Empowered Patient Podcast

Steve Butts, Co-Founder and CEO of Arrivo BioVentures, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies that target the root causes of disease rather than just treating the symptoms. Their drugs treat major depressive disorder and acute pancreatitis through novel epigenetic mechanisms of action. Sex-based differences were observed in clinical trials where the drug SP-624 showed efficacy in females but not in males, which could lead to a paradigm shift in how depression is treated in men and women. Steve explains, "We've evolved over time at Arrivo and with our previous companies. What we're excited about right now is the fact that we have two drugs. One called SP-624 or Forvisirvat is the generic name, and the other one is code-named RABI-767. And as we've gotten into the science behind these drugs, what we're finding is that we're not just treating the symptoms of a disease, but we're really trying to get at what's causing the disease fundamentally and trying to make an impact there. And I think from a drug development standpoint - I've been doing this for 30 years - these are the two most exciting programs that I've had a chance to work on for a variety of reasons. One is the science, and they're both novel and new approaches to treating the diseases, but two, if we're right, they're going to create a situation where we're going to think about these diseases differently." "We ran a large Phase 2 study. It was the first study we had run in patients with depression, and it was really the first study that anyone had run with a SIRT6 activator in patients with depression. And so we were breaking new ground there, and it was a pretty large study. When we got the results, what we found was that there were really nice effects in females across all of the measures that we had and no evidence of efficacy in males. And that was really puzzling to us. It wasn't what we were expecting. And we started diving into, well, what could be going on here? Science is iterative, and I think you do a trial, and trials lead to more questions. And so we started diving into the questions that we had around “Why the sex difference?” #ArrivoBioVentures #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #WomensHealth #Depression #DepressionTreatment #Psychiatry #PrecisionMedicine arrivobio.com Download the transcript here

Daniel Blumenthal, VP of Strategy at MDClone, is building synthetic data models to mimic real patient data without the need to protect the identity of individuals. This type of data is being utilized in drug discovery and development, building predictive tools and new care models, and to better understand biases in clinical trials making them more representative. AI tools play an essential role in generating and validating synthetic data as well as integrating it into various processes and environments. Daniel explains, "Synthetic data means different things to different people. So I definitely would want to start with sharing what it usually means to MDClone, which is creating data based on real populations of patients, real patient data. Learning from that real patient data, extracting essentially the statistics from that data, understanding the relevant patterns that exist inside that data, and then, based on the statistics alone, generating a brand-new set of data, a brand-new set of people, and the synthetic data that we generate." "If you look at it, essentially with your naked eye, you wouldn't know it's not real people. It has the same structure, has the same content appearance, and yet, inside, synthetic data contains no real people. So very different from other approaches to protecting patient privacy, which take a patient data set and hash data, mask data, or remove information like IDs, names, or locations." "Instead of taking that sort of approach, synthetic data actually generates a brand-new set of people, fake people, that in our case, as we build it, maintain the same statistical properties, such that any analysis you want to complete, you could accomplish using the synthetic dataset just as you would with the original dataset. That it will yield the same meaningful conclusions as the synthetic that it would with the original." #MDClone #MedAI #AI #SyntheticData #DrugDevelopment #DrugDiscovery #ClinicalTrials #PatientPrivacy mdclone.com Download the transcript here

Rick Geoffrion, Founder and CEO of Cyrano Therapeutics, is developing a drug to restore olfactory function due to post-viral loss of smell and taste. As a result of COVID-19, there has been a significant increase in the number of people affected by long-term smell and taste loss, with no effective pharmaceutical options previously available. Smell loss can also be an early indicator of neurodegenerative conditions, suggesting future applications of the intranasal spray that aims to directly restore function to the olfactory receptor neurons. Rick explains, "Taste and smell have a really strong connection, actually. First of all, they're two out of the five basic senses that we have as human beings. When you lose your sense of smell, people actually perceive that they've lost about 80% of their sense of taste. Now, technically, you're not losing your sense of taste. We actually just give our tongue too much credit. Our tongue is able to detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. That's all it detects, and it detects them really in light monotone that are about 80% less intense if you've lost your sense of smell. In addition, if you no longer have your sense of smell, what you've really lost is the ability to detect flavor in food. So, to tell the difference between a peach, a pear, and a strawberry, maybe you'll tell that visually, but to tell it from a flavor perspective, you completely lose that ability. "There really are no significant therapies to treat the condition right now. Essentially, if you've lost your sense of smell, a physician may recommend that you use smell training, which is essentially the regular smelling of intense essential oils, and they really haven't been shown to significantly treat or cure a chronic smell loss condition. It is thought that if your body is spontaneously recovering, say within those first few months, if you do undergo smell training, you may accelerate that recovery. But other than that, there's certainly no gold standard treatment or no significant treatments available right now, and no pharmaceuticals in the pipeline other than CYR-064, which is being developed by Cyrano." #CyranoTherapeutics #Olfactory #LongCOVID #PostViralLoss #IntranasalSpray #SmellandTaste #LongTermSmellLoss cyranotherapeutics.com Download the transcript here

Loren Larsen, CEO and Co-Founder of Videra Health, is using AI-powered technology to improve the patient-provider connection and monitor patient health, particularly mental health, in an empathetic and conversational way. The video-based AI platform engages patients in regular check-ins to assess mental and physical conditions and detect subtle changes in behavior, tone, or language that could indicate issues like suicidal ideation or movement disorders. Data from patient encounters is also providing insights to clinicians and helping patients and providers better understand the connection between mental health and chronic conditions. Loren explains, "We started Videra Health recognizing this challenge that when a patient isn't with their doctor, they lose connection. You go to your doctor, you get good care, you leave. There's never been a good way to follow up or check in with patients to see how they're doing. And so we've really applied AI to this for the last six years since we started the company to check in with patients, finding out how they're doing in an empathetic, conversational, authentic way that replaces boring old assessments that require people to field lots and lots of multiple-choice questions, which no one enjoys. The whole goal here is how to build a better connection between the provider and their patient, even when the provider's too busy to check in on a regular basis." "Then, as they're answering, the AI is analyzing both their verbal and nonverbal responses to measure things that the clinician is interested in, such as their depression, their anxiety, PTSD, whether they are using suicidal language, etc. And then having this nice conversation. It usually takes a few minutes." "We think you often hear from doctors like, Oh, if I could just see my patients for a few minutes, I would know how they're doing. So there's this idea that we want to be able to see how a person is doing, not just verbally, but how they're presenting themselves, how they're communicating their facial expressions in addition to the words that they're using. So we're looking at their words, their tone of voice, and relevant facial expressions and movements that help us understand what's really happening." #VideraHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealthTech #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthTech #ClinicalTrials #RemotePatientMonitoring #HealthInnovation #PatientCenteredCare viderahealth.com Download the transcript here

David Fischel, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Stereotaxis, is advancing the ability of surgical robotics, particularly in the field of minimally invasive catheter-based procedures. Stereotaxis is developing the use of robotic technology to improve precision and accessibility in endovascular surgeries with a unique mechanism that allows surgeons to control the tip of the catheter. The adoption of surgical robotics for endovascular procedures will expand as remote access is made available and safety concerns are addressed for previously impossible-to-treat conditions. David explains, "We build advanced robots that allow physicians to do minimally invasive catheter-based procedures with greater precision and safety. We're kind of pioneering that area of robotic surgery. We've seen other areas of medicine benefit significantly over the last decade or two from advanced robotic technologies. And there's a whole field of catheter-based endovascular cardiovascular procedures where we're still using handheld catheters that have limitations and weaknesses to them. And by improving that field of medicine, we think we can make care better for patients, and we can enable minimally invasive, effective care for many more patients." "Robots are improving surgery in many areas in a fairly dramatic fashion. Endovascular surgery is where you use endo within vascular, within the blood vessels, you use the blood vessels as a type of superhighway and you insert these little devices called catheters into the blood vessels and then usually through the leg or the arm, and then you can go anywhere you want in the body to the brain or to the heart or to the periphery and treat the patient kind of using that catheter." "It's a strange area of medicine, particularly for trying to implement robots, because you're working in very small, delicate anatomy, and you have to think about flexible robots because the catheter has to navigate all the tortuosity of the patient's blood vessels. You can't think about a robot in the traditional way you would imagine a robot, if you think about industrial robots. And so that's where that area has been more difficult, and that's where we're really pioneering and bringing robotics to play in that field." #Stereotaxis #SturgicalRobots #RoboticAssistedSurgery #PrecisionMedicine #EndovascularSurgery #CardiacArrhythmias stereotaxis.com Download the transcript here

Craig Limoli, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellsheet, is streamling workflows for clinicians by providing better access to patient data and improving care coordination across care teams. Wellsheet is integrated into existing health records to provide a seamless experience to users and help to reduce "pajama time" for doctors by reducing the amount of end-of-the-day work needed to document patient encounters. Wellsheet uses AI and natural language processing to surface the most relevant information for clinicians and generate documentation, reducing time spent and improving efficiency. Craig explains, "Wellsheet is a care team, co-pilot that serves physicians as well as other clinicians with better access to all of the data they need to make treatment decisions for patients, as well as easier coordination across the whole care team. So we're really designed as a company and as a product to support a broad array of clinicians, both physicians, nursing case managers, and surface the data most relevant to them in the way that they want to see it. We coordinate care across those multidisciplinary stakeholders in a way that is seamlessly embedded and integrated into the existing electronic health record systems to ultimately create a really seamless and cohesive experience for our users." "So our technology is embedded within Epic, Cerner, and other major EHRs. So physicians and other clinicians access it with the click of a button directly within their workflow in the EHR. They don't have to log in again, they don't have to reidentify the patient. It all feels like a native part of their EHR experience. And as soon as they click into Wellsheet, they are presented with a summarized view of the most relevant information from the entire patient's medical history and what pertains to that particular encounter, all in a single place." #Wellsheet #ClinicalWorkflow #EHR #AI #ClinicalAI #MultidisciplinaryCare #PhysicianBurnout #DigitalHealth wellsheet.com Download the transcript here

Aron Knickerbocker, President and CEO of Aulos Bioscience, is on a mission to extend the lives of cancer patients through safer and more effective immunotherapy using AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and optimization. The company's lead drug candidate is an antibody that was designed using AI to harness the power of interleukin-2 to activate the immune system against tumors. The advantages of AU-007 over previous IL-2 therapies include the ability to selectively activate tumor-fighting immune cells while avoiding toxicity due to vascular leakage. Current trials are underway in advanced melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer, which are showing the potential for durable responses and immune memory. Aron explains, "So Aulos has really been founded to carry out a mission to extend the lives of patients with innovative, safe, and ultimately effective cancer immunotherapy. And you mentioned IL-2, which is the naturally occurring protein that we're seeking to harness and redirect in productive ways to help the patients. And this has really been kind of a driver for me over the years, wanting to improve on cancer patient care. This is a company with an important mission and a great team, and our program is really interesting. It's harnessing IL-2 in such a way that it sends it to the cells that are capable of attacking the tumor and killing the tumor cells, and keeps it away from the cells that suppress the immune response. It's really kind of using a double-edged sword in a productive way to help patients with cancer." "So this is the first antibody to go into human clinical trials. It was designed in part by leveraging an AI platform, as you noted. And that platform was created by our collaborators at Biologic Design. They're the company that created this molecule. And what biologic design does is essentially using an AI system that has machine learning algorithms that drive it. It mimics what the immune system does normally. So when we get sick and we need to make antibodies to something, our immune system says, Do I already have something that will kind of bind to the target or the virus or whatever it's trying to hit? And then it will optimize that. It will go through a process of rapid change. And what the AI system and the machine learning algorithms that have been trained on millions of antibodies in the targets to which they bind do is recognize patterns much like an AI chatbot might recognize language patterns." #AulosBio #Antibodies #MedAi #AI #IL2 #Onocology #Cancer #NSCLC #AdvancedCutaneousMelanoma #DrugDiscovery #BiologicDesign #Tregs aulosbio.com Download the transcript here

Aniq Rahman, Founder and CEO of Fabric, a technology company that uses an AI-powered platform to support health systems, health plans, and employers, to streamline patient care, scheduling appointments, and receiving virtual care. The system can triage patients, route them to appropriate care, and simplify the provider workflows to improve operational efficiency, drive better patient outcomes, and reduce provider burnout. Fabric is taking an integrated approach to healthcare technology rather than offering individual point solutions in order to create a seamless experience for patients and providers. Aniq explains, "We started Fabric about four years ago now in 2021 in the midst of the pandemic. And we're a technology company fundamentally. So, Fabric builds technology. We work primarily with health systems, but also with health plans and employers, to really help bring together the care journey of a patient. So that's everything from helping a patient find care, triage their symptoms, get virtual care, and also help with things like scheduling appointments and follow-ups. So we've built really an end-to-end platform today that has AI at its core and is able to sort of route patients more appropriately and then also help improve the workflows of providers and create efficiency on the clinical side as well." "Yes, so one of the things that has been sort of core to the Fabric vision is figuring out ways to actually improve patient experience, provider experience, and operational throughput without it compromising any of those three buckets. And so one of the things that we've been fortunate to have is a virtual care platform that we actually acquired. We bought a company called Zipnosis back in 2023, and Zipnosis had built a pretty robust set of clinical protocols to help streamline the virtual urgent care visits effectively. So, say a patient's coming in with something like a pink eye or a urinary tract infection, or even just a cold or flu, we have protocols that allow patients to go through and answer a series of questions in an adaptive interview. And based on the patient responses, we can figure out if that patient needs to be seen in person or may need to get referred out to the emergency department." #FabricHealth #MedAI #AI #DigitalAssistant #DigitalHealth #TriageEvaluation fabrichealth.com Download the transcript here

James Keppel, Founder and CEO of Sarana Health, is focused on an integrated healthcare model that addresses chronic health challenges and preventative care. By providing personalized care, advanced lab testing, and one-on-one coaching with healthcare professionals, Sarana aims to fill the gaps in the traditional healthcare system, which often focuses on sick care rather than keeping people healthy. The company's integrated care model looks at the interconnected body systems to identify underlying causes of health issues, rather than just treating symptoms. James explains, "What we provide is a totally personalized client-led and client-centric approach to wellness. We do that through an advanced series of lab tests and also you get to actually talk to the people who care for you, which I know is rare. Everything is very much about you and the person that you are, as opposed to charts and graphs about past history and that sort of thing with other doctors. So we get very dialed into the person." "We've got a lot of different ranges that we can hit. So you mentioned people with chronic conditions. Yes, absolutely. We can deal with that. A lot of times, those people have not gotten any good answers from the legacy healthcare system. So they go and see their doctor every six months. They do the same test, they get the same, we don't know what's going on, or it's just you're older and that's the way it is, sort of thing. And then the other end of the spectrum is on the preventative side and looking at being in front of your health as opposed to waiting until you have a problem, which unfortunately the legacy healthcare system kind of does - they wait till you have a problem, they give you a prescription, and tell you, that's the way it goes. Whereas if you're on the preventive end, the easiest way to stay healthy is to never get sick." #SaranaHealth #IntegratedHealth #Wellness #OptimalWellness #Wholebody #PersonalizedHealth sarana.health Download the transcript here

Muffy Walker is a psychiatric nurse, mental health advocate, and author with a focus on bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's disease. As a founder of the Bipolar Foundation and through her work with the Alzheimer's Association, Muffy is working to raise awareness, reduce the stigma often associated with these conditions, and bring resources to patients and caregivers. Based on her personal experiences with family members with bipolar and Alzheimer's, Muffy has published her latest novel, Memory Weavers to help others deal with the challenges of diagnosing, treating, and supporting complex mental conditions. Muffy explains, "I am a psychiatric nurse. I have a master's in psychiatric nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, and I worked in that space, mostly working in the PTSD area. And then I had a family member who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This was over 23 years ago. At that time, there were very few resources available, so three other women and I decided to launch what was then called the California Bipolar Foundation. As soon as we were up on the internet, we were getting requests, hits, and asks from all over the world. So we very quickly changed it to the International Bipolar Foundation. That foundation is 18 years old now, IBPF.org is globally accessible, and all of what we offer is free." "And now, because of my book, I'm very involved with the Alzheimer's Association and Us Against Alzheimer's, etc. But we do see, of course, we have this brand new blood test that just came out that I think is a game changer, helping people to determine if they're having some kinds of issues related to memory. And then a simple test, just like we should do a simple mental health exam when you go to your GP, ask you if you're depressed, ask you how you're sleeping, ask you if you have thoughts of suicide. A simple test, but more related to memory, can be given by the family doctor." #MuffyWalker #MemoryWeaver #IBPF #InternationalBipolarFoundation #BipolarDisorder #AlzheimersDisease #MentalHealth #Caregivers muffywalker.com Download the transcript here

Michael Reidy, a senior consultant at Interaction Associates, discusses the challenges and opportunities facing both new and experienced doctors, given the rise of virtual doctor visits and telemedicine, as well as the use of AI tools in the healthcare environment. While new doctors often possess strong technical skills, they may lack the interpersonal skills necessary to communicate effectively with patients. Experienced doctors may need a refresher on active listening skills to adapt to screen technologies. While technology and AI tools can enhance the patient-doctor relationship by providing data and insights, the human interaction remains essential. Michael explains, "We are a 55-year-old company that has worked with clients ranging from healthcare to nuclear power to finance services. So we're providing tools to organizations to empower leaders, managers, individual contributors, and coaches to encourage performance and enhance capability." "New physicians are such a brilliant audience for us. I think usually because they're technically very brilliant. They have come through an exhaustive training and passed through many, many hurdles and bridges in order to arrive at their calling or their vocation. At the same time, they arrive with some experience of being with people who are sick or who are ill or who are wondering what is wrong with me, but not a lot. And so our job, we find, is to enable, to empower, and to engage the human side of the younger doctor. In fact, it applies very often to older practitioners also." #InteractionAssociates #MedTech #VirtualHealth #AI #MedAI #DoctorPatientRelationship interactionassociates.com Download the transcript here

Allan Sheffield, Co-Founder of Gene By Gene, offers genetic testing to provide insights into an individual's risk for various diseases, including cancer and rare genetic disorders, allowing for more proactive and preventative healthcare. Analysis of pharmacogenomic data, which examines how an individual's genes influence their response to medications, also helps doctors prescribe the most effective treatments and avoid potential side effects. Integrating genetic data into electronic medical records and using AI to simplify the interpretation of results is enabling doctors and patients to improve patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and use polygenic risk scores to provide more comprehensive insights into an individual's health. Allan explains, "Gene By Gene is one of the largest genomic sequencing or genetic tech companies in the US, and we do everything from whole genome sequencing to offering hereditary cancer screening, predictive cardiovascular risk, and things like pharmacogenomic testing to see how people respond to different medications. So if you can think about genetic testing, we've got the capabilities to do it." "We're living in a really exciting time at the moment, where next-generation sequencing, or whole-genome sequencing, is becoming much more of a reality. I think 10 years ago, it would cost over a hundred thousand dollars to sequence your whole genome, which is the 3 billion base pairs of genetic code in your body. And so what we've had to do in the past is do very targeted tests to keep the costs affordable. But with the advancements in technology, we are now doing the whole genome sequence at Gene By Gene for in the hundreds of dollars as opposed to the thousands of dollars. And that's making it much more accessible and much more realistic in healthcare." #GeneByGene #GeneticTesting #NextGenerationSequencing #NGS #Pharmagenomics #CancerScreening #PredictiveScreening #CardiovascularRisk #PrecisionMedicine GeneByGene.com Download the transcript here

Sandy Saggar, CEO of Connexall, aims to solve the challenge of disparate and unconnected technologies in hospitals that lead to inefficient workflows, data silos, and increased cognitive load on clinicians. Connexall's connected care platform helps integrate hospital systems and medical devices to improve communication, automate workflows, save time for clinicians, and enhance patient outcomes. The need for a connected hospital is becoming increasingly clear, as it helps break down technical barriers and improve interoperability. Sandy explains, "So the challenge today and has been a challenge for some time is that hospitals have disparate technology pieces all over the place, and between technologies and medical devices, they're not connected to one another. It means less automation, silos of data, and just workflows that don't help clinicians and staff do their work around patient care. So when you look at all of these medical devices, clinical systems can be connected, which can really improve those workflows, improve communication, and lead to improved patient outcomes. So, how do we make it easier for nurses, doctors, and staff to do their day-to-day work? "Really, that's our purpose here, is to help with that and decrease things like cognitive load. Why do I need to go to multiple devices or multiple medical devices, multiple apps, multiple workstations to check on things around patient care, like vital signs, alarms, and messages? So, just helping to support patient care and improving the caregiver experience is really the heart of what we do." #Connexall #Hospitals #ConnectedHospitals #SmartHospitals #Healthcare #DataSilos #MedicalDevices #Interoperability connexall.com Download the transcript here

Dr. George Sledge, Executive VP and Chief Medical Officer of Caris Life Sciences, is using advanced molecular testing, including DNA, RNA, and protein analysis, to identify specific mutations and characteristics of a patient's tumor, allowing for more personalized and targeted treatment. The company is developing liquid biopsies to detect cancer early, identify minimal residual disease, and assess the potential for future cancer development. Caris has a database of over half a million patients whose tumors have undergone next-generation sequencing, allowing them to draw increasingly accurate conclusions. The future of precision oncology is expected to involve broader and earlier use of next-generation sequencing as the cost of the test continues to decrease significantly. George explains, "Caris Life Sciences is a molecular diagnostics company. Patients and their physicians send us tumor samples that can be obtained either from the primary tissue or from a distant recurrent site. When they come to us, we do several things. We look at DNA, what's called whole exome. We look at RNA, what's called whole transcriptome. We also frequently look at the protein level at immunohistochemistry, looking at slides that have been stained to look for particular molecular lesions that may be important from a treatment standpoint. Based on all of these, we're able to provide patients with information about which drugs represent the most appropriate treatment for their disease. This, of course, allows you to go to a drug that hopefully will be less toxic and more effective for your particular disease." "When we look at the very specific mutations that manifest themselves at the level of either DNA or RNA, this requires fairly high technology, what's called next-generation sequencing, which allows us to pick up all these individual mutations that make up a particular patient's cancer. And every patient's cancer is different. Every patient's cancer involves different combinations of mutations that result in different responses to different treatments." #CarisLifeSciences #CancerResearch #PrecisionMedicine #RealWorldData #AccestoCare #HealthEquity #NextGenerationSequencing #NGS #LiquidBiopsy #ClinicoGenomic #Biomarkers #PanCancer carislifesciences.com Download the transcript here

Kirk Huntsman, Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of Vivos Therapeutics, is focused on the connection between obstructive sleep apnea and Alzheimer's disease, the challenges of diagnosing sleep apnea, and the importance of sleep testing in treating the root causes of sleep disorders. The Vivos oral appliance is a non-invasive way to address the breathing disorder OSA and resulting sleep issues. Proper nasal breathing and airway development from a young age can help prevent the onset of sleep apnea and help preserve brain health. Kirk explains, "Sleep apnea is an interesting condition that has only been actively researched for the last 60 years. It was really only identified and started showing up in the medical literature in the mid-1960s. And so we really have about a 60-year run at trying to figure out what this condition is, what it affects, what's comorbid with it, etc. We're now pushing 40 plus conditions, which are comorbid with sleep apnea, and every time we find another condition that is coexistent with sleep apnea or that is found in connection with sleep apnea, we just expand the horizon for that and we learn more about the sort of the biomechanical and the biological processes that are at work that drive the connection between these two. And you mentioned one of the main ones now that we've known about for a while, but the connection between obstructive sleep apnea in particular and Alzheimer's." "What we know is that there's a drainage system on the brain. Our brains need to get into a deep state of rest, and it's called REM sleep. And there are other parts to this. I'll keep it really high level, but the bottom line is that our brains flush. There's a sewage system that basically flushes the toxins out of our brains. It's called the glymphatic system. And the glymphatic system needs to be able to function, and in order to function, the patient has to be in a state of deep sleep. And so if sleep apnea has interrupted that sleep and caused various arousals or various interruptions to avoid a patient arriving at that, what happens is that the brain is not able to flush the toxins out of the brain, and those toxins build up." #VivosTherapeutics #SleepApnea #ObstructiveSleepApnea #OSA #SleepDisorders #CognitiveDecline #Alzheimers #OSATreatment #MedicalDevice vivos.com Download the transcript here

Marianne De Backer is the CEO of Vir Biotechnology, a company developing treatments that harness the power of the immune system to fight serious infectious diseases and cancer. Vir Biotechnology’s current clinical trials include a registrational program in chronic hepatitis delta, a rare, often fatal liver disease, as well as two Phase 1 trials of PRO-XTEN™ dual-masked T-cell engagers (TCEs), one targeting HER-2 and the other targeting PSMA, each in heavily pre-treated cancer patients. TCEs have shown tremendous potential but have been limited due to toxicity challenges. The PRO-XTEN™ technology keeps the TCEs masked until they reach the tumor microenvironment, potentially mitigating the toxicity of TCEs and allowing them to unleash their tremendous potential to destroy cancer cells. Marianne explains, “Vir Biotechnology is an immunology company, and that means that we are really developing treatments that take advantage of the power of basically the patient's own immune system to fight a variety of diseases. We have actually four clinical-stage programs in infectious disease and oncology, and a number of preclinical programs as well. And our most advanced program is to treat chronic hepatitis delta. That is actually a disease caused by a tiny virus, but it's causing liver cancer and is often fatal.” “We have recently initiated our registrational phase 3 program. It's called ECLIPSE. We had previously shown some very compelling data with one of our regimens for treating this disease. We're really excited about progressing that program. And the rest of our clinical pipeline includes a series of so-called PRO-XTEN™ masked T-cell engagers, or in short, TCEs, for the treatment of metastatic solid tumors.” Vir Biotechnology has exclusive rights to the PRO-XTEN™ masking platform for oncology and infectious disease. PRO-XTEN™ is a trademark of Amunix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. a Sanofi company. #VirBiotechnology #MaskedTCellEngagers #TCellEngagers #SolidTumors #MetastaticSolidTumors #Cancer #Immunotherapy #ChronicHepatitisDelta #MedAI #PatientsAreWaiting vir.bio Download the transcript here

Evan Steele, Founder and CEO of online reputation management company rater8, emphasizes the importance of online reviews for healthcare providers and how patients are increasingly relying on reviews to select a doctor. The key to generating reviews is to actively ask for feedback and acknowledge receipt of comments. Negative reviews and low-star ratings can encourage practices to respond to comments, improving the patient experience and demonstrating to patients that the practice cares. Evan explains, "Now, you look in your insurance guide to see which providers in your area accept the insurance. There's a Facebook group. You might ask, Who do I go to see for my shoulder that hurts for an orthopedic surgeon? You ask your friends and family, your PCP gives you some names, and you start going down the list. And what's changed is if you call that first doctor on the list and they don't have great reviews, you might not even call them, but let's say you call them and they have a convenient time, and a location is convenient, but the next doctor has 150 reviews, 4.9 stars." "You read the comments, patients love this doctor. Even if the appointment time is not convenient for you or the drive is a little further than the most convenient location, you're going to book an appointment with that doctor. Just like I would never even think of dining at a 3.8-star rated restaurant. I wouldn't trust my health, my life, and my well-being to a 3.8-rated doctor. So I think people are making decisions now based on online reviews and even going out of their way and being inconvenienced to make sure they get the right doctor." #rater8 #ReputationManagement #PatientFeedback #PatientEngagement #PracticeGrowth #TrustMarketing #PatientAcquisition #PatientProviderRelationship rater8.com Download the transcript here

Elli Kaplan, CEO and Co-Founder of Neurotrack, emphasizes the importance of early cognitive assessment and the potential of digital tools in advancing the screening process for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. Screen-based assessment tools can provide more efficient, accurate, and objective screening compared to traditional pen and paper tests. Integrating cognitive screening into primary care settings can lead to early intervention when lifestyle changes can help maintain brain health and slow the progression of conditions like Alzheimer's disease. Elli explains, "We are focused on screening for cognitive decline, and that includes mild cognitive impairment all the way through to Alzheimer's disease, working largely with primary care providers to help them then make a diagnosis of cognitive decline or Alzheimer's in their clinics and refer patients on to get better treatment." "Historically, there have been tests that have existed in the universe that are pen and paper tests that measure cognition. I would say quite poorly. But the other problem with these types of tests is that they have to be administered by a trained administrator, who is typically a doctor, and they take a long time. So they may take anywhere from 10 minutes to 25 minutes. And so the advantages of digital tools are that one, they don't carry that same bias. Some that would occur with one provider versus another versus another, with a different kind of style administering the test. So they're much more objective." "Our tests are quite short, so they can be administered, self-administered in about three minutes, depending on the patient. So, anywhere from three minutes up to about seven minutes, as we unlock additional tests as they may be needed for a particular patient. So they make it possible to standardize testing across a population and to integrate it into workflows in ways that haven't been possible before. So more efficient, more accurate, and more objective. And you take out a lot of the bias that has existed around both administration, as well as things like language or education levels, ethnicity, that type of thing." #Neurotrack #Alzheimers #HealthTech #AlzheimersAwareness #MemoryCare #SeniorCare #Aging #Cognition #CognitionScreening #Dementia neurotrack.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Sandra Silberman, Chief Medical Officer at CNS Pharmaceuticals, has developed new therapies for glioblastoma that can cross the blood-brain barrier to reach brain tumors. Their lead drug candidates have been modified to slip into the membranes to inhibit tumor growth and attack the cancer cells. The anthracycline-based and taxane-based drugs are showing efficacy in clinical trials and are not showing the cardiotoxicity associated with anthracyclines. Sandra explains, "Anthracyclines are characteristically cardiotoxic. And we have just conducted a study of over 160 patients who have received this, and some of them for quite a long period of time. And we have not seen any cardiotoxicity. So we have one of the anthracyclines that is the first to actually cross the blood-brain barrier without any help from other mechanisms, and it also doesn't cause cardiotoxicity. So we have a really open field to be able to further develop this drug. And we know that this drug, based on all of our preclinical studies, is very effective against glioma cells." "This is to the great credit of the chemists that we've been working with. Can I develop a compound that can not be a substrate for this, so it can't even bind to this efflux transporter and can slip by? But not only that, can it be lipophilic, meaning it can get through all those membranes, and it can be something that leaks into the brain itself. So the two molecules that we have are not substrates for these multidrug-resistant transporters. They're also very highly lipophilic, meaning they're very oily. And so I guess this has two meanings to it, but they're oily and then they slip into the brain and are able to do what they're supposed to be doing, which is the inhibition of tumor growth and killing the tumor cells." #CNSPharma #Glioblastoma ##BrainCancer #BloodBrainBarrier #NeuroOncology #CancerResearch #DrugDevelopment #BrainTumor cnspharma.com Download the transcript here

Kevin Caldwell, CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Ossium Health, discusses the opportunities for regenerative stem-cell therapies and the challenges of obtaining bone marrow from donors for bone marrow transplants. Ossium Health is collecting bone marrow from healthy, young donors and utilizing a cryopreservation process that enables long-term storage and on-demand availability of these cells. Ongoing clinical trials using allogeneic bone-marrow-derived cells to treat patients with acute leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome are showing promising results. Kevin explains, "Our mission is to improve the health, longevity, and vitality of human beings through bioengineering. We believe that regenerative therapeutics, which involve cell and gene therapies that can permanently and positively improve human biology, will be fundamental to the prevention of disease and the preservation of health as we age. One of the most powerful tools we have in achieving this goal is engineering the immune system. And in particular at Ossium, we develop therapeutics that enable us today in the clinic to treat life-threatening malignancies of the immune system, like leukemia, in patients with dire need. Into the future, the goal is to make it possible to reconstitute, reprogram, and replace a blood and immune system in a manner that can treat patients with chronic diseases and ultimately do so in a preventive manner." "Traditionally, the major application of bone marrow in the clinic is bone marrow transplants for patients with blood cancers like leukemia. And so the patient's native immune system is ablated or annihilated and replaced with a bone marrow infusion from a healthy donor, related or unrelated. And if that bone, new bone marrow from the donor in grafts in the patient, then it replaces or it constitutes their blood and immune system." "And so one of the things that we're working on at Ossium is, okay, how do we address these problems? How do we make bone marrow more available to deliver and deploy on demand and easily, without needing to track down a volunteer donor? What can we do to reduce the risk of rejection so that the transplant is safer? What can we do to improve the likelihood of engraftment the first time and the speed of engraftment so the patients aren't immunocompromised for as long? All of these are things that we're working on to really make it possible to bring this lifesaving procedure to more patients." #OssiumHealth #StemCellTherapy #RegenerativeMedicine #BoneMarrowTransplants ossiumhealth.com Download the transcript here