Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Holly Urban, the Vice President of Clinical Product Design at CliniComp, understands the need for a positive user experience for clinicians to use electronic health record software effectively. Clinician burnout is often blamed on the documentation burden and the time it takes to enter patient data. With a shift to a focus on the quality of the notes rather than the length, CliniComp is designing systems that aid in medical decisions and is considering ways to use natural language processing and generative AI to change how notes are created. Holly explains, "One of the challenges is that today's electronic health records, in my view, are very transactional focused. They allow you to place an order. A physician can write an order to have medications given to a patient, they can write a note where they document what happened in a patient visit or the results of a procedure, and they can get lab results." "But it's very transactional. We haven't yet achieved that ideal state where the electronic health reco

Ashley Perry, Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer at Socially Determined, highlights the problems created by the Medicaid redetermination process.  Building on their SocialScape social risk intelligence platform, Socially Determined is providing a new risk score that will help state Medicaid agencies and Managed Care Organizations identify and prioritize members needing help navigating the redetermination. Ashley explains, "As many of your listeners will know, on April 1st of this year, we started redetermining eligibility for the 95 million Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide. And that's a year-long process during which we expect that up to 15 million of them may be disenrolled from the program. So far, we've seen that as of June 16th, we've had about 1.3 million Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide disenrolled across the 22 states that have reported data to date." "What's notable about that, though, is on average across those 22 states, 74% of those who've been disenrolled have been disenrolled for procedural

Lauralea Tanner, Chief Growth Officer at Acclara, describes the revenue cycle management critical decision points for hospitals, health systems, payers, and patients.  In the hospital setting, there are lab tests, radiology, anesthesiology, surgeons, and other clinicians, all providing services that require proper coding and billing for collection. With many opportunities for errors and patient confusion, call center technology to handle questions, AI to address mundane coding tasks, and other technologies allow the professionals to take complex patient questions. Lauralea explains, "So revenue cycle management really starts when the hospital or health system engages with the patient. So it starts with that patient intake process, or what we call patient registration or scheduling process, and then when they present at the hospital or the doctor's office for services." "At that point, then it falls into clinical care. The patient is seen, and they're treated. After the patient leaves, that is really where th

Maya Ber Lerner, Co-Founder and CEO of Chiefy, is focused on the complications and waste involved in the workflow related to surgery and the operating room. Realizing the root of the problem is communication between all participants in an operation, Chiefy is applying technology and AI to improve communication for these cross-functional teams. While collaboration tools have become well-accepted in other industries, the hospital environment has been slow to take advantage of these tools to benefit all stakeholders, including the patient. Maya explains, "The most important thing about our approach, and it just happened naturally, is that we focus on the surgeons and the nurses and the anesthesia teams and the other stakeholders, and we build a solution that would add value to them personally. And that was the first question I asked because my background is in team collaboration for software development and cloud infrastructure. It sounds completely out there and not related to what I do today. Still, it's a si

John Mulcahy, President and CEO of SiteOne Therapeutics, is developing new therapies to treat hypersensitivity disorders.  Their approach focuses on targeting specific voltage-gated sodium channels. Their drug candidates are designed to treat acute pain, as well as hypersensitivity developed as a result of chronic pain. They have recently received an NIH HEAL grant to explore their drug candidate that targets one subtype of the sodium channel as a non-opioid therapeutic potential for treating different pain conditions. John explains, "At SiteOne, we're focused on a family of targets known as the voltage-gated sodium ion channels. These are proteins, ion channels, that are involved in transmitting pain signals from the site of an injury, like earlier we said, the skin or a joint, to the central nervous system, so to your spinal cord, to your brain. At SiteOne, we're basically focused on drugs that potentially dampen those signals. It kind of tunes down that pain signal before it ever reaches the central nervo

Dr. Ahmed Hamdy, CEO and Co-Founder of Vincerx, is focused on targeting a specific antigen found on cancer cells. With a unique enzyme, it is effective with solid tumors and hematological malignancies, releasing a kinesin spindle protein inhibitor that inhibits the division of cancer cells. Their first bioconjugate VIP236 targets a specific molecule expressed on several metastatic tumors. Ahmed explains, "At Vincerx, we have a very exciting pipeline that's designed to solve a lot of problems with the current treatments for cancer therapies. In today's world, cancer continues growing exponentially. And thankfully, there are a lot of treatments out there for different types of cancer. Yet, the current treatments come with quite a bit of morbidities. Throughout my career, the morbidity of medicine has been something that I've always been concerned about, especially for patients and their caregivers. At Vincerx, we have very exciting, unique types of treatments that can be paradigm-shifting from a safety perspec

Nasha Fitter, CEO and Co-Founder of the FOXG1 Research Foundation and Vice President of Rare and Neurological Diseases at Ciitizen. Nasha describes the characteristics of the ultra-rare disease FOXG1 Syndrome and the global network that has been built to gain a better understanding of this neurological condition. Using real-world evidence, machine learning, AI, and genetic testing are showing a path to finding a treatment.  Nasha explains, "My daughter, Amara, was diagnosed at nine months of age. She began having hundreds of seizures a day. And at that point, there was information known about the FOXG1 gene. It's a really important gene for brain development. But no one was studying the syndrome and how to find a cure for it. So, I and a group of other parents, like-minded parents who, refused to just take that this is the way it is. Our children have this condition, and that's it. We started this foundation." "We've done a lot of work to get the entire world of FOXG1 to work together and then to collect pa

David Dodd is Chairman, President, and CEO of GeoVax, which is working on vaccines that overcome restrictions of mRNA vaccines to provide longer-term, more robust protection, particularly for people who do not respond well to primary antibody stimulation. There is a strong response from T cells from this vaccine which can be stored in a non-refrigerated freeze-dried form allowing for greater access in more regions of the world. David explains, "We are targeting those individuals who have compromised immune systems. This is a category of approximately 15 million individuals in the United States and almost 250 million worldwide, who, as a result of the conditions of their body or maybe even the therapies they may be on, or other conditions. Their body does not respond appropriately or well to the existing approved vaccines for COVID-19 or to the monoclonal antibodies. It's not that the other products have no value - it's that the individuals' bodies have been depleted of the ability to mount the proper respons

Chris Hoyt, CEO of KeifeRx,  talks about the oral medication being developed that uses tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and autophagy to remove unwanted proteins.  Research done by Georgetown University on leukemia, led by Dr. Charbel Moussa, found that lower doses of drugs like nilotinib and bosutinib could cross the blood-brain barrier and remove toxic proteins on an intracellular basis.  This research has been used to develop treatments for neurodegenerative conditions with promising results in reducing cognitive decline. Chris explains, "Essentially, the way TKIs work in the body, and particularly in the case of the neurodegenerative conditions that we're using them to treat at KeifeRx, is they trigger a mechanism called autophagy, which essentially is the cell's garbage disposal mechanism. What we're doing with TKIs is using that mechanism to remove toxic proteins. TKIs have mostly been used historically in cancer, and particularly in leukemia. The classic use would be in cancer to try to remove as muc

Simon Allen is the CEO and Director of Anebulo Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on finding an effective treatment for acute cannabinoid intoxication or ACI, particularly in an emergency department setting. ACI is a condition where an individual has consumed or smoked too much cannabis or products that contain THC or synthetic cannabis and is experiencing symptoms of psychosis, anxiety, elevated heart rate, or is unresponsive. Their drug ANEB-001 is designed to address the cause of the symptoms without the need for traditional methods like benzodiazepines and beta blockers, which have their risks.  Simon explains, "What we are seeing is individuals taking these high-potency edibles, for example, and also smoking and vaping. These are other forms that can create ACI outcomes. And essentially, they're out for several hours, if not overnight, in the hospital. This can get as serious as the escalation to a psychiatric ward if the individual is so psychotic, agitated, and anxious that the emergency department can't

Nancy Lurker, CEO and Board Director of EyePoint Pharmaceuticals, aims to prevent the progression of blindness by developing technology that addresses retinal eye diseases. These back of the eye diseases are age-related and an increasing threat to populations worldwide. Current treatments require regular injections in the eye. The micro inserts developed by EyePoint will allow the drug to work for six months, allowing patients more flexibility to maintain their vision.  Nancy explains, "We know that if you look at the current eye treatments on the market today, wet AMD, retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema, and diabetic retinopathy, all of those are running close to $30 to $40 billion being spent to help to treat these terrible eye diseases which may lead to blindness." "So, what causes these diseases? There's a genetic component at times, but also age plays a factor. And then, of course, diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy can be caused for patients who have diabetes. So. what happens

Dr. Gavin Samuels, Chief Business Officer at CinRx, a holding company currently with six portfolio companies, each focused on developing one drug. Providing these companies with the right resources at the right time makes for more efficient use of resources and can speed up drug development.  Their strength is understanding challenges and opportunities approximately a year before an IND is filed to help shepherd the drug through the IND-enabling study and through clinical development.  Gavin elaborates, "The disease areas that we're involved in, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, inflammatory diseases, these are problems that present a real challenge to patients and a real challenge to society and a real challenge to humanity. We want to try and address those problems by bringing innovative drugs and developing them as quickly and efficiently as possible and bringing to the patient." "The criteria we use is that it has to fit a specific unmet medical need. We have to have a large group of patients th

Jennifer Quinn, Head of global pricing and health economics and outcomes research at Debiopharm, emphasizes the importance of reimbursement, not just regulatory approval, for a drug to be available to patients.  With patient-centered outcomes research, drug developers can use data for risk-benefit assessment relevant to regulators that reflect how patients consider the risks and whether they will undergo a procedure. Jennifer explains, "My team really tries to make sure that, when we're thinking about a clinical development program, we make sure we're capturing those value markers throughout from a very early stage. That is so that when someone out-licenses it and becomes our partner, they have the data they need not just to get through regulatory approval but to have the drug reimbursed and made available to patients." "It's so important that patients have not just the agency in their care, but we understand how treatments are impacting patients -- impacting their lives, impacting how they feel, impacting t

Ohad Arazi, CEO of Clarius, a medical imaging startup with a mission to bring accurate, easy-to-use, AI-assisted, and affordable hand-held ultrasound tools to a broad range of medical professionals. Traditional ultrasound is costly, stationary, and requires specialized training. The portable Clarius device communicates with an iPad or an Android or iOS phone. The ultrasound produces highly nuanced grayscale real-time images that, with the help of artificial intelligence, can be used safely in a wider point-of-care environment to make informed decisions. Ohad explains, "We're all about bringing together high-performance ultrasound imaging, cloud data, and artificial intelligence into this powerful ecosystem that improves patient care enabled by medical imaging in every setting. The key differentiation is that handheld ultrasound is not about replacing legacy systems in places where they're already well entrenched, like radiology or cardiology. It is rather about bringing medical imaging to new care settings an

Alina Czekai, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Cohere Health, points out the need to transform the often painful prior authorization process. The traditional approach takes a piecemeal view of requests and provides a yes or no response. The Cohere view looks at the process as a multidimensional challenge that requires understanding the entirety of care and leveraging technology and AI to help guide behavior toward what is most clinically appropriate. Alina explains, "You can think of it as an authorization for a credit card. Ensuring that what is going to be done or what medication or devices are going to be ordered is actually going to be paid for. The process and payments in the healthcare system today have become so complex. It's complex not only for the health plan that's administering payments for care but also for physicians and their staff. Most importantly, it's a confusing and stressful process for patients." "We believe that prior authorization is a process that can be automated, that sh

Jared Crapo, Head of Product and Technology at Kalderos, focuses on drug discounts paid by drug manufacturers to pharmacy benefit managers, commercial or government payers, and healthcare providers. Congress created the 340B Drug Discount Program and the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program to support healthcare for underserved patients. While these programs have dramatically grown, so too have the complexities and confusion about discounts and disagreements about payments. Jared explains, "The 340B program was created by Congress, and it's a subsidy from drug manufacturers to underserved healthcare providers. The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program is a similar program created by Congress that is a source of financial support for state Medicaid agencies, also provided by drug manufacturers. So drug manufacturers give a discount to state Medicaid agencies for drugs prescribed to Medicaid patients." "One way to think about it is there's a lot of information asymmetry, which means some stakeholders have access to a lot more

Jessica Ackerman, the Vice President for Strategic Partnerships and Impact at Responsum Health, is focused on the insights that patients can provide drug companies and other people newly diagnosed or suffering from a chronic condition. Responsum is a digital-based educational community providing accurate scientific information, peer support, access to clinical trials, and a path by which drug companies can get real-world data.  Jessica explains, "Every disease focus that we have started has come from a partnership, some vested interest, from either a commercial sponsor or a pharmaceutical company, to build this robust community. Their interest is to gain the patient's voice and get insights, market research data, and real-world data from patients and family members to understand their gaps in care. So we have created a number of communities, like kidney disease CKD. We have glaucoma. We have pulmonary fibrosis, which is considered a rare disease, so we are in the rare disease and orphan disease space as well

 Dr. Phil Wagner, Founder and CEO of Sparta Science, is developing a movement health intelligence solution to better understand the overall health of a patient and their risk of injury.  They are interweaving movement ability and balance ability to analyze meaningful biomarkers to ensure top performance and safe mobility. From his experience as a sports trainer, Phil warns about making assumptions about performance at any age. Phil explains, "We do a balance assessment to assess that movement health, and it takes about 20 seconds on each side, and that will actually generate about a million data points on our device. This feeds into software that uses machine learning to compare you against yourself but also around others in a similar cohort, whether that's similar ages or sex at birth. So, being able to compare yourself against your own previous baselines and assessments, but also compare yourself for norms against others." "We're working with the military on a TBI biomarker, traumatic brain injury because

Dr. Clark Chang is a cornea and keratoconus, KC, specialist at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and the Director of Global Medical Affairs at Glaukos. Keratoconus is a disease of the eye where tissue thins and gradually bulges outward into a cone-like shape.  While changes in the cornea are small, vision becomes very blurry, and the underlying cause may be overlooked. Glaukos has introduced the iLink procedure, a minimally invasive outpatient procedure to slow or halt the progression of this disease and help patients preserve their vision. Clark explains, "It is associated with age, but it's in the different group of people than most of your audience is thinking. We're very familiar with conditions like age-related macular degeneration. Everybody knows that because it's very impactful to one's vision, and the fear of loss of vision has frequently been rated as one of the top one or two biggest fears in a person's life. Most diseases are age-related in that they can occur with time. This disease more common

Dr. Antonin (Tony) de Fougerolles, CEO of Evox Therapeutics, highlights that exosomes, small nanoparticles, are produced by every cell in the body.  They contain RNA and proteins that the cell decides to put into the exosome, and they're secreted out into the environment and act as a way that cells communicate with each other. Evox is excited about using exosome therapeutics to load genetic medicines such as RNA interference, small RNA drugs, gene therapy, or genome editing into exosomes and effectively delivering them inside cells. This approach provides a new way to treat rare diseases with an underlying genetic cause. Tony elaborates, "Exosomes were first discovered or noticed in the scientific literature in the '80s and the early '90s, and at first were thought really just to be vesicles that cells excreted full of what people at the time thought was garbage, things the cell didn't need. In more recent times, in the last 10, 15 years, it's become clear that these exosomes can in some cases serve a functio