patient population which due to COVID-19 has had a chance to experience virtual doctor visits and telehealth interactions which have proven to be very popular. @Apricus_Health #digitalhealth #telemedicine #telehealth #personalizedmedicine #MedTech ApricusHealth.com Download th

John Schwartz is Chief Revenue Officer at HSBlox and he strongly believes that care coordination is essential for all patients. The challenge is how can healthcare stakeholders improve the delivery of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) to better serve vulnerable people.  Aligning medical and social care needs is a messy issue and there needs to be a stronger recognition of how much the environment determines health of a population. HSBlox enables SDOH risk-stratification, care coordination and appropriate data sharing through its digital health platform.  It applies AI, machine learning and blockchain technologies to streamline SDOH processes of data exchange, patient consent management and referral optimization. @blox_hs #HSBlox #VBC #AI #valuebasedcare #healthcareAI #healthcaredata #patientadherence #SDOH #socialdeterminantsofhealth #populationhealth #precisionhealth #DistributedLedgerTechnology HSBlox.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Ian Walters is CEO of Portage Biotech is building a pipeline of novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer particularly for patients who do not respond to current therapies.  The key is stimulating a type of immune cell called invariant natural killer T-cell which works with the adaptive immune system to create a broad immune response and stronger immune surveillance to help stop cancer from forming in the body. Having contributed to bringing five new blockbuster cancer drugs to patients, Ian and his team are working to hit all key components for every different tumor type for a long-term response and possible cure.  They think their drug could have potential in settings that wouldn't respond to just pure NK cell therapy. #ImmunoOncology #Cancer #iNKT #biotech $PRTG PortageBiotech.com Download the transcript here

Manolo Bellotto, PhD is General Manager and President Gain Therapeutics and dedicated to redefining drug discovery through the use of supercomputers and proprietary algorithms to understand rare diseases and diseases where there is a high medical need related to protein misfolding. These indications include cancer, neurodegenerative, metabolic and inflammatory diseases. While traditional drug discovery around protein misfolding was through high-throughput screening, Gain can efficiently identify a select group of molecules that can potentially correct misfolding or induce misfolding of specific proteins.  In a short period of time, using a personalized approach in each different target, they have the biological characterization to see if they can intervene on the protein, potentially leading to a pharmacological solution. @GainThera #ProteinMisfolding #DrugDiscovery #RareDisease #Oncology #LysosomalStorageDisorders #Neurodegenerative #Supercomputer #technology #ComputationalChemistry GainTherapeutics.com Down

Tim Aumueller is the Co-CEO of Avidon Health and an expert on combining digital solutions and human coaching to help patients living with chronic diseases make lifestyle changes.  While drugs will most likely always be part of a treatment plan, direct behavior change science is demonstrating the impact that healthy behaviors have on prevention and mitigation of chronic diseases especially those related to obesity. With a focus on the different elements of meaningful engagement, Avidon is deploying Engagement Rx to take into account learning style and preferred method of communication to provide the appropriate mixture of personalized support and online guidance. The key is to see the patient as more than the medical condition and coming up with an approach that fits with their lifestyle and encourages healthy behavior changes. It is also critical to measure progress and when goals are accomplished. @Avidonhealth #digitalhealth #mhealth #chronicdiseases #precisionmedicine #personalizedmedicine AvidonHealth.com

Dr. Kate Burke is Senior Medical Advisor at PatientsLikeMe and Jed is a patient leader, advocate and patient with a range of conditions including ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and Lyme disease. They join me on the podcast to talk about the robust online community PatientsLikeMe and how it helps patients with rare diseases take charge of their health and helps life science organizations better understand patient needs. By integrating medical data from a variety of sources, the site helps patients share that data with their care team and make more informed healthcare choices.  The community also encourages connections amongst those suffering from the same rare disease and facilitates participation in virtual or semi-virtual clinical trials. COVID-19 forced a re-evaluation of the power of online access for this community. Many of the barriers for participating in live group activities have been removed by going online and both Kate and Jed agree the changes are here to stay. @PatientsLikeMe #rarediseases #digitalh

Vlado Bosanac is Co-Founder of Advanced Human Imaging, a B2B tech company based in Australia.  Using the camera on a smart phone, their applications can accurately track 12,000 data points across the human form to give a number of the markers that a doctor would look at. Giving this sort of information to individuals allows them to understand their health in a new way and facilitates preventative care, telehealth visits and chronic disease monitoring. One of the applications DermaScan is a unique patient AI technology that draws on the world's largest skin database and can identify 588 different skin conditions across 133 categories. and provides early warning signs of skin cancer and other skin conditions. FaceScan uses transdermal imaging to image the blood flow within the face to report back vital signs. Working with health app developers, insurers, care groups and health and fitness organizations, Advanced Human Imaging is finding ways to encourage participation through gamification and rewards to empower