Empowered Patient Podcast

Robert Towarnicki, CEO and Co-founder of SIRPant Immunotherapeutics, discusses cancer-specific immunotherapy for aggressive tumors, the role macrophages play in the immune response to cancer, and how cancer cells can shut down this response. SIRPant Immunotherapeutics aims to modify macrophages by reducing SIRPα expression, triggering them to eat cancer cells and educate other immune cells. Early evidence demonstrates potential effectiveness for various cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and solid tumors. Robert emphasizes this therapy's scalability and cost advantages compared to other cell therapies like CAR-T. He also highlights the potential for treating rare diseases and the ability of SIRPant-M to target a wide range of cancers without the need for pre-identified targets. Robert explains, "Macrophages are a normal immune cell type in your body. They normally function to recognize foreign invaders and process them in the sense of phagocytizing or eating the foreign protein and invader, if it's a

Jeff Surges, CEO of RLDatix, offers global cloud-based solutions for risk management, compliance management, and regulatory management in healthcare. To address patient safety, Jeff emphasizes the need for a collaborative workforce, data analytics, and AI. RLDatix uses technology to automate information gathering, facilitate incident reporting, and analyze data to determine proactive actions to prevent incidents and improve safety.  Jeff explains, "The simplest analogy when I get asked this is: how does this relate to other industries? We all fly in airplanes, and we've seen in the airline industry most recently with doors coming off, the emergency exit doors, close calls, or what we'll call incidents where you need to look at the root cause. The key difference is if a plane goes down, as tragic as that is, the pilots and the crew go down. But in healthcare, if there's an incident or a procedure or an event that has occurred, it's likely only affecting the patient and the patient's family. That's not meant to

Lou Lintereur, Chief Engineer for automated delivery systems at Medtronic Diabetes, brought his knowledge from working as an aerospace engineer at NASA  to developing technology for those living with diabetes.  He introduces the MiniMed 780G, a closed-loop system that combines an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) with a control algorithm that tailors itself to each patient's unique physiology and Meal Detection technology, which helps manage their blood sugar levels. Patient feedback is essential to the continuing innovation of these hybrid closed-loop tools to manage diabetes. Lou explains, "There are two main challenges we're always trying to deal with, and they kind of compete with each other. One is just the fundamental technology, trying to get the best therapy for the patients and the best outcomes for a long, healthy life where they're feeling good. With respect to diabetes, it's about keeping your blood sugar under as tight a control as possible within a normal glucose range. So that p

Mark Galvin, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare, which was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. The rule aims to provide patients with information on pricing and out-of-pocket costs before committing to services. The lack of awareness and understanding of the rule is in part due to the vested interests of certain stakeholders, such as insurance carriers, who are financially conflicted in driving down the cost of medical claims. Mark explains, "I'm known as a disruptive innovator, as a serial startup guy. The Transparency in Coverage rule is a rule that was added to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requiring that commercial health plan sponsors predominantly the employers that pay for the lion's share of commercial health plans are required now under that law with the new rule to provide to million members an abil

Alice Lin, DCT Solutions Director in the DCT Business Department of Tigermed Consulting, a global CRO, contract research organization, that provides biopharmaceutical and medical device companies with a range of services including digital technology to conduct decentralized clinical trials. Their approach focuses on patient-centricity, efficiency, and adaptability. By utilizing digital tools such as virtual visits, wearable devices, and mobile apps, Tigermed aims to make clinical trials more accessible and convenient for patients, improving recruitment and retention rates. They also emphasize the importance of DCT in including a diverse patient population in trials, particularly for rare diseases. Alice explains, "While our headquarters is in China, we have grown into a global team of over 10,000 employees operating across over 180 locations worldwide. We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary, making two decades of dedicated collaborations with over 2,800 customers on their product journeys. DCT stands f

Dr. Marshall Fordyce, CEO and Founder of Vera Therapeutics, discusses the company's patient-centric approach to developing new medicines for autoimmune diseases. Vera is currently in Phase 3 with a molecule called Atacicept, which targets B cells in autoimmune diseases. They focus on IgA nephropathy, a rare kidney disease, and the third most common cause of kidney failure. A key concern is that declining kidney function is often misdiagnosed and not screened for because the early warning signs are so subtle. Marshall explains, "Let me give you an example of our lead indication. So, our molecule in development is called atacicept. It targets the immune system in the specific area of B cells, and B cells are the factories of our antibodies, which we need to fight infection over our lifetime. But in patients with autoimmune disease, these B cells are overstimulated, they're overactive, and there are only a few medicines that target B cells with an appropriate balance of safety and efficacy. We had an insight th

Pascal Prigent, the CEO of GENFIT,  a French biotech that has been working on liver diseases for about 20 years and has developed a compound called elafibranor for conditions such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). He highlights the high unmet medical need in ACLF, which currently has no approved treatment options and a high mortality rate. Prigent also discusses Genfit's partnership with Ipsen for the development and commercialization of elafibranor in PBC. Pascal explains, "In reality, we don't have any approved option in ACLF, which is actually quite dramatic because you have a high mortality rate. To give you a little bit of context, people are suffering from chronic liver disease, regardless of the etiology. It can be too much alcohol consumption, it could be NASH, it could be viral hepatitis. Any kind of chronic liver disease will give us all the same journey, if you will." "First, you have an injury to the liver. Then

Phil Johnston, President and CEO of Johnston Associates, and an advisor to EO Care, the market leader in providing clinically-guided cannabis use. Phil discusses the potential for research from the reclassification of cannabis from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug.  With current Federal restrictions on cannabis, research has not been conducted on the potential therapeutic use for pain relief, depression, PTSD, and other conditions. With a change in classification, researchers can develop protocols, test different cannabis strains, run clinical trials, and determine dosage and form for therapies.   Phil explains, "So changing the Schedule from I to III is a game-changer because it's going to allow for research in the cannabis area in terms of dosage, what's the appropriate dosage, what kind of marijuana should be used for whatever ails you. There's a particular emphasis, of course, on pain relief and sleeplessness and depression. It appears that cannabis can have a very serious positive impact on those

Salome Juethner, Senior Medical Director, Head of Rare Genetics, and Interim Head of Rare GI at Takeda, discusses HAE, hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disorder that causes painful and unpredictable swelling attacks that can be life-threatening. Salome emphasizes the need to educate physicians to consider HAE as a potential diagnosis in children as young as two years old and underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. To treat HAE, Takeda offers Takhzyro, a medication that can be used on-demand and as a preventative therapy, administered at home through a subcutaneous injection.  Salome explains, "Hereditary angioedema, or HAE, is a rare genetic disorder with a prevalence of one in 50,000. It can cause very painful, unpredictable swelling attacks that can occur in the throat, abdomen, hands, feet, and face. And as you can imagine, a throat attack could be potentially life-threatening. There are different triggers for these attacks. Some can just be stress and that could be positive stress like a wedding

Lorie Spence and Carolyn Pritchard, Co-Founders of Bridge Medical Communications, focus on developing tools and resources to support healthcare professionals and patients in collaborating and making informed treatment decisions. They emphasize the importance of patient-centered care, participatory medicine, and patient engagement to help address therapeutic challenges and barriers that impact patient outcomes. By applying healthcare communication strategies and providing practical and functional tools for use at the point of care, they are bridging the gap between providers and patients. Lorie explains, "Some tools we developed through Bridge Medical Communications through CONNECT really support healthcare professionals at the point of care. With the dynamic shift in the marketplace, with precision medicine and the need to engage the multidisciplinary team, we've developed tools like flow sheets that can be integrated into the EMRs to help assist and prompt through the steps of care from assessment of all th

John Celebi, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sensei Biotherapeutics, emphasizes the need to develop better patient selection strategies and next-generation therapeutics for cancer patients. Through their Tumor Microenvironment-Activated Biologics platform (TMAb), Sensei develops conditionally active therapeutics designed to be active only within the low-pH tumor microenvironment.  Current pipeline candidates are designed to be active only within the low-pH tumor microenvironment and show potential to overcome the challenges of VISTA, a promising checkpoint target. John explains, "As an industry, we have some tough choices. Other strategies, both within and outside of IO, have made much better progress in targeting which patients will respond and which patients won't respond to treatment. Those are decisions that we have to make as an industry to keep up." "The second one I would point to is that we're now in a decade after the first immuno-oncology drug approval. And so, we have a whole generati

William Hind, agency principal at Alpharmaxim, highlights that traditional methods of educating patients and physicians may not effectively drive behavior change. Applying behavioral science in healthcare communications is a way to understand the barriers to adopting new medicines and therapies and patient and provider reluctance to change. Behavioral science will become increasingly helpful for the pharmaceutical and medical tech industries to ensure that novel therapies, wearable devices, and at-home diagnostic equipment are successfully marketed to the right patients at the right time with accurate information. William explains, "At present, there's a great deal of needed emphasis on educating people about diseases and any therapies that come forward. However, it may not be a lack of information inhibiting prescribing clinicians or patients from adopting a new medicine. It may be that it's an old habit of physicians, or it may be that the patients have accepted a regimen that they are reluctant to move aw

Dr. Avantika Waring, the Chief Medical Officer at 9amHealth, provides end-to-end individualized cardiometabolic care to people with diabetes, pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity. Their focus on metabolic health includes diagnostics, medications, nutrition services, coaching, and lifestyle support in a fun, engaging and non-judgemental manner. This comprehensive virtual healthcare model extends the opportunity for patients to get the support they need to manage these chronic conditions better.   Avantika explains, "The mission behind our companies is to make high-quality, effective, and, importantly, kind care available to as many people as possible. We know that there are amazing clinicians out there, and there are patients who are super fortunate to be connected with them. But that's not everyone. There are a lot of barriers to getting access to that care, and we want to make sure that people can get access to the care that they need and that the experience is, might I say, as fu

Dr. John Simon, CEO and Founder of SimonMed Imaging makes various medical imaging technologies available, including X-rays, ultrasound, MRI, and PET/CT scans, which have traditionally been used for diagnosis and tracking changes. With the SimonONE whole-body MRI scan, SimonMed offers an affordable preventative screening approach that, with the assistance of AI and advancements in imaging technology, looks for abnormalities and detects subtle changes. Ideally, MRI scans will become more routine in annual exams to catch treatable conditions sooner. John elaborates, "About 20, 25 years ago, diagnostic imaging went from a very limited specialty within the hospital setting to an often-used technology. This great technology is used in the outpatient setting. So, I founded my first outpatient radiology office over 20 years ago, and it included some of the most advanced equipment you could obtain at that time, including cardiac CT and MRI scanners, which were incredibly fast for that time. What that technology enable

Alon Ben-Noon, CEO and board member of NeuroSense Therapeutics, is taking a unique approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases by targeting core pathologies and combining molecules to address various mechanisms. NeuroSense has seen positive clinical trial results for ALS using their lead compound PrimeC, which showed a reduction in disease progression. Research indicates the potential for this approach to be applied to other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.   Alon explains, "The main challenge is to find a therapeutic asset for a complex disease, which is still not understood well enough to date. ALS, also Alzheimer's, and I think that Parkinson's is among them as well. All of those neurodegenerative diseases are very complex and involve many mechanisms that go wrong. We try to tackle them with the therapeutic agents while we are not certain with each patient what exactly goes on. This is a huge challenge, so we need to be creative and find ways how we may be able to provide b

Dr. Kathy Reeves, President and CEO of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, works with medical schools to promote humanistic care and is responsible for the White Coat ceremony for medical students to emphasize the need for human connection in healthcare.  The Foundation is also responsible for the Thank a Resident Day and the Gold Foundation Honor Society, which recognize those doctors who meet the high standards of their peers. The development of Gold Human-Centered Spaces is a scalable solution to create healthcare environments that foster humanistic interactions.  The goal is to make humanism a healthcare priority and to implement practical solutions. Kathy explains, "With that, Arnold and Sandra knew there had to be a foundation dedicated to making sure the human connection remained central in healthcare. And that's what the Gold Foundation has done and continues to do. We are the group that is responsible for the White Coat ceremony when people enter medical school to make sure medical students are aware tha

Dr. Kazu Okuda, Founder, and CEO of Universal Brain, uses neurotyping based on EEG data to better understand the different types of depression and deliver more precise treatments. To facilitate the availability of EEG data, Universal Brain has developed a next-generation EEG headset that is affordable and comfortable. The headset allows for the collection of data that can be used to analyze neural profiles of patients and tailor treatments. This precision psychiatry approach is the future of depression treatment and for identifying early warning signs of depression in the younger population. Kazu explains, "We are using the term neurotyping to solve that kind of problem. Neurotyping is a term we use at Universal Brain, and it's a groundbreaking process of grouping individuals based on brain function measures derived from the EEG data. We'll look at specific reactions of the brain to visual and audio stimuli, which are called event-related potentials, and we are leveraging that kind of brain biomarkers and neu

Greg Sturmer, CEO and Co-Founder, and Tom Jenkins, Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder of Elysium Therapeutics, talk about their SMART Opioid O2P, which aims to address the risks of taking opioids while still delivering the analgesic efficacy of opioids.  The compound is designed to be resistant to abuse through snorting or injections and includes a trypsin inhibitor that prevents the release of the opioid when multiple pills are ingested. Elysium is also developing SOOPR, an opioid overdose rescue medication that has a longer duration of action to counteract the longer-lasting effects of synthetic opioids such as Fentanyl.   Greg explains, "When we talk about our SMART opioids for pain, SMART stands for Safer Medicines that Alleviate Risks and Trauma. Our space is led by our O2P hydrocodone product candidate, and O2P stands for oral overdose protection." "So what O2P hydrocodone is designed to do is mitigate those major risks associated with existing prescription opioids, but doing so without sacrificing

Dr. Nate Favini, the first Chief Medical Officer of Pair Team, aims to connect underserved communities to high-quality, ongoing healthcare by providing medical, behavioral, and social services. Working with people who rely on Medicaid, who are experiencing homelessness and substance use disorders, and who have had recent interactions with the criminal justice system requires innovation and collaboration of government agencies, community-based organizations, and healthcare providers. With a focus on outcomes and cost, this value-based approach is reaching patients where they are, often using mobile technology and offering virtual care for tracking and improving health outcomes.  Nate explains, "In general, and specifically for the folks that we care for, value-based care means attention to the outcomes that we're delivering. For me, as a physician, that starts with the health outcomes that we deliver. So, are we improving people's health? Are we doing it on the measurable outcomes in terms of the conditions t

Daniel Barvin, VP of Operations and Patient Advocacy at Coya Therapeutics discusses the challenges of treating ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and the company's approach to developing therapies for this heterogeneous disease.  Focusing on a combination modality, Coya is developing therapies effective for sporadic and genetic ALS, targeting regulatory T cells and reducing inflammation to slow disease progression. Daniel, who carries a genetic variant for ALS and FTD (Frontotemporal Dementia), emphasizes the need for resources and support for the next generation of pre-symptomatic genetic ALS patients.   Daniel explains, "Coya is based upon the discovery of Dr. Stanley Appel of Houston Methodist, that all neurodegenerative diseases, we believe, also autoimmune and a few metabolic diseases, drive an inflammatory response. The death of a motor neuron or damage to a motor neuron is an alert to the body that it should send inflammation to fix that motor neuron or beta-amyloid plaque buildup. Unfortunately, inf