Empowered Patient Podcast

Robert Schickel, Chief Executive Officer at NUAgo Therapeutics, is developing a cancer therapy using short RNAs to target and disrupt interconnected survival genes in cancer cells. The therapy has been shown to be non-toxic to healthy cells, which have high levels of microRNAs, whereas cancer cells downregulate microRNAs to become metastatic. This is a systems-biology therapeutic approach that targets the entire survival network of a cell, making it independent of specific mutations or pathways and potentially applicable to the vast majority of solid tumors. Robert explains, "NUAgo is a technology company. We are developing what we define as short RNAs, and these are going to be cancer therapies that really target the survival system of a cancer. This survival system keeps the cancer alive. And instead of going after single components, pathways, or mutations as targeted therapies do, we're using short RNAs to reduce the expression of multiple essential survival genes. And when you get enough of these genes disrupted, the cancer cells can no longer maintain the system that keeps them alive. And at that point, the cell will activate a death response that eliminates the cancer cell by activating several cell death pathways simultaneously. So this is really a unique area in science, and we're developing this. It's a new modality. You see a lot of promise of this in the solid tumor patients." "The platform that we're building has the potential to go across solid tumor markets. The recent IP that we're filing is for the 11 largest tumor markets from breast and lung, kidney, liver, and all the way down to the smaller, more lethal cancers in pancreas, ovarian, and other small cancers as well. So right now we think we can apply this to about 85% or 90% of the market." "What we're doing is we take a step back. We're in fundamental biology. So this mechanism really goes back almost a billion years. I mean, fungi have the same mechanism. And so when we go after what are called survival genes, and they are essential for the survival of a cell, they deal with all kinds of cellular functions." #NUAgoTherapeutics #CancerResearch #Oncology #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #RNATherapeutics #SystemsBiology #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareBreakthrough #CancerTreatment #SurvivalGenes #BiopharmaDevelopment NUAgotherapeutics.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Babak Saboury, Chief Scientific and Innovation Officer and Physician Founder of United Theranostics, discusses the emergence of nuclear oncology as the fourth pillar of cancer care. United Theranostics is combining advanced molecular imaging and radiopharmaceutical therapies to identify a cancer cell's unique fingerprint and then delivering targeted radiation, reducing side effects by sparing healthy cells. Molecular imaging can serve as a unifying map for guiding a collaborative, multimodal approach to treating a range of cancers. Babak explains, "I can just very quickly tell you that there are four pillars of treating cancer. Traditionally, when we approached cancer, we wanted to cut it out. That was surgical oncology. Whatever could not be cut out was treated by giving a medication. That was medical oncology. After a while, there was just a modality to the things that were difficult to cut out, but that was a localized hit from outside. That was the radiation oncology. And right now, we are at the beginning of a new horizon. You treat patients systemically, which means all the lesions everywhere. However, you are really there, a magical radiopharmaceutical that goes to find the cell and kills it by radiation. That's a nuclear oncology. So nuclear oncology is the fourth pillar of cancer care." "So you can imagine that in the past we tried to attack cancer cells. We didn't know what shape they had, which proteins were expressed, or what their characteristics were. So we kind of went blindly and tried to attack them. Imagine that we have a way to find a fingerprint of those cells and go there first to find that fingerprint. And if the fingerprint exists, then go after those cells as a targeted attack. That is where molecular imaging and radiopharmaceutical therapy come into play. So molecular imaging profiles the cancer cells to see what their fingerprint is and whether a certain fingerprint exists. Radiopharmaceutical therapy uses this information to target just those cells and not other cells. And that is the principle of Theranostics, which is a combination of diagnostics and therapeutics, finding and then destroying in a very precise manner." #UnitedTheranostics #NuclearOncology #PrecisionMedicine #Radiopharmaceuticals #CancerCare #MolecularImaging #Theranostics #OncologyInnovation #PatientCare #HealthcareInnovation #CancerTreatment Unitedtheranostics.com Download the transcript here

Shaun Bagai, CEO of RenovoRx, has designed a drug-delivery platform to treat hard-to-reach chemo-resistant tumors such as pancreatic cancer by delivering chemotherapy directly to the tumor site. The RenovoCath device increases the drug concentration in the tumor while significantly reducing systemic toxicities and side effects. The technology is not intended to replace the traditional approach using systemic chemotherapy and radiation, but to achieve better results in tumors with low blood supply that prevent drugs from reaching their target in sufficient concentrations. Shaun explains, "Generally, when we think about oncology therapies, it's really trying to balance the detriment to the patients with the toxicities and hopefully keep the tumor at bay or kill the tumor such that patients live longer. And unfortunately, we often forget about the patient and hyper-focus on the disease. And the challenge we've taken on is, can we take both into account and actually treat both the patient and the disease by limiting systemic toxicities and effects, and then trying to improve survival by keeping the tumors at bay." "So, when we look at certain tumors in the body, like pancreatic tumors, for example, they don't have a high level of blood supply. Generally, when we think about tumors, we think of balls of blood vessels with tumor cells, and of tumors such as pancreatic tumors. They don't have large tumor feeder vessels that end in a tumor. And what this does is create a level of chemo resistance because the blood can't carry the chemotherapy forward. And what we've developed with TAMP is a mechanism where we push the drug across the wall of a blood vessel to saturate and bathe the tumor in chemotherapy, such that we get almost a hundredfold increase in tissue concentration compared to if you just gave it systemically throughout the entire body." #RenovoRx #OncologyInnovation #DrugDelivery #CancerCare #MedicalDevices #PancreaticCancer #ClinicalTrials #PatientCare #Interventionalradiology #Oncology #MedicalTechnology #TAMP #Chemotherapy #CancerTreatment #HealthcareInnovatio#TargetedOncology #InnovativeCancerTherapies #PancreaticCancerAwareness #PrecisionOncology RenovoRx.com Download the transcript here

Suzy Jackson, a digital health specialist focusing on Patient Tech, highlights the shift in the pharmaceutical industry from a provider-focused model to direct engagement with patients. Using AI to create a more consumer-like, personalized healthcare experience will benefit patients and inform researchers and providers about adherence to care and drug side effects. Patient Tech helps reach underserved populations and moves from providing information to a proactive environment, enabling action and more informed discussions with healthcare providers. Suzy explains, "So everything for me in the Patient Tech space is anything that helps a patient find care, navigate care options, or indeed stay on care, including anything to do with lifestyle interventions and preventative care as well. So I think the category is expanding very, very rapidly, and I'm excited to see what will go on in the next few years." "Well, I think it's pretty safe to say that this is a new venture for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. I think traditionally, a lot of time has been spent on ACP education and thinking about how we make HCPs aware of all the choices and therapeutic interventions that are available for their patients. But in the last couple of years, we've really seen a shift, and I think that's caused by a multitude of different factors I'm sure we can speak about, but there's really been a shift to standing on the frontline with patients for pharma and making sure that they're providing patients with care that otherwise patients are going to find in other spaces." #PatientTech #DigitalHealth #AI #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCenteredCare #HealthEquity #PharmaTech #HealthTech #PatientExperience #WomenInHealth #HealthInnovation #AIinHealthcare #HealthcareLeadership #FutureOfHealth #Lifesciences #PharmaDTP suzy-jackson.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Robert Rifkin, medical oncologist and hematologist at the University of Colorado in Steamboat Springs. He was also a clinical investigator in the trial that led to the approval of BLENREP, a multiple myeloma drug from GSK. Multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer, and while the prognosis has dramatically improved, BLENREP is a novel treatment for patients whose disease has relapsed after other therapies. It is the first drug antibody conjugate approved for relapsed multiple myeloma, targeting the BCMA antigen, which is present on nearly all myeloma cells. Robert explains, "This is a condition that is really what I would call a disease of the Medicare population. So the median age of diagnosis is often early 60s, but occasionally you do see the younger patients with more aggressive disease. It's thought that African Americans who contract myeloma also may have a more virulent form of the disease." "Right now we live in a great day and age where we have a tremendous number of good treatments, both upfront, which we really won't be discussing today. And then in patients that have unfortunately relapsed and failed other lines of therapy, that's where the exciting new drug BLENREP comes into play. It's going to have a very specific slot in the myeloma armamentarium." "So BLENREP is unique in that it targets something on the myeloma cells called the BCMA target or B-cell maturation antigen target. That's expressed in 98% of patients with myeloma. So it provides a really great target to shoot at, if you will. Right now, we really have sort of three main classes of therapy to go after it: CAR T-cells and bispecific antibodies that your audience will likely be familiar with. This one is unique in that it's the first drug antibody conjugate approved to treat myeloma. So it's not a cellular therapy, but instead it's a molecule that has the BCMA that binds to the myeloma cells, and then it unloads a payload to kill the myeloma cells. So that's nice. You don't have to go to a huge center with experience in cellular therapies. It can be done readily in the community." #MultipleMyeloma #Oncology #BLENREP #BloodCancer #Belamaf #CancerResearch #Hematology #ClinicalTrials #PrecisionMedicine #CancerTreatment #MedicalAdvancement blenrephcp.com Download the transcript here

Haresh Patel, Founder of Diagnostic MD AI, discusses the transformative potential of AI in healthcare diagnostics, particularly for patients with chronic or complex issues. Based on his own struggle to get an accurate diagnosis of an autoimmune condition, Haresh has developed a patient-centric platform where individuals can build their complete health story, integrating modern and functional medicine with a more holistic approach, which AI analyzes to help doctors connect disparate symptoms, ask the right questions, identify patterns, and reach the correct diagnosis faster while reducing human bias. Haresh talks about his own journey in his book The Ghost in My Body, where he emphasizes the need to identify the root cause of disease and to understand the patient narrative over time. Haresh explains, "Sometimes that story has to come together in different ways because sometimes the patient doesn't want to share it or doesn't remember. But if we can get the whole story, then we're going to have a much better chance. AI is going to open up the world of possibilities. And I immediately went into high gear because that's exactly what I did with the prior company that I sold to State Street Bank. It was a FinTech platform, but we had FinTech investors put together all of their fragmented data, create a visualization so they could actually see patterns." "In the medical world, we're a machine too, but the difference is we had a symptom, which is a scenario. And so I all of a sudden thought, wow, I can solve this problem with AI, and if I can help solve one person's problem, my 12 years of suffering while I was building this company will all be worth it. So that's kind of a quick overview about how this all came together. Had I not had any of the experiences of my medical journey or my own journey in the FinTech world, and how I connected the dots, maybe this idea might not have sparked with me. Maybe somebody else would've gotten that spark." #EmpoweredPatient #HealthcareInnovation #AutoimmuneAwareness #PatientAdvocacy #HealthTech #ChronicIllnessJourney #MedicalMystery #PatientEmpowerment #TechForGood#HolisticHealth#AIDiagnostics #DigitalHealth #PatientCare #MedicalInnovation #HealthcareAI #IntegrativeMedicine #HealthTechnology #MedicalDiagnostics Hareshpatel.ai Download the transcript here

Ben Scharfe, Executive VP of AI at Altera Digital Health, addresses the evolving regulatory landscape for AI in healthcare, emphasizing AI developers' primary responsibility to ensure transparency so clinicians can understand and verify AI-generated outputs. AI is positioned to be a supportive tool for providers, not as an autonomous decision-maker, with emerging regulations beginning to codify the human-in-the-loop requirement. Ben warns of setting higher standards for AI than physicians and automation complacency, in which clinicians might over-rely on AI. Ben explains, "Altera provides electronic health records predominantly as well as interoperability solutions for hospitals, health systems, and ambulatory systems. We predominantly serve the US, but we're also present in Canada, in Europe, and in the Asia Pacific region. So we have a global presence, but we do a lot of our work in the US." "I think the regulatory landscape around the division of responsibilities is really something that is evolving. And so last year, at one point, there was a proposed federal moratorium on state-level legislation, with little, I would say, federal regulation to counterbalance." "Maybe fortunately, it didn't pass, but since then, there's been a patchwork of state regulation. So I'd say the responsibilities are not entirely defined because they vary by state, and some of those regulations are somewhat contradictory. But recently, the FDA did put out some new guidance and essentially where the responsibility lies for builders. I'd say the primary responsibility is around transparency and enabling clinicians and care providers to understand the reasoning behind any output from an AI system. To be able to review the citations, the evidence used, and the data points the AI may have ingested or consulted in creating some sort of output, so the provider can still have ownership of the care. And essentially, I'd say the core theme there is not having AI that is really acting autonomously on a patient, but rather AI that supports providers who know what they're doing and are licensed." #AlteraDigitalHealth #HealthcareAI #ClinicalAI #DigitalHealth #HealthTech #AIRegulation #PatientSafety #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalTechnology #AIInMedicine #HealthcareLeadership Alterahealth.com Download the transcript here

Dr. John Birkmeyer, President of the medical group at Sound Physicians, defines value-based care as an evolution from older managed care models, with closer alignment of incentives for quality of care and cost-effectiveness. Working within the hospital environment, this approach emphasizes standardizing patient-centered care and communication across multiple hospital departments, reducing redundant tests and improving patient outcomes. The use of AI is one way to reduce the administrative burden on physicians, freeing up more time for patient care, a departure from earlier technologies that added to clinicians' workload. John explains, "Sound Physicians is a multi-specialty medical group. It's distinguished in a couple of ways from a lot of the physician groups that your listeners and patients are used to. Number one, it focuses exclusively on specialties that are practiced inside the hospital. So in that context, we work in anesthesia, in the ICU, in hospital medicine, and in the emergency department. And we're different to the extent that we're a very large group. So we're in our 25th year of operations, but we currently run over 400 practices in about the same number of hospitals across most of the states of the US. So in that context, we've learned a lot about what care looks like in different parts of the United States, what things are similar, what things are different, and most importantly, what things work." "Some of the most important strategies for succeeding with value-based care are things that are very aligned with ensuring not just high quality, but high empathy care to patients. And most importantly, making sure that clinical decisions physicians make in partnership with their patients account for not just scientific evidence but also the values and preferences of patients and their families. More often than not, there's no single right answer for what that patient needs in terms of tests or procedures or other types of care that occur in the hospital. And many of them involve trade-offs between quality of life and length of life, how patients feel about being in the hospital and for how long, how they feel about risk, and what they want to do when they're ultimately discharged from the hospital." #SoundPhysicians #ValueBasedCare #HospitalMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthTech #MedicalGroup #QualityImprovement #HealthcareleaderShip #PhysicianLife #HospitalAdministration soundphysicians.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Jim Berenson, Founder of the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research and the Berenson Cancer Center, describes the Institute's work, which includes maintaining a large biobank of patient samples that support both its own research and that being conducted by external groups. This biobank is being used to develop new blood markers for faster disease diagnosis, to assess treatment efficacy, and to support drug development for multiple myeloma and other cancers. Real-time monitoring of patient symptoms with a mobile app is capturing critical, often-missed patient data and providing evidence of clinical trial success. Jim explains, "Myeloma is a bone marrow-based cancer of a type of white cell called a plasma cell. These cells normally make a type of protein antibody that helps us fend off infections. And what happens in myeloma is that one of these types of cells goes rogue and takes over the bone marrow. As a result, these patients make lots and lots of only one type of antibody, and that protein becomes our tumor marker. They can get into trouble with their kidneys, their blood counts, their bones, and their immune system because they can become very compromised both by the disease and the treatment. Therefore, patients can develop frequent infections." "It's diagnosed mainly through blood work, bone marrow examination, and radiologic tests. The latter used to be X-rays, but today it is MRI, CT, or PET scans. The bone marrow test usually demonstrates too many plasma cells that are clonal, meaning they are all of one type. So, usually, the bone marrow plasma cells make up only one-half percent. Myeloma patients have no less than 10% and up to 99% plasma cells, and they are all of one type. They all make one antibody because normally one plasma cell makes one antibody, but this is a clone that's grown a lot in the bone marrow. So, because the bone marrow directly releases proteins into the blood, there's a lot of the myeloma cell-produced antibody in the blood and/or the urine of these patients." "We now have nearly 60,000 bone marrow and blood specimens collected over the last 25 years from our patients, and we collect them in a way that's very systematic. So we obtain blood weekly in the first month, and bone marrow when they undergo the procedure. And then after the first month, the blood is drawn and obtained for research and for the Biobank about every month. And this is a huge resource for not only our own research, which has uncovered two new blood biomarkers through the use of these samples. And we are also able to use the Biobank as a resource for other research groups and companies, whether biotech, pharma, or in vitro diagnostics, to see if they can find a new marker. So we send them a sample, and they can use it for their work." #IMBCR #MultipleMyeloma #HematologyOncology #PrecisionMedicine #PatientMonitoring #DigitalHealth #CancerResearch #Biomarkers #PersonalizedTreatment #QualityOfLife #MedicalInnovation IMBCR.org Download the transcript here

Tom Looby, CEO of Conavi, is focused on developing hybrid intravascular imaging technology that combines two established modalities into a single imaging catheter to provide a comprehensive view of the coronary arteries. This eliminates blind spots when using either intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) or optical coherence tomography (OCT) alone and is driving a shift away from relying solely on traditional angiography toward the use of advanced intravascular imaging to guide coronary procedures. Using AI to analyze dual-stream co-registered data allows interventional cardiologists to more accurately assess lesions, determine the appropriate stent size, and ensure proper placement, thereby reducing cardiac death and blood clots around stents. Tim explains, "So our technology is an imaging catheter. We're unique in that we combine two imaging modalities that are already well established in the market. But because each of them has blind spots, by combining them into a single catheter, we remove those blind spots, and we think we produce the best imaging catheter to help guide coronary interventions." "It is well known that these strengths and weaknesses occur in both ultrasound and optical imaging. But to set the stage, this is a trend happening in the marketplace. There are four million angioplasty stenting procedures performed each year, and most of them rely solely on traditional angiography. Most of your audience probably knows that angiography is an X-ray that uses a contrast agent, so you're seeing the vasculature around the heart through a secondary image. The detailed view inside the blood vessels is limited when using only angiography, which has restricted the types of procedures doctors have been able to perform over time. Recognizing that intravascular ultrasound, sometimes called IVUS, and separately, OCT—short for optical coherence tomography—were developed independently to examine inside the blood vessel." #Conavi #CardiovascularImaging #InterventionalCardiology #MedicalDevice #HeartHealth #Innovation #IVUS #OCT #AIinHealthcare #CardiacIntervention #HealthTech #Medtech #Cardiology #HybridImaging Conavi.com Download the transcript here

Theresa Lyons, CEO and Founder of Navigating AWEtism, is providing parents with current, accurate information about autism to help them focus on manageable issues for their child. She strongly cautions about information about autism from social media, which is often over-generalized and incorrect. Autism spectrum disorder presents a wide range of behaviors from mild communication difficulties to complex challenges requiring lifelong care, and Theresa advocates for an individual approach, including lab testing, before choosing a treatment plan. Theresa explains, "What we strive to do is educate parents on the cutting-edge information of autism so that they can make the best decisions for their kids. All too often, parents and I, including myself, are autism parents. We get information that is 20 to 30 years old. So it's really important to make decisions for your child's future based on quality information." "So autism is a spectrum, and we can talk about one end of the spectrum. A child might be speaking, but they might have difficulty having a back-and-forth conversation. They might be very limited in what they're talking about. Let's say maybe they have a huge interest in trains, and you can talk to this child about trains, but then if you try to have a conversation about the weather, your sneakers, or the beach, something you like to do, then that's where conversation doesn't happen at all. Kids on that end of the spectrum can dress themselves, and they can feed themselves. And when they get older, they will go across the street and potentially drive a car. So that's one end of the spectrum. And then on the other end is more profound autism. And those are kids who might not ever dress themselves or might not have the ability to cut their food ever." #NavigatingAWEtism #AWEtism #Autism #AutismSpectrum #Pediatrics #Healthcare #EvidenceBasedMedicine #Neurodevelopment #FamilyCenteredCare #HealthcareProviders #Misinformation #QualityCare AWEtism.net Download the transcript here

Lori Runion, a director at Resultant, identifies inadequate scheduling and related staffing unpredictability as a central cause of clinician burnout. Healthcare organizations traditionally rely on historical averages for scheduling, often resulting in a mismatch between patient demand and clinician capacity. Breaking down data silos and using analytics and AI to create predictive staffing models can help forecast demand, anticipate seasonal spikes, and enable proactive staffing to reduce clinician burnout. Lori explains, " From my perspective, burnout is driven at the operational level. To say it most simply, I think that burnout is driven by unpredictability, specifically, what I want to talk a little bit about, predictive staffing. And so, when we think about staffing, the unpredictability and misalignment between patient demand and staffing capacity are really what's driving it. So I don't think it's a lack of resilience. I don't think it's necessarily that there are gaps in care, but there are constant coverage gaps and volatility in the workload. And so I think it's ultimately driven by that mismatch when patient demand and clinician capacity are misaligned. I think that healthcare is traditionally staffed based on historical averages rather than dynamic demand or patterns, and that's what creates the unpredictable shifts and last-minute schedule changes that lead to overextension and exhaustion, which drive burnout." "So, for example, you think about your EHR, which includes your demand, your patient medical record, and you have a scheduling system that shows available capacity, and you may have claims data that shows utilization patterns or other things. So when they are only looking at one system, they have some blind spots. And so I think that if they're looking at connected systems and pulling all that data together to identify patterns and really see the full picture, that's where they can align patient demand with staffing capacity." #Resultant #HealthcareBurnout #PatientSafety #HealthcareLeadership #PredictiveAnalytics #HealthcareData #WorkforceOptimization#ClinicianBurnout #HealthcareAnalytics #PredictiveStaffing #HealthcareIT #DataDriven #PatientCare #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare #WorkforceOptimization #HealthcareInnovation resultant.com Download the transcript here

Bill Heller, Chief Operating Officer at CHG Healthcare, is focused on the significant and growing demand for physicians across numerous specialties and on providing a flexible solution for healthcare facilities to maintain services with temporary physician staffing. Rural healthcare facilities are especially dependent on temporary staffing to overcome challenges in attracting and keeping permanent medical professionals. Physicians at all career stages are drawn to locum tenens work, and it has evolved from a niche practice to a mainstream strategy for healthcare facilities and physicians. Bill explains, "CHG Healthcare is a physician workforce solutions company, which means our primary business is physician staffing. So we're the largest physician staffing company in the country. We staff primarily on a part-time temporary basis, but we also do perm and a whole bunch of other stuff. We also do allied staffing, so we have a big staffing arm." "In addition to that, we have an advisory services arm where we advise clients on how to run more effective client solutions through a ton of different advisory opportunities. We also have a tech solutions arm, and so that's what makes up our workforce solutions. On the primary business, our locum tenant business, which is our temporary physician business, we connect healthcare providers with hospitals, clinics, and communities across the country where there are significant gaps in healthcare delivery, and we help them fill those gaps." #CHGHealthcare #HealthcareStaffing #LocumTenens #PhysicianJobs #HealthcareWorkforce #RuralHealthcare #MedicalStaffing #HealthcareSolutions #PhysicianRecruitment #HealthcareCareers CHGhealthcare.com Download the transcript here

Jean-Philippe Vert, the Co-Founder and CEO of Bioptimus, is building a foundational AI model for biology to solve the problem of siloed biomedical research. Key goals are to bridge the translational gaps between drug discovery and development, and between clinical research and real-world patient outcomes, and to redesign clinical trials for greater efficiency and improved results. Creating digital twins of patients is a way to simulate treatment outcomes and create synthetic control arms for clinical trials, ultimately lowering the risk and cost of drug development and enabling the creation of new medicines for a broader range of conditions, including rare diseases. Jean-Philippe explains, "So at its core, what we try to build at Bioptimus is the foundational AI infrastructure for biology. The problem we're trying to solve is that biology is complex and operates across different scales, from genes and proteins to cells, organs, patients, etc. And historically, lots of research, lots of biological, biomedical research has been very siloed, has been focusing on specific aspects of biology, like studying only genes or studying only cells. What we are building at Bioptimus is an AI-intelligent system that can see across all these layers, all of these cases, to get a holistic picture of biology. And it's not only a scientific endeavor, but the reason why it's hard to make a drug today, why so many diseases remain untreated, is that the siloed nature of biomedical research has created difficulties in how we move from research in discovery, like understanding a disease, to making a treatment for the patients." "So we have indeed a model called H-Optimus, which is a foundation model for one type of modality, which is one thing you see in an image. It's for histopathology slides. This is when someone has, for example, a cancer, you take a biopsy and then typically a pathologist looks at the biopsy under the microscope to characterize the disease, to see if there are cancer cells, to see the shape, to see the organization, and so to pose a diagnostic and suggest a treatment. We have trained an AI system that helps pathologists be better because our systems have been trained by looking at billions of such images, and so have a very detailed understanding of the subtle variations that can be observed in images." #Bioptimus #ArtificialIntelligence #DrugDiscovery #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #FoundationModels #BiologyAI #ClinicalTrials #CancerResearch #RareDiseases #DigitalHealth #Innovation bioptimus.com Download the transcript here

David Stamler, CEO of Alterity Therapeutics, is developing a drug to treat multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare and rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disease that often presents as Parkinson's disease but is distinct and more aggressive. There is no single genetic cause or specific biomarker, making accurate diagnosis a significant challenge. The lead drug is a novel small molecule designed to manage excess reactive iron in the brain, which drives the disease, and may be effective for other neurodegenerative diseases involving iron dysregulation. David explains, "Multiple system atrophy is a rare disease, and that's part of the reason people may not know so much about it. It is a neurodegenerative disease, and as the name implies, there are multiple regions of the brain that are affected, hence the term multiple systems that are governed by those regions of the brain. And as the disease progresses, some of these regions degenerate, and you get abnormal function in various areas." "Now, we like to characterize the disease as a Parkinsonian disorder, which means early on, it can look like Parkinson's disease. And that's kind of a good descriptor to help people understand what it might look like, but it's distinct from Parkinson's disease, and it progresses a lot faster, a lot more rapidly. So it's a disease that people don't know about, probably because no one famous has been diagnosed with MSA, although I'm sure various famous people have probably had the disease and maybe didn't know it." #AlterityTherapeutics #MultipleSystemAtrophy #MSAAwareness #NeurodegenerativeDisease #Biotech #Phase3 #Neurology #MSA #ClinicalTrials #AlterityTherapeutics #ATH434 #Biotech #RareDisease #Neurodegeneration #DrugDevelopment #MedicalBreakthrough #IronChaperone Alteritytx.com Download the transcript here

Greg Mayes, President and CEO of Reunion Neuroscience, and Dr. Manish Agrawal, the Co-Founder and CEO of Sunstone Therapies, shine a light on adjustment disorder, a disproportionate emotional or behavioral reaction to a significant life stressor such as a cancer diagnosis. This under-recognized condition lacks FDA-approved treatments and is often managed with SSRIs or talk therapy. The REKINDLE study evaluated the use of a psilocybin analog drug in development for treating adjustment disorder and has shown positive results by integrating emotional treatment into the standard of care for serious illnesses. Greg explains, "In fact, there are no approved investigational assets that had been approved by the FDA for adjustment disorder. But it was an area of exploration that the FDA encouraged us to move into in light of people's disproportionate and really unfortunate reactions in terms of a depressive or anxiolytic reaction to cancer diagnosis or other major medical illness like Parkinson's disease, MS, ALS, or pulmonary fibrosis." Manish elaborates, "Well, usually you have to have had some stress-related event. For example, it could be things like divorce or job loss. But here, specifically, this study is targeting an illness, and the ones that Greg had just listed out, the neurologic conditions, as well as the cancer diagnosis. And then usually it leads to symptoms, intense feelings of sadness or anxiety or hopelessness. You can have a depressed mood with its subtypes with depressed mood. Some people have more anxiety. And so both a stressor and the symptoms that present are associated directly with that. So, for example, for the study, the symptoms of sadness need to be tied to the illness, such as cancer or MS." #ReunionNeuroscience #SunstoneTherapies #AdjustmentDisorder #MentalHealth #REKINDLEStudy #Psychedelics #PsychedelicMedicine #CancerCare #MentalHealth #ClinicalTrials #Psilocybin #Oncology #PatientCare #MedicalInnovation #Neuroscience reunionneuro.com sunstonetherapies.com Download the transcript here

Russ Nix, Consulting Associate Director, and Dr. Stacey McCoy, Pharmacy Clinical Program Manager for the Clinical Surveillance and Compliance business at Wolters Kluwer Health, highlight the problem of drug diversion in healthcare environments and the shared responsibility to prevent this breach. AI-enabled software is becoming crucial in detecting suspicious patterns, the types of individuals most likely to steal drugs, and gaps in the supply chain from ordering to delivering drugs to the patient. While opioids are the most commonly diverted drugs, motivated by substance abuse and addiction, other medications, including non-controlled substances, insulin, and high-cost cancer drugs, are also at risk. Effective prevention programs focus on a culture in which staff feel safe reporting concerns and seeking help. Russ explains, "Drug diversion is basically when you're in a healthcare system where the medications in that facility are not going to their intended destination. And that's typically what we see most of, a deliberate taking of those medications, whether it was a substance abuse issue or your healthcare practitioners or staff outside of the facility, are taking those medications and basically denying your patients that medication. And it is a pretty significant issue since the opioid crisis, again in the early 2000s or late 1990s." Stacey elaborates, "So ideally, we want to be in a position where we're able to utilize software applications or a mixture of software applications to have oversight of what's being ordered, what's coming in, and what's going on inside our pharmacies, what's inside the machines on each hospital floor. Just imagine you have such a varied audience. Every single hospital floor has 15 or so nurses working. Those nurses need to grab medications from machines, like a vending machine. So the pharmacist is responsible for making sure that's taking place properly." "Then that same team or person was also responsible for making sure that what's removed from the machines truly makes it to the patients in a safe and sound manner. So there are a number of breakpoints within the process that someone has to oversee. Ideally, we'd like to make sure that drug diversion prevention takes place using the most up-to-date software applications that are AI-enabled, and that we have multidisciplinary governance on these teams." #WoltersKluwerHealh #AISurveillance #DrugDiversionPrevention #Sentri7DrugDiverison #PatientSafety #DrugDiversion #HealthcareSecurity #OpioidCrisis #PharmacySafety #HealthcareCompliance #PatientCare #MedicationSafety #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare wolterskluwer.com Download the transcript here

Meghan Gutierrez, CEO of the Lymphoma Research Foundation, and Jennifer Branstetter, the Executive Director, North America Corporate Affairs at BeOne Medicines, join me to discuss the growing use of AI in patient care with a specific focus on individuals with lymphoma and other blood cancers. Emphasis is on the necessity of a collaborative, patient-centric approach to developing AI tools, bringing together patient advocacy organizations, healthcare professionals, and pharma partners to provide accurate information to patients. The goal is to serve a diverse population by providing personalized, accessible information to help patients have more meaningful discussions with their healthcare providers, not to replace the clinician's role. Jen explains, "We know that tens of millions of people are using AI tools in general, like ChatGPT, for health questions, including patients with blood cancers like chronic lymphocytic leukemia or CLL, they're all turning to the different AI tools that are out there. And from our perspective, we see this continuous growth of use, we want to make sure that the right healthcare information is getting fed into those AI resources and tools so that patients are getting the most accurate information possible." Meg elaborates, "Many patients are using these AI tools to make sense of everything from their PET scans to their blood results, to some of the treatment language they receive in their clinician's or doctor's office. And one of the things that I heard recently from a cancer patient who had uploaded his scans and some test results into an AI platform. And he called me incredibly concerned. He was very concerned about his prognosis and the limited treatment options that he believed were available to him." "So when I pressed further, I found out that this AI platform was the only source of information that he had. So I became concerned when I recognized that the information he received was antiquated. So the treatment results and some of the information he was working from in this incredibly anxious and anxiety-provoking moment were 10 years old. And so in this case, antiquated information was as dangerous as inaccurate information. And both of these remain top concerns at the Lymphoma Research Foundation. And I think across our sector, as we see more and more patients using these tools and platforms to help educate them about their disease and their treatment options." #LymphomaResearchFoundation #LRF #BeOneMedicines #LymphomaAwareness #AIinHealthcare #PatientAdvocacy #BloodCancer #HealthcareInnovation #PatientEmpowerment #PrecisionMedicine #CLL #HealthTech #CancerCare lymphoma.org BeOneMedicines.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Mike McCullar, CEO of RegCell, is developing a novel cell therapy to treat autoimmune diseases that specifically addresses the loss of tolerance, in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own tissues. This approach contrasts with current treatments, which broadly suppress the immune system and may cause side effects. The key goals of the therapy are to achieve long-term disease control and restore the immune system's natural balance. The company's manufacturing process is designed to simplify cell therapies, making them more affordable and accessible to a broader population of autoimmune patients. Mike explains, "The real driver of immunity, we believe, is what's called loss of tolerance, which is a system in our bodies that protects us from bad immune cells that attack our tissues. So that's a fundamental limitation in biology, and there really is not a curated treatment at this point. So our view has really been to try to restore the natural balance of our immune system by regulatory T cells, which are an indispensable non-redundant cell type to maintain tolerance against our autoimmune disorders. So we think the current treatments really don't address these challenges. They are broadly suppressing the immune system, and they don't offer curative potential." "We've been using the same kinds of drugs for the immune disease for about three to five years, and they will broadly suppress the immune system. They are really unable to distinguish between a good immune cell and a bad immune cell. And I think that's the fundamental limitation of how these drugs work. They could be very affected, but they do really broadly suppress the immune system in an indiscriminate way." #RegCell #AutoimmuneHepatitis #Biotechnology #MedicalResearch#AutoimmuneDiseases #CellTherapy #PrecisionMedicine #Immunology #Biotech #RegulatoryTCells #Innovation #HealthcareTechnology #ClinicalTrials regcellbio.com Download the transcript here

Amy Mendoza, Chief Marketing Officer at Alphaeon Patient Financing, highlights the advantages of working with a finance company that provides options for treatments in cosmetic, dental, vision, audiology, and veterinary care. This is an approach for patients who might delay or forgo treatment and preventive care due to cost, including those with average credit or who need subprime options. Working with providers, Alphaeon helps grow their practices and improve patient experience and outcomes. Amy explains, "I think the most charming and attractive part of Altheon in healthcare is that it is opening access and providing solutions for patient financing. This includes access to treatments that providers can offer in healthcare markets, including cosmetic, dental, vision, audiology, and now veterinary care." "Financing is access. And so it's not that patients lack a desire for care, they're lacking affordable pathways. And so, being able to deliver and present the right financing solutions opened the door to preventive care before something becomes urgent and to completing full treatment plans instead of piecemeal care. And then maybe more especially impactful for middle-income patients and families and patients without robust insurance benefits. So when patients can say yes to care earlier, outcomes improve, and that's clinically and financially." "The setup is pretty straightforward, and the reality is the fees and terms are much more friendly, giving them the opportunity to open up a revolving access or line of credit that they can apply to taking care of their pet within the family, or maybe dental or vision, and support a handful of members within the immediate family." #Alphaeon #PatientFinancing #HealthcareFinancing #PatientAccess #HealthTech #MedicalFinancing #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #HealthcareLeadership #DigitalHealth #FinTech #Healthcare goalphaeon.com Download the transcript here