Empowered Patient Podcast

Sam Lee, interim Co-CEO and President, and Jim Martin, interim Co-CEO and CFO of Cocrystal Pharma. They're a clinical stage biotech company using their proprietary drug development platform to create novel antiviral therapeutics to treat seasonal influenza and pandemic viral infections like COVID-19. Jim explains, "There are vaccines, and then there are therapeutics. We are a therapeutic company. We don't produce vaccines. Vaccines are more preventative. What we do is, once you get the illness, we stop the illness through our compounds. So as a therapeutic, you do need that one-two punch of both vaccines and therapeutics. And in the case of influenza, we have every year people getting vaccines, which are good. But the therapeutics that are necessary are far and few between." Sam elaborates, "So our compounds, the compound IDs of CC-42344, we're currently doing phase one study in Australia, this compound has an outstanding drug-resistant profile. We have not been able to isolate the drug-resistance strains from in vitro test-tube experiments. So we believe this compound is really designed for the pandemic as well as a seasonal treatment, particularly targeting for influenza A infection. And also, because of the excellent drug resistance profile, we believe this would be a real breakthrough influenza treatment for pandemic as well as seasonal infection." @CocrystalPharma #Flu #Influenza #Pandemic #SeasonalFlu #COVID #Vaccines #COVIDTreatments #FluTreatments cocrystalpharma.com Download the transcript here

Brian Culley is the CEO of Lineage Cell Therapeutics which is developing cell therapy for Dry AMD, a common condition and one of the leading causes of blindness, and to restore the functional capacity of hearing and the spine. Brian explains, "Conceptually, what we're doing is manufacturing the type of cell that has been lost due to aging or disease or trauma, and in doing so, in transplanting those cells, we're looking to restore function. This is what we saw in the setting of the eye, and this is what we're looking to replicate in the setting of the ear." "Lineage has a fundamental technology that allows us to manufacture these specific cell types. That technology is capable of manufacturing not just auditory neurons and retinal cells, as we talked about today, but we also can manufacture the cells of your spinal cord. We have treated 25 people who suffered a traumatic spinal cord injury, and we are working to replace those cells so that they can regain function, operate their own wheelchair, dress, and feed themselves." "Everything gets converted, and so we're able to come up with these largely pure populations of specific cell types. We can do it at a meaningful scale. Meaningful meaning you can actually get into a clinical trial and test to see if they work. The hallmark of our technology is being able to manufacture these cells in a way that the FDA expects. Rather than an academic science experiment, we're really trying to think about these as products that are going to reach patients and be used by surgeons and physicians." @ceo_culley @lineagecell #LineageCellTherapeutics #Biotech #CellTherapy #CellTransplant #RegenerativeMedicine #ReplaceandRestore lineagecell.com Download the transcript here

Alon Ben-Noon is the Co-Founder and CEO of NeuroSense Therapeutics, which is working on ALS therapy and other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. They are working on a disease-modifying drug PrimeC and have identified a large set of biomarkers that are related to ALS progression and the mechanisms of PrimeC. Alon explains, "Our lead candidate is called PrimeC. It's a novel formulation that consists of two FDA-approved drugs not related to ALS. We found that when these drugs are combined together in unique doses, they had the quality to treat ALS and tackle ALS in several forms. This formulation aims to maximize the synergism that we found to have between these compounds and as I mentioned, to tackle multiple targets in order to eventually create a clinical benefit for the patients." "We are advancing with identifying biomarkers and progressing there very nicely. We identified a large set of biomarkers that relates both to the disease progression and to the mechanisms of PrimeC. We work on neuron-derived exosomes, and when we first characterize the set of biomarkers that are relevant for us, we also explored how PrimeC, our lead candidate, can create a change in these biomarkers." @NeuroSenseT #NeuroSense #Neurodegenerative #PrimeC #Biotech #RareDiseases #CNS #ALS #Alzheirmers #AD #Parkinsons #PD #Biomarkers NeuroSense-TX.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Maryann Lauletta is the Chief Medical Officer of Dina, re-imagining healthcare with a home-first model using technology and community-based solutions. Their 50-state network provides access to different providers of medical and home setting solutions to aid care coordinators in creating a safe home environment. Maryann elaborates, "We have to realize that the home is not a controlled setting, as you experience in a hospital setting or a skilled nursing facility. There are a lot of things that pop up that you need to be prepared for. Patients may not have adequate equipment at home, and they may not have adequate access to food, heating, and cooling. There could be pest infestations. They need access to transportation. You need to figure out how to coordinate with sometimes four or five or more different providers and be able to share information about that patient in real-time and on the go. I think that's something we don't always talk about or realize." "In the hospital, you're not worrying or necessarily even thinking about home modification needs, again, pest control, meal delivery, because you have that all under one roof. It's really been our goal to take into account all of the different needs that patients may encounter in the home and load those types of providers in our network so that we're basically prepared for any service that patients may need to be activated in a short amount of time." @Dinacare_inc #aginginplace #CareatHome #CareCoordination #CMS #Healthcare #Homecare #PopulationHealth #Providers #RaH #SDoH #SkilledNursing #ValueBasedCare #WorkforceShortage #HealthTechnology #Medtech Dinacare.com Download the transcript here

Enam Noor is the Founder and CEO of Insightin Health, empowering health plans to drive action through connected data. Working with health insurance companies with a focus on direct-to-consumer health plan products, Insightin is creating a data ecosystem that allows access by providers, payers, and patients. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, that data can be used to design treatment plans using their Next Best Action strategy. Enam explains, "We try to create real-time insight around that information to drive healthier behavior, improve the member engagement, the population health part of preventative care management. In the senior population, when it comes to Medicare, there are a lot of chronic conditions. Preventative care management plays a big role in staying healthy. In general, what our clients expect out of our involvement is building that lifetime member value and are really extracting the best way to be healthier. Then eventually, it's a win-win for everybody." "Our platform has three main areas in terms of technology. The very first portion is the data connector, where in a very simple way, very quickly, both structured and unstructured data can be digested by our platform. We have machine learning AIs and natural language processing. We can take any sort of data. In healthcare, there's a lot of unstructured data, data that happens in phone conversations or notes field on the EHR." @InsightinHealth #NextBestAction #HealthIT #AI #ML #MedicareAdvantage #CAPHS insightinhealth.com Download the transcript here

Michael Smith is the Chief Commercial Officer of Sonendo, a commercial-stage medtech company taking on saving teeth from tooth decay by driving changes in root canal surgery and outcomes. The GentleWave procedure brings innovation to root canal therapy by using a software-controlled fluid management system that can predictably clean and disinfect the inside of the tooth. Michael elaborates, "If you think about dentistry, you can probably categorize it into three distinct segments -- those companies who move teeth, so the orthodontic companies, those who replace teeth, the implant companies, and then those who are focused on saving teeth. That's really been our focus. Tooth decay's the most prevalent chronic disease globally. So our mission is to save teeth and improve lives." "I think that the reality is that root canal therapy is an end-stage of the disease state. It starts with something that's much more minor. The alternative really is that the tooth is extracted. So any technology that can improve that patient experience takes away some of the anxiety that patients have around either going to the dentist, the endodontist or having a root canal therapy. You can imagine how easy that is for patients to relate to it. And we feel that not only is this a significant market, but the technology that we have makes a real difference to the patient experience, but also the way the doctors treat it as well." #Sonendo #GentleWave #GentleWaveProcedure #Endodontics #RootCanal #RootCanalTherapy #RootCanalSurgery #ToothDecay #Teeth #OralHealth Sonendo.com Download the transcript here

Dr. John Bellettiere is the assistant professor of epidemiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego. Alexis Garduno is a third-year student in the UC San Diego and San Diego State University joint doctoral program in public health and the first author in a multi-institutional research effort better to understand the impact of physical activity on health. Their recently released study analyzed data about the total steps taken per day, the intensity of the walking, and the risk of development of Type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women. Study results indicated that for each 2,000 additional steps per day, there was a 12% reduction in diabetes risk. John elaborates, "Well, we set out to understand how steps per day was related to incident diabetes in older women. Long have we known that physical activity is important for the prevention of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But for a long time, we have not been able to measure with good accuracy the everyday movements that people make. Previously, we had to ask individuals how much physical activity do you engage in on a given day. And so, with those self-reports, it's hard for people to remember and give good estimates. And we also don't get high resolution on how many steps they're able to take." Alexis explains, "We followed these women for up to approximately 6.9 years, and we had questionnaire data about their medical history, which we also validated with a physician diagnosis and showed high agreement between the physician diagnosis and the questionnaire data. And then all of our physical activity measures were taken from these women wearing the accelerometer." "It's important to think about where you're at and any increase in your daily movement, whether that's remembering to take an extra walk around the block or starting off your morning a little bit more active. All of those steps will make a difference regardless of how active you are at the starting point." @JohnBellettiere @Garduno_Alexis #Type2Diabetes #Diabetes #HealthyAging #Accelerometer Study published in Diabetes Care Download the transcript

Dr. Katherine Iscoe is the Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Human Imaging. AHI has developed image processing technology for the body, face, and skin along with health-related risk assessment models for their individual healthcare partners. The analysis of these images can identify early warning signs for a wide range of diseases, including determining if a mole on the skin is benign or potentially cancerous. Katherine explains, "It's big technology in a very small space, that's for sure. We have developed an on-device capturing technology, where we use the phone's camera to capture images of the human body, or it could be the face. And then we take the information that's stored within those images." "Often, we look at a photograph, and we just think, "That's very pretty." Still, there's so much data within those images, and we use that data to process that information within the device. So that's quite important because the images never leave the device." "The output of this processing of data is incredibly accurate results. The data can be used to provide biometrics, which is just this fancy word for measurements of the human body. So these could be everything from your waist or your hip circumference, but the combination of these data points can also be used for health risk markers, such as the relationship between your waist and hip. We know that central adiposity is a very strong marker for future metabolic risk, such as syndrome X." @HumanImaging #HealthTech #FitnessTech #BodyScan #FaceScan #DermaScan #DigitalHealth #MedTech ahi.tech Download the transcript here

Dr. Travis Mickle is the President and CEO of KemPharm, a clinical clinical-stage specialty pharmaceutical company. KemPharm is building on their successful launch of AZSTARYS for ADHD to treat rare sleep disorders like idiopathic hypersomnia as well as sleep disorders that are a symptom of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Travis explains, "We focused most of our history in the CNS area on a broad base, but idiopathic hypersomnia is now a rare sleep disorder. In the past, we focused on ADHD and pain and larger patient populations. But now, I think, we're focusing more on specific needs of patients with severe, debilitating diseases." "As an example, our lead product that just got approved last year, AZSTARYS, for ADHD, we thought, well, perhaps it would be better if that product could last longer, as well as have less abuseability." "That prodrug now makes the basis for our KP1077 for idiopathic hypersomnia. So, you can see how one product can actually have an impact in many different areas when you make a new, improved prodrug form." @KemPharm #SDX #SleepDisorders #CNS #ADHA #Prodrug #IdiopathicHypersomnia #AZSTARYS #RareDiseases KemPharm.com Download the transcript here

John Glasspool is the CEO of Anthos Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on high-risk cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Anthos is developing innovative therapies for treating thrombosis or more commonly known as clots that are caused by a stroke or heart attack. The current agents, while protecting from a clot, also cause more frequent bleeding. The main unmet need is to give protection from the clots while not having the patient bleed. John explains, "People that are at risk of these are elderly people who obviously have some changes in the dynamics of their vessels. The other area that's of particular common occurrence is in patients undergoing cancer. And even, in fact, the development of a clot sometimes is the first sign for patients with cancer in their disease prognosis and diagnosis." "We're developing a factor XI agent. In fact, it's a dual activity factor XI and XIa. What that really means from a patient perspective is we believe that we can pharmacologically uncouple the prevention of your pathological thrombosis, your clot, and yet leave intact your normal hemostasis. If you have a bleed, you clot normally, but we don't increase the bleeding by interfering with normal hemostasis. In our ideal world, and we need to prove this clinically, the drug is still in development, we stop clots while not increasing bleeding." @Anthos_Tx #Abelacimab #Anticoagulant #Thrombosis #Hemostasis AnthosTherapeutics.com Download the transcript here