Empowered Patient Podcast Mission to Encourage Early Detection Provide Treatments to Slow Progression of ALS and Other Rare Diseases with Joe Scalia Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America
Joe Scalia, Vice President and Head of Commercial Market Access and Global Marketing for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, highlights the company's focus on rare diseases, particularly ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The company's goal is to find a cure for ALS and improve the quality of life for patients while raising awareness to reduce the time to diagnosis. With a patient support program, JourneyMate, the company offers resources and support for ALS patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.
Joe explains, "When it comes to neuromuscular diseases, these are one of the hardest areas to treat and for medicines to impact patient's lives. So, when you look at neuromuscular diseases like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, these are diseases that impact millions of patients across the United States, and the treatments are very hard to come across. For example, on ALS, before our medication came out, there were over 20 years and 50 failures of medications. There's a high unmet need for these patients, so companies like ours are focused on finding these medications to help support them."
"There's also a correlation with a higher rate of ALS for our veterans, and we're not sure exactly why. There's some belief that there may be some type of chemical exposure or vaccine exposure. We're not sure the reason why, but there is a higher incidence also for firefighters. So this is a population that we need to continue to help -- 20,000 to 30,000 patients who are desperately looking for additional support and potentially a cure in the future."
"It goes back to, we've been investing in ALS for over 20 years, and it's taken that long to come up with the molecules to help these patients. So, an organization like ours has been around for over 330 years. We look at fighting diseases, not looking at one year, but decades of research to hopefully find medications that will help patients. So, it takes an organization that is committed to the space."
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