Empowered Patient Podcast

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

Ann Bilyew, Executive VP of Health and Group General Manager at WebMD Ignite, works with hospitals, health systems, and payers to provide technology that builds trust, reduces administrative burdens on providers, and personalizes engagements with patients and members. While AI-powered solutions are showing great promise, challenges arise in deploying new technologies due to legacy infrastructure, interoperability issues, and the need to balance innovation with potential risks and costs. A strong foundation of high-quality, clinically reviewed content is key to the ability to provide accurate information on demand. Ann explains, "We work with hospitals, health systems, payers, and essentially everybody involved in the provision or payment support in healthcare. And we work with 90% of US-based hospitals and health systems and about an equal percentage of all of the top payers in the United States." "I'd say one of the key themes that we hear time and time again across all of our clients and all of our partners is the need to build trust and the need to stay relevant and the need to personalize engagements with consumers, with patients, with members. I mean, let's face it, humans today, we've all been trained, or humans in the United States, at least, have all been trained to have a really personalized experience with their partners and their vendors. So they expect us to know them, they expect us to understand them, they expect us to know the needs, their unique set of circumstances that make them a human. And doing that within the appropriate confines of privacy regulation and requirements is really the job at hand for many of our clients." "And it's not just with hospitals, payers honestly have, for the most part, ancient care management platforms and ancient claims processing platforms. And look, there are good reasons for that. I mean, we like to sort of point to that as a thing, but it's not been because of negligence, or it's not been because people didn't want to improve and modernize their technology and their infrastructure. There are good reasons why what exists today exists, and part of it is resources and costs for sure. But part of it also is risk, and the risk associated with losing data or not being able to pay your clinicians if you're a health plan, or respond to your members in a timely way if you're a health plan, or not even being able to operate your ER effectively."  #WebMD #AIforHealth #MedAI #PatientEducation #PatientEngagement #DigitalHealth #DigitalHealthInnovations #PersonalizedCare #EmpoweredPatients webmdignite.com Download the transcript here

Greg Farnum, Senior VP and General Manager at Audacious Inquiry, a PointClickCare company, brings expertise in health information exchange, public health, and health IT policy. Audacious is using AI to reduce administrative burdens and improve clinical workflows, facilitating data exchange, enhancing decision-making, and providing a better patient experience. Working with the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and other federal and state agencies, Audacious is developing tools to summarize lengthy test results, generate educational materials, and suggest relevant responses to public inquiries. Greg explains, "We have a full-stack engineering team, a managed services team, expertise in health IT policy and regulation, health IT standards, public health, and now artificial intelligence. So we work with ASTP (Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy), which is also known as the old ONCCDC, plus a bunch of other federal and state agencies, HIEs, and public health. We are part of PointClickCare, a leading health tech company with one simple mission -- to help providers deliver exceptional care across thousands of facilities." "ASTP has some really interesting challenges that are perfect for AI. They're dealing with some complex data analysis challenges and the creation of content for industry and the public. They also respond to thousands of public inquiries yearly. So we're helping them with all of those things and leveraging AI tools to do that."   "I'll get a little more specific. Every year, hundreds of health IT organizations and developers submit these things they call testing results associated with their real-world test plans. But there's no standard format for this. So, ASTP staff have to manually read through each of these documents. And these are big documents. They can be 50 pages, they could be 200 pages, and the staff need to go through and figure out where the answers are to these specific questions. So we've built some AI tools that can read the entire document and automatically extract the answers using things like natural language processing and other AI components."  #PointClickCare #AudaciousInquiry #AI #MedAI #ResponsibleAI #AdministrativeBurdens #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #HealthcareRegulation #ClinicianBurnout #Clinicians ainq.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Abe Delpassand, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at RadioMedix, is concentrated on the development of radiopharmaceuticals for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Advancements in handling radioactive materials and increased availability have enabled the growth of the use of alpha-emitting and beta-emitting radioisotopes in treating cancers that have been resistant to other therapies. Alpha-emitting radioisotopes are particularly interesting because they can cause double-strand DNA damage in cancer cells, making the probability of cancer recurrence much less likely. Abe explains, "Just a brief introduction related to what radiopharmaceuticals are. These are drugs that have three parts, basically. One part is the radioactive material. The second part is what we call a ligand. It's like a vehicle that takes the radioactive material to the target that we have. And there is a third component, which is like a chain attaching the radioisotope to the ligand. Radiopharmaceuticals qualify as a form of therapy because we target a specific receptor antigen metabolic pathway in cancer cells, and this is how we can reach the cancer cells. It has two components: one, diagnostic and therapeutic, which is very unique to this modality because in many other cancer therapies before the treatment, we don't have any way to make sure that the patient who is receiving the treatment, that actually the drug can reach the cancer the patient has." "We have been talking about the value of alpha-emitters in delivering high level of radiation in a targeted fashion to the cancer cells, but we in the last, I'd say 10 years or more, we have learned how to handle these isotopes. That's one aspect of the science part. The other aspect is the availability of these isotopes. Now the supply of these isotopes is becoming a lot more, and they are becoming more available."    #RadioMedix #TeamRadioMedix #Radiopharmaceuticals #TargetedAlphaTherapy #OncologyInnovation #NuclearMedicine #CancerResearch #RadiogandTherapy #PrecisionOncology #Theranostics #SPICACenter #OncologyCommunity #AlphaEmittingRadioisotopes #BetaEmittingRadioisotopes radiomedix.com Download the transcript here

Kurt Lunkwitz, Chief Operating Officer at ProRx Pharma, describes the role compound pharmacies play in filling gaps when certain drugs are in short supply and providing personalized medications for patients. Compound pharmacies offer a wide range of customized formulations and delivery methods to meet the specific needs of patients, particularly in the areas of functional and preventative medicines. These pharmacies are enabling a shift towards precision medicine and individualized care, responding to the market demand for alternative and preferred formulations of medications.  Kurt explains, "There's primary clientele and then there's secondary clientele. Our primary clientele includes a host of prescribers, medical clinics, and could be telemedicine-type companies, and med spas. There are tens of thousands of these types of practitioner offices across the country, and it's a wide and booming industry as it relates to functional medicine, alternative medicine, or as we like to refer to it, preventative care. And the secondary customer would be the patient themselves. So the medications that ProRx is compounding would be ordered through these physicians’ offices, these practices, and for their particular patient and customer base." "One of the primary functions in the role of a 503 B outsourcing facility, or a number of them across the country, is to step in and fill this gap. If the primary manufacturer, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, has a disruption in the supply chain, or simply just can't keep up with the demand." "If we want to take a look at one of the largest supply chain gaps that has existed, and it's been a very popular topic of conversation here more recently, this would relate a lot to some of the GLP-1 medications, both semaglutide and tirzepatide. So these were two medications that ProRx participated in and helped to fill the shortage gap. There were a handful of months where ProRx went into production, and we helped to fill tens of thousands of prescriptions for patients of medical necessity who badly needed these medications."  #ProRxPharma #CompoundPharmacy #DrugShortageList  prorxpharma.com Download the transcript here

Amanda Wiggins is CEO of cGP Lab, a New Zealand-based company that is commercializing cycline Glycine Proline, cGP, a dipeptide molecule that helps regulate blood vessel formation. The Lab is pursuing a medical food regulatory pathway to bring its cGP-based products to the market for the dietary management of peripheral neuropathy and other vascular complications of type 2 diabetes and is exploring the potential for Parkinson's disease and other dementias. The Lab sources cGP from a combination of New Zealand blackcurrant and beef bone collagen using a proprietary manufacturing process. Amanda explains, "The cGP Lab is a relatively new company. We were formed in 2020, and our mission is really to commercialize a really interesting dipeptide molecule called cycline Glycine Proline, or cGP for short. Although we're new to commercializing it, there's quite a huge body of evidence that sits behind where we've got today. Our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Jian Guan, has researched cGP for around 30 years. It's her life's work. What makes it really interesting is that cGP exists in all of our bodies. It's an endogenous molecule, but it also exists in some food sources. So we've identified those food sources and we've created a manufacturing process to create a standardized cGP ingredient that we use in our supplement range."   "Like many companies, we were actually founded on somewhat of a serendipitous discovery. So, back in 2016, the founders of the company had done a clinical trial on Parkinson's patients. And in that trial, they'd given the patients capsules containing blackcurrant extract because they were interested in whether blackcurrant extract, which is high in anthocyanins, could address some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease." "What we've ended up with now is a proprietary manufacturing process that combines New Zealand blackcurrants together with beef bone collagen. And we put those two together through a prolonged heating process. And what happens is that the amino acids, glycine and proline, when subject to heat or, even better, heat and pressure, will cyclise and form the cGP. So it's really that manufacturing process that brings out the cGP. And in that initial Parkinson's study, the level of cGP was actually quite low because that heating process hadn't been done for long enough. So we've come a long way in learning how to make cGP, and it really comes from that combination of New Zealand blackcurrant together with the collagen peptides." "So, where we're seeing it being most useful is right at the start of a peripheral neuropathy diagnosis. So patients often, well, I know in the US anyway, foot checks are generally done annually for people with type 2 diabetes. It's a bit different here in New Zealand. And so that should hopefully pick up the first inklings that someone's starting to develop peripheral neuropathy. And what the path to market that we're seeing for our innovation is called the medical food category, which is a bit different." #cGPLab #cGP #MedicalFood #DiabeticPeripheralNeuropathy cGPmax.com Download the transcript here