Empowered Patient Podcast

Heather Ridenoure, Center of Excellence Segment Leader, and Maeve Ruggieri,  the Director of Product at Contigo Health, shine a light on the challenge of employee substance use disorder and the resources available for care. This chronic disease can be caused by adverse childhood events, genetic predisposition, stress, and environmental factors. Contigo addresses any substance that can be abused through their Centers for Excellence program with virtual care and in-person care options where participation is voluntary and can be accessed 24/7. Heather explains, "As far as how frequently this occurs, the newest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control said one in seven people have a substance use disorder. That's new data, and that's been increasing by 30% since the pandemic, which is pretty significant. So, this is one of the reasons we struck out on a journey to try to address some of these issues."   Maeve elaborates, "As Heather mentioned, substance use disorder being a chronic disease, is something that causes clinically significant impairment. So that may or may not be visible to an employer in the workplace. Their employees may seem like they are high performers or be high performers and not be showing the stereotypical signs of substance use disorder, things that we may see from TV or movies, like erratic behavior, things even down to missing deadlines." "But what's so important is having the member be ready to participate themselves. This program is rooted in shared decision-making between the member and the providers, and our team at Contigo, who's doing a lot of care and case management and support. And if the member is not ready to participate, to explore recovery and manage their substance use disorder, then it's not time yet." #ContigoHealth #SubstanceUseDisorder #HealthPlans #HealthBenefits ContigoHealth.com Download the transcript here

Kyle Filkins and Kris Napper were both born with SMA, spinal muscular atrophy. Meeting as kids at The Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp, they have developed a friendship and a documentary. After beginning the use of the drug Evrysdi, their rare genetic disease stopped progressing, and the oral form of this medication allowed them to avoid spinal injections. Now in their thirties, Kris and Kyle are advocating for the community of those with SMA, working on their documentary, and looking forward to more adventures.  Kris explains, "Just shortly before Evrysdi was released and made available, there was another drug called Spinraza that was the first treatment ever for our disability. It was a spinal injection, which poses some complications as far as it's a procedure with some risk. It can be painful, and there's the risk of hitting nerves and causing damage. It's not the most fun thing to go through, but it was beneficial. So I was doing that." "So for young children, just being diagnosed can be life-changing because you can stop that progression before it really hits. For us, we've already had significant progression. Still, hopefully, this will stop it where it is, and we'll be able to continue our lives for the foreseeable future, a lot better and longer than originally anticipated." Kyle elaborates, "Before I was on any type of therapy, I would go to bed one day able to do something, and I'd wake up the day after not being able to do that. And it would never come back. And it's pretty great to be able to go to bed and sleep securely knowing that what I did today I can, for the most part, probably do tomorrow. It's definitely life-changing. That's for sure." "There's been a lot of people interested in this story. Kind of piggybacking here on what Napper said, at the outset, it was really kind of just a budget film and like, "Oh, maybe they'll do cool activities and make jokes and stuff." But then with the advent of this therapy and specifically Evrysdi, that's really changed the outlook of the scope of the film, and for the better, as Napper said."  @KKtheFilm #SMA #SpinalMuscularAtrophy #MuscularDystrophy #RareDisease #Evrysdi  KrisandKyletheFilm.com SnappyClothing.com Evrysdi.com Download the transcript here

Marlena Del Hierro VP of partnerships and commercial strategy at Seniorly, which is a resource for families looking for senior living options and seniors planning ahead. The Best of Senior Living Awards determined by Seniorly highlights the best 150 communities around the country based on feedback from families, senior living advisors, licensing reviews, and media searches that might reveal something problematic or terrific about a facility.   Marlena explains, "We have an algorithm that then shares the top five to seven options for your loved one. So that's a unique piece, because of the data and the technology that we're constantly gathering from a variety of sources to help these families make the best decision for their loved ones."  "The reason why we're doing these awards is that we should be pushing the envelope. The Baby Boomers are fundamentally challenging these senior living communities. And the awards are just a sense of preparing us for more of a modern era in senior living."  @Seniorly #SeniorLiving #BabyBoomers #IndependentLiving #AssistedLiving #FinancialPlanning Seniorly.com  Download the transcript here

Dr. Steve Marcus, CEO of Cantex Pharmaceuticals, is developing drugs based on Azeliragon that might slow the metastasis of cancer and extend the survival rate for patients with brain and other cancers.  This drug has been shown to suppress the RAGE receptor, which is expressed on the surface of cancer cells and some immune cells. When RAGE is over-activated, as it is in several cancers and inflammatory diseases, it can cause pathology. Steve elaborates, "Azeliragon inhibits something abbreviated as RAGE, the receptor for advanced glycation end products. Originally, it was thought that RAGE is very important for the progression of Alzheimer's disease. And because of that, a company called vTv Therapeutics initiated large-scale clinical trials of Azeliragon for Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately, those trials failed to show effectiveness of the drug in Alzheimer's disease, but did demonstrate very robust safety. The drug is given once a day and was given to patients for periods up to 18 months, and it was very well tolerated." "At the same time, over the last several years, there has been extensive literature indicating that this receptor, RAGE, plays a role in the progression of cancer, both brain cancers, as well as cancers outside of the central nervous system. And with that information, I approached vTv Therapeutics after their clinical trial failed to show efficacy, and I proposed licensing the product and taking it into cancer indications." #CantexPharma #GBM #Glioblastoma #BrainMetastasis #RAGEReceptor #Cancer Cantex.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Spyros Papapetropoulos is the President and CEO of Bionomics, a biotech company focused on central nervous system disorders, particularly social anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Social anxiety is a disease primarily of adolescents and young adults, and the social isolation during COVID  contributed to a rise in the number of people experiencing this condition. The Bionomics drug in development is BNC210, a therapeutic that can be taken on schedule an hour before conducting an activity likely to induce anxiety.  Spyros elaborates, "Social anxiety disorder is actually known as social phobia, and it's very different, because everyday interactions cause significant anxieties. And they're very situational, so you become very self-conscious. You feel embarrassed and have a fear of being scrutinized or judged negatively by others. It is considered a very, very important chronic mental health condition that, if left untreated, leads to comorbid depression, even suicidality, and addiction down the road." "BNC210 acts on nicotinic receptors. These are receptors that are expressed or found in areas of the brain. The alpha-7 nicotinic receptors are found primarily in areas that control emotions, so in areas that are considered brain anxiety generators. I don't know how much your audience has heard about the amygdala, but the amygdala is considered one of the most important areas, also responsible for fight or flight, for instance. And it's an area of the brain that has received a lot of attention. So BNC210 binds to the alpha-7 receptors found in the amygdala and reduces the activity or the activation of the amygdala, which is abnormally high in anxiety-related disorders." #Bionomics #SocialAnxietyDisorder #SocialPhobia #CNSDisorders #PTSD #COVID  bionomics.com Download the transcript here

Matt D'Onofrio, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer at Evoke Pharma, is developing a treatment to help patients with diabetic gastroparesis.  This little-known disease is thought to be due to damage to the vagus nerve, interrupting the communication between the brain and gut, stopping the stomach from functioning normally. Current treatments are a pill required to move through the stomach.  Evoke has developed a nasal spray to treat the condition that bypasses the stomach and provides predictable relief. Matt explains, "We developed a product called GIMOTI, or nasal metoclopramide. The interest behind doing so is to completely bypass the stomach to get a dose on board for patients. The unpredictable nature of the stomach makes dosing with pills very unpredictable. We know that a number of patients who take oral treatments don't find efficacy. We believe that's, in part, because of the stomach's problems itself." "By developing the nasal format, or GIMOTI, we are able to avoid that unpredictable issue and get the product on board directly by spraying it into the nose and getting absorption straight through the thin membrane in your nostrils, getting the product into the bloodstream from there. We found that this is very helpful for patients who do have issues with any absorption problems. We also found it helpful for patients who are nauseated and vomiting because you can't vomit up a nasal spray. There have been a number of different things we found as the product has come on the market that's been helpful for it." #EVOK #Evoke #FightGastroparesis #DGPAwareness #DiabeticGastroparesis  evokepharma.com Download the transcript here

Jared Bauer is the CEO of IONIQ Sciences which is exploring new ways to detect cancer at an earlier stage using non-invasive bioimpedance-based technology. This approach is not looking for the presence of cancer cells but rather changes in the interstitial fluid. Using a low level of electric current, the IONIQ AI-enhanced technology can identify where in the body the cancer is. Jared explains, "It's a bioimpedance-based technology, and the way the system works is we inject a very low level of electrical current, not enough for you to feel. You can't even recognize that it's there. Still, we inject electrical current using DC power, direct current. If you just think physics 101, electricity 101, whatever you want to call it, DC power, the path of least resistance, and that electricity is going to go through the interstitial fluid. Then we pull that back out with an EKG electrode on the other side. And we're scanning that interstitial fluid over distances, allowing us to see that immune response." "When someone doesn't have cancer, the ions or that electricity is going to flow freely. When someone does have cancer, a malignancy is present, and we see that cytokine storm, the changes in the chemokines, and the changes in the protein matrix. All of the interstitial fluid gets jumbled up, and those ions don't move as smoothly through. So over the course of a 20-minute, non-invasive test, just electrical current, it's all digital, we pull 10,000-plus data points from our scan, and we analyze that using our proprietary algorithm to give you an answer of malignant or benign." #IONIQSciences #EarlyDetectionofCancer #Cancer #LungCancer #Bioimpedance #CancerScreening ioniqsciences.com  Download the transcript here

Colin LeClair, CEO of Connections Health Solutions, shares his concerns about the lack of resources for people needing behavioral health crisis care and solutions for urgent and emergency psychiatric services in a facility-based setting. With a community-based approach, Connections partners with hospitals, care facilities, service providers, and law enforcement to better understand patients dealing with complex behavioral challenges and provide new alternatives for care.  Colin elaborates, "Right now, we have two of the largest crisis facilities, as we call them, in Arizona, one in Tucson and one in Phoenix. And those services include emergency psychiatric services, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Crisis stabilization services for patients who need a few days to recover and get back on their medication regimen and for whom we can prepare a care plan. In addition, there is an observation unit, a 23-hour observation unit for patients who are very acute and require immediate stabilization in a very unrestricted environment to get them back on their feet and on the path to recovery. The facilities look like small hospitals. We operate in about 20,000 to 40,000 square feet. We see about one thousand patients a month in each of our facilities."  "We take a lot of pride in saying that we never say no to a patient. And so the crisis is very self-defined. A patient who's in crisis may be having an anxiety attack, they may be new to the neighborhood, and they don't have a primary care physician or a primary psychiatric medical home. They just need a prescription refill. Or it could be somebody having a psychotic episode. We will treat anyone who comes to us." "On the higher acuity end of the spectrum, about 60% of our patients arrive with first responders. They're often picked up in the community by first responders. And we're trying to be a better alternative for police and for the patient than going to an emergency department where treatment is not designed around a psychiatric patient or potentially jail. And so, again, 60% of our patients come to us involuntarily. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we are able to convert more than half of those patients to voluntary status. In other words, they agree to engage in their own treatment, and that's a very, very difficult thing to do." #ConnectionsHealthSolutions #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek #MentalHealthisImportant #CrisisSupport #SelfCare #MentalHealth #MentalHealthMatters #988  ConnectionsHS.com  Download the transcript here

Dr. Shankar Musunuri is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ocugen, which is a biotechnology company focused on vaccines for public health, gene therapies targeting rare diseases in the retinal space, and cell therapies for regenerative medicine applications in cartilage repair. One key opportunity is to develop an inhalation vaccine that would be durable and efficient at preventing and controlling transmission of COVID and able to be combined with a flu vaccine.  Shankar explains, "There is a linkage if you take some of these vaccines and gene therapies. Some of the processes we use to make gene therapies can also use similar processes for vaccines. So there is a shared science, a shared manufacturing platform, and shared expertise. And then if you take the biotech itself, cream-of-the-cream in the pharmaceutical industry, they work in cell and gene therapies and vaccines, very complex science." "If you have a mucosal vaccine, which will create antibodies in the respiratory tract and control where the virus enters, it can neutralize it. And also, if you have neutralizing antibodies in your respiratory tract where the virus enters, you'll not only neutralize what is entering, it'll prevent transmission or control transmission of the disease." "If we can move COVID into this annual booster, just like flu, we thought we could provide solutions for COVID, flu, and combination. So, imagine yourself walking into a CVS, and what Ocugen wants to do is provide solutions for customers. If you want only flu, you'll get your flu inhalation vaccine. You want only COVID, and you'll get that. If you want a combo, you're going to get a combo. So we created three different vaccines, COVID, flu and combination, using our inhalation technology and novel vector platform." #Ocugen #Vaccines #InhalationVaccines #InhaledVaccines #COVID #Flu  ocugen.com Download the transcript here

Steve Glover, Co-founder and CEO of ZyVersa Therapeutics, focuses on rare kidney diseases and diseases with an inflammation component. Inflammasomes, the first response in the innate immune system, create an inflammation cascade.  The ZyVersa approach targets multiple inflammasomes to address diseases caused by the malfunction of this response. Steve explains, "Inflammation drives a lot of different diseases. And as we get into this a little bit more today, it's everything from kidney disease such as rare diseases such as FSGS and Alport syndrome and diabetic kidney disease all have an inflammation component. And in addition to that, when you look at diseases like Alzheimer's or MS, or Parkinson's, they're inflammation driven as well. So there is a connection between the two disease classes." "I've been in the industry a long time, and every so often the industry finds a new interesting discovery, and inflammasomes are clearly one of those new discoveries. In fact, one of the things I talk about quite a bit is that ten years ago, there were about two or so publications that were available on inflammasomes. Now there are over 20,000 publications available on inflammasomes. And this whole concept of inflammation driving certain diseases has become an area of an immense amount of research and development of products that can inhibit the inflammation you don't want in the human body." "When inflammasomes go into overdrive and are left uninhibited, they can cause a lot of damage to organs and cells in the body. And so, for example, they drive a lot of different diseases, everything from cancers to diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, and a whole host of CNS diseases, as well as non-CNS diseases, that are driven by this inflammasome activation. So it's really important to find a way to inhibit those cytokines by inhibiting the inflammasome." #ZyVersa $ZVSA #RareDisease #InflammatoryDiseases #KidneyDisease #RenalDisease #FSGS #FocalSegmentalGlomerulosclerosis #AlportSyndrome #DiabeticKidneyDisease #Inflammasomes   ZyVersa.com Download the transcript here