Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Steven Chen, a breast surgeon and Chief Medical Officer at ImpediMed, discusses the early detection and treatment of lymphedema, a type of swelling that often occurs after breast cancer treatments.  Visual observation and measurements using a tape measure are the current, inaccurate methods of determining early warning signs. The ImpediMed SOZO device measures subtle changes in time for simple interventions such as wearing compression sleeves, now covered by Medicare, which can reverse the damage. Unaddressed, this condition can lead to severe functional problems.   Steven explains, "The whole goal of ImpediMed is to help people find this when it's in stage zero or stage one when it can be reversed. It's a very simple set of treatments when you catch it early, primarily wearing a sleeve, a compression sleeve, and/or a compression glove. And with that, you can reverse almost all the stage zeros and probably somewhere between 80% to 90% of stage ones. And so you can see that if you can catch it early, this

Amy Brown, CEO of Authenticx, uses conversational intelligence to analyze conversations between humans and between humans and chatbots to gain insights that can drive improvements in patient experience, operational efficiency, and faster resolution of problems in the healthcare environment. Using AI and trained professionals, the Authenticx solution helps pharmaceutical companies improve drug launches, personalize customer interactions and respond more effectively to patient needs. In clinical situations, the machine learning models help identify and address obstacles impeding more effective patient/provider/payer relationships. Amy explains, "At Authenticx, we really target bidirectional conversations. We can take in all types of unstructured data that exist: notes, social, etc. That said, we find the most insightful and contextually rich types of data sources are the ones that represent a back-and-forth between customer and company. And in our world, we're working with very large healthcare companies, like

Dr. Marc Conant, Chief Medical Officer at Addimmune, has been working on HIV/AIDS for over 40 years and highlights the progress that has been made in developing effective HIV drugs. The mission at Addimmune is to develop a functional cure for HIV by modifying the patient's cells to enhance the immune system's ability to control the virus. This autologous cell therapy approach has been used successfully in treating leukemia and lymphoma and shows promise in suppressing HIV.   Marc explains, "I started caring for AIDS patients in 1981, and it wasn't until AGT came along in 1988, '87, '88, that we even had anything that would work. Up until that time, everyone who contracted the disease died. HIV kills about 94% of people who are infected. What we saw early on with AGT was a drug that suppressed the virus, and then we found the next drug that suppressed the virus, and then the next one, and now we have close to 40 different drugs that can suppress the virus." "Now, there's been even a step beyond that. You all

Dr. John Showalter, Chief Product Officer of Linus Health, shines a light on the current methods of measuring cognitive health and emphasizes the need for a more holistic approach to assessing brain health. Linus works on digital cognitive assessment tools and AI models to detect cognitive impairment and early warning signs of Alzheimer's and other dementias. These tools also consider anxiety, sleep patterns, and lifestyle factors and support personalized care plans for patients and their caregivers.   John elaborates, "Right now, we have this performance-based understanding of cognitive processing and brain health. And I'm not sure that is the best way for us to be looking at brain health because, to me, as a primary care physician and someone who's very much into a more holistic view of the individual, brain health should be much more about your ability to achieve what you want to achieve, interact with the people that you want to interact with and have a higher quality of life. But there's not a real good

Ha Tran, Medical Head, Cell and Gene Therapy at Astellas Pharma is developing gene therapy approaches to fight neuromuscular diseases, central nervous system disorders, and ophthalmology conditions.  There is strong evidence that this approach can be a way to treat and possibly cure rare diseases. Ha explains the challenges of running gene therapy trials for rare diseases and the unique patient journey required to run a successful trial. Ha explains, "Currently, at Astellas, our platform is AAV gene therapy, which is a replacement. Additionally, in our early pipeline, we are looking at both gene therapy replacement and vectorized RNA knockdown. We also have a cell therapy division, which I also cover. For that, we’re looking at in vivo cell therapy." "Honestly speaking, gene and cell therapy trials have their nuances since they are often a single infusion or single injection. So, the preclinical data packages and long-term follow-up plans differ from standard drug development. But the biggest nuances actuall

Hari Mix, Founder and CEO of Calorify, is a former elite endurance athlete and aims to bring to market an accurate, affordable measurement of calorie intake and expenditure to address metabolic health. Measuring metabolism has generally been inaccessible due to the complexity and cost of traditional testing. With an in-home kit, the mission is to help those looking to improve their energy levels, lose weight, athletes, and medical professionals working with patients with metabolic-related health challenges. Hari elaborates, "Our mission is pretty simple, and it's also pretty complicated. Simply put, our mission is to measure the world's metabolism. We believe that the world is facing a huge set of problems related to metabolic health, and nobody is measuring the key component of that, which is how many calories people are eating and burning, in an accurate way in a real-world setting. Our goal is to bring those measurements to the world, empower individuals to understand and improve their bodies and empower i

Larry Margolis, CEO of PersonalRX, provides medication management for patients and caregivers by delivering personalized dose packs to patients' homes with tracking functionality to inform when drugs are taken. The number of people with comorbidities is increasing, requiring complex regimens and medication reconciliation to ensure patient safety. PersonalRX works with healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers to ensure prescription, supplements, and over-the-counter drugs are used correctly. Larry explains, "Our typical patient profile is somebody, on average, who takes nine medications. We service the market of people with five medications or more, representing roughly 12.9% of the population, about 42 million people." "I think one of the most important tools that we use when we're looking at people who are living longer, have more complex cases and comorbidities, and are taking more medication is looking at the medical reconciliation tools that we've built. And we've spent a lot of time over the last

Wensheng Fan, CEO and Co-Founder of Spectral AI, understands that the ability to accurately determine whether a wound will heal is currently lacking in wound care. The Spectral AI predictive imaging technology uses multispectral imaging and AI to assess the viability of injured tissue and predict wound healing outcomes.  The DeepView device is portable and easy to use, providing fast analysis and saving time in determining the appropriate next steps to treat acute and chronic wounds. Wensheng explains, "Ten years ago when we were founded, we were doing bed sore early detections. Then we transitioned into burn wounds, and the latest adventure is for the diabetic foot ulcer. We see all these acute and chronic wounds, and they all need a common thing to let physicians, clinicians, and patients know whether these wounds will heal or not. That's a simple question, but so far, we don't have a good answer to it with the technology on the market." "For example, let's use acute burn wounds. The current standard of ca

Dr. Shuba Iyengar, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Allermi, is focused on providing better care and access to allergy treatments. Allermi has developed a personalized approach to diagnosing allergies and personalizing nasal spray formulations to provide a more precise solution to those suffering from nasal congestion, coughing, sinus pain, and itchy eyes. While there are seasonal allergies, doctors are seeing an increase in allergies related to climate change, pollution, and other changes in the environment. Shuba explains, "We want to make sure that everyone knows that allergies are a chronic problem and affect your everyday life. I have allergies, so I completely sympathize with people who have bad allergies. But when you get allergies, what's happening is the inside of your nose is getting a little bit swollen. But to some extent, in the beginning, you can kind of compensate. You can get by. So, if you can't breathe to one side, you'll breathe through the other. If you can't breathe through the si

Joe Scalia, Vice President and Head of Commercial Market Access and Global Marketing for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, highlights the company's focus on rare diseases, particularly ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The company's goal is to find a cure for ALS and improve the quality of life for patients while raising awareness to reduce the time to diagnosis. With a patient support program, JourneyMate, the company offers resources and support for ALS patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.   Joe explains, "When it comes to neuromuscular diseases, these are one of the hardest areas to treat and for medicines to impact patient's lives. So, when you look at neuromuscular diseases like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, these are diseases that impact millions of patients across the United States, and the treatments are very hard to come across. For example, on ALS, before our medication came out, there were over 20 years and 50 failures of medications. There's a

Andrea Pfeifer, Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of AC Immune, is developing vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, these vaccines target internal proteins that are misfolded and contribute to the disease. These new vaccines are active immunotherapies against the Abeta protein. Trials are showing significant progress in overcoming safety concerns and lack of strong immune response for prevention, treatment, or maintenance therapy.   Andrea elaborates, "When you speak about vaccines, you always think about infectious diseases where you have this external virus or bacteria coming in, and you develop an immune system response against this virus or this bacteria, something external. In our area, in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, we are activating the immune response of the body against an internal protein, but a misguided or misfolded protein."   "This is why it's so difficult because you have to overcome the tolerance of the immune syste

Wael Hashad, Chief Executive Officer of Longeveron, is focused on developing cell therapy for aging-related conditions such as aging frailty, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Using mesenchymal stem cells, also known as medicinal signaling cells, obtained from healthy donors 18-45, Longeveron is seeing promising results in clinical trials with improvements in brain volume and cognitive function. This approach is also being explored in the pursuit of a treatment for hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital heart disease. Wael explains, "We believe there is a huge unmet need for bringing safe and effective products to try to slow the progression of the disease, improve the quality of life, and reduce the burden on the caregivers of such a disease. As for the aging frailty in general, as you know, with aging, there are a lot of things that affect the vascular system, muscle wasting, and all of those things that affect the quality of life during the aging years of an individual. Anything we can impact

Joe Tucker, CEO of Enveric Biosciences, discusses the use of neuroplastogen therapies for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Enveric has developed the Psybrary, a portfolio of compounds inspired by psilocybin that bind to the serotonin receptor in the brain and induce neuroplasticity without the hallucinations. The lead candidate EB-003 is intended to be administered orally and taken regularly as a maintenance therapy. Joe explains, "This whole neuroplastogen space was recently discovered, and it was discovered through academic research that we're looking at the effects of these agents we call psychedelics, psilocybin being the active ingredient in magic mushrooms and a very well-known psychedelic agent. It was in looking at psilocybin and other molecules known to be psychedelic agents like ayahuasca and LSD and others that scientists realized that what's going on is you're activating a particular receptor in the brain - something c

Vish Charan, Divisional Vice President of Product Development at Abbott's Cardiac Rhythm Management Business, explains some of the limitations of traditional pacemakers implanted in the chest with long wires connecting the pacemaker to the heart. Abbott has developed the AVEIR DR system, a dual-chamber leadless pacemaker that uses implant-to-implant technology to send electrical impulses between the upper and lower chambers of the heart.  The i2i technology allows these capsule-size devices to be implanted directly in the heart with the ability to communicate to synchronize the heart rhythm. Vish explains, "What we can do right now, is to get a very, very small access into the veins in the leg, and from the veins in the leg with a very small access, we're able to deploy these capsule-size pacemakers directly into the heart with a long tube. We call that a catheter. But that is how they're deployed. So, you don't have a surgical pocket. You don't have a big cut open in your chest, and the device is implanted

Laxminarayan Bhat, Founder, President, and CEO of Reviva Pharmaceuticals, is focused on developing next-generation therapies for neurological diseases, particularly schizophrenia. Their lead candidate, brilaroxazine, acts on multiple neuro receptors to balance imbalanced neurotransmitters in the brain that are responsible for causing schizophrenia. This new molecule shows positive results in efficacy and a low discontinuation rate, indicating the drug can be used for acute and long-term maintenance therapy. Lax elaborates, "Reviva is a late-stage pharmaceutical company. We are focused on developing next-generation therapies for diseases of neuro targets. That's our primary focus. So, currently, we are focused on CNS, inflammatory, and cardiometabolic diseases. We use chemical genomics-driven technologies to develop new chemical entities. Currently, we have two molecules in development. One is brilaroxazine, which is also called RP5063. The second molecule is RP1208. Both molecules were discovered in-house." "

Robert Maxwell, Founder and CEO of ClinConnect, has created a platform that simplifies the process of patients finding clinical trials, shortens enrollment times, and focuses on providing support to ensure patient retention in the trials. The platform works in collaboration with sponsors, healthcare providers, hospitals, and other stakeholders to streamline communication and more quickly identify qualified clinical trial participants from a broader universe. Robert explains, "We make the process of not only finding the trial very, very simple, but we also shorten the enrollment times, which in the case of acute disease is distinctly important. But generally speaking, it's usually more advantageous to get into a trial more quickly than waiting unnecessarily. And so, while we don't claim to solve all clinical trial recruitment issues, we've found that our patients generally see about a 60% to 70% reduction in enrollment time by working with us and letting us be their advocate through the enrollment process."

Chris Paradise, VP of Research and Development at Rion, is taking an acellular approach to developing next-generation regenerative medicines to treat degenerative diseases. The proprietary Rion system PEP, purified exosome product, uses extracellular vesicles or exosomes isolated from human blood platelets to send regenerative messages to cells to stimulate faster healing. This regenerative therapeutic allows for the administration in various forms, such as nebulization for pulmonary conditions and topical application for wounds. Chris explains, "What our focus has shifted towards at Rion is now an acellular approach, so it doesn't involve the use of cells or other components that have been proposed in the past. But we're focusing on extracellular vesicles or exosomes, and we can discuss those in more detail in a minute. But the point of emphasis is that it overcomes many of the limitations the field has previously faced. We're excited to offer reproducible, consistent, and, most importantly, accessible and a

Fady Boctor, President and Chief Commercial Officer of Petros Pharmaceuticals, discusses the process of transitioning drugs from prescription to over-the-counter status, which includes conducting studies to determine label comprehension.  In this situation, the FDA reviews the package wording to determine if the consumer can self-select the drug safely without a physician's involvement. With a focus on men's health issues like erectile dysfunction, Petros also sees the opportunity to educate consumers, reduce healthcare costs, and potentially identify related conditions that might require further investigation. Fady explains, "Switches had been occurring, those prescriptions to OTC switches, have been occurring since really 1974, 1975. Over the past many years, about 106 products have been switched from prescription to OTC. The common denominator among those switches is that they're relatively safe products. We're talking antihistamines, allergy medications, and smoking cessation products. These are products

Dr. Holly Miller, Chief Medical Officer at MedAllies, discusses the importance of data interoperability and usability to provide clinicians and patients with information that can lead to better-informed decisions.  The Sequoia Data Usability Project focuses on ensuring that data is trustworthy and useable. MedAllies is involved in the related Taking Root Movement, which promotes the adoption of the Sequoia Data Usability Implementation Guide. Holly emphasizes the need for solutions to provide a friendly user interface and software design that improves the providers' workflow.   Holly explains, "Medallies offers multiple interoperable networks, ensuring the secure transmission of critical health information among healthcare constituents. It's important that the listeners understand that we've moved to a world where a lot of data is being captured electronically. To optimize clinician-patient decision-making and patients being able to make decisions for themselves, that data has to move across the healthcare en

Dr. Mark Lomax, CEO of PEP Health, a new way to listen to the patient's voice. PEP, the Patient Experience Platform, collects and analyzes patient comments from various digital platforms to gain insights into the quality of care provided by healthcare organizations. Using AI to interpret and understand the sentiment of the comments, the company is providing real-time data that can help organizations make better management decisions and improve patient care.  The technology can also be used for risk management and early detection of problems within healthcare facilities to improve patient safety and outcomes. Mark explains, "We've got a few arms to it, but the fundamental part of what we do is collect all the comments that patients might post anywhere on the digital landscape from social media, online review sites, doctor review platform sites. We aggregate it all together and then make sense of it so that we can listen to a whole population. We listen to the whole US, and every location, every hospital, and